by Lexi Cross
Her face grew hot. He knew she’d thrown up? Crap. “I think so. The flu or something.”
“The flu?” He harrumphed.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of bed, her feet hitting the floor hard enough to hurt. Her knees wobbled, but she stood up under her father’s grasp.
“Ow!” She pulled her arm free and rubbed it. “What are you doing?”
He inspected her carefully, looking at her stomach and breasts especially. He grabbed her arm to pull her closer and hissed in her ear, “Exactly how involved did you get with that scum, Ryder?”
“It was nothing,” she muttered, pulling her arm away again.
“Are you pregnant?” The look in his eyes was downright murderous.
She was afraid to look at him, but if she didn’t, he would know she was lying. Her body was trembling and she felt like she might be sick again. But she couldn’t let her father see her throw up again. Not after he knew she just had twice.
She forced herself to meet his eyes and said coldly, “No.” Even the lie tasted bitter in her mouth.
“Then why do you look like this? Why aren’t you eating? Why are you throwing up?”
“Maybe you don’t know how the flu works.” She put her hand on her hips, hoping the pose would both make her look thin and show her attitude. “You feel like puking and you puke. That makes you not want to eat. It makes you sweaty and pale and gross. Like I am right now.” She held her hand to her forehead. “I think I have a fever. I’m hot.”
He pressed his own wrist to her forehead. “You don’t feel feverish to me.”
“Well, I am.” She turned from him to get back under the covers.
Before she could get into bed, he put his hands on both of her shoulders, turning her back to face him. She stumbled toward him. He pulled back his hand in a fist and swung it through the air, right toward her stomach.
Everything moved like slow motion to her. She saw his fist, saw it coming for her. For her baby. She put her hands to her stomach and jumped back. Without thinking, she cried, “Don’t hurt the baby!”
He dropped his fist and she gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth in shock. Tears filled her eyes.
Her father looked at her with extreme disgust. “You little whore,” he whispered. “I never thought my daughter, whom I gave everything to, whom I gave the whole world to, would do something like this to me. Would stoop so low as to not only sleep with trash like Ryder, but to get pregnant by him. You disgust me.”
“Daddy!” she whimpered. Tears flooded her eyes. “Don’t say that!”
“If I could disown you, I would. I can’t get you married off fast enough, apparently. You went spreading your legs for some low class ghetto boy. To lower yourself to that level. Don’t you have any self-respect at all?”
She covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t stand to even look at him when he was being so cruel. Now that he knew, what would happen? She’d never been so afraid of her father. She’d never seen him so mad at her or heard him talk like this to her. She didn’t know what to do or what he would do. He’d already raised a hand to her once. Would he follow through with his punch?
She wished Ryder would just burst through the door and rescue her. But as the seconds went by, he didn’t show. He was nowhere to be seen.
“Only one thing left to do,” Matteo said.
Pia forced her fingers to separate so she could see her father. She half expected to see him pointing a gun at her face. But he stood there, arms crossed over his chest.
“We’re going to have to get this taken care of before Paolo arrives. I wouldn’t put it past him to kill you for this. I’d like to do him the favor of giving him a somewhat pure wife. At least your womb will be empty, even if your pussy is tainted.”
She whimpered and stepped back from him.
“We’ll get rid of it, then I’ll be able to get rid of you. I never want to see your tramp face again. I don’t even like you being in my house. Try to keep your legs closed for the next few days until Paolo gets here, will you? Can you manage that, you little slut?”
She kept crying and didn’t say anything.
“Can you?” He stepped closer to her and got a fistful of her hair in his hands. He pulled her closer to him, his spit flying from his mouth and landed on her cheeks. “Keep your legs closed. Got it?”
She nodded and he let her go, hard. She tripped and fell onto the bed.
He stormed from the room and slammed the door closed behind him.
Pia lay there for a moment, stunned. She stared at the door, cowering into her bed, terrified he would return. She got up and went to the door, then turned the lock. The little metal piece that usually clicked into place when the door locked spun freely. They’d removed her lock. She should have expected this, but for some reason, this deeply upset her. She couldn’t get out; she couldn’t keep anyone from getting in.
She sunk to the floor until her knees hit the carpet, and cried. She curled into a ball on her side and hugged her knees to her chest.
Now what? What in the world should she do? Her father wanted to take care of it. For all her worry and thinking she couldn’t be a single mother, the thought of actually going through with it and killing her child hurt like someone had shoved a hot poker into her chest. How could she do that? Her own flesh and blood. And for whatever he was doing now and whatever he’d decided, this baby had been conceived in love. Maybe that love had gone since, especially for him, but not her for. She loved him despite herself, and she wanted his baby.
Maybe it was mostly to have a reason to see him again. Even if it took years, he might come find her later, to seek out his child. If she had his baby, she always had a reason to find him, to talk to him. He would always be in her life in some way, even if it was as the absent father of her baby. She would still be able to see him in their child’s face.
And she loved this baby already. She’d never understood how women could say that. But for the last days thinking about having a baby with Ryder and picturing their family, it had become real to her, and she wanted any part of that she could get.
Forget her old life. She didn’t need it. She wanted this baby no matter what it took. She’d be poor if she had to be. But she’d have her baby. She just had to find a way now to protect him or her long enough to be born. With so many people coming against her, Pia didn’t know how she would protect the baby. Her father’s power, and all of his hired hit men…she could be killed in her sleep.
They could poison her, barge in and shoot her, strangle her, and she could do nothing about it. She wasn’t strong enough to fight back, and since she hadn’t been eating, she was even weaker than normal. She didn’t stand a chance against her father if he wanted her baby dead.
What could she do? She was back to all her plans of trying to escape. But they seemed just as pointless now as they had before. And now her father probably suspected she’d try even harder to get away. Which might mean he would increase security around her. How many men were outside her door right now? How many men were in her house? Did she even have a car anymore, or had her father taken it? Had he cut her off and left her with nothing?
He might have. She might be broke already. The temptation to marry Paolo and stay rich flickered in her mind again, but quickly died when she put her hand to her belly. That would be like selling her baby. Money or the baby. She could only have one. And she chose her baby. Ryder’s baby.
Maybe the wedding would give her an opportunity for escape. She’d have to leave her bedroom. There would be some sort of ceremony, right? Maybe in all of that she could get away. Could escape somehow.
Even if she could manage that, where would she go with no money? Well, she did have rich friends. Maybe she could go to them and get some money, then take a plane somewhere. Oh, but that would require her name to be given and her passport and driver’s license, and all of that had been taken from her. Maybe a train, then. Something. Maybe she could buy a cheap car. Maybe she could borrow one from
her friends.
How far could she get? She couldn’t leave the country without her identification. Maybe she would just drive until she didn’t want to drive anymore. Keep going, making turns without thought until she got lost in some tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.
Places like that were all over the country. Little country towns where everyone knew everyone and they would welcome a newcomer and hide her. Of course, the whole country living thing sounded awful, but what choice did she have? Going to a big city would be too easy to track. They could find her in New York or Chicago. Her father had too many big city connections. But in a little town in the middle of the country? He knew no one there. Would have no one waiting to find her.
She just had to get there. And first, she just had to get out.
She crawled back into bed. She would need all the rest she could get. Build up as much strength as she could. Maybe she could even risk eating. Somehow make Lu or someone taste it first so she knew it was safe? The might work. Might not. But she had to be able to run and get away. If she couldn’t, it was all over. Her father would do something to her baby and she’d end up having to marry Paolo.
She needed a plan to escape fast if she wanted to save her baby, and she’d need a backup plan to escape at the wedding if something went wrong. Right now, her brain was so foggy and she was in so much emotional pain that she couldn’t fathom a plan. All she could think of was sleep. And maybe when she woke, it would all be better in the morning.
Tired as she was, she lay there in her bed, not able to fall asleep. Her mind whirled and the tears kept coming. Her eyes burned with them. She missed Ryder. Missed her father even, and the way he used to call her sweet names and buy her things. She’d never thought he would do this to her. Never in a million years. Well, that wasn’t true. She expected him to flip out about the baby. She just hadn’t expected him to call her names and look at her like that. With such pure disgust. She felt hatred coming off of him in that glare. Pure hatred. And that, she hadn’t expected.
She could deal with his anger, but not his hate. Anger meant you still loved the person, but hatred was different. Pia suddenly felt like an orphan. Like she’d been lied to about who her father was. They’d said he was a good man who loved her. Well, he wasn’t. He was a bad man—the very worst type of man, and he didn’t love her. He loathed her. And his grandbaby. Well, he didn’t deserve either of them, then. And if it was up to her, she’d never see him again.
She pictured all the ways in which she might be able to kill him. To pay him back for how he made her feel. For threatening her baby and making her feel unloved. She wanted to rip out his heart and stomp on it. That was exactly what it felt like he’d done to her.
With that picture in her mind of her suffering father, she finally was able to fall asleep.
Chapter 18
Ryder was feeling anxious by the time he got close to his house. He needed to make this stop quick and get over to Fairfield Street to see what was going on. There was little time left if he was going to stop this wedding. Taking out a mob boss wasn’t going to be easy, but he saw no better way out—no other way out at all—than to kill Solano. How many guys would he have around him? Ryder would kill as many as it took. All of them if he had to. He’d take out the entire mob family. Let them come after him. So what? What difference did it make? If he had Pia, he had everything.
He turned into his driveway and shut the car door hard as he bolted for his house. He unlocked the door fast and threw it open, not even bothering to make sure it was closed all the way. He was headed straight for the bathroom when a man wearing a black mask jumped out of the bedroom, blocking his way.
“What the hell?” Ryder said. “Now what?”
The man lifted a crow bar and swung at Ryder, but he ducked easily.
“What’s the deal?” Ryder asked. This had to be one of Matteo’s guys. They knew he’d gotten out of the basement and weren’t happy about it. But really, why should they care? If he was staying away from Pia like they wanted him to—and he was, for now—then why was this guy coming after him now?
“You scumbag,” the man said, and Ryder recognized Lorenzo’s voice. “You think you can just knock up the boss’s daughter and get away with it? Matteo wants you dead.”
Two words came to Ryder’s mind. Oh. Fuck. They knew. He didn’t have time to stop and think how they knew, but they knew.
Lorenzo swung the crowbar at him again, and in Ryder’s momentary panic, he reacted a split second too slowly. The crow bar whacked hard into his already aching ribs. Ryder screamed in pain. He couldn’t help it. The broken ribs already burned like his chest was on fire when he was just trying to move or breathe. But to be hit there with a metal crow bar? He thought he was going to pass out, the pain was so sharp. It was like a searing white hot poker shoved into his side. If Lorenzo had stabbed him with a knife, it would have hurt less. Much less.
Ryder actually saw stars, and the room started to blink in black dots. He fell to his knees. Before Lorenzo could strike again, Ryder fell forward and grabbed his legs in a tight hug. He pulled, sending fresh agony through his chest, but also knocking Lorenzo to the ground.
He hit the ground hard, with a thump so loud and solid it sounded like he was going to crash through the floor. Ryder punched him in the gut and got a hit to his jaw before Lorenzo sat up.
“Let’s lose the mask, Lorenzo.” Ryder ripped it from his face. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t recognize your voice?”
“Did you honestly think you’d get away with this? No good piece of trash like you? You thought you’d what, marry Pia and have a baby with her?” Lorenzo laughed, putting his hand to his stomach to either mask his pain or to make the laughter seem more dramatic.
But Ryder wasn’t laughing. Lorenzo had dropped the crowbar when he fell. Ryder snatched it up and held it, letting the rounded end hit his palm over and over as he glared at Lorenzo.
“You know,” Ryder said, “you all act so high and mighty, but who does all your killing for you? Who does the dirty work you can’t handle? You’d be wise to remember what exactly my area of expertise is.” Ryder stood over Lorenzo, who looked up at him with shock.
Ryder brought the bar down hard on his shin, using both hands and all his weight to create as much force as possible. Lorenzo screamed out in pain when the bar hit, and there was a satisfying crunch. Bones were just too easy to break. And with a metal bar? Like a hot knife through butter practically. Child’s play. And no matter what Lorenzo thought or said, it was clear, he was the one losing this game, not Ryder.
“You’re dead,” Lorenzo whispered, his face white with pain.
“Funny you say that,” Ryder said. He lifted the bar again and brought it down on Lorenzo’s head.
Lorenzo fell back, unconscious. Blood streamed down his head.
“You’re the one who looks dead.”
Ryder stood up, pulled his gun from its holster at the small of his back, and pointed it right at Lorenzo’s forehead. He squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet straight into his brain. Ryder reached down and felt for his pulse. When it went still and silent, he stood up and went to his closet.
He pulled out all his best guns. The rifle he used for distance killing with the perfect sight and scope, the handguns he used for closer shots. He checked them all, making sure they were fully loaded. He stuck one handgun at his back, another at his ankle. His knife was at his waist, like always. He paused in the bathroom to get more painkillers. He popped a few in his mouth, then shoved the bottle in his pocket.
He picked up his rifle and was ready. He went to his car, full of determination and purpose, and tossed his gun in as he slid behind the driver’s seat. As soon as he sat, though, he leaned over, sticking his head out of the car to throw up.
The pain was too much. Every step, every inhale, sent new agony through him. His mind whirled and if he moved too fast, the black spots came back, threatening to pull him under. He needed a shower and to sleep. He need
ed more pills. But he had no time for any of that.
If the physical pain wasn’t enough, the fear was making him sick as well. His mind whirled and the most prevalent thought was that Pia was in danger. Their baby was in danger. Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe Matteo had already done something. Maybe they were already both dead. The thought made him crazy.
He started thinking of all the things Matteo might have done to her. Would he drag her off to some clinic and kill their baby? Would he throw her down the stairs to take care of it? Or would he just shoot her in the head and be done with her altogether?
He spat on the ground several times, but it seemed that he was finally done throwing up. He needed to drive. Not another second could be wasted. He may be too late already.
He sped off and any time a thought of how Pia might be on the floor bleeding at this very moment came into his mind, he replaced it with an image of what he wanted to do to Matteo.
