Dangerous: Made & Broken (A British Bad Boy Romance)

by Nora Ash

  Last night had been… I’d never thought I would be able to open up like that to another person. And I certainly never thought that person could be Blaine.

  But he’d not only listened to me, he’d understood—and then he had given me so much in return. He had bared his soul to me.

  I was still raw from what the onslaught of emotions yesterday’s events had put me through, but it was a good kind of raw in the same way the soreness between my legs felt good. Both were a reminder of Blaine and what we’d shared.

  Despite my queasiness, a warm smile spread on my lips. Maybe, just maybe, things would turn out okay. Against all odds and everything we’d thought and everything we’d been through, we might be able to find our happy ever after. Together.

  Just as I was about to leave my room, feeling more elated than I had ever been, I caught a glimpse of movement through the window. Moving closer, I peered into the back garden and saw Blaine’s tousled, black mane and signature leather coat disappear into the shed.

  Huh. Well, at least he was around. Maybe he’d be in for lunch.

  I wondered what it’d be like to interact with him now while I headed downstairs to dig into my trusty crackers-and-ginger ale breakfast. Hopefully he wouldn’t regret how open he’d been with me. I couldn’t face going back to how we used to be. Not now, after what we’d shared last night.

  The week’s groceries were on the kitchen counter in their usual brown paper bags. Rob might be a crime syndicate’s hired muscle, but at least he was eco-conscious.

  I plopped down on the bar stool with my box of crackers to sort through the groceries, making sure everything I’d ordered was there. But when my fingers closed around a small, rectangular box, my mind froze in its list-checking tracks with a near-audible screeching.

  A pregnancy test.

  There was a pregnancy test mixed in with my groceries.

  My first thought was that he must have accidentally grabbed it instead of the box of tampons I’d requested. Men and feminine hygiene products, and all that.

  I rummaged through the rest of the bags, my fingers frantic enough to rip the paper in the process. It didn’t take me long to find the tampons.

  Then why…?

  Even as I asked myself the possibly quite stupid question, my mind was busy tracking the days since my last period. It was all a bit of a blur, and I’d thought I was due soon—hence the tampon request—but as I went over the calendar days again, I realized I was late. Very late.

  My stomach lurched again, this time from absolute terror.

  The sickness. The morning sickness. My erratic mood swings. The goddamn pickles.

  With distant amusement I realized Rob had probably witnessed similar behavior in his own wife the two times she’d been pregnant, and had put two and two together. Most of me was busy freaking out, though.

  Surely, I couldn’t be pregnant. The only man I’d slept with was Blaine, and we… My heart dropped when I remembered last night. We hadn’t used any form of protection then, and as far as my fuzzy memory reached, we probably hadn’t that night at the hotel either.

  Oh, God.

  Gingerly, I fingered the box. Maybe it was all just coincidental. I mean, I had been through an awful lot of stress this past month. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume my body was out of whack purely because of that.

  At least, there was no reason to freak out until I’d peed on the damn stick.

  Twenty minutes—and a pint of ginger ale—later, I sat on the couch in the living room and tapped my fingers against my bouncing leg while I watched the timer on my phone tick down with agonizing sluggishness.

  30 seconds until I knew if my life would forever be altered.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

  20 seconds.

  What the heck was I gonna do? Did Blaine even want a child?

  15 seconds.

  Did I want a child?

  10 seconds.

  Why couldn’t Rob have waited with his sly little shopping surprise until Blaine and I had at least had time to sit down and talk about everything that had happened between us yesterday?

  5 seconds.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God!

  The sharp sound of my phone’s timer made me jolt, even though I’d been staring unblinkingly at it for two minutes straight. I snatched it up and flat-out ran to the downstairs bathroom, where I’d left my test.

  It lay on the side of the sink, a little blue cross clearly visible even from the door where I was clutching the frame in an effort to keep upright.

  I was pregnant.

  I was going to have a baby. We were going to have a baby.

  It was an odd sensation—half of my brain was in the middle of throwing an epic-sized freak-out, complete with violent tremors and hyperventilation. But the other half, the one I clung to in order to not cave to the meltdown and start screaming and/or crying, was completely calm. And happy.

  Yes—I wanted a baby. This baby. Blaine’s baby.

  It wasn’t practical, it was the worst possible timing, and I had no idea how Blaine would react, but in the core of my very being I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted this child. With all my heart.

  I had to talk to him. Now.

  My calm side fused with the freaking out part at that simple thought. I needed to tell Blaine right now.

  I spun around and was about to run out the front door when I remembered the offensive list he’d made for me on the first day of my arrival. It still hung on the fridge, spelling out the house rules in big, black letters. I wasn’t supposed to go into the shed, where I knew he currently was.

  No doubt the guys out front knew I wasn’t supposed to either, and if I came barging out like the Tasmanian devil then they’d likely stop me from getting to Blaine.

  Quickly, I headed toward the window I’d escaped through the night of our big fight. It led into the garden, and I knew it wasn’t visible from the front of the house. At night, Blaine had ensured someone was always walking the perimeter after I gave him the slip, but there weren’t any men stationed there during the day.

  As quietly as I could I clambered through the window and landed in the soft soil underneath. There was a clear line from here to the shed, and with a little luck, no one would spot me before I got there.

  I rushed across the dead winter grass and opened the shed without making any sort of noise that could alert Blaine’s bodyguards. I felt mighty proud of my own stealthiness as I slipped in through the door.

  But before I could open my mouth and call out for Blaine, the scene I’d unwittingly stepped into clicked into place—in crystal clear high-definition. I choked, managing to strangle off a yelp of pure and utter horror.

  The shed was fairly big, and immediately in front of me stood a couple of large barrels that half hid me from view. Perhaps that was why Blaine didn’t see me. Or perhaps it was because he was completely focused on the man he had tied up on a chair in the middle of the shed. There was plastic wrapping spread out underneath him and splatters of blood covered it. His body was covered in bruises and lacerations.

  Blaine swung his arm, and the chain in his hand whipped through the air and cut deeply into the man’s flesh. He screamed, but a gag in his mouth cut off the sound so only a whimper escaped.

  The world seem to spin. My knees gave in and I halfway fell into a crouch behind the barrels, breathing deeply to not make a sound, even though my chest was tight with horror and grief.

  I’d seen this scene before. Too many times to count. My brothers, my father, and their men had done this in our basement. To enemies, snitches, and people who failed to pay up.

  Torture.

  Blaine was torturing that man.

  Metal instruments and ropes on the wall spoke their clear language of what this place was. This shed in my backyard. It was a torture chamber.

  I had run away from my family to get away from a world where rooms like this were a part of life.

  Another whack of metal against flesh rung thr
ough the shed and was followed by another, muted whimper.

  I don’t know why I had allowed myself to forget what he was.

  As open as he had been with me last night, it didn’t change the fact that he was dangerous to the core. There might be more than ruthless violence within him. I’d seen it last night. But this… this was everything I’d feared my whole life, everything I’d fought to escape.

  As quietly as I could, I crept back out of the shed and back to the window. It took a bit of climbing, but I made it back into the house.

  My stomach roiled, and I made my way to the bathroom to throw up again. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pregnancy or the violence I’d witnessed.

  The pregnancy. The baby.

  I pressed a hand to my stomach as I curled up next to the toilet while my dry heaves calmed down.

  No. I couldn’t bring a baby into this kind of world. I couldn’t doom an innocent life to live through what I had had to.

  Which meant… which meant I had to save it. I had to go somewhere where the child growing inside of me would never be subjected to the violence in a family like the Steels.

  Sorrow warred with determination as I walked up the stairs to pack the few necessities I could fit in my hand bag. When I was done, I found pen and paper and sat down to write a note.

  Whatever else Blaine was, the moment between us last night had been real. And the emotions in my heart that had finally been let out while we made love were real too.

  Perhaps it was for the best. If I stayed, I would never be able to get free from this world, because he would be there—pulling me back in. And if I didn’t get out now, I would soon be powerless to resist.

  It’s funny how things become so crystal clear when we’re about to lose them. As I climbed back out of the window and found my way over the tall fence surrounding the garden, I knew I was leaving behind my one true chance at love.

  But I knew all that mattered now was to protect the innocent life in my womb.

  Even if it was from its own father.

  Blaine,

  I’m so sorry.

  I can’t do this. I can’t be your pretend wife—I can’t live a life filled with violence.

  I have left London and I will never be back. Please, if you ever felt anything for me, if what we shared last night was real, then don’t come after me.

  Let me be free.

  Mira.

  * * * *

  Chapter 21

  4 Months Later

  Mira

  The smell of orange blossoms and sea swept over my face as I made my way through the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Casco Viejo. I’d rented a small flat above a butcher shop not far from the café where I worked most days, brewing coffee and serving tables.

  As every time I made my way home, I was thankful it was only a short walk. My ankles were always terribly swollen after a day on my feet, and my lower back ached something fierce. The shouts and hollers from the people filling the streets marking the beginning of the evening’s social events only made me yearn for my bed all the more.

  Sighing with relief, I let myself into the stairway that led to my tiny apartment and climbed the steps with a hand pressed against my swollen belly. Every time I stepped foot on stairs the baby within would begin to kick up a storm, and the only thing that could stop it from demolishing my bladder was apparently the light press of a hand.

  “Just as difficult as your father,” I muttered while attempting to unlock my front door with the same hand that held the bit of shopping I’d done on my way home.

  Blaine. I bit my lip to stem the onslaught of mixed emotions the thought of him always brought on.

  He had been looking for me since the day I ran away. I’d thought he would either stop caring once it was obvious I’d left the country, or he would have respected my plea in the letter to let me go. I’d been very wrong.

  My advanced pregnancy didn’t make the stress of having to pack up and leave every four weeks or so any easier to deal with, but of course, he didn’t know I was pregnant. I’d made sure to take all traces of the pregnancy test with me when I left so he would never know his runaway wife was with child.

  I gave into the urge to flop down on my bed for a few moments before I had to start dinner. I was exhausted every minute of every day, and all I wanted to do after a long day’s work was to go to sleep—but the baby had other ideas. Getting by on whatever service job I could find wasn’t made any easier by my constant hunger. “Eating for two”—yeah, right. I scoffed and rubbed my belly as the baby moved restlessly within. If my pregnancy appetite was anything to go by, I was expecting at least quintuplets.

  I ate my dinner in front of the open French door overlooking the bustling street below. Then I went to sleep on my narrow single bed before the nightclub a few roads over got too loud.

  * * *

  “Hello, little cunt.”

  The menacing snarl ripped me out of my uneasy slumber with a start. My heart kicked into overdrive the second my eyes flew open, but it was much too late to react.

  Someone pressed a cold, sharp edge to my throat and grabbed hold of my hair before I could even orientate myself.

  I cried out from the sharp pain in my scalp, but quieted down instantly when the knife against my throat pressed in in warning.

  He had found me.

  “Please, Blaine, you’re hurting me,” I croaked. Even in my panicked state, even after I’d fled from him for four months after seeing him viciously torture a bound and helpless man, some part of my brain didn’t believe he would physically harm me. I reached up to put my hand against his to try to calm him—even if he didn’t mean me harm, the knife was a pretty vivid indication that he was furious.

  The tug on my scalp instantly eased as he let go of my hair.

  “Look, I know you’re mad at me—” I didn’t get to continue before, out of nowhere, the backside of a hand impacted with my cheek so hard I saw stars. The blow was forceful enough to throw me back down on the mattress.

  “Blaine!” I cried, cradling my cheek. I don’t know what was more painful—the smack, or the shattering of what I dimly realized was the last of my crushed belief in there being any goodness in the man my stupid heart had fallen for.

  “Blaine. You think crying out for your husband will save you, you dumb cow?”

  I froze stiff on the bed, my tears drying from sheer horror. I knew that voice. And it didn’t belong to Blaine.

  The naked light bulb that was the sole source of light in my rented accommodation flickered on, and I was greeted with the very image that had haunted my nightmares since I was eighteen years old.

  Above me, next to the bed, my brother Michael crouched down. He was holding a sharp blade in one hand, pointing it at me in an unspoken threat. Behind him I could see my father, his armed crossed over his stocky chest and his mouth pressed into a thin line, and over by the light switch stood my oldest brother Devlen. A gun stuck up from the waistband of his jeans.

  I stared at them in abject terror, my mind threatening to slip into the blank space it had when they found me in London, just to get away.

  “Oho, would you look at that!” Michael hooted. He pointed at my stomach with his knife. “Either she’s gotten fatter than ever, or Steel put a bastard in her whore cunt before she gave him the slip.”

  My father moved closer and I cringed back against the wall, my hands automatically flying up to protect my belly.

  “Well, well, well. No wonder Blaine’s been searching for you so desperately for the past four months, huh, Aignéis? And here I thought we might just get the pleasure of blackmailing the Steels for a couple of million while showing all of London how easy it is to humiliate the so-called greatest crime syndicate in the city. Turns out our prize sow’s got a little surprise for us.” He knelt down next to the bed and gave me a cold smile. “What do you think the Steels will give up in return for the safe return of an heir to the empire? The entire city?”

  I shook my head and presse
d my hands harder against my stomach. As much as I wanted to flee into sweet oblivion, I couldn’t—not when it would leave my unborn child at their mercy. “They don’t know about the baby. They won’t believe you.”

  “I guess we’ll just see about that.” Quick as a snake, he twisted around and grabbed my hands so he could pull them up above my head and away from my belly.

  I screamed and bucked, doing everything I could to get free, but Michael rolled up onto my legs so he could pin them against the mattress with all his weight. My father stuffed a cloth in my mouth, cutting off my screams for help.

  “There we go. Get her top off—we want to show Daddy what we’ve got to offer in return.”

  Michael gave me a lecherous smirk before he lowered the knife to my stomach. I whimpered in fear and tried to squirm, but all I managed to do was pull the muscles in my arms.

  Slowly, letting me feel the tip of the blade against my skin as he cut, Michael slid the knife up along the middle of my camisole, letting my stomach and breasts spill out.

  “Devlen, take the pictures,” my father said.

  My oldest brother moved across the room and pulled out his phone.

  “Make sure you get her face and stomach.”

  “And the knife,” Michael added, letting the blade slide down along the scars on my stomach. “Just so he gets the idea.”

  “I told you you’d regret the day you betrayed your family,” my father growled into my ear while Devlen’s phone flashed, snapping picture after picture of my exposed and pinned-down body. “And if your beloved husband doesn’t come through, you’re going to regret ever leaving the Steels’ protection. I’ll cut that baby from your belly with a steak knife if he doesn’t hand over control of London’s underworld. So what do you think, Aignéis? Does he love you and your baby more than he does the Family?”

  * * * *