Chapter 393 395
Chapter 393 395
“Been feeling nauseous lately?”
I shrug. “He forces me to run on the treadmill every day. It’s… grueling.”
She cocks her head to the side. “How long have you been in this house with him, Renata?” she asks.
“Why?”
“Answer the question, please.”
I sigh. “I don’t know… Two weeks, three?”
Doctor Lenore nods slowly. “I asked to speak to you on the pretext that I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I told him you’d complained of gastric pain the last time I was here.”
I frown. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you have a problem.”
I feel fear snaking up my chest. “Which is…?”
“You’re pregnant, Renata,” she tells me bluntly. “The blood test I took last week confirmed as much. It’s still very early, but the test is indisputable.”
My pulse is thundering in my ears. It’s all I can hear, drowning out Dr. Lenore, the house around me, my own breathing. I just stare at her, my jaw has gone slack with shock. “That… that can’t be…”
“I’m afraid it is,” she replies. “And given the stage of your pregnancy and the number of weeks you’ve been here, I’m guessing Rokiades is not the father.”
There it is. The sick twist I should’ve expected all along.
My knees give way. Luckily, the bed is right behind me, so I sink down into it, reeling.
“Oh God. Are you sure?”
“Completely sure.”
My eyes flash to hers. “Did you tell him?”
She hesitates. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be responsible for what he does to you when he finds out,” she admits. “You’re going to have to make a decision about what you want to do now.”
I have a baby.
Not the Greek’s, though. It’s Kian’s.
And that’s worse. Far worse.
Because if Yannis finds out about the life inside my womb… he’ll kill us both.
48
Kian
“Fucking tell me!” the Greek bellows.
I spit out blood and fix Rokiades with a measured glance that I know infuriates him. I don’t say a word, though. I’ve been stubbornly silent since they took me and he’s starting to get desperate. The old son of a bitch seems to think that the louder he shouts, the more I’ll talk. It hasn’t been working for him so far.
Neither have the beatings. I’m bloodied and bruised. I’ve got gashes torn into my torso and cuts snaking up and down my arms and legs.
But I still haven’t given him anything. I don’t intend to, either. Pain may be a big motivator for most men. But not for me. They made us strong back home. And no one was a more ruthless teacher than my old man. He knew that the only way his sons were going to survive the life was to become accustomed to pain.
If you can compartmentalize pain, it’s easier to handle. Easier to ignore. So that’s what I do. I shove it away to a deep, dark place inside of me and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Some moments are easier than others. I’ve been strung up like the Vitruvian Man for two days now. My legs are spread apart and tied against wooden poles like you’d use to burn a witch at the stake.
“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I will hurt her,” Rokiades snarls. “I will make her suffer.”
I don’t give him any reaction at all, apart from a slight lift of my eyebrow.
He’s assumed that threatening Renata would continue to work for him. He’s assumed wrong.
Rokiades already reneged on his part of the bargain. Why would I trust him with another? Especially because a few conversations with the man have given me quite a window into his psyche.
He’s all about appearances. About maintaining the illusion of power in the absence of the real thing. He wants control, but he has no idea how to get it. And even less of an idea how to hold it if it fall in his lap.
His plans hinge on getting Renata to marry him, but he doesn’t want to force her into the arrangement because of how it would look to his so-called “allies.”
It’s pitiful how easy it was to grasp all of that. To read him like a book. Hell, he’d given himself away on the first fucking day of my capture.
“It will be a glorious wedding!” he boasted as his men strung me up when we arrived here from the lot. “All those malakes that questioned my ability to unite the Greeks and Italians will have to swallow their words when they see my beautiful bride.”
“Is she going to be gagged and bound and forced down the aisle?” I’d asked. “I find that that tends to dampen the festive spirit. Just a little piece of advice from a friend.”
“Don’t you worry—when I’m done with her, she’ll marry me willingly.”
After that conversation, I knew one thing for certain: he won’t hurt Renata. She’s his meal ticket. His only shot at making this fucking nonsense work out the way he wants it to.
Which gives me the assurance I needed to fall back on the image I should have projected right from the start: complete and utter disinterest.
“Did you hear me?” Rokiades roars again. “I will make her suffer!”
And risk ruining her pretty face right before the wedding? I don’t think so, you old goat. You showed your hand.
Instead of saying all that, I just shrug as best I can, given my position. “Go ahead,” I invite. “Make her suffer. God knows she’s been nothing but a pain in my ass.”
His eyes go wide. “You don’t mean that.”
“No, seriously—huge pain in the ass, that one.”
He slaps me. “You don’t want to see her suffer.”
“Oh, that? Yeah, sure, I do. Or not. Whatever.”
His nose wrinkles with suspicion. “Suddenly, you don’t care about her?”
“You made assumptions about my feelings for the girl,” I tell him. “My interest in her was always professional. And that ship has sailed now. So like I said: whatever.”
Rokiades narrows his eyes at me. “You were planning on marrying her yourself?” he asks. “To unite the mafia families the same way I’m planning on doing?”
I widen my eyes like that’s just now occurring to me. “Damn! That’s a pretty good plan. Wish I thought of it.”
He gives me a manic smile. “It’s a brilliant fucking plan. You were simply too weak to see it through.”
“It’s not weakness, Rokiades,” I tell him confidently. “It’s intelligence.”
He frowns. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I was not about to force the girl to marry me,” I tell him. “I was grooming her.”
He jerks his chin out, considering my words. But his expression gives himself away again. He’s getting nowhere with Renata.
I smile despite myself. That catches the old fucker’s attention. Nothing riles up a proud man worse than laughter at his expense. “Something funny?”
“She’s not the type of woman you can force into submission,” I point out. “She needs to be… convinced. You don’t have what it takes.”
His expression turns dark with rage, but he manages to tamp it down.
“I’m a proud man,” he says after a moment. “But that doesn’t make me stupid. I’m aware that I’m not the kind of man who can woo a beautiful young woman. You, on the other hand… you’re young. Younger than me, at least.”
“And smart. And incredibly handsome. And a killer poker player,” I add, “since we’re listing attributes.”
He glares at me. Not a fan of gallows humor, I guess. “You did your work well,” he says. “The girl has fallen into your trap. Classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.”
I tense slightly, wondering how else Renata has given herself away. Apparently, in her most vulnerable moments, the name on her lips is mine. I might have been thrilled with that fact if it weren’t for the danger it poses for her.
“But something you just said… It makes a lot of sense,” he nods. “I don’t have the time to groom her like you did. I have neither the patience nor the inclination, either.