Chapter 42 Consequences of that night
Lina’s POV
Pregnant.
The word wouldn’t sit still in my head. It ricocheted, loud and wrong, like someone else’s diagnosis pinned to the wrong file.
Bella was still in front of me, still calm, still far too certain.
I let out a short laugh. “No. I'm not.”
She didn’t blink. “Donna—”
“No,” I repeated, pushing up from the stool. The shed tilted for a second, but I forced my legs steady. “I’m just exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping. Everyone’s been sick, worried. Attacks upon attacks. It's bound to stress me out, not just me, everyone. Stress does things to the body.”
“It does,” she agreed gently. “But not this, not make you pale.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“No. I’m a mother. I mean, I was once a mother.”
I grabbed the edge of the wooden table, splinters pressing into my palm. “You’re wrong. Most certainly.”
She held my gaze, and that quiet certainty of hers made my chest feel tight. “When was your last cycle?”
The question hit harder than the word pregnant had.
I looked away first. “That’s not your business.”
“Donn—.”
“I said it’s not your—” Another wave of dizziness cut me off. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and braced myself.
Bella stepped closer but didn’t touch me this time. “Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“But you’re swaying.”
“I am not—” I stopped. Because I actually was.
I sat.
The shed felt smaller suddenly. The scent of soil, the stacked clay pots, filled with flowers, the soft light coming through the dusty window — everything too close, too real.
“I can call a doctor, or ask Signor to call one,” Bella said carefully.
“No.”
“He will want—”
“Don’t.” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. “Don’t tell him anything.”
Her brows drew together. “Donna—”
“I need to think.”
That part, at least, was true.
Because my mind had already started doing something I didn’t like — flipping backward.
Not to last night.
Further.
It hit me all at once — not last night, not recently.
That night.
The one after everything went wrong. After the basement. After the air burned my lungs and panic clawed up my throat. After I had to escape through the window. From that old bakery, the tiny safe apartment that smelled like flour and sugar that couldn’t quite cover the fear.
After the escape. The one after the warehouse. After the threats stopped being distant and started breathing down our necks. After Carlino drove like the devil himself was chasing us and hid me in that cold apartment overlooking the docks.
I had been furious. Terrified. Shaking so hard my teeth wouldn’t stop knocking together.
We were supposed to be planning. Calling men. Locking doors. Instead… we broke.
No strategy. No caution. Just two people who thought the world might end before morning, grabbing at something real before it could be taken.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was fear and relief and need all tangled together. That was the first time.
Over a month ago.
“Donna?”
Bella’s voice pulled me back to the shed.
I stood up too fast this time. “I need air.”
“You are outside.”
“I need space.”
She didn’t argue as I walked out, gravel crunching under my shoes. The garden stretched wide and green, the bungalow was quiet in that eerie way it always got when something was about to shift.
Pregnant.
“No, it can't be,” I muttered again.
I walked faster, past the fountain, past the trimmed hedges. My body felt strange — heavy and hollow at the same time. It didn’t make sense.
There had been too much chaos. Too much fear. My body had been in survival mode for weeks, months. That messed things up. Everyone knew that.
I stopped near the iron gate and pressed my hands against the cool metal.
Stress can delay things.
Stress can make you sick.
Stress can make you dizzy.
Right?
The phone Carlino handed me was locked down — encrypted to accept calls and texts from only his number, useless for contacting anyone else. When it buzzed in my pocket, I almost didn’t look.
Carlino: Meeting running long. Eat something. I’ll be home tonight.
I stared at the message.
Eat something.
I huffed out a humorless breath. “You have no idea,” I murmured.
My thumb hovered over the screen. I could tell him. Right now. One message and the world would tilt on its axis.
Instead, I locked the phone and shoved it back into my pocket.
Not yet.
I wasn’t even sure there was a this to tell.
By evening, the nausea had faded into a dull unease. I sat at the dining table, pushing food around my plate while one of the younger staff hovered nervously nearby.
“Is it bad, Donna?” she asked.
“What?”
“The food.”
I blinked at him. “No. I’m just not hungry.”
She looked relieved and hurried off. I leaned back in my chair, staring at the chandelier above. My hand drifted to my stomach without thinking.
I froze.
Slowly, I pulled it away.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.
I stood and headed to the bedroom, each step heavier than it should’ve been. The bedroom door clicked shut behind me, sealing me in with the quiet.
I walked to the dresser, then stopped.
I swallowed and tried again.
It was before the warehouse. Before the room with no windows. Before the first time they moved me in the middle of the night with a bag over my head. My thoughts kept stepping backward, past fear layered over fear, until my chest started to feel tight.
That wasn’t a couple of weeks.
That was… before everything.
I pressed my palm against my stomach without meaning to, like I could quiet the thought forming there.
Stress, I told myself. Trauma messes with the body. Anyone would be thrown off after this. I said the words repeatedly.
But the excuses felt thin. Fragile.
Because no matter how I counted it — not by calendars, but by scars and locked doors — one truth stayed the same.
I wasn’t late.
I was missing.
I wrapped my arms around myself, staring at the floor like it might argue with me.
“Stress,” I said out loud. “It’s just stress.” I repeated.
But the word didn’t sound convincing anymore. The phone buzzed again.
Carlino: You awake?
I looked at the screen, then at the empty space beside me on the bed. My hand moved to my stomach again, hesitant this time.
I didn’t push it away.
I typed back with fingers that didn’t feel like mine.
Yeah.
The dots appeared almost instantly.
I’ll be home soon.
I swallowed. “Soon,” I repeated softly to the empty room.
For the first time since Bella spoke in the shed, fear wasn’t the only thing rising in my chest. There was something else there too. Something fragile. Something that changed everything.
What if it wasn't the stress? What if…