watched a glowing line slowly and consistently jump.
“It’s weak, but there’s still a heartbeat,” a nurse said, looking back to the door when he walked in, joining his men.
He gave me a look to suggest that I’d just dodged death by a whisper. I knew I had. But what about after this nightmare? Would it be worth surviving? And would this nightmare ever end?
“Time to push, girl,” the nurse said, just as I was ambushed by another contraction, this one worse than any of the others. I threw my head back and screamed my way through it, begging and praying for relief.
It took two pushes before a tiny body was dropped onto my chest, and I looked down, finding a little head covered in blood. Panic soon set in. My baby wasn’t crying.
“A boy,” the nurse said, wiping at his little face roughly.
“Is it alive?” he asked from the door.
It. My son was an it. A nameless lump of life to the cold bastard by the door. To me, he was everything.
The nurse slapped the perfect skin on my son’s ass, and then he screamed. He screamed so loud, like a message to the world that he’d arrived. I sighed and flopped back as the nurse cut his cord and lifted him to my breast.
That fifteen minutes of him suckling the only goodness I had from me was the most amazing fifteen minutes of my life.
Then he was ripped from my arms. “No!” I lunged forward to grab him as the nurse wrapped him tightly in a blanket and passed him to the devil by the door. “Please, no.” My sobs were instant, despite knowing what was coming. Shock was cutting my heart in two.
“We made a deal, Rose,” he said, cradling my baby in his arms. “You can’t take care of him. What kind of life will he have living with you on the streets?”
A deal? You didn’t make a deal with this man. You did what you were told or you died.
“He’s my only flesh and blood.” My insides twisted and yanked as another bout of pain sailed through me. I screamed, clenching my now empty tummy. What was this agony? Grief?
“She’s hemorrhaging.” The nurse didn’t seem in a rush. She sounded calm too. I felt hot liquid pouring from my body, drenching the bed under my ass. “She’ll need a transfusion.”
“Will she be able to carry again?” he asked from the door.
“Unlikely.” The nurse was so blunt. So callous.
My body seemed to drain of life and energy within seconds, and my eyes suddenly felt heavy, my hearing distorted. “Please don’t take him away from me,” I begged weakly.
“He’ll have a lovely home. Loving parents who can give him everything you can’t. And in return, you get to live.” He looked to the nurse. “Give her the transfusion.” I hadn’t realized until then that the nurse had stopped working on me. She was waiting for his go-ahead to keep me alive?
If I thought I’d felt pain, I was wrong. Watching him leave with my baby was excruciating. The last thing I saw that day was my baby’s tiny hand holding the wicked bastard’s finger—the little finger he wore that nasty serpent ring on. It was nearly as big as my son’s hand, and the emerald eyes of the snake were as blinding as my pain.
Chapter 1
Miami—Present Day
* * *
DANNY
* * *
The walk down the corridor toward his suite feels like miles, the sound of my shoes hitting the solid marble floor echoing around me. Our mansion smells like death. I’ve smelt death enough to recognize it, except right now it isn’t welcome. I feel like I’m walking the Green Mile, though it isn’t me who will be six feet under by the end.
The two heavies flanking the solid wooden double doors outside his room look grave. Grief is hanging heavy in the air.
Two sharp nods greet me when I come to a stop. Solemn nods. They don’t open the doors, they know not to until I give them the go-ahead. Until I’m ready. Am I?
“Esther in there with him?” I ask, getting a nod in answer. I swallow and nod in return, taking a deep breath as the doors are opened for me. I wander in, pulling my suit jacket together, looking down my front to check for lint. It’s a conscious move, one to distract me, to delay me from looking up at the huge four-poster bed and face what I’m dreading. Grief blocks my throat, but