do.
I drag my nails down the goon’s face while he attempts to silence my campaign by shoving the barrel of a gun under my ribs. The fact he needs a weapon to defend himself humors me. He is double my weight, my head only reaches his shoulders, yet he’s still scared of me.
Good. He should be scared because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
While grunting through the pain of my palm ramming into his sternum, the goon slams his boot into my right foot, then twists. Pain shreds through me, but I keep my howl on the down-low, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me again.
Once he has me wrapped up in a bear hug I can’t loosen, he lowers his lips to my ear. “I couldn’t work out why you had them so worried. Yeah, you’re pretty, you’ve got a nice set of tits, an ass you could bounce a quarter off, and a tight cunt I don’t see letting up for years to come, but so do a million other American women.” He lowers his arm from the top of my chest to the curves of my breasts. “But now I get it. Oh, how I have seen the light. You’ve got spunk, charisma…” He gropes my breast for each word he speaks. “All the things his wife doesn’t have.” I think he’s creeping his hand down my stomach to defile me some more. I have no clue he’s stabbing a final nail into my heart. “It’s a pity you don’t have his kid anymore. You might have given her a run for her money if you had.” I fall to my knees when he unexpectedly releases me. “Get yourself cleaned up. Wouldn’t want you scaring the kids.”
My brain tells me to stay down, but my heart demands the opposite. If Audrey is here, that means Fien is most likely here as well. My heart is breaking for both Dimitri and myself, but Fien’s cute little chubby cheeks and eyes identical to her father’s in every way could very well be the cure to my heartache.
With my back facing the coldblooded stranger, I peel my blood-soaked nightie off my body before replacing it with a fresh one folded at the end of my bed. My legs shudder when I slip them into the openings of a pair of panties only my nanna would think were fashionable. I’m not scared the man is watching me like a hawk. I’m horrified about the gigantic pad someone preloaded into my underwear.
Although I hate being reminded about what I’ve lost, the products surrounding me make sense of the cold, sterile room I awoke in. My baby wasn’t the only one delivered here. The stack of maternity pads in the partially cracked-open closet is indicating enough, let alone the pediatric medical crib just outside the door.
“How many children have these women birthed?” I ask the man when he guides me out of the room with a firm grip on my arm.
He grunts, then continues shoving me toward the stairs.
My nanna always said my mouth would get me in trouble. If it’s the good kind of trouble, I don’t mind. “Are you not allowed to touch the women because your blood isn’t royal? Are you a bastard like the rest of us?”
That stops him in his tracks. “My blood is more regal than any of the men here.”
“Yet, here you are, nothing more than a paid goon.”
His slap is brutal, but it doesn’t weaken my smile. Only scared men act out with violence. Take Eddie’s response to my ‘betrayal,’ for example. Real men prove otherwise.
“There’s still time, you know?”
The grunting, red-faced goon drags me up the stairs like he has no interest in anything I’m saying. It’s unfortunate for him, silence is a battle only the bravest can conjure.
“For what?” he asks with his hand resting on the door that leads to the room the women are in.
I crank my neck so I can peer into his eyes. “To save yourself. Tell Dimitri where I am, and I promise he will spare your life.” I curse at my inability to lie when my eyes rapidly blink during the last half of my statement.
If Dimitri doesn’t kill this man for what he did to me, I’ll do it myself.
“Nice try,” the stranger pushes out with a huff. “If you truly think he’ll come all the way out here for you, you’ve got rocks in your head. He will never