10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
FIAMETTA
“ I haven’t taken it yet. I can’t. I’m too scared of the result.”
Positive or negative, I’m not sure which one is worse. If I’m pregnant, it’s Crue’s. What kind of world would we be bringing a child into? More concerning than the world itself, are the people inside it. Father would lose his mind if he heard I was carrying a child, and Tomas would definitely send a hit squad after the responsible man.
But is it crazy to think I actually want it to be positive? For Crue to be the father of our unborn child. Is it mad to want a beautiful equilibrium between this nightmare and the peaceful joy of spending our lives together?
Yes, it’s crazy. Beyond crazy, even. Crue has stalked me for weeks, and made numerous threats against my life, before he actually tried to take it, when I was at my most vulnerable. Any pleasant thoughts about this are as absurd as thinking John Wayne Gacy could make a good dad.
“It’s probably best to bite the bullet on this one, Fi-Fi,” Simone says through my cellphone.
After bringing me three tests, each a different brand, on the off chance one wasn’t good, she’s been checking up on me constantly throughout the day. Given how much we’ve spoken, she might as well have stayed here. But she chose to go home, in order to sell the illusion that I’m ill. That and her sudden and deep fear of Father, after the way he spoke to her the other day. I don’t blame her. If I had the option, I’d be out of this place in a heartbeat.
“You’re right. I know. But—”
“No buts ,” she cuts me off.
I don’t have anything to say.
“Go. Now. I’ll stay on the line with you until you’ve got your answer.”
“Fine. You win.” I’m not happy about it.
“Of course, I win. I always do” Simone doesn’t have to be in the room for me to see her cheeky smile and playful wink.
“I’m putting my phone on the counter. I won’t be able to hear you.” Mainly because I can’t stand the idea of Simone making jokes while I pee over three pieces of plastic.
I take all three with me to the toilet and knock them all out in one go. A silly thought comes to mind, of all three showing a different answer. One positive, one negative and the other just a question mark as if to say what the fuck is inside you? That makes me chuckle and loosen up enough to get through the process without embarrassment.
After I finish, I drop all three into the sink and wait for the timers to run out. There’s a knock at my door.
Oh no, not now.
Just leave me alone to wallow by myself.
I grab my phone and whisper to Simone. “Gotta run. I’ll let you know what the results are.” I kill the call before she can answer me. I rush back to my bed, after grabbing the bathroom key and locking the door behind me. Between the first set of knocks and the second, I slip back under the covers, shifting restlessly as if I’d just woken up.
“Who is it?” I groan. There is no answer.
“Come in, then.” It’s an invitation that is open to anyone in the house, except Tomas.
The door opens and goosebumps instantly dart across my flesh when I see who’s standing outside. Crue Amos is the last person I thought I’d see today.
Did his bloodhound nose pick up the scent of my potential pregnancy the last time he was here? Is that another trait that some mad scientist imbued him with in the lab where Crue was cooked?
“What are you doing here?” I don’t mean in my room. I expected Crue would make another appearance, soon enough. Once he gets a taste of me, it’s impossible to get rid of him. That thought both upsets me — under the current circumstances — and excites me.
My question stems more from the fact that he’s in my doorway instead of at my window. It means he is in the house, being allowed to walk around freely. Is he another addition to Father’s menagerie? I wonder. Like Tomas before him. Tomas, who has taken a room in the mansion ever since our engagement.
“I just had a chat with your dad. He sent me to call you.” His reply is neat, clean and to the point. Hearing it sucks more than I thought it would.
But Crue’s entering the room and closing the door behind him quickly changes those feelings. Nothing is ever to the point with Crue. I can never tell what’s really happening inside his head until it’s too late.
“Locking me in here is calling me?” I raise a brow. He hasn’t locked anything, but it’s the intention behind the words rather than the facts.
He takes long strides to reach the bed and sits at my feet, ignoring the question. One of his hands immediately finds a place on my calf, and he strokes it gently through the blanket.
“Is everything okay?” It’s hazardous to ask, given the look on his face. The last time I saw that look; he stabbed a needle into my neck and left me naked in an alleyway.
“No,” his eyes are fixed on the floor to ceiling mirror next to the bathroom door. He’s looking at me through it, unable to make direct eye contact.
Is that sincerity I hear?
I gulp, not sure if I’m supposed to feel afraid or upset. At least the indecision takes my mind off the impending doom lying in my bathroom’s basin.
“What does Father want?” Idle conversation might still both our moods.
“Beats me. Something’s going on with that guy,” Crue’s eyes narrow in the mirror. He notices I’m staring right back, and he softens his stiffening features.
“Wanna hear something funny?”
I nod. Trying to read him before was hard, when he was a stalker tailing me through the city. Now? It’s impossible. His face flickers so many different responses that I can’t say what his emotional state is. Happy? No smile, but a gentle gaze. Sad? No frown, but a somber tone. Angry? Crue’s mood seems neutral, and something tells me he wouldn’t be say “ something funny” , if he was angry.
Asking has never been his style, either. He takes and dishes out with no care or consequence.
“Your dad asked me to watch over you.” He makes zero effort to explain why it’s funny. Not even a half-assed fake chuckle to go with his words. All the same, they strike a chord in my brain that makes me laugh. Harder than I have laughed in months. A frantic explosion of joyous bellowing explodes from me, until my sides start to hurt.
It isn’t funny. Not at all. If it were anyone else but Crue, my reaction would’ve been the same as to my engagement with Tomas.
Frightened disgust.
“’ Told you it was funny,” he brings his hand to a stop when it reaches my knee. He wants to move it higher. He wants to slip off my sheets and repeat what we did the last time he was here. But even Crue wouldn’t take that risk after Father asked to see me.
“He doesn’t realize I’ve been watching you this whole time. Must be nice living in ignorance.”
When the side-splitting laughing comes to a halt, and after I wipe away the tears under my eyes, I look at Crue again. One corner of his lip is curled up, as if he is trying so very hard to smile, only for it to stop halfway. But it’s the closest thing to joy I’ve ever seen on his face, since he came inside of me.
“What did you tell him?” I ask.
“That I’ll do it. The only difference between what would have happened and what’s going to now, is that I’m getting paid instead of creeping through your bushes for no reason.” Is this another attempt at a joke? Since when has Crue started moonlighting as a comedian?
“I should go see him,” I cut the moment short. Crue might not understand what he did and why it was wrong, but I can’t lie here and pretend that things are getting better between us. But, as he stands up and I shuffle out of my bed, some invisible force grabs hold of my belly and makes me speak.
“Will you stay? Wait for me.” I know why it spilled out of me. The three sticks of plastic that hold their unbearable secret. I want him here as support, I suppose. Who better to carry half the weight, than the man who may or may not have put a baby into me?
“I will, Little Flame.” Anguish and torment season his words. “But I won’t be good company.”
Has he ever been good company? To me, no. Crue isn’t company at all. He takes what he wants and leaves nothing behind. Conversation and the mundaneness of normal life don’t exist with him. He is the embodiment of darkness and brooding.
That’s why it has to be him at my side. Not as the man who tried to kill me, or even as someone else who’d be a mess of emotions when I find my answer. I need a rock to lean on. Nothing more, nothing less. And how much better would it be for that rock to be a towering statue of intensity?
Crue sits back down, and I leave to meet Father. My quick hurry to his side is cut short when I’m greeted by the most stunning sunset I’ve seen in years as soon as I step outside. I can’t bring myself to just rush past it. No matter what’s happening in my head, or what’s waiting in that bathroom, this wonder of nature deserves a moment of silent approval and adoration.
Sunsets like this just don’t happen in the city. Too many buildings block the view, and there are not enough trees to amplify the pastel-colored skyline. It’s so damned stunning my chest feels hollow, and my eyes start to water. Again. It must be a combination of what happened in my bedroom mixed with the stunning scenery.
“How are you feeling, daughter?” Father asks as I take my seat.
“I’m better. Much better.” I have been, since I spewed this morning, but to sell my fib, I add. “Whatever Simone picked up knocked the bug right out of me.”
“Wonderful, I’m glad to hear it. I was worried about you.”
“You were?” My response to this unknown, unchartered territory I find myself in, is incredulity. Crue’s trying to smile, Father’s actually caring...
I could get used to it, when I know I shouldn’t.
“Of course, silly girl.” There’s no malice in his voice. “I don’t show it as often as I should, but I do love you.”
An uncomfortable heat suddenly burns my cheeks when I hear those three stupid words come out of his mouth. It’s quickly followed by the sting of a single tear that rolls down the side of my nose and drips onto the table. I make quick work of rubbing the evidence away with the back of my wrist.
“I love you too, Father.” I hang my head, unable to face him directly. Not that he’s looking at me, but I’d rather hide away before he does than let him see me like this. Crue’s smile was hard enough, and that was barely a corner of his lip. I hate to think what state I’d be in, if Father went out of his way to show me love and affection.
“Crue and I had a chat.” I clear my throat and will the rest of my tears back into their ducts. “You want him to guard me?”
“That man.” Father shakes his head, letting out a wheezing, raspy chuckle. “It was meant to be on the hush-hush, but I never actually told him that. It doesn’t matter anyway, so yes, I asked him to keep an eye on you.”
“He also said you wanted to talk to me about something.”
Father’s head snaps in my direction at that, and he gulps down a harsh swallow. I realize that the entire world has turned strange today, so I don’t bother trying to read or understand his expression — a mix of nervous giddiness will have to do.
What I do pick up on is how strange Father’s reaction is. He called me here to speak to me, so why does he look like a deer, caught in headlights, now that I’ve arrived?
It’s kooky, crazy, bananas day. Just keep reminding yourself of that, and nothing can surprise you.
“Also, true,” he says at last.
“You’re making me nervous,” I say, feeling the first bubble of discomfort fluttering through me like a heartbeat. “What is it?”
“There comes a time in every man’s life...” He looks at me and shakes his head. “Every person’s life, where the reality of death settles in. Until recently, it never felt as if it would come my way, but these days, it’s hard to say how long I’ve got left.” Father lifts a hand to his face and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m worried that it won’t be much longer now, Fiametta. Not so short a time that I won’t be able to see you down the aisle—” did he really have to bring that up right now? “…but not long enough to see my grandkids.”
“What’s got you thinking this craziness?” It’s the only thing I can think of to say.
“Reality, my darling daughter. The hard kick in the nuts that is reality,” Father speaks with a smile, as if this conversation isn’t about his facing an untimely death.
“Do you mind if I ask what’s put you on edge?” I venture.
He never shares our family secrets with me, and until this moment he has never been this candid about his emotions either. I love you was reserved for deaths in the family and an occasional Christmas dinner. The latter came to a screeching halt after I turned twenty.
“Not at all,” he sips from the champagne flute that sits beside him, “Because I can’t answer you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. I don’t know. The air, I guess? It’s heavy. It reeks of despair. It’s almost as if there’s a storm in the distance and I have felt the early warning signs. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s everything, but I don’t want to risk it.” He takes another swig and polishes off the glass.
“Is there any reason why you feel that now?”
His shoulders sag and he turns back to the sky. It’s darker now, and lacks the colors it held when I first stepped outside. But it’s still beautiful, none-the-less.
“Because I’ve wasted so much time, Fiametta. I’ve kept you at arm’s length to keep you safe, only to discover you were never out of someone else’s reach. I focused on one family and neglected the other. I raised you as a prisoner, and continue to treat you as one to this day. I’ve done so many bad things, so I won’t ignore an opportunity to say I’m sorry, before the inevitable hand of death comes to guide me away.”
Right. There’s no holding back my tears this time. They’re spilling freely, and are exacerbated by every new point he makes. I’d take the hard, mean man I know over this softy, waiting for death, any day.
“I know you can’t see it yet, Fia. And I know it’s going to ruin the point I’m trying to bring across, but that’s why I set up your engagement to Tomas.”
He’s right, that makes me want to cry in a very different way.
“I need you to trust me on this one. No fighting and no fear. Tomas is the right man for the job.” I don’t say anything, because it won’t be what he wants to hear. “So, there it is. My heart spilled out onto a silver platter. I’m sorry, my daughter. My pride, my joy. If I could go back, I’d do things differently, but I can’t. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I can.” I swallow a lump in my throat and fight away the tears with my trustee wrist technique. “And I do.”
He smiles.
“I’ve decided to lower your restrictions, now that I have Crue on guard duty.” Just like that, he’s back to his normal, straight-laced tone. “You can go back to work, to the soup kitchen, to anywhere else you’d like to go, as long as you promise to take him with.”
Could it be? Freedom once more? Well, the same kind I had before Father locked me in the mansion. But something tells me that Crue’s going to be a lot more fun than Tomas was, chasing me around the city.
“You’re serious?” I have to actively hold my jaw shut to keep it from falling to the floor.
“I am. And where I won’t expect you to move in with him the same way I had you do with Tomas; I’d urge you to consider it. I would be comforted to know that he is watching you, day and night.”
Father lifts the bottle of champagne out of an ice bucket that is at his side and pours himself another glass. He offers one to me without words, and I decline by shaking my head.
I can’t believe it. I thought I’d be stuck here for the rest of my life, and in the blink of an eye all my prayers have been answered instead.
There are two things left to do before I can allow myself a momentary jump for joy.
Tell Crue the good news, and find out if I’m pregnant.