Chapter 39
39
GIANNA
The next couple of weeks fly by, and before I know it, I’m entering my third trimester and working at my hospital. My hospital. With my name on it. The words still taste unreal on my tongue.
On paper, my life has transformed into the kind of fairytale that would make Disney princesses seethe with jealousy. I have a husband who worships the ground I walk on—a man who would and has killed for me. I’m blessed with a friendship with Elira that fills a void I never acknowledged existed. I’m building a career that fulfills me, and inside my womb, a tiny life thrives, growing stronger each day. I never even imagined I could ever be this happy. Never dared to hope for this much.
I should be drowning in contentment, suffocating from happiness.
Instead, a shadow creeps across my perfect life—formless and insidious.
It starts small. One morning, I just wake up with a heavy heart, and no amount of pep talk or cheering up from Michael can snap me out of it.
You don’t deserve this , a vicious little voice whispers in my head. You’ve done nothing to earn this happiness. And everything you haven’t earned can be taken away .
And that thought—that gnawing, creeping fear—refuses to leave me alone. What if it all gets snatched away from me in the blink of an eye? I try to squash it every time it rears up its ugly head, but it’s stubborn as hell. Self-doubt always is.
It spreads like a cancer, from hours into days. One day, then two.
On the third day, I open my eyes, staring blankly at the ceiling, my limbs feeling weighted with invisible chains. Or maybe gravity has decided to double overnight. Moving feels impossible, but my bladder is screaming to be emptied. So eventually, I drag myself off the bed and shuffle to the bathroom to take care of it. Then I splash some cold water on my face and trudge out of the bedroom.
I have a shift at the hospital this evening, but I think I might cancel it and— “Michael? What are you doing? Aren’t you going to work?” I frown at my husband, who’s standing shirtless at the stove, stirring something bubbling in a pot.
It smells delicious.
“No. I sent everyone away so it would be just us two having breakfast alone. It will be fun.” He grins, strolling over to grab my hand and drag me deeper into the kitchen. His eyes sparkle with excitement, like this is the best idea he’s ever had.
I reluctantly go with him, taking my seat in front of the island. As he turns back to the stove, I study him, my eyes traveling across his bare torso, admiring the way his muscles ripple, the stunning artwork on his body shifting with his movements. What exactly did I do to deserve him?
Nothing , whispers that insidious voice. This isn’t meant for you.
Michael chooses that exact moment to glance back at me. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
The question is casual, but there’s nothing casual about Michael. He catalogs every expression that crosses my face, files away every shift in my mood like a detective gathering evidence.
I hesitate, then go for honesty. “I’m thinking I don’t deserve this… that I don’t deserve you.”
“What?” He immediately abandons whatever he’s cooking, then closes the distance between us in two strides. “You need to get that shit out of your head. Right the fuck now.”
I can’t help but chuckle at the authoritative note in his voice. “I wish it worked like that. That I could just command it to go away and it would. Just snap my fingers and poof, it’s gone.” I snap my fingers for emphasis, giving him a helpless shrug.
He narrows his eyes. “Alright. How about this then? I don’t give a damn whether you deserve me or not. I know I don’t deserve you. But I saw you, I wanted you, and by God, I got you. I wanted a baby to tie us together, and I got it too—along with something even better. A true love in you.”
My heart pretty much melts at his words, the ice that’s been forming around it these past few days cracking under the heat of his declaration. I tilt my head up, and he doesn’t waste a second leaning down to take my lips, tongue invading my mouth aggressively like he’s mad I’m second-guessing myself. Like he can kiss the doubt right out of me.
I’m breathless when he breaks the kiss and turns back to the pot that’s bubbling ominously on the stove. “Breakfast will be ready soon,” he assures me, and I nod automatically, my lips still tingling from his kiss.
But something about his words begins to niggle in my brain. I chase the thought, trying to identify what about his declaration is setting off alarm bells in the back of my skull.
My smile fades as I keep trying to make sense of it, but nothing clicks.
Before I can pin it down, he places a bowl of thick, steaming chicken stew in front of me, alongside a hunk of bread so soft it looks like a cloud. Drool pools at the corner of my lips as I stare at the mouthwatering meal. It might be too heavy for breakfast, but my pregnant body doesn’t give a damn. “You made this?” I ask in amazement, breathing in the rich aroma.
He smiles proudly as he takes the seat across from me. “Gracie made the bread and prepped the chicken, but the stew is all me.”
I tear off a piece of bread, dip it into the stew, and take a bite. Holy shit. It’s amazing. I moan, savoring the explosion of flavors. “This is insanely good.”
“You like it?” He watches me take another bite, ignoring his own food.
“I love it!” I exclaim around a mouthful of bread and stew. He blows out a breath, and only then does he start eating his own food.
We make light conversation throughout the meal, and bit by bit, my dark thoughts start to ease up. Who cares if I deserve him or not? I have him, and that’s all that matters.
After breakfast, I get up to clear the dishes, but Michael shoos me away and loads them into the dishwasher himself. I sit by the island, watching him when it hits me—what’s been bothering me since his declaration.
“Michael?”
“Hmm?” He turns back to face me, running a hand through his hair, his expression lazy and content.
“What did you mean earlier—when you said you wanted a baby to tie us together and you got it?” I frown, replaying his words in my head. There’s no way he could have planned it. I was on birth control, for crying out loud. It was just dumb luck I got pregnant, a one-in-a-hundred chance... Right?
His eyes focus on mine, suddenly sharp and assessing. “Does it matter anymore?” he asks after a while.
Does it matter? Logically, it doesn’t. I’m already pregnant, already in love with the child growing inside me, so how it happened shouldn’t matter. But something pushes me to nod. “Yes, I’d like to know what you meant. Please.”
He sighs, a sound that carries a resignation that makes my skin crawl with foreboding. “Remember that night you lied and said you were on your period?”
I have to think back—our life together has been such a whirlwind of violence and passion that individual moments blur together. Then it clicks: the night Elira brought me the birth control pills. A cold, clammy feeling spreads through me as the uneasy feeling from the past few days rushes back full force. “Yeah…” I manage.
“Well, I checked the footage and saw you and Elira. She didn’t come back for her purse at all—she gave you birth control pills.”
My heart stutters. So he knew about them all along? I wipe my sweaty palms down my pants, trying to maintain a facade of calm. “Yes,” I admit. “I called her and asked for them.”
“I saw where you hid the pills, so I took them, flushed the originals down the toilet, and replaced them with placebos. You weren’t going to use them anyway, I thought. But… you did, didn’t you?”
I can tell from his tone that he asked a question, but my hearing fizzled out at the point he said he flushed my birth control pills down the toilet and replaced them with placebos.
A high-pitched ringing fills my ears, and my vision blurs, the room spinning around me as the earth seems to tilt beneath my feet For a moment, I think I might faint.
“You–you what?” I ask in a horrified whisper. He flushed my pills? I’ve been taking the placebo all along? He forced this pregnancy on me! As if feeling my distress, my baby turns in my belly and kicks gently, grounding me just enough to keep from blacking out.
Michael’s lips press into a thin line as he takes in my expression. “Gianna, you need to calm down,” he says, his tone maddeningly reasonable. “It was in the past. It all worked out perfectly.”
I stare at him in complete disbelief, my chest beginning to heave with my breaths. “Calm down? It all worked out perfectly?” I repeat, my voice shaking. I’m not even sure who I’m looking at right now. Have I ever really known him at all? “How could you do this to me? You trapped me!”
“I loved you. I love you,” he corrects, taking a step towards me. “I did what I thought would keep you by my side.”
“And it didn’t matter that I told you I wasn’t ready for a child?” My fingers grip the edge of the island so hard my knuckles turn white. I slide off my chair, desperate to put space between us. When he takes another step forward, I raise my hand like a shield. “No, stay there.”
He doesn’t even look sorry. There’s no guilt on his face—nothing. Maybe I could feel differently if he at least looked remorseful, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t see what he did that was so completely, unforgivably wrong.
He really is a fucking psychopath.
“I–I need to be alone,” I choke out and turn away from him, walking as fast as my six-month belly allows to my old bedroom. I slam the door shut behind me.
I haven’t been in here in months, and it feels foreign to me now. But I can’t bear going to the room we’ve been sharing.
He betrayed me. Again.
God, I’m such an idiot. How na?ve was I to think everything was just… perfect? The more I think about how stupid and gullible I was, the hotter my face burns with humiliation. He has a camera in here— hell, there are cameras everywhere . Has he been watching me all along? I saw the evidence in that shrine of a photography room, but I only looked at it through love-tinted glasses.
I fucking took those pills every single day, choking them down even when the bitter medicine stuck in my throat, because I didn’t want to get pregnant before I was ready. And he knew that. He knew , and he made sure it happened anyway.
An invisible vise clamps around my chest, squeezing until I can’t breathe. Nausea pushes at the back of my throat, and I start to hyperventilate.
I can’t get enough air.
I slap my hands over my chest, then freeze when a horrifying thought hits me—even now he might be watching. Where else does he have cameras? The walk-in closet? The bathroom?
My skin crawls at the thought, and I shudder violently. Is this how an animal in a zoo feels? A bug under a microscope? Have I ever had a private moment at all in this house?
I need to get out of here.
I can’t stay here in this room, this house, with him. The baby kicks me hard, and I gasp, doubling over, gripping my belly. Shit, shit, shit.
My eyes dart around the room and snag on an empty paper bag on my study desk. I lunge for it, pressing it to my mouth and breathing rapidly—in, out, in, out—until my heart rate slows and oxygen returns to my starved lungs.
When my panic subsides to a manageable level, my brain kicks back into gear. If I want to leave without raising suspicion, I can’t take anything with me. If he sees me packing, he’ll know something’s up. And the last thing I need is him suspecting anything. There’s no telling what he might do.
What if he throws me in that prison again?
There’s a soft knock on the door, and I just know it’s him—I can sense his presence through the wood. Fury boils through me, but I force myself to keep breathing in and out.
The door handle turns—I forgot to lock it, stupid, stupid —and Michael steps into the room. “Gianna, I–” He stops short when he sees me by the desk, breathing with the aid of a paper bag. “Are you okay?”
I try to relax my posture, but my entire being is quaking with suppressed rage and fear. I manage a stiff nod, not trusting myself to speak without screaming or sobbing.
He hesitates, eyes darting over me, then sighs. “I just got a call from work. The site we launched last night just crashed, and I need to go fix it with my engineers. We’ll continue this conversation when I get back, okay?”
As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing more to say. He wanted me pregnant, and he got his wish by deceiving me. I’d be a fool to stay here. But I give him another stiff nod.
He studies me like he can read my thoughts, then sighs again. “I did the right thing for us. Once you get past your anger, you’ll see it.”
This motherfucker.
I take an aggressive breath in, clenching my teeth so I don’t curse him out. He doesn’t deserve to see my reactions. He lingers a moment longer, like he’s hoping I’ll say something, then finally nods. “I’ve called Gracie and the guards back. They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” And with that he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
Right. He sent them away because he wanted us to have some time alone. If I want to leave this place, I only have the few minutes it will take them to arrive. The window is impossibly narrow.
Ever since the incident with Aunt Marie, there are always two or more guards around the house, making sure nothing like that happens again. It used to make me feel safe, but now just thinking about it feels suffocating.
He has me trapped.
I drop the paper bag on the desk and calmly make my way to the bathroom. For a brief, desperate moment, I consider calling Elira, but I shut that down fast. She’s my friend, sure, but she’s Maximo’s wife—and his loyalty belongs first and foremost to Michael.
If I’m going to run away, I’ll have to do it myself. I did it once and stayed hidden for months. I can do it again.
I take a quick shower, then calmly exit the bathroom and head to the walk-in closet where I dress like I normally would—in a pair of stretchy maternity leggings and a baggy shirt. I pull my hair up into a tight bun, then dig through my jewelry box, my mind racing.
This time, I need to have a better plan—something sustainable. I can’t wash floors or bartend with my baby. Our baby. No , my baby now.
Not caring anymore how it might look to Michael if he’s watching me, I dump all the jewelry he’s given me the past few months into my purse. I’ll need to sell them to survive the coming weeks.
With my purse on my shoulder, I walk out of the closet. Out of my room.
Out of his house and out of his life.