CHAPTER 37 - RED
CHAPTER
Red
PERCHED ON THE EDGE of the bed, I continue arguing with myself about whether handing Arianna that pregnancy test was the right thing to do. I don’t want to hurt her, and I think all I’ve achieved is forcing her into a corner to discover a truth she’d rather not know until her body reveals it.
Liam would have a fit if he knew I’d stopped off at the chemist on route to the car swap, but I had to. Whether I should have actually given that test to Arianna though, I’m beginning to doubt.
For my own sanity, as well as hers.
My eyes track to the closed door of the en-suite bathroom. Arianna’s been in there ages.
Why a house this small thought it sensible to cut into the limited space of this bedroom I don’t know, but I’m grateful for the small amount of privacy it offers now we have another guest.
And during the small amount of time available to judge, a guest who seems hardly stable enough to trust with what’s been placed on her shoulders.
Arianna wasn’t exaggerating when she said her sister was young. Not so much in years, but in attitude. Maria Galvatore is like a child who has been cocooned in an ivory tower.
I focus on the en-suite door, my heart sinking further detecting what I think might be crying.
Fuck. I’ve made everything worse.
I don’t want Arianna to be pregnant with another man’s child.
Of course I don’t. If anyone’s, it should be my child inside her.
But I meant what I said. If she is pregnant, however much it crucifies me, I will not falter.
I’ll somehow bypass the child she carries has Bristoni genes and focus only on that the baby is hers.
No one need ever know the child is not mine.
If someone had said to me that I’d make a call such as this, I’d have laughed them out of the room. Either that or killed them for their audacity.
Redmond Bateman taking on a child as his own belonging to an enemy who raped his wife?
I don’t think so.
But that was before I met Arianna and before she became my world. Whatever is part of her is also part of me. However it came about is irrelevant.
The buzzing of my mobile pulls my focus from the bathroom door. I snatch up my phone from the bedside table crammed into a tiny amount of space between the bed and the wall.
Cal – 23:04 24 Nov
Address confirmed
They r in there
A wisp of relief soothes my burning mind. We have confirmation, so now we can act.
I quickly tap out a response.
Good.
Get sec team on standby ready 2 watch the women
Date TBC
Pressing send, I purse my lips. Now I know where Matteo and Luca are for definite, we can move on them.
The team I’ve picked specially to watch Arianna and Maria needs to be ready to be here on site.
I’ll set the date of when that will be and when Matteo and Luca are on their way to hell tomorrow when I’ve. ..
The en-suite door opening stops me in my tracks, and I quickly chuck my phone back on the bedside table.
Arianna stands in the bathroom doorway in a dressing gown, her beautiful face pinched and tear-stained.
My senses bolt into overdrive. What the fuck have I done?
“Princess?” I get to my feet, haunted by Arianna’s bottom lip trembling as she attempts to speak but fails.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I move towards her as she stares at me, her eyes glistening with tears. “It’s okay, princess. We can still do this, I promise you.” My hatred for Luca Bristoni ramps up several more notches to push it over the top of the scale. “Everything will be fine. I meant what I said and...”
“I’m not pregnant.” Her voice is faint, barely audible.
I freeze. “What?” Did I hear that right? “Did you say you’re not pregnant?”
Arianna nods, and a strange, hysterical giggle leaves her mouth. “That’s right. I’m not. I’m not pregnant.”
Before I can do or say anything else, she falls into my chest and clings to me, her whole body shaking. I wrap my arms around her, my confusion along with relief, swirling. “Then why are you so upset?”
Pulling away, she wipes her face with the back of her hand and pulls me to the bed where she sits down on the edge. “Because I’m relieved. So fucking relieved!”
Just for once, I don’t feel the need to pull her up over her bad language and instead, I smile - a genuinely wide smile. Her relief is contagious.
“There’s more.” Arianna’s nails dig into my hand, but she can rip my skin clean off and make me bleed. I don’t give a fuck.
“While I sat waiting for the results, it came to me. I didn’t believe it at first and kept questioning myself. I’m not sure about half the stuff that happened, but things keep coming back to me more and more, and this came back clear as day and...”
“Whoa! Slow down!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Arianna fans her face with her hand. “Fuck, I can barely breathe! Yes, things keep coming back to me - snippets and all that. Now I know. And it’s real. I remember about Luca. I remember everything!”
I tense, not wanting to listen to the technicolor details.
“He didn’t do it.”
I blink. “Didn’t do what?”
Arianna laughs, but not with mirth. “Luca. He didn’t rape me.”
I can’t help my hand clenching into a fist at that word. “What do you mean?” Is she saying she consented?
“Luca didn’t have sex with me. He couldn’t!” Arianna shakes her head. “I remember it all now. He... he touched me. He touched me everywhere, but...”
“Arianna...” My throat constricts. I don’t want to hear this. I can’t hear the fine details of what that bastard did to her – to my princess.
“Luca tried to have sex with me but couldn’t.” Arianna’s eyes are violet once more.
“Are you saying this prick that your brother wants to populate their ‘order’ with can’t get it up?” I don’t know whether to laugh with malice or cry with relief. “The cunt is impotent? Are you sure?”
Arianna shakes her head. “Impotent, no. He used to... you know... over me, but he couldn’t do anything else.
He’s crazy, Red. I told you that the pureblood thing is Matteo’s vision.
Luca’s thing is me. He pretended to Matteo that he’d had sex with me, but he hadn’t.
Nearly, but not quite.” She shakes her head in revulsion.
“He used to speak to me even when he thought I was out cold. He talked to me like me and you are talking now - saying shit like, ‘I don’t want to do it like this. Not when you’re tied up and drugged.
It will be different when we’re married and things are normal’.
He said things would be good when ‘we are together properly like destiny promised us’. He said all of that.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter. “And Matteo didn’t know?”
“No. Well, I can’t see how. Luca made him leave the room when... Out of the two of them, it’s Matteo who’s the real danger, not Luca. Luca is just deluded.”
I stop from punching the bedroom wall. I should be relieved. And I am. But Arianna is wrong about one thing. Yes, Matteo is definitely the dangerous one, but Luca being so deluded makes him equally dangerous, if not more so. Especially to Arianna.
“Aren’t... aren’t you pleased? I know I am.”
“Of course I am!” I pull Arianna into my arms. “But I also know it’s now even more imperative to kill them quickly.”