58. Isabella
CHAPTER 58
Isabella
I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet. My eyes ached from the tears that rained down my cheeks; everything felt swollen.
“Breathe,” Cristian said softly. I could feel the weight and heat of him beside me, but his voice sounded so far away.
I forced myself to look at him. “You knew Sienna,” I said. “You knew that she and I—” My stomach rolled sickeningly, and bile splashed at the back of my throat. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Cristian gave me a saddened look. “It wasn’t my place to do that.”
My eyebrows wrinkled inward. “Not your place?” I shouldn’t be so hurt that Lorenzo’s people had allowed him to lie to me; they were his people, not mine.
I didn’t have any people. I couldn’t even claim my own mother and sister. They had left me alone with a fucking monster. My hand came to cup my baby bump. I’m not alone , I told myself. I would never be alone again.
“We all stopped seeing Sienna a long time ago,” Cristian said. “You are different from her in so many ways.”
I shook my head. “Stop,” I pleaded. For all of his training in the seminary on comforting people, he really sucked at it.
“My brother hasn’t been this happy in a long time, and that’s all down to you.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Since Sienna’s death, right? He’s been so miserable that none of you have even been allowed to say her name.”
Cristian nodded, but when he went to take my hand, I snatched it back. “You didn’t know him before,” he said, hands hanging pathetically in the air for a moment before lowering them again. “He used to be so free with his smiles, but after Sienna died, it was like that part of him died too. But with you…”
“I’m bringing him back to life?” I asked. “He found himself a spare, so everything is okay again?”
Cristian’s pained expression was even more pronounced now, and where I might have been moved to comfort him in return before, I felt nothing now. The tips of my fingers were cold, and it was spreading up my arms. Maybe this was shock. How much trauma could one person experience in a lifetime before there was irreparable damage?
I looked right behind Cristian’s head. One lamp had survived my tirade. I glanced from it to the man making the worst attempt at comfort ever , and back again. Moving on instinct, I reached for the lamp and, taking advantage of Cristian’s surprise over the sudden movement, I brought it down on his head.
The hit broke the skin on his scalp, and his hair became wet with blood, and I watched his eyes go hazy before they rolled back in his head. Cristian collapsed forward. I almost let him fall to the floor, but I couldn’t be that unkind, especially given that I probably gave him a nasty concussion.
When I shoved him so that he was flopped across the couch—feeling only the slightest bit of vindication that he was staining Sienna’s precious loveseat—I felt a painful tug low in my belly. I gasped and grabbed at my bump, holding it until the sensation eased.
Once I could move again without that flash of pain, I ran for the kitchen. I needed keys, and I needed to get the hell out of here before Lorenzo came back. All of the keys to the vehicles in the garage were on a hanging key rack right beside the kitchen door. I grabbed one that didn’t have a name like Rolls Royce or Maserati before I shoved my feet into a pair of tennis shoes that were beside the door. They were Amalia’s, and they were too small, but I could make it work until I got back to my apartment.
I didn’t have any identification. Lorenzo had taken my purse months ago, and I hadn’t gotten it back, but I had my birth certificate and social security card, plus a little emergency money in my dresser. So long as nothing had been ransacked, I had enough to start running. I would need to get a new ID eventually, and I would have to find a way to make money, but I was resourceful.
I just needed to get as far from here as possible with the least amount of people knowing about it. I refused to drag anyone into my mess; I would figure it out as I went.
I glanced back at the kitchen that I had come to regard with such fondness. It was the heart of the Vitali home. I bid the room a silent goodbye and headed out into the night.
Luckily, I had grabbed the key fob for a nondescript sedan that I had never seen anyone drive. I knew that as soon as Lorenzo came home, I would be on a time limit. I had to move quickly and judicially if I had any hope of escaping with my life.
Steering down the long driveway, I steeled my nerves and did everything that I could to drive at a reasonable speed. Getting pulled over right now was not an option.
Halfway to my apartment that tugging pain was back in my abdomen, and tears were stinging at my eyes. “It’s okay baby,” I murmured, rubbing at my belly as I navigated the streets. “We’re going to be just fine.”
With each painful jolt, my resolve waned more and more. What the hell was I thinking? Not only was Lorenzo going to kill me outright, my chest ached at the idea of never seeing him again. What he had done was impossible to get my head around…but then there was that hurt that had nothing to do with physical pain.
When had I fallen in love?
What the hell was wrong with me?
By the time I pulled into my apartment building’s parking garage, I had half convinced myself to go back to the estate and beg Lorenzo’s forgiveness.
The walk from the garage to the elevator was unbearably long. I could turn around and go back to the car.
The ride up to my floor seemed to happen at a crawl. I whimpered at the throbbing between my legs now. “This isn’t happening,” I murmured to myself. “It’s just stress and cramping. You learned this; it’s totally normal at this stage in my pregnancy.”
I dragged my feet in the hallway to my apartment door. Maybe Lorenzo hadn’t come home yet; maybe I could still go back.
My belly cramped hard, and it stole the breath from my lungs. I reached my door and sent silent thanks to the universe that I had a keyed entry. I put in the door code and heard the lock click open.
The air in the apartment was musty and stale, and I stepped into the living room with so much fear choking me that I was afraid that I might faint. Just go check in the bathroom , I told myself. You’re panicking over nothing .
I flicked the lights on and yelped. My father was sitting on my couch, waiting for me. “Hi, honey,” he said, in that oh-so-charming voice of his, and he pushed himself to his feet.
I squeaked as my muscles seized, and I felt a gush between my legs.
No. Please.
Lorenzo .