Chapter 32 Saoirse
SAOIRSE
It’s hot. It’s too hot. Did someone suddenly turn on the heating or something?
Groaning makes me feel slightly better but rolling over in search of a cool side to the pillow doesn’t.
All the heat building up underneath the duvet quickly becomes unbearable so I kick it off, much to Bruno’s surprise and slight amusement.
“Is that an invitation?” he jokes quietly while setting down my tray of food.
“Don’t even,” I mutter. “Can you turn the heating down? I’m boiling.”
Bruno frowns as he lays out the spoon to help with my soup. “Heating? It hasn’t changed but I can take a look—” He trails off when he finally looks up and our eyes meet.
“What?” Propping up on one elbow, I glare at him not because of any ill feeling, just because he’s here when I’m hot and frustrated.
“You’re flushed.”
“Yeah, because it’s fucking hot.”
“No, like…” Suddenly he moves forward and presses his amazing cold fingers against my forehead. I immediately grasp his wrist with a groan and hold him there.
“Oh, my God, your hand is so cold.”
“Saoirse, you’re burning up.”
“Yeah, because I’m—”
“No, like fever burning up. How do you feel?”
Our eyes meet again and I shrug. “I feel fine. Just too hot.”
“You were sick yesterday as well.”
“Because the sandwich you brought was foul.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me and he stands suddenly while holding out his hand. “Come on.”
“What?”
“Come on. I’m taking you out of here for fresh air.”
My cheek distantly throbs from the strike he gave me the last time I left this room so I hesitate. I’m hot and grumpy and not in the mood to be struck again. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Being cooped up in here for two months or so isn’t good and you’re clearly coming down with something. So come on, I’m taking you to get some fresh air.”
He meant it.
After taking his hand, Bruno leads me out of my cell and up multiple flights of winding stairs that grow more and more exhausting by the flight.
Just as I’m about to complain, he pushes open a heavy door and the most glorious cold breeze washes gently over my overheated face and body.
I close my eyes in bliss and allow him to guide me until a railing brushes against my bare forearm.
Opening my eyes, my stomach suddenly lurches.
We’re higher up than I anticipated and a great ocean spreads out away from me, twinkling like a thousand diamonds under the clear moon above. Directly beneath us are sharp, twisted rocks that crash against one another and above me is a gigantic light slowly rotating.
“We’re in a lighthouse?” I gaze upward with my mouth open while Bruno’s hand tightens briefly around mine.
“Yeah. Across the bay there—” He points behind me to where the large docks are visible in the distance.
“My father has me monitoring the shipments that pass through there as well as some of the smaller boats that don’t require a full docking.
So when I insisted on staying with you and he wanted you on one of his properties, he put you here. ”
“Wow. What a dick.” Gripping the railing, I close my eyes and breathe deeply as sea air floods my lungs and eases the constant tension that’s burned in my chest since I first arrived. “The water smells amazing though, holy shit.”
Each deep breath feels like my first ever breath and the cool air is wonderful against my burning skin. It’s something so small and yet when I look at Bruno, gratefulness swells in my heart. “Thank you.”
He nods but his brows remain knitted. “I still think I should get you a doctor or something. You don’t look right.”
“Like your father would allow that,” I scoff. But his words make me concerned.
Is it my baby? Being cooped up in here hasn’t given me access to any of the regular medications my doctor wanted me to take, nor have I been in a stress-free environment.
Keeping it a secret this long has only worked because my pregnancy is cryptic but I have no idea how much longer that will last. Eventually, there’ll be no hiding that I’m pregnant.
“Come on,” Bruno says, guiding me back inside. “Let’s get you some real food.”
Instead of escorting me back to my cell, Bruno leads me to where he’s been staying on the second floor of the lighthouse. A far cry from the underground basement I’ve been kept in.
It’s a modest room with a small bookshelf in one corner next to an old chair, a simple dining table set up and a small kitchen. Up two steps at the far end is a door leading to a bedroom and an adjacent door leading to a bathroom. Rather cozy, all things considered.
“This is where you’ve been living?”
“Yup.” Bruno leads me toward the chair but just as I get there, weakness steals down my legs and I nearly sink to the floor. “Shit, hold on.” Without a word, Bruno scoops me up into his arms and carries me the rest of the way.
Being in his arms after so long sends my heart racing for a completely different reason.
Since learning how his sister’s life remains in Domenico’s crosshairs, it’s been much easier to face him.
I understand his predicament and with this long to think over everything, I even understand his desperation for acceptance from his father.
I think I would do anything to have my own father recognize me once more.
“Easy,” Bruno says as he settles me on the couch.
“I’m fine,” I insist, although without the coolness of the wind to keep it at bay, the heat is returning.
“I know. You stay there.” Bruno vanishes and returns with a bottle of water, then he heads into the bathroom, where the sound of rushing water follows.
Over the course of the next hour, he runs me a bath and cooks a delicious pasta dish while I soak all my aching, tired muscles in the old tub.
Eating is just as relaxing as it’s the first warm, cooked meal that I’ve had since I arrived.
Everything else definitely came out of a packet or a tin.
“Saoirse,” Bruno says after our plates are cleared away. “I hope you know how sorry I am that I caused this.”
“I understand.”
“I know how much you hate and I can never— wait, what?” His mouth falls open slightly and he stares at me with that puppy-dog look I remember from our first night together.
“I said I understand.”
“Wow, you really are sick.”
“Fuck you,” I scoffs.
“Sorry, I’m just… I didn’t ever expect you to say that and sound like you mean it.”
I run my fingers along a couple of grooves in the wood and nod.
“I… would do anything for Cian. I would also do anything to get my father to recognize me again. I’m not saying I forgive you or anything but knowing the truth, the whole truth…
understand. Making the best out of a terrible situation is painful, I know.
I… I’m just saying I understand.” It’s painful to say because admitting that I understand also comes with admitting that maybe I would do the exact same if our positions were switched.
Maybe if I’d been more open to listening to him in the beginning, or more sympathetic to his desperation with his father then this would be different.
So many maybes.
“Saoirse… I don’t know what to say.” Bruno looks a second away from bursting into tears but they don’t come because a second later, several sharp knocks at the door make both of us jump.
“Shit,” he hisses. He stands just as the door opens and two guards storm into the room looking furious. That fury turns to a strange greed when they spot me sitting at Bruno’s table with damp hair.
“Oh, you’re in for it now Bruno,” states one man with glasses. “He ain’t gonna forgive this twice.”
“Wait—” Bruno starts forward but the glasses man immediately pulls a gun on him.
“Ah, ah. Not one more step.”
“Come here, bitch. I bet they’ll sell you again, half price for the trouble the two of you caused.
” He surges toward me and grabs me by the arm before I can react.
As he hauls me upward, the same faintness that washed over me earlier crashes through my skull again with a flare-up of the heat burning inside me.
Maybe Bruno was right. I need a doctor.
Something’s wrong.
“Wait,” I gasp, pulling back from him and struggling to gain a grip on the wooden floor in my bare feet. “Hold on!”
“Let go of her!” Bruno roars, and he lunges forward, but he’s immediately held back by the handgun pressed to his chest by the asshole in glasses.
“What did I fucking say?” he sneered. “The rules were clear. Bitch stays in her cell until Domenico’s happy with your work.”
“She’s sick!” he snaps, his chest having. “She needed air and—”
“Aww, she’s sick?” The man holding onto me wrenches me closer to him and in a cold, terrifying blow, his fist sinks into my stomach and forces all the air out of my lungs.
“No!” I scream as terror grips me like a vise and a strange, cold sensation trickles down my spine. “Wait, wait, I’m pregnant!”
The entire room freezes and falls deathly quiet.
You could have heard a shell break on the rocks lining the shore below.
Then Bruno moves faster than I’ve ever seen him move in his life.
He snatches the gun from the glasses man, twisting his arm so viciously that bone snaps and he screeches—a screech that’s cut off by Bruno shooting him twice in the chest then immediately turning the gun on the man holding me.
Two more bullets fire and hit my captor in his chest and throat.
Warm blood sprays over my face as he stumbles backward and Bruno shoots him twice more. His body thuds to the ground with a deathly finality and silence falls once more.
Then Bruno is next to me with his hand against my cheek. “Good trick,” he says, panting faintly.
Fat tears well in my eyes. “It’s not a trick,” I whisper. “I really am pregnant.”
All color fades from Bruno’s face. “Wh—what? But we never…”
“I was pregnant before I came here.”
“But you…” He looks down at my flat stomach, confusion etched across his face. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a cryptic pregnancy. The baby’s resting really far back.”
“Oh, my God.” Bruno’s palm trembles against my cheek. “Why… why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“How could I?” The tears roll down my cheeks. “I didn’t trust you, I thought Cian was dead, and I didn’t want to be kept alive like some sow so I was hoping we’d either die or I’d be rescued. I had no reason to trust you!”
“And now?” The disbelief remains in his eyes as he glances between my eyes and my belly.
“Now… Now, I guess I trust you and I’m not so keen on the whole dying part. I want us to get out of here. All of us.”
“Holy shit… fuck.” Bruno turns away to eye the bodies and then looks back at me.
“I was supposed to lay low… fuck. It’s okay.
I can deal with this. I’ll have to… okay.
Okay. I have a plan. You stay here and I’ll be back, okay?
Lock the door, don’t let anyone in.” He presses the gun into my shaking hands and cups my cheek once more. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be back.”
“If you’re not,” I gasp, struggling to breathe through the rising tidal wave of tears, “there’s something you should know.”
“What?”
“You… you’re the father, Bruno. It’s your baby.”