Chapter 25 Bridget
brIDGET
The doctor's appointment goes better than expected. Everything looks good with the baby, and the doctor is someone I’m much more comfortable with than the woman I saw the first time, someone I looked up and researched and chose myself.
For the first time in weeks, I feel like I can breathe normally again when it comes to thinking about the baby.
I'm actually smiling as I walk out of the medical building, my hand resting protectively over my still-flat stomach. Caesar will be pleased when I tell him. I realize, too, that I’m looking forward to sharing the news with him. To talking to him about our baby and everything the doctor told me.
The feeling is new. I’m afraid to look at it too closely, in case it shatters. It feels fragile. I don’t trust that we can make something out of this, especially when I don’t know for sure how he feels about me—only that he wants to try.
Because of the baby? Because of his heir? Because he wants to continue to thumb his nose at Konstantin and everyone who didn’t want us married? Because the sex we have is the best either of us has ever experienced—at least, I know it is, and he says it is.
Or because he feels what I’m feeling… what I’m afraid to put a name to?
Why am I even thinking about this? I told Caesar that I wanted to try, but in the bright light of day, away from the little bubble we made for ourselves yesterday, I’m still not sure how that could ever work.
Yesterday made me wish things were different.
It made me feel like Caesar was telling the truth—that he wants me, not some idealized version of me that fits in with the other women of his world.
That he’d rather have me—messy, imperfect, a little rough around the edges—than a polished diamond of a wife like Isabella.
But that doesn’t account for all the challenges we’d face. The danger that exists. The fact that his child would be raised in a world where crime and violence are the currency of everything that happens here.
I don’t know how to square that away with how much I want him.
The four security guards who came with me follow me out of the building to the black SUV parked at the curb.
I’m slowly becoming accustomed to the routine of having them here, even if I don’t know how I could ever be entirely comfortable with needing protection everywhere I go.
Another issue with ever making things work between Caesar and me—the fact that I’ll never have complete privacy again outside of our home.
I’ll never go anywhere alone again if we stay together.
Maybe even if we don’t. I wouldn’t put it past Caesar to have security watching me for the rest of my life, even without my knowledge.
I slide into the back seat of the SUV in the center row, two men behind me and two up front. I try not to think about how claustrophobic it makes me feel, or how, every time I get into a car with security now, I remember Marco’s bloody face and the crumpled car from the first attack.
I should probably get a therapist. One more thing to add to the list of things I need now that I never thought I did before Caesar came into my life.
I let out a breath, leaning back against the seat. At least we’ll be back to the penthouse soon. I’m tired from the appointment, and—
The van comes out of nowhere, ramming into the side of our SUV with enough force to send us spinning. My seatbelt cuts into my chest as we slam into a parked car, and I taste blood where I've bitten my tongue.
"What the hell—" the driver starts to say, but his words are cut off by the sound of gunfire.
The man in the passenger seat is already reaching for his weapon, but there are too many of them.
Men in black clothing pour out of the van and two other vehicles that have boxed us in, vehicles I didn’t see until right now, as my eyes refocus and I shake my head to clear the dizziness.
The windows of our SUV spiderweb as bullets hit the reinforced glass.
I duck down, a scream escaping my lips as I slide off the seat and into the well between it and the driver’s side.
"Stay down!" One of the guards yells, but I'm already crouched as low as I can get, my arms wrapped protectively around my stomach.
The gunfight doesn’t last long. My four bodyguards do their best—or at least it sounds like it, from the rattle of gunfire all around me and the shouts, but they’re outnumbered.
I can see that as I look up in horror, seeing blood spattered over the windows and the body of one of my guards slumped across the passenger seat, as if he were trying to get back in to get something.
There’s blood all over his face and hands.
My door is yanked open, and rough hands grab me before I can even scream. Panic wells up in my stomach as I realize that it’s happening again, flashbacks to the first attack threatening to paralyze me. I can feel the terror rising up in my throat, too quickly for me to process it.
But I’m not letting these assholes, whoever they are, take me easily.
"No!" I fight against them, kicking and clawing, but there are too many.
Too many hands, pinning mine to my sides, grabbing my ankles, one digging into the back of my neck as I try to headbutt a man with a balaclava over his face.
A cloth bag goes over my head, blocking out the light, and I'm lifted bodily from the SUV.
"Careful with her," someone says in thickly accented English—Russian, it sounds like. "The boss wants her in one piece."
They throw me into what feels like another van, and I hit the metal floor hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
So much for careful. I bite back a whimper, my hand pressed protectively to my stomach.
I don’t know if they know I’m pregnant, and I’m not sure if saying so would make it worse or better.
If they want me in one piece, maybe better. Maybe it matters that I’m pregnant.
Once again, I’m aware of how little I know about this world—about how to protect myself in it. I don’t know how to manipulate these men to keep myself safe. I don’t know what to say or not to say, what to lie about, and what to admit. I don’t know what to keep secret.
I hear the doors slam shut, and then we're moving, the vehicle lurching as it pulls away from the scene. I feel hands on my wrists and ankles again, securing them with what feels like zip ties.
I force myself to stay calm, to think. My phone was in my purse, which is probably still in the SUV.
I panicked and didn’t think to grab it before they got me, and I’m mentally kicking myself now, knowing Caesar could have used it to track me.
Although—even if I had it, they'd just take it away.
Probably would have disposed of it before it would have done Caesar any good.
But he’ll know something’s wrong when I don’t come home. Surely the security was supposed to check in. Maybe one of them managed to call him in the middle of the fray.
He'll come looking for me.
He has to.
The bag over my head makes it hard to breathe, and the van smells like motor oil and cigarettes.
The former is almost soothing, even if it makes me ache for home, but the latter makes me want to cough and suck in air, which is the worst possible thing I could do with so little to breathe already.
I can hear at least three different voices speaking in what sounds like Russian, but I can't understand what they're saying.
“Should we drug her?” one says a moment later in English, and my stomach clenches. I know he’s trying to scare me.
“No,” another responds. “Boss wants to talk to her when we get there."
“Did we get all her security?”
“All four dead.”
They want me to know that everyone with me died. I feel tears prick at my eyes. Once again, men are dead trying to protect me. They signed up for that life, sure—but I feel responsible. I’m always going to feel responsible for something like that.
I test the zip ties around my wrists, trying to see if there's any give. There isn't much, but I might be able to work them loose if I have enough time. The ones around my ankles are tighter. I have no idea what I would do about those.
The ride feels like it takes forever, but it's probably only thirty minutes or so before we finally stop.
I'm hauled out of the van and marched across what sounds like gravel crunching underneath my sneakers, then up some steps. A door opens, and it feels too warm, like the autumn sun that’s pleasant outside has been baking this place relentlessly.
They push me into a chair and finally remove the bag from my head.
I blink in the sudden light, trying to get my bearings.
We're in what looks like a warehouse office—concrete floors, fluorescent lights, and a few pieces of cheap furniture.
There are windows, but they're too high up and too dirty to see through clearly.
Three men stand around me, all of them armed. They're young, maybe mid-twenties, with harsh expressions on their faces—or the attempt at them, anyway. They look nervous, constantly checking their watches and glancing toward the door.
"Boss should be here soon," one of them says to the others. Still with that Russian accent. My stomach clenches. Could Konstantin have gotten angry enough with Caesar’s choice to get rid of me? Is this the threat to Caesar’s life that Isabella warned me about?
My mind spins with possibilities—that this is a gambit on Konstantin’s part to have Caesar agree to divorce me so I’ll live.
That they’re going to kill me so Caesar has no choice but to marry the woman they want him to.
That Caesar is going to be dragged in here too, and Konstantin will arrive to kill us both.
Every over-the-top action movie and suspense plot I’ve ever seen or read plays through my head, and what I can imagine is bad enough that I hope the reality isn’t worse.