Chapter 21
ELENA
Four weeks later.
The air smelled clean.
A sharp contrast to the damp, suffocating stink of that concrete cell that still lingered in my memory like a stain.
I stood hunched over the bathroom sink in the guest wing of Vincenzo’s estate, both hands braced against the cool marble.
My reflection stared back at me.
Paler. Thinner.
Still healing.
But alive.
My gaze dropped slowly to the counter.
To the three plastic sticks lined up in perfect, damning order.
They looked harmless.
Small. Insignificant.
But they might as well have been loaded weapons pointed straight at my chest.
Two pink lines.
On every single one.
Clear. Unmistakable.
Pregnant.
The word echoed in my head, louder with every passing second.
I’m Pregnant.
My stomach dropped violently, a cold, hollow sensation opening up beneath my ribs.
No.
No, no, no—
My fingers tightened against the edge of the sink until my knuckles turned white.
My heart began to race.
Fast.
Vincenzo had found me three days ago.
He had come like a storm.
One moment I’d been locked inside that hellhole, bracing myself for whatever came next—and the next, the entire compound had erupted into chaos.
Gunfire. Explosions.
Men shouting in Spanish and Italian.
The sharp, deafening crack of bullets tearing through walls.
And then—him.
Breaking through like something unstoppable.
Like something carved out of violence and fury.
I still remembered the moment he reached me.
The door splintering open. His eyes locking onto mine.
That split second where everything else disappeared.
He hadn’t said my name.
Hadn’t asked if I was okay.
He’d just crossed the room in three strides, and pulled me against him like he needed to make sure I was real.
Like I might disappear if he let go.
He carried me out himself.
One arm locked tightly around my waist, the other cradling my head against his chest.
I could still remember the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my ear.
Fast. Relentless.
Gunfire had still been echoing around us.
Men shouting. Bodies dropping.
But he hadn’t slowed.
Just held me tighter.
Like nothing else mattered.
Like I was the only thing that did.
Now this.
My gaze fell back to the tests, my heart racing wildly.
All three were positive—leaving no room for doubt, no room for denial.
During those four weeks in captivity, my body had already begun to change.
At first, I’d ignored it. Written it off as stress.
Trauma.
The aftermath of everything I’d been through.
But it hadn’t stopped.
Morning nausea that left me doubled over on the cold floor, dry heaving until my throat burned.
Fatigue so deep it felt like it lived in my bones—like gravity itself had increased, making every movement twice as hard.
A metallic taste that refused to leave my mouth, no matter how much water I drank.
Smells—
God, the smells.
Everything was sharper.
Stronger.
And my body—my breasts—tender.
Swollen.
Aching even without touch.
So, as soon as I was rescued from Matteo’s captivity, the first thing on my mind was to take a pregnancy test.
Just to be sure.
Just to confirm what I had already feared.
And now—
there it was.
Undeniable.
I was pregnant.
I leaned forward, my forehead nearly touching the mirror as my breathing turned uneven.
How the hell was I supposed to tell him?
Vincenzo.
The man who had once looked me dead in the eyes and said he would abort any child I carried.
Because it would carry my father’s blood.
Because it would be tainted.
Vincenzo.
The man who had nearly sacrificed me—my life, my heart—for Violet.
Vincenzo.
The man who still woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, haunted by nightmares of what Vasquez had done to him years ago.
And now—
I was carrying his child.
My hands trembled slightly as they rested against the marble.
What would he do?
What could he do?
Would he look at me the same way?
Would he see this as betrayal?
As contamination?
As something that needed to be... removed?
My stomach twisted again, this time not from nausea—but from fear.
Real fear.
Because I didn’t know.
And not knowing with a man like Vincenzo—was the most dangerous place to be.
I closed my eyes briefly.
Took a shaky breath.
Then another.
But the question wouldn’t leave me.
It burrowed in.
Stayed.
I couldn’t hide this.
Not for long.
My body would betray me soon enough.
A slight curve. A change in shape.
A softness where there hadn’t been any before.
And with someone like Vincenzo—nothing stayed hidden.
Better he heard it from me.
Better I controlled the moment—before someone else twisted it into something worse.
Before Violet got to it first.
A soft knock on the bathroom door cut through my thoughts.
Sharp. Grounding.
I jerked upright immediately, heart jumping into my throat.
“Signora?”
I moved fast.
My fingers swept the pregnancy tests off the counter, shoving them into the small trash bin beneath the sink.
I grabbed a handful of tissues, pressing them down over the top—covering the plastic, the lines, the truth.
Then I flushed the toilet.
The sound filled the room.
Loud. Distracting.
Buying me seconds.
I straightened, wiped my hands quickly on a towel, and forced my expression into something neutral before reaching for the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened slowly.
Renzo stepped inside.
For a second, I just stared at him.
Three days had passed since the rescue, and I hadn’t laid eyes on Renzo.
Ciro had mentioned Renzo was away—handling something outside the city—but now he stood in front of me, very much present.
Very real.
And different.
His shoulders were tighter than usual.
His posture more rigid.
There were shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
And when he looked at me—really looked—something in his expression shifted.
Something heavy.
Something close to guilt.
“Can I hug you?” he asked quietly.
The question caught me off guard.
I nodded.
He crossed the room in two quick strides and wrapped his arms around me.
Careful.
So careful.
Like he was afraid I might break if he held too tight.
His hand rested lightly against my back.
His other arm circled my shoulders, steady but not restrictive.
And just like that—something in me gave way.
I melted into him.
My body leaning into the warmth, into the solid presence of another human being who wasn’t trying to hurt me.
His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear.
Strong. Grounding.
For a moment—just a moment—I felt safe.
The first time in weeks.
My hands tightened against his shirt, gripping harder than I meant to.
He didn’t pull away.
Didn’t comment.
Just let me.
When he finally stepped back, slowly, reluctantly, his expression had changed.
“What did those Spanish bastards do to you, Elena?”
The question hung in the air.
Loaded.
I forced a small smile.
Crooked.
“What do you think they did?”
“The worst,” he said immediately.
His voice cracked slightly on the word.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I looked down at my hands.
At the faint tremor that still lived in them.
I shrugged, exhaled, and sat on the edge of the bed, facing him.
“Honestly? I’m trying to convince myself it was just a shitty mini vacation.”
Silence.
Renzo blinked.
“What?”
“I wasn’t tortured,” I said, lifting my gaze to meet his. “Not the way you’re imagining.”
That part, at least, was true.
Technically.
“They locked me in a room for four weeks. No sunlight. No fresh air. No contact with anyone except guards.” I paused, choosing my words carefully. “But the room was big enough. Bed. Couch. Bathroom.”
I exhaled slowly.
“They fed me. Three times a day. Water. I had space.”
Space to think. Space to plan. Space to survive.
“I knew Vincenzo would come,” I added quietly. “I believed it every single day.”
And that had been the only thing that kept me from breaking completely.
“And he did.”
Renzo watched me closely.
Like he was trying to see through the words.
Trying to find the cracks.
“That’s... not what I expected,” he admitted.
“Me neither.”
Renzo dragged the sagging three-seater couch across the floor with a low scrape that grated against the silence, positioning it just close enough to the bed that he didn’t have to raise his voice.
The effort looked deliberate, like everything else about him.
He dropped onto it heavily, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped loosely as if he were trying to hold something volatile in place.
Then he looked at me.
That quiet intensity had always been there, but now it felt sharper.
Like he was dissecting every breath I took, weighing every word before I even spoke it.
Waiting for the truth, not just the version I chose to give.
“The Spanish are known for their brutality,” he said at last, his voice low, almost too calm. “So explain something to me... how the hell did they keep you for four weeks and not...” His jaw tightened, the rest of the sentence dying somewhere behind his teeth. “Not touch you?”
The air shifted.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, steadying myself.
Even now, the memory wasn’t dull—it was edged, like broken glass you could still cut yourself on if you weren’t careful.
“I held one of them hostage,” I said.
Renzo stilled.
“My father. Vasquez.”
That got a reaction.
His fingers flexed once, subtly, before going still again.
His eyes sharpened, locking onto mine like he didn’t want to miss a single detail.
“He came into the room alone the first night,” I continued, my voice quieter now.
“No guards. No restraints. Just him and that... look.” I swallowed, forcing the image away.
“Matteo had already spelled out the real reason behind my kidnapping and the specific role I was supposed to play — particularly for my father.”
“The moment my father entered the room, I understood why he was there.”
“He had come to force himself on me.”
Renzo’s expression darkened, something dangerous flickering beneath the surface.
“But Vasquez underestimated me,” I went on.