Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Daisy
Someone was screaming. Writhing in agony, and it took me a few minutes to realize it was me.
It felt like I was being torn apart. And no amount of pain relief was making it better.
I’d always known that childbirth was painful, but no amount of research could have prepared me for this.
It felt like I was dying. And after thirty-six hours, I wasn’t sure whether I actually wanted death now.
I just wanted a moment, just one moment of peace.
"You’re doing so well." A warm hand stroked back my hair from my sweaty forehead. "So well, baby."
Ilya. Ilya was here, but of course he was. He hadn’t left my side since that first pain. He was right next to me. One hand clasped in mine. And the other on my forehead, wiping away my sweat and my tears and probably my snot and God knows what else.
I didn’t want to think how bad I looked.
Like he could read my thoughts, he pressed his lips to my hair. "You are so beautiful, Daisy," he murmured.
I wanted to call him out on his bullshit, but another pain ripped through me. My body convulsed, and I twisted away from him, squeezing his hand in a death grip.
"I can’t do this," I screamed. "I can’t—"
Ilya’s lips moved across my face. "Yes, you can. You can do this, Daisy."
"I want my daddy," I sobbed, burying my face into his chest and panting.
Instantly, his hand came down on my back. "I know, I know. I’ve called him."
I knew he had. I’d called him over the months as well. He wouldn’t pick up. It was like he couldn’t face me. I didn’t blame him for that. He had sold me to save himself. It didn’t really matter that I had found love and happiness with Ilya. My father felt too guilty now.
"I’ll try again."
I gripped him harder, my nails clawing into his skin. "Don’t leave me. Please, Ilya." I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want him to go. I needed him.
"Not going anywhere. I’ll stay—"
Another scream ripped through me. The pain was too much. Arching my back, I heard the beep of the monitors go crazy.
"Mr. Popovitch?"
I had no idea who was talking. Really, it didn’t matter. I just wanted this to end. I couldn’t take it anymore.
"We need to take Daisy down now. The baby’s heartbeat is erratic and—"
I didn’t hear anything else; there was nothing but the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears and the pain that felt white-hot twisting my body.
"You can’t come. This is an emergency."
That filtered into my brain; I screamed even louder as my bed was wheeled from the room. Ilya held on to my hand for as long as he could before it dropped to his side.
"Ilya."
"It’s going to be okay, Daisy," he called after me, and it was the last thing I heard.
Crying, I was wheeled away. My eyes glued to the blurry lights as I was rushed down the hallway towards the OR. And then it went dark, but not pitch black. It was like my vision had clouded.
I cried the entire time they cut into me. I cried when I felt the tugging in my insides that told me someone had their hands inside my body.
I cried when silence fell.
Absolute silence.
And then a wail went up. Instantly, my tears stopped because I knew that sound. It was the sound of a healthy baby.
"Are they—" I lifted my head to the blue sheet that stopped me from seeing my torn-open body. "Are they okay?"
There was a pause where everything that had been fuzzy for the last few hours came into focus. Every line was clear on the doctor's face as he peered down at me. And something was held up. Pink and squirming.
"You have a healthy baby boy. Congratulations."
I felt my heart expand and then explode with happiness. The second I saw him, I loved him more than I had ever loved anything, ever.
"I have a son," I whispered. "Give him—" Frowning, I watched the doctor hand the baby over to a nurse, and panic rose up in my throat. "Where are you taking him?"
Ignoring me completely, the doctor opened the door for her. "Take him to his father and grandfather. I need to close her up."
The door swung shut, and I screamed. "Give me my baby, give me my son."
"Sedate her." The doctor's cheerful voice disappeared into something darker. "I can’t work with all that screaming."
Something sharp scratched across my arm, and I felt the drugs working almost instantly. Greyish shadows ate up my vision so quickly I didn’t even have time to panic.
"Please," I begged in a whisper as that darkness took me away. "Please give me back my baby."
I woke up slowly, groggily opening my eyes to be greeted by bright sunlight and a cold room. Shivering, I looked around. There was nothing in here apart from my bed and some medical equipment.
My baby?
I shot upright, and pain sliced through me.
"Don’t try to move." A nurse appeared at my side. Her lined face creased with worry. "You’ll pop your stitches. Just rest a second, okay?"
I fell back, exhausted. How could I be so tired when I had just woken up? Silently, I watched her move around the empty room. And she did everything in her power not to look at me.
"Is my son—" My voice was raspy in my throat. "Is my son okay?"
"Yes, miss. He is just fine. Don’t worry about him." She tried and failed to sound cheery, but I wasn’t fooled. Something was going on here. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.
"May I see him?"
Her shoulders went tense, and her sigh was heavy. "I’m sorry, miss, I can’t allow that. But Mr. Popovitch will be happy to hear that you are awake."
My stomach twisted. "Ilya?" Hope made my voice higher than usual. I didn’t know why they weren’t letting me see my son, but I knew Ilya would sort it out. He had promised to look after us.
"The older Mr.—" She had barely begun to speak when the door opened and a man appeared. Dark suit, greying hair, and the bulge of a gun at his hip.
I swallowed down the panic.
"It’s time," he said in his gruff Russian accent. "He wants to see her now."
I didn’t know what they were talking about, but my rapidly beating heart told me it was me. "Are you taking me to Ilya?" I lifted my chin defiantly. I didn’t want them to see the fear in my eyes. Even if my lips were trembling.
"She’s literally just out of surgery. She can’t be moved." The nurse flapped around me, all hands and nervous energy.
"My orders are pretty clear."
"It’s okay," I whispered, and her face crumbled in pity. That, more than anything else, terrified me.
Moving me from the bed to the chair was pure white-hot agony, and my face was drenched in sweat by the time it was done.
The man pushed me from the room silently. It didn’t matter how many questions I asked; he just stared stonily ahead.
All I could do was pray that he was taking me to Ilya and our son. I wanted to see them both desperately. That hope vanished the second I was pushed into the darkness of a parking garage and towards the waiting open door of a black town car.
"Good morning, Daisy."
I swallowed down the terror at the sound of Mr. Popovitch's smooth voice. He swung one leg out of the car and then another, but he didn’t stand. He just stared at me with the same blue eyes as his grandson, but without any of the warmth.
"How are you feeling?"
I blinked at him in shock. Out of all the stupid things to ask a woman who had just gone through a traumatic birth, that was top of the list. "Where is my baby?" I answered his question with one of my own.
He stared at me and then nodded once and got back into the car. "Get in," he said before slamming the door with a thud that echoed around the underground lot.
Was he serious? I was just hours out of surgery. I couldn’t even feel my legs yet, and he expected me to get up and climb into the car?
I didn’t have to worry. I was picked up, not gently, and put in the back seat next to him.
"Where is my child?" I asked again into the cool darkness. "Where is Ilya?"
The car pulled smoothly away. I watched as we passed car after car, blinking as we finally came out onto the busy New York street.
"Where are you taking me, Mr. Popovitch?" My voice cracked because I already knew. Deep down, I knew.
He sighed. "I am taking you to the airport. There you will be met by a doctor who will take over your care. Once you are—"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him study me. His lips thinned until they had disappeared altogether. "When you are fit to fly, you will be going to London. You are going to study in England."
It had always been my dream to study there. But that had been before. I had different dreams now. "My baby?"
"My grandson," his voice turned cold, "is with his father. Everything is as it should be."
A single tear slipped down my face. "Please, may I see them?" I whispered.
"No."
I knew it was coming, but that one word gutted me. A sob ripped its way out of my throat. A raw, ragged sound that seemed to echo. "Please," I begged. "Ilya would want—"
"Ilya has what he wants from you, Daisy.
" The old man’s voice turned cruel. "I know my grandson can be charming when he wants to be, but did you really think he thought of you as anything but what you are?
An incubator and a warm cunt." He chuckled.
"Oh, you did, didn’t you? Foolish girl, did you fall in love with him?
Ilya never loved you. He used you. And now he has what he wants; he has no use for you. "
His words ripped my heart apart. It was like every fear I had was coming true. "Please," I whimpered. "Please, just let me see my son."
"You don’t have a son, Daisy. Ilya does, and of course, he is making sure you will be looked after. As per our contract, with a little extra as you gave him a son." An envelope was waved in front of me. I didn’t reach for it, so he tossed it onto my lap. All I could do was stare at it and cry.
I didn’t want to believe this was happening. It was just a nightmare. A horrible dream I would wake up from. Ilya loved me. I knew he did. He had to. "He—" I dissolved into tears.
"Ilya and the Popovitch family offer you their thanks, Daisy.
I hope the rest of your life brings you happiness.
" Grabbing my chin, he yanked my head around to face him.
"I hope it brings you happiness far, far away from here.
It would hurt Ilya to have to—" He rolled his lips under his teeth.
"Dispose of you. You are never to come back.
You are never to look for your son or try to contact him. Do you understand?"
I couldn’t talk, so I nodded. I’d been such a fool. Ilya never cared about me. Not once in all the time we had lived together. This was always what he wanted. To make me love him and then rip me away from our child.
He was the man I had first met. The cold, heartless man who had taken my virginity with not even a kind word. And now he had ripped something so much more precious from me, and I knew I would never see my child. If I tried, Ilya would kill me.
That’s how much he loved me.
Slowly, the sobs subsided, even when the tears still fell. They were still falling when the airport came into view.
I’d be on one of those planes soon, and I'd have no choice but to let it take me away forever.