Chapter 2 #2
I dare a frantic glance over my shoulder. My father looks dazed, surprised, but he shakes himself out of it and comes after me again. I claw harder, breaking my nails on the carpet as I fight for traction.
Just as he grabs my ankle, the door opens. Leander stands on the threshold, taking in the scene with a slack jaw.
I reach for my brother. “Help me!”
Leander rushes forward.
“Hold her down,” my father spits out. “The whore got herself pregnant with a bastard.”
Leander hurries to obey, grabbing my arms and stretching them above my head.
“No,” I scream, sobbing hysterically.
“Give me his name,” my father yells.
My vision blurs, drifting in and out of focus.
“The bitch fainted,” Leander says, flipping me onto my back.
My father stands over me, staring down at me with loathing. “You can make this stop. Just give me his name.”
Fighting for lucidity, I summon all the strength I have left to give my father my answer. “Never.”
“Son of a bitch,” he snarls. “Very well. Turn the slut over.”
I don’t know how long my torture continues before my mom appears in the door frame in her bathrobe.
“What’s going on?” She’s tying the belt on her robe. “I thought I heard—”
Her gaze falls on me where my upper body sticks out from behind the sofa.
She utters a cry that has the power to tear the sky in two and rushes inside before falling onto her knees next to me.
Her crazed scream is aimed at my father. “What have you done? What have you fucking done?”
My cheek rests on the carpet, stuck there in a mixture of blood and tears, my mouth open but no sound coming out any longer.
My father throws the whip aside and adjusts his cuffs. His chest is rising and falling rapidly from the exertion of beating me.
Sneering, he walks to his desk. “Get your slut of a daughter out of my sight before I kill her.”
He grabs the bottle of vodka and pours half a glass. He’s barely swallowed it down before he pours another.
My mother turns her ashen, tear-streaked face to Leander. “And you.” Upper lip curling and nostrils flaring, she spits on his handmade Italian shoes. “You make me regret the day I gave birth to you.”
Leander wilts under her stare, for the first time in his life looking ashamed.
My mother pushes to her feet, her eyes glittering with something akin to violence. “Help me get her to the car.”
Leander doesn’t argue. He hoists me up with his hands under my armpits.
Always the one to take charge in a crisis, my mom rushes ahead. “Take my car keys. Meet me downstairs.”
My father scowls at her as he sips his drink.
Leander avoids the elevator. He half-carries, half-drags me down the stairs to the underground parking lot and puts me on my stomach on the back seat of my mom’s car.
Leaning a hand on the roof, he leans inside.
“You’ve got to make this right, sis. You’ll get rid of the baby and marry Joni Stein, or I’ll cut that bastard out of your stomach myself.
Joni doesn’t need to know you’re damaged goods.
There are operations that can fix that, that can make you bleed like a pig when your husband fucks you.
” He bares his teeth in an ugly grin. “Yeah, Joni will like that. No one has to know you’re a whore. ”
My mom comes running from the elevator, looking like a ghost. She’s thrown on a dress and a pair of shoes in a hurry. The buttons down the front of her dress are fitted in the wrong holes, and her hair is uncombed.
Leander shuts the back door, smiling at me as if we’re sharing a secret.
My mom throws her handbag on the passenger seat and starts the engine. Leander makes as if to get in, but she pulls away with screeching tires before he can reach for the door handle.
“Hold on, Tiana,” she sobs, watching the rearview mirror. “You hang in there, do you hear me?”
I wake up under blinding lights in a bed in a white room. The smell of my mom’s rose-scented bath products is comforting amidst the faint odor of disinfectant that hangs in the air. So is the warm, soft hand that’s wrapped around mine.
“Tiana,” my mom whispers.
Her face comes into focus as she bends over me. Her vivid blue eyes are shining with tears. They always look like the color of a sapphire ocean when she cries.
“Mom?” I croak.
A sob escapes her lips. She kisses my fingers and bows her head, pressing my hand against her forehead as she fights for composure.
When she finally looks at me, she makes a visible attempt to stop crying. The effort hardens her face.
If it weren’t for the grip of her fingers that’s so tight around mine it hurts, I would’ve thought I’m paralyzed.
Other than the pain where she’s crushing the bones in my fingers together, I don’t feel anything.
Yet the panic that suffocates me as my memory returns isn’t because I can’t feel my arms or legs. The anguish is for my baby.
“Mom.”
Speaking hurts so much it’s like grating the inside of my throat with sandpaper.
“Shh, honey.” She brushes away the hair that sticks to my brow. “I’m here.”
“Mom.” I try to close my hand around hers, but my muscles are useless. “I’m pregnant.”
“I know, honey,” she says through her tears. “The baby is fine.”
I let out the breath I was holding, my uncooperative body seeming to sag deeper into the mattress.
“The doctor bandaged your back. As soon as he’s finished all the tests, he’ll turn you onto your stomach to take the pressure—” Her voice breaks.
“To take the pressure off the wounds.” She starts crying quietly again.
“Oh, honey. I wish you’d told me. We could’ve dealt with it quietly.
Nobody needed to have known. There are places I could’ve taken you. ”
I try to shake my head, which doesn’t move. Swallowing away the dryness of my mouth, I force the words that sit heavily in my chest into sounds. “I want to keep it.”
Sniffling, she nods. “I understand. I would’ve felt the same.” She hesitates. “Your father won’t allow it, Tiana.”
“I’m keeping it,” I say more forcefully.
She nods again. “You’ll have to leave.” Glancing at the door, she continues in a whisper, “You’re in a private clinic. The staff is discreet, but you never know. I booked you in under a false name.”
Because no one can know that I’m pregnant or what my father did to me. Our family won’t survive the scandal. But she didn’t only hide my identity to protect our reputation. She did it so that my father can’t find me.
She continues in a cautious tone. “If this is truly what you want, you won’t be able to come back. Ever.”
“He’ll fix this. I need my phone. I have to call him.”
“Are you going to tell me who he is?”
I know my mom. I trust her with my life. She’ll never reveal my secret, not even if my father threatens to kill her.
“Dante,” I whisper. “Dante Morici. Please, Mom. Call him. I need him.”
Shock blows her pupils wide. “Oh, Tiana.” She shakes her head. “No. Honey, no. What has he done to you, my poor child?”
Her reaction gets my hackles up, but something like uncertainty stirs in my belly. My mom never lies, she never makes assumptions, and she never overreacts.
My shaky reply is defensive. “He loves me.”
She stares at me with a stricken face, her expression bereft. “He played you.”
I grit my teeth, angry with my mom for even suggesting something like that. “He loves me.”
A regretful sigh leaves her lips. “He used you to get back at your father.”
“He’d never do that.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know their history.”
“I love him,” I say louder. “I love him, Mom, and I’ll never stop.”
An air of defeat settles around her as she leans toward me with hunched-over shoulders.
“I’ll pack you some clothes.” Her lips tremble.
“And some things for the baby. I’ll stop at a store on the way home.
I know a place that stays open late.” She stifles a sob with a fist on her mouth, taking a moment before she continues.
“I won’t come back here because your father’s men may follow me.
It’s not beyond him to give that order once he’s gotten his bearings.
I’ll ask Jazz to come by the house later. She can bring the bag tomorrow.”
My stomach bottoms out as her meaning registers. I may never see her again. “Mom.”
My mom straightens and pats my hand. “I’ll go with your father tonight.”
My mom hates those pretentious birthday parties. She never attends them.
I try to hold fast when she lets my hand go. “Mom.”
Fresh tears roll down her cheeks, but her gaze is serene. “You know how your father gets when he’s like this. The bratva will challenge him tonight. If they insult him, he’ll leave.”
“Don’t,” I plead. “Please.”
Her smile is brave, her mind made up. “I know how to handle him. I’ll make sure he stays there until tomorrow.
That will give him some time to cool down.
Otherwise, he may get it into his head to go looking for you.
As long as he’s there, busy with those problems, he won’t think about this.
” She caresses my cheek, looking at me as if she’s trying to burn my face into her memory. “I love you, honey.”
“Stay.” The word slurs on my tongue. My vision becomes fuzzy, and my head turns dizzy. “I feel… funny.”
“The doctor gave you a sedative, but don’t worry. It’s safe for the baby. I asked him to up the dose so you can rest.”
“Stay. Please.”
“I have to go. Whatever you do, don’t come home. You understand, right?”
She’s telling me to run, to save my baby. If I don’t do as Leander has said, my father won’t let it go. He’ll hunt me down and finish what he started. He’ll kill my baby and force me to marry Joni Stein. And eventually, he’ll beat Dante’s name out of me.
Taking the chain with the cross from around her neck, she presses it into my palm and closes my fingers around it. “You’ll find everything you need there.”
Then she bends over me and whispers in my ear.