Chapter 4 – Sixteen Months Later
JADE
SIXTEEN MONTHS LATER
“Slow down!” I tell him as he whizzes past a car on our left. “Unless you expect me to have this baby in this car, Enzo!”
“Shit, I’m sorry, baby.” He takes a deep sigh, placing his palm on my thigh and gently squeezing, while I try to control my breathing, another contraction landing in my lower stomach.
I take a swallow of another inhale, trying not to panic, but I can feel it coming, my heart speeding rapidly, my pulse slamming hard in my neck.
Because in this moment, my mind, it goes back to that day.
To those awful memories of when I had my son and had him ripped away from me.
The aching. The bleeding—my body and my heart—I feel it now, like a festering sore filling me with agony.
Carrying another child is hard. Harder than I thought it’d be with my past being as it was.
I was a mother without a child, and now, I’ll be a mother with a baby .
. . will I know what to do? Will I fail her?
My daughter. An ache slams to the back of my nose, reminding me of my own mother and her love that still carries me in everything I do.
“We’re almost there,” Enzo says, his voice now urgent yet soft. He had wanted this baby from the moment I found out I was pregnant. We weren’t actively trying. It was kind of like, well, if it happens, then it happens. Then one day, it did.
My beautiful daughter is about to make her entrance and her mom can’t even keep it together.
But I’m going to try. I want to savor this moment.
Growing her, knowing I was loved and cared for.
That I was safe. It was something I never had before.
But Enzo made sure I knew that every single day. He had me. No one would touch me again.
We finally arrive, and he quickly parks the car, grabbing our bags and helping me out. “Can you walk or should I carry you?”
I laugh even as I grit my teeth from the pain. “I can walk, babe.”
He nods, and I reach for his hand, holding it tightly. He glances to me, his brows furrowing, his chest rising and falling. It’s cute how nervous he is. It makes me love him even more.
We make it inside, and he demands I be put in a room immediately. He upgraded my room, so I have a suite to myself, and one of the nurses takes me there in a wheelchair, while he proceeds with the paperwork.
Once I’m settled on the bed with the epidural doing its thing, Enzo returns, settling on the chair next to me. A nurse strides inside, wearing pink scrubs, her black hair pulled up into a tight bun, not much older than me. “How are you feeling, mama-to-be? Is the epidural working?”
“Is she allowed to get any more of that?” He quickly rises, rushing a hand past his full head of hair, a few strands draping across his forehead.
I laugh behind him while the nurse eyes me with a twist of her lips.
“I’m fine, I promise,” I tell him. My smile is comfortable now, the pain no longer a burden. But he saw me scrunching my nose at a particularly long contraction and he was not having it.
“Well, if you need more, just press that little button on the remote they gave you.” She places three cups of Jell-O down.
Enzo practically snatches it and press it once or maybe twenty times, but I think there’s a cap they set on that from what they explained. I won’t tell that poor man that.
“I’m sorry this is all you could eat, but I got you a few,” she tells me. “If you need more, just call for me.”
“Thanks,” I say while she fills a cup with water, placing it on the chair beside me.
“The doctor will be in to see you shortly.”
She walks out and Enzo stops pacing for a moment, staring at me. “You need anything, baby? I can sneak you in some sushi if you want.”
I burst with a laugh. “Come sit by me, you big softy.”
He runs a hand down his face as he blows a heavy breath. He comes to settle on the bed right by me.
“Are you doing okay? You know, with everything?” he asks, his knuckles tenderly tracing down my cheek.
He knows how much I’d had to deal with when they took Robby from me.
He knows that being pregnant, the fear that this baby could be taken, had been there, as irrational as that may be.
And he’s been there for me, loving me through all of this “You’re incredible, Jade.
I’m in damn awe of you every friggin’ day. ”
A rush of emotions swells in my chest, my eyes brimming with incoming tears. “This is hard,” I admit softly. “But I’m okay. You’re here this time.”
“That’s right, I am.” He fiercely picks up my hand and kisses my palm, then places it against his chest. “I swear to you on my heart, baby, no one will hurt you. No one will ever take our daughter. She’s safe, baby, with us. And so are you.”
I sink further into the pounding of the love and aching devotion that seeps through my soul for this man. My husband. The love of my whole heart.
“Hello there.” Doctor Andrews walks in with two nurses, and I rapidly wipe under my eyes. His gray mustache flicks up as he smiles. He’s comforting to be around, always happy, making jokes. He throws on some gloves, then he’s checking how far along I am while I squirm uncomfortably.
“Well . . .” He removes the gloves as he rises to his feet. “You’re having your daughter now.”
“What? Already?” My eyes grow wide, my pulse throbbing in my throat.
“Well, I think you’ve waited long enough, don’t you?” He chuckles, and he doesn’t even realize how right he is. Because I have. I’ve waited forever to hold my baby, to love her, to keep her.
Enzo lowers his mouth close to my ear. “I’m right here. I love you. You’re safe. She’s safe.”
The tears roll down my cheeks as I nod.
The doctor prepares some utensils on a tray, the lights above me flickering brighter. I pull in a long, deep breath, feeling the force down below, knowing she’s going to be here no matter what I want. I do want to meet her. I want to hold her. But I’m scared.
“Okay, when you feel it, push.” The doctor is at my feet again, and when the next contraction comes, I do.
I push. I scream. I cry. I let myself feel it all—the intensity of this moment, my soul ripping apart inside me, the memories as I screamed for my Robby, lying on that floor with blood still leaking out of me as he was stolen from me.
My body feels it all, the past, the present. It’s all a swirl of an avalanche with me in the center.
“I see her head,” Doctor Andrews says. “Come on, Jade. Push!”
A scream rips out of me, Enzo’s voice reassuring me that I can do it. “You’re doing great, baby. She’s coming. She’s about to meet her mommy.”
My vision blurs, and with another groan, I feel as she enters the world. But when she cries, my entire body does too.
“Give her to me!” I shout, my voice crackling like a slow growing fire. “Please.” My voice lowers, my chin trembling.
The doctor looks up just then and lifts her in his arms. Once he places her on my chest, I burst into tears, sobbing as she lies there, her hand on my breast, her small body tucked over the safety of mine.
It’s the most magical feeling, and that fear I had, the one telling me she’s going to be taken away, it melts away into more love than I could ever imagine having for another child.
“Lauralyn Avery Cavaleri.” I tuck my palm over her tiny head, naming her after my mother Laura. “Welcome to the world, baby. You’re safe here. I promise.”
ENZO
THREE MONTHS LATER
There was no way I could ever comprehend what it meant to have a baby, but Lauralyn has taught me a lot in the last three months.
Not all of it had to do with late-night bottle feedings or what to do when she won’t stop crying.
She taught me patience. She taught me gratitude.
But most of all, she taught me no matter how much you could love, there’s always room for more.
It feels like she’s always been here. That the world before her just simply didn’t exist. She lies across my chest, Jade sleeping soundlessly beside me, while Robby’s in school.
Jade has been very overprotective of Lauralyn, and I understand why.
I let her do whatever she needs to do to feel safe.
Having our daughter now and imagining some fucking bastards taking her, hell, I’d want to burn down the whole damn world.
I don’t know how she survived. She’s stronger than I could ever be.
I kiss the forehead of my tiny angel, her little lips open as she peacefully breathes. Could you stare at someone nonstop? Because I can.
Jade stirs beside me and I hope it’s not because she’s having a nightmare about the past. She hasn’t had one of those since before she got pregnant. Therapy has helped. Her job has too. Helping those women has helped her in return.
I’ve done all I could to make her feel safe, like finding the third man who hurt her when she worked for those fucking animals. I killed the other two while she watched, but this one—Sammy fucking Rio. I killed him myself a month later.
“Please, I’m sorry! If you let me go, I swear I’ll—I’ll disappear,” he frantically begs, fat tears pouring out his eyes as he sits in the basement of one of our hotels, zip ties around his legs and hands. Two knives stick out of him, one over each thigh.
“Yeah, you will.” I snicker, playing with the pliers in my hand, walking up to him, blood seeping out from the large gashes under both of his eyes.
“Begging won’t help you. Nothing will. Not with me.
” I dig the pliers under his chin so hard, I draw blood.
“You’re gonna die painfully, and those kids of yours, that wife who doesn’t know who the hell she’s fucking, will never see you again. ”
His sobbing is heavy as I grab his hand, edging the plier to his nail, and he instantly sits straighter. “Wha-what are you g-g-gonna do with— Ahhh!” Gradually, I peel the nail off, taking my sweet time as he continues to scream in terror.
“I’m gonna take everything from you. Because, see . . .” I toss the nail in the trash as Dante holds the man’s head steady, so he doesn’t continue to rattle the chair. “She’s not here, and I get to be as bad as I want to be.”
In a flash, I’m on him, punching his cheek, his hand in mine as I peel every single one of his nails. He screams louder, the ragged weight of his gasps growing heavier. I revel in his pain, remembering what he did to her.
“A baton? That’s what you did to her.” I rip another nail as he shouts in agony. “To my girl!” I pull off every single one until all ten are gone.
Raising the pliers to his neck, I shove it into his pulse, and with a jerk, I move them away, then jam it into his neck. Blood squirts out across my face.
“Ahhh! K-k-ki-kill me.”
“But I’m having too much fun.” I chuckle with a sinister tone.
Dom hands me a razor, a vicious snarl on his face. The razor lands on top of Sammy’s ear while I hold it between my fingers.
“No!” He shakes his head. “P-please. You—you can’t.”
“I can,” I grit. “And I will.” The slicing is quick, the knife too sharp. Then I’m holding his ear in my hand. I could barely recognize what he’s saying, the sniveling growing louder.
“You can give it but can’t fucking take it?” I round a punch to his nose, crimson gushing out.
Dante laughs behind him. “I hope it hurts.” His voice is full of virile disdain because when you fuck with one of us, you fuck with us all.
Dom marches over to the black duffel on the floor, removing one of his torches. “You play with fire. You’re gonna get burned.” He hands it to me.
I flick it on and off right in front of Sammy’s face. He could barely look at me, his head hung, the sobs drowning out my laughter.
“I will sleep well knowing you’re dead.” The torch roars to life one last time, then it’s on his face, searing the flesh where his ear had once been.
My brutality has no bounds. I burn every inch of his face.
I even take his fucking eyeballs and his dick.
I should skin him alive for this, but I’ve done enough.
His screams eventually drown out until his life does too. I hope it brings her some comfort.
Lauralyn rustles above me, her eyes opening as she smiles.
“What are you doing up already, princess?” I whisper, her blue eyes so bright, it’s like they’ve been molded from the sky.
“You’re so pretty.” Her gummy smile grows even bigger.
“Daddy is gonna keep you safe.” My hand rounds her little butt.
“I’ll kick all those boys’ asses. You just say the word. Okay?” Warmth washes over my body.
Her eyelids flutter as they start to close, like she’s heard me, like she knows she’s protected in my arms.
My family. It’s crazy to even imagine I’m here. A wife I’m in love with, two kids I’d kill for.
How the hell do I deserve all of this? What have I done to earn it? But it’s mine anyway and good luck to anyone who tries to pry it out of my hands.