Chapter Two
Lindsay
MY HEART NEARLY leaps out of my chest, and for the first time, I’m not actively trying to kill him.
“No,” I say. “That’s not possible.”
“It is. I’m afraid.”
“My roommate, Vittoria… She’s the one that arranged the surrogacy. I don’t have anything to do with some…criminal gangster or the Corretti family.”
“Vittoria is my sister. She’s a Corretti.”
And I’ve never seen the name Corretti. It wasn’t on the surrogacy agreement, the lease agreement. And it makes me want to tell him even less, because if this man is the father of the baby…
“What happened to Vittoria?” I ask, because I have been worried for her. Genuinely. Even now I am.
“Another problem that needs to be solved, I fear,” he says.
“Don’t hurt her. She’s a lovely girl and she—”
“Silence. I have no interest in hurting my sister. I need to rescue her. My father was killed two weeks ago.”
I blink. “That’s when Vittoria disappeared.”
“Yes. In his absence, his enemies are attempting to make a name for themselves. One of those enemies is determined to marry my sister to join the families together. I will kill him first.”
Fear trickles down my spine. I knew he was a killer. The first moment I saw him.
I believe him.
“Where do I fit into all this? What about your wife?”
He arches a dark brow. “I don’t have a wife. Is that what they told you?”
“They… Vittoria arranged everything. And…”
“I believe Vittoria was being manipulated by my father. I did not discover anything about you, the baby or the surrogacy until after my father died. And then I found correspondence between him and a fertility doctor. Found all the information on you, and the fact that you are carrying my heir.”
“Your heir… Are you…a king? King of your own asshole, perhaps? Because I’ve never heard of you.”
I find myself turned away from him, released. “You don’t know the Corretti family?”
“As you’ve observed, I’m American. I don’t.”
“Lindsay,” he says. “The Corretti family is one of the most infamous crime families in the world. If it’s dangerous or illegal, you can usually find a Corretti somewhere in the middle of it.”
Oh God. It’s the Mafia. I am pregnant with a Mafia baby.
What am I going to do? It suddenly seems painfully foolish that I tried to fight him. But I tried to kill him. He’s a killer. A murderer. Dangerous, and with no scruples. The only thing he cares about is the life inside of me, and I know for a fact it’s the only reason that I’m not dead.
“But Vittoria… She was my friend.”
“And my father was a violent, cruel man. Vittoria was only just allowed to have a year away from home. To spend some time being independent, and of course there were strings attached to that. You were the string.”
“But why…why would they do that?”
“Because my father didn’t want the line to end, and while he could have made his own heir, it was more about manipulating me.
He sensed that his days were numbered. Wars between syndicates have been heating up.
It’s been a brutal time. He wants me to take over.
He did. He wanted me to be tied in. Because he knew that I would refuse to carry on the legacy otherwise. ”
“You would refuse?”
“I am a great many things, Lindsay.” It seems like he’s saying my name simply for the fun of it.
Perhaps to torment me with the fact that he knows it.
“And I have done a great many bad things. It is the burden to bear of one who is brought up in such a family. But what I am not is a killer of innocents. What I am not is my father. And from the moment I had the power to make decisions for myself, I distanced myself from my family. My father didn’t want that.
He wanted me reeled back in. This is his final manipulation.
Because he knows that it’s the only way to tempt me back.
He wanted me to find myself at the center of a war I couldn’t help but fight.
He wanted me drawn back into all of this.
Forced to defend my child. He knew this would happen. ”
“What do you mean?”
He looks at me, those dark eyes staring into the very depths of hell.
So deep and black there’s no seeing the bottom.
“You are carrying the heir to the Corretti crime family empire. You are a bargaining chip of inestimable value. Every crime lord in the world is going to be after you. It’s lucky I found you first.”
“I…” I had just walked home on a darkened street. Out there where anything could’ve happened to me. Anyone could’ve taken me. “Well, why the hell did you kidnap me? You could have just told me I was in danger.”
“I didn’t have time to negotiate or argue with you. The reality is, there could have already been men on the way to kill you. I might hold you prisoner, but I won’t harm you.”
He’s claiming that he wouldn’t hurt me, but…
Well. He wouldn’t. He wants the baby. The baby is keeping me safe.
Grief shocks me, stabs me directly in the chest. My child is nothing more than a bargaining chip?
And this baby was planned to be brought into a world where they were nothing more than a manipulation tactic, born to a man who hadn’t even wanted a child.
And would be in grave danger because of their connection to that man.
I had told myself it was best if I didn’t love the baby.
If I didn’t think of it as mine, because I was so sure that it was going to loving parents.
That by keeping myself separate I was doing the right thing, because I was giving it to people who wouldn’t perpetuate toxic things my parents had.
That I was contributing to life, and not hurting it in any way.
But now I know I’ve been wrong.
I was part of making this life, this life that is part of me, and there are no loving parents.
Only this raging, beautiful devil of a man and killers wanting to snuff out this baby’s life, and mine.
“I can’t believe this,” I say. My hands are shaking, I’m probably in shock, but I don’t have the luxury of being in shock.
“You will be paid handsomely. When all is said and done. Provided I feel that you could be kept safe.”
“What will…what will happen to the child?”
“I’m a wealthy man. I can afford all the security that will be required to keep you and the child safe.
I did not choose this, but I will also not abandon a child of mine.
Particularly not one who will be a target, and not just targeted by my father’s enemies.
Targeted by the family itself.” He looks out the window of the town car for a long moment, tattooed fingers resting against his chin.
“It’s why I have to end all of this. Once and for all.
It is a ball that I have set in motion. But it’s going to be dangerous and complicated.
During that time, you must remain hidden. ”
I realize that his willingness to share this with me actually speaks to how dire the situation is. If I’m ever in a situation where this information could be used against him, I’m already dead.
For that matter, he might be too.
“For how long?”
“For some time.”
It’s amazing to me that he’s a scary, dangerous crime guy and he’s still…such a guy.
“It’s finals week in December,” I say.
“Finals.” He looks at me like I’m addled.
“I am not concerned with your finals. If you do not hide, you will die. Worse, you could be taken. Held in a dungeon until you give birth, and then you will die.” He pauses for a moment.
“Unless you’re sold off as a yacht girl. Then they might let you live.”
I scoff. “I don’t have the temperament to be a yacht girl. I think I might’ve proven that to you back in the apartment.”
He leans in, grips my face, and holds it steady. It doesn’t hurt. His hands are large and hot, rough. Certain. I’m held in thrall by him. He’s his own gravitational pull. His own black hole sun.
I’ve never in my life seen such a beautiful man. I hate that thought. I hate it almost more than I hate being held in the back of his car. I hate it so, so much.
I’m not into bad boys. Or any boys. Not that I don’t like them in theory, but I have things to do with my life. They don’t include surrendering my good sense and free will for a couple of orgasms, thank you.
I definitely don’t need to be thinking about this now, as I’m being literally kidnapped.
“Don’t you know,” he says, his voice soft and more deadly for it, “some men like it when you fight. And they will laugh at the futility as the drugs they will inject you with take hold, and you can no longer swing at them. These are vicious, brutal men, and they will teach you the meaning of fates worse than death. I do not say that lightly. I don’t want to be tasked with babysitting a pregnant woman.
Anymore than I want to have a child. But it is reality, and I will not allow those men to have the final say in anything.
I will not allow my father to have the final say in anything. ”
“Where are we going?”
“I have a place. An island, very difficult to access, very difficult to find. I have a compound there, and you will be kept safe.”
“I have a life. I have a job…”
“Not anymore. The Corretti crime family is a monster that consumes everything in its path. You have been touched by my family and therefore you are at risk. I would apologize to you, but it would seem disingenuous.”
The biggest thing, as I sit here pondering my fate, is how betrayed I feel by Vittoria.
She might have reasons for having done what she did; she might’ve even felt forced.
But as a woman, trapped in that world, how could she do this to me?
How could she subject me to this? Lying like this is like twisting my autonomy, the rights to my own body.
It turns an offer of surrogacy into The Handmaid’s Tale, and I don’t know how another woman wouldn’t understand that.
Especially because I shared with her. Told her about my life. About what I’m running from. How I’ve been trying to make a whole new existence for myself.
“Is your sister in danger?” I ask.
“I fear she might be.”