Chapter Four
Lindsay
I ONLY STAY on the bed for a moment. Because there’s no way I’m going to allow this asshole to keep me down.
Even for a moment. I test the door, discovering quickly that it is not a regular door.
Titanium steel, or something, utterly and completely impenetrable, and probably soundproof.
I feel like I’ve been closed inside of a bubble.
I feel, wholeheartedly, that I would cheerfully stab this man in the chest.
I’m fully hit then with the reality of the situation.
He’s the father of the child that I’m carrying.
Which is half mine. The father of my baby is a dangerous criminal.
And while he might maintain that he’s no longer part of the Corretti crime family, I know that it doesn’t mean his hands are clean.
What am I bringing a child into? It was supposed to be a real family.
I was supposed to be giving life to a child who was going to have it better than I had.
But this is… This makes a meth house look like a vacation.
My parents were, functionally, the crime lords of our rural Alaskan community.
Selling broken dreams and a quick death to people who were so desperate to escape their poverty that they would do anything for a few hours of dulled senses.
There was always a threat around that. Anytime drugs and money are involved, it’s dangerous.
He’s that on a whole other scale. Larger, more polished, more money and more guns.
If I had thought, even for a second, that this was what I would be bringing a child into? I would never have done this. Not for any amount of money.
Despair pierces the armor that I wear around my heart. I’m not one to cry. I’m not one to sit around and bemoan my circumstances, but this feels genuinely helpless. Horrible. Impossible.
I’m trapped here. On this island out in the middle of nowhere. Trapped, pregnant with a baby that I have no idea what to do with.
I can’t abandon this child. But…
I’m not ready to be a mother. God. My life is…
Well, I’ve done a pretty good job putting my life into some semblance of order, but it’s so I can achieve my dreams. So I can be more than my druggie parents’ forgotten child.
More than a girl who’s been out on her own since fifteen scrapping to survive.
So that I can be someone who did something with herself. Achieve her dreams.
My stomach is hollow then, with utter despair.
There are two reasons I’m a virgin.
The first is that it feels like defiance of my circumstances.
The one thing I could keep men from using against me. Something I had a choice in.
But the other one is and always has been pregnancy.
I started taking the pill when I managed to get myself on some state health care so that I could get it for free.
Because I don’t trust men. Because I don’t trust life.
And I also don’t trust even a birth control pill to be completely infallible when it comes to protecting me from changing my life in ways that I don’t want.
Control. That’s it. And then I went ahead and agreed to do this.
To be a surrogate. And now it feels like letting the child go would be abuse of the highest order.
You can give the baby up for adoption. Get him to agree that he doesn’t want it, and maybe it would even be safer. You can keep his name off the birth certificate.
That’s an idea. And one that should be discussed, even though it makes me feel like my heart is full of tiny shards of glass, but every time it beats it’s getting dangerously close to breaking into pieces.
But still, I think it might be the right thing.
And I know that I need to do the right thing.
Nobody ever did it for me. The people who made me, birthed me, didn’t give me a single thought.
I don’t want a child brought into a situation where the people involved don’t want them.
That was me. And I was so…so responsible.
If I ever find Vittoria I’m going to kill her myself. With my bare hands.
The way that she manipulated me, took advantage of me, was absolutely unacceptable. And I just feel violated. I didn’t consent to this. What I really don’t want is to be trapped in this room. But also, I don’t want to give him what he wants. Physical warfare is going to be impossible.
Psychological warfare, on the other hand?
He thinks he’s smarter than me.
He thinks he’s harder than me.
And I have no doubt that he’s been through terrible things.
But people look at him and they see a weapon.
There’s no question. When I walked into my apartment and saw him sitting there I was sure that I was facing down the very angel of death.
People don’t look at me and see the same thing.
I’ve had to use my wits, my strength, the element of surprise, all my life to keep myself safe.
I’ll do it with him too. I just need to figure him out. Which means, possibly, not antagonizing him for the time being. But I want to.
One thing I do believe is that I should figure out ways to fashion a weapon.
The truth of the matter is, I don’t actually know what he intends to do.
And as he mentioned before, there are fates worse than death.
I don’t know what he and his men intend to do to me.
So, the smart thing would be to figure out every weapon in this room.
So I busy myself by doing just that. I go into the closet, where there are some hangers, but they are regrettably of such good quality that I’m never going to be able to bend the metal part, or break it apart with my hands to turn it into a stabbing implement.
That would be nice. Exceedingly so.
I give up on that, and go into the bathroom. I open up the cabinets in there, and begin to search. Nothing. Then I look up at the towel bar. I take the plush towels off of it, and discover that it is the kind that slots into its holder easily.
I take it out, and examine it.
I can definitely use it to batter someone if need be.
I take it out of the bathroom and secret it beneath my pillow.
And I spend the next hour planting things like that anywhere I think I might need something at arm’s reach.
Anything that I can dismember, sharpen or otherwise manipulate to my advantage, I find.
Because that’s plan B. In case I can’t figure out a way to manipulate him.
In case I can’t find a way to make this comfortable or reasonable.
I don’t ever want to be caught off guard.
I hate feeling helpless. In fact, one thing I’ve never accepted in all my life is helplessness.
I’ve been given a difficult hand. But I don’t waste time complaining about it, and I don’t waste time mourning feeling stuck.
Feeling disenfranchised. There’s no point.
This has me. This really has me, because it’s a situation that has layers.
I’m a prisoner. But getting out of here isn’t going to solve the other problem.
One thing at a time.
I’m getting hungry. I’ve lost track of what time it is.
It was evening in Rome when I got home, I slept on the plane, but I haven’t eaten since he took me.
I don’t know quite how long the flight was.
I’m not certain of anything. I try to orient myself.
It was daylight when we got here. I look and see curtains, open them up, and I’m looking at a window that isn’t like a normal window.
The panes of glass look impossibly thick, and it seems like there are several layers pressed together.
I touch it, and realize that it isn’t even glass. Some other material.
I’m really in danger. From every corner.
I fight against the rising despair again. I don’t want to be left in here by myself. I don’t want to be trapped with only my thoughts for company. It’s not good. I can’t succumb to this.
The door bursts open, and I whirl around, my breath catching in my throat, my body automatically going into a fighting stance.
“Stand down,” he says, coming into the room, and closing the door behind him, a tray balanced on one hand. “I’m not here to fight with you.”
“What is it?”
“Food.”
“Yes. But what is it? I’m trying to decide if I’m grateful to you or not.”
“I think you will find the steak to be of the highest quality. And the vegetables to be well seasoned.”
He sets the tray down at the foot of the bed, and I stare at it, trying to ignore my growling stomach. It must be lunchtime.
At least, wherever we are.
“So, you have men, do you? A troupe of them? Are you like an all-male revue, or is it something a little more sinister?” I pause for a moment and pretend to think. “I confess I find few things more sinister than a male stripper.”
“Really?” The question is dry, and not at all genuine, but I don’t care.
“Yes. The power balance is still woefully in their favor. It becomes distasteful.”
“I will have to take your word for that.”
He stands there, and I get a good look at him in the full light of day for the very first time. I’m not being held up against him, not blind with fear and fury.
He’s huge.
I knew that immediately. He’s also so stunningly beautiful. It seems unreal. So beautiful that even in the throes of my kidnapping I noticed that beauty.
I’m struck hard again by it now.
His black hair falls artfully into his face, his dark eyes wide and fringed with thick lashes. So perfect, you would almost call him beautiful, except for the sharp lines of his brows, the brutal precision of his jawline and the cruel curve of his lips.
The tattoos that color his skin mark him as a man who isn’t afraid to stand out.
To draw attention. And I find that unsettling, because a man of his past should want to blend in.
To avoid detection. That he’s given himself distinctive marks and characteristics is almost like a dare.
To his enemies, to the law. A brazen quality that I find quite unsettling. And fascinating.
The tattoos are all black ink, dark lines, the art so tightly woven within itself that I have a difficult time discerning what the images are.
You would have to get close to him to really examine them.
The very idea makes my heart catch in my throat.
And I don’t like the sensation. I’m completely unfamiliar with looking at men and experiencing attraction.
Generally speaking I feel fear and suspicion.
I can appreciate pictures of handsome men.
I can appreciate handsome men in movies.
In real life, they have always felt like the kind of liability that I couldn’t take on.
And I always lead with my more suspicious instincts.
I find it to be one of my better qualities.
“Seriously, though. What do you have men for?” I ask.
“Categorically none of your business,” he responds.
“I’m carrying your baby. I don’t have the right to know anything about you?”
“In my life, too much information often means a person becomes a target.”
“I’m already a target.”
“So you are. Enjoy your meal.”
“Wait,” I say, and I’m humiliated by the pleading note in my voice. Being trapped in here is getting to me.
Then, I gather myself.
Maybe I can appeal to his softer nature. If it’s possible that one exists. “I don’t even know where we are.”
“Near Borneo.”
“I’m not sure I know where that is,” I say.
“I don’t believe you.”
“What?”
“I’ve done a substantial amount of research on you. I had Intel gathered when I found out that you are carrying my baby. You are of above-average intelligence.”
“Great. That doesn’t mean I’ve memorized the world map.”
He shrugs. But doesn’t seem overly interested in clarifying anything.
“I… Listen, I don’t want to spend all my time stuck in here.”
“You have to earn going-out privileges,” he says, his tone hard and uncompromising.
“Do you hear yourself? Treating me like I’m an animal.”
“You’ve done a fair job of acting like an animal ever since I first came into contact with you.”
“Isn’t that just like a man, to cause a whole situation by being unnecessarily scary, menacing and generally a brute, and then blame the woman.”
“Another thing that I feel skepticism toward. You don’t seem to be frightened of me at all. People who are frightened of me usually behave…differently.”
“Would you prefer that I cower?” I take a deep breath, and I do something I never do.
I open a vein. “I’m pregnant, I don’t know what this revelation of you being the father of the baby means for me, other than that my life is in danger.
I might not be able to finish school because you’ve taken me captive.
I don’t know what that’s going to mean for my future.
I don’t know anything. And I have no power in the situation.
If I could just have your assurance that I will not be kept in here like a caged animal. ”
I can’t handle it; that’s the real problem. I can endure an awful lot, but not being locked in somewhere, not without promise of reprieve.
He looks at me, his dark gaze dispassionate. “You may join me for dinner. That is not a request.”
Then he turns, and walks out of the room, leaving me there, regretful that I tried honesty with him, even as a manipulation tactic.
Regretful that I didn’t try to use a weapon on him.
Sure, it would’ve been signing my death warrant.
But at least I would’ve gone down with a fight.
As it is, all I have is an invitation to dinner.
And a bleak, dark future stretching before me.
That’s when I realize I don’t even know my captor’s name.