“Dig deeper into the files. There’s something we’re missing.”
“On it,” Smith replies before he disconnects our connection with a clank.
Rocco gives me a couple of minutes to shake off my confusion before asking, “Back to the compound?”
I shake my head without pause for thought. “Head to Roxanne’s ranch. I want to grab a couple of her things for when she’s back. She’ll feel more comfortable being surrounded by her belongings.”
I didn’t mean to say my last sentence, but I’m glad I couldn’t hold back when Rocco murmurs, “She doesn’t needthings, Dimi. She just needs you.”
15
Roxanne
Iwake up startled and confused. I’m in a room similar to the one I escaped from yesterday afternoon, but the sky is no longer moody with a low-hanging sun and ominous clouds. Light is beaming through the cracks in the bordered-up windows, and its bright rays alert it is well past dawn.
As I cradle my thumping head, I try to recall what happened between yesterday afternoon and now. I remember my stepless dash through a rundown ranch, the scary shadows above my head, and my near coronary upon discovering Audrey is alive, but other than that, my mind is blank. I don’t remember entering this room at all. It’s as if a good sixteen hours of my life just up and vanished.
Was I drugged again? Is that why I feel hungover?
While I seek answers to my questions, I swish my tongue around my mouth. My throat is drier than a desert. I wish I could say the same thing about the area between my legs.
Even without my hand creeping across the bedding that’s clinging to my sweat-beaded skin, I’m confident I am bleeding. Not only did my brief movement waft a coppery scent into the air, there’s also a knot in my stomach that won’t come undone no matter how long I strive to avoid the obvious.
After carefully dabbing my fingers over the dampness coating my thighs, I snap my eyes shut, then raise my shaky hand to my face. I’m not a religious person, but I pray for a miracle on repeat before I gingerly open my eyes to inspect the sticky goop on my fingertips.
No, I inwardly scream when I noticed the blood coating my fingers. It’s red, bright, and spread from the apex of my thighs to the back of my knees.
As I scoot up the mattress, needing distance from the product ripping my heart to shreds, I suck in air, forcing down the sob bubbling in my chest. Nothing can fix the tears in my eyes, though. They stream down my cheeks unchecked before they’re absorbed by the nightwear drenched with cups of blood.
I’d give anything to go back to yesterday, to feel the same numbness I felt when I was aided out of the stranger’s room of horrors because the pain tearing through me now is worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s so bad, a bullet could pierce through me, and I wouldn’t feel it. It hurts so much. It truly feels as if I’m dying, like more than my baby is being absorbed by a dirty set of sheets. My heart is there too.
I’ve barely brought my gut-wrenching sobs down to a whimper when the door to my room shoots open. With how brutal he was hit late yesterday afternoon, the last person I anticipate to walk into my room is my original captor.
Even with him being struck hours ago, his walk is staggered. Audrey’s hit hurt him. I shouldn’t smile at the thought, but I do. He’s a murderer, he doesn’t deserve my sympathy. I hope he rots in hell but not before Dimitri slowly drives him there. He didn’t just hurt me when he killed my baby, he took something from Dimitri he can never return, and it will cost him more than his life.
When I say that to the goon, he has the hide to smile. “I’ve always believed in an heir and a spare.” He rubs his hands together like he isn’t wearing a thick coat, jeans, and boots. “Unfortunately for you, royals don’t like tainting the bloodline with bastard children. You should ask Dimitri about it the next time you see him.Ifyou ever see him again.”
“Oh, I’ll see him,” I snap out before I can stop myself. “You can place money on it. Just like I can guarantee you’re on your last breaths.”
His words are like a knife to my chest when he mutters, “At least I had the chance to breathe. It’s more than your bastard child will ever get.”
The amount of blood I lost overnight should make me weak. It should render me incapable of moving, much less retaliating. However, now Audrey’s bewildering recovery makes sense. There’s nothing more frightening than a momma bear defending her cub. I only knew of my child’s existence for a little over twenty-four hours, but that doesn’t lessen their significance to me. He or she meant something.They still do.
I drag my nails down the goon’s face while he attempts to silence my campaign by shoving the barrel of a gun under my ribs. The fact he needs a weapon to defend himself humors me. He is double my weight, my head only reaches his shoulders, yet he’s still scared of me.
Good. He should be scared because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
While grunting through the pain of my palm ramming into his sternum, the goon slams his boot into my right foot, then twists. Pain shreds through me, but I keep my howl on the down-low, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me again.
Once he has me wrapped up in a bear hug I can’t loosen, he lowers his lips to my ear. “I couldn’t work out why you had them so worried. Yeah, you’re pretty, you’ve got a nice set of tits, an ass you could bounce a quarter off, and a tight cunt I don’t see letting up for years to come, but so do a million other American women.” He lowers his arm from the top of my chest to the curves of my breasts. “But now I get it. Oh, how I have seen the light. You’ve got spunk, charisma…” He gropes my breast for each word he speaks. “All the things his wife doesn’t have.” I think he’s creeping his hand down my stomach to defile me some more. I have no clue he’s stabbing a final nail into my heart. “It’s a pity you don’t have his kid anymore. You might have given her a run for her money if you had.” I fall to my knees when he unexpectedly releases me. “Get yourself cleaned up. Wouldn’t want you scaring the kids.”
My brain tells me to stay down, but my heart demands the opposite. If Audrey is here, that means Fien is most likely here as well. My heart is breaking for both Dimitri and myself, but Fien’s cute little chubby cheeks and eyes identical to her father’s in every way could very well be the cure to my heartache.
With my back facing the coldblooded stranger, I peel my blood-soaked nightie off my body before replacing it with a fresh one folded at the end of my bed. My legs shudder when I slip them into the openings of a pair of panties only my nanna would think were fashionable. I’m not scared the man is watching me like a hawk. I’m horrified about the gigantic pad someone preloaded into my underwear.
Although I hate being reminded about what I’ve lost, the products surrounding me make sense of the cold, sterile room I awoke in. My baby wasn’t the only one delivered here. The stack of maternity pads in the partially cracked-open closet is indicating enough, let alone the pediatric medical crib just outside the door.
“How many children have these women birthed?” I ask the man when he guides me out of the room with a firm grip on my arm.
