Page 83 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

“I am leaving you here.”

“No!” And then her eyes filled with tears, some spilling down her pale cheeks, her expression contorting into one of abject terror. “Please. Please don’t. Please. I can’t stand to be locked in a room like this. I’m not going to survive. I’ll… I’ll lose my mind. I don’t know what’ll happen. I don’t…”

She was doing it again. Acting as if I’m something to be manipulated. When I am not. Not in the least. “You are quite finished.”

“My parents used to do this to me. When they would want to get high. When they would…when they would go on benders.” Her face was tear streaked, her expression one of pure desperation. “They used to leave me locked in my room for days. With a sippy cup and nothing else. They used to leave me there. And it would feel like weeks and weeks, and I never knew when it was going to end, or if they were ever going to let me out again. And you just can’t do this to me.”

I look at her, and I know that she’s not lying. I know that she’s afraid. Because her fear is visible. It’s not like any response I’ve seen from her since I first showed up at her apartment yesterday. She’s genuinely unraveling. And as angry as I am about her performance downstairs, I can’t do this to her. It wouldn’t be good for the baby.

“I will not lock the door. But if you leave this room, you may go to the kitchen, the dining room or the library. I will not have you wandering around outside.”

She nods, her expression still fear filled. “Sleep well.”

I can feel that she’s looking for something to say. Some rejoinder that will help her save her pride. That’s when I decide to leave her there. Which is perhaps unkind. But I’ve never claimed to be kind. And she will learn her lesson.

I might not be my father, but I am not a man to be trifled with.

CHAPTER SIX

Lindsay

WHEN I WAKE UP, I’m still horrified at my behavior the night before. Not at my attempts at manipulating him.

Ciro.

Ciro Corretti. My enemy. The father of my baby.

I have no interest in running away from him. Running away from here. But what I want is a feeling of being in control, and last night I lost it completely.

I was so panicked by the threat to lock me in the room for an extended period of time that I decided to manipulate him with the truth. Now I can see my course as it is set before me, and I don’t like it.

I don’t want to have to share bits and pieces of myself. I don’t want to be vulnerable to him.

I don’t want to be vulnerable to anyone.

But it worked.

I can’t ignore the fact that it worked.

He didn’t like my genuine distress. Even though he was still hard, he was moved by it.

I can use that.

God knows I have plenty of trauma of my own. But it makes me feel exposed that I shared the truth with him.

I’ve never told that to anyone. When I was a child, my parents made it very clear that there were certain things I had to keep secret. Or I would get taken away from them. They held that over my head, like being taken from that would be the most terrifying thing. They said that I would end up somewhere worse. Because people who wanted to take care of kids for cash, which was what foster care was to them, were far worse than they could ever be.

I’m not sure that I believe that. But I also am well acquainted with the phrase “out of the frying pan and into the fire.” In any case, by the time I was fifteen, I definitely wasn’t afraid of being without them.

I hate that there are still aspects of my past that get me. But it’s that feeling of helplessness. I hated being a kid.

And now I’m bringing one into this world.

No. I’m determined that I’m going to convince him that we need to give this child up for adoption. It’s the one good thing that I can do here. The one way that I can possibly correct this mistake. But in order to bring him over to my side I’m going to have to get him to listen to me. Which is going to require that he…likes me. There are two ways I can think to do that. One is to appeal to that pity that he seems to feel for me. The other…

The other sends a sharp shock of sensation through me.

I’ve never done it before. Seduction. I decided that I wasn’t going to try to manipulate men with my body years ago. I decided to defend my body as my ultimate temple. But now I suppose because that temple currently houses another life, I have to be willing to use it to preserve that life. Maybe it would sound like selfishness to most people. Trying to make sure that I don’t end up raising the baby. But I’m not worried about that. I’m going to have that baby, and he’s going to throw me out onto the streets. I’m never going to see that child again. But I don’t want that child raised in darkness. This man is nothing but darkness.