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This great weight inside me, this thing, this child I carried like a sinful secret. It burdened me and lightened me at the same time. I wanted to tell him, and I didn’t. Thirteen weeks now, it had been growing inside me. After I’d found out, I’d dithered and ummed and ahhed and ached. Because I wanted it. And I didn’t. I wanted it because it was mine, loved it like I loved the first baby I’d birthed so long ago. Hated it because it was forcing me to choose. Life or death. No matter which one I chose, I was going to regret it. Kill my child, the child Dornan and I had unwittingly created? Or keep it, bring it into this world, only to have it taken from me just like Luis.
I hated myself because I was so selfish. Because if things had been different, if I had been free, I would have been ecstatic to have a baby growing in my womb, even if it was Dornan’s.
Especially if it was Dornan’s.
I loved him. I loved him even in my darkest moments. Even in his.
But I still couldn’t reconcile the man I loved, the father of my child, with the man who had shot that woman in front of me while I held her baby in my arms, begging him to stop.
I still couldn’t fathom that the man I loved had been doing this – taking women and selling them as slaves and handing me the money afterwards – and I’d been blissfully unaware.
I knew they were bad people. I knew that. But I’d never known how complicit I was in it all.
And as much as I tried to convince Dornan to stand up to his father, he insisted that he couldn’t. That there was a bigger picture to think of. That it wasn’t just me he had to worry about.
‘You’re the kingpin of this operation,’ I protested. ‘You’re the one in charge of all of this.’
‘It’s not like that.’ Dornan replied, stonewalling me.
‘It’s exactly like that. You let me see something like this and then you pretend that you’re doing it for me? Well, don’t do it for me. I’d rather die than be the reason for all of this.’
‘Shut up,’ he growled. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, and if he ever hears you—’
‘Let him hear me, Dornan,’ I cut him off. ‘Let him hear everything I say. Because if he thinks he can make you do this for him and use me as a threat? I won’t have it. I’ll let him sell me as a fucking sex slave before I let you traffic one more soul in my name.’
‘Don’t you get it?’ he yelled. ‘This isn’t just about you. You’re one form of currency, Ana, but I have kids. I have friends. I have a club. How many people do you think had to die before I agreed to do this for my father? I’m no kingpin,’ he said bitterly. ‘Emilio’s the kingpin. I’m the pawn, and so are you.’
‘He’s your father,’ I protested.
‘Exactly.’
‘Who did he kill, Dornan? Who did he kill to make you go along with this?’
He was silent for a beat.
‘That woman I told you about, the first woman I really loved. Her name was Stephanie.’
He’d never told me her name before.
‘My father was putting the pressure on for me to join his trafficking operation. Said he needed someone he could trust to run it, and who can you trust more than your own flesh and blood? And I refused. I said no. I said fuck you, do your own dirty work.’
‘What happened?’
‘She disappeared. I said no, and she fucking vanished into thin air. I already had kids at that point. I didn’t love their mother, but I sure as hell didn’t hate her enough to risk her. To risk my boys. No. I showed up. I did what I was told to do. I kept my family safe.’
‘Your sons – they’re his family. That’s Emilio’s grandsons you’re talking about.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘When I say my father’s a snake, I’m not fucking kidding around, alright? He’d slit his own mother’s throat if it got him where he wanted to go. He’d sell my boys just as soon as he’d sell you.’
‘Dornan,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know if I can live like this anymore.’
I cried. I always cried.
‘Really?’ he said, and his face twisted with rage. ‘And what can you live with? Huh? What’s the alternative? You want to leave?’
‘I don’t want to leave you,’ I muttered. ‘I want to leave this craziness. This is no place for a—’ I’d almost said baby, the word on the tip of my tongue.
‘For a what?’ he pressed.
