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He paused, his gaze burning into me. “She wouldn’t leave because of that.” I wanted to believe him, I really did, but the longer she was gone, the more I started to believe that she had.
She didn’t want this life. She’d grown up surrounded by the right side of the law, but I’d come along and dragged her to the darkness—a darkness she should never have been part of.
“Maybe she just doesn’t want this life.” I let my body drop back and leaned against the side of the SUV, staring into the back window and seeing Dario’s car seat. She hadn’t taken it with her, but that didn’t mean anything.
The men around me were silent, helping to confirm my thoughts. I’d tried to be good for Navy. I’d tried my hardest. But she’d seen sides of me in the last week that I’d never shown before. So maybe itwastoo much for her.
I wouldn’t blame her.
I pushed up off the SUV, resigned to the fact that I’d fucked up epically, but something near the back wheel of her car caught my attention. Bending down, I then reached out, trying to grab it, and as soon as I pulled it out, I knew…I fuckin’ knew that she hadn’t left me.
“It’s Dario’s pacifier.” I ground my teeth together, remembering how we’d tried to give him a different type of pacifier because we couldn’t find the same one he’d had since he was born, but he refused every single one of them. This was theonlyone he would have. And it was here, under the wheel of her car. “She wouldn’t go anywhere without it.”
She hadn’t left me…but…where had she gone? Where the hell was she?
* * *
NAVY
Wincing, I tried to swallow against my dry throat. My tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth, my body craving water. My lips were dry and cracked, so I tried to wet them, but I failed.
I jerked my arm up, attempting to reach out for a drink as I tried to peel my eyes open, but something stopped me.
What the—
“Ah, she’s finally waking up.”
Miriam.
Everything hit me all at once. The kind smile she’d flashed at me as I looked at her outside of the doctor’s office. The way her eyes lit up when she glanced at Dario. The man behind me. The cloth. Darkness.
I snapped my arms up again, trying to get them free, but it was no use because I was tied to…something. I tried to take stock of everything around me, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I was cold, my body shivering, but I could tell that I was sitting in a chair—a chair that I was currently tied to.
My eyes felt like they were glued shut, but I put all of my strength into opening them, needing to absorb everything, but when I did, a blinding light had them snapping closed again.
She laughed. Like a crazy lunatic. What the hell?
“This is always my favorite part.”
I growled, deep in my chest. “Where am I?”
She tutted, her footsteps sounding closer. I listened to every movement, breathed deep to smell anything I could. I’d watched enough true crime documentaries to know what I needed to take stock of. But it was the binds on my arms and—I tried to move my legs, but they were strapped too—legs that incapacitated me.
“You ask too many questions.” I ground my teeth together as her voice sounded right next to my ear. “Just like you did when you were pregnant.”
Her hand made contact with the side of my neck, her fingers digging into the middle of my throat. I choked at the pain, at the thought of not being able to take a breath, but it was her fingernails biting against my skin that made my eyes open again.
I squinted, trying to not let the bright light that was shining directly on me affect me looking at her. Part of me wished I’d kept my eyes closed so that I didn’t have to see the crazed look reflected in her eyes. She wasn’t the same woman I’d met all of those months ago.
Her hair was sticking up in places, dirt on the side of her face, and her lip was bleeding too.
“You see this? This is your fault,” she snapped, gripping my neck harder as she waved at her face. “If you would have just given me your baby, none of this would have had to happen.”
I spluttered, rocking my body back and forth, trying to silently tell her that I couldn’t breathe. But she didn’t care. She just kept her hand there, squeezing, baring her teeth at me. The edges of my vision were going blurry, darkness threatening to swallow me whole again. But I couldn’t let it. I couldn’t be at a disadvantage again. Not when I had no idea where I was…or where Dario was.
I couldn’t hear his cries, couldn’t smell his distinct baby smell. A sob bubbled up inside me, threatening to explode. It took all of my strength to keep it locked up inside, not willing to give her the satisfaction at seeing me like that.
“It’s little bitches like you that ruin everything.” She pressed her face close to mine, her breath rank. “But you’ll get your punishment, I’ll make sure of it.”
