Preg-Not

30

Maybe.

The only thing that was certain was that Raelynn was getting the hell out of there.

She spent some time ripping strips of cloth from a bed sheet. She needed to cover the cuts in her skin. There were no shoes in the room, so she had to improvise.

When she heard the doorknob jiggle, she shoved everything under a pillow. The door opened, and the younger kidnapper walked in. His button-down, navy blue dress shirt had some buttons undone, revealing clear, tanned flesh.

"I need to you strip."

"Wh– what? No... please."

"Spare me the waterworks. Just take your fucking clothes off," he grunted.

When he took a step into the room, she jumped to her feet and leaned against the nearest wall. Her eyes flickered from his face to the phone he was holding. She suspected that he planned on recording what he was about to do.

"Please– no!"

He stopped half-way into the room. "I don't have time for this. Take them off, or they'll be removed for you."

Before she could do any more pleading, he slammed the door shut.

The room began to spin as the stress of the day fought with gravity. Fearing that she would fall, she laid on the bed just as she fell unconscious.

When she woke up, she was disoriented, thirsty, and naked.

– • –

"No."

Glass shattered as Maksim threw his cup at the nearest wall. One of his men ducked to avoid the projectile, but Viktor stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

"If we send any more men, we will raise flags. We don't want the feds on our asses, Mak. We just did that huge drug trade and don't need more heat."

"You don't get it," Maksim seethed. "That woman is my empire!"

He looked a little crazy. A dislocated finger and bloodly knuckles would do that to a man.

"но ты хочешь, чтобы я беспокоился о the feds?" (But you want me to worry about the feds?)

He sounded crazy, too. His constant flipping from Russian to English was hard to keep up with. He couldn't help himself. He was being split in half– human and monster, father and killer, predator and prey, Russian and American.

"There's more to think about here. I know she's important to you, but the mafia–"

Maksim raised a hand to wipe his lips, unknowingly smearing his chin with blood. "To hell with the mafia families. I've walked from this before and I'll do it again. If I don't get my child and woman, I swear to your bitch of a mother that I'll bring you all down."

His words were traitorous. They could cost him his life, but he didn't care. Not even a bullet to the head would stop him from finding Raelynn.

Viktor didn't reply. He only stared. There was no usual smirk or laughter in his expression. He was troubled, because in all his years of life, he had never seen Maksim so unraveled.

"Don't question me again and get it fucking done."

Maksim picked up the bottle of acid he planned on pouring down the throat of whoever plotted this and reached for his gun.

The doors to his office barged open as one of his IT guys walked in. "A message. Encrypted. Can't track it down," he rushed.

Maksim snatched the laptop from his hands and tore through the images. There were three. Raelynn– all of Raelynn's smooth, rounded, clear skin, was revealed.

She was naked, asleep, and vulnerable.

His chest burned, and he realized it was because he had screamed.

What had they done to her?

He looked at her thighs, looking for blood, but they were angled in a way that they covered her sex.

His devastation was wrapped in fury. To know that the mother of his child had been violated under his protection made him want to set free the burn in his chest and turn the world to ashes.

There was a message at the end of the document– a number, and a name.

The Italians had her.

He ripped through his desk in search of his cellphone and made the call.

"Kuznetsov."

"No. Today, I'm Satan, you son of a bitch. Return her now, or–"

"You fucking Russians bark too much," Dante interjected. "Your woman is fine, and so are the babies. The pictures are proof that she is unharmed. I had a female take them."

"What?"

"I said they're fine, and that a female took the photos so you have no reason to smear me as a rapist."

"Babies?"

It felt like a bucket of ice had been poured on him. Viktor, who stood beside him, looked equally confused.

"Did you forget how to count? One, two. The twins. I'm not excited to hear that you dogs are reproducing two at a time, but I have no plans to kill babies. They are fine. I had a doctor examine Raelynn as she slept."

But there weren't two fetuses. There was one. Maksim should know, because he fell asleep cupping Raelynn's belly every night. He had talked to it; mapped its roundness.

Could it be? Did Raelynn fool him twice?

Something flickered on the laptop, and he was soon staring at a sonogram of two little bundles.

His hand hurt as his dislocated finger protested against the fist he formed.

Twins. He had two baby boys on the way, not one, and his enemy found out before him.

"What do you want, Dante?"

"What?" Dante replied, making him realize he spoke in Russian.

Reality was blurring into a nightmare, and in that nightmare, he was the monster.

"What do you want?" he repeated in English.

"Ah," Dante laughed. "Now we're talking."