Page 22 of Pocketful of Us
Now that I was living in the aftermath, I realized just how naïve and sheltered my life had been.
War came in lots of different shades and forms.
Evil didn't just come in the form of horrid dictators in foreign lands.
It was right under my nose.
It was in myblood.
Finding a way out of the revenge-fueled warzone I'd been thrust into and escaping the clutches of my strangely-charismatic captor should have been my one and only priority.
However, the recent discovery of the intruder making itself comfortable inside my uterus took precedent over the madness.
I was pregnant.
It wasn't a guess or a maybe.
Confirmed by the countless pregnancy tests I had been forced to pee on at the hands of said captor, and confirmed even further at the hospital I had been taken to in Italy, where no one spoke a word of English, I couldn’t deny what was coming down the tracks in a few short months.
Motherhood.
Sketch's baby…
If Presley were here, he would tell me that I was in a pickle.
He would say that I had the worst luck to get knocked up our very first time having sex and that Sketch had to possess some seriously overachieving super-sperm.
He would be so freaking right.
At least you're off the ship of horrors,I reminded myself, taking comfort in the knowledge that I was on dry land and far away from the ship my world collapsed in.
More than once.
Everything about the exquisite country estate Raffaele had taken me to screamedfamiliar.
Inside the mansion, I somehow knew every corridor I walked down. I knew exactly what to find behind each intricately carved oak door.
After everything I had learned this past year, I knew that my feelings of familiarity with this place couldn’t be passed off as coincidental.
Not when this felt likehome.
I hadn't seen or spoken to my captor since our arrival at the estate some weeks back, but I had been given permission to roam the mansion and gardens to my heart's content.
It wasn’t like he had to worry about me breaking out and escaping. The property was heavily guarded twenty-four-seven. I couldn’t slip away if I wanted to and besides, everyone spoke Italian, something I regrettably did not.
I tried not to think about what was going to happen to me. I forced all thoughts of my future as far from my mind as possible, knowing in my heart that there was a very good chance I didn’t have one to look forward to.
I had no idea of what Raffaele intended to do with me, but I doubted it was good – or painless.
Not when my father had slaughtered his entire family.
"The stakes have changed. I can never let you go now…"
A horrible wave of impending doom washed through me whenever I thought about what Raffaele had said to me that night. That feeling of doom escalated even further when I thought about the growing swell of my stomach and the absence of Sketch.
Don’t think about it, Ro.
He's out there somewhere.
