Nico has two guards of his own, and I still have the French woman and bald guy tending to me. I know now that she is Louise and he is Cal. They haven’t softened toward me at all. They’re automatons, merely going through the motions of being human. I’ve come to despise them almost more than Nico. He’s at least capable of expressing something, whether it’s rage or sadistic pleasure.
The last couple of days I’ve tried to shove down this sick feeling I’m having. Even now, I can hardly think the thoughts. I’ll know soon enough. A pregnancy test was left in my room this morning along with the breakfast tray. I’m terrified of what it will show. Deep down, I know.
Nico has forced me to take regular pregnancy tests since we started sleeping together here. Once before—I guess to make sure I wasn’t already pregnant with Soti’s baby, and oh, how I wished I was, even though I couldn’t really wish that on him—and then every couple of weeks since then. My period has been unpredictable, and Nico isn’t usually patient enough to wait until I start. Last month I spotted a little and didn’t have to take the test when I told him I was on my period. But what I didn’t tell him is that it never fully turned into one.
I put it off. I read. I pace. I watch Sense and Sensibility and cry every time I see Colonel Brandon. His voice soothes Marianne and me. I hate that Alan Rickman is dead.
I stare into space and think of all the ways I could get rid of the test without him knowing. I pace a little longer and then take a nap. Movements in his room wake me up and I know it won’t be long before he’s walking through my door.
A few minutes later, I hear the lock turning and he walks in. He sees the test lying on the dresser and picks it up.
“Why haven’t you done it yet?”
I shrug.
He grabs my arm and leads me to the bathroom then opens the package and forces the test into my hands.
“Do it. Now.”
He doesn’t give me privacy, and now I wish I’d done it before he came. He would have found out anyway.
We sit and wait. I don’t watch the test. I already know. And when he sees the result and yells with excitement, I realize I’ve just given him exactly what he was after all along: an heir.
“This calls for a celebration,” Nico says later that night, pouring sparkling juice for me and champagne for himself. Selfish bastard. “You have made me so happy, Lilith.” He clinks his glass to mine and we sip. “To prove it, tomorrow afternoon, I will be attending the groundbreaking ceremony for our new venture, and you, mia piccola puttana, will be by my side. I want to officially let the world know you’re mine.”
“You’re taking me with you?” I don’t like showing any emotion with him, but I can’t hide my surprise. The thought of going outside, possibly seeing where I am, the possibility that I could get away … my mind goes on overdrive.
“You’re sealing our future with this baby, giving me everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s the beginning of some changes for you, Lilith. I told you there were choices to be made. You have chosen well. It can all change just like that,” his fingers snap with a loud pop, “but I hope you will continue to value all the lives at stake now.”
I shakily set down the glass and will my heart to not jump out of my throat. Tomorrow might not be the time to escape, but something tells me I’ll at least be closer to finding out what all of this has been about.
The next morning, Louise brings in a silky gold blouse for me to wear with cream pants and a jacket, gold pumps to match. Much more conservative and classy than what Nico usually chooses for me. I need a haircut and tell Louise so. My hair is past my waist; soon I’ll be able to sit on it. She comes back with scissors and cuts off a few inches. With the new clothes and trim, and Nico taking me outside these walls, I’m antsy and excited. I need to settle down and come up with a plan. Day in and day out, all I’ve thought about is escaping, but now that I could be one step closer to actually doing it, all I can think about is fresh air and seeing anyone other than Nico … hopefully someone outside of the mafia.
When Nico comes in an hour later, he whistles as he turns me around, like he’s admiring his prize breeding horse.
“I can’t wait until your belly is fat with my baby,” he whispers, nipping my ear.
His chest presses into my back and I take a step forward, away from him. He pulls my hips back to meet his hardening bulge, adjusting to hit me in just the right spot, and I’m caught off guard by how much my body wants more.
If there was ever any doubt before, it’s been fucked out of me: I am finally, completely and unequivocally, a whore.
Nico takes my hand and pulls me to the door of my room, and for a moment, I’m elated. Finally! I’ll see the house! And outside!
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a mask, covering my eyes and carefully adjusting the thin strap on the back of my head. I whimper when he slips something over my head. It’s lightweight and effective. I see nothing.
“Nico, please take it off. I tried so hard to look good for you. I wasted my time if you’re just going to wreck my hair and makeup.”
“You look beautiful, Lilith. I have you right where I want you.” He chuckles. Then his hand shifts off my back and he slides a ring on my finger. “A little something to look forward to seeing when we get there.”
I swallow hard. Please don’t cry, please don’t cry. “I just want to see trees and grass and water. I need to see it. Please, Nico.” I haven’t begged him for anything since I was sixteen.
“You’ll see trees and grass and water soon enough, my little dramatic puttana.”
The tears gather at the bottom of my mask; some still finding their way out through the thick material. I chew the inside of my cheek and take a shuddered breath.
Nico puts a hand on each of my shoulders and we leave my cell. We turn to the right and then Nico picks me up and I get confused about our direction. I think we take another right and go down a flight of stairs, but I’m not certain. Nico’s guards join us, asking if he’s ready to go, but they’re quiet after he answers. Nico keeps walking. The house must be big. I hear a door close quietly and feel a breeze on my hand. Air. I want more of it.
Nico sets me down and moves me forward. There’s a faint familiar smell that tugs on the outskirts of my memory. It’s sweet. I should know what it is. If I could whip this material off of my head and inhale, I’d know. Hands grip my arm and the ground wavers. A boat? Curse you, Nico. Have I been on an island all this time? I hope to God I haven’t. The thought of it makes me even more claustrophobic. I’m forced to sit and we begin moving right away. The ride is ten minutes tops and from there I’m shoved into a car for another ten or fifteen minutes. I’m grateful when we stop—my stomach isn’t happy.
The material is removed first, and my hair is smoothed down. A finger rubs by my lips and then the mask comes off. Nico places his hands on either side of my face and looks in my eyes, keeping my head from turning.
“One wrong move, Lilith. One wrong move is all it takes. I’m assuming you’ve moved past Soti by now, the way you act in my bed,” he sneers, “but either way, he’ll be the first to go. Then everyone in the community center … I’ve heard you were quite fond of Miss Jez? Miss Christine? JT?” His eyes narrow. “Have I missed anyone else important? It’ll come to me. You get my point. You’ve done well, proven yourself trustworthy … don’t do anything to mess that up today.” He plants a kiss on my lips and slowly moves back to look me in the eyes again. “Once you have my baby, the mask will be history. You have my word.” He smiles and his hands drop.
The car door opens before I have time to think about what he means, and he steps out, reaching for my hand. I take it and get out of the car. My lungs fill with precious air and I feel lightheaded with relief that I’m outside my cage. We walk out of a garage and the moment is quickly broken with cameras going off and the chatter of reporters. Nico smiles and moves us through the small crowd gathered. It’s then that I see where we are. Maison D’amour looms over me, in all
its restored glory, and looking better than it ever has. But it isn’t just my home anymore. The huge house still takes up the corner but looks small compared to the massive extension that has been added to the right side. Our sign has been taken down and a new sign with a huge yellow bow around it reads L’hôtel Amour.
Guards close in around me, while Nico says a few words about the anticipated opening of the new hotel and goes on and on about all the amenities. What creates a stir is when he mentions the laws lifted for the ban on gambling in the upcoming grand hotel. Several reporters bring up Harrah’s and they launch into a long discussion that I have a hard time following. I wonder what Nico had to do to get those laws lifted. I’m sure Bentley fits in there somewhere.
I can’t stop looking at the house. It was a lifetime ago that I lived here, when my entire world was inside those walls. So many memories I’d rather not remember come to mind, underlining the fact that I never want to set foot in there again. I moved from one prison to the next, with Soti being the small interlude in between.
Soti. What if he’s here? I spin around suddenly, causing the guards to move in closer. I glare at them. “Back off,” I spit out. It doesn’t work. They ignore me and I do my best to work around them. The community center is just a few blocks away and knowing Soti, he already knows about the hotel. Who knows how long today’s festivities were planned? Still, it’s possible.
Nico drones on and I turn around, standing on my tiptoes to see around the tallest guard. My stomach drops out when I see her. She’s standing across the street, eyes on me, her expression almost daring me to make a wrong move. Not that she would save me if I did, more like she’d squash me like a bug. Mommy Dearest. Has there been a time when she loved me, or have I only ever been the means to her greedy end? Slight movement to the left of her catches my attention. Less than five feet from Alexis is Kell, Bentley’s wife. She’s tucked behind a column, but from the way she’s watching me I’m certain she wants me to know she’s there. She stares until I start to get antsy, then she looks back at my mother and they smile at one another. The exchange gives me the creeps. Does Kell think I was responsible for Bentley’s death? She must know he’s dead.
I fold my arms around myself and resist the urge to run. I wouldn’t get very far, with too many of Nico’s allies surrounding me. This desperate stuck feeling, always trapped: I’m weary of it. Better than being locked away inside, I have to remind myself. If I can just get him to trust me, he’ll bring me out more. He’ll slip sometime and when he does, I’ll be ready.
A break in the clouds parts and a stream of sunlight hits my face. I tilt my head back and close my eyes, the sun like heaven caressing my skin. A baby. I’m going to be a mother. It sinks in with a ring of threat and promise. It hasn’t felt real, but whether I want Nico’s baby or not, I’m bringing a life into his world.
I can do this. I have to. The choices are to either go back to that house and be locked in denial or to plot my way out of there. It’s not just me anymore. I don’t know how I can ever be a good mother, but maybe if I simply do everything my mother didn’t do, I’ll be okay. For the first time, I feel a rush of love for my baby. I may have been a pawn all this time—my entire life, really—in a game I was never given all the rules to, but as long as I’m breathing, my child won’t ever be part of that game.
Chapter Twenty
SOTI
I see you everywhere but where I want.
I’ve had times in my life when I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude and awe, I have to say thank you out loud to the heavens and whoever might be listening.
How quickly I fall to the other end of the spectrum.
The landmarks I’ve set up in my memory—of all the impossibilities conquered—fall away, and I see them for what they really are … slippery stones that momentarily stacked up but are now receding back into the water. My words have become a gross unloading of all the injustice that weighs down my chest. I can’t climb my way out of the dark, dirty manhole—I only slip further. Every problem is bigger, more difficult to solve. The poverty around me is insurmountable, my help will never make a significant difference. It’s all been a facade and now I feel I am impersonating someone who no longer exists.
Everywhere I look I see her and am reminded that my heart might have been recognized for a moment, but it was only long enough for her to wink and keep walking.
I’ve tried to find Lili; Rudy has done his best. She doesn’t want to be found. When the divorce papers came, I signed them. I didn’t need to see her to believe it anymore. Her note rings truer with each day she doesn’t come back, and her signature rejecting our marriage seals it. I curl up with my old lover, Whiskey, and give myself permission to break from reality for a good long time.
It gets ugly. I become all the worst parts of myself, the me I’d counted on being dead and buried. I drink until I pass out and can hardly get up in the morning. There are missing days, whole twenty-four-hour blocks of time I’ve completely misplaced. Days that JT pulls me out of bed and tosses me, fully dressed, in the shower. If it were just the one time, it’d be bad but not the worst thing I’ve ever done. But it’s countless mornings. JT never shows me anything but kindness. I show up at the right place and the right time and get things done, but it’s all thanks to him. On the days the alcohol is coming out of my pores, he goes to the meetings in my place. I can’t keep letting him down.
Losing Lili brings back a lot of the feelings I faced when I lost my sister. I think I’ve been trying to save everyone in her place, and maybe that’s what I did with Lili, too. It’s always been me who needed saving.
If she was able to fool me so well, how can I trust my heart again? About anything? I can’t. But life doesn’t stop for anyone. I can’t solve my own problems, and if I don’t get it together soon, I won’t be able to help solve anyone else’s either.
I spiral until there’s nowhere left to spiral.
It lands me a month in rehab.
“It looks like your time away did the trick. It’s a good thing your hiney has straightened up and you’re not drinkin’ yourself into a gutter,” Miss Jez announces. “Don’t have time for none of that, you hear? We missed you. You’re lookin’ better all the way around—‘cept you need to cut that hair and shave. Startin’ to look like the Beast.” Her voice softens. “We need you, Soti.” She pats my arm and moves past me in the kitchen.
JT smiles at me from the other side of the counter and I have to look away quickly to keep it together. I’ve been getting clean while my people here at the community center have done their best to keep things running without a glitch. They held me together for months before that, too, while I was having my little reunion with alcohol. I didn’t start using again, but I was this close to it so many times that I can’t really credit myself for not going there. I made a mess of myself enough with the booze.
“I’m going to say this fast so I don’t bawl like a baby.” I look at JT, Miss Jez, and Miss Christine standing there, looking at me with love in their eyes, and I nearly lose it. “Thank you for not giving up on me. You’ve seen me at my worst and are still standing here, loving me. You’re the family I’d choose again and again. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I really don’t.”
“We don’t know what we’d do without you, man,” JT says. “I’m just glad you’re back. We got lots to do…” He gives me a punch in the arm and I grip him a headlock/hug.
“Cap’n Crunch tonight?” I ask.
“You know we got some shreds to catch up on.” He laughs and maneuvers his way out of my arm.
I swallow the knot in my throat. “I’ll make this up to you. I’m sorry for—”
“—You don’t need to apologize another time, Soti. Hear me?” Miss Jez interrupts. “You said it all before you left and we know you meant it because you went and got some help. We all have a little bump in the road from time to time. And you being a big ol’ thing, you had further to fall.” Her belly shakes with that and she grabs my arms. ?
??Not one of us is perfect. Not one. We just have to be stickin’ together. Okay? You tell us when you’re strugglin’ and we will drop everything to try and help.” She looks around me to JT and Miss Christine. “Right?” she asks them.
“Yes, ma’am.” Miss Christine chirps in and gives me a hug.
“I’ll drop everything, but I ain’t throwing your ass in the shower again,” JT adds.
“Fair enough,” I say.
“You stayin’ in today, boss? Or you wanna go check out the new market they put in a couple blocks over? Maria works there and she thinks they’d be interested in contributing.”
“Getting out sounds good to me. And I need to meet this Maria person you keep talking about.” I laugh when JT’s cheeks darken.
“She is so hot. You better not embarrass me in front of her,” he mutters.
“As if.” I snort.
I run up to the apartment to grab my phone before we leave and see the picture of Lili sitting by the bed. I grab it and the other pictures of us, and I put them all in a box in the closet. I’m not ready to throw them away yet, but I can’t look at her anymore.
JT and I cross the street and walk a few blocks without saying much, just enjoying the day. I’ve been cooped up too long, “exploring” my weaknesses and communicating them to a roomful of strangers. It feels good to get out and just be my wrecked self in the crisp air. We get to the street where Maison D’amour sits further down the next corner and there are news trucks and cars lined along both sides. JT’s steps pick up, as he tries to move away from the house.
“What’s going on over there? Have they finished building the hotel?” I ask.
“I’m not sure.” He points ahead. “We’re close, just a few more blocks this way.”