Traded to His Enemy, Pregnant With His Heir novel · Chapter 13 of 48

Chapter 13: Unharmed

I didn't scream at him.

I didn't cry, and I didn't reach for the knife on my calf.

I took the chair he'd pulled out for me and pushed it over.

It went down on the concrete with a bang that sent the gulls up off the tanks.

"You'll never see this child," I said. "Not once. Not a photo. Not a christening. Not your name on one piece of paper."

"Shona."

"You left me here to die. Say my name again, and I'll tell the whole North End exactly how you did it."

I turned my back on him.

It was the first time in four years I'd walked away from Gianluca Bellucci without waiting to be dismissed.

My legs held all the way to the door.

Outside, the light off the creek was so bright it hurt.

Ilya was already out of the car.

He'd been leaning on the hood with his watch in his hand, and he came across the gravel fast.

"Eleven minutes," he said. "What happened? Did he touch you?"

"No."

He looked at my face, and then at the steel door behind me.

His hand went inside his coat.

"Don't," I said. "Get me out of here first."

He put me in the back seat and got in beside me, and the driver pulled out before the door shut.

I sat with my hands in my lap.

They weren't shaking.

That frightened me more than if they had been.

"He knew," I said. "His captain called him from the pier that night. He knew it was Misha. He knew when he walked past me."

Ilya didn't move.

The car went over the bridge, and the fuel tanks slid away behind us.

"He said your men would take a life for a life from whoever stayed," I said. "He said they should have made it quick."

Ilya turned his head and looked out the window.

He didn't look surprised.

That was the thing I saw.

"You knew," I said.

"I guessed."

"When?"

"In the warehouse. When he didn't ask the price." He was still looking at the river. "A man who doesn't know what he owes asks what he owes. Bellucci didn't need to ask. He'd already done the sum."

"And you didn't tell me."

"No."

"What else?"

He was quiet for a whole block of Atlantic Avenue.

"In the car that night, before I came back in for you," he said, "the old one with the gold tooth said we should drive you both out to the end of the pier and leave one of you there. He said it was owed. Three others agreed."

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