#1 Chapter 71
“You wanted to talk. So talk.”
That dangerous, calm look falls over his face as he corners me, close enough so that I can see every bit of stubble on his cheek. His lips are inches from mine, and his eyes are clear. They’re filled with deadly calm.
Oh God. I don’t like this.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen if you don’t do what I say. I’ll tell the police who shot me, and after a short trial, you get a couple years in prison. Long enough for you to give birth there.”
Where the fuck is this going?
Horror slowly fills my chest as a creeping smile spreads over his face. God, his smile used to make me glow. Now it just makes me sick. His fingers touch my frozen cheek, then my neck.
“They’ll take the baby away from you soon as it’s born. It’ll be ripped from your arms.”
It’s like a gray cloud rolling over my head. I’m cast in a black shadow. Rafael seems to glorify my despair.
“Then I establish paternity for the kid, and I take it away from you.”
“No.”
It’s like a whisper. It barely passes from my lips, but Rafael hears it. His fingers brush over my bottom lip.
“Yes.”
He can’t do this to me. An image of my swollen self, pacing the small cell of a prison cell haunts my mind. Giving birth in prison, and almost immediately having a nurse rip the child away from my arms.
He can’t do this.
“It’s not even your baby!”
He raises his eyebrow, smile trembling. “Are you sure about that?”
No, I’m not. As much as I want the baby to be Tony’s, as much as I hope that it’s his, I’m not completely sure.
It’s a horrifying image. As far-fetched I think his plan is-it still stabs my chest like a knife. I force myself to keep calm, to make myself seem like I really believe this shit. He’ll drop his guard, and I’ll get him. Somehow.
The room echoes with my shuddering gasps. I slump against the door, pretending to lose all strength in my limbs. Rafael wraps an arm around my waist, and I’m terrified by his warmth.
“I don’t want to do this to us, Elena, but I will get what I want.”
“You can’t do this to me.” I beg him with my eyes. “Please.”
But everything he’s done soared beyond any kind of usual evil.
I’ll kill you.
“You’ll leave Tony, or you’ll never see your kid again.”
“Leave Tony?”
Leave the man I love? He must be insane if he thinks I’m going to actually go through with this, but inwardly I rejoice. He might as well have handed his head on a silver platter.NôvelDrama.Org owns this text.
I’ll go to Tony, sure. I’ll tell him exactly where you are.
Rafael has the balls to grin at me. It’s a wide, self-assured grin, not unlike the one Tony gives me, but so undeserving. He’s such a piece of shit. A worm. A parasite unworthy to stand on the same ground as my beautiful, brave husband.
Rafael’s sinewy arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest. I ball my hands at my sides, holding them rigid as he wraps me inside his poisonous embrace.
“We belong together.”
“We really fucking don’t.”
“I understand why you left, but it’s different now. I’m off the coke.” His lips hover right over my ear, just close enough to make me shiver violently. “I’ll be a good father to our kid, and I sure as shit won’t let another man come between us.”
I let tears slip down my cheeks, and Rafael wipes them away greedily.
“No-I don’t want-no!”
He grabs my jaw firmly as he plants his lips against my jaw. “I won, Elena. Just accept it.”
I won’t accept it.
The police in Montreal are not going to give a shit about a suspect for attempted murder if I’m in New York. They’d have to extradite me, which could take weeks. He’s out of his mind.
“You need to break up with him, and you need to make it convincing.”
I screw up my face, pretending to be devastated. “I won’t!”
He forces my jaw forward, so that I’m facing him. “Then I call the police right fucking now and they haul your ass to jail.”
“This whole plan of yours makes no sense. Once they find out that you-you’ve coerced a member’s wife, they’ll kill you. Vincent will kill you.”
“Not while this baby is mine.” He growls in my face, reflexively grabbing my belly.
I slap his hand away, and he gives me an extremely offended look.
“I’m not yours to touch anymore. Keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
Within seconds his hand curls in my hair and he wrenches my neck hard, twisting my arm behind my back, making me cry out in pain. Deep loathing burns through my eyes as I look at Rafael’s twisting grin. I hate how easy it is for him to make me surrender. I struggle in his grasp, but it’s useless. I’m no match for years and years of hardened brutality.
“These fucking tits.”
He lets out a growl like a rabid animal and gropes my breast, his hand twisting my hair. The ugly violation boils my blood, but I’m powerless to stop him. He slides under my shirt and slips underneath my bra, mauling my sensitive flesh.
“Stop-please, stop!”
He lets me go so suddenly that I stumble to the floor. Immediately I wrap my jacket around myself. Rafael’s cruel laughter rings in the small room.
My fear makes him laugh.