Preg-Not

31

She blinked slowly as she came back to reality. She rubbed her head, and then her stomach. The coldness of her hand against her bare skin made her flinch.

She looked down and found that she was naked. A blanket was pooled on her lap.

Her blood turned as cold as her hands. With the bump in the way, she couldn't see her thighs. Her heart was thundering in her chest as she sat up and tried to check her sex. She expected to find proof of a brutal rape.

Red blood, glistening with an evil gleam. Sparkling as it enjoyed her pain.

Red.

Splashing, smearing, pooling. Painting a bridge between life and death.

Father's blood, Snake's blood, her blood, the babys' blood.

She became a trembling mess as her PTSD ate away at her reality. She heard boot smash against skull, a gunshot, a distant scream.

She covered her ears, but the phantom sounds squeezed through the cracks between her fingers.

"Stop it!" she begged the nothingness.

She hadn't had an episode in months. The therapy had helped, but it was like she fell down a rabbit hole that wouldn't end.

A flutter inside her whooshed away the sounds. She looked down and saw no blood. The only thing there was her belly. The only thing that mattered.

After drying her wet cheeks, she pulled the sheets around her shoulders. She slipped off the bed and was relieved to not find any discomfort between her legs. Whatever those sick men did to her wasn't rape.

She ripped more strips of cloth from the bedsheets and tied them around her feet. Someone had cleaned them so the blood was no longer mixed with dirt, but her skin still stung whenever she took a step.

Once her feet were covered, she examined the room. There were no windows in it.

She opened an adjoined door and found a bathroom. This one had a window, although it was protected with bars. They would discourage the typical person, but she wasn't very typical. She was a former delinquent and the baby mother of a Russian mafia leader.

In highschool, she broke and entered plenty of places. No bars or barbed wire stopped her. This wouldn't be any different.

She looked around for a strong piece of metal that would give her leverage. There was no crowbar in there, but the lid of the toilet would help just fine.

She hoisted the thing and brought it to the window. After grinding it under one of the edges of the bars, she applied pressure. It took twenty minutes for the rusty bars to budge. She clutched them and pulled them down as silently as possible.

The next challenge was fitting her heavily round body through the small window.

With a protective cradle to her belly, she shimmied out of there. Her hips were scratched by the wood, but the bleeding was faint. She was more worried about her feet than anything else.

The night was bitter, as if it was trying to lull her back into the room, where the Italians and PTSD awaited. As tempting as it was, she wouldn't cave.

She pulled the sheets tighter around her body and began to limp away from the scene. She made it two blocks before needing to rest.

Like the Italian promised, this was a ghost town. All the houses were dark. She would find now help here.

She walked until the houses disappeared, and she was in some open field. It was so dark that she had to hold a hand out to make sure she didn't trip over anything.

Home was far, far away.

MAKSIM

"Now we're talking."

"Tell me what it is," Maksim gritted. Patience had never been his strong suit, but he needed to entertain it, because Dante was playing with his universe.

Raelynn. The babies. He needed to get them back, no matter what.

Cursing and promising death to Dante would have to wait.

When Dante didn't answer him, he spat, "Money? Weapons? Territory? Stop playing games and get on with it."

"You are... desperate, Maksim. Gesù, I have never seen you like this." (Jesus)

That's because you have never been in love, bastard.

"I didn't call to have a fucking heart-to-heart with you. I want my fucking possessions back."

"Hard to do that when you have no heart," Dante chuckled. "Remember what you did to one of my boys? Sent him in a box. That wasn't very nice."

Those words made Maksim nervous. Was Dante getting any ideas? Would he ship Raelynn in a box to get back at him for the nameless Italian that he butchered?

Desperate to save Raelynn from that fate, he blurted, "Your man stole from the Russians."

"The bloodshed needs to stop," Dante said.

That was the problem. There were too many factors at play for violence to just stop.

"If you hurt her, it will only get worse," Maksim warned. "If you thought you would achieve peace by stealing a boss' property, then you missed your mark."

"Here is what I want, Kuznetsov."

Maksim gripped the phone tighter, waiting anxiously for the demand. He was prepared to deliver whatever obscene, greedy payment was demanded.

Money? He would clear his bank account. He had been poor once. He would do it again.

Blood? He would slice his own wrists.

Territory? He would sign away all of Russia.

"No more war. We split the drug territories and stay out of each other's ways. I have enough shit going on with the Mexicans. I will need you to share intelligence assets too."

That was all?

"Done," Maksim blurted. "I want to talk to her. Where are you? I will fly there myself."

There was a soft shuffle, and then fast Italian flickered through the line.

"Dante? Dante, damn it!" Maksim slammed a fist on the table. "Tell me where the fuck you're keeping her."

"She escaped," Dante said, before the line went dead.

Maksim checked his phone to make sure his mind didn't play a trick on him. Dante hung up. The only opportunity of getting Raelynn back slipped through his Maksim's fisted hands.

"Triangulate the call. Get me a location!" he pressed.

His men tried all tricks in the book, but came empty-handed. He was back in the dark.

Two hours passed, and his shoes worn out from his anxious pacing. He had men and cars scraping through the city, a helicopter and jet ready for flight, and murderous intention in his gut.

When his phone rang, he pulled the thing to his ear and waited with his breath caught in his throat.

"She's fine. Fought like a demon, but she got tired quickly."

Maksim clung to every word. "Send me the location now, and I want to talk to her."

"You can talk to her when you get here." Dante hung up, and Maksim took long strides for the door.

It was time to get his woman and baby back.

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