Jimmy walked her to a back room and closed the door. "Vicky, it doesn't look good." Victoria immediately felt nauseated. Jimmy hugged her and sat her down on the bed.
"Listen, Reuben is doing all that he can. Basically, inside sources told me that someone snitched on Nic, and will testify in court that they saw Nic murder a guy name Donald Jenkins three years ago. Which is pure bullshit, because the Russians killed him. But the cops have video footage placing Nic and Donald at the same place, almost at the same time, a few hours before Donald was killed."
"But you said Nic didn't do it?" Victoria questioned, looking up at Jimmy.
"He didn't. But they have a witness who says that they saw him murder this guy. And that's all they need. That...and a jury to be convinced, which depending on the credibility of this witness and Nic's old occupation...it might not be good."
Victoria just kept squeezing her hands together as she continued to listen to Jimmy.
"That asshole Marsh was trying everything he can to get Nic to crack. He even offered him a deal to let him go if he snitched."
Victoria's ears perked up. Finally, something good could come out of this. "On who?"
"Me, Raymond and Antonio. Paul and Sonny's names were thrown in the deal also."
Victoria knew the thought crossing her mind was selfish, especially since Jimmy had three little adorable girls, but she couldn't help but think about it. Her mind raced wondering what Nic would do, until Jimmy broke her out of her train of thought.
"Vicky...he's not going to turn me in. He would never do that, just like I would never do that to him. That's not even an option, you know?" Jimmy quietly said.
Victoria's heart sank, but she tried to ignore the bile rising in her throat. "So, he's going to prison," Victoria whispered, still unable to believe it.
"Well, tomorrow will be his bail hearing...but Reuben said it's more than likely the judge will deny him bail, because he has lots of money and is a flight risk. And being accused of having ties with the mafia, they don't take that lightly."
"When can I see him?"
"I'm not sure. I'll ask Reuben tomorrow, okay? But you need rest. You look tired. Have you eaten today?"
"I've had plenty of rest, and I'm not hungry."
Jimmy grabbed her hand and led her out of the room.
When they walked back into the main room, all eyes were on her and they all looked concerned. She plopped down on the sofa. Antonio came to sit beside her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.
"It will be okay, Vicky," he whispered to her.
The next morning, Victoria was awakened by Marianna bringing her in a large plate of food.
"Good morning, cara mia. You are eating today. Every bite," she demanded, as she sat at the edge of the bed, watching Victoria like a hawk.
Victoria didn't feel like eating, but she started stuffing the food in her mouth just to please Marianna.
"How are you able to stay so calm?" Victoria asked, pausing in between bites.
Marianna thought about it for a moment. "Because I can't help my son right now. All I can do is pray for him, but there's nothing I can help Reuben or Jimmy with. What I can do for him is watch over you and his baby growing inside you. Those are the things I can do, and I'm going to do them, because I love him, I love you and my grandson. Now eat."
Victoria ate in silence as she took in Marianna's words. Her mother couldn't stay, because she had work, and had already taken two days off for the funeral. But she said she would stop by afterward.
When Victoria was done eating, she walked to the bathroom to relieve herself, but before she sat down on the toilet, she felt a major cramp. She grabbed the underside of her belly and rubbed. But then she felt it again. What the hell?
She grabbed hold of the sink before she felt a gush of liquid pour out from underneath her dress. Holy shit!
She stared down frantically at the water running down her legs. "Oh, God...no, no, no, no, please," she whispered, as she slowly opened the bathroom door. But no matter how much she prayed, she knew her water had broken.
"Marianna," Victoria weakly shouted. "I need to go to the hospital."
Marianna came around the corner, "Hey, what did you—oh my God!" She rushed over to her and called for Isabelle. Antonio had been asleep on the couch as the women rushed Victoria to the door. He immediately jumped up and grabbed his keys. The three of them helped her into the back seat. Marianna got in the back with Victoria and Antonio and Isabelle sat up front.
They reached the hospital within a few minutes and Victoria was escorted to a room. The nurses came in to examine and prep her.
Victoria was freaking out. Her life was about to be changed forever, and Nic was nowhere around. She kept pleading to Marianna that the baby couldn't come right now. This wasn't even her physician she had been seeing over the past nine months. This was all so wrong.
"Whether you want him to or not, Victoria...he's coming. You have to focus on that."
Victoria tried her hardest to listen to the nurses and the doctor, but she started crying. It wasn't supposed to be like this. But then the crying was no longer about Nic...it quickly became about the intense contractions she was having. They started coming faster and harder.
She vaguely remembered her doctor talking about her being almost fully dilated. She felt Marianna grab her hand. She looked up into the warm blue eyes. Blue eyes similar to Nic's, and in a way, that calmed her down.
After a few more moments, she was told to start pushing. She did, but every push started burning. "Aaah!!" Victoria screamed, as she leaned back against the bed. She felt like she was being ripped in two. Nic would have made this all better. He always knew what to do to make everything okay. Her heart felt like it was breaking...among other things. The pain brought her mind back to the task at hand.
"Victoria, we need you to breathe and push, okay?" the doctor said.
"I can't, I can't," she yelled back. "It hurts too much, fuck!"
"Squeeze my hand," Marianna suggested.
"Yes, you can. The more you push, the sooner the pain will be over," the doctor calmly responded.
Victoria closed her eyes and raised up, pushing harder, despite the intense pain she was feeling. She felt as though the veins in her forehead were popping.
On the final push, she heard the doctor say, "That's it, we have him," and Victoria fell back. She opened her eyes and saw to the side, two nurses standing over the baby. Their baby. Sebastian. She could see his little pale arms flailing as he cried. And in that moment, everything seemed to stop for Victoria.
It's as if everyone in the room had frozen, except for her son. Any pain that she was feeling subsided as four swinging appendages held her attention. At that moment, nothing else mattered.
Once the nurses were done, they brought him over to her. Victoria held her breath in anticipation as he was gently placed in her arms. Oh. My. God.
Her son had beautiful, shiny black curls that were sparse, but enough to lightly cover his head in perfect little waves. And the cutest, tiniest round nose and pink lips she had ever seen. He opened his eyes for a second to look at her, then closed them back and went to sleep.
Victoria was stunned. She couldn't take her eyes off him. He was absolutely perfect. In every way, shape and form. Perfect. There were no other words to describe him or this moment.
"Oh, I love you," she whispered to him, kissing him for the first time.
Victoria looked up at Marianna. She had tears in her eyes, and she also seemed to be stupefied by the presence of this tiny little being. A product of her and Nic. Nic...
Nic sat in his cell, staring at the wall. He wanted to know how Victoria was doing. He had thought about her during his bail hearing earlier that morning. He wasn't paying close attention, because Reuben had already said he would be denied...which he was.
He hated that his wife was having to go through this. She was pregnant and already dealing with her father's funeral, now this. He want
ed so badly to talk to her.
Nic was deep in thought when Marsh walked up to his cell. He decided he would ignore the fucker.
"Well, well, I should bring you a cigar. Congratulations. One of my officers who was watching your wife, confirmed that she just gave birth to a healthy baby boy."
Nic's head snapped toward Marsh as he narrowed his eyes at him. Was he fucking kidding?
"Don't believe me? Here are some pics he took of them going in the hospital," Marsh said, sliding photographs underneath the bars. "Too bad you weren't there to witness it," Marsh smiled in a smug voice, as he turned to walk away.
Nic's heart started beating rapidly. That asshole had to be lying. He slowly got up and walked over to pick up the photos. He flipped through them. His hands started to shake when he saw a picture of her being put in the backseat of Antonio's car and pictures of them arriving at the hospital and his mom escorting Victoria inside. Nic suddenly couldn't breathe. He dropped the photos to the ground as if they electrocuted him.
Nic staggered backwards until his calves touched his cot, and then he slowly sat down. He had missed his son being born. He hadn't been away from him more than a few hours since he was conceived...and on the most important day, because of his past lifestyle and FUCKING MARSH, he had missed it.
Nic considered himself a sane and rational man. And under any other circumstances, he would have found a cool place in his mind...some place he could go to make the rational next step. It was that process that usually allowed him to win. It was one of the reasons he was so successful. But at this moment...no such place existed. All he felt was an intense firestorm coursing through his skin, his blood...his entire body.
He fucking lost it.
"GODDAMN IT!!! Motherfucker!!!" Nic yelled, as he slammed his cot into anything that could break over and over again. Everything was a blur, but he refused to stop until the flames inside him quelled.
He never heard anyone behind him and he never heard his cell opening up. All he heard was Marsh's words running over and over in his head, torturing him since there wasn't a fucking thing he could do inside here.
"I'm going to fucking KILL you!! You're a fucking dead man!" he shouted, as several guards tackled him to the ground. He struggled, pushing two of them off of him but they eventually pinned him down. By the time they had the cuffs on him, he was completely spent. Physically, mentally, but most of all emotionally--wondering when this hell would end.
Later that night, Victoria woke up in the hospital bed. She glanced over to the side, and saw Isabelle reading a magazine. She glanced up at Victoria when she heard her stir.
"Hey there," Isabelle said.
"Hey," Victoria croaked out. She glanced around the room. "Where's Sebastian?" She sat up quickly...a little too quickly, and she felt a slight pain.
"He's in the nursery. Don't worry, your mom and Marianna haven't let him out of their sight."
Victoria sighed. "I wish Nic were here," she admitted. "He doesn't even know."
Isabelle placed the magazine on the table and went to sit down on the hospital bed. "Actually, Vicky, he does."
"What? Did Jimmy tell him?"
Isabelle exhaled. "Unfortunately, no. That detective guy told him. It wasn't pretty from what Jimmy told me."
"What?!"
"Well, Jimmy was on his way to the jail to tell Nic, but when he got there, they said that he couldn't have any visitors, and they had him in another holding cell. Jimmy waited for hours until Reuben got there, met with Nic and came back out to explain what happened. Reuben said that Nic was, well...he was devastated."
Victoria leaned back in the bed. She barely had a second to cover her face before a wave of tears gushed out. She hated feeling so helpless. When her husband needed her the most, there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. When Mr. Parker had harassed her and threatened to kick her family out, Nic had come to save the day. When she was abducted and held for ransom, Nic had risked his life to save her. And now when he was the helpless one...all she could do was fucking cry. How pathetic.
"Oh, honey, I didn't say that to make you cry. I just thought you'd want to know what happened today," Isabelle said, hugging a distraught Victoria. "It will be okay."
Victoria wished like hell she could believe that. But there was a very real chance that her husband could be going to prison for a long time.
Isabelle pulled away and handed her a box of tissue. Victoria wiped her tears and her nose, while she gasped for air.
"Hey, I know what will make you feel better," Isabelle smiled, as she walked out of the door.
Victoria stared up at the ceiling. This was officially the happiest and saddest day of her life. But before she could ponder on that any longer, her door opened back up and in walked her mother, carrying Sebastian, with Marianna and Isabelle following closely behind. They were all smiling at her.
"Guess who is hungry? Mio nipote," Marianna said, with a huge grin across her face.
Victoria had completely forgotten about this part of motherhood. She felt a little uncomfortable with so many eyes staring at her, but she tried to grin and bear it. Her mother handed her the baby. He was awake and staring, as his cute little soft arms moved in unsteady patterns. His little feet were kicking underneath the thin blanket. She slid the left side of her shirt down, and held her son to her breast. She looked up at the three women watching over her.
"Am I doing it right?" Victoria asked.
"Si," Marianna said, as the other two women nodded in agreement.
Here goes, little one, Victoria thought, as she pressed him further to her bosom. And just like that...he latched on. That was easy. At least something on this day had been easy.
Although Victoria had researched a million things from the moment she found out she was pregnant, she learned more in the few hours after her first feeding from her mom, Marianna and Isabelle than her entire nine months worth of research combined. Go figure.
And poor Antonio. All of the women had pretty much forgotten that he had been waiting in the maternity waiting room since they had first arrived at the hospital. When he finally came into the room, they passed the baby to him, and it was the funniest thing. He looked so uncomfortable and unnatural, that it gave Victoria a good laugh. The first laugh she'd had in what seemed like a long time.
Antonio had met Jimmy at the police station, while he waited on new information regarding Nic's case. But Antonio had to get out of there. Cops made him paranoid. He wasn't sure if it's because he smoked pot, or not, but they made him nervous.
He quickly stepped out and walked around to the back of the station. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lit one. He closed his eyes and inhaled the sweet smoke which seemed to calm his nerves. He was about to take another drag, when he heard a woman's voice. He glanced to the side and saw a tall blonde stalking out. But this wasn't just any tall blonde. This was Nic's tall blonde. Nic's ex-wife, Amber. And she was talking to that snake, Marsh. What the fuck?!
Antonio almost choked, as he coughed and sputtered. The two turned their attention toward him, but not before he made it back around the corner just in time. Oh, this was all so fucked up! So she was the snitch?!
Antonio ran back inside. "Jimmy, I need to speak with you now," he said.
Jimmy glanced at him. Antonio looked as though he had seen a ghost. "What?"
"In your car," Antonio said, as he turned and walked out of the station.
Jimmy glared at him, as if to say this better be important, and followed him out.
Once they were both inside the car, Antonio turned to Jimmy. "I know who they have as a witness."
"Who?"
"Amber."
Jimmy sat there staring at Antonio. "How do you know?"
"I saw her a few minutes ago, leaving through the back way and talking to that detective," Antonio excitedly reported.
Jimmy nodded. That was all he needed. "Thanks, kid," he said, as he got out and walked back into the police station.
"Wel
l Nic, looks like you really fucked up yesterday. Threatening to kill a detective just doing his duty? Why, what did I ever do to deserve that," Marsh taunted, leaning against his cell. And as always, Reuben was there with Nic.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Nic answered.
"Sure. Several guards heard you yell that you wanted to kill me."
"No they didn't."
Marsh stared at Nic skeptically. "I never took you for a lying man. Cold-hearted killer, but not a liar. They heard you, asshole."
"Yeah, they heard me threaten to kill someone, and it was my attorney. He's been falling down on the job, haven't you noticed," Nic dead-panned.
"Yep, and Nic already apologized to me for that and...I'm not pressing charges, just so you know. So, no harm done," Reuben smiled.
Seven Days: A young black woman makes a deal with a mob boss. Page 43