Reign (The Italian Cartel Book 3)

by Shandi Boyes

  27

  Roxanne

  Yesterday, I awoke with exhaustive, tired muscles. Today, I woke in the same manner, except this time, it wasn’t the horrid, my-world-has-been-ripped-out-from-beneath-me feeling. It was filled with euphoria, adrenaline, and a happy little buzz in the bottom of my stomach I assumed I’d never experience again.

  Dimitri can be thanked for that.

  Last night went above and beyond anything we’ve ever done. He was attentive and sweet. He truly rocked my world. I’ve been on cloud nine for the past two hours, and if the scent mingling in the air is anything to go by, it is onward and upward from here. We still have a lot to discuss and a heap of issues to work through, but the cloud above my head doesn’t seem anywhere near as dense as it did only yesterday.

  “Good morning,” I breathe groggily in the direction I sense Dimitri’s presence.

  I like my water scalding hot, and with my mood being extra diva-like this morning, I’ve gone over my allotted four-minute time slot. I’ve also glammed myself up, hopeful silky-smooth legs and gleaming skin will add to the seductive sparkle in my eyes.

  “Would you care to join me for a mid-morning shower?”

  After opening the shower door, releasing the fog making my head extra woozy, I lock my eyes with Dimitri. He has his shoulder propped up on the doorjamb. Unlike when he left our room in the early hours of this morning, his jaw is tight, and the veins in his hands are bulging like he’s open and closed them multiple times since we parted.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Concerned by his quiet, I shut down the faucet, shove my arms into my hideous Fran Drescher-inspired dressing gown Dimitri packed for me, knot the cord into place, then float to his side of the room.

  Well, I really shouldn’t say float. I stumble like a newborn foul, suddenly fretful by his glare. He’s only stared at me like this twice before. The first time was when he had a gun held at my head, and the second time was mere minutes before he forced me to hold a gun to my mother’s head.

  “What did my mother do?” If it’s anything close to the horrid thoughts in my head, I don’t know if I can pardon her again. She killed her own flesh and blood. She should have never come back from that. The only reason she has so far is because I’m too much of a chicken to make her pay for her injustices. I agree with Dimitri, insolent people should be punished, but it’s hard when the person deserving of your fury is your parent.

  I stop seeking answers from Dimitri’s eyes when he says, “I need you to get dressed and come with me.”

  The dread his words were soaked in scorches the back of my throat. It has me more worried than the anger pumping out of him. “Can we please not do this again. If you believe my mother needs to be punished, punish her. I won’t hold it against you, I swear.”

  “Your mother isn’t the issue,” Dimitri replies in a cool, calculated bark.

  Even with his vacillating anger wanting me to call a timeout, I can’t help but ask, “Then who is?”

  It feels as if more than water circles the drain when Dimitri mutters, “You are.”

  “Me?” I touch my chest like I’m five. “What did I do?” I swallow to soothe my dry throat before confessing to something that’s been burning a hole in my heart the past sixteen-plus hours. “If this is about the mark on Fien’s arm, that wasn’t from me.” I cringe, hating my inability to lie. “Well, it could have been me, but it wasn’t on purpose. I had to get her away from Maestro before he fell on her.” When confusion crosses his features, I try to settle it. “Maestro is what the women called one of the head guys in Rimi’s crew. He was taken down while he had Fien clutched under his arm. I had to grab her to pull her out of the line of fire. I never meant to hurt her, Dimi. I swear to God.”

  My confession soothes the deep groove between his brows, but it doesn’t fully eradicate it. “I still need you to come with me. I’m out of my depth, and I have no fucking clue who’s holding my head beneath the surface.” His voice comes out composed but with a hint of anger.

  Happy he’s endeavoring to curb his dominance and eager to have him forgetting the worry his comment etched his face with, I nod before making a beeline for the bag resting by the door. I selected an outfit before I entered the bathroom, but Dimitri’s wavering personalities ensures I’ll need a jacket. He truly is one of the hardest people to read. For all I know, my lips could be about to turn a shade of blue.

  Once I’ve dressed under Dimitri’s watchful gaze, I follow his somber walk up a glamorous staircase. I’m hopeful his dour mood is because he kept his distance while I was getting dressed, but something tells me it’s much bigger than his inability to keep his hands to himself.

  It’s obvious he isn’t in the mood for chit-chat, but my Nanna always said my inquisitiveness would get me in trouble. “Did you see Fien this morning?”

  Dimitri hums out an agreeing murmur before gesturing for me to enter a corridor before him. Since it’s lined with exquisite antiques, we can’t walk side by side. Dimitri’s shoulders are too wide for that.

  “And what about Audrey? Have you seen her today?” The jealousy in my voice can’t be helped. Audrey is a beautiful woman, she is also the mother of Dimitri’s child, so I have a lot to be jealous about. Dimitri spent the night with me, in my bed, but he snuck out in the wee hours of this morning like he didn’t want anyone to know where he was.

  That stings. Not a lot, but enough to make me feel a little sick to the stomach.

  I can’t tell if his murmur is a yes or a no this time around. It appeared more a growl than a hum like he’s more frustrated than pleased his wife was resurrected from the dead.

  With his moods a little hard for me to read, this is the last thing I should say. “If you have time today, I’d like to sit down and discuss what happened at Dr. Bates’s office… T-t-the pregnancy test.” I bite the inside of my cheek, loathing the stutter of my words.

  I wish I could keep our conversation on the back burner for months, but that would be wrong for me to do. He has a right to know what happened to our child as much as he has the right to mourn the loss with me.

  A tangy copper taste fills my mouth when Dimitri replies, “We can do that now.”

  “Oh… okay.” I follow him into a room at the end of the hallway, grateful our talk will be in private.

  I barely make it two steps into the dimly lit space when I’m tempted to walk right back out of it. We’re not alone as first thought. Smith and Rocco are here as is Audrey’s best friend, India. Then there’s a man in a white doctor’s coat standing next to an identical lot of equipment that soared me too great heights four nights ago before it all came crashing down.

  “What’s going on?” I choke out, almost stuttering.

  When my question falls on deaf ears, I shift on my feet to face Dimitri. His expression is as cold as his icy blue eyes. He knows I’m keeping something from him, but instead of asking me what it is, he’s gone down his usual route.

  He wants to torture the truth from me one painful memory at a time.

  Although my anger is brewing, I try to keep things amicable. “Can I please speak with you alone? This is a conversation that needs to occur between us.”

  My neck cranks to my left when India mumbles under her breath, “So you can fill his head with more lies?”

  Even having no reason to defend myself to her, I snap out, “I haven’t lied.”

  “So, you told him you’re not pregnant?” India asks with a raised brow and a stern glare. “He knows you’re no longer carrying his child?”

  “No.” For one word, it shouldn’t crack my voice the way it did. It was almost as fragile as my heart feels. This isn’t a conversation I wanted to have with spectators. It could only be more uncomfortable if it were happening while I was naked. “But that’s because I haven’t had the chance.” I spin back around to face Dimitri. My fast movements cause a rush of dizziness to bombard my head, but I continue on, preferring to face an interrogation head-on than cower like a c
oward. “I lost our baby the first night I was taken. Maestro did an ultrasound on a machine just like that—”

  “Puh-leaze. Like a hired goon would know how to turn on a sonograph machine, much less use it.”

  I continue talking as if India never interrupted me, “After discovering I was around six to eight weeks along, he hit me in the stomach, then kicked me over and over again.” Tears spring in my eyes just recalling what happened. “When he couldn’t kill our baby with brutality, he tried another way.” Big salty blobs roll down my cheeks when Dimitri cups my jaw. His hands are so large, they take up almost all my face, and the callouses on his fingers scratch my cheek when he wipes away my tears. “They had hospital-like rooms on the lower level of the ranch. There was medical equipment, pads, and a whole heap of other things I don’t want to remember.”

  India huffs again, but I don’t care. Dimitri seems to believe me, and that’s all that matters.

  “He was going to…” I make a hand gesture that shouldn’t speak on my behalf, but it somehow does. “… but Audrey stopped him. She hit him over the head, then helped me get away.”

  Now I feel bad about what Dimitri and I did last night. I thought it was the start of something magical, where in reality, it was the commencement of me being his mistress. He’s married, and the woman he is married to did her best to save our child. I owe her more credit than I’m giving her.

  After sucking down a nerve-cleansing breath, I finish my story on a somber note, “Unfortunately, it was too late. I miscarried our baby the following morning.” I step closer to Dimitri, not wanting the slightest snippet of air between us when I say, “I wanted to tell you last night, but you were riding the high of your victory. I didn’t want to steal the glory from you.” I stray my eyes around the room, noting the remorse on both Smith and Rocco’s faces. India’s is nowhere near as repentant as theirs. “I’m sorry I had to tell you like this, with an audience, but I didn’t lie. I just omitted the truth for a more appropriate time.”

  “Please tell me you’re not believing her sob story,” India gabbles out when Dimitri’s thumb switches from wiping away my tears to tracking the curve of my kiss-swollen lips. “I doubt she was pregnant to begin with. Who has a miscarriage and only bleeds for an hour or two?” I feel both sorry and angry when India mutters, “It doesn’t work that way. I know because I’ve had plenty of miscarriages.” She races to the doctor’s side I had forgotten was in the room. “Tell them. Tell him how unlikely her story is.”

  The gentleman I’d guess to be mid-sixties coughs to clear his throat before saying, “It is unlikely to only bleed for a couple of hours.”

  “But possible?” Smith jumps in like he too knows how it feels to be put on the spot when predicting medical anomalies.

  The doctor lowers his chin, his head-bob somewhat cowardice. “But possible.”

  After glaring at the doctor with a stare as woeful as Satan, India locks her eyes with mine, then snaps out, “Fine. If they want to believe your sob act, prove you were really pregnant.”

  “How can I prove it?” The hesitation in my question is understandable. I’m still new to all of this. “Maestro didn’t print out memory keepsakes for me.”

  India steps closer to me, her hips swinging like she’s on a runway instead of a warpath. “Dr. Klein can do a quick ultrasound of your uterus. If you recently lost a baby…” she air quotes her last word like she doesn’t believe a single thing I said, “… he will be able to tell.”

  “Is that true?” Dimitri’s tone is a mixture of annoyed and hopeful. I thought he was on my side, so the unease in his voice is a little off-putting.

  The doctor dips his chin. This one is more headstrong than his earlier one. “Yes. Pockets inside the uterine wall can indicate if a pregnancy was recently dissolved.” The way he mutters ‘dissolved’ makes me sick to my stomach. I didn’t dissolve my pregnancy. Our child was taken away from me against my will. I didn’t do anything wrong. I am not at fault. I fought with everything I had.

  As I will again now. “Okay. I agree to do your sonograph.”

  “You don’t need to do this, Roxanne.”

  Although I appreciate Dimitri’s sudden return to the plate with a bigger bat, it comes too late. The ugly head of doubt has already been raised.

  I whip around to face Dr. Klein so quickly, my hair slaps my face. “Where do you want me?”

  When he places a pillow on the opposite end of the bed, I sidestep him, shrug off my coat, then lay down. I don’t peer at the monitor every set of eyes in the room arrow in on when he lifts my shirt and squirts gel onto my stomach. I scan Dimitri’s face, knowing there’s only seconds before the distrust in his eyes switches to remorse.

  I hate that he needs to bring in outsiders to trust me, but I also understand it. He can’t even trust family, so why did I stupidly believe I ever stood a chance?

  I renege on my wish to watch Dimitri’s every expression when he asks a few seconds later, “What’s that?”

  My eyes shoot to the monitor so fast, my head grows woozy. I scan the black and white image like a crazy woman, seeking anything similar to the jelly-bean shape blob I saw days ago.

  I don’t find a single thing close to a baby. I discover why when Dr. Klein says, “That’s Roxanne’s ovary. It’s badly damaged.”

  “Because she miscarried?” Dimitri asks before I can.

  Sprinkles of salt and pepper hair fall into Dr. Klein’s eyes when he shakes his head. “No. Excluding miscarriages in the fallopian tube, they don’t affect the female reproductive system. Roxanne has what we call PCOS. Polycystic ovary syndrome. It is a hormone disorder commonly found in women of reproductive age.”

  “Which can cause long-term infertility issues,” India jumps in, her tone smug. “So not only are Roxanne’s chances of becoming pregnant again extremely low, if she was even pregnant to begin with, she couldn’t have conceived without help.”

  I return her glare before requesting for Dr. Klein to check the pockets he mentioned earlier, dying to hit that smug bitch where it hurts.

  Dr. Klein once again clears his throat before going to work. He taps and clicks on his sonogram machine numerous times before he pushes his glasses up his nose and says matter-of-factly, “I can’t see any indication Roxanne was ever pregnant.”

  “What?” I blurt out at the same time a collection of hisses roll across the room. “Check again. You must not be seeing things right. Maestro said I was six to eight weeks along.” I lift my shirt to my bra before tugging my pants down so they’re low on my hips. “You’re not far enough down. He scanned right above my pubic bone.”

  India tells me to stop being ridiculous, Smith and Rocco back up my request for Dr. Klein to check again, and Dimitri stares at my stomach for three painfully long seconds before he pivots on his heels and races out of the room, knocking over the freestanding sonogram machine on his way out.

  Both my head and my heart scream for me to go after him, but for the life of me, I can’t get my legs to move. I’ve seen firsthand what he does to people who betray him, and considering it feels as if my life is just getting started, I don’t want it ended just yet.

  28

  Dimitri

  A roar rips from my throat when I throw my fist into the concrete pillar holding up the top story of India’s residence. It sends pain shooting up my arm and down my spine, but I don’t hold back. I punch and punch and punch until my fists are bloody, my heart is colliding with my ribs just as dangerously, and my wish to kill is only ramping up.

  A million phrases played through my head this morning. Little snippets of all the conversations I’ve had the past couple of days have been on a nonstop loop. India’s sworn testimony that Roxanne is playing me for a fool. Smith presenting evidence on sedatives causing false positive pregnancy tests, and just now, Roxanne’s heartbreaking confession on how she was treated the first night under Rimi’s care. They rolled through my head on repeat, only stopping when I hinged every belief I’ve ever had o
n a simple sonogram.

  It should have cleared everything up.

  Science has a way of making liars truthful and the truthful dead.

  That didn’t happen today. Roxanne’s ultrasound raised more doubt than it gave answers. Not because I believe what Dr. Klein said but because not only has Roxanne given me no reason to doubt her, she has evidence to back up her claims. Bruises I somehow missed, nicks I brushed off as grazes because I was too busy basking in the glory of my win to make sure she had made it out of the carnage without a scratch, and the faintest bruise on her hip that looks like the imprint of a man’s boot.

  Roxanne has said time and time again that the person responsible for Fien’s captivity was a woman. Although it’s clear Rimi was the ringleader behind the organization who staged my daughter’s captivity, I agree with Roxanne.

  Furthermore, if Roxanne’s abduction was purely about money, they wouldn’t have harmed our child. Fien’s captivity netted the Castro entity millions of dollars each year, so imagine how much I would have paid to guarantee the safety of two of my children, not to mention the woman I love.

  The fact they forced Roxanne through every woman’s worst nightmare exposes my fatal flaw.

  I gloated a victory I’ve yet to win.

  Basked in an ambiance that isn’t mine to savor.

  I let Roxanne down in a way I never thought possible, and I’ve threatened to kill her more than once.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I’m a fucking asshole.

  That stops today.

  I can’t change what happened to Roxanne. I can’t undo the hurt she endured, but I can ensure it won’t happen again. I’ve just got to play the game as I’ve been taught, show my enemies I’m not to be messed with, and I must do it without Roxanne by my side because, as far as my enemies are concerned, the only way you can teach a bird how to fly is by pushing her out of the nest.