A Very Daddy Christmas (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems)

Chapter 31

31

Cora

I t’s been three days.

Three days since I was thrown into the back of a van and hogtied. The bruises around my wrists are healing, but living in a constant state of fear isn’t doing my body, my soul, or my baby any good.

I’ve yet to find a way to escape.

The two lackeys standing outside my door are efficient enough, I’ll give them credit. They’re not only good at scaring folks or smashing pastry displays. They’re quite adept at keeping me between these crappy four walls.

Denaro comes in twice a day with takeout food in greasy brown paper bags. He gives me updates, telling me how the whole town is mobilizing and searching for me. He shows me newspaper articles and snippets from online reports—I’m not sure if it’s to rile me up or just give me some sense of comfort. To be honest, I do get a smidge of the latter. At least I know Eva isn’t that mad at me. If anything, my sister is utterly distraught, and it hurts me deeply to see her in tears.

She knows I’m pregnant. To my surprise, that particular information never made it into any of the news stories and I’m curious as to why. Then again, if Denaro were to become aware of my condition, he might use it against me. At this point, I’m not putting anything past him.

It’s late in the afternoon and it’s already dark out. I’m getting restless.

I keep gliding past the windows. Peeping from behind the curtains. The big boys are still out there. One of them sits in a plastic chair, chain-smoking his foul-smelling cigarettes, while the other is on his phone, occasionally chuckling. I’m guessing there’s a lady on the end of the line.

“I’m gonna go crazy in here,” I mutter to myself and go back to the bathroom.

There’s a window, but it’s been boarded up. I managed to get the glass side open earlier this morning, but I’ve yet to make the plywood budge. I need tools—a crowbar, or something with a thick blade that won’t snap easily. My pulse is racing, and I’m worried about the baby, but I can’t stay here anymore. They’re out there looking for me while I’m stuck in here at the mercy of a man who’s willing to do awful things in order to get what he wants.

My survival instincts keep kicking in, yet I have little to no tools at my disposal to put them to work. I look around, and finally, something clicks. Somewhere in the back of my head, I remember seeing a piece of metal.

“Hold on,” I whisper and kneel in front of the cabinet under the bathroom sink. I open it and look behind the cleaning products. There is, in fact, a piece of metal sticking out from the bottom of the shelf. It must’ve been part of a hinge mechanism from a previous cabinet. It’s not long, but it’s thick and sturdy enough that it might just do the trick.

“Come on…” I grumble and curse under my breath until I manage to fish it out from the narrow space between the backless cabinet and the wall. Two seconds later, I jam it in between the plywood and the window frame and start yanking.

One yank.

Two yanks.

I hear a crackle of wood on the third. Something’s about to come loose.

“Cora?” Denaro’s voice echoes from the front room.

“Shit,” I hiss and hide the metal piece in my pocket, then rush to turn the water on so he’ll hear me in the bathroom. “Just a second!” I call out. My voice and my legs are shaking. The adrenaline is doing its number, and I don’t want Denaro to think I’m up to something. I take a few deep breaths before I go out.

“What were you doing?” he asks, standing next to the bed with a new paper bag.

I can smell the greasy takeout as soon as I walk into the room. It makes my stomach churn. What I wouldn’t give for something cleaner and healthier. A steak with some oven-roasted potatoes, maybe, and a salad on the side.

“I was in the bathroom. What the hell do you think I was doing?” I snap. “Would you like a report on color and consistency while I’m at it?”

Denaro glares at me for the longest moment. He’s usually more receptive to my sarcasm, but something feels off. He’s angry. Dark-eyed. Seething beneath a deceptively calm surface. I don’t like the look on his face, and I don’t like the new tension between us.

“What’s going on?” I ask, almost breathless.

“I can’t get a hold of Orson. Or George,” Denaro says.

Silence settles over my thoughts, though one idea manages to slip past into my consciousness. A faint one about Sebastian, Waylan, and Riggs being involved in Orson’s and George’s radio silence. But I keep it to myself.

“Maybe they’re busy,” I mumble. “How long am I going to be here?”

“See, that’s the problem,” he replies, increasingly erratic with his hand gestures. “I don’t know because I can’t find the two people who can confirm whether the sale is going through uninterrupted or not. I’m in the fucking dark here.”

“You took a photo of me to send to my sister. Has she replied?”

Denaro gives me an ugly look. “She begged me not to hurt you. I’m not sure I can oblige.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve been sitting here, at your fucking mercy, waiting for you, Orson, and George to get my building!” I reply, genuinely exhausted and exasperated. “Whatever those two idiots are up to, it isn’t my fault. Or my sister’s.”

“You really don’t understand, do you?” he shakes his head slowly. “I need this deal to go through. I need that fucking building. And I need St. James and Hamilton to pick up their phones when I call them.”

“I get it. Your business partner from Texas will be miffed if you don’t—”

“He’ll fucking kill me. So, yeah, Cora, pardon me if I’m a little aggravated right now.”

“And killing me will get results?” I scoff, finally putting two and two together in this ensemble of desperate men who made piss-poor business decisions and got involved with the worst kind of people. They thought they were going to dig themselves out of trouble only to dig themselves deeper into an even bigger hole. “Orson and Hamilton are in your debt. You’re at the mercy of… I’ll go ahead and guess it’s some kind of dealer. Meanwhile, all I ever did was try to keep my father’s bakery going. And still, I’m the one you’re going to hurt. Really?”

In the blink of an eye, Denaro whips out a gun and points it at me.

Everything stops, including my breath. The parameters have suddenly changed, and I’m not sure what to do or say next. There’s a gun muzzle staring me right in the face, and my life hangs in the balance. My life and the life of my unborn child. I’m shaking like a leaf, my knees wobbling slightly.

“Please,” I mumble. “You don’t want to do this. Killing me won’t gain you anything.”

“If I end this right here, right now, there’ll be no one left to get in my way,” he retorts. “Your sister will be too distraught to want anything to do with the building.”

“You said you didn’t want any bloodshed,” I plead with him. “You said it was too tedious. The cleanup, the legal repercussions…”

Denaro takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. I can almost hear the wheels in his head spinning in a chaotic thought process. All it took was for Orson and George to fall off the face of the earth to cause this man to lose his footing altogether. He’s going back to the old-school Chicago ways of doing things.

“Please, Mr. Denaro. I didn’t do anything wrong. All I wanted was to save my father’s bakery, but I won’t place it above my own life. Please.” I am so close to crying, the tears pricking my eyes.

“There are a couple of lakes in the area,” he replies. “It could take weeks, even months before they find you. I’ll be sure to have the slug removed from your body before I dump it. It will be harder for them to connect me to your death that way.”

He removes the safety from his gun and cocks it.

There’s a bullet in the chamber itching for release.

My whole life flashes before my eyes.

Only moments ago, I was close to prying the plywood board off the bathroom window.

I have a sister worried sick about me, three men whom I love deeply, and a bakery I cherish being able to open every morning.

Convection ovens I enjoy turning on at the crack of dawn. The smell of fresh pastry dough and dried lavender. The bright green of chopped pistachios. The sweetness of honey drizzled over a still-hot vanilla cake. It’s all flashing and fading as I look at Denaro, as I watch his finger squeezing the trigger.

“It might be easier this way,” he tells himself. “It really might be easier.”

“Please. I’m pregnant!” I blurt out.

I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to tell him. Desperate and on the brink of literal death, his gun still very much pointed at my head. He freezes, his eyes widening as his attention refocuses on me.

This is my last resort.