I think about calling him, but I don’t. I can’t take that ring, ring, ring to voicemail again.

  Instead I switch on over to a sitcom. I watch that for a little while, feeling restless. Markus has really pissed me off. Men like him have always annoyed me. There were a few like that at college, up their own asses and certain that if they acted like men did in romantic comedies they could do anything they wanted to women. It’s like they have this tier system in their head where flowers equal kissing and paying for dinner equals sex, all the way to a holiday giving them carte- blanche access. I spend some time fantasizing about a meeting between Rocco and Markus, how Rocco would just look down at him and Markus would melt like a coward.

  When my apartment buzzer sounds, I’m certain it’s Mom. She’s come around to give me a piece of her mind. I ready myself for an argument I have no interest in having. I know Mom. If I ignore the buzzer she’ll just hit it again and again, leaving me no choice but to eventually cave in.

  But it’s not Mom’s voice which comes to me through the speakers.

  “Miss Ericson,” the man says, his voice gruff. “Sorry to call up like this, but it’s—”

  “Is he okay?” I snap, a sudden premonition hitting me. “Please tell me he’s okay!”

  “He’s been stabbed.”

  “I’m coming down!”

  We take my car, the biker driving as I sit in the back gnawing my fingernails down to stubs. I can’t stop thinking about Cecilia and Shotgun, how history is repeating itself, things have come full circle . . . And soon I’ll feel the stabbing pain that crippled Cecilia for so long. I jump out of the car and rush into the hospital, running past nurses and doctors and patients until coming to a room with bikers huddled around the door. “Where is he?” I demand when Beast steps forward.

  Beast nods at the door.

  I walk past him and push the door open. Rocco lies on a single bed, hospital sheets pulled up to his waist, looking completely unlike himself in the crisp paper hospital gown. Tubes are hooked up to him and his eyes are hazy as he opens them. He has a drugged-up look to his face, but he seems lucid enough. He smiles when he sees me, and then winces.

  “What happened to you?” I whisper, tears in my eyes. I go to the side of the bed and place my hand on his.

  “Stabbed,” he replies. “No real damage, apparently. Though I could’ve died from blood loss if I’d been brought in later.”

  “You could’ve died . . .” The tears stream freely down my cheeks. If there was any doubt how I felt about this man, seeing him laid up like this crushes it.

  “I shouldn’t’ve said that,” he mutters. “Goddamn meds.”

  “I can’t believe . . . oh, Rocco.” I lean down and kiss the back of his hand. “Seeing you like this, I can’t even . . . I’m sorry, I’m trying to get everything out and it’s coming out all jumbled and messed up and I can’t—” I stop, taking a deep breath.

  Rocco laughs, and then winces again. “You need to stop doing that,” he says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Being all flustered and cute and making me laugh. It’s not fair. I’ve got a knife wound in the side of my belly here, in case you didn’t notice. I know that for a snooty rich girl like you that might not be a big deal—”

  “I won’t be talked to in that tone by a peasant, Rocco,” I say. We meet eyes. I giggle. He laughs.

  I slap him softly on the arm. “Stop laughing, right this second. No more laughter.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he says. He pauses, chewing his lip, and then goes on. “But you shouldn’t be here. It was wrong of them to bring you here.”

  “I thought you asked for me,” I say.

  “I did. But I was half-conscious. I’ve been steering clear for a reason. You need to leave. It’s not that I don’t want you here, Simone. It’s just—”

  “I love you!” I cry. “Sorry to interrupt your grand speech, but I love you, Rocco. I have to say it. I can’t keep it inside anymore.”

  “You love me?” He sounds astonished.

  “Of course I love you. I know it doesn’t make any sense.” I lean forward and kiss him on the cheek. “I mean, maybe to other people it might not make any sense. But it does to me. I love you more than I’ll ever understand. It’s like . . . okay, I know how this sounds, but it’s like there’s an invisible rope always linking us, and even when we’re apart I feel you. You’re always with me. I never want to be apart from you.”

  There’s a long pause as Rocco watches me, and then he says, “I love you, too. I never knew what love was until we met. I never knew it when I was growing up and I never knew it afterward. But you’ve changed me. I don’t know how. You must be a damn magician or something. You’ve changed me, Simone.”

  I grasp his hand with both of mine. It feels so good to be close to him, to feel the heat of him next to me. “I have something else to tell you.” I don’t mean to say it. Now isn’t the right time to drop this kind of bombshell. But it’s also exactly the right time. Even if he’s injured, the connection between us has never been stronger. For the first time in weeks, I let myself think about what the future might be like. Maybe I won’t raise this child alone. Maybe we really do have a chance at some kind of life.

  “What?” he asks.

  “I’m . . .”

  I hesitate as a thought occurs to me. What if this scares him away? What if he doesn’t want a kid, with me, with anybody else? But I can’t refuse his dark eyes, or the way he strokes my fingers, or the emotion in his face. Once I thought this man was just a brute, a violent biker, a topless man in a naughty calendar and nothing more.

  I swallow, and then say, “I’m pregnant.”

  Rocco’s eyebrows go up like a cartoon’s. “And it’s mine?” he says.

  I repress my annoyance. “Of course it’s yours,” I say softly. “I haven’t been with anybody else since we were first together. Why, have you?”

  “No,” he says quickly. “I haven’t even wanted to.” He pauses, and then goes on: “I’m going to be a father. I can’t . . . This is incredible news, Simone. This is the most incredible news I have ever heard. This changes everything. We can’t carry on with this dance anymore, can we? We’ve got to make a go of it.”

  “Do you mean that?” There are tears in my eyes again. I can’t stop them. I don’t even try to stop them.

  “Of course I mean it,” he says. “A child, a life. I’m not mad, am I? This really does change everything.”

  “It does,” I confirm. “I’m so glad to hear you say that.”

  Suddenly he tries to lean up in bed, tugging at his tubes. “You have to get out of here! Right now! I can’t have you here, Simone, not with a baby inside of you. What if the Demons see you here, and they . . . You need to leave, right now! Take the boys who’ve been watching you and hide someplace until this is all over. You have to promise me that. Leave town. Go down to Venice with Cecilia. Promise me. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I say, wanting him to lie back down. “But when will it be over? Will it ever be over?”

  “It has to be,” he says, voice firm. “There’s no choice now. I’m not having my kid come into this world with his father at war. No damn way.”

  “His father? How are you so sure it’s a boy?”

  “Or her. I don’t care one way or the other. A life, a life we made. It’s almost too much to believe. You have to leave, now, please. Don’t stay another second, otherwise I’ll want you to stay all night. Leave, and I’ll end this.”

  “But your injuries . . .”

  “Screw my injuries!” he snaps. “A job needs doing, and I’m gonna do it. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Okay. I’ll go to Cecilia’s.”

  I kiss him and he kisses me back, a warm, stolen moment, and then I’m in the hospital parking lot walking toward my car with the bodyguards walking just behind me.

  It all happens so fast I have no chance to react. I half-turn and see the bodyguards on the floor, blood pooling onto the concrete. A nurse screams. And then hands clamp down on my mouth, an arm wraps around my neck, and I’m kicking and begging them to let me go.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Simone

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man says as I try to chew at the ropes around my wrist. I lower my hands and look up. The van door is opening, a man standing with a pistol in his hand, aiming it into the van. He’s around fifty or sixty, a gray strip of hair around his head and a giant mole on his chin. He’s wearing a leather jacket which looks slightly ridiculous on him. “I mean it. If you try and escape, I’ll be forced to kill you. And I really don’t want to kill you. I have no desire for things to go that way. Yet, anyway. Oh, did you know I’m the one who put a hole in Rocco’s side? He’s doesn’t seem so tough anymore, does he?”

  I climb onto my knees and spit across the van.

  “Whoa, whoa!” the man says, laughing cruelly. “What would your mother think if she could see you now, Cecilia? What would Shotgun think if he knew his little whore was fucking his best friend? He’d be very disappointed in you, I’m sure. If there’s a heaven, he’s clambering to get back just so he can punish the two of you, you sick freaks. Now come on, get out of there. Don’t make me send my boys in.”

  They think I’m Cecilia. Suddenly I get the mad urge to laugh in his face. They think I’m Cecilia! My entire life has been spent living in Cecilia’s shadow and now they think I’m her. I almost scream that I’m not Cecilia, that we couldn’t be more different. But then I see Demons riding down to Venice looking for my sister, see them throwing her into the back of a van just like they’ve done with me.

  I struggle to my feet and walk from the van, my body aching all over from the bumpy ride. “That’s a good girl,” the man says, patting me on the shoulder. “I’m Gerald Hightower, by the way. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”

  “I expected more!” I hiss.

  Demons stand in a semi-circle around me. There are twenty or so, all looking tougher and meaner than the last, all looking as if they wouldn’t have any problem with doing some serious damage to me, or performing some seriously twisted acts. My bound hands stray to my belly. If they’ve hurt my baby, I’m going to kill them.

  Gerald takes a step back, raising his hands. “We’ve got a feisty one here, gentleman.”

  Behind Gerald is the Crooked Demons’ clubhouse, a devil sitting above the neon sign which flashes into the evening. It looks like a small casino, lights flashing all over the place. From what I can tell we’re twenty or so minutes from the hospital, but admittedly my counting was interrupted by every bump in the road. We could be anywhere. I don’t notice anything in the distance apart from a few scattered warehouses and some sparse forest.

  “Let’s get her inside,” Gerald says, waving a hand at his goons.

  Three men grab me and drag me into the clubhouse, through the bar and then into the kitchen, and finally into a storage cupboard filled with boxes of dried food. They force me into a wooden chair and tie my hand bindings to the chair legs, pinning me uncomfortably. I try and keep calm during this, telling myself I have to do whatever they ask if I don’t want my baby hurt, and yet knowing that when the real horror starts I won’t be able to keep my composure. The lone man in the forest was bad enough, but at least there was some hope there. He was alone, and he was an idiot. This is worse. I’m in more danger than I’ve ever been. I’m under no delusions about that.

  Gerald enters with a camera bag in one hand and a tripod in the other. “I’m really sorry about this,” he says. “But I’m the type of man to clean my gun twice just to make sure I’ve got every single inch of it. I like to do a job well, is what I’m saying, and this job requires a bloody lip. Men.”

  All my resolve to stay calm abandons me as the men step forward, fists raised. I scream and try to wriggle out of the bindings, but I’m tied firmly in place. I try to tip the chair and roll aside, to spit at them, to bite them, but all of it is useless. The first fist catches me across the jaw, the second under the chin. I clench my teeth so hard it’s like spikes are lancing into my skull. In the end, I’m helpless. They hit me for what must be a few seconds, but it feels like minutes.

  By the end my lip is cut and already swelling, my face is a mass of throbbing pain, and tears sting my eyes.

  “Look at me,” Gerald says. When I don’t respond, he snarls, “Look at me or they’ll do worse!”

  With an effort I manage to look up. Gerald is setting up the tripod. It’s such a disjointed image, this fifty-something man with a mole on his face casually setting up a camera as I sit here bleeding. For a second, I don’t believe any of it’s happening. Then he screws the camera to the tripod and turns it on.

  “We’re going to record a message,” he says, fiddling with the camera. “Just framing the shot,” he mutters. “Okay, Cecilia. Obviously, you and Rocco have grown very close over these past few months. Fucking your fiancée’s best friend . . . and they want equality.” The men standing either side of me, the ones with my blood on their fists, laugh gruffly. “You must know by now how to make Rocco go soft for you. So I want you to beg him to surrender. This war is ours. Tell him to come to go to the third floor of the casino on 129 East Fremont Street, alone and unarmed, and leave with our men there. Once he’s done that, we’ll let you go. If he isn’t there within thirteen hours, we kill you. Okay, ready? Go.”

  I struggle through the message, begging Rocco to save me, not having to fake my fear. Perhaps a different woman would refuse to record the message, growl defiantly and clamp her mouth shut. I can imagine Cecilia refusing to record a message like this. Maybe I could, too, if it wasn’t for the baby inside of me. But I can’t stop thinking about the life in my belly. I know that Rocco would want me to do what these men are asking to protect it.

  When I get to the part about the address, I falter. “I . . . I can’t remember it.” Tears slide down my cheeks, stinging when they slide over my cuts. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember.”

  Gerald sighs, pressing a button on the camera. He repeats the address. “Go from please help me,” he says, and the sick bastard smiles as though he’s directing a movie. “Okay, action.”

  I get through the rest of the video, crying uncontrollably by the end of it. I’m in a lose-lose situation. Either Rocco goes to the casino and Gerald’s men kill him, or he doesn’t and the baby and I are killed instead. Once the recording is done Gerald slowly and casually packs away the tripod.

  “I wonder if he really loves you,” Gerald says. “I guess we’ll find out. I just need to transfer the video to my laptop, and then back to my phone.” He lurches across the room, causing me to flinch back. But I can’t move. He leans down so close to me I can see each individual hair on his mole. “I took a video production course a few years ago,” he says. “You see, Cecilia, your Rocco is really a stupid man. I don’t hold it against him that he never finished school, but what has he done since then apart from slam his president’s woman? But still, look at you.” He strokes the back of his hand down my face. I shiver and cry, but I can’t do anything. I want to slap him across the face, to spit in his eye, but all it takes is one hard thump to the stomach and my life is changed forever. “If he doesn’t do as we say, we’ll have some fun with you before we put you in the ground.

  The men around me grunt in anticipation, the same way they might grunt before tucking into a steak.

  Everybody leaves me then, closing the door and locking me in the room. As soon as I hear the click of the lock, I twist around and search for a possible exit. It’s painful to twist like this with my hands pinned between my legs but I try anyway. The room is windowless and the only door is the one in front of me, the locked door. I look around for a knife, for something to cut the ropes, a weapon, anything. But there’s nothing. And even if there was, my hands are at too awkward an angle to grip anything.

  I slump down, breathing slowly, telling myself that all of this will work out. Rocco will find a way. He has to find a way.

  I know that’s a lie, though. I can’t believe it. All this time I’ve been scared that Rocco will die and I’ll be in the same position as Cecilia, but now something worse might happen instead. Either my baby and I will die, or my baby’s father will die. I don’t want to sit here weeping—weeping doesn’t solve anything—but I can’t stop. The presence of danger is like being repeatedly slapped across the face.

  About an hour later, Gerald walks into the room. “Your boyfriend isn’t answering his phone,” he says, glaring at me as though it’s my fault. “I’ve sent him the video, along with his big dumb fuck of a friend Beast, and that scarred fuck. So even if the bastard doesn’t answer his phone, the deal is the same. You’ve got . . .” He pulls up the sleeve of his leather and checks his watch. “. . . eleven and a half hours before you die. Sit tight.”