So I spent the day in terror of what was to come this morning. I did my best to hide it from Nico. I barely slept last night for worrying about this morning.
I had to write him a note telling him not to come looking for me.
I hoped I would be back soon. Giovanni told me he only wanted to talk to me. Didn’t want anything from me. Wasn’t going to hurt me.
It was all a lie. He’s hurt me plenty. First thing he did when I got to our meeting was point a gun at my head. He was in an abandoned office building, sitting behind a dust covered desk like the ghost of the CEO of the firm. Pulled it out of his pocket and pressed it to my forehead.
“Delighted to meet you at last,” he said. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take a pregnancy test. If it’s negative, you and me are going to be best of friends for a while. You can go back to Nico and start taking the pill. That way, your beloved Cara gets to keep her brains inside her skull. If it’s positive? Well, best not to think about that.”
He had two men guarding the bathroom I used. It stank in there. The water had long been turned off and only one bare lightbulb lit the tiny cubicle I was inside. I wasn’t allowed to close the door. The guards watched me the entire time.
The test was positive. I found out I was pregnant in the worst possible way.
He smiled when he saw the test. Smiled and clapped his hands for joy. “I made the right move,” he said, nodding toward the two men either side of me. They grabbed me and brought me here. I can’t believe I’m here once again.
Back at my parents house. Down in the basement below the ruins of the mansion. The smell of burning reminding me what happened here. There’s nothing left above ground level but rubble and scorched fragments of timber.
There’s no food and no water down here. I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m supposed to starve to death. That’s my fate. To die in the same place as my family. I will never get to meet my child. That thought is what makes my head ache with a despair deeper than any I’ve ever felt.
The worst thing is what Giovanni said to me when I was being dragged away from the office. “Nico doesn’t give a shit about you. He saw the note and threw it away, said he could get another girl in two seconds flat.” He grinned at my face as it crumpled in front of him. “This is what happens when you side with a loser.”
I don’t know how long I’m down in the basement before I fall asleep. At some point, fatigue finally overwhelms my misery and I drift off into an unsettled doze.
I’m guessing I’m asleep. It’s the only explanation for the fact my mother is standing in front of me, looking hazy and see through like a TV that’s barely tuned in right. I can see the wall behind her and I know it’s a dream but I’m not waking up.
“Remember the tunnel,” she says. Her voice is faint, little more than a whisper on a breeze, drifting past my ears. She’s barely finished speaking when I sit bolt upright. There’s no one in here. Of course there isn’t. It was just a dream.
I smile as I get to my feet. There is a tunnel in here. Where was it? Bricked up about fifty years ago. Used during prohibition to get booze in and out. It comes out down by the river. The barrels were brought straight off the boat and into the basement. Where was it?
I force myself to think. The walls are all covered in black ash where the smoke spread during the fire. They all look identical.
It takes a long time but I find it. Right in the furthest corner. The brick feels different here. The mortar is crumbling in sections. I scoop some out with my fingers, breaking a nail in the process. I look at the hole I’ve made. This has to be it.
I rummage around on the floor, looking for something I can use as a pick. I find a jagged piece of wood still in decent shape. It’s got a sharp point and I get to work, scouring out the mortar from between the bricks.
I don’t know how far until I get through to the tunnel but I can only pray I get to it before my strength gives out.
It’ll be a race against time but what’s the alternative? Sit and wait to die?
I yearn to get out of here for one reason only. I want Nico to know I’m pregnant. I want to tell him I didn’t mean what was in the note. He might not care about me leaving. Giovanni might have been telling the truth but I need him to know I’m pregnant.
I need him to know something else as well, something I didn’t realize until I was locked in here and stuff was piled up on top of the trapdoor so there was no way of me getting out.
I love Nico. I don’t know for how long I’ve known. Maybe since that first night we spent together when I crept out of the house.
It feels like a lifetime has gone by since then. It’s less than a year ago. So much has changed. The proof is all around me.
My dogs are dead. My family has been wiped out. The house burned to the ground. I’ve been in a helicopter. I’ve had the most mind-blowing sex a woman could imagine. I’m married. I’ve a ring on my finger to prove it. I’m pregnant.
I’m thinking about everything I’ve been through as I work, thinking so hard I don’t notice the brick is about to fall until it slips out of the wall and lands on my foot.
I hop on one leg in pain, looking at the hole I’ve made. Another layer of brick behind it but the mortar’s in worse shape than the stuff I’ve been working on.
I keep going, the hole getting slowly bigger. I will get out of here. I won’t give up. I’ll find Nico. I’ll tell him I love him. That thought keeps me going even as my throat turns dry and my stomach starts to growl.
I’ve no idea how long I work but I don’t stop. I keep going. I will not give up as long as there’s an ounce of strength in my body.
Thirty-Four