10. Becca

10

BECCA

“ L eaving?”

My fingers shook as I hurried to get Emily out of the carrier, amazed and overwhelmed with relief that she was here. My shoulders drooped as I pulled her up, waking her. She stirred, pouting and sucking quicker on her pacifier as I unbuckled her. Her tiny fists reached toward me, her fingers uncurling to grab me. Her eyes opened, blinking away sleep as I lifted her into my arms.

Ivan caught me off guard, telling me that I was going anywhere. After his repeated instructions that I was to stay here as his hostage, this news seemed like a contradiction I couldn’t keep up with.

He was in charge. There was no doubt about that. Yet, it seemed so different for him to announce that something was happening, that I could anticipate being relocated.

I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me where he took me so long as I would stay with Emily. Being reunited with my baby calmed me like nothing else could. Snuggling her tiny body, holding her up to my chest and breathing in her sweet baby smell, I relished the familiar weight of her. She filled that aching hole in my chest, proving that she was alive and well. Every minute that I had been held here against my will, I’d worried so deeply and without pause.

In the back of my mind, I knew she would be all right. Hannah was an excellent sitter. She had a big heart and never failed to go above and beyond my expectations. When I didn’t come home when she thought I would, she had to have been worried and scared, confused too. But I never wondered if she’d leave or abandon my baby. I knew that Emily was in good hands and would remain with Hannah until I returned or she received an explanation for my absence. Hannah would have stuck with Emily no matter what.

Until she was taken.

“What’s going on? What happened to Emily? Is Hannah okay?” The memory of my sitter’s scream returned to my mind as I blurted out all the questions.

Ivan didn’t seem ready to answer any of them. He shook his head as he walked further into the penthouse apartment.

I blinked, staring after him as I hugged Emily. He expected me to just accept my daughter’s arrival and not wonder what was going on?

“I don’t trust staying in the city right now.”

It was an answer I hadn’t expected, but I considered what he gave me. He moved quickly through the apartment, and I watched him closely. He gave me freer rein, no longer locking me in that room, and I wondered where I would go next.

Does that mean it’s not safe to even talk here anymore? What is he so suspicious about? If this place could be bugged, I didn’t want to speak up and interfere.

I felt blessed, so relieved to have Emily back in my arms. Just seeing her and knowing she was all right soothed my weary soul. If he wanted to move us, fine. If he deemed it unsafe here, who was I to question him? I was in the dark.

He said I was a hostage, but not Emily. I doubted he could’ve counted on retrieving a baby for his plans against Steven, but I refused to question his motives about reuniting me with my daughter either.

He didn’t pack a bag, and all I had were the clothes on my back and the phone that was still connected to the device that Dmitri used to track my calls and snoop through my phone.

Emily’s diaper bag was packed, and as we hurried out of the apartment, flanked by men, I was curious how Ivan had come to obtain the bag of necessities. My curiosity nagged me, but I decided to hold off on my questions until we were in his car.

The entire way to his dark car was tense, but I made no moves to run. I didn’t try to escape. A fleeting thought hit me that maybe I was safest with him. That when I begged him to keep my child safe without any grounds to expect anything of him, that he would be the ideal man to secure Emily’s safety. Even though he’d fucked me really hard, he hadn’t tried to hurt me for the sake of inflicting pain. Everything he did, he did to push me and ensure that I’d receive a deep sense of pleasure I had never truly experienced before.

I climbed into the backseat with Emily, aware of the other men following us. Ivan had a team, had competent backup. Knowing this operation, whatever it was, would work like a machine, I felt safer.

“What is going on?” I asked again, not counting on getting an answer.

He sighed as he drove, lifting his dark gaze to the mirror to look at me, then Emily before returning his focus to the road. “A man who might have identified himself as a Rossini broke into your apartment.”

The news bothered me, and I set my hand on Emily’s chest, feeling her heartbeat and inhalations as she slept again. “Is Hannah okay?” Other than a little blood splatter on the straps of Emily’s carrier, she seemed completely normal.

“She was knocked out as she prepared to take Emily with her to turn in an assignment due at school. As soon as he took Emily, the man I placed to watch your home alerted my brother.” He glanced up. “Dmitri.”

“Why’d she scream? Is she all right?” Worry crept back in.

“Dmitri startled her. We’ve seen to her medical care, and another man will stay near Hannah to ensure she doesn’t talk to anyone about what happened. She’ll be secured.”

I breathed easier, calmer in knowing my sitter would be all right.

He snagged me with a stern look. “Are you still confident Dominic is unaware that you gave birth to his daughter?”

I nodded, furrowing my brow. “Yes. He sent me away from Italy, and in the year that has passed, I’ve heard not a word from him. No call. Nothing. I never once reached out to him. Only this week did Steven call and lie about Dominic wanting custody of Emily.” Scowling, I stared right back at him, channeling my anger to him by accident. “Dominic wouldn’t give a fuck. And I can’t see how or why he’d care to do anything about Emily now.”

He nodded once, paying attention to driving again.

Many questions lingered on my mind, but he seemed to have closed down on me. Thinking. Wondering. Strategizing. I was in the dark. I was clueless about anything to do with Steven and the Rossinis, and I felt it best to shut up until he asked me something else.

I figured he would, but he didn’t. Not on the hours-long drive out of the city. Not as he led me into a guarded and lavish vacation villa upstate.

For days, he left me to get acquainted with Emily in this strange place. Burning questions stayed bottled within me, but I didn’t bother asking him. He was busy on the phone or gone speaking with more of those men. Besides, I was too busy trying to understand it all myself.

Taking care of Emily felt like a vacation. Out of my crummy apartment, treated with unlimited food and clothing that Ivan must have arranged to be delivered here, I almost felt… pampered, if isolated and locked up.

I didn’t have to count servings and ration my money on meals. I wasn’t obligated to report to work and suffer that endless guilt over not spending time with Emily.

It was bizarre and unsettling to assume this peaceful limbo could last.

I’m a hostage. Nothing more.

But for a moment, I’d felt like someone else entirely. When he’d taken me by surprise and fucked me so hard, distracting me from the trauma of being kidnapped and teased, I felt like a new woman. Desired and coveted. Treasured and treated to bliss.

He hadn’t come close to touch me, let alone speak about that rabid lust we’d burned out that one time. And I felt like an idiot to cling to those thoughts.

Because I’m not his woman. I’m nothing but his hostage.

And I still couldn’t understand why. If he thought Steven would care about me and want to come out of hiding to retrieve me, he was mistaken. My sperm donor would surrender me to get his way and ensure his profit.

Dominic wouldn’t care about me either, if Ivan was holding me hostage to impact that Rossini leader. I clung to the assumption that Dom didn’t know that I’d had his baby. No matter which way I looked at this confusing mess, I didn’t see how Emily would be in the middle of this Mafia war. It made no sense.

Ivan didn’t tell me anything, as wary of me as I was of him. It was almost as though he couldn’t tell how to view me anymore. After that one time he’d fucked me at the apartment in the city— over two weeks ago—I couldn’t understand what his intentions were, if they’d changed since he captured me. He hadn’t raped me, but I made no mistake of acknowledging that he was in charge.

And I hated it.

As I tidied up from dinner, washing the dishes one night in my stay here, I tensed as he walked through the kitchen. I was always aware of him, noting how every room seemed smaller with his larger-than-life presence.

Emily fussed, and I worried that he’d be annoyed. Not once did he act in any way that suggested he hated having her around, but I couldn’t ignore this guess that he wasn’t exactly a kid-friendly sort of man. He was a criminal, a man used to lurking in sex clubs, someone without a dad bod or ease with being near a baby.

I struggled to finish the dishes and give her attention where she whined in her highchair that Ivan or someone on his staff had procured without a second thought.

“Hold on, baby girl. Just hold on a minute and let me—” A glass slipped in the sudsy water, and I gasped as shards sliced through the water in the sink. And my hand. I hissed in a breath and clutched the tender area between my thumb and finger.

“What happened?” Ivan asked, immediately there and looming over my shoulder.

“Uh.” I swallowed, unused to his speaking to me after such a long spell of avoidance. “I dropped a glass and?—”

Emily cried louder, unhappy about the lack of attention.

“Hold on, Emmy.” I grimaced, glancing at her past him. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

Ivan frowned, snatching a towel and pulling my hand out of the water. “Compress it.”

I accepted the towel and held it down tightly, bewildered and partly awestruck as he hurried to Emily and picked her up.

“Quiet,” he told her. “Be quiet.” He didn’t order it like he did to his men. He wasn’t instructing her like an impatient, bossy adult and expecting her to listen. But it was all he could likely think of to say as a comforting response to her needing to be picked up.

He stepped aside from the table, cradling her in his arms. The sight of my baby against his bare chest did something to me. Something raw and primitive. Among that canvas stretched taut over his ripped muscles, his skin marked with tattoos and scars, she pressed her cheek to him and sniffled. Calming instantly, she peered up at him. Confused but maybe curious, Emily gazed up at Ivan as he tried to rock and sway in his step a little bit. His big hands held her securely, and as he looked down at her, continuing to tell her to stay calm and be quiet in that softened yet gruff voice of his, my heart absolutely melted.

Oh, God. My ovaries could explode at the sexy yet tender sight. Since I learned that I was pregnant, I knew she wouldn’t ever have a fatherly figure in her life. Not a dad. Not a grandpa. Nor an uncle. No one but me. So seeing this mean grump handle her so delicately threw me off.

And had me wondering how he could soothe her so easily.

Or if he’d ever want to repeat a dose of his affection on me .