30. Becca

30

BECCA

D ominic’s men stopped behind a familiar building. Back here, it looked like any other building along this alleyway. The front, though, had large windows for passersby to peer through and get peeks of a variety of artwork.

It felt like a lifetime had passed since I was last here. The art gallery where Morgan was the star. Where all I was allotted was a tiny thumbnail image on the pamphlet and a one-liner about me.

The art gallery where Steven called and asked me to retrieve an envelope for him and I’d refused. When I had those fanciful dreams of a man loving me and protecting me.

I’d found one, despite the hell I’d endured from the rapist forcing me to enter the back door.

Ivan. I missed him and wished he could be here to kill Dominic like he’d promised he would.

I stumbled on a step, breathless and so confused as Dominic growled and pushed me into the empty gallery. Lights remained off, and one of these thugs must have canceled the alarm.

In the middle of the floor space, I stood alone and nervous.

“What’s going on?”

Dominic held his left hand out, gesturing at one of his men to give him something. In his right hand, he gripped that knife. “Which pieces of shit are yours?” he snarled at me as he accepted a small sledgehammer from his man.

I tensed, hunching my shoulders as he slammed the hammer into another artist’s sculpture. Shards went flying, scattering over the floor like he’d beaten a clay pinata.

He didn’t even know which pieces were mine. That was how little he’d paid attention or cared when he strung me along.

“Which ones!” He didn’t wait for my reply, smashing the hammer on every sculpture in the room. His chest heaved from the exertion, growling with his labored breaths as he stalked around the room. Rossini thugs hurried to pick through the debris, and I watched them before Dominic turned to using the knife.

I was too confused to be wounded by the destruction of my artwork. I could make more. I would make more. What remained forefront in my mind was why . Had he gone crazy? Deranged?

What can he want back that would be in ? —

I stifled a gasp as it clicked.

Zoning out as he moved to the paintings, slicing his knife through the canvas then checking the edge where the artwork connected to the frame, I knew.

I figured it out with his rampant destruction of all these pieces. He didn’t need to destroy the others, but I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak. I was so shocked that I couldn’t point out which ones were mine.

Because he was after my artwork. He was convinced I’d taken them back home with something of his inside them.

Smuggling.

That had to be it. This plan with Steven. I had been nothing but a pawn in it all, a vessel for them to smuggle drugs here. I recalled enough Italian to understand the Rossini ordering his fellow thug to look for them in the mess. Vials. Envelopes. Thin packages. All believed to be hidden within the artwork.

Oh, my God.

I felt disoriented, unable to draw in a deep breath as the truth settled upon me.

I’d been used so horribly in all this. All that time Dom had transported my artwork throughout Europe, he’d been hiding and stashing drugs in my artwork throughout it all. I doubted he personally had done it. If he had, he’d know which pieces were the Trojan horses. Someone he employed had to have arranged it.

Steven wanted those drugs. Dom did too. The long-term plan had gone sour, though, and now it was a race to find the evidence.

Oh. My. God.

I struggled with this realization, so thrown off by how I could have ever gotten mixed in with all this.

No wonder Dom was so eager to convince me to travel with him. No wonder he insisted on bringing my artwork and convincing me to spend all that time away from home.

And Steven. He’d known about it too, never once considering doing the right thing of warning his daughter that a crime lord was using her to smuggle drugs.

That had to be why he’d wanted me to get an envelope for him at one of those sex clubs. Payment, I bet, for these drugs. These very same drugs that likely caused those guests to fall and struggle when the cops ambushed them.

“How…” I found my voice, confused and eager to understand. “How did you know I was at that club tonight?”

Another Rossini spoke up, scowling at me as he picked through the debris from torn canvases and busted frames from Dominic’s enraged ruination. “We didn’t. We were there handing out the drugs to see if your father would show up, mad that we were overriding his product.”

“We happened to be there, and there you were,” the other man said, one of the two I’d seen at the club, “the answer to all our problems.”

“Not so fast,” Dominic shouted. He hurried toward me, fuming as he smashed more paintings down. “We still haven’t found those drugs, and I’ll be damned if your fucking father beats me to them.”

I panted, frantic to breathe steadily during the intense rush of adrenaline and fear. As he neared me, I cowered back. The need to puke returned. And my God, I was going to faint.

I blinked, thinking through the overwhelming sensations that claimed me.

I’d felt them before.

This wasn’t only lightheadedness from being scared.

I’m… pregnant?

I lowered my hand to my belly, thinking back. I’d felt like this when I was pregnant with Emily. Just slightly out of breath enough that I noticed. And the on and off nausea, never so bad that it stopped me from being functional, but appearing suddenly when it came.

Oh, my God!

I recalled the last period I’d had, well before I met Ivan. I’d missed my monthly, but I’d dismissed it as a bodily reaction to all the stress of the last month and a half.

Of all times. I couldn’t believe it. Of all times to realize this, now, when I was in danger. Right this minute, when the deranged crime lord who’d raped me wanted to find illegal drugs he’d had hidden in my artwork.

Ivan. He’d knocked me up, likely from that first night he’d taken me.

Of all the times to learn that I’m carrying his child! It seemed so incredulous that I struggled to accept it as a fact. I hadn’t taken a test, but I felt it. It was just like what I experienced before.

But right now, when I could really help Ivan with this Mafia war, this vendetta against Steven, I was unable to reach him or contact him for help.

Just stall him. Stay safe and alive. Cooperate. And stall him.

Because Ivan had to care too much not to chase me down. Somehow, he had to find me. I willed it to be true.

Dominic returned to me, walking lopsidedly and tired from the exertion of winging that sledgehammer up and down to pulverize the sculptures, then slicing and smashing the paintings.

Breathing hard, looking every bit the diabolical maniac he was, he glared directly at me.

“Where is the rest of it? Tell me where the rest of your artwork is that I showed them in Italy.”

I bit my lip so he wouldn’t see it tremble. I had to remain strong. I would be strong. There was no other choice.

Stall him. Cooperate. And pray Ivan will know how to find me. It was that or I wait for a chance to run away. As soon as I could—safely, since I wasn’t running for just my safety but also my baby’s—I would.

“Back there,” I said, wishing my voice were stronger as I pointed to the rear storage room.

He lifted the knife and aimed it at me. “Lead the way.”