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I bit back a retort, knowing he wasn’t above smacking me, grabbing me, choking me. All sorts of punishments for anything he saw as an offense. And as much as a part of me liked pushing back at him, I knew that he took pleasure in hurting me. I didn’t want him to get that.
So I moved through my room, snagging a sweater off of the chair in the process, then silently following behind him as we walked out of the front door, two of his henchmen right behind me.
They would sit with me in the backseat on the drive as well, meaty arms and shoulders taking up all the room, making me need to squeeze into myself to avoid brushing against them the entire drive.
Still, when the car turned suddenly, I would find myself plastered against one of them, and would have to watch the sneers they would shoot each other because of it.
Warren was in the passenger seat, clicking away on his phone as Denny, his second-in-command, a man only slightly less vile than Warren himself, drove.
I had to force my gaze down to my own hands in my lap to keep from glaring at either of them, knowing Denny would see it in the rearview, then relay it to Warren.
Better to just play the part of the demure baby mama. Sitting in the backseat, flanked by heavily armed men as they ran goddamn errands.
I knew they weren’t necessarily errands. Each stop would have Warren, Denny, and one of the men in the back heading out, talking to people. Likely collecting money or issuing threats. Then climbing back in and doing it over again.
I missed the days when my aching, leaking breasts would allow me to force Warren to take me home earlier, insisting that Judah needed to nurse.
But those days were behind me now.
So I sat.
In silence.
For long enough that, apparently, they started to forget I was even there at all.
Because Warren and Denny started to talk.
About the ‘docks’ and something coming in a shipping container. From the sound of things, whatever it was inside of it, it was worth a fortune.
“And those fuckers think I’m sharing it with them,” Warren scoffed, getting a hearty laugh from Denny as I sat there, trying not to decipher the meaning. Because it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. His business was the very thing that had made me run and hide the second the stick turned blue.
The seven sticks, in fact. Because I was horrified at the idea of bearing that bastard’s child, and I kept taking and taking them.
Until, finally, when the digital one printed out the word Pregnant on the screen, I knew there was no more denying it.
I was going to have his baby.
And he would never stop trying to come for him if he knew.
It didn’t take long.
And two and a half years later, we were both still under his thumb.
I was zoning out, lost in my own memories and hopes for a different future, when something Warren said made me suddenly snap back to the present.
“… And then I’m gonna put a bullet in that bastard’s head.”
With that and nothing else, he climbed out of the car, making me realize we were home.
I barely resisted the urge to shove one of Warren’s henchmen out of his door, so I could climb out, and speed walk back into the house, kicking out of my shoes, then rushing into Judah’s room.
To find him red-eyed, and the maid panic-stricken.
Not the older lady who’d taken him, but the new, younger one. One who’d likely never spent any time with a child before, let alone one as attached to his mother as Judah was to me.
But judging from the fear in her eyes, she was told what would happen to her if Warren saw that his son had been crying.
I rushed forward, scooping him up, and plastering him to my chest, holding his head against me, and starting to immediately sing to him.
