Knocked Up by the Bad Boy (15 page)

And if they do, I might have to kill Maya’s father.

MAYA

Lined-up cigarettes burn like candles as I hold the flame to them, lighting up the whole row. The white paper wrinkles, turning a smoky, dark color as the small fire licks the head.

At first I thought I’d have a cigarette. It’s been years since I kicked the habit, but something about an unwanted pregnancy with a Mafia don made me want to inhale a lungful of cancerous smoke. I held it up to my lips and thought about the tiny life growing inside me that I just couldn’t make a decision about. I couldn’t draw a single breath of that shit because of one thought running through my head.

It’ll hurt the baby.

The baby. Not the soon-to-be-aborted fetus. Baby.

I look across the neatly trimmed lawn of
Parc Mont Royal
, staring at the cigarettes quietly burning on the blades of grass.

The best,
sanest
course of action would be to get a goddamn abortion. Get rid of it before Dad finds out about it and raises hell, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. There’s no rhyme or reason behind it. I just can’t.

What the fuck do I do now? Marry that crazy asshole?

Hell no. You can take care of this yourself without him.

Across the field, a man wearing a leather cut makes a beeline toward me, his steel-toed boots obliterating the grass. He treks right through happy couples sitting down, having picnics, his heated eyes trained on me.

Here we fucking go.

There’s no point in running.

I stand up and extinguish the cigarettes with my shoes, picking my purse off the ground. Heaviness settles in my chest as I recognize Chuck through that dirty blonde beard and his shoulder-length hair. That pigeon tattoo on his shoulder is a dead giveaway, but I’m glad it’s just him.

“How did you find me?”

Chuck stops a foot away from me, crossing his arms.

“I know all your haunts. Let’s go, little girl.”

Little girl?
A ripple of anger runs through me.

“Dad must be pretty pissed,” I add casually as we walk toward his bike.

I watch his face carefully, but it’s hard to notice anything behind that wild beard. He doesn’t say a word and a chill runs down my spine.

“He’s not happy. Just like he’s not happy whenever you run off.”

Yeah, I’m just doing this to piss off my old man.

“I’m not trying to
run off.
I’m trying to live my life.”

“You’re putting yourself in danger every time you take off by yourself.”

In danger? What fucking danger? From the hot guys who want to get their dicks wet?

I climb behind Chuck on his bike and wrap my arms around him, gritting my teeth when the engine roars into life.

What should I say when I get back?

Dad’s going to want a reason why I left the fortress and returned much later than I said I would. Again.

Oh, sorry, Dad. I just had to meet with the guy who knocked me up, who happens to be the bane of your existence.

My arms dig into Chuck’s abdomen as he bikes out of the city. My hair whips around my head as we drive on the freeway and finally take the exit twenty minutes later. Then I lean forward as he rides up the winding path to the fortress, my heart slamming against his back as the huge gates roll into view. They creak open automatically and Chuck drives into the compound, kicking up dust.

There’s a small gathering of people hanging outside the clubhouse when Chuck parks his bike and I slide off the seat. They look away when I glare daggers at anyone staring at me. I’m sure they think that I’m some kind of nuisance. A waste of their resources. The bitchy daughter who’s always going off by herself to do God knows what without an escort.

I walk straight into the clubhouse, ignoring those who wave to me as I seek out my bedroom. The noise almost cuts out when I slam the door shut and rake my hands through my hair, glancing at my meager possessions.

This is what my life has become. Small bits of freedom. A breather here and there before being dragged back to this place that I hate. The drugs. The alcohol. The strippers. A ball of hot shame grows inside me at the thought of actually raising my baby in this place. God, the baby.

Johnny was wrong. This
is
a disaster.

Loud footsteps crash down the corridor and my insides tense as I recognize the sound of those heavy boots. I sit up straight. Jesus, it sounds as though there’s an elephant thundering down the hallway. The door smashes open and I don’t even blink.

Mom crashes through the door with Dad, whose face is purpled with rage.

What now?

“STUPID FUCKING
CUNT
!”

“Carlos, stop!”

I stand to my feet, electrified. He throws Mom from his arm, and she makes a painful whimper as her head hits the wall. It’s not as though I haven’t seen him do it dozens of times before, but somehow it feels worse because she’s defending me.

“Don’t touch her, you fucking bastard!”

He whirls on me, spittle flying from his mouth. “I KNOW WHERE YOU WERE!”

I cross my arms as a thrill runs through me. “What?”

“Why the
fuck
were you at
Le Zinc
?”

So they saw me at the restaurant. Shit.

I put on a bored voice. “Some people like to eat out, Dad.”

He snarls in my face, jabbing my chest with his finger. “Don’t you fucking lie to me.”

“I was having lunch. With a friend.”

“
A friend
.”

He spits it out as if I uttered a disgusting swearword.

“You fucking stupid bitch.”

“You said that already.”

“You’re meeting Johnny Cravotta behind my back to hurt the MC.”

I slap his hand away from my face. “No, I’m not!”

“Are you going to stand there and lie to me?”

“I’m not—!”

“What the
fuck
did you tell that greaseball?”

Okay, this is a lot worse than I thought it was.

He lunges at me before I can dodge, and his thick hands wrap around my throat, squeezing hard. I scratch at his fingers as I gulp for breath, fighting back for all I’m worth. He pins me down. My head grinds against the dirty floor and my mother’s screams ring in my ear as blackness pricks at the edge of my vision.

“TELL ME!”

“
Stop! Fucking stop it!
”

“Get
off
me!”

“She can’t breathe!”

The screams become a distant roar. I can’t see—I can’t hear. My lungs burn. Fuck, it hurts. I claw at my father’s face and the pressure on my throat relieves.

I roll to my side as oxygen punches my brain and all my senses return. My chest heaves great breaths as Dad crouches over me.

“Start fucking talking.”

A surge of vicious hatred that I’ve never known before consumes everything. I don’t give a fuck about what he does to me.

“I was on a date—” I gasp.

“What?”

“I was on a date with the Italian guy I’m fucking.”

The look on his face is priceless. Stunned doesn’t quite cover it. Shocked beyond belief doesn’t either.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

I’ve never wanted to tell the truth about anything more in my life. I want to rub it in his face and laugh at his pain.

“An Italian?”

“
Yeah
, I met a guy at a bar and he was Italian—and connected with the mob. You know what, Dad? He was a real gentleman. He told me exactly what he wanted to do with me—”

“
Shut the fuck up
.”

“I went to his house. He
fucked
me really good—”

His hand strikes my face. And again. The blows rain on my head, knocking me into the cheap plywood floor. Stars burst in my vision.

“DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?”

“No!”

Mom backs away from him as he raises his fist and glares at me.

“You—you let one of those
disgusting
people touch you—”

“He wasn’t disgusting.”

“STOP TALKING!”

“Why should I? Since you care so much about who gets to touch my pussy, maybe I should tell you more about how amazing he was in bed.”

My father can’t even produce a complete sentence. “FUCKING—BITCH! CUNT!”

“I let him come inside my mouth!”

“You sick, twisted bitch.”

Let the whole fucking club hear about it. I don’t give a flying fuck if they know I sucked Johnny Cravotta’s cock and loved it.

“I had some fun for the first time in my goddamn life, and you can’t stand it. You’re the one who can’t keep it in his fucking pants, so don’t you
dare
tell me who I can and can’t fuck!” I scream at his furious face and grab the hair-cutting scissors on my nightstand.

“SHUT UP!”

I stab at him with the scissors, but he grabs my wrist and twists it painfully. The bones grind together as he grips me hard and wrenches mercilessly. A sharp pain sears up my elbow and I scream.

I need to get out.

A crashing sound pierces my ears and I see Mom cracking my ceramic vase over Dad’s head. His vise grip loosens and I shove him aside.

“
Fucking crazy bitch
!”

I scramble to my feet and grab the baseball bat hidden behind my bed. “DON’T!”

Bits of ceramic crumble from his head as he dazedly gets to his feet, looking at me with a hatred so poisonous I feel it turning my stomach. “You fucked a goddamn guinea
.
Some slick-haired, provolone, cock-sucking dago.”

A small smile twitches on my face at the thought of what Johnny might say if he knew my father called him a dago.

“I did. And I loved it.”

Fuck you.

It’s like waving a red flag in front of an enraged bull. His screams seem to shake the walls, and I tighten my grip over the baseball bat.

“YOU’RE A FUCKING DISGRACE! I should fucking kill you!”

He reaches for his hip and I hurl the bat at him. I crash into the door, seized with adrenaline as his screams of fury follow me down the hall. My body smashes into the people hanging outside the door and I shove them aside.

“Get out of my way!”

My shoulder slams into someone. She flies from me and crashes on the floor. I skirt around her, sprinting toward the door.

Something explodes over my head and I cover my face as glass shards sprinkle down. A picture frame sizzles with a small, round hole and I can’t make any sense of it. Then another blast, and a rush of air beside my hand.

I whirl around and see Dad aiming a gun at my head. Mom grabs his arm, wrenching it, sobbing and pleading. He shoves her aside like a bear batting away his cub.

The air freezes. My chest doesn’t move and I hold my breath, waiting for him to pull that trigger, to end my life exactly how he ended so many others before mine.

“
Carlos
, what the hell are you doing, man?”

A gentle but firm voice rings out in the clubhouse, and my dad’s head wheels toward Chuck.

“My daughter is none of your concern.”

“She’s a member of this club.”

“Who fucked an Italian!” Red-rimmed eyes turn toward me again. “I can’t believe you let one of those slimy fucks touch you.”

I find my voice somehow. “They’re not all bad.”

“OF COURSE THEY ARE!” The gun trembles in his hand. “I can’t look at you without feeling sick to my stomach.”

Same here, asshole.

“Carlos, calm down.”

A gunshot cracks the air, the sound splitting my head in two. I drop to the ground, because I must be dead. He was aiming the gun at me. Then I look over the dirty floor and I see Chuck lying on the floor. Screams hit my ears as the numbness fades. A dark-red pool spreads as Chuck lies in the dust like a dog. His face looks like parchment, that’s how white it is. Glassy eyes search for me as his wheezing breaths echo sharply in the clubhouse.

The man who was always patient with me looks at me, his hand outstretched. He mouths something:
Run.

Dad looks at him in disbelief. It was an accident. He didn’t mean to.

My face screws up in pain. “You fucking bastard.”

The gun aims toward me.

He meant to kill me.

I get up to my feet and I burst out of the clubhouse, sprinting so hard that I can’t hear anything but my breathing. I head for those tall iron gates. Julien mans them, and he stiffens when I slide to a halt in front of him.

“What happened? I heard—”

“Let me the fuck out!” I bang my elbows on the gate. Any second my dad’s going to come flying out of the clubhouse and fire into my back.

“I can’t just—”

“OPEN THE FUCKING GATE!”

I don’t bother to wipe the tears running down my face. I just smash the bars over and over again. If only I had the strength to rip them down for good. These fucking bars have kept me in for too long.

“All right.
Jesus
.”

He rolls the gate open. It seems to take an eternity for it to open wide enough for me to squeeze through the narrow opening.

“MAYA!”

My father’s voice hits me like a spear to my knees, and I fall down. My knee slams into the concrete and I feel the grit digging into my flesh.

Get up, damn it.

Shit, I’m so exposed here. Nothing but sheer adrenaline makes me sprint down the road until my lungs and legs burn. I reach town after a quarter of an hour, my lungs so tight that I can’t draw any more breath. Crippling nausea hits me and I retch on the side of the road.

I need a payphone, but I don’t have a dime on me. All I have is Johnny’s phone number because I carry that folded piece of paper everywhere I go.

And I have nowhere to go now. No wallet. No money. Nothing.

Calling him is the last thing I want to do. I wanted to be on my own for a little while, but now that my father’s gone psycho—

Pain clenches my heart and my chest shakes as I desperately draw in breath. I don’t know if Chuck is alive, but if he’s dead it’s my fault. I goaded my father, and all Chuck ever did was protect me. Hold my hand when we crossed the street. He wiped more than a few tears from my cheek.