Page 101 of Wanted

I want Stella to be free. And with that same freedom she has to choose to love me. Live with me, fight with me, and grow old with me.

As the doctor gives her a final check before discharging her, my hands sweat.

Last night before bed, I asked Stella what she wanted to do—stay here in Baton Rouge with Sister June, go back to Los Angeles with me, or to Carrollton with her mother. She told me she would think about it, now we are just a few minutes away and the words that I so long for—and fear—are about to come out of her mouth.

Sister June is here too, discreetly hovering down the hall, chatting with the nurses, surely trying to convince them to attend mass next Sunday at her church.

“Did you decide what you want to do?” I do my best to stop my voice from trembling. How I was able to avoid stuttering is a real miracle.

“Yes,” she says, her voice is firm, although she doesn’t look me in the eye. “I want to go to Carrollton, Lionel.”

And my stomach falls to my feet. That can’t be. She doesn’t want to be with me.

What the hell am I going to do now?

Then I see a small smile pulling up those sweet lips. “And I want you to come with me.”

Inside I’m doing a victory dance, but outside I’m erasing the space that separates us, taking her face in my hands and giving her a soft kiss on the lips.

“Your wish is my command, Hvezda.”

Chapter Thirty

“This is awesome,” and it really is. We’re flying high at thirty thousand feet back to Carrollton on Jackson Cole’s private plane.

Stella is looking out the window, with my arms around her as she rests her head on my chest.

This feels awesome indeed.

Flying has never felt so good, it’s like I’ve never seen the sky before. Something inside me is also rising and it isn’t from this engineering marvel that must have cost Jackson a couple of million.

“What? Flying in a private plane?” I joke around with her a little, she looks so pretty when she’s like that, relaxed. “Don’t tell me you’re a snob.”

In response, she elbows me in the abdomen, right where I was shot. I make an exaggerated gesture of pain, the truth is that for some time the pain has been minimal. The doctor has officially discharged me and I only have to go back for a routine check-up in a couple of months.

Now I’m here, in the middle of the clouds, living the life that I never thought was possible for me. I have my wife in my arms and our first child is on the way. A family. To a man like me, straight out of an orphanage, those words sound strange. Not because I had to grow up and manage on my own. No. I was greatly blessed when the Krals adopted me, they changed my life. Not only did they open the door to a world that offered all kinds of wonderful opportunities, but they also loved me. They took the skinny, shy, and stuttering boy and raised him as their own. They never made me feel like I was worthless because I wasn’t their biological son. Much of what I am today I owe to them. Johanna and Anton taught me to believe in myself, to fight, and to never, never, give up.

Now I’m going to have someone who is not only mine because I chose to love him, but also because he comes from me. It will be blood of my blood. And it’s amazing.

I know Stella still thinks it might be from the night when that asshole got into the house they shared, but from the dates the doctor gave us it’s clear he’s mine. Like the caveman that I am, I want to puff my chest out in pride, thinking this baby is the offspring of our first time. Maybe one of them. When we decided to cross the Mississippi, everything changed. Like Newton famously said, every action has a reaction.

“Do you think we should go to the police and report what happened at the house?” Stella asks me, cutting off the thread of my thoughts. “I’m afraid he might want to do something now that we’re going to be on familiar ground for him.”

I kiss her on the forehead to comfort her, wishing I could do more. I have to remind myself that we aren’t alone. “Mark is already taking care of that,” and it’s true. He traveled very early this morning to fix some things prior to our arrival, while Sanders is with us. “You have nothing to worry about.”

She turns to face me. “Because you’re already worrying about both of us, aren’t you?”

A smile pulls my lips up. She knows me well. Very well. “You two are going to be perfectly fine, I’ll take care of that.”

Her blue eyes fixate on mine as she looks at me.

“And who takes care of you?”

Without being able to avoid it, a laugh comes from my throat. “I’m a big boy, I can manage on my own.”

“Yeah, sure,” she replies, her words full of sarcasm. “We saw how that turned out in the past.” Then she lowers her voice an octave. “I’m afraid, Lionel, I don’t want to be alone again, nor do I want whoever that man is to come for me. I don’t want him to touch me ever again.”

A pang of jealousy pierces my chest like a double-edged sword, cutting through my insides.

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