Page 64 of Brutal Husband

I wanted to make this woman mine the first moment I saw her. The first time we made love, I fucked her raw, hungry to fill her up with my cum and make her pregnant with my child. I threatened to breed her these past few weeks to provoke her because I wanted the truth about her and my brother, and because the idea turns me on so fucking much. I didn’t consider that I might actually succeed.

“You’re carrying my baby, and you just asked me to shoot you?”

Rieta sinks down to the floor at my feet, tears streaming down her face. The woman who once begged me to make her pregnant is devastated. “I can’t believe this is happening. When will this nightmare end?”

20

Rieta

Blood roars in my ears. Black spots zip back and forth across my vision. Both my arms are wrapped around myself, and I can’t stop shaking.

As I felt the kiss of the gun barrel against my body, fear shot through me. Fear for the baby that I suddenly realized I might be carrying. I haven’t had my period since Nero returned, which means I’m over three weeks late. I’ve only ever been a handful of days late in the past. Why did the realization have to hit me now, right in front of him? Why couldn’t I have had the chance to come to terms with this by myself?

The resignation I’ve felt all day, that I don’t care what Nero does to me and whether he kills me, evaporates. If I am pregnant, I want to live and protect my baby.

Maybe I should run.

But the tracker. He’ll find me.

Nero’s hard voice speaks over my head. “Rieta. Are you carrying my child?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper through my tears. There’s been no confirmation from a couple of red lines or by a doctor, but I feel in my heart that I am. Fate is so cruel to grant my wish now and make the father a man who must hate me forever.

“Then we’ll buy a pregnancy test.” Nero seizes my arm and drags me up to standing. His expression is cold and closed off as he leads me out of the office and down to his car.

“I have plenty at home.” I was going through so many with Luca that I bought them in bulk. The half a dozen boxes of tests have been mocking me from under the bathroom sink for months.

“Fine. Then we’ll go home.”

I try to discern Nero’s feelings as we drive, but it’s as though a metal wall has slammed down behind his eyes.

At home, I flee for the sanctuary of my bedroom with Nero hot on my heels. I try to close the bathroom door, but he puts a foot in the gap and then barges in after me.

I stand on the tiles, impatient for him to leave so I can get on with taking the test.

“Well?” he asks.

“Well what? I’m waiting for you to leave the bathroom.”

“I’m your husband. Why would I leave?”

My mouth drops open. “Do you know how these tests work? You have to leave because I’mpeeing.”

“I know how a pregnancy test works. I was with you when this baby was conceived, I’ll be with you when it is born, and I’ll be with you for the moment we both find out it’s real. If you try to lock me out, I’ll break down the door. I’ll break downanydoor. You know I hate being locked away from you.” The light in Nero’s eyes is ferocious.

I glare at him for a moment longer, and then yank open the bathroom cabinet. Looking him dead in the eyes, I yank down my jeans and underwear, sit on the toilet, and stick the testbetween my legs. He wants to watch me pee? Fine, he can watch me pee. It’s not as though I care about being attractive to him.

Only now I don’t need to pee anymore.

Crap.

I think about rivers, running baths, the ocean sloshing about.

“Well?” he asks.

“I’mtrying. You’re distracting me.”

What if I am pregnant? How will I ever tell a child about the tangled, bloody mess that his or her parents created on the way to making them?

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