Page 150 of All Your Hate

My brain’s struggling to keep up with anything she’s saying. “You’re crazy.”

Her head snaps my way and she charges over, backhanding me. I fall to the side and she gasps in shock. “Oh god, I’m sorry. Are you okay?” She helps me sit up and presses the back of herhand to my forehead before touching my stomach. The motherly gestures make me feel sick.

“I should have kept a better eye on you. To be honest, I was jealous. You were all so young and fertile. Nothing like this withered old hag.” She gives me a weak smile as she brushes the hair from my face. “Once we have this baby then I can do everything right.”

“I’m not pregnant,” I tell her again.How many times do I need to say it for her to believe me?

“Don’t be silly. There’s no point denying it. All the signs are there. The orange juice at the fundraiser, the prenatal vitamins in your cabinet. Noah admitted it. That’s not something you joke about. A baby is a precious gift.” Her fingers start clawing into my stomach as she gets this far-off look. “Not everyone gets this special chance. You should be so grateful. I certainly am.”

Prenatals? I don’t have any… she can't mean my supplements? How could she know about them?

I look down at her hand on my stomach and see the bandage wrapping around it. “How did you get that?”

She shakes her head at me and stands up again. “You gave me quite the nasty cut. I was very disappointed in you that night. You were clearly high and you were drinking!” Her voice goes shrill. “You definitely shouldn’t be doing that in your condition. But it’s all fine now. I’m going to make sure you stay healthy and do everything this baby needs. I just need to get hold of Doctor Price.”

She heads back into the main area of the basement and tries to make a call.

“How did you even get in the house?” I ask. While she’s distracted I test out the binding around my wrist. It’s cutting in painfully, meaning it’s most likely a zip tie.

“Gregory had the code for the gate on his phone and I made a copy of the house key after swiping them both from his office.The old fool thanked me for finding them when I returned them. Why won’t he pick up?” Daniella groans and furiously taps at her phone screen. Luka did a good job of covering Edward’s death up if she doesn’t have a clue he’s missing.

“But why then? You could have come for me at any time.” Shifting back on the bed, I lift my knees up, and the frame creaks. She looks over at me, but doesn’t stop me from moving.

What are the chances she didn’t check my boots before bringing me here?

“I was happy to leave you with Noah until closer to your due date since I was keeping a close eye on you both anyway. Then I saw him speaking with Dmitri. I couldn’t have you being turned into a whore again and taking my baby with you.”

“You honestly believe that if I was actually pregnant it would be yours?” I blurt out and her face cracks, her left eye twitching.

“Not by blood. After the tenth failed girl it started to sink in that the problem wasn’t just me. You and Noah look so much like Tommaso and I did when we were your age. The child will easily pass as mine.”

“No one’s going to believe that someone your age can have a child.”

“They will!” She cries out, tears now in her eyes. “I’ve been nothing but patient for all these years, I deserve to be happy.”

Having already pushed my luck too much, I bite my tongue. She’s volatile and I don’t know what she’s capable of.

There’s no new pain in my back so I can only assume that the tracker is still there. All I need is to buy myself time.

Changing tactics I say, “Noah would believe me if I told him about this. About you and your baby. He can help us. You wouldn’t have to hide.”

Daniella looks at me with hope for a second, but it’s quickly crushed. “Men are all the same. They don’t really want to help us no matter how many times they say it. I was with Tommasofor almost fifty years. He stuck by me through every negative pregnancy test, each round of IVF, and all the expensive fertility treatments. We tried for years. It became too much to bear. I couldn’t handle all the false hope and seeing everyone around us moving on with their perfect families. We grew apart, and one day I found him with a whore in our bed. I should have divorced him then, but you know what I did?” Her pale eyes lock with mine and I see the true darkness inside her. “I watched as he finished inside her, then I dragged her down to the basement.”

I feel sick to my stomach hearing this. They were doing it for years. She’s just as bad as him and all the rest of the men.

Which means she deserves the same fate as them.

Shifting my legs to the side, I reach my bound arms around to my boot. I feel the end of the handle and slowly draw it out with my fingertips before grabbing it tightly and hiding it behind my back.

“Why did you keep doing it when none of them were getting pregnant? Why not just adopt?” If I keep her talking she’ll stay distracted enough for me to cut through the tie. It’s awkward from this angle and my hand throbs, but I manage to twist the blade upright and start to saw away at the plastic.

“I’m not a proper wife if I don’t give him a child. My barren womb may not have been able to fulfill his wishes, but I could still do everything in my power to find the perfect surrogate.”

I'm sure those are his words not hers. From the sound of it, Tommaso was probably emotionally abusing her for years.

She keeps on talking and I keep on cutting the zip tie. “Tommaso had a low sperm count. He wasn’t infertile like me. He wasn’t broken. He assured me there was still a chance that the child would be biologically his. It almost took once. One girl got pregnant, but those stupid men made her miscarry. After that, I tried to get them to keep away. But did they listen? No. Tommaso compromised with them, said they could use the girl’smouths for pleasure and nothing else. After all, we couldn't have their seed where only Tommaso’s was supposed to be.”

They did more than that though.

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