Page 71 of Pretty Little Disaster

“Just another kick, carry on.” I breathe steadily, I won’t risk telling him that I think I’m having contractions, the last thing I need is for him to panic while he’s still holding that gun.

“So, you and Amanté’s daughter?” I prompt him to keep him talking.

“It was fun, we had clear boundaries, and then one night I headed over to see her, and she dropped the bomb on me that she was pregnant.”

“Wow.” I take in what he’s saying as I check the clock on the wall. I need to see how long it is until another pain comes.

“Lorna, she was crazy, she was talking like she was expecting to keep it. Like she expected me to go to her father and explain that I’d been having sex with his precious daughter and had knocked her up. I tried to reason with her, but what she was expecting of me was too much. I already knew how men like Amanté took care of problems like that, and I couldn’t talk any sense into her. She was crying. Screaming at me, telling meshe was gonna speak to her father, anyway, and…it was just an instinct reaction. A kill or be killed moment. I had the gun and I…I pulled it out and I used it.” He breaks down, tears streaming over his cheeks and when he notices that I’m holding my breath and failing to hide the horror from my face, he lifts the gun in his hand back up to me.

It’s much scarier when I realize I’m dealing with someone who’s pulled a trigger.

“I’d never killed anyone before. I didn’t know what to do. So I called the guy, the one from the complex who told me where to get the gun. And he helped me.”

“Helped you get rid of the body?” I check, trying not to sound too scared.

“No, he didn’t have a guy like Nic did, but he told me what to do. He showed me how to clean the gun and get rid of it, how to make the place look like it had been broken into and then he told me to head back to the city and hang out with some friends.”

“Were we the friends?” I cover my mouth with my hand and feel sick when he slowly nods his head.

“Is that why you're thinking about shooting me? Because I swear, I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell you when that night even was. You don’t need to shoot me.” I can feel the panic taking over.

“It’s not why I’ve got to shoot you, Lorna,” Jonah tells me sadly.

“Then why? If you're going to kill me and this baby before it even gets a chance to live, I need you to tell me why.” I scream when he lunges forward and slams his hand over my mouth.

Fear twists in my stomach, along with another contraction and I moan into his hand and brace myself against the couch. The pressure of his body crushing into me, along with the tightening of the contraction is too much for me to bear.

Seven minutes. That's how long it’s been since my last one.

“Lorna, you have to listen to me. I need to explain that I’m not a bad person. I’m sorry for everything, for this… for your dad.”

“My dad?” I manage to regain myself when he backs off, sitting himself back on the table and closing his eyes.

“I swear, I had no idea the guy who sold me the gun was your father. How could I have? He was Russian.”

“No…” I shake my head and sob. “You couldn’t have killed him, Nic said it was long-range, that it was a professional.”

“It was a pro. I never would have made a shot. Gio fixed it up. He told me Doyle was the only thing that tied me to Mia’s murder, and he had to be eliminated. Amanté wanted vengeance, he wanted my name. I had to protect myself.”

“Gio?” I repeat the name he just said. “Gio is the guy who was helping you?” I stroke the side of my stomach and suck in a deep breath.

“Is it all starting to make sense to you, now?” Jonah looks like the same helpless boy I took pity on during our first day of freshman year, only now he’s helpless and very dangerous.

“Hits like that cost money, Lorna, your boyfriend should know that. Gio took care of everything, he paid the killer. We could never have guessed that the gun supplier was your father, or that he would follow you to Miami, he–”

“It was you! My dad was warning me aboutyou.” Suddenly, his last words to me make sense. It wasn’t Nic who he was telling me was dangerous, it was Jonah.

“We knew him as Salvok Alekseevich, and Gio had been trying to track him down ever since he left the Bronx. Gio has some contacts within Russian circles, and it turns out that a month before I purchased that gun, six cases of arms that had been seized from them by the ATF had gone missing from custody. No one ever found them. Gio’s guy tracked Salvok down and when he started heading for the airport and booked a ticketto Malibu, using a fake name and a fake passport, on the same day as our trip, Gio assumed he was coming for me. We assumed that the Russians found out he had their supply and that he was cleaning up his mess, making sure no one talked to them. Gio sent a marksman out straight away, and when he noticed him stalking the house, he positioned himself out on a fishing boat and waited for his opportunity.”

“So, Gio had my father killed?”

“Unknowingly. He thought he was a gun dealer coming to kill me. It wasn’t until I saw your reaction that I knew he was your dad, but I don’t think it would have changed anything, we still needed him dead. Amanté would have got to him, eventually, made him give a name, and then he would have killed me.” Jonah sobs like a pussy.

“Okay, so you had to kill my dad, out of fear. I get that. But why me? I had no idea about any of this.”

“Gio helped me, I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him,” Jonah reminds me and I’m still waiting for him to get to his point.

“I owe him, Lorna, and you're the price.” He shakes his head as if he’s the one who's scared, and instead of screaming, I clutch my stomach and moan when I feel another pain.

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