Page 44 of Avenging Devil: Part 1

Before he can reach the punchline, my phone rings, and I step aside to take it.

Chapter Fourteen

Saffie

After the door closed behind Niran and Mary I collapsed down on the couch, giving in to the wave of dizziness that I’d only just managed to keep at bay until they’d gone. My body was violently shaking, and there was a rushing sound in my ears which almost blocked out the sounds from the overloud television next door. My vision was blurry and my stomach roiled. For a moment I thought the nausea would overtake me, but gradually the impulse to throw up began to recede.

I felt drained, completely exhausted, as though all fight in me had gone. Nervously I raised my eyes to the closed door knowing if they came back again, I’d be in no state to take anyone on, even to mentally challenge them.

But I’d done it. I got them to leave.

It had been easier than I’d expected. My threat to call the cops had been the only thing I could think of, and it had worked with the results that I wanted. I wondered whether Niran’s got something to hide, and whether he’s a wanted man.Of course he is. He’s a biker.A member of the criminal underworld I knew only too well.

Just when I started to think I’d got my body under control, the shakes started again.Bikers know bikers.They have meets, mingle and mix. They run drug and weapon lines together, and as for women, well, I knew Duke used an underground railroad. It was not too much of a stretch to think Niran’s club could be involved.

But Niran had known where I was for a couple of weeks now. If he’d let Duke know, why hadn’t he come to collect his property? I would have expected him to come immediately. But then, I’d been gone for so long, perhaps a few days more was neither here nor there. Maybe if he was hatching business deals with his prez, at that moment, I took low priority. Nevertheless, I was certain there’d shortly be a knock on the door. The question was, how much time did I have?

Knock on the door?I scoffed at myself. Duke would just bust it down, and in this apartment block, the likelihood is no one would even notice.

My panic attack returned at full blast as images in my brain turned imagination into fact. This time I did vomit, only making it to the bathroom just in time. I was trembling so much I could barely splash water on my face, and sank to the floor, with my head in my hands, almost deafened by the thumping of blood rushing through my veins.

A body was not built to have so much adrenalin rush through it. Even after my breathing returned to something approaching normal, it was as though I was working through fog that filled my head. I worried about the effect on my baby. All this stress couldn’t be good.

Half of me thought I should pack as much as I could carry, pick up my keys and just leave. Then the sense of urgency started my heart racing again, and I ended up doing nothing at all. I felt like a guillotine victim, just waiting for the blade to drop. I was damned one way or another. If I ran, the problem of what to do about my baby stayed with me. What’s a pregnant woman to do while on the run without a place to stay or much money? If I left, I risked Duke catching up with me. If I stayed, he’d find me in any event. It would just speed up the inevitable.

As night approached, the darkness which hides monsters descended and my thoughts grew worse. Like a wave crashing into the shore, my predicament had hit me once more. I might be pregnant, but my baby probably won’t be born, or at least alive. No blow from Duke could have hurt me more, no insult hurled, no abuse.

Nothing else mattered. Not my own safety, not Duke, I realised as I collapsed on my bed, in my head hearing once again the fateful words the doctor had delivered as if she were here in the room.

With Niran here, his presence had kept me grounded. My problem was still there, of course, but somehow, he’d prevented me totally losing it. Now on my own, the pressure becomes too intense.

It couldn’t be true.The doctors must have made a mistake.But why would they have told me otherwise? Why talk to me with such sadness in their eyes if it was a lie?

Why the hell am I worried about Duke?Let him come to me. I deserve worse.

For that night and the next morning, I didn’t move, didn’t eat, didn’t get showered or put on fresh clothes, wavering between imagining things could be different, and crying out in utter distress knowing they wouldn’t change. My thoughts kept coming back to the fact that in another life, in another world where I could have looked after my baby better, maybe he’d have had a chance at a normal life.

Uncaring of myself, I waited for that knock on the door. What have I got to live for? What punishment could be bad enough for a mother who’d failed to care for their child?

If not Duke, I was expecting Niran or Mary to knock at the door, coming to entice me once again to their lair.Nothing good would come of being associated with bikers.

Waiting in limbo, lost in my devastation, I neglect to go to work. But by design or by accident, there Niran had helped. My boss assumed I’d had a reoccurrence of what had ailed me before.

The second night, when Duke still hadn’t appeared, my common sense began to vie with my distress as I began to wonder whether I might have read the situation wrong. Both my visitors had seemed concerned about my less-than-ideal living arrangements. They’d offered sanctuary, and once I’d refused, they hadn’t come back. Maybe they had no connection to the man who haunts not just my nightmares, but every moment of my life. But Niran’s a biker, and that can’t be ignored.

I’ve got his number on my phone, but I don’t call. I can’t take the risk that he knows Duke, or of him. And being a biker, I’m pretty certain I know what he’d say if I admitted to being another’s property. Hell, I’m still married to the man. Niran might think his obligations are to another man wearing a cut rather than a woman who means nothing to him.

Even if Niran’s got nothing to do with Duke, the manner in which I sent him away was embarrassing. How could I see him again without offering an explanation? Especially one I’m not prepared to give. My past is something that happened to Sapphire Marshall, not to Saffie Jones.

As I don’t call Niran, he doesn’t contact me. Why should he? If he knows Duke, he has all he needs, if he doesn’t, he’s clearly washed his hands of me, and who would blame him?

Abandoned to my fate, I feel very alone. For some reason, although I’ve been that way for months, it hits harder now. More than anything, I want someone to tell me what to do, what action, or inaction to take. Is carrying this baby for a further three months a punishment I feel I deserve to inflict on myself?

That night I still can’t sleep, can’t eat. Semi-delirious, I dream of a future with a happy, healthy son, and then have waking nightmares about giving birth to my child who’d have only minutes, if that, to live.

The next days follow the same pattern. I ring work, telling them I’ve got a serious virus, and begging for a few days off. My boss’s best wishes and instructions to look after myself don’t help one iota. I’m not too concerned about losing my job, in the scheme of things it would be the least of my worries, but I doubt there’s too much risk of that. I don’t qualify for sick leave and otherwise fully staffed, she can afford to be magnanimous.

I’m left with far too much time on my hands. Time in which to think.

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