Page 59 of Forbidden Surrogate

“Yes. He approached us with an offer, and everyone wins if we go through with this…”

He might take some convincing, but I maintain the belief that Gino will eventually see some sense.

How much could Luigi care about one woman?

“Listen, Gino. This man has valuable information about the nightclub bomb. We’re not just solving a family problem, we’re helping prevent future attacks. Think about how pissed dad was when he found out her skin color.”

“That doesn’t mean he wanted her dead,” Gino says. “He just wants to scare Luigi, right? We can’t actually kill her.”

My twin brother can be so slow sometimes.

“She won’t die.” Not right away at least.

“How do we know what they’re gonna do with her?”

“You’re a pessimist, Gino.”

“I’m realistic.”

“Whatever the fuck you are, it’s not making us any money and my idea will. So will you shut the fuck up and get on board?”

“Fine,” Gino says reluctantly. “We sell the pregnant chick to some asshole from Pittsburgh and hope Luigi doesn’t taxidermy our ballsacks.”

“See what I mean? Pessimist.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Delphine

Luigi has to know I’m gone by now. My kidnappers couldn’t have made it that far, nor could they have had that much of a head start. Piecing together the limited context clues available to me, I think the men who kidnapped me are related to Luigi, or possibly the rival family out in Pittsburgh. There were two men the night I was kidnapped from the nightclub, not more. That fits this situation perfectly.

Those men didn’t speak Italian, but I can’t imagine how many pairs of Italian kidnappers there could possibly be running around America.

Probably a lot, girl…

I’m in a locked bedroom that I immediately search ceiling to floor the same way I did with the lake house. There are many similar features, including a loose floorboard – a feature I eventually discovered at Luigi’s place. There’s nothing in the compartment beneath the loose floorboard, but I find the similarities compelling.

My theory might be correct. These men have some mob affiliations. The only ‘exit’ I can spot aside from the sealed metal door is a little cat door like what you would expect to see in a movie about solitary confinement. I couldn’t fit my whole legthrough that hole on my best day, so it really might only be an escape route after a couple years of starvation.

Not the best plan. And the baby’s plan includes sending an exhausting surge of hormones through me so powerful that I almost curl up and fall asleep on the floor instead of walking the extra five steps back to the bed. I should be banging on the walls, but my body urges me to wait for rescue, like I’m some princess in a tower and not a black woman stuck in hell, left to survive on her own again.

The only insight I have is the scent of the harbor coming through a crack in the window with the view obscured by burglar bars. But how does that help me? I’m near the harbor. So what? I guess I feel a little better knowing that I’m still in Buffalo, which means I’m close enough for Luigi to come find me. If he won’t come for me, he’ll at least come for our baby.

But at this point, I know that he’ll come for both of us.

Unless… and I hope this wouldn’t be the case.

Unless he thinks I ran away on purpose. I hope he doesn’t think something as foolish as that, but if he did, I would blame myself for pushing him away.

I fall asleep on the prison bed for a few hours, waking up to the sound of the cat door opening and a hand shoving a plate full of food through the door. I feel immediate guilt at the surge of desire in my stomach after one look at the homemade lasagna that just arrived on the floor of my bedroom. There’s a glass of water too, which I gulp down within seconds. I hope I don’t haveto pee any time soon, but I can’t stop myself from chugging down the water.

Even knowing that the lasagna could contain harmful drugs or other mysterious ingredients, considering I don’t know my kidnappers, the smell is so damned delicious that I know the baby would understand why I gave in to the temptation. It’s hot too, so I know I had better tuck in before it gets cold.Yum.

I greedily eat the lasagna, only tangentially aware of the fact that I’ve been in this room for several hours, possibly well into the night. I’m grateful for the food and even more grateful that nothing insanely violent has happened since I’ve come here. I’m fine, the baby is fine. I can’t control more than that, so I eat and listen for any possible clues about my captors or location aside from the harbor smell.

After a few more hours of boredom listening to the faint footsteps downstairs, I get the crazy idea to turn the glass upside down, lift the floor panel and try listening in to the conversation downstairs. It doesn’t work in the traditional sense, but I can hear the faint voices a little more clearer. Enough to make out details of their conversation that seemed muffled before.

There are two men down there, but their voices sound so much alike that I can hardly tell them apart. I have to quiet every anxious thought in my head as well as my stressed out breathing to hear what the hell they’re saying. There’s a flurry of activity which attracted me to the floor in the first place and then a new voice that’s much louder and more Appalachian-sounding and country than the other two, who sound like they’re from native Buffalo.

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