Page 100 of The Sound in Silence

The moment I hang up, my phone rings again, my family’s doctor’s name flashing on the screen. He messaged earlier to inform me he met with Ariella, who’d been brought back to the mansion hours ago, but for him to be calling snakes a chill down my spine that will only thaw when he says what he needs to.

“What?” I bark with a bit more edge than I mean to. But my tone can’t help the discerning feeling of this moment.

“Sir.” His low voice is unlike him. Dr. Rancott is a very direct man, and is probably one of the few fuckers who shows no visible fear toward me. The shakiness in his tone, in that single greeting, the news can’t be positive.

And there’s only one person he’d be phoning about after today.

“Sir, I put in for a few rush tests on Mrs. Rossi’s bloodwork, and some of the tests came back. A lot look fine, except one thing. You should know—and I’ve already phoned her—but there’s extremely high levels of follicle-stimulating hormone appearing in her blood—”

“Get to it,” I grit, the pen in my other hand seconds away from being snapped in half. Not even from impatience, but with the fact that the moment he mentioned the termhormones, my heart stilled. “Skip the science talk.”

“Sir,” I almost hear the gulp in his voice, “her body can’t produce eggs. She won’t conceive. She won’t be able to give you an heir.”

“She knows?”

“Yes.”

I hang up, throwing my phone to the desk as the conversation replays in my head.

“She won’t conceive.”

“She won’t conceive.”

“She won’t conceive.”

Fuck.

“She won’t be able to give you an heir.”

She knows. Which means he phoned her. Which means she’s home dealing with these emotions alone. I wish I could know which emotions those were too. I couldn’t even pretend to understand her feelings.

Fuck, I don’t even know whatI’mfeeling.

Rage.

Blistering rage, burning every nerve in my body, every shred of sanity I’ve clung to my entire life. Killing, fighting, racing, dealing—all the adrenaline-induced activities I’ve thrived in, but none of them are even close to the sensation igniting me at this moment.

But it has nothing to do with the possibility of being without an heir.

It’s becauseshe’sthe one affected by this.

I’m up and out of my chair, phone in hand, shoving out of the bar’s back room I was using as an office for a day in between my visitations, within a second.

And then I’m home, with no recollection of the hours-long drive. I abandon my car in front of the mansion, engine running, and bolt inside, nearly bowling over Carlotta who lingers nearby.

She gestures toward her music room, so it’s the direction I rush in, her holler propelling me forward. “She’s been in there for hours, sobbing. She won’t let me in.”

When I’m within distance to her music room, her cry guts me. If there was any shred of my being still held together, she destroys it.

I shove open the door, spotting her in the centre of the carpet, curled up with her head forward. Her hair’s a waterfall around her body and for the first time ever, I despise those red strands because they’re protecting her from me.

I’m across the room within a second, dropping to my knees and tugging her into my arms. She shoulders against me at first, but then realizes who’s grabbing her and she practically crawls into my lap. Limp, her eyes red and dry from her tears. She’s quivering, and I tighten my arms, trying to quell the shakes.

“Ariella.”

No response. Not even sure she’s heard me.

I reposition her until she’s cradled in my arms and stand, keeping her against my chest, head in my shoulder, and carry her from the room and through the house, not releasing her until we’re both seated in the centre of our bed.

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