Prologue
Dreka
January 10th, 2025
Tapping the positive pregnancy test against my hand, I cleared my throat as tears formed in my eyes. There was no way in hell I could have this man’s baby. My mind was made up but sitting outside of Planned Parenthood had me getting choked up. There was a very teenie tiny piece of me that wanted to say fuck it and keep the baby. Then I thought back to all of the nut ass shit the baby’s daddy did, and that was all the motivation I needed.
I hopped out of my black-on-black Lexus RX and rushed into the building to get out of the cold, tossing the test in the trash can outside. This was my second time inside of the building; the first being when I came in for them to confirm what the at-home pregnancy test told me. I knew atthatappointment that I was going to need another one to get rid of it.
After I signed in, I took a seat and patiently waited, barely looking at any of the other faces in the waiting area. I’m sure we all felt the same guilt for what we were about to do. Or hell, maybe some of them were there for other reasons than the obvious. It wasn’t my business.
“Rahdreka Lombardo?”
Hearing my name ten minutes later kicked my nervous system into overdrive, but I stood up anyway. The nurse had a sympathetic smile on her face while she held the door open. Taking deep breaths, I half-way listened as she explained how things were going to go. All I could think about was how if my baby daddy found out I did this, he was gon’ break my neck. Under no circumstances would he be supportive of me getting an abortion, but it was my choice, not his.
Once I got this appointment over with, I planned to take a three-month long vacation out of the country. I needed a damn reset. The nurse had me sign some consent forms before instructing me to change into the gown and get on the bed. Powering my phone off, I did exactly as she asked, staring at the white ceiling while waiting for her and the doc to return.
“Good morning, Miss Lombardo. You feeling okay?” Dr. Tucker stepped inside the room with the same sympathetic smile his nurse had.
Ithadto be part of their contract to give every patient that goofy ass smile. The same way Chik-Fil-A workers were required to say, “my pleasure.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And you understand everything that’s happening today?”
My nostrils twitched in annoyance. “Yeah. I just wanna get this over with.”
He and the nurse shared glances, nodded at each other, and got started. When I was hooked up to an IV and saw Dr. Tucker pushing meds, I immediately became confused.
“Wait, what’s the drugs for?”
“You opted to do a deep sedation procedure,” he announced, pushing his hands in his pockets.
I tried to think back on when the fuck I consented to that, but I started to feel extremely drowsy fairly quickly. Before I could ask any more questions, it was lights out.
What felt like hours later, I groggily woke up, trying to search my surroundings but all I saw was darkness. Did I go blind during the procedure? When I tried to stretch my body, I realized I was in a confined space, and my hands were bound. The last thing I remembered was sitting in my car, so I was puzzled as to how I wound up wherever the fuck I was at. The more alert I became, my ears picked up on a noise that sounded like I was riding over rocks or something. That’s when it hit me that I had to be inside of a trunk, but how and why?
“Hey!” I started kicking whatever I could. “Hey! Let me out! Hey!”
My body jerked as the car smashed on its brakes. Hearing the slam of a car door increased my heartbeat so fast, I thought I was going to throw up. This couldn’t be happening to me. I was the princess of the Lombardo family, not to be touched or harmed, and yet I felt like someone was about to do exactly that. When the trunk opened, and I came face to face with two masked men, I just knew my lil’ life was over.
“Let me go!” I screamed with force from my gut. “Let me go!”
“Ssshhhh,” one of them put a finger to his lips. “Did you honestly think you were going to be able to kill Mr. Chambers’ child and get away with it?”
My eyes swelled before my mouth and nose were covered with a rag, and everything went darkagain. The next time I opened my eyes, I was staring at a ceiling that was beautifully painted. There was so much sunlight in the room, and I didn’t even have to look around to know he was there. I could smell and feel him, and I hated that we werethatconnected.
“Xyleek,” I mumbled his name, still staring at the ceiling.
“Drek, I oughta wring your neck for thinking shit waseversweet with me,” his deep, raspy voice sounded in the room first. Then, his tall, muscular frame loomed over the bed. “You thought you were going to kill my baby? Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?”
Closing my eyes back, I started to put everything together, and that’s when I remembered that I was at Planned Parenthood. I was supposed to be having an abortion and somehow ended up in the same room with the man I had been ducking. Crazy how life worked.
“I don’t want to have a baby with you, Xy. I can’t.”
“That’s too gahdamn bad, sweetheart, because youwill. I’ll keep you locked up in this bitch for the next seven months if I have to. And don’t worry, you were given microdoses of the drugs that were used, so they won’t harm you or our baby.”
A single tear slipped from my eyes as I opened them and glanced over at him. “Why are you dressed like that?” I quizzed, hating how he good he looked in that damn black suit.
