I let my smile do the talking and as he comes for me, I curl my fingers into claws, ready to kick and scratch and bite.
Chapter Fourteen
Elliot Morelli
Bobby needs help.His shoulder, the one still recovering from the bullet wound, was dislocated when Parker’s guys put him in the van. Doc popped it back in as we were brought to Parker’s compound, but he’s in a lot of pain. Adriano has been shot in the side again, but he barely seems to notice.
“I’ll never die,” he told me on the journey here. “It won’t happen.”
I wish I could believe him.
We’re chained side by side in a circular room, both feet and both hands locked to the wall, meaning we can’t lie down or even kneel. We’ve already made the requisite sex dungeon jokes. We can’t stop telling jokes. Rehashing old stories. Reminiscing about times when we escaped danger or saved one another’s lives.
It feels like an unspoken law that if we are going to die then we will spend every last second being grateful for our time on earth, and even more grateful that January is not here with us.
I picture her, hiding in the safe house. Although maybe she’s called someone by now. Her sister or her old school friends or even the police to rescue her. She’ll be safe, her and the small life inside her. I look around the cage at the shadowy cast of my brothers’ faces and vow never to tell them. The torture of knowing January’s pregnant, that she’s carrying our child will die with me.
“What’s fucking taking so long?” Doc bursts out. “Why isn’t Parker here, threatening to cut our nuts off with rusty scissors?”
“I think he’s avoiding us,” I say slowly. “He’s never liked it when we’re all together.”
“So why doesn’t he separate us?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m sure he will, Domenico.”
We fall silent. We all know Doc is the one he wants, to help him with Orchard. The rest of us are just leverage. Our plan is to escape and kill Parker once and for all, but if that can’t be managed…
“I think she’s pregnant,” Doc says.
“What?” Bobby croaks.
“January,” Doc repeats. “She’s late on her rag. She’s finding it hard to eat stuff. I think she’s pregnant.”
“Mother of God,” Adriano mutters. “My little Pryntsesa…”
I lower my gaze to the slate floor. So much for my noble silence. I think of January this morning—can it have only been this morning?—glowing in the sunshine. She looked tired but all the more perfect for being so, delicate and flushed. I shouldn’t be surprised that Doc noticed, the psychotic genius.
“I agree,” I tell my brothers. “I think she’s known for a little while.”
“Shit,” Bobby says.
A wave of misery rolls over me. Boy or girl, dangerous pregnancy or simple, it would be foolish to think that any of us are going to be there to help January. To see our baby.
“Pryntsesa,” Adriano whispers, and I think of him and January sitting in front of the fire. How he traced her cheek with such fierceness my heart ached for him. My eyes prickle and I bite down on my tongue until I taste blood. There is no shame in weeping for my love or my brothers, but we’re obviously being monitored, and I would slit my throat before allowing Parker to think he’d made me cry.
“So…who’s the daddy?” Doc asks in a gameshow host voice. “I mean, obviously it’s me, but who do you losers think it is?”
The morbid atmosphere shatters in a glorious second and we all argue back and forth, each claiming our sperm is so potent it couldn’t not be us. But that’s just for show. The longer we talk, the more my heart tells me the baby isn’t my blood. I don’t care. Even if we were free, I wouldn’t care. January has shown me there’s more joy in sharing pleasure with my brothers than claiming glory. More sweetness in mutual respect than power. I wish I’d followed that instinct more in my life.
Closing my eyes, I indulge in a short fantasy. We’ve escaped and found January and we return to Velvet House and quit all of it: the construction contracts, the thousand Velluto family boards I sit on, and just raise my child. I could cook dinner and read storybooks and go for long walks on the grounds.
Then there are the projects I’ve deferred for years—ensuring future populations of endangered birds in Albany, building housing for families like the ones Doc and Adriano came from. Scholarships. Environmental think tanks. I spent so much time chasing gemstones and women and my own tail instead of correcting the evils of the world. The world my child will live in.
The world Parker lives in.
I remember the night I met him at a Brown College mixer. I was thinking about attending and God knows why he was there. Possibly to meet barely legal girls. He flagged me down and though I thought he was a tasteless social climber, his ties to Silicon Valley and his insights into Web3 and the future of AI interested me. As far as we knew, Doc had perfected Orchard and we were looking for investors to help us take the drug into the stratosphere, particularly tech investors.
I groan aloud. “This is all my fault,” I tell the others. “I told Parker about Orchard.”
