Page 75 of The Celtic Resolution
“Wow, you really are sick.”
“Fuck you,” I scoffs.
“Sorry, I’m just… I didn’t ever expect you to say that and sound like you mean it.”
I run my fingers along a couple of grooves in the wood and nod. “I… would do anything for Cian. I would also do anything to get my father to recognize me again. I’m not saying I forgive you or anything but knowing the truth, thewholetruth… understand. Making the best out of a terrible situation is painful, I know. I… I’m just saying I understand.” It’s painful to say because admitting that I understand also comes with admitting thatmaybeI would do the exact same if our positions were switched.
Maybe if I’d been more open to listening to him in the beginning, or more sympathetic to his desperation with his father then this would be different.
So many maybes.
“Saoirse… I don’t know what to say.” Bruno looks a second away from bursting into tears but they don’t come because a second later, several sharp knocks at the door make both of us jump.
“Shit,” he hisses. He stands just as the door opens and two guards storm into the room looking furious. That fury turns to a strange greed when they spot me sitting at Bruno’s table with damp hair.
“Oh, you’re in for it now Bruno,” states one man with glasses. “He ain’t gonna forgive this twice.”
“Wait—” Bruno starts forward but the glasses man immediately pulls a gun on him.
“Ah, ah. Not one more step.”
“Come here, bitch. I bet they’ll sell you again, half price for the trouble the two of you caused.” He surges toward me andgrabs me by the arm before I can react. As he hauls me upward, the same faintness that washed over me earlier crashes through my skull again with a flare-up of the heat burning inside me.
Maybe Bruno was right. I need a doctor.
Something’s wrong.
“Wait,” I gasp, pulling back from him and struggling to gain a grip on the wooden floor in my bare feet. “Hold on!”
“Let go of her!” Bruno roars, and he lunges forward, but he’s immediately held back by the handgun pressed to his chest by the asshole in glasses.
“What did I fucking say?” he sneered. “The rules were clear. Bitch stays in her cell until Domenico’s happy with your work.”
“She’s sick!” he snaps, his chest having. “She needed air and?—”
“Aww, she’s sick?” The man holding onto me wrenches me closer to him and in a cold, terrifying blow, his fist sinks into my stomach and forces all the air out of my lungs.
“No!” I scream as terror grips me like a vise and a strange, cold sensation trickles down my spine. “Wait, wait, I’m pregnant!”
The entire room freezes and falls deathly quiet. You could have heard a shell break on the rocks lining the shore below. Then Bruno moves faster than I’ve ever seen him move in his life. He snatches the gun from the glasses man, twisting his arm so viciously that bone snaps and he screeches—a screech that’s cut off by Bruno shooting him twice in the chest then immediately turning the gun on the man holding me. Two more bullets fire and hit my captor in his chest and throat.
Warm blood sprays over my face as he stumbles backward and Bruno shoots him twice more. His body thuds to the ground with a deathly finality and silence falls once more.
Then Bruno is next to me with his hand against my cheek. “Good trick,” he says, panting faintly.
Fat tears well in my eyes. “It’s not a trick,” I whisper. “I really am pregnant.”
All color fades from Bruno’s face. “Wh—what? But we never…”
“I was pregnant before I came here.”
“But you…” He looks down at my flat stomach, confusion etched across his face. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a cryptic pregnancy. The baby’s resting really far back.”
“Oh, my God.” Bruno’s palm trembles against my cheek. “Why… why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“How could I?” The tears roll down my cheeks. “I didn’t trust you, I thought Cian was dead, and I didn’t want to be kept alive like some sow so I was hoping we’d either die or I’d be rescued. I had no reason to trust you!”
