Page 21 of Cryptic Curse (Bellamy Brothers #7)

DANIELA

N o cooking yet, but I did get asked out to a water park by a handsome man who does absolutely nothing for me.

I made three new friends.

But oh, how I missed Belinda.

As I drive home, I can’t wait to see her. It’s so wonderful to finally have a child.

She’s not my child, of course. She’s nearly twelve, which means I would have had to have her when I was six years old.

I’ve always wanted a child.

And Belinda is the closest I’ll ever get to a child of my own.

On a whim, I stop for ice cream. Belinda loves ice cream.

I sit down and have a scoop of Pink Cadillac—strawberry with Oreo cookies. I usually eat my ice cream plain, but Pink Cadillac is Bee’s favorite. It’s actually pretty delicious. I splurge for a waffle cone and eat it at the venue. Then I buy a pint to take home to Belinda.

Like me, she wasn’t allowed to have ice cream often as a child.

I love doing little things like this for her. Little things to put a smile on a face that has had too few smiles for her lifetime.

She won’t grow up like me.

She’ll learn to have a good relationship with a man.

I’ll help her.

I’ll take care of her.

Because she’s my child.

After all, I’ve slept with her father.

* * *

Two Years Earlier…

I’m pregnant again.

And this time, I’m keeping my baby.

My father won’t force me to get rid of it.

I don’t know who the father is. There were three men since my last cycle—Diego Vega, Derek Wolfe, and another American named Declan McAllister.

Since I never went beyond about eight weeks with the other two pregnancies, my body is staying firm, and by the time I show in the third trimester, I’ll make excuses or something.

It will be too late to do anything then.

I touch my belly.

“Brisa,” I say. “That’s your name.”

I gave my first two children gender-neutral names since I didn’t know their sex. Rio—River—was first. Then Luz, light. This one is Brisa—breeze.

That will be his or her name when the baby comes.

I’ve been wearing baggy clothes around the house even though I’m not showing. That way, it won’t seem unusual when I have to wear loose clothing.

It’s not that difficult to conceal a pregnancy, right? I mean, you hear stories all the time about how women go to the hospital with gas pains and end up with a baby, having had no idea they were even pregnant.

I wear hoodies now. Even though it’s spring and warm enough that most people are trading theirs for crop tops and sundresses, I cling to mine.

I read somewhere—on some forum where the usernames are all fake and the confessions are real—that loose layers are key in the first trimester.

Especially if you’re small. They say you can pass off the bloat as bad posture or a heavy lunch, and that baggy clothes buy you time.

I need time.

I keep thinking about how tiny the baby is right now. How it’s not even the size of a plum yet. They compare it to fruit in the articles—peach, lime, avocado.

I memorized the tricks. The safe foods. The warning signs. I drink more water, eat saltines, keep mints in every pocket.

If I can carry this baby long enough, eventually it will be too late for my father to abort it.

I trudge through the morning sickness. Pasting a smile on my face, eating my meals.

Entertaining my father’s colleagues while wearing my skimpy outfits, hoping they won’t notice that my belly is slightly curvier, my boobs slightly bigger.

I make it through my first trimester and breathe a sigh of relief.

The nausea subsides, thank God.

Hiding it was the act of a lifetime.

Until my father calls me into his office one morning.

I’m wearing a hoodie and sweats.

Some people say my father is good-looking, and I guess objectively he is. He’s tall, broad, well-built. Strong facial features, raven-black hair with silver threaded through it. And eyes as dark as my own.

But to me he’s ugly.

Monstrous.

If my mother were here, would she allow him to use me the way he does?

He never touches me himself, of course. In his eyes, that would be crossing the line.

In his warped mind, though, letting his friends and associates use me is perfectly acceptable.

“Yes, Papa?” I say.

He doesn’t even look up from whatever paperwork he’s scrawling on. “Why haven’t you bled yet this month?”

“I just finished my period last week,” I say. “You know that. You keep track of my calendar.”

He does, except when he has a particular friend or associate who enjoys the blood.

Luckily for me, they haven’t been around the last three months.

“The maids have been checking your garbage cans.”

“Then they should see that I’ve used tampons and pads.”

He finally looks up, his eyes even darker than usual, and a scowl twisting his face. “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you Daniela?”

My nerves shatter under my skin. I’ve been leaving bloodied pads and tampons in my trash. First I was cutting myself on my inner thigh to do it, but more recently, I’ve been asking the local butcher for animal blood.

“Take off your hoodie,” my father says.

No problem. I’m not really showing yet.

I pull the black hoodie over my head, fold it neatly, and lay it on one of the chairs in front of my father’s desk.

“And now your T-shirt,” he says.

He’s seriously going to make me strip in front of him? My father has never sexually abused me, though he’s beat me on occasion.

“Now, Daniela,” he says, his voice stern.

I pull the shirt over my head.

I stand in front of him wearing only my bra and my sweatpants.

“The bra, please.”

“Papa…”

“You heard me.”

Then he presses the buzzer on his desk. “Send Dr. Sanchez in now, please.”

I widen my eyes. Dr. Sanchez? He’s not my doctor. My doctor is Dr. Manuel.

“The rest of your clothes, please, Daniela.”

“Papa, why are you doing this?”

“You know why.”

My heart thumping widely, I completely undress in front of my father.

My nipples harden against the chill in his office.

I cover them with my arms.

Then a knock on the door.

“Come in, Dr. Sanchez,” my father says, his voice low and rumbly.

The door opens, and to my relief, Dr. Sanchez is a woman.

Perhaps she’ll feel sorry for me, not do what my father is inevitably going to ask of her.

I mean, she can’t abort a baby right in this office, can she?

“Senor Agudelo,” Dr. Sanchez says, her voice cold.

“This is my daughter, Daniela,” my father says. “I suspect she’s pregnant.”

Dr. Sanchez eyes me. “Her breasts do seem a little bit swollen,” she says.

“But I won’t know for sure until she takes a pregnancy test, though I can examine her manually.

If her cervix is soft and high in the vagina, pregnancy is indicated.

But it only takes a moment to have her urinate on the pregnancy test.”

“Yes, we will do that afterward. But first I’d like you to examine her manually.” He returns his glare to me. “Lie down, Daniela.”

I look at the Turkish rug on my father’s floor. “Here? On the floor?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have an exam table in here, my dear. So unfortunately, Dr. Sanchez will have to kneel to do her examination.”

“That’s not a problem,” Dr. Sanchez says coldly.

I look at her. Her cold dark demeanor. I plead with my eyes. Don’t do this. You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to do no harm.

“Daniela, my patience is wearing thin,” my father says.

I lie down.

“Spread your legs, please,” Dr. Sanchez says, her voice like an icicle.

I do as I’m told, and I close my eyes.

It helps to close your eyes. It helps to block out what’s happening to you.

I do it a lot when my father’s associates are having their way with me.

Except for when they explicitly demand that I leave my eyes open.

If I don’t, sometimes they strike me. And not always with the back of their hand.

Cold hands slide inside me. Doctors usually use lube, but Dr. Sanchez does not. I have an awful feeling that she was told to make this as unpleasant for me as possible.

As if lying naked on the floor of my father’s office isn’t awful enough.

I hold back my scream at the pain, at the invasion.

How can a woman do this to another woman? Especially a woman who’s a doctor?

I don’t know.

Most of my father’s minions are men, but occasionally a woman comes around. I’ve only had to entertain one woman, and she was at least gentle with me. She licked me down there for nearly the whole time we were together, and it actually felt nice, at least compared to what the men did to me.

Dr. Sanchez is not gentle.

She roots around inside my pussy.

When she finally withdraws her hand, she says, “Yes, Senor, I believe she’s pregnant.”

“Very well. You may leave.”

Dr. Sanchez rises, merely nods to my father, and leaves.

Presumably to go wash her hands.

And then maybe to be gunned down in the street.

At least, that’s what I hope happens to her. How can another woman not see the pain and anguish in my eyes, not help me when I’m at my most vulnerable?

Dr. Sanchez certainly isn’t a mother. Of that I’m a hundred percent certain.

“Stand up, Daniela.”

I gulp and obey my father, still naked. I stand in front of him, crossing my arms over my breasts once more.

“So you tried to put another one over on me,” he says.

I burst into tears at that. “Please, Papa. Please don’t take another baby from me.”

My father rises, walks around to me. “I resisted putting you on contraception,” he says, “because my friends and associates like a ripe woman. They’re supposed to wear condoms, of course, but I can see they don’t always obey the rules.”

I simply swallow.

No, they don’t obey the rules.

Most of them do wear them, but some don’t. Diego Vega doesn’t, and those two Americans—Derek Wolf and Declan McAllister—didn’t.

One of those three is my baby’s father.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because I know what’s coming.

My father advances toward me. First thing he does is punch my jaw so hard I fall to the floor, back on the Turkish rug.

Then he kicks my belly.

I cry out, crumpling into a fetal position, but he straightens me out, bringing his foot down on my abdomen again, again, again.

Until eventually…

Everything goes black.

* * *

Present Day…

I woke up a day later in the hospital.

The feeling of emptiness overwhelmed me.

Brisa was gone. I knew it before I even opened my eyes.

“You’re awake.”

I turned my head to see my father sitting in a chair next to me.

Of course he was sitting there. Acting the concerned parent. After he beat me and caused me to lose my baby.

“The baby is gone,” he said.

That was no news to me. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“Medicine had to intervene.” He shifted his gaze, narrowing his eyes at me. “After that beating you took by a stranger in the street, you were bleeding profusely. I’m afraid the baby couldn’t be saved.”

I looked straight ahead.

The way my father said the words, I could almost swear he believed them himself.

No doubt it was what he had to tell the doctors when he brought me to the hospital.

“And the doctors learned something else very sad,” he continued, a grin flickering behind the mock sympathy in his eyes.

“It turns out you carry the gene for Huntington’s disease.

You shouldn’t have a child. You would pass on the gene, and the child would eventually die of the debilitating disease.

So I did the only responsible thing a father could.

I gave permission to have your fallopian tubes tied. ”

Did I hear him correctly? Or was I in a drug-induced haze?

He had my tubes tied?

Could he even do that without my consent?

Of course he could. He was Jacinto Agudelo. He could do anything. Wave enough money in a doctor’s face and you can convince him to render a teenage girl sterile.

“So, Daniela. This was your last baby. You’ll never have another.”

Tears well in my eyes as I remember that fateful day.

No more babies.

Not ever.

Which is why I love Belinda so much. She’s the only child I’ll ever have.

And I can’t lose her.