Page 52 of Die for You

I don’t know what to do.

If it were only my well-being I had to think about, I would fight.

But there’s so much more at stake now.

My purse is back at the castle. No doubt Enzo has studied it in hopes of finding out something about me. But there is nothing.

However, I’m not naive.

He will find me.

Sooner or later.

Peering at the crucifix, I wonder if this was destined for me all along.

Jesus’s faith was tested by His Father to see if He was worthy.

Ismyfaith being tested?

The sisters get up and give Nico and me some privacy. When they’re gone, he shifts his chair closer to my bedside.

He types on his phone, and the robotic voice asks the inevitable. “The father is the man who was here?”

There’s no point in lying.

I nod.

Nico doesn’t hide his disgust, and I don’t blame him.

This would be the time Nico gets up and leaves. He has every right to. I have brought him nothing but trouble. The last time I saw him, my ex-boyfriend almost killed him. And then I turn up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, bloody and beaten, passing out, where he then had to take the initiative and bring me here.

This friendship is definitely one-sided.

Nico is quiet. But it’s apparent it’s anything but in his head.

Whatever he says next, I am ready for.

His fingers work frantically as he types what seems like a very long spiel.

“You are not safe at home, and I don’t think I can protect you. You must stay here and have the baby. I will look after you. And the baby. I will raise her like my own.”

And clearly, I amnotready for anything because that is the last thing Ieverimagined him saying.

I stare in bewilderment, wondering if perhaps the app has a glitch and is spitting out an incorrect translation. There’s no way Nico would just offer to help me raise my baby.

But when he nods, there is no glitch. Only a man who is the most selfless human being I have ever met.

“No.” I shake my head. “I can’t ask that of you.”

Besides, I can’t stay here.

I have a duty to serve Gianna.

I can’t stay here for the remainder of my pregnancy.

But Nico is right.

It’s not safe.