Page 29 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Myra

Twelve Years Ago

M ichael and I have gone on five dates. Each date ends with a night at the Four Seasons.

I have to stay up all night studying to make up for the time I spend on our dates, but it’s worth it.

He might have a crazy family, but Michael has been a total gentleman.

I assumed our first date would be terrible, but baseball was the perfect place for us to connect and reminded me of a much more relaxed time in my life.

Grad school has been sucking the life out of me and Michael is a breath of fresh air.

If I could meet my younger self for coffee, I would tell her that it’s absolutely worth it to wait until twenty-six to lose your virginity if you end up with a guy like Michael who makes you cum multiple times every time you have sex.

Michael: Meet up tonight?

His text message nearly knocks me off the couch. My hair is in a tangled ass mess, and my essay on French literary comparison sounds like garbled nonsense. My professor will totally call me out for recycling the same points in the first paragraph and the fourteenth. My head hurts.

Maybe I need a distraction. But Michael doesn’t normally text me on Sundays.

He’s made it pretty clear in the past that he stays busy with his family on Sundays, but maybe this just means we’re moving our relationship forward.

I don’t really know, since we don’t technically have a label on things aside from “dating”.

Me: Sure.

Michael: 9 p.m. Horseheads Pub

Weird. Michael’s never suggested we meet up at a bar before.

Maybe he’s out with his friends. People who have the money to pay for grad school out of pocket spend their weekends slumming it in the bars around here, but I don’t have the time or the funds to go out on the weekends.

I use all my money from tutoring to go towards my rent, food, or education. Nothing fancy.

Me: Do I have to dress up?

Michael: Something sexy.

Not exactly out of character for Michael, but definitely kind of weird. I don’t respond for a few minutes as I try to think about something witty. I’ll save it for when I see him in person – and remind Michael not to treat me like a piece of meat.

I don’t know why I feel so strangely confident with Michael so quickly. I guess the six months or so I’ve gotten to know Cosima have made me comfortable around him. There’s no explanation for my emotions. I just want to chase the feeling.

My motivation to get my work done increases.

I put my headphones on and get that essay done so I can find “something sexy” to wear to go to this pub.

I don’t know what Michael considers to be sexy, honestly.

Maybe a pair of tight black jeans and a flowing top with soft, silky fabric.

I want to cover up my boobs to avoid any comments from strangers during my commute.

When I get my rideshare confirmed, I text Michael that I’m on the way.

Michael: Hurry cherry pie. Can’t wait to see you in that sexy thong.

Again, I feel weird about the text. Cherry pie?

Michael didn’t mention that he was pregaming our date, but it sounds like he’s had a few too many to start off with.

Everything about our meeting tonight is so weird…

But I guess I could stand to be a bit more spontaneous, right?

I’m already doing something outside the box by dating a crazy rich white man.

The anxiety I felt sitting in a car that nice made me want to fart. Luckily, I don’t have that problem in my rideshare’s Honda Civic. I thank Abdul for the ride, and stand outside the bar where Michael instructed me to meet. It’s not as busy as I expected and honestly, the bar looks closed.

Did I screw this up somehow? I glance down at my phone to text Michael.

Me: I’m outside

Michael: I can see you cherry pie.

I look over my shoulder. A chill runs up my spine and I want to scream, but there isn’t enough time.

My body floods with hormones instantly, but instead of running away, I freeze like a deer.

Two large figures hurtle towards me. Finally, I scream and dart back towards the crosswalk, but it’s not enough time to react.

One hand clamps around my wrist and as I struggle to wrestle my grip away, the other assailant presses cold metal against my spine. Panic flashes through my head. GET AWAY. I don’t think about who might be responsible, just the immediate thought that I need to escape.

“Move one muscle and I’ll paint the sidewalk with your brains, bitch.”

His accent is distinctly Western New York – cowboy meets farmer. I shudder and freeze in place, too scared to move and provoke this monster to pull the trigger on whatever piece he has shoved up against my back.

Michael will save me. Michael’s in the mob and he’s not going to let this happen.

The man holding my wrist drags me away from the main road and I start screaming and crying out, because I was always taught to never let anyone take you to a second location in this situation. They’re going to kill me.

The one holding the gun raises his elbow and I scream loudly when I think he’s going to shoot me, but he doesn’t shoot.

Instead, his arm lands on my head and I hear a sound like a coconut bouncing off a brick wall.

That’s my head. He just cracked my head open.

My body jerks backward and I fall into the arms of the second assailant.

“We’re supposed to shake her up a bit, not kill her you stupid fuck.”

The second assailant smells like tobacco dip. My stomach retches and the fear reaches impossible levels to control as they shove me up against a wall in the alley outside Horseheads Pub. I whimper and silently tell myself that Michael won’t let this happen.

Michael will save me.

The man holding me throws me up against the wall. I grunt and the wind knocked out of me starts up another vein of panic. My fists fly out from my body recklessly. I want to hit, punch, do whatever I can to make attacking me more difficult for my assailants.

Throwing my fists a couple times along with screaming and kicking quickly tires me out.

I can feel my screams getting more strained, and my fighting back only puts off the inevitable.

My head throbs. There’s blood everywhere — and I just want to get away so they don’t drag me off to a second location and toss me into a ditch.

The second assailant grabs a hold of me and then pushes me up against the wall, finally gaining control over my limbs enough that they can pin me up against the alleyway wall. Powerlessness over my limbs sends my panic into overdrive. I feel more like an animal than I have in my life.

Tears mix with my blood. I scream even louder while trying to fight as the other assailant pulls out a sheathed object. He withdraws the knife and I almost wish he had a gun because I want to be dead. I just want this to be over.

Fighting hasn’t worked and my body is both frozen in place and trembling with terror as sweat builds up on my skin and my body makes a last-ditch effort to save my life by releasing its control over my bladder. Warm piss soaks my pants and my legs and my screams are mixed with sobs.

He’s going to stab me…

“Myra Brent,” he says. “This is a message from the Corsini family, to keep your dirty skin away from our people.”

The Corsini Family? I want to argue – to say something, to explain that I know Michael and Cosima Corsini. But I can’t stop shaking and my throat is too tight to form words. Every ounce of my energy goes to fighting the man pinning me to the wall, immobilizing me to prepare me for slaughter.

I brace myself for the impact of the blade sliding into my soft flesh, the way I used to cut up pieces of chicken for dinner. But he slides it through the fabric instead, cutting my clothes away.

They rip my clothes off while I cry. I don’t know what I expect them to do next. To hurt me. To take from me even more…

While I’m naked, another fist comes flying at my face. I feel the impact. Hear a loud noise. I’m dead.

That’s my last thought — they killed me — before I crumple to the ground in the alley. I feel my hand touch a dirty puddle, but I’m too numb to wince. A boot comes flying at my face — and the lights go out.

Sirens.

I hear sirens.

“I found her.”

Quiet.

“Michael?” I whisper. It’s fuzzy gray with pockets of blinding white light. Beeping in the background makes my headache.

...“Who the hell is Michael?”

...“Ma’am, we’re almost there…”

… “Jane Doe found outside of the bar. We need a rape kit...”

I wake up alone and rouse myself for several minutes before I realize that I’m at Buffalo General. The last time I was here was when I had pneumonia when I was seven years old. It’s curious that I feel no pain. I turn my head sideways. IV drip.

Turning my head hurts so badly that I pass out again. My last thought this time numbs me completely: Michael isn’t here. He never came. He didn’t save me. He left me all alone.

The next time I wake up, there’s a nurse in the room with me checking in. Her footsteps probably woke me up, but I can barely hold any thoughts in my head.

“Hello, dear,” she says, smiling at me behind soft, dark brown eyes. It comforts me to be in a hospital room with another woman of color.

“Hi…” I croak out, mostly because I don’t want to be rude. I can hardly manage more words than that. The nurse approaches my bed, checks the screens behind me and smiles at me.

“I know you must have been through a lot, but don’t let anyone force you to talk about it before you’re ready, okay?”

I want to nod, but I can’t. I just blink purposefully, hoping she understands that we’re on the same page. The nurse smiles at me warmly.

“My name is Krizzia,” she says. “If you need anything or if you need me to chase off the cops, just push that little buzzer here.”

Thankfully, even in my immobilized state, I can reach for the buzzer. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it feels like my head gained an extra fifty pounds of weight.

“Okay.”

“Do you know what happened to you?” she asks me gently. “You don’t have to tell me, but you don’t look like the sort of girl to be in this kind of trouble…”

My heart palpitates a little and I shake my head.

I don’t know what happened — and I don’t know why Michael never came. All I know is that I’m never going to see that man again, or Cosima Corsini, and I will never change my mind.