His words felt like a physical blow, one that had her struggling not to lose it. “You regret everything that happened between us?” she asked, her voice barely above a soft whisper.
“Yes,” he said with absolutely no hesitation.
She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to be sick as she asked, “What about the baby?”
“A mistake we need to have corrected before you leave.”
Her eyes flew open. “No,” she said firmly. “You may not want me or the baby, but I want this baby and I’ll be damned if you take it away from me,” she said, pressing her hand against her stomach as if she could shield the child from Chris’ words. She couldn’t believe the kind sweet man that made her feel alive, whole and happy for once was this cold bastard in front of her.
He sighed heavily as he moved away from her and picked up the bullet proof vest and looked at her.
Without a word unclipped the sides and moved to put it over her head. When she tried to shove him away he doubled his attempts and got it over her head and clipped to the sides before she put up a real fight.
“If you’re so damn determined to go out there then you need this more than me,” she said as she struggled to pull it off one-handed.
“Keep it on, Munchkin,” he said, moving towards the back door. For a moment he didn’t say anything and she was glad because she didn’t think she could handle another word from his mouth.
The privacy door slid open and Joshua moved to join them. He looked from her to Chris and opened his mouth to say something, but apparently decided against it as he sat down and waited.
“One minute out,” Ephraim said tightly and she wondered if he’d been able to hear what they talked about, because the man certainly didn’t sound happy.
Chris nodded firmly as he crouched by the back door and put his hand on the handle. He didn’t bother looking back at her as he spoke. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry, Isabella. I never meant to make this harder on you or to put you in this situation. I…..I can’t force you to get rid of the baby obviously, but I just want you to think about what kind of life a child will have where you’re going. It wouldn’t be fair to the baby.”
“I’m Not. Going,” she bit out angrily at the fact that apparently she was no longer his little Munchkin or the fact that he was leaving her, she didn’t know and didn’t care. “If you leave, Chris, then this is goodbye. There will be no second chances, Chris.”
“No, there won’t,” he mumbled softly as he threw the door open and jumped out.
“Chris!” she screamed.
The door slammed shut with a sickening finality as her breath stilled in her throat and the van started to move again. Oh, god…………
He’d left.
“Let’s get you ready,” Joshua said with a forced smile as he reached over and released the cuff from the cabinet.
She was so shocked by Chris’ departure that she barely paid attention. When he attached the cuff to her other hand, she tried not to feel disappointed that he either didn’t trust her. That was just insulting, she thought as she shoved him away with her shoulder, shocked that she actually managed to knock him hard on his ass, but she didn’t have much time to celebrate her little victory. She needed to move her ass and get away before they could ship her ass off.
She felt the van come to a stop as she quickly made her way over to the back doors on her knees and reached up and pressed the button. Ss quickly as she could she grabbed the handle and shoved the door open and nearly groaned.
“He said you’d be difficult,” a large man with short curly golden blonde hair mused as he signaled to four equally large men wearing black fatigues to step forward and grab her.
“Where do you want her?” the man with a shaved head asked as he reached for her.
She tried to move back, but he wasn’t having that. He grabbed her and yanked out of the van and over her his shoulder and she promised herself that if he so much as accidentally brushed against her ass that she was going to kill him.
“Put her downstairs with the other one. They can wait to be transported together.”
This wasn’t happening. She needed to get away or have more time. She couldn’t let them ship her off. Chris was right, she didn’t want to raise her baby girl on a island.
She wanted to give her the life she never had. She’d have to escape that was all there was to it.
She moved to raise her head to get an idea of her surroundings when a black cloth bag was placed over her head.
“Hey! I’m not a prisoner, you jackass!”
“Then why are you cuffed?” someone asked in a bored drawl.
“Because I’m a pain in the ass! Now let me go!”
Several of them laughed, but she didn’t care. She needed to get out of there, she thought as she began her assault.
“Mother f**ker!” the man beneath her hissed out as she landed a punch to his lower back.
“Let me go!”
“Go with them, Izzy,” Joshua the traitor said. “It will be okay.”
“Go to hell!” she snapped.
“I’ll check on you after I look in on the injured,” he said, sounding sad, but she didn’t say anything else as his words hit home. People were hurt, because of her.
“Hurry up and get her down there and then come back up and go protect the south side,” someone ordered. The man beneath her grunted and she decided to give up her fight, at least for now. They were busy fighting a problem that she created and she wouldn’t make it any more difficult for them.
Well, she wouldn’t fight them, but she fully planned on escaping. She remained quiet as she was carried up a flight of stairs, placed in an elevator and traveled down to wherever the hell they were taking her. Just when she didn’t think her stomach could take another minute over his shoulder while the elevator dropped them at a nauseatingly fast rate they came to a stop.
Five minutes later she was dropped on her ass onto what felt like a thick mattress and her hood, handcuffs and vest were quickly removed. While her captors were slamming the thick door made of thick, really thick, metal bars behind them and leaving, she took a moment to look around.
The door they’d just left through was made of metal, but the rest of her cell was different, a little odd. She was still surrounded by metal bars on ever side of her, but those metal bars were incased in thick glass-like material, but she didn’t think it was glass. She looked around her threadbare cell and frowned. She had a metal toilet/sink combination in the corner, her bed consisted of a solid metal frame bolted to the floor and her really large, pissed off looking neighbor was watching her from his cell.