Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(51)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“I’ve done everything I was supposed to,” she said carefully. “I’ve taken vitamins, I’ve been to the doctor, I’ve gone to childbirth classes. What do you want?” It wasn’t hard to put a tremor into her voice. Her fear was legit.

“Why did you do it? Having a baby isn’t the easiest way to earn a dollar.” Donatelli asked, “Did you really need the money that badly? Is your dental practice failing?”

Brittany was a good liar. Much better than Alexis, who was incapable of hiding her feelings. “I… I… got into some gambling debt.” She glanced at her lap, as if she were ashamed. “I owe fifty grand, and I didn’t want my sister and her husband to know. Atelier offered me a hundred to have his baby.”

Donatelli whistled. “Gambling. So like a woman to be weak. What is your game?”

It had been years since she’d played, but she said, “Blackjack.” She knew the rules to that, could answer questions about it.

“We’ll give you a hundred and twenty-five thousand if you give the baby to us.”

The shocked gasp she gave wasn’t faked either. “But it’s his sperm. His kid.”

Gregor stood up and came at her. Brittany tried to shrink back, but his thick hand grabbed a handful of hair on the top of her head and yanked her back so she was staring straight up at him, the pain making her wince. “Maybe I’ll just bury my own sperm in you. What do you think of that?”

She thought she was going to be sick. Her stomach roiled and she was sure she was going to vomit right into his salt-and-pepper beard. It wasn’t hard to believe him. He looked like he could rape her and enjoy it.

There was a torrent of Russian from the woman on the couch. Gregor broke eye contact with Brittany and turned around. She breathed deeply, trying to calm her stomach down, clamp down on her terror, hold on to her nerve.

“Your wife doesn’t seem pleased with that idea,” Donatelli said in amusement.

“My wife does not speak English. But she is still a jealous little minx.” He let go of Brittany’s hair with a jerk and moved toward the woman. “Sasha.”

But the woman was up off the couch, flouncing away, her hair bouncing down her back, her little backside swaying. Her chin was tilted indignantly. Brittany wanted to throw something at her. Like a boulder. Or a grand piano. How could she just sit there and let her husband tie up a pregnant woman? Of course, she had to be a heartless bitch to be married to a beast like Gregor.

“That is why I’ll never get married again,” Donatelli commented as Gregor followed Sasha out of the room. He crossed one leg over the opposite knee. “Now are you agreeable to our terms?”

“What do you want the baby for?” With Gregor gone, she felt emboldened. Donatelli didn’t seem nearly as threatening.

“Sasha has always yearned for a child.”

That woman wasn’t raising her baby. No way, Russian Josй. “What do you have to do with all of this?”

“I’m the middleman. The negotiator. As you can see, Gregor has poor social skills.”

“The answer is no.”

He grimaced. “That is the wrong answer. I will continue to ask the question until you give the right answer.”

“No. I may not have intended to keep this baby, but it is still a baby. It belongs with its father.”

Donatelli sighed. “All these goddamn ethics are so exhausting. I’m trying to be reasonable. Spare you the rod.”

A high-pitched moan floated out from the next room. Brittany couldn’t prevent a grimace. She so did not need to hear that at the moment. It was Sasha, giving an exuberant cry of pleasure, which was seriously gross, considering that her husband was just about Satan with facial hair.

Yet Ringo actually stirred and glanced toward the door, naked longing on his face, and a good-sized tent in his pants. Blech. She didn’t need to see that any more than she wanted to hear Sasha and Gregor getting it on.

Which was getting more disgusting by the minute, a nice rhythm building to the groans and yelps. Sasha did the Russian version of an “oh, oh, yes, oh, oh, aahh,” over and over. And over and over. You know, if Brittany wasn’t mistaken, there was actually some faking going on there. Having pulled that a time or two in her life, she recognized the signs. Sasha’s voice was too even, too rhythmic, too poised. Gregor was silent, which made her wonder where his tongue was, which made her stomach flip again.

At least Donatelli seemed unnerved and uninterested. But he also held his hand out to her. “Sleep, Brittany.”

She tried to resist, tried to close her mind to him, but she felt herself falling under, into darkness.

“If she is not here, where is she?” Corbin asked, staring at Alexis, who was wringing her hands together.

“I don’t freaking know! That’s what I’m telling you,” Alexis shouted at him. “No one has seen her all day. She’s not answering her cell phone and she’s not at home. I went over there. Her car is in the driveway, but she’s not there.”

“Did it look like she’d been packing?” he asked. Brittany was probably just en route to Alexis’s and had stopped at the grocery store or the bank. Though he found it odd that she had not called Alexis. She knew she needed Ethan’s assistance to get new identification.

“Packing? No, not at all. It looked like she hadn’t been there all day, and her bed was made.”

“That is because she spent last night with me.” Corbin set down the bag of maternity clothes he had brought over. She had forgotten them in his apartment. “She took my car to drive home. It was gone from the parking lot, so I know she left. Where are Ethan and Gwenna?”

“Gwenna hasn’t gotten up yet. She sleeps late. And Ethan went to talk to his security team, to see if they can figure out how to track Brittany down. I just know something is wrong.”

So did he. Corbin felt cold, stark terror slide over him. Brittany should have been there. Or she would have called. Unless she had chosen to disappear on her own. But no, she wouldn’t do that without saying good-bye to her sister.

“Alexis, Brittany and I were planning on her leaving tonight. She was supposed to go home, pack what she needed, withdraw all her available funds, and come here. She was supposed to ask Ethan to establish a new identity for her so she could leave tonight and start a new life under an assumed name.”

“What! Why?”

Corbin grimaced. The truth still appalled him. “Because my DNA search on Italian men resulted in a match. Brittany’s father is Donatelli.”