Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2) (26 page)

That’s all she could think about as she pulled out
more drawers. Someone knew … someone found out her secret.

“Looking for something, Emma?”

Affonso’s question came from behind her. He had posed
it in a calm, quiet way that belied the rage brimming in his gaze as she turned
to face him. Standing straight, Emma’s stare dropped to the white and pink
bottle of vitamins in his hand.

He shook them.

Teasingly.

Mocking her.

“Looking for these, perhaps?” he asked.

Emma swallowed audibly, struggling to come up with an
appropriate excuse for why she had the vitamins in her vanity. “I’ve had them
since—”

“Are you going to lie now? When I learned that you
were sneaking off to see a doctor today, I went searching for a reason as to
why you wouldn’t simply go to my doctor. Guess what I found?”

“Affonso … please give me my vitamins,” she whispered.

“And a grave, too?”

Emma straightened like someone had shoved a stake into
her spine. Her mouth fell open, a string of pleads right on the tip of her
tongue.

Affonso didn’t give her a chance to beg.

He was on her in a blink. Her scream was swallowed by
the flash of his hand. That’s all she saw—just the flash of it before it hit
her straight in the face.

Emma was knocked to the floor in a heap. She gasped,
stunned as she held onto her throbbing cheek. Affonso stood over her, shaking
that fucking bottle again.

“You’re pregnant,” he growled.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Do not even think to lie and tell me that it’s mine.
I am not that much of a fool, whore.”

Emma blinked, tears streaking down her cheeks as her
face continued to pulse with pain. “It’s not yours.”

“When?”

“When you were gone.”

“Who?” he demanded.

Emma refused to answer.

Affonso reached down, grabbed a fistful of her hair,
and pulled her up from the floor. Emma’s screech of pain died in her throat
when she found herself thrown into a wall. Affonso was right on her, his hand
closing around her throat as his face came dangerously close to hers.

Her husband bared his teeth, eyes wild.

“Who does the child belong to?” he asked.

“Stop, please,” she rasped.

Her air was gone with that one sentence.

Emma’s eyes, throat, and face burned.

She couldn’t catch a breath.

Affonso just kept squeezing like he didn’t give a
single fuck.

“Please,” she begged soundlessly.

He squeezed harder.

“Is it someone I know?” he asked.

Emma shook her head.

Lie, lie, lie
, her mind
demanded.

“Is he Italian?”

Emma didn’t understand why that would matter.

So, that time, she nodded.

Affonso flashed his teeth in a sneer a second before
he pulled her away from the wall, and then shoved her right back into it. Her
head snapped off the wall, and she cried out in shock and pain. He allowed her
to catch a breath, but his hand tightened to her throat again.

“Lying bitch,” he hissed. “If he is Italian, then I
know him. I have brought no men into this home, into your life, that is not
Italian. I would know—your enforcer would have told me—had you been running
with someone while I was gone.”

“Affonso, s-stop …
please
stop
,” Emma
pleaded. “I-I can’t b-breathe.”

He chuckled coldly.

Her heart clenched.

Her
baby
.

She didn’t want to hurt her baby.

Emma’s vision swam the longer Affonso choked her. She
struggled silently to figure out a way to save herself and her child.

Would the truth do it?

Would he let her live for the truth?

“Tell me who the father is so I can kill him,” Affonso
said.

Emma swallowed convulsively

She knew he wouldn’t if he knew.

He adored Calisto.

He loved him.

Affonso would never hurt Calisto. He just got him
back—the Calisto that didn’t know of Affonso’s awful deeds, and the secrets he
hid. The Calisto that loved him like the father Affonso had always wanted to be
for him.

“The baby is a boy,” Emma forced out.

Affonso’s hand briefly loosened just enough to let her
get a gulp of stinging air. “Say that again?”

“A boy. The child is a boy. The results from my test
came back today. That’s where I was. Genetics show it’s a boy.”

“A bastard,” Affonso snarled. “Someone’s boy born to a
whore.”

“Calisto’s boy,” she breathed.

It was the last bit of air Emma had.

Affonso turned into a stone, and his hand pressed
harder into her throat. “What did you just say?”

“The child—it’s Calisto’s baby, Affonso. His boy.”

Suddenly, Emma found herself on the floor with Affonso
standing over her. She clutched at her throat, taking in deep breath after deep
breath. Each one hurt a little more than the last.

“Liar,” Affonso whispered.

Emma blinked up at him, tears welling in her eyes and
falling. “I’m not, Affonso. Calisto is the father. You can have the results of
the amnio tested against the results of our child. The relation is there. He’s
Calisto’s boy.”

Affonso roared at her, swiping his hand at her face
again. Emma barely dodged the slap.

“Please don’t hurt me—don’t hurt this baby,” she
cried.

Anything …

She would say anything to save her child.

He stopped.

Froze.

Pain filled Affonso’s features as he looked her over,
and took a couple of steps backward.

“His baby,” Affonso murmured.

“His boy,” Emma corrected gently.

Affonso’s back hit the wall, and he shouted into his
palms as he ran his hands over his face. Then, he went deadly quiet. Emma
watched, wary and confused, and stood from the floor. Her knees hurt, and her
throat burned.

But she was alive.

“The baby will die,” Affonso said harshly. “Like the
last two have.”

Emma shook her head frantically. “No, no it won’t.
They can monitor me. Put a stitch in my cervix, and the baby will be fine. They
promise everything will be okay this time because they know. I can carry the
child to term.”

Affonso quieted again, still scowling at her.

“He wouldn’t betray me like that,” Affonso mumbled. “Calisto
wouldn’t do this to me, no matter how much he hated me.”

Emma didn’t know how to respond.

How could she?

The truth was right there.

“He
wouldn’t
,” Affonso repeated stronger,
glaring at her.

“The Calisto downstairs might not betray you like
that, but the one you hurt, the boy you lied to for years, did it with a
fucking smile,” she said in a whisper.

Emma knew better than to taunt Affonso.

He was wild as it was.

Downright insane.

But she needed her moment. That one second to be
defiant, to be strong.

Because he made her weak and useless.

Affonso shoved off the wall in a flash, coming at her
again. Emma didn’t have time to move, and found herself barricaded to the wall
once more. This time, he held her there with his hands on her arms.

He didn’t choke her.

He didn’t hurt her.

He wouldn’t.

Emma knew it.

“I just got him back,” Affonso growled at her. “My
boy, I just got him back.”

He spat the words at her though clenched teeth.

Emma didn’t blink at his show of rage.

“He must never know, Emma. You cannot tell him about
the child, or what he did.”

“It’s his baby,” she hissed.

“My child,” Affonso corrected. “It will be
my
goddamn boy—
my
child.”

Jesus Christ.

Emma wanted to refuse, but the hatred in Affonso’s
gaze stopped her from saying anything.

“Deny me,” Affonso warned, “and I will kill you and
the baby.”

Jesus Christ.

Emma sucked in a ragged breath, weighing her options
that weren’t really options at all.

She remembered what Calisto had told her months ago.

It was one thing that stuck out in her memories.

Affonso would rather have a dead son than
no son at all.

Affonso’s hand raised, and cracked into the wall
directly beside Emma’s head.

She still didn’t flinch.

“Say it!” he shouted at her.

“I’ll never tell him about the child,” she promised.

“Or about you,” Affonso pressed.

“Or me.”

Her heart ripped in two, but she said it.

And she meant it.

Anything to save her child—Calisto’s child.

“What if Calisto’s memories come back on their own?”
Emma dared to ask.

Affonso sneered. “If they haven’t starting trickling
back to him yet, I don’t think they will. Obviously, he wants to rid himself of
the past couple of years. Including his time with you, it seems.”

Emma let those words bounce off of her.

Affonso only meant to hurt her, after all.

“Still, if he does get some memories back, you are to
lie and deflect at all costs,” Affonso added. “If you fail to do that, I will
put you and the child in a grave together.”

“Yes, Affonso.”

When Affonso pushed away from her, and stalked from
the walk-in closet, Emma held onto her little bit of hope.

She wouldn’t let it go no matter what Affonso said.

Maybe she wouldn’t have to tell Calisto anything at
all. Maybe he would remember all on his own.

Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and
mother to three very young sons, one cat, and two dogs. A small town in Eastern
Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With
her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling
over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find
the time.

Find Bethany-Kris at:

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www.bethanykris.com
,

or on Facebook at
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,

on her blog at
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,

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Donati Bloodlines

Thin Lives

The Final Chapter …

Calisto Donati & Emma Sorrento

They’re not star-crossed.

They’re impossible.