“Oh, Scarlet.” She sniffles, her own voice thick with emotion.
“I don’t know what to do,” I cry harder, wishing I could go back. Wishing there was a way to get back to Trent and explain everything. He might not be willing to help me, but he might if he knew I was pregnant.
“Can you get to Trent?” she asks, reading my mind.
“I could if I sneak past Luis. Even if I get to him, though, my dad will see me coming. He has eyes all over Trent right now until things go down. If my father even suspects I’m about to betray him, he won’t hesitate to put a bullet in Trent.”
“This is so fucked-up,” Evita groans into the phone. I nod my head, even though she can’t see me, and more tears slide down my cheeks. I can’t save them both. Just like I couldn’t save Evita and him, I had to choose. This time I’m going to have to choose the baby over him. Despite the crippling fear, I want to find a way for the baby to survive. I just need to figure out a way.
“I need to let this thing with Trent happen,” I finally tell her, my voice eerily calm, while I piece the solution together. “I need to let it happen so my father still believes I’m under his thumb. Then he’ll give me what he promised, three years of college and Talúm.”
“Then what?” She asks.
“Hope that Trent lives. Somehow, I’ll deliver a story about how I ended up pregnant. My guess is my father will leave me alone until I give birth,” I tell her, running through all the possible scenarios available to my brain right now.
“My mom talked to your father and my flight was approved, I’ll meet you tomorrow,” she replies.
“Go to The Viper’s Den,” I tell her, “I need to put this plan into play as soon as I can.”
“I’ll see you then,” she responds and we hang up.
I lie back on the bed, one hand cradled protectively around my abdomen. I glance at the other test and decide I may as well double and triple check. Half an hour later, they all conclude the same thing. I’m going to be a mom. Tears leak out of my eyes and I cry until my body is too tired to do anything else but sleep.
I can’t believe I pulled it off. I really can’t believe Luis bought it and already confided in my father about my supposed sexual liaison after leaving the Viper’s Den last night. I admit the messy hair and fake hickey is probably what sold it the most, but still, it wasn’t that good. I did a half-ass job at best, trying not to cringe and puke my guts up in that motel room. Now that I know I’m pregnant, weird things like blood and gore make me squeamish. I set it up perfectly to start off the staged, downhill spiral I’m going to embark on, until it’s convincing enough that I could be pregnant with anyone’s child. I do not need my father questioning the parentage.
I slept in this morning, faking that I needed rest, when really, I wanted a few more minutes of privacy to check for any news regarding Trent. Last I saw, the same investigator who stopped me on the streets in Detroit, months ago, was walking into the police station. They were now speculating Trent’s involvement. I catch the investigator’s name this time and write it on a slip of paper, before hiding it in the liner of my purse. As soon as the baby and I are safe, I’ll make the call. It’s time to step out of my father’s shadow and get up from under his reign.
I know I’m not inherently evil. My conscience has been present more this past year than in the past three combined. I needed to find myself again in order to realize this is not who I want to be. Trent taught me the type of person I can be. With his unwavering strength and constant moral compass, he is the definition of a good guy. I wish I had trusted my gut more in the beginning, instead of listening to my father. If I had, though, I wouldn’t have had the extra time with Trent. I wouldn’t be carrying a life we created. Call me crazy, but I’m hoping someday he’s as excited about the baby as I am. I hope that he can forgive me.
We meet Evita at the air strip, and I notice her numerous bags. Lifting my brow, I chuckle lightly. “You weren’t kidding about being a stowaway.”
Her eyes land on mine and her lips quirk in a smile. “I figure you’re going to need me for a while.” I pause at her words, but she continues, “You’re going to need someone to party with in order to get you ready for the college life.”
She gives me a conspiratorial wink, before taking my hand in hers. I follow her to the plane, before stopping to take one last look at the Los Angeles area. Just a week ago, life was so different. My heart throbs in my chest and a pain I’ve never felt feels like it’s tearing my heart in two. With one last look at the skyline, I take the steps up to the plane and disappear inside the cabin. I vow to leave everything behind. Someday I will come back. Someday I will make this better. Right now, though, all I can do is save myself and protect the poppy seed growing inside me with my life.
Now…
Trent
I listen to Scarlet tell the rest of her story, and the last secret she’s been holding out on me about. I want to shake her. I want to strangle her. I also want to fuck her within an inch of her life. I’m so pissed right now, all I can concentrate on is the red haze, edging its way into my vision. My mind flips back in time, reliving those last few months before everything went to shit. There was a lot of back and forth, Scarlet wanting to leave then deciding to stay, her saying she loved me too and lots of make-up sex. I remember her saying a few times she didn’t feel good but always chalked it up to the constant push and pull we were going through. Never once did it cross my mind that she was pregnant.
Pieces of the puzzle fall into place and the whole story starts to make sense. I hate that it does. How many times has Jay told me to talk to her, to listen to everything? More than I want to admit. My stubbornness always came first and my thirst for revenge was next. Jay’s disapproval of my plan to send Scarlet to prison makes sense. For the first time in years, I even cringe at my own ruthlessness. How the fuck am I supposed to lock up my child’s mother?
I scrub my hands down my face and take another step back from her. My mind is assaulted with images from the last time we were in Vegas and the empty expression Scarlet wore on her face when she gunned down her old man. Sure, he deserved it, and at the time, it was him or me. I doubted her when it came to accepting his death. I didn’t believe she was instantly on our side. Now to know she’s been fighting against him for six years, it feels like my heart is stirring back to life. Everything I thought I knew is flipped upside down.
I have a daughter.
“Where is she?” I ask, finally able to raise my eyes to look at her.
“Talúm,” Scarlet replies, “with Evita.”
“In Mexico?”
“She’s safer there than here or in Tijuana where my father had been living. Very few know about her existence and I wanted to keep it that way. Until this is over, I asked that she be able to stay there. I have eyes on her and so does Jay,” Scarlet launches into detail.
I’ve already agreed with her, it just pisses me off more to know that Jay is more involved in my little girl’s life than I am. “What’s her name?”
Scarlet sucks in a breath. “Selene. It was a full moon the night she was born. I swore when I was giving birth, I kept smelling bonfire, and after it all, the next time I looked at the sky, it was a perfect swirl of pink and blue, just like the night we met. And even though it was dawn and I’d been in labor for hours, the moon was still out, and still bright.”