They ask me some questions and I’m shocked to learn Weston has been holding me captive for close to nine months. In less than two months I’ll be turning twenty-one. It felt like I was in the basement for so much longer and to think Weston would have been holding me there for another year, until I turn twenty-two, send shivers straight down my spine.
“Giovanni, can you give us some privacy, so I can check out Aria, please?” Dr. Fox asks. He doesn’t appear to be thrilled about leaving me alone, but he gets up and walks out and into what looks like an extension of his room. Maybe a sitting room? I’m not sure. She hands me a mug and I take a large sip. It’s cold water and it feels soothing going down my throat.
“Can you tell me what hurts?” she queries.
I put the now empty mug back on the nightstand. “My face. I think my ribs are broken, my stomach is aching, and I’m bleeding heavily from my vagina.”
She gives me another soft smile and I appreciate the fact that she doesn’t look at me with pity.
“Giovanni, come here, please,” she requests.
He walks back into the room. “Everything okay?”
“I’m going to need some equipment. Can you have one of your men bring me the equipment from my trunk, please?”
After Giovanni leaves, Dr. Fox helps me remove Giovanni’s jacket and hands me the clothes that are next to the bed. “Go ahead and slip this shirt on for now. I want to check you out before you put on your shorts, though.”
“Okay, thank you.”
She gently helps me slip the shirt on over my head.
Giovanni knocks once before walking in, and following him inside the room are the three men who work for him, carrying several pieces of medical equipment. “Aria, in case you don’t remember. This is Rome…” He points to a good-looking, dark-haired man who is slightly less built than Giovanni and a few years younger but just as handsome. “…and Johnny.”
The man I recognize as Giovanni’s driver tilts his head up. He’s carrying a piece of what looks like heavy equipment. His biceps are bulging out with veins running downward. His hair is a light brown and longer than the other men. It’s slicked back but not greasy. His eyes are a beautiful shade of icy blue and he’s sporting a neatly trimmed beard. I must be appraising Johnny too long because Giovanni makes a noise in the back of his throat, which causes the guy he hasn’t formally introduced me to yet, to laugh.
“This is Caesar,” Giovanni finishes, his words coming out harsher than before.
“If you need anything, please let me know,” Caesar says as he sets down the medical bag he’s holding and steps over to me, taking my hand in his and giving the top of my knuckles a soft kiss. I flinch from his touch, but I don’t pull back.
While Giovanni, Johnny, and Rome all look like men straight out of the Godfather, Caesar gives off a more playful approach. His hair is jet black and curly, and his face is clean shaven making him appear younger than the others. They all have faint accents, which if I had to guess are Italian, but they all speak English perfectly.
Caesar’s kiss lingers for a few seconds before Giovanni growls out, “Okay, set the equipment down and get back to work.”
The three men all chuckle but do as he says. It’s obvious that while they work for Giovanni, they are all friends on some level.
“While you are here, if you need anything. you come to me first. But if I’m not available, you can go to any of those three men. You can trust them, got it?” While I’m here? Does that mean he’s going to let me go?
I give Giovanni a small smile and thank the guys. Even though I’m almost ninety-nine percent sure he’s going to force me to stay here, I appreciate him trying to make me feel comfortable and safe, especially after having gone so long without feeling either one. Wow! You know your life has reached new levels of craziness when you’re thankful your new kidnapper is nicer than your previous kidnapper.
The three men leave, shutting the door behind them, and Giovanni goes back to the sitting room.
“I’m going to do an ultrasound first to see if we can find out why you’re bleeding.” Dr. Fox lifts my shirt and squirts blue gel on the lower part of my stomach. I flinch from the pain I feel when she presses down. “I’m sorry, sweetie, because of the bleeding, I don’t want to go in vaginally unless I have to.”
She switches on a monitor, and a black and white screen comes into view. “This is your uterus.” She points to the screen. She moves the transducer across my stomach continuing to spread the gel, not saying anything more. The silence is killing me, but I’m trying to let her do her job without asking a million questions.
“What’s wrong?” I finally ask.
She turns her face to me, and for the first time since I met her a short time ago, she gives me a look of pity—or maybe sympathy. “You’re pregnant. Well, you were. There’s no heartbeat. The bleeding you are experiencing is your body naturally miscarrying. I’m so sorry.”
The thought of my body carrying a baby from one of the men who have raped me hits me hard. I lurch forward and, grabbing the first thing I can find—the mug I drank my water from—I vomit.
Giovanni rushes to me, holding the trashcan out for me just in time as I hurl again and again until there’s nothing left inside my stomach. My abdomen screams in pain, but it’s the least of my concerns right now.
“What happened?” His voice stays calm, but I can hear the worry in his tone.
I finally stop heaving and answer him, knowing Dr. Fox won’t. “I was pregnant and I’m losing the baby.” Baby. The thought of a helpless little baby in my uterus brings tears of devastation to my eyes. The baby might have been half one of them, but the other half was me. It was my job to protect it and I didn’t. I should have known there was a baby in me. I should have protected my stomach better.
“Do we need to get her to a hospital?” Giovanni sounds worried.
“No,” Dr. fox says, answering Giovanni’s question, then directs her words towards me. “Aria, your body is currently doing what it’s made to do. I’m going to prescribe you something for the pain and a prescription to prevent infection. I’m also going to prescribe you a small dose of Xanax. But I’m going to have Giovanni give them to you. I don’t want you taking too much. Those drugs are highly addictive and we need to slowly ween you off them. Don’t worry, I’ll help you. I’ll come back in a few days to check on you.” Dr. Fox put her hands softly on my cheek. “I’m sorry for your loss, sweetie.” And then as if she can hear the thoughts running through my head, she adds, “This was not your fault.”
“I should have protected it.” A single drop of grief wells up in the corner of my eye. I’m so sick of crying but the blows keep coming one after the next. When will it stop?
“You were just under twelve weeks along. Your body knows how to protect itself. I know you are thinking this miscarriage was caused from you getting beat up, but you can’t know that. Miscarriages happen every day. It’s the body’s way of saying something isn’t right. There’s nothing you could’ve done differently.”
I know deep down miscarrying is for the best, especially given the circumstance, but it still hurts to know there was something precious inside of me. Even if created from rape, it was still a baby with a beating heart. I’m not sure if I would have been able to make the decision to abort the baby or if I was still with Weston, if he would have given me the choice one way or another, so maybe it was fate’s way of handling the situation for me.