one
BILLIE
EIGHT YEARS AGO…
My little girl kicked me from the inside, and my breath hitched, making me pause on my way up the front steps of my parents’ house. It was such a weird sensation, having another human growing inside me actually moving and making her presence known. Her. My daughter.
I’d just come home from my eighteen-week scan, where they’d confirmed I was having a girl. I’d burst out crying, and the poor sonographer had to pat me on the shoulder and offer tissues until I calmed down. That was my fault for refusing Angel’s offer to come with me. But he had enough trouble already, without adding my scan appointments.
She’d started kicking a week ago, and at first I’d thought it was just muscle spasms. Or gas. But the lovely sonographer today confirmed that it was indeed my baby girl stretching her legs.
Eighteen weeks. That meant it’d been a whole twelve weeks since I’d lost Jace. Since I’d lied to him and said I was in love with Angel. Actually, that wasn’t even the lie, I did love Angel… but I’d told Jace that I didn’t love him anymore. That Angel and I wanted to be together without Jace. That we’d been sneaking around behind Jace’s back and didn’t want to keep lying to him about our love.
I had nearly choked on my lies so many times, but I’d clung tight to the knowledge that he’d thank me one day. Maybe ten years from now, when he was an international superstar with platinum records on his wall and a stack of Grammys, he’d look back on our breakup and realize that I’d done it for him.
“Calm down, baby girl,” I whispered to my belly. “I know, I’m hungry too.”
I hunted through my oversize tote bag for my house keys, then unlocked the door before registering that my mom’s car was in the driveway. She was usually at work for a few more hours at least, so it was odd. Not that odd, though; maybe she’d just gotten the afternoon off.
For some reason, I didn’t call out as I stepped through the front door. Raised voices echoed through the house as I closed the door quietly behind me and placed my bag on the floor.
Frowning, I moved further down the hallway toward my parent’s bedroom. That seemed to be where the shouting was coming from, and my curiosity demanded I listen in—mainly because my own heavy guilt made me assume they were arguing about me and the baby… and Angelo.
We’d announced last week that we were going to get married after the baby was born, and neither of our families had taken it well—his worse than mine, but mine were far from encouraging of the idea.
“…you insane? If…” my dad was saying, his tone agitated and angry, “…going to kill us all. Not just you, Tina, all of us!”
Whoa. What?
I stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, my hand pressed to my belly like I could somehow protect her from the words my father was saying. Kill us? Who? Why? Surely, he was just being dramatic and not literal with that statement.
“…being dramatic, Christian…” My mother echoed my thought, her voice quieter and some words too muffled for me to make out. “…never find out. I know what I’m doing, besides the fact… only… for you! You and Billie, and that cursed baby. Otherwise…”
Dammit, the missed words were driving me insane. I needed to hear more. If they were talking about me and my little girl, I needed to know what was going on. On silent feet, barely daring to breathe, I crept closer to my parent’s bedroom, where the door stood open a few inches.
“This is insane,” my dad exclaimed with a slightly hysterical laugh. “Tina, these aren’t just white-collar criminals. This is the goddamn mafia. If they find out what you’ve been doing—”
“They won’t,” my mom insisted, sounding frustrated. “You are the only person who knows, so unless you’ve told someone…” She trailed off, leaving the implication hanging in the air between them.
A tense silence fell then, broken abruptly when my dad jerked the bedroom door open and found me standing there. Listening.
His eyes went wide and round, his breath sucking in sharply. “Billie. How much of that did you hear?”
I shook my head slowly, my brow furrowed with confusion. “Not enough… Are you guys going to tell me what’s going on?”
Dad glanced over his shoulder at Mom, who was staring at me with an ashen complexion, her fingers pressed to her mouth.
“No, honey,” Dad said quickly, flashing me a fake smile, “Mom and I were just discussing her work. It’s nothing to worry about, okay? Come on, you look hungry; I’ll whip us up some banana pancakes for dinner.”
“Christian, that’s not a healthy dinner,” Mom called after us, but Dad already had his arm wrapped around my shoulders, guiding me toward the kitchen. He knew I loved breakfast for dinner more than any other incredible meal he could have made.
I glanced up at his brittle smile as we started pulling out ingredients for pancakes, and cautiously poked him for information. “That sounded like a serious disagreement with Mom,” I commented, keeping it vague. “Anything I need to be worried about?”
A stricken look passed over his older but still handsome face, then he shook his head. “Nothing at all. Just a stressful time of year for Mom’s work. Tell me about your scan today! Did you find out the sex?”
Excitement bubbled through me, and I brushed my worries aside. Instead, I focused on telling my dad the good news about my baby girl. My healthy, happy, baby girl, who would be entering the world in just four and a half months.
All worrying thoughts evaporated from my mind as Dad pulled out his paint swatches after we finished the pancakes. He’d been working on decorating a nursery upstairs, and now that we knew I was having a girl, he wanted to revisit our color scheme.
As with every day lately, my energy bottomed out way earlier than I’d normally go to bed. Yawning, I hugged my dad goodnight, then went to tell Mom the same. She was in the study, where she and Dad both had computers set up.
“Good night, Mom,” I said from the doorway. “I love you.”
She glanced up from her computer and smiled gently. “I love you too, Billie Baggins. Sweet dreams.”
Upstairs in my bedroom, the same one I’d had since I was born, I fell asleep easily—the pregnancy exhaustion was insane—but sadly, I didn’t stay asleep. Sometime before midnight I woke up desperate to pee and groaned as I dragged myself out from under the blankets.
Something itched my nose, and I sneezed on my way to the bathroom. I tried to stay as asleep as possible, hoping not to fully wake up, so I left the lights off and my eyes mostly closed. I sneezed again while peeing and wrinkled my nose. I’d been so fucking sensitive to smells lately, and right now I could smell someone’s chimney smoke almost as though it was right here in the house.
A scream rang out from downstairs, and I nearly fell down the toilet as I jumped in fright.
What the fuck?
Something shattered, and another scream reached my ears. Mom.
“Mom?” I called out like an idiot. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that was a bad, bad idea, yet in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see if she was okay, so I hurried for the stairs to check on her. Maybe she’d fallen?