Page 82 of Claimed By the Ruthless King

“I’m not the one who is keeping things.”

Salvatore frowns. “You think your aunt is hiding something?”

“David said she would fall.”

Multiple muscles flex in Salvatore’s jaw.

“Aunt Viv said she lied to protect me but—” I choke on my own words, nausea washing over me suddenly.

“But what, sweetheart?”

I stumble into the table, the nauseous feeling becoming harder to control.

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” I say, rushing to the bathroom. “I ate something funny for lunch I think.”

Lie. I haven’t eaten anything, but I wish this was about food poisoning.

I lock myself away into the bathroom, the vomit shooting out of me before I can reach the toilet.

I clutch the sides, keeled over as I empty my stomach. Where the fuck has this come from?

Asking questions only makes the sickness worse.

I cough and splutter until my stomach is completely empty. Dragging myself up, I flush the toilet, close the lid and sit down, the bathroom walls spinning.

According to the tracker on my phone, my period is due in three days, but it looks like I might have to buy a pregnancy test instead of tampons this month.

Fuck.

A knock at the door jolts me from my thoughts. “Phee?”

That really is a stab to the chest. I don’t know what me and Salvatore are, but there’s a chance we could be parents. And I’m not ready for that conversation, or even to be in the same room as a pregnancy test.

After my mother died, all I wanted was to focus on my career and make something of myself.

But now there’s a chance the past is repeating as I step into a world of organized crime like my mother once did. And she left with a broken heart and a baby in her belly.

24

SALVATORE

I forget how stressful my lifestyle can be, and now it’s rubbing off on Ophelia.

I stand on the other side of the locked door, running a hand through my hair.

David has an interesting taste in fashion, but why shop in the middle of the day when we both have work to do?

If I find out he’s been stalking my Ophelia, he can eat my fucking fist. I don’t care who he is. If he wants to live to see another day, he will leave Ophelia out of this mess.

“I’ll be upstairs,” I say to Ophelia, getting David on the phone as soon as I make it up to the master bedroom.

“Ophelia knows how to use her mouth, doesn’t she?” he chuckles on the receiving end.

“You were following her. Stop it.”

“You can thank me later.”