Page 9 of Diary from an Inked Throne

But Luca was dead now. Dax gone.

Nobody was coming to save me this time.

I rolled onto my side, clutching my belly, squeezing my eyes tight and praying when I opened them, I’d be anywhere but here.

Viktor and Bruno left, the door slamming shut behind them.

Leaving me alone in the darkness.

“Hello,” a feminine voice said.

I jumped a mile, but out of the shadows of the cage next to mine, a woman stepped forward. Her dress was torn and tattered. Dirty. As was her skin. Her blond hair matted, and her cheeks sunken.

But something about her was familiar.

Shock punched me in the face. I couldn’t remember her name, but I was sure I’d seen her at the party Carlos had thrown here, at his mansion. I remembered because the last time I’d seen her, Carlos had ‘gifted’ her to Dax and he’d taken her upstairs to fuck. I’d followed them up there, blind with jealousy, only to find he wasn’t with her at all.

I knew she hadn’t been down here the entire time, but at some point, after I’d been freed from these cages, she’d been imprisoned in them.

Was there no end to the cruelty inside these men?

She bit her lip and squatted so we were closer to eye height. “Oh wow,” she murmured, her gaze wandering over the swell of my belly. “You’re so pregnant. I heard on the grapevine…”

I nodded and tried to breathe through the pains that just seemed to keep coming and coming.

The woman’s eyes widened. “Wait. Are you having the baby right now?”

I nodded frantically; sure my eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

She shook her head. “Noooo, oh no, no, no. Not here.” Her gaze lifted to stare at the door Viktor and Bruno had locked when they’d left. “Carlos! Enzo! This woman is about to have a baby!”

I groaned. “Carlos is dead. Enzo doesn’t believe me.” I stared up at her. “Please help me.”

She paused for a second, fear in her eyes, but then gave a quick nod. “Of course. But I don’t know anything about babies.”

“You and me both.”

She grimaced. “I’m Sindy, by the way.”

I remembered now I’d been reminded. “I saw you at Carlos’s party. He gave you…”

I trailed off because I wasn’t sure now if any of that had been consensual. Sindy hadn’t seemed like she was under duress when she’d been heading up the stairs with Dax, but had that only been because she was scared of Carlos and Enzo?

I doubted she wanted to be reminded.

Sindy reached through the bars that separated our cages and tried to help me get closer to her. “Gave me to a man? Story of my life, sweetie. Hopefully he was nicer than Carlos’s brother.” She shuddered at the mention of Enzo. “He summoned me over here a few days ago. I haven’t been allowed to leave since.”

Her face and the state of her clothes and body told me there was a lot more to the story than just that, but I didn’t want to push her.

But it was a stark reminder that she and I were no different. I might have been wearing a wedding dress, I might have been Enzo’s wife, but he cared as little for me as he did for her.

I knew what the Guerras did for money. Selling drugs. Weapons.

Women.

Sindy and I were both in the lion’s den, just waiting to be eaten alive.

But my body didn’t seem to care. There was no stopping the contractions that came thick and fast. Without Enzo, Viktor, and Bruno in the room, my body relaxed just a little, but that only seemed to make the contractions worse.