Chapter 3 - The Gilded Cage on the Hudson
The SUV was not the Maybach Serena Crane was sitting in. It was a blacked-out, fully armored Cadillac Escalade that smelled of brand-new leather and gun oil.
Nico didn't force me into the vehicle with violence; he didn't have to. Two of his men held the doors open while he kept a firm, gentle grip on my elbow, guiding me across the pavement as if I were made of spun glass. The street had been cleared—literally. Two dark sedans were parked sideways at the corners of Fifth Avenue, blocking yellow cabs and pedestrian traffic under the guise of an impromptu construction detail.
I sat in the middle row, tucked between the reinforced door and Nico.
He didn't speak during the forty-minute drive up toward the Hudson Valley. He sat beside me, his long legs stretched out, his hands resting on his knees. But his eyes were glued to me. Every time I shifted, every time I let out a soft sigh as a braxton-hicks contraction tightened my lower abdomen, his entire body went rigid with alert attention.
"Where are we going?" I finally asked as the city skyline faded into the dense, snow-dusted pines of upstate New York. "This isn't Red Hook."
"Red Hook is burned," Nico said quietly, staring out the tinted window. "The moment you vanished, I liquidated the townhouse. Too many entry points. Too hard to secure."
"You burned my home?"
"It wasn't a home," he replied, turning his head to look at me. "It was a location where I let my guard down, and it allowed you to slip away. We live at the estate in Bedford now. High walls. Motion sensors. A security detail that doesn't sleep."
"A prison," I whispered.
Nico reached across the gap between our seats. His fingers hovered over my knee for a moment before he let them rest lightly on the wool of my coat. "A fortress, Elena. For you. And for her."
When the vehicle pulled through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Bedford estate, my stomach plummeted. The property was sprawling—a massive stone manor surrounded by hundreds of acres of private forest. High concrete walls topped with unobtrusive camera rigs encircled the perimeter. Men in tactical vests walked discreetly along the treeline with Belgian Malinois on short leads.
It was immaculate. It was beautiful. And it was inescapable.
The front doors of the manor were opened by Mrs. Gable, the elderly housekeeper who had served the Vitale family since Nico was a boy. When she saw me walking through the entrance, supported by Nico’s hand on my waist, her eyes widened, and her hands flew to her mouth.
"Oh, sweet Lord above..." Mrs. Gable gasped, her eyes dropping to my swollen stomach. "Mrs. Vitale... you're... you're alive."
"She’s home, Mrs. Gable," Nico said, slipping off his coat and handing it to a guard. He didn't offer to take my coat; instead, he gently unbuttoned it himself, pulling the heavy fabric off my shoulders with agonizing slowness, as if revealing a secret he had spent months starving to see.
Underneath the coat, I was wearing a simple, faded grey sweater that hugged my eight-month belly. In the bright light of the grand foyer, under the massive crystal chandelier, there was no hiding it. I was huge. I was undeniably, unmistakably pregnant with his child.
Nico’s breath hitched. He stood there for a long moment, his eyes lingering on the sharp curve of my waist, the heavy swell of my abdomen.
"Prepare the master suite," Nico instructed Mrs. Gable, his voice tight. "Bring up soup, hot tea, and call Dr. Mercer. Tell him I want a full prenatal checkup performed within the hour."
"Nico, no!" I stepped back, my hand flying to my chest. "I have my own doctor! Dr. Aris at the community clinic on 14th Street—"
"A community clinic?" Nico’s head snapped toward me, his eyes darkening with sudden, terrifying fury. "You were taking my child to a public clinic? Where anyone could have pulled your file? Where any half-wit with a hundred bucks could have bought your real name?"
"I was using a fake name!" I shouted back, refusing to back down. "I was safe! Nobody knew who I was until you dragged me out of that store!"
"You weren't safe, Elena!" Nico stepped closer, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble that echoed off the marble floor. "You were lucky! Do you know what Dante Moretti’s men did last month? They threw two grenades into a restaurant in Queens just because they heard a rumor one of my capos was having lunch there! If you had been caught in that—if my daughter had been caught in that—"
He cut himself off, breathing heavily, his fists clenched tight at his sides.
"I am bringing Mercer here," Nico said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "He delivered my brother's children. He is bound by blood to this family. You will be examined here. You will rest here. And you will not set foot outside these gates until that baby is born and safe."
"And after she's born?" I challenged, taking a step toward him, tears of anger stinging my eyes. "What happens then, Nico? Do you lock me in the nursery? Do you make me sign over custody and send me away with a check?"
Nico looked at me as if I had struck him across the face with an iron bar.
He took two swift steps, closing the distance between us, grabbing my wrists gently but firmly, pulling my hands up between our chests.
"Sign over custody?" he whispered, his face inches from mine, his warm breath fanning across my lips. "Send you away? Elena, I spent eight months losing my mind. I searched every hospital, every morgue, every dark alley in three states looking for a trace of your shadow. You think I’m going to let you walk away now that you’re holding my entire soul in your womb?"
May you like
He leaned down, pressing his forehead against mine, his hands trembling against my wrists.
"You are my wife," he breathed against my skin. "You will die an old woman in this house, beside me. Never ask me to let you go again."
