My father sold me to the Mafia King novel Chapter 285

Chapter 285: 285/Seven Months in the Shadows

Chapter 285:

After seven months

Julie’s POV

Seven whole months had passed. Seven long, heavy, and grueling months, where the days crawled with a deadly slowness, as if they were years. Throughout that entire period, I tried desperately, with all the strength and determination I could muster, to cling to the only thing that gave me a reason to keep going in this life and cast a glimmer of light upon my darkness: my son, who was growing and moving inside my womb.

I found myself, instinctively, placing my warm palm over that prominent curve of my belly all the time, feeling his light kicks and rapid pulse, as if shielding myself with him from the cruelty of the past. This fetus had become my fortified fortress, my solid wall with which I faced the outside world and all my fears.

My days all blurred together, passing dull and colorless within the walls of this cramped apartment, which had turned into my voluntary prison and safe haven. I completely refused to leave it, never crossing its threshold unless out of absolute, unavoidable necessity.

And when that promised day of each month arrived the appointment to go to the hospital for the routine checkup and to ensure the little one’s safety my body would stiffen automatically, and a shiver of uncontrollable fear would sweep through me. I would rush with tense steps toward the closet, pulling out with trembling hands that long, loose black robe our neighbor Salma had given me.

I would wrap myself in the concealing fabric with extreme care, then slowly pull the black veil over my face with shaking fingers, until my face vanished completely and nothing of my features showed except my worried, glassy eyes.

I would clutch the edges of the fabric tightly around me as I crossed the threshold of the apartment toward the alley, turning left and right with eyes wide from panic, while my heart hammered against my ribs like crazy and war drums beat in my head. I wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief or regain my trapped breath until I had walked a distance and made absolutely sure that no one on the street was watching me, looking my way, or could recognize my true identity. I was ready to do anything to keep Robert’s shadow away from me and my child, and to ensure his brutality would never reach me again.

During all these months, Steve went out every day to work at Mr. Carlos’s warehouse to secure our living and provide for my medical expenses. Looking back at the sequence of events, I realized that the smartest, most decisive, and critical thing I did amidst all the chaos and destruction that ruined my life was that I held my breath completely. I never opened my mouth to say a single word to any living soul regarding Steve’s identity or his current whereabouts.

Even Max, who represented my sole, lonely link to the outside world and everything happening beyond these walls, didn’t visit me even once; he only spoke with me over the phone from time to time. I would grip the receiver of the landline with tensed fingers that almost broke the plastic from the sheer force of the squeeze, while his low, agitated voice came from the other end, bringing news that made my limbs tremble. He would tell me that Robert had completely lost his mind, searching for me like a madman everywhere, sending his men in every direction, and utilizing all his influence to track my scent day after day without weariness or boredom.

Max tried hard in every call to convince me to return, using an imploring tone full of pleas, claiming that Robert had completely collapsed and had become a lifeless corpse since the night I ran away and vanished from his sight.

But the moment I heard those words, I would shake my head in a sharp, violent refusal, my body completely goosebumps with disgust and terror. Stepping back, tears frozen in my eyes, I whispered bitterly to myself: "No... impossible... that is far from the truth."

I had heard his filthy plan with my own two ears, and I had seen his true, hideous face behind that fake mask. If there was one person on this earth who mastered the art of acting, hideous deception, and manipulating the emotions of others with absolute cunning... it was Robert, without a doubt.

For that reason, I was forced to press my chapped lips together with bitterness and indignation, and I told Max in a firm, dry voice that didn’t lack pleading: "Please, Max... don’t let him deceive you too with his perfected acting... he is a ravenous beast who knows no mercy."

Max hadn’t dared, throughout the past seven months, to come to me or attempt to visit me anywhere I stayed since that cursed, dark night I escaped from the club. We shared the same fear and panic, calculating a thousand possibilities for every dangerous step we took.

We never ruled out, even for a single moment, that Robert, with his sharp intelligence lurking in the dark, might have set eyes and spies among his men in the shadows to watch Max’s every move, step by step. We knew very well that he might exploit any slip or lapse from Max to reach me and breach my fortified fortress through him, dragging me back to his hell, which I had survived by a miracle.

The final remaining weeks of the pregnancy passed fast and fleeting, much faster than I had hoped or imagined. Forcing myself up, I rose from the sofa with slow, heavy steps and walked toward the large mirror hanging in the corner of the room. I braced my palm firmly against my lower back, which had begun attacking me with sharp, harsh pains due to the weight, and my eyes froze, watching that stunning transformation in my body. I stared long and deeply at my large, protruding belly, which had become round as a ball before me.

Inside this warm curve lay my baby that tiny, whispering entity whose booming exit into the battle of life was drawing near. I ran my fingers with extreme tenderness, feeling the texture of my skin stretched to its limit over it. In that precise moment, a sweeping wave and a strange mixture of overwhelming awe and maternal tenderness washed over every corner of my sorrowful soul.

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