“Où dois-je dire? Ah, where . . . ?” Rafe began, holding up the rocking horse.
“Oh! Um, how about in the nursery? Um . . .” I replied, realizing he didn’t know what I was saying. I beckoned for him to follow me, heading down to the main foyer so that we could go up to the second level.
Rafe placed the rocking horse gently down beside the crib, standing back to take a good look at it. “Parfait,” he grinned at me, giving me the okay symbol with his fingers.
“Parfait,” I agreed.
The rest of the day was less eventful. I was just glad that it was over, even if I couldn’t sleep… It wasn’t the nightmares anymore, it was this belly of mine.
I groaned when I rolled over to my side in bed, still not able to get comfortable. If there was one thing I would be thankful for after this was all said and done, it would be to lay down however way I wanted to. Usually I was a stomach-sleeper, so pregnancy had taken that away from me the last couple of months. As I shifted the baby shifted too, giving me a nice jab in the bladder just for good measure.
“You are a naughty boy to your mama,” I mused, shaking my head at him. He wasn’t even born yet and here he was already giving me grief.
My stomach growled in response. “Yeah . . . I guess you’re pretty hungry too, aren’t you baby boy? Let’s go see what we can get into.”
I heaved myself off the edge of the bed, pulling myself by holding on to the giant bedpost. Everything was harder now, even getting out of bed!
As I looked down the hallway I groaned to myself. Maybe I should invest in an electric wheelchair or something. Surely anything would be better than all these hallways and stairs.
When I did finally make it back to the kitchen, I was almost completely out of breath.
Gervaise shook his head at me slowly, as if I were small child. “Use phone,” he chided me.
He did have a good point though. You would think after months of living here I would remember that there was convenient room service for me, courtesy of the chef himself. But I hated being such a bother to him as it was, and let’s face it, pregnancy brain does not make for good remembering. Or much else, for that matter.
I winced as I took a seat at the table, giving him an apologetic smile in return. “Would it be too much to ask if you could make me some of that yummy mashed potato and beef pie stuff? What’s it called again?”
He snorted to himself. “Hachis parmentier. Like English shepherd’s pie.”
I clapped my hands and pointed to him “That would be the one.”
It took no time at all to begin preparing my delicious lunch, and all I could do was sit there and try to hold back the drool as he began cooking the beef in the pan.
I went back to the book I had been carrying around with me everywhere—What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I had just made it to the third trimester portion of the book when I heard voices carrying down the hallway. I looked up at Gervaise before I closed my book and set it back down on the table.
We both stared at each other for a moment, clearly trying to understand who was yelling up and down the hall. My eyes widened as I heard heavy footsteps running down the hall towards us in the kitchen. I froze, paralyzed.
Alain burst through the kitchen door, his face drained of all the color. But more importantly was the vivid red that was blooming through the center of his crisp white shirt. It was slashed across his chest in an ugly way.
I jumped up immediately and ran over to him while Gervaise grabbed two huge kitchen knives from his collection. He tried to pull me away from Alain.
Alain waved away my help, trying to say something in between his gasps for breath.
“You have to go. Two men are here for you. Je ne sais pas . . . où. . . Rafe est mort,” he wheezed, blinking at Gervaise who was right at his side.
Rafe est mort. My blood ran cold right there in my veins. Rafe is dead.
“Suivez Alain—follow him. Go now, ma chere,”
“I can’t just leave you here!” I whispered hysterically. I tried to crouch down to put pressure over his wound but both he and Gervaise smacked my hands away. What the hell was wrong with them?
Alain shook his head at me. “No, no. You go—now! Take care of the baby. I wish I could have seen him. He will be beautiful part of the family,” Alan whispered back, eyeing my round belly. I glanced down, watching as the baby’s foot grazed across the underside of my belly. He could tell something was wrong, I just knew it.
Gervaise grabbed my upper arm, hard. “They coming. We go now!”
I let out a sob as Alain slumped against the wall away from us, slowly sliding down it until his body hit the floor with a loud thump. He looked up at me one last time before his eyes went out of focus, the hand that he was trying to push up with falling limp at his side.
I shook my head. There was no way this was really happening. All the times that I had imagined things going south like this, it never involved the rest of the people around me. It was always the Mafia coming for me, just me. But now that they were here… I saw what the real problem was.