“The baby’s yours, Johnny,” Phoebe finally settled for. Not that she wanted to tell him the truth about the baby but she had to do something.
“What? Why are you lying about that? I know it’s not mine, it can’t be.”
She could hear the confusion in his voice and see it on his face as he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. His hands were on the wheel but he frowned hard and turned slightly to look at her again. Shit, that wasn’t what she’d wanted.
“Please watch the road. I don’t want you to kill our baby,” Phoebe said, trying to play it up and get his attention back on the road.
“Stop lying,” Johnny growled, his eyes snapping back to the road.
Phoebe could only hope that some cop would be working one of these roads he was driving down and would pull them over. If that happened she might actually get away from him, but she couldn’t count on her luck. She’d never had any and that was why she needed to come up with a solid plan. She was sure he’d drive for a while before they stopped. He would want to get her back to South Dakota where he thought he had complete control over her.
“I’m not lying. I was only working for the bikers, but he wouldn’t let me leave when I realized I’d made a mistake leaving you,” Phoebe explained, every word feeling like poison in her mouth but she had to get him to believe that she’d seen the light and was really glad he’d found her again. If he thought that way, she might actually escape him when his guard was down. They would have to stop eventually, and she needed to come up with a plan to get away from him. With the lessons she’d learned from Sin on how to defend herself, she should be able to get away from him and call Peanut.
“See, I told you he was using you. You shouldn’t have run away with him,” Johnny roared angrily. His hands pounded on the steering wheel and Phoebe worried he’d break it.
“Yes, you were right,” she agreed, trying to calm him down. When he was in this mood, telling him he was right had always helped to placate him. It didn’t always work but it was currently her best bet to get him to calm down.
“I know I’m right. I don’t need you to tell me. We will have that kid aborted. I know it’s not mine. We can just get rid of it and then you and I can go back to the way things were before you were stupid and ran off with that fucking biker.” Johnny had lost his tiny little mind. She was about twenty-five weeks pregnant; no doctor was going to abort this baby at this stage. Hell, maybe they would but she wasn’t about to allow that to happen. She’d find a way to kill the son of a bitch before that happened. No way in hell was he hurting her baby. Gritting her teeth as she silently apologized to her unborn son, she told him what he wanted to hear.
“The baby is yours but if you think we should get rid of it I trust your judgement. I know you always know best, Johnny,” Phoebe managed to choke out, almost gagging on the horrid words. She hated that she needed to play his game in order to lull him into a false sense of security. Only she knew from experience with Johnny that one of his many flaws was his belief that she knew he was always right.
“Yes, yes, it’s my call. We get rid of that brat then you will have to earn my trust again. I don’t care if you say you’ve learned your lesson. You need to be kept in a safe place. I will have to lock you up. We lost our apartment because of you. I had to find you, so I missed a lot of work. Now when we get back, I will find a new job and you will stay at home like always, only I will be locking you in. It’s for your own good,” Johnny said, nodding like he’d just gifted her with the best news in the world.
Damn, he’d really gone nutso since she’d left him. He’d likely lost his job because he’d already missed a dozen or more days before he’d “had to find her” as he claimed. More than once his work had called the house looking for him. She’d always covered for him, telling them that he had a cold or the flu. His job had likely thought he was very sickly but as long as he’d had PTO time, they had let him get away with it. He must have run out and they’d fired his ass. Not that she was surprised, she was pretty sure Mr. Peterson had been trying to get rid of Johnny for more than two years now. Somehow Johnny had managed to bring in just enough clients to keep
