Heartless Soul Book 2 of the Heartless Series

Chapter 15 - Stage Fright

Carmela's POV

The next week pretty much went by in a continuous cycle. The boys would instead of fighting amongst themselves for a change, were planning and strategizing in the office. Me and the girls had started training in the gym together and Valentina was in the kitchen, where she spend 80 percent of her time, fussing over us like we were children and making sure we ate and drank properly, I just put it down to the fact that she would always have to do this for the guys because there lazy.

Training the girls was going well, the gym in this place was unreal. It had all the latest equipment and Romeo had installed an array of different skill based equipment for us, so we could start to focus their training. Amy had gotten to grips with shooting a gun and was getting pretty good at it, 3 out of 5 times hitting the centre of the target. While Mel mainly focused on fighting, we went head to head a few times, but in the end, I'd always pin her, or she would have to submit and tap out. I think she focused herself in this type of training so much, so she would never again feel helpless in any situation and I didn't want to take that from her, but I also wanted her to have a more well-rounded knowledge of being an assassin. It's a work in progress. Every day we switch skills and I add different ones all the time or just make the ones there were practising more difficult, by introducing obstacles or impairing their senses. Throughout the week I kept feeling nauseous and vomiting occasionally, I think I was coming down with something, but it really needed to go away now because it was irritating me.

I left the girls doing target practice with knives and went in search of some warm water to help settle my stomach. "Hey Valentina. How are you?" I asked as I reached for a cup. "Here let me do that." She took the cup from me and started pouring warm kettle water into it before I could protest and gave it back to me. "Thanks." I smiled and took a mouthful needing it's relief. "Is it helping with your sickness?" she asked catching me off guard with her question, I hadn't told anyone about it. "Erm, sometimes it does. How did you know that's why I wanted warm water." She smirked knowingly at me and continued to clean the already clean surface.

"What? Tell me." I pushed, confused as to why she wouldn't answer me. She turned around to me, looked over me and pushed her full ruby lips into a tight line while raising her eyebrows. "I don't think you want to know the answer Rose." Could she be anymore cryptic with her reply, of course I do. "What do you mean?" again she chuckled. "Carmela, when was your last period?" I was dumbfounded. As realisation dawned over me, I guess I didn't know, I'd completely lost track. With everything that was going on and the stress, me not eating properly and the wedding, it just wasn't something I thought about. With my eyes still wide staring into nothing trying to remember, even trying to remember todays date, she handed me a small box. "No time like the present."

I looked at the box and shook my head, I can't be. "No, it's just a bug or something, it will go away soon." I tried to reason, but she just looked at me blankly as if I wasn't making any sense. "Then prove me wrong." She challenged. My stubbornness took over and I scowled at her, staring deep into her beautiful light brown eyes. "Fine." I said and stormed off up the stairs to my room to take the dam test. There were a perfectly good bathroom downstairs but something about the whole situation made me desperate for more privacy than that, this was a huge deal after all, life changing.

I closed the door as I entered the bathroom and locked it shut, I didn't want anyone else being involved in this, especially Romeo. Reading the instructions sounded simple enough to carry out, I placed the test stick on the side and looked at myself in the mirror. Quickly deciding my hair was a total mess, I picked up the brush and started ragging it through my hair to try smooth out the tangled mass. When I was finished with that, I picked up my toothbrush and started brushing my teeth, then decided to take a shower. I'd been training all morning with the girls and I was sweaty, definitely the right decision to take a shower.

The hot water cascaded down over my body but did nothing to sooth my nerves and all I could seem to focus on and stare at was that dam pee stick on the vanity. Getting annoyed I turned off the water without washing my hair or my body and wrapped a big fluffy towel around myself to dry off and again looked at my reflection. "Get a fucking grip." I scolded myself and picked up the test stick and went to sit on the toilet, my knee bounced nervously as I sat there, and I just couldn't seem to go.

"Carmela are you in here?" Amy shouted from inside the bedroom. I sighed, but was really grateful for the distraction. "I'll be out in just a minute." I shouted back, giving this up as an impossibly bad job. I pushed all the contents into a small draw by the side of the toilet as I knew Romeo would never look in there and went to join her in the bedroom. "Hey, you okay?" I asked entering the room and tried my best to sound upbeat. "I'm not buying it. What's wrong?" I rolled my eyes and exhaled, she knew me to dam well and lying wouldn't do me any good. "Fine, Valentina thinks I'm pregnant." I whispered to her not wanting anyone on the landing outside the room to hear our conversation. Amy made no reply but shoved me back into the bathroom with her and closed the door behind her. "What are you doing?" I questioned surprised by her actions. "Well? Are you?" she whisper yelled at me. "I couldn't pee, I think I got stage fright or something stupid." I rubbed my hands over my face once in frustration and dropped them to my sides.

"Drink a load of water or something, run the tap while you try. I don't know but you're not leaving this bathroom until you have done that test." We stared each other down as she folded her arms over her chest and blocked the door, trying to make herself look as big as possible. She was being impossible. A small knock at the door stopped out glaring match and me from replying to her ridiculousness. Amy cracked the door, and upon seeing who it was she opened it fully to allow Mel to walk in. "Amy, I don't need an audience." I complained at her. Mel looked confused as to why we were hauled up in the bathroom together and she was invited in to join us. "Cam here, is having a little problem." She filled Mel in. While I stayed quiet with my head in my hand shaking it from side to side in disbelief at my added predicament. "She can't pee." She clarified but that really didn't explain anything. "What Amy is failing to tell you is that I'm trying to take a dam pregnancy test to prove Valentina wrong, but I can't seem to pee."

She made an O shape with her mouth and nodded, now completely understanding what was going on. "Well how do you feel about it? Maybe the thought of it is making you tense so you can't go." I hadn't thought of it that way before and to be honest I don't know how I feel, I've only had what, 30 minutes to even think about it myself. I've always wanted children someday but right now. "Honestly, I don't know." They both weighed my reply up, and both understood what I meant. "Oh, guess what?" we both looked at Mel's excited face, waiting for her to continue. "What?" Amy asked getting impatient that Mel didn't carry on. "Enzo asked me out on a date." She almost bounced with happiness. "That's fantastic. When?" Amy was right there with her all excited, as they chatted about the restaurant and outfits possibilities and how he asked her, but I just couldn't fully commit myself into the conversation.

I just kept thinking about my own current situation, I know that's selfish but sometimes that's just how it is. How will I react if it's positive? Will I be disappointed if it's negative? What will Romeo think? Will he be happy or angry? Question after question kept circling around and around in my brain that I just had to sit down out of being emotionally exhausted. As exiting the bathroom was impossible with both of them now blocking the door the toilet was my only option and I took it. The longer I sat there and continued to think about my questions, the more I started to need to pee. Turning towards the draw, I slowly opened it to retrieve the test I stashed in there earlier as if it was going to jump out and bite me. Drawing in a long breath in to steady myself, I prepared myself to take the test and exhaled. When I was done, I placed it on the side, finished up and stood at the sink to wash my hands, in complete emotional turmoil and I'm glad I'm not doing this alone.

Amy and Mel were still chatting animatedly about the date and now switched to talking about Amy's first date with Timo. It was a cute date where he took her on a picnic at the lake that was on the upstate New York mansion grounds. I tried to join the conversation while counting 3 minutes out in my head. As my internal timer neared 3 minutes my breathing started to pick up and panic started to rise within me and brought along with it a wave of nausea. "Is it time yet?" Amy softly asked as she placed her hand on my arm and I nodded as tears pricked in my eyes. I hadn't noticed that they had stopped talking at the side of me. "Do you want me to look?" she continued, squeezing my arm reassuringly, I put my hand over hers needing the momentary support. "No, I'll do it." I took a shaky step towards the test and quickly turned it over before I backed out of my decision, and looked at the result.