Chapter 121 Catherine

• Instead of a house in the suburbs and two-point-five kids, my future now holds a heavily guarded compound near the Amazon jungle and a man who both excites and terrifies me. It’s impossible for me to imagine having children with Patrick, and I dread the fact that in a few short months, the three-year birth control implant I got at seventeen will cease to be effective. At some point, I will need to bring up this issue with Patrick, but for now I’m trying not to think about it. I’m no more ready to be a mother than I was to be a wife, and the possibility of having that choice forced on me makes me break out in a cold sweat. I love Patrick, but raising children with a man who thinks nothing of kidnapping and killing? That’s a whole other matter.
• My parents and friends back home aren’t helping. I spoke once with Deborah, telling her about my hasty marriage, and her reaction had been shocked, to say the least.
• “You married that arms dealer?” she exclaimed incredulously. “After everything he’s done to you and Raymond? Are you insane? You’re only nineteen—and he should be in jail!” And no matter how much I tried to spin everything in a positive light, I could tell she got off the phone thinking that my abduction left me a few cards short of a full deck.