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Oh my God.
My torn nail immobilizes my finger with pain. I press on Roch’s number but miss twice before getting it right. I almost forget to turn down the volume before the ringing of his phone gives me away. The beat of my heart is like the hooves of a horse trampling my chest as I dare a peek around the sofa. Two men in black combat gear are making their way up the stairs. The third is heading toward the guest bathroom at the back.
I’m so scared. I just want to hide here and hope they don’t find me, but that’s a futile wish. It’s now or never. Clutching the phone tightly, I take a deep breath, count to three, and make a run for it.
My sneakers are quiet on the floor. A shudder slithers down my spine in the few seconds that I’m exposed, but then I’m in the kitchen. Just as I’m about to unlock the door, it crashes open with a loud thud, hitting me so hard on the forehead that sparks explode behind my eyelids.
I stumble, my back hitting the wall. The phone drops from my hand and slides under the table. For a moment, I’m disoriented and dizzy. I’m fighting the urge to sink to my knees. To be sick. The pain is blinding. White spots pop in my vision as I blink to clear my eyes. The face that comes into focus is square with harsh lines. Black eyes. Thin lips. Deep grooves. Shaved head.
I suck in a breath, realizing I’m starved for air. At the same time, he folds a meaty hand around my throat and pins me in place.
His voice is sickeningly mocking as he sing-songs with a heavy accent, “Found her.”
I try to speak, to ask what they want, but when I open my mouth, he clicks his tongue and shakes his head. I take in the cross that dangles from his ear—silver with blackened edges. A dagger earring hangs from the second piercing.
The three other men enter the kitchen. I glance at them from the corner of my eye. They look the same. All of them have shaved heads. They must be part of an army or gang. Mercenaries maybe. My brain registers the information, but my mind doesn’t make sense of anything. My mind only knows that I have to fight for survival. Pure instinct takes over as I claw at the hand that’s wrapped around my throat.
“Found her,” the man repeats with a grin, revealing perfect white teeth. His gaze drops to my chest. “And what a find she is.”
I swallow.
He squeezes.
I dig my nails into his skin, leaving long bloody scratches that don’t affect him. He only closes his fingers harder. When he raises his other hand and makes a fist, I home in on the cross and dagger that are tattooed on the back. On the need to breathe. To survive.
I no longer think. I’m fighting like an animal, fighting for my life and the fragile one growing inside me. Before he can bring down his fist, I lift my leg and knee him hard in the balls. He grunts and lets me go to cup his groin. The moment I’m free, I dash for the door, but my momentum is broken with a sharp sting on my skull. I lose my balance as I’m yanked back violently. I go down screaming. I swear I’m being scalped. It takes me a moment to realize one of the men is dragging me away from the door by my hair.
The immediate pain lets up, letting me know he’s no longer pulling me, but the sting lingers. Before I have time to process that agony, he pulls back his leg and plants his boot in my stomach.
The kick steals my breath. I howl, but not in pain. I scream in anguish for my baby. I curl in a ball and wrap my arms around my womb to protect the tiny life from the onslaught of the kicks raining down on me, four pairs of boots that assault my arms, my back, and my head. I take those merciless kicks everywhere they fall, anywhere but on my baby, but it’s the kick between my legs that make me collapse in a heap of boneless agony, gasping for air.
I’m an open target now. They kick me again and again. Until I can’t breathe. Until I hear my ribs crack. The tip of a boot collides with my temple. Pain slices through my brain. My vision splinters. I grapple for life, clinging to consciousness and fighting the darkness.
The man with the dagger and the cross tattoo unzips his pants. “Wait. Don’t kill her before I’ve had my fun. I don’t like to fuck a corpse.”
Laughter.
“Who wants a turn?”
My body is jerked roughly. Every movement threatens to make me pass out in pain. The darkness bleeds deeper. It tears farther into my sight. Then there’s nothing, not light or pain.
I come to with the tattooed man on top of me. Knowing what he’s doing. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. I may as well be dead. I hope I am. No. I can’t think like that. I must fight. For my baby. For the father of my child.
Blackness again.
Then light and pain. So much pain.
I turn my face to the night where freedom taunts me. I don’t think about the man on top of me. It’s not the one with the tattoos. It’s one of the others. My gaze connects with a familiar pair of eyes that appear from the darkness. I’ve seen those eyes before somewhere in my past when a boy tried to kiss me at a silly teenager party.
Roch.
I register the fury in those eyes as he raises a gun and fires.
Pop. Pop.Pop.
Wetness splatters my face. The man on top of me stills. His weight suffocates me.
Another shot goes off. Roch’s body jerks as if he took a punch in the stomach. Blood oozes from a hole in the sleeve of his jacket below his bicep. He rights himself and points his gun somewhere over my head.
