by Nikki Wild
“No!” the man shouted, swinging the Captain around to put him between us. “You think I’m gonna let you put me in prison like you did Wallace? I’m not half the man he is. The things they’ll do to me in there…”
He trailed off, lower lip quivering. “I know how things go with your boys down there. I won’t be in my cell for a week before some guard looks the other way while I get shanked to death as I’m takin’ a piss.”
Okay. This wasn’t working. It was time to change tactics. I wet my lips.
“That asshole you’re holding tried to get me killed,” I said, lifting the gun higher. “And this shotgun is loaded with slugs. Do you think I won’t hesitate to put one right through both of you right fucking now?”
He blinked at me. I saw his eyes dip to the shotgun, then back up to me. There was uncertainty flashing across his face now. It was time for me to make the decision for him.
I stared him down with all the viciousness I could muster, my body taut as a bow string.
“Put the fucking gun down!”
I let out a breath as he dropped it, the metal clattering against the wood floor. The captain kicked it across the room, quickly moving away from the Irishman.
“Get to your room, get under your bed,” he shouted at his son, and the boy fled from the corner as fast as he could, shooting past me to do as his father bade him.
I’d done it. I moved forward and tossed my handcuffs at the cowering Irishman, snarling as they skittered across the floor to his feet.
“Put them on,” I demanded. I left no room for argument in my tone. This fucker needed to know he had no options left now.
We’d have to act quickly. The SWAT team would be prepping an entry, especially after I went and burst into the house prematurely. I watched the man pick up the cuffs, preparing to strap them onto his wrists, his fingers trembling and his shoulders slumped as he resigned himself to his fate.
A gunshot shattered everything. The Irishman was stock still for a moment, as though time itself had stopped at the colossal sound ripping through the air. Then he collapsed, his face slack, eyes rolling as he hit the ground.
I watched him fall as if in slow motion, crying out as I spun toward the Captain. He stood there without a hint of remorse, holding the gun the Paddie had discarded only moments before. He was still aiming it at him like a cobra waiting to strike.
“What are you doing?!” I asked him as the sound of crashing windows and shattering wood rose up from beneath us. The SWAT team must have taken the shot as their cue to enter.
“I’m protecting my family,” he replied, leveling the gun at me. There was no joy behind his eyes. No care or compassion.
I tried to spin away, my head turning as he fired. A flash of pain seared through me and I collapsed, my legs simply refusing to carry me any farther, my body failing as I hit the ground.
I didn’t even feel the impact. I knew it should have bothered me, knew part of my brain was screaming that this was bad—really bad. I’d been hit. I was in shock, probably, which often did more damage than the bullet itself. I had to maintain my grasp on reality. I had to…
But it was no use. Every attempt I made to hold on to my life slipped through my fingers like sand sifting back into the shore. I expected my life to flash before my eyes, to see Momma and Jenny, to see Nathan’s face one last time, but all I saw was darkness closing in from the outer corners of my vision, creating a tunnel with no light at the end of it.
The very last things I saw as I drifted into unconsciousness was the Irishman’s gun skipping across the floor toward his corpse, his cold face staring at me in a way I knew we’d soon share. Darkness took me as the rush of boots clambering up the stairs filled my ears, then silenced.
18
Cold. Darkness. Pain. I had known these things before, but time seemed to stretch out as my senses began to wake from their unnatural slumber. Everything felt slower, almost as if I’d been taken out of the normal world and thrust into something supernatural. I could feel my heart racing in my chest.
My heart… A heartbeat… I’m alive!
The realization seemed to sweep through me, connections turning on as I could feel myself moving, little sensations of touch filtering through the fog. Where the hell was I? What was going on? I forced my eyes open, the blurry brightness causing them to clamp back shut immediately.
Oh, fuck. I’ve been drugged!
I had to get out of here. I had to do something to run, to save Nathan, to escape this place. I began to thrash in place, even as a pain shot out from my arm, searing into my shoulder and neck. I reached across my body blindly, feeling the tubes, struggling to understand what the hell was happening to me in this terrible place.
“Nurse!”
The voice was strange, almost ethereal. I thrashed harder as I felt hands pinning my shoulders down, but then a strange sense of calm flooded over me like the gentle lapping of the tide coming in. I felt warm and light, like I was soaring beyond myself, back into the blackness I’d fought so desperately to escape.
They were drugging me again! No!
But as hard as I tried to claw back toward the light, it faded again, and there I was in the cold, the darkness, the pain…
The next time I woke was different. It wasn’t the hard beating of my heart that brought me back into the world; it was the soft touch of someone’s fingertips on my palm, and the overwhelming scent of flowers.
“You’re going to be okay…”
The whisper was nice. The voice was soft, and each syllable seemed to caress me, wrapping me up in a warmth I’d almost forgotten existed. I took a chance and fluttered an eye, glad to be shrouded in darkness. I could feel my hand being squeezed.
“That’s right. Come back to me, Sandra.”
My eyes flashed open, unfocused, straining to understand. I was in a hospital room, that much was certain, but it was nicer than the ones I’d seen as a child—much nicer than the facility my grandma had lived in during the last hard years of her life. High tech equipment and soothing colors surrounded me. Even the bed I was lying in seemed unusually comfortable. More importantly, the room was filled with flowers of every size and color imaginable, even more opulent than the display Nathan had put on back at the Peachtree.
Nathan… that voice…
As I turned my head, I saw him beside him.
“Nathan,” I whispered, staring up at him.
“I’m here,” he replied, his face contorting with emotion. Regret, fear, happiness, love—I watched all of those feelings shift across his face as he watched over me. My heart began to race as I tried to piece together exactly what had happened to me back at Captain Pierce’s house.
“The Captain… he shot me. We have to stop him.”
Nathan just laughed softly, running his fingertips along my arm. Even in my weakened state, he gave me goosebumps.
“Relax, Sandra. He came out of that house looking like a hero, but it turns out there are still a few good cops on the force. When you went storming into the building, you left a car with a busted trunk and all the evidence you needed to put that asshole away for life just sitting there on the passenger seat. You’re lucky the right person found it.”
Lieutenant Daniels, I thought to myself. I’d been right about him. He was a good cop. I’d owe him big time for this one.
“Where is he?” I asked, suddenly worried.
“The Captain? You don’t have to worry about him anymore. He’s in a holding cell waiting to be charged right along with a dozen paddies. He rolled on the whole organization. You should see the news. This whole thing has been one hell of a story. You’d hate it.”
I laughed and instantly regretted it. Pain shot through my neck, and I hissed as it momentarily blinded me.
Nathan grimaced. “Sorry. Don’t laugh. You did take a bullet, remember? Few inches in either direction and it would have taken out your spine or your jugular. Doctors said you’re lucky to be alive,” he added, holding my hand tightly. “I told t
hem you were too goddamn stubborn to die.”
That shed some light on what had happened to me. but I still had questions for him to answer. “Where are we now? This doesn’t look like County General.”
He grinned a little. “I hope you don’t mind, but the hospital they had you in was a little beneath my standards. Soon as you were stable, I had them move you here. Good Samaritan East, best care you can get this side of the Mason Dixon line.” His expression softened. “My baby deserves the best,” he told me.
I blew out a slow breath. Good Samaritan East wasn’t in my provider network. This whole thing must have cost a fortune, but then I realized I was worrying over nothing. Fortunes were something Nathan could afford to lose. Hell, it might even humble the guy a bit… But something about his words caught me off guard.
Baby? He never called me baby…
I glanced up at his eyes, and suddenly I understood. My hand softly moved to my tummy, holding it tight. No words could express the way I was feeling.
“Relax… You’re fine, and so is our little miracle,” Nathan said, placing a hand over my own. “Everything is going to be ok.”
Nathan’s face blurred before me, and I squinted, trying to make him out. “Nathan,” I whispered, feeling drowsy again. I desperately fought to focus. I didn’t want to lose him again.
“Yes?” he replied quietly, stroking my cheek.
I leaned into his touch, craving just a few more seconds of lucidity. “Stay with me… Stay with us…”
He nodded, leaning forward to press his lips against my forehead just above the bridge of my nose. “Always, Sandra,” he promised me. “I’ll always stay.”
I let his words wrap me in a tender embrace as I closed my eyes and drifted blissfully away.
19
Paris is cold in the winter. You never really think about that when you’re looking at pretty pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the quaint, narrow streets paved with cobblestones. It all looks so warm and inviting, and yet here I was, being forced toward shelter by the crisp and biting wind stinging my dark skin.
The dress wasn’t helping.
I shuffled up the steps of the huge church in the sheer, but billowing white folds of cloth. It draped beautifully over my frame, but did nothing to hide my obvious pregnancy. The strapless bodice was especially troublesome, as it exposed my expanding cleavage to the frigid air. At this point, I would have traded the whole outfit for a pair of yoga pants and one of Nathan’s big stretchy white t-shirts.
It was my fault, of course. I was the idiot who had to go outside for a breath of fresh air just a few minutes before the wedding. I’d taken on the Irish mafia, almost single-handedly dismantled a sex-trafficking ring, and exposed the corruption running rampant through my city’s police department, and yet nothing seemed so terrifying as walking up the steps and through the doors toward my destiny.
Everyone was waiting inside to start, cradled in the warmth of the cathedral. I was happy to see them, and obviously elated to be there, but this had all happened so fast… Was I ready? Could we truly be a family?
I thought back to everything that had led up to this moment. Unsurprisingly, Nathan didn’t want me returning to the force after I’d recovered, especially once I’d testified against the Captain. Right or wrong, cops looked after their own, and there was enough corruption to ensure I’d never see another promotion—or worse, that backup might not arrive next time I needed it. He told me I could oversee his security team, but that was just an excuse to keep me close while he found a suitable ring.
And what a ring it was.
I glanced down, the oversized diamond sparkling wildly in the colored light that streamed down from the stained glass windows. It was a platinum band with a sixteen-carat monstrosity situated right in the center of it. I wasn’t the kind of girl who spent her life dreaming of her wedding day, but on the occasions in which I had contemplated it, I never once imagined I’d have a ring or a dress as beautiful as this. Sure, it had to be custom-tailored to fit over my eight month pregnant belly, but that was a problem money could solve.
I looked away from the ring and toward the people staring expectantly at me from the pews. This was it. My moment. I almost laughed at the beauty of it all.
Everyone turned to watch as I stepped onto the red carpet leading to the altar. The organ began to play its marching tune, filling the space with warm, reverberating tones that disturbed the butterflies once lying dormant in my stomach.
Here comes the bride…
I tried not to look at the crowd, instead focusing on the man waiting for me just a few feet away. Nathan looked incredible. He was standing at the end of the aisle, that goddamn smirk spread wide across his handsome face, shifting in anticipation as he watched me steadily approach. I’d gotten used to looking at his thousand-dollar suits and his shoes that cost more than my car, but this was on a whole other level. There wasn’t a stitch on his clothing that had been made by a machine. It wasn’t just hand-tailored; it was molded, every fiber of the cloth handcrafted for this very moment. Ours were a pair of outfits suitable for a prince and a princess, worn by a billionaire and an ex-detective who wasn’t quite ready to wear several million dollars’ worth of diamond jewelry and a dress too pretty to sit down in.
I took my first step toward him, clutching my bouquet to my chest. I didn’t have a father to give me away. He’d left while I was still in elementary school, which either was because of, or had led to my mother’s addiction—I’d been too young to tell. Only a few distant relatives had come in his stead, and as much as I appreciated their support, I wasn’t about to let my uncle’s third cousin walk me down the aisle. Like everything else in life, if I was going to do this, then I was going to do it alone.
A certain solemnity hit me, just for a moment. I wished my mother could’ve been here, and Jenny—or at least, the versions of them I held so near and dear to my heart. In my mind’s eye, they were always sober, happy, and at peace, always living the best days of their lives. Nothing could have made this day any more perfect except for their smiling faces beaming at me from the pews. I felt a pang of regret sting my heart as I envisioned them doing just that.
I couldn’t let them bring my moment down. Nathan and I had decided back in that shitty Peachtree Overlook apartment that there was no use in hanging on to ancient history. We couldn’t change what had happened back then to either of us, but we could certainly change our futures.
That was what I was moving toward now, I realized: my future. My heart swelled as I began to step toward him in time with the music, tears brimming in my eyes as I let go of my guilt. I walked away from the ghosts of my mother and Jenny, and I reached out for Nathaniel Hale.
With every step, the one that followed seem to come even easier. I walked past the rich and the famous and the row of cameras capturing the event for the evening news. A real Cinderella tale, they’d say: a pretty detective from the Bronx finding her billionaire prince. They’d talk about how lucky I was.
And they’d be wrong.
Nathan Hale was the lucky one. He’d found the woman who could love him for all of his strengths and all of his flaws—of which there were many, I reminded myself with a grin. He’d found someone who could satisfy his most secret desires and make his dreams come true.
That was why I was marrying him. I was doing this because every single day, he made me feel like I was worth all of this. Every challenge we faced, big or small, every danger we’d overcome and every dollar spent—I was worth it.
And I couldn’t have loved him more.
His eyes sparkled with the same tears I was holding back as I stepped up onto the platform. The priest said the words that would bind us for all eternity, but I wasn’t paying attention. My whole world consisted only of the one man who had become a bigger part of it than I had ever anticipated. When Nathan whispered his “I do,” it barely even registered. My reply was just as simple, the two words slipping out breathlessly and effortlessly from my lips.
We collided, the world melting away in that moment as our lips made their first contact as husband and wife. Everything around us was simply a farce. The fairy tale wedding, the dress and the church and the pretty faces—none of it mattered. The only real thing was this, our love and passion. Nathaniel Hale belonged to me, and I to him, and as our kiss stretched on and on, I was in no hurry to return to reality.
Everything else could have gone to shit. The church could have burned down around us, for all I cared. This was perfection, and nothing could ever compare.
“I love you, Sandra,” Nathan said, his lips finally parting from mine.
“I love you too,” I whispered in reply, smiling as I stared into his glittering eyes. “Now, can we get out of here before these cameras see things unfit for broadcast?”
“What about everybody else?” Nathan said, glancing past me at the crowd as if he hadn’t noticed them before.
“We’re in Paris,” I replied, laughing. “Let them eat wedding cake.”
Everyone in the room erupted into cheers as Nathan lifted me from the floor, my billowing white dress pouring over his strong arms as he carried me to the doors at the side of the cathedral.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Nathan shouted over the noise. “Grab some champagne and enjoy the party!”
The room cheered again as we burst through the doors and into a short hallway leading to a sunlit path. Cold wind bit into me again, now infiltrating from beneath my dress as Nathan carried me outside the church. I shivered in his arms, but quickly found myself thrust into the backseat of a long, black limousine that was waiting for us. The heated seats immediately brought relief to the chills sweeping through me.
Nathan just stood there at the door, letting the cold in as he stared at me, my legs awkwardly kicked up over the seat. I leaned forward, grabbing at his tie and pulling him in through the door, laughing as the chauffeur closed it behind us. Nathan tried valiantly to get the blacked-out divider up as the amused driver looked on. The window was closing too slowly as I ripped at Nathan’s belt, straddling him in my dress and lowering myself around his raging erection.