by Lisa Childs
Nikki’s body…
*
Pain radiated throughout Nikki’s chest as she lay flat on her back on the concrete floor. She couldn’t get a breath. There was too much pressure on her lungs; her heart beat too fast. Was it pumping blood through her or out of her?
She lifted her hands to her chest. Had the bullet penetrated the vest? No. Her fingertips touched the end of the round. The vest had stopped it. But the impact of the shot against the metal plate had knocked her flat on her back. If it hadn’t, she probably would have gotten hit again because she’d heard another shot after the one that had knocked her down.
Now she heard footsteps scraping across the concrete as someone rushed toward her. Bracing her elbows beneath her, she tried to get up. But she had yet to find her breath. So she could only roll to her side and lift her weapon.
She stared down the barrel into Lars’s pale blue eyes. They were wide with fear.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he knelt beside her.
She nodded.
“You got hit…”
“The vest stopped it.” But she knew why she hadn’t been hit again. The next shot she’d heard hadn’t been fired at her. It had been Lars taking out the guy who’d struck her.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and she scanned his face and body for any marks. He didn’t have a scratch on him.
“No,” he said, his voice low with fury. “You lied to me. You were supposed to stick close to me.”
Ignoring the pang of guilt she felt for fooling him, she said dismissively, “That was a stupid plan.”
“I am not going to argue with you,” he said. “I’m going to get you the hell out of here. There are more gunmen hiding.”
She understood why they would hide from him. Their bullets probably wouldn’t have stopped Lars even if he hadn’t been wearing a vest.
“I’m fine,” she insisted even as she struggled yet to breathe deeply. The impact might have broken one of her ribs. Maybe two. But she didn’t care about herself right now. They were too close. So she urged him, “Go. Find. Emilia…”
He shook his head. “No, I can’t leave you…”
Another shot rang out, and he flung his body across hers. He jerked as if he’d been struck.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Nikki saw movement overhead. Lifting her gun, she fired at the man in the rafters. He fell. And while she couldn’t see it, she heard him hit the concrete, heard the sickening crunch and crack of bones breaking.
Lars hadn’t answered her. So her voice shook when she asked again, “Are you all right?”
He groaned then rolled off her. Reaching behind him, he murmured, “Yeah, the vest stopped that bullet, too.”
“And I got the shooter,” she pointed out. “Go. Find. Emilia.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice rising with urgency.
Emilia was a witness. If she was alive, these men needed to get rid of her for Webber. The girl probably had a huge price on her head right now.
“Go!” she yelled.
Lars kissed her, just a quick brush of his mouth across hers. “Take cover,” he told her.
Finally able to move, Nikki did as he advised. She rolled to the shadows of some boxes stacked along a warehouse wall. “Find her,” she urged.
Of course he had no idea where to look. And he had no hope. He wouldn’t let himself believe that Emilia might still be alive.
Nikki worried that he was probably right. Webber was too smart to slip up and leave behind someone who could identify him.
*
Lars knew where to look for Emilia because he’d seen the direction one of the gunmen headed as he slipped away. The guy Nikki had shot out of the rafters wasn’t the one who’d shot Lars in the back. Lars had seen that man moving through the empty crates toward a hallway leading off the main area of the warehouse.
Maybe the rooms along the corridor had once been offices. He couldn’t tell. He just glanced quickly through each open door as he moved down the hall.
As shots rang out, he ducked inside one of those rooms just as bullets pinged off the metal jamb near his head. “Son of a bitch…”
More shots rang out in quick succession. Then keys jangled. The guy was trying to unlock something.
The room where Emilia was being held?
A chain rattled.
And Lars’s stomach churned as emotions overwhelmed him. Had they chained his sister like a dog?
Fury coursed through him. Unconcerned for his own safety, he rushed back into the hall. The guy turned and fired, but if his bullet struck the vest this time, Lars didn’t even feel it. He didn’t feel anything. Not even regret as he squeezed the trigger and fired into the assailant.
The guy dropped to his knees and stared up at Lars with a look of surprise. That Lars was alive? Or that Lars had shot him?
The guy fell forward, facedown on the concrete. Lars kicked away his gun before feeling for a pulse.
He was dead.
The chain lay beside him along with a padlock. The key had rolled away.
Whatever had been locked inside that room, they had been determined that it would not escape. Until now…
The door had only opened a crack. Lars couldn’t see inside it. But even when he pushed the door open all the way, he couldn’t see inside.
There were no windows. No light.
Shadows filled the room. And a sickening stench.
Of must and mold and…
Finally his eyes adjusted and the shadows took shape. Still holding his weapon, he stepped through the doorway. There could have been another gunman inside. He had no idea how many were inside the warehouse.
That was why he hadn’t wanted to leave Nikki.
But she’d insisted he look for Emilia. She’d insisted that his sister could still be alive.
She was wrong.
His stomach churning with dread, he walked farther inside the room. Against the far wall, a mattress lay on the floor. Blood had saturated and stained it and part of the concrete around it. That was one of the smells he’d recognized from war: blood.
And fear.
He could smell it inside the room, too.
Emilia must have been so frightened here. Had she been tortured?
Was that why there was so much blood? Or was this where she had given birth to her son?
In a filthy warehouse?
Her body lay, facedown, on that stained mattress, her pale hair spread across her back and the mattress and even the floor. It was so long…
Longer than he remembered. But he had been gone for so many months. He had been gone too long. And now he had lost her forever.
He moved his hand toward her face, to pull back some of that hair and look at her one last time. But before his fingertips could do more than touch those silken strands, he heard more gunshots.
They rang out inside the warehouse.
There had definitely been more gunmen.
Had Nikki heeded his warning? Had she stayed hidden? Or had she decided to take them all on alone?
She’d already been winded from taking the bullet in her vest. And she’d had to be running low on ammunition. But none of that would stop her.
Damn woman…
He hadn’t even had a chance to tell her yet why he’d thanked her in the SUV. He’d wanted to thank her for all she had done to help him.
But most of all he’d wanted to thank her for caring—for caring about his nephew and his sister.
His poor sister…
He hadn’t gotten the chance to explain, though. And now he might never have the chance.
Like Emilia, was Nikki dead now, too?
Chapter 21
What the hell was going on? Bullets ricocheted and gunfire reverberated off the warehouse walls. Was this a rescue? Or the end she’d believed it to be?
Emilia had no way of knowing. So she lay tensely on the mattress, playing dead. It wasn’t
much of a stretch right now. She was weak and tired. But if this was her chance to escape and to see her son again…
She had to take it. So while the gunfire in the warehouse distracted the man who’d come inside the room, she hurled herself at him—pummeling with her fists and her feet.
“Oh, my God,” a deep—familiar—voice murmured gruffly.
Emilia froze as she recognized her brother’s voice.
“I thought you were dead,” they said in unison.
Staring at her in awe—or maybe revulsion—Lars touched her face.
It had to be filthy—like the rest of her.
“You’re burning up,” he murmured.
Maybe it was the fever that had conjured him up. Maybe he was just a hallucination. She reached out, too, and touched his face. His skin was cool, so much cooler than hers. “Are you real?” she asked.
He nodded, but he looked grim, his jaw tense. Was he mad at her? He had every reason to be. She had been such a fool.
“He told me you were dead,” she said.
He didn’t ask who. But then he would know; he wouldn’t have found her if he hadn’t known who had been holding her.
“He thought I was,” Lars said. “He thought some of his men killed me.”
“But you’re okay?”
He nodded. “Thanks to Nikki.” He stared out that open door as if looking for the woman he mentioned. “She told me not to give up on you, either. She convinced me that you could still be alive.”
Emilia wasn’t so certain that Nikki was right. She felt like death. And she definitely wasn’t safe yet. None of them was.
More gunfire rang out inside the warehouse.
He flinched with the report of each shot. “I need to go back out there.”
But she grabbed his hand before he could slip away. And instead of making her weak, like it had, her fear made her strong enough to hang on to him. “Please…don’t leave me…”
She had been alone for so long, too long.
“I need to get you medical help,” he said. “You’re burning up.”
But now she had begun to shiver again, her body trembling with cold. As if to warm her, he wrapped her in his arms and lifted her. Before he could step through the door, a man burst into the room, gun drawn.
A cry of fear slipped through Emilia’s cracked lips. They had been so close to escaping.
“Dane,” Lars greeted the man.
She remembered his mentioning the name before. Dane Sutton was big like Lars but his hair and eyes were dark.
“Why the hell didn’t you wait for us?” the man asked; then his gaze moved to her. “She’s alive?”
She moved her lips, trying to speak for herself. But she could form no words. Maybe her attempt to fight earlier had drained the last of her energy. Or maybe it was something about this man that made her speechless.
“She needs medical attention,” Lars said.
She was certain Dane could see that for himself. “An ambulance is on its way,” he told her brother.
And Lars tensed. “Who was hit?”
Dane said nothing.
“Who was hit!” It wasn’t a question this time but a shouted demand for an answer.
“Nikki…”
Lars’s breath hissed out between his teeth and he reacted as if he’d been shot.
Nikki—whoever she was—hadn’t just saved his life—when Webber’s men had tried to kill him. She’d stolen Lars’s heart.
*
There had been so much blood. But then head wounds always bled the worst. Maybe that was why everyone was freaking out so damn badly.
Whatever the reason, Nikki was annoyed. And she was fine. She lifted her hand to the bandage on her temple. The stitches had been a waste of time. She’d probably have a scar anyway. But that was the least of her concerns.
She didn’t have time. “Hey!” she called out. “Where are my clothes?”
If someone didn’t come back with them soon, she’d leave in the hospital gown. She didn’t care. Just as she was sliding off the stretcher, the curtain jerked aside. Maybe that was why she teetered for a moment, unbalanced. It wasn’t because her head grew light and stars and flashing lights filled her vision.
She blinked and focused on the worried face of the young physician’s assistant. “Did you find my clothes?” she asked.
“You’re not clear to leave yet,” the PA told her. “You need a CAT scan first.”
She snorted. “I’m fine. No blurred vision.” Stars and spots didn’t count as blurred. “No nausea. No headache. I don’t have a concussion.”
She’d had enough of them before that she would have recognized the symptoms.
“Ms. Payne—”
“Nikki.” She corrected the young man. While Nick had taken their father’s name, she had considered getting rid of it. She was still furious with him for betraying their mother. But ultimately she had decided that it was better to keep the name to remind herself that no man could ever be trusted.
“You’re still not cleared yet to leave—”
“I don’t care,” she told him. “I’m going.” She had to get Blue before Webber heard about the warehouse shoot-out and took off with him forever. Then she remembered where her clothes had been stashed during her previous ER visits—on a shelf under the stretcher. She leaned over and ignored the wave of nausea that washed over her with the sudden movement.
She did not have a concussion. The bullet had barely grazed her. Everyone had just freaked out over the blood or she wouldn’t have even needed medical treatment. She would have stopped bleeding eventually.
The blood loss was what had probably made her dizzy. But she refused to give in to it. She grabbed the plastic bag and pulled it up, dumping her clothes onto the stretcher. “I’m getting dressed,” she said. And she reached for the back of the gown.
The young man hesitated a moment before he stepped back and pulled the curtain shut for her.
She released a ragged breath and dropped back onto the edge of the stretcher, muttering, “I thought he would never leave.”
She just needed a moment to catch her breath again. And she would get dressed. She’d get the hell out of here. She had a baby to kidnap back from his abductor. But that wasn’t even the fight that worried her. The battle that worried her the most was the one she would have convincing her brothers and Lars to let her go back to Webber’s estate.
But she had a plan for that…
She just needed the strength to make them listen to her. She drew in a deep breath and stood again. While her head grew light, she didn’t get dizzy. Her knees didn’t wobble. She could stand.
So she reached for her clothes. As she did, a soft voice called out, “Nikki…?”
Maybe she was imagining things because her name had been little more than a whisper. Her mother had always warned her kids to listen to their conscience. Was that Nikki’s trying to talk to her?
But why? She’d done nothing wrong. Sure, she’d lied to Lars about sticking by his side while they went in the front. But it had been more efficient to split up.
And nothing bad had happened.
In fact, he had found Emilia.
Alive.
“Nikki…”
Now she recognized the soft voice even though she’d never heard it before. She pulled back the curtain of the stretcher next to hers. A girl lay on the bed, at least she was so thin and delicate-looking that she looked little more than a girl.
She could have been the twenty-two Lars had said she was. Her face was so pale, her eyes nearly as pale since they were the same eerie light blue of her brother’s. And her son’s…
But dark circles hollowed out her beautiful eyes, and her thinness made her cheekbones taut beneath her nearly translucent skin. IVs pumped fluids into her and machines monitored her vitals. Despite all the needles protruding from her arm, Emilia lifted her hand and held it out toward her.
“Are you all right?” Nikki asked, her heart aching for the horrors the p
oor girl had endured. She stepped closer and took the proffered hand.
Weakly squeezing her fingers, Emilia replied, “Yes, thanks to you.”
“Thank your brother,” Nikki said. “He went crazy trying to find you.”
“He said he would have given up if not for you,” Emilia said. “You convinced him that I could still be alive.”
“Because of Blue.”
Emilia’s fingers went stiff in her hand. “What?”
Heat rushed to Nikki’s face. “That’s what I started calling him—because of his eyes.”
“That’s what Lars used to call me,” Emilia said. “Baby Blue.”
Nikki nodded. She could understand why. They all had those amazingly pale blue eyes. “Which one of your parents passed down those genes?”
Emilia shrugged. “Must have been our father, but I don’t remember him. When my mom got sick, he took off.” Betraying the family.
Like Nikki’s dad had. She understood how disappointed the young girl must have been to find out her father hadn’t been a man she could count on. But like Nikki had had her brothers, Emilia had had Lars.
Nikki squeezed her fingers now. “That must have been rough.”
Emilia shook her head. “I had Lars. He took care of me.” She sighed. “That was too much to ask, though. Too much responsibility.”
“His only fear was that he’d failed you,” Nikki said. “That he’d broken the promise he’d made your mother to always keep you safe.”
“Never!” Tears leaked from the corners of Emilia’s beautiful eyes. “I failed him. I was so stupid.”
Nikki wasn’t sure if she was referring to getting pregnant or to meeting with the lawyer. But she squeezed Emilia’s fingers and assured her, “Blue’s a beautiful baby. He’s the reason I knew you were still alive because he was being fed breast milk. It’s made him so strong.”
More tears leaked from the corners of Emilia’s eyes. “I want to hold him so badly. I never got to see him, to hold him.”
Emilia was stronger than she knew because she gave strength to Nikki. She would do whatever necessary to make sure mother and baby were reunited.