by Sybil Bartel
My vision tunneled.
My hair was pulled, my head snapped up and something was shoved over my face.
“Breathe. Now.”
Scratchy paper was held over my mouth. My chest burning, my ears ringing, my hands useless, I pushed to my feet in a total panic but my legs crumpled.
“Damn it, chica.”
The paper still pushed to my face, the hand still at the back of my head, I fell to my knees and shook.
“You are hyperventilating. Breathe into the bag.” Muffled like someone was speaking through a pillow, I barely heard the words.
Shaking, short, rapid breaths firing into the bag, I couldn’t hold my weight, not even on my knees, and I started to sink. Oh my God, Conner…
My head was yanked by the giant hand, my ass hit the ground and my back landed on something hard and warm.
“Breathe, Ariella.”
My lungs burning, a short little breath formed.
“Again,” he commanded.
My body listened. Two rapid intakes of air fought my lungs. The bag crunched up on inhale and spread out on exhale. Another intake then another until it became one longer breath. Over and over I breathed into the bag until one clawed hand released with agonizing slowness.
“Slow it down. Deeper inhale.”
My body responded to Viking’s instructions.
Both hands and both feet released and my breaths settled into an almost normal pattern.
Viking took the bag off my face. “Inhale, count of five. Hold it.”
Spicy musk and sweat filled my lungs.
“Exhale. Slow.” Still firmly holding the back of my head with one hand, he crumpled the bag and tossed it at André. “Again.”
Air rushed into my system and the sensation of a thousand pinpricks raced across my skin. Alarmed, I glanced up.
Kneeling with my body cradled between his legs, Viking stared down his chest at me with cold detachment.
The pinpricks multiplied tenfold. “Tingling—”
“Temporary. Keep breathing.”
The more I calmed down, the more embarrassed I got. The second I thought I could sit on my own, I pushed away from Viking. He let go of my nape and the support of his legs left my back. I thought I was in the clear but his hands landed on my waist and in one smooth push, he rose to his feet, taking me with him.
Upright, I took a deep breath and when I exhaled, Viking let go of me.
“You okay?” André’s concerned expression was in direct contrast to Neil’s stern one.
“I heard boots, guns.”
André’s expression shut down. “Candle had backup.”
“But he’s gone?”
“For now.” André dropped the concern. “Why the hell did you leave the office?”
Ashamed, realizing how stupid I’d been, I admitted my plan. “I thought I could run.”
“Fucking hell,” André cursed.
“The child,” Viking quietly warned behind me.
André lowered his voice but still managed to snap at Viking. “He’s asleep.”
My nerves shot, too many waves of adrenaline for one day, I sagged against the wall and my fractured thoughts spilled out of my mouth. “You’ll take a bullet for me but you won’t call my son by his name?” It wasn’t even close to the most important thing that was going on right now but that’s all I had. I wasn’t wondering what’d happened in the living room. I wasn’t wondering why Candle had simply left. I wasn’t wondering what was going to happen next. I was stupidly, inexplicably wondering why Viking wouldn’t call my son by his proper name.
The air conditioning hummed, my old refrigerator labored and two men breathed in a space that was barely big enough for just me, but no one said anything.
Viking inclined his head at André and André walked out.
I watched his back disappear down the hallway then I pushed off the wall. “You can leave too.” I took a step toward my bathroom, needing distance.
Calloused fingers wrapped around my arm and a soft breath touched my ear. “I am not leaving.”
The last of my composure took a nosedive. Tears welled and I closed my eyes. I drew my tender bottom lip into my mouth and choked back a sob.
Viking led me to my bed and sat me down before going to my closet and coming back with my only suitcase. “Pack.” He dropped it at my feet and took one stride toward the door.
“Neil.”
Viking glanced back. The set to his jaw only a fraction more rigid, his stance no different than any other time, I still saw the coldness he was capable of filter back into his demeanor. But this time, it hit me a thousand times harder than ever before.
My emotions swung in a pendulum and despite the wet tears on my face, I reached for all of my bravado. “I’m not leaving my place. Candle knows I don’t have the guns.”
“He is not who you have to worry about.”
“I’m not staying with you,” I blurted.
“You are right.” He turned back toward the door. “You are not.”
VIKING CARRIED CONNER DOWNSTAIRS AND buckled him into the car seat that had been in his truck but was now securely belted into André’s Escalade. The suitcase I’d packed for myself was in the back next to a suitcase for Conner, packed courtesy of an impenetrable six-foot-six Jægerkorpset, whatever that was.
“Where are we going?” I asked no one in particular once Viking got in the front passenger seat.
André’s hands tightened on the wheel and Viking pulled out his phone and started texting. No one said anything. I glanced at my son. Unruly silky curls, long eyelashes framing his light brown eyes, he sucked his thumb and held his blanket close. I grasped his little foot.
André broke the silence first. “You wanna tell me why the Lone Coasters are after you?”
I was shocked Viking hadn’t told him about the guns. “If you don’t know, then why did you come to my place?”
“What did you think I’d do after you pulled that stunt with Tyler? Not check on you? Jesus, the LC’s sergeant at arms had you at gunpoint. He wouldn’t have thought twice about—”
“Enough,” Viking barked. “Not in front of the child.”
“You’re gonna answer to me too, damn it,” André snapped at Viking.
“It is being handled,” Viking stated decisively.
André swore in Spanish then turned the corner and pulled up to his office building. He used a remote to open the single-arm gate of the parking garage but instead of parking by the office entrance, he went around the block of elevators to a roll-up door. Entering a code into a keypad, he waited until the metal door noisily rose then drove in and parked by a different set of elevators.
Throwing the SUV into park, he barely spared me a glance. “Go with Christensen. I’ll bring the bags up in a few.” He got out and strode back toward the office entrance.
Viking opened my door and held out his hand.
Torn between not wanting to touch him and wanting to fall into his arms, I stared at his outstretched hand like it was more than a simple gesture. He wasn’t doing anything he probably hadn’t done a hundred times over with a hundred other women. But I wasn’t those women and my son was safe. And Viking wasn’t giving me the cold shoulder right now. And his hand was huge. And why the hell was I thinking about all this shit right now?
“Ariella.”
Huge with thick fingers. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Step down.”
How did he pick up small things? Or get an eyelash out of his eye? They weren’t delicate, his hands or his fingers. They were “hide three crates of guns” hands. “Where are they?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Taken care of.”
I’d never seen such a large hand. And it looked even larger when he held my son. Oh God, Conner. “My son was there the whole time.”
He dropped his outstretched hand and answered me as if he could easily follow my fractured thoughts. “The child is fine.”
I stared at Viking. He wasn’t model
pretty. His features weren’t perfect. His jaw was too square, his nose too long and straight, his cheekbones looked like they were cut from stone, but when you added it all together? He wasn’t just striking, he was beautiful. Beautiful like the one and only hope you wanted to hold on to when your life was falling apart. But holding on to this man would be like tethering myself to a category five hurricane. So I focused on clear gray-blue eyes and tried not to forget who I was talking to. “Why won’t you say his name?”
“He is not mine.” His answer was so direct, so simple, it should have made sense, but I didn’t understand a word of it.
“So that means you can’t call him by his name?”
“Who is the biker to you?”
No, he didn’t get to change the subject. “Don’t answer a question with a question.”
His intense gaze cut to my swollen bottom lip then shot back to my eyes. “The biker,” he repeated.
I saw an opening and I took it. “Answer me and I’ll tell you.”
For two breaths, he studied me then he opened his mouth and I wished like hell he hadn’t. “I do not say your son’s name because familiarity breeds attachment.”
I didn’t feel anger. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. Pulling that gun to his shoulder, holding me when I was hyperventilating, the TV, his protectiveness of my son, every damn alpha thing about him—I sucked in a breath and shoved all my shit emotions down. “Candle is Jason’s friend and don’t worry, I’m not getting attached to you.” I wasn’t getting anything. I was staring into the face of a warrior who cared more about me than the father of my son and I wasn’t attached, I was fucking screwed.
He didn’t give me a second’s reprieve. “How did Tanner get the guns? The biker would not have let that happen.”
I didn’t know and I didn’t care. “Ask Jason.”
“We can’t.”
We who? Me and him? He and André? I didn’t ask because it wasn’t the important part. What Candle had said earlier finally sunk in and my stomach clenched. “Where is he?” I hated Jason, I hated him so much for what he’d done that I needed a new word for hate. But Candle could’ve hurt him, or worse, and Jason was still Conner’s father. “What did Candle do to him?”
Viking stared.
“Silence isn’t an answer.”
He inhaled. On anyone else, it was a simple gesture that happened thousands of times a day. But with Viking? It wasn’t an inhale. It was observation, judgment, and sentence all rolled into one. “Tanner disappeared.”
One single breath and I knew exactly what Viking thought of me worrying about Jason. “He’s the father of my son. I don’t get to ask about him?”
“I said nothing.”
“You didn’t have to. You’re judging me for asking about him after what he did.”
“I neither presume nor pretend to know what you are going through.”
Was that a trick? Was he mocking me? “Are you trying to be nice?”
“I am never unkind to you.”
“So breaking into my place twice and giving me a TV is your version of not unkind?”
“The television was for the—”
I held my hand up. “No. Try again. I’m not buying that whole ‘it’s for the child’ bullshit. Tell me the truth.”
“Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Christ. “Danish proverb?”
“Quote. Marcus Aurelius.”
“And he is?”
“Was. Roman Emperor.”
I got out of the SUV. “You make me feel stupid.” In so many ways.
Viking didn’t inhale, he didn’t flare his nostrils, he didn’t let the corner of his eye twitch—he did something way, way worse. He gently placed his hand on my shoulder and dropped his voice to a soothing cadence. “I am older, I have read more. You are not stupid.”
Warmth spread from his hand and dangerously threaded into my heart. It wasn’t the kindest thing Viking had ever said to me, but it was, by leaps and bounds, the most affectionate. For a single moment, I breathed it in and let myself feel the words as if they’d been intended as something more. Then I squashed the very stupidity he said I wasn’t guilty of and shoved the moment so deep I’d never find it again. “How old are you?” I needed to change the subject.
“Thirty-four.”
Smarter, stronger, older, he was more capable than any man I’d ever met. But that didn’t mean I should’ve burdened him with my problems. “I’m sorry I brought you into this.”
“I am not.”
I knew he was being honest. He was always honest. But it didn’t make it right. “Regardless, you shouldn’t have had to rescue me.”
He released my shoulder. “Agreed.”
I dropped my gaze. “Well, I’m sorry… about everything.” I’d never even thanked him for the damn TV.
“I was agreeing that you should not have had to be rescued in the first place.”
“I knew what you meant.” Viking wasn’t spiteful. “I was just saying that you shouldn’t have to clean up my mess.”
“Six dozen military-issue Israeli assault rifles are not your mess.”
My breath caught and my head popped up. “Israeli guns?” That couldn’t be right. “There’s no way Jason could get his hands on something like that.” Could he? “Are you sure?”
Viking’s face shut down. “We need to get upstairs.”
He opened Conner’s door, unbuckled him from his seat and held him high on his chest like he always did. Then he moved to my right but this time, he didn’t step a foot ahead. He placed his hand on my back.
A heat that was part comfort, part awareness and all Viking spread from his touch and reminded me of his warning. Familiarity breeds attachment. I silently chanted the edict as we stepped into the elevator, but the second the doors closed I was surrounded with Viking’s scent and his presence threatened to suffocate me. I tried to strip him from my thoughts but then I was left with the one thing I’d been avoiding.
“Candle’s going to come back,” I whispered.
Viking glanced down at me. “I will handle it.”
I stared at my son. His head innocently against Viking’s chest, he sucked his thumb and every second of the past few hours played in my mind like a warning. I knew what I had to do. I swallowed past the unbearable lump in my throat and brushed Conner’s curls from his forehead. “He’s not safe with me.”
“Not now,” Viking said with resolute authority. The elevator doors slid open and I scrambled to keep up with his long strides as he walked to one of the three doors on the floor, where he entered a code into a keypad.
“I’ve made a decision.” He couldn’t tell me what to do with my son, not when his safety was in jeopardy. “I know what needs to happen.”
“Later.” Viking swung the door open and Conner squirmed in his arms.
I forced a smile. “It’s okay, sweet boy. Remember our vacation?”
Conner looked from me to Viking. “Neil,” he whispered, tucking his head back against Viking’s chest.
Viking stroked his back and I choked on emotions thick with petty jealousy as I followed them into a sleek, modern, open-plan apartment. Whitewash hardwood floors, speckled stone countertops, leather sofas in the living room, all of it was framed by windows overlooking the Miami skyline. I’d never seen the apartments above the office and I almost wished it’d stayed that way, because now I was wondering what it’d be like to live in a place so nice.
Viking held Conner as he made a quick sweep of the apartment like he was looking for someone or something. When he returned to the living room, Conner was cradled in his massive arms like an infant, and he was sound asleep.
“How’d you do that?” I whispered.
Viking glanced down at my son and watched him a moment before quietly replying, “He was overwhelmed and tired.”
Seeing him hold Conner, watching the way he looked at him, something more than my own regrets settled around me. “Do you have kids?”
“No.” He didn’t hesitate.
“You should.” I’d never met a man who would make a better father.
“Börn er vis sorg, men uvis gläede.” The words rolled off his tongue like an answer to the mystery that was everything Viking.
“What does that mean?”
“Children are definitive sorrow but untold joy.”
I didn’t think there was a single thing that could take me completely out of the train wreck my life had become, but I was wrong. Staring up at a man I knew next to nothing about, I knew one thing for certain. He’d suffered. A lot. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“Today does not warrant an apology.”
He was wrong, on so many levels. Today was one big, giant I’m sorry but that wasn’t what I meant. “I wasn’t talking about today.”
Absolute and unforgiving, Viking’s gaze landed on mine. “I neither need nor want sympathy.” He tipped his chin toward a hallway. “Pick a bedroom.”
I bristled but I walked down the hall and chose the bedroom with the king-sized bed. I pulled the soft comforter back and arranged the pillows in a U-shape. Viking gently tucked Conner in as if he did it every day of his life.
Watching his movements, it was hard to imagine him not having his own children. “You’re really good at this.”
He straightened and the impenetrable coldness in his expression was back. “We need to talk.” The huge hand that had just cradled my son’s head wrapped around my arm and Viking propelled me out of the room.
THE SECOND WE WALKED INTO the living room, André came through the front door with the suitcases. Holding on to me like I was an errant child, Viking started talking to André in Danish.
André set the luggage down and his face twisted into anger as he turned to me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
André never swore at me. Add Viking’s firm grip on my arm, and I wanted to shove them both off the balcony. “Depends on what he said.”
“Jesus Christ, Ariel.” André shook his head. “Tavors?”
“What the hell is a Tavor?” I yanked my arm out of Viking’s grasp and stepped away from him.
Viking glanced at my arm then narrowed his eyes at me. “Israeli assault rifle.”