Chapter 6 - Cornered in the Mist by the Man I Thought I Could Outrun
Dante caught me within five strides. His heavy hand clamped down on the collar of my coat, jerking me backward so violently my feet slipped on the wet asphalt. I twisted, fighting like a wild animal, clawing at his eyes with one hand while curling my other arm defensively over my belly.
“Get your hands off me!” I screamed into the storm. “Help! Somebody help me!”
“Shut up!” Dante snarled, shoving a cloth smelling heavily of chloroform toward my nose. “No one can hear you over this storm, little girl.”
I bit his thumb with all my strength. He cursed, striking me across the cheek with the back of his hand. I fell to the ground, the impact jarring my knees, the precious ultrasound pictures scattering into the rain-swept puddles.
Dante raised his weapon, leveling it at my head. “Get up before I put a hole through your knee.”
A deafening crack tore through the storm.
Dante’s shoulder exploded in a mist of red. His gun clattered onto the pavement as he stumbled sideways, howling in agony.
Before I could comprehend what was happening, the roar of a twin-turbo V8 engine shook the asphalt. A matte-black armored SUV crested the embankment at terrifying speed, slamming directly into Dante’s parked vehicle and pinning him against the metal barrier.
The driver’s door flew open.
A man stepped out into the pouring rain. Tall, broad-shouldered, radiating an aura of lethal authority that could stop a man’s heart from twenty paces away. He wore no coat—only a rain-soaked black shirt and dress trousers, a heavy tactical firearm held casually in his gloved right hand.
Roman.
My breath vanished. My entire world stopped spinning.
Roman walked past Dante’s crumpled, groaning body without even glancing down, his gun discharging once into the ground near Dante’s head to ensure he stayed down.
His dark, merciless eyes were fixed entirely on me.
He walked until he stood directly over me. The rain plastered his dark hair to his forehead, his jaw clenched with such intensity the muscle jumped beneath his skin. In his eyes was an ocean of fury, agony, and an obsession so profound it terrified me.
Slowly, Roman crouched down on one knee in the freezing puddle. He looked down at the soaked black-and-white ultrasound photograph lying between us on the wet pavement.
His massive hand, usually steady and lethal, trembled as he picked up the photograph.
May you like
He stared at the tiny image of our daughter. Then, he lifted his gaze to mine.
“Did you really believe,” Roman whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, shattered emotion I had never heard before, “that you could run to the ends of the earth and hide my own blood from me, Evelyn?”
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