Go.
Run.
Move.
The words were a litany in her mind. Don’t think about what’s behind, just keep moving forward.
Even if her heart was breaking because Nikolas was behind.
And then it didn’t matter any longer as a heavy arm came around her shoulders, pulling her back abruptly.
Nova stumbled but before she could even get out a scream, big hands were over her mouth and the harsh scent of aftershave rose up in her nose.
She would have tried anyway—would have clawed and scratched and kicked to get her and the baby away from him—but it did no good.
The small prick flashed a shot of pain into her upper arm. His next warning was unnecessary as the hallway leading into Nikolas’s office from the outer entrance increasingly swam before her eyes.
“Scream and you’re dead. That means the baby, too.”
Chapter 18
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
Only it was.
Just like that day, so long ago now, when she’d lain on the floor of Ferdy’s office bathroom and listened to the words he spat at his business partner.
Words that had told her how guilty he was. And just what a bad man he really was.
Nova knew this was coming. Hadn’t she expected it each and every mile since leaving New York? The growing child inside of her or the increasing distance hadn’t made a bit of difference. Ferdinand Adler was always out there. Always lurking. Like a monster from her nightmares.
Only there was no waking up from this.
No magic set of words that would change the fact that she carried the child of a madman.
A madman who wanted both of them dead.
Pain swam in her head, the aftereffects of whatever he’d drugged her with. Her mouth was full of cotton, even as her bladder threatened to give way. She already visited the bathroom on what felt like auto-repeat this late in her pregnancy—however long she’d been out had only added to the urgency.
Maybe she could use it to her advantage.
She was tied up in the back of a car, her hands behind her back as she lay on her side.
“Beached whale” filled her mind once more, only instead of the sweet and funny connotation the words had taken on in her lovemaking with Nikolas, this time they did nothing but bring tears to her eyes.
She was helpless. And her child’s life depended on all she could do in whatever time she had left.
She had to reason with him. Had to give him some way of understanding that she’d do anything to keep the baby safe. The rest could come later. Her Colton family would come for her.
Nikolas would come for her.
Assuming he ever got out of the office Ferdy had rigged with a bomb.
Good Lord, what had she wrought? Had she really been that desperate all those months ago that a few dates with this man had somehow had her seeing stars?
And how wrong had she been, to feel as if her relationship with Nikolas was at all the same. To even question that what she felt for him—the power of those feelings and the reality of all they’d shared—was at all the same.
She loved Nikolas.