I missed him the moment the door closed.
And I was truly sorry that I had lied to him.
Because things didn’t turn out okay.
In fact, they were far from okay at all.
* * *
It had only beena couple minutes.
The door pushed open and I wondered how Paxton could be back so fast. But it wasn’t my husband. My eyes met a man with a menacing look on his face, and I froze in terror when I realized I’d seen him that morning in my parents’ bakery.
Those few seconds that I couldn’t move were plenty of time for the big guy, who held a gun clutched tightly in his gloved hand, to move right up alongside my bed.
“We have been waiting for the right time and it just landed in our laps. You have about two minutes to put on your clothes. Then you will come with me quietly or the man I have watching your husband and baby will not hesitate to kill them both on my orders.”
I gasped. Tears started rolling down my face and my throat felt as if it was closing up, fear almost strangling me where I lay.
Without a care for the fact I just had a baby and was in the hospital, the man roughly yanked me from the bed, my hospital gown flapping open in the back and my bare ass on display. I quickly tried extracting my wrist from his grasp, but it was no use.
His sinister chuckle sent a shiver down my spine as he pulled me toward the cabinet that contained my bag of belongings before ripping them free. Once he had them in his other hand he threw them into the open bathroom doorway, the contents spilling out across the tile. Then he let my wrist go and shoved me in after them, hard enough I went skidding to my knees, and cried out in pain.
“You now haveoneminute or they’re gone.”
He stood in the open doorway, not making a move to shut the door and pointed his gun at my head.
Why isn’t he just killing me now?
They had been toying with me and he had the opportunity to end me, but he wasn’t and that confused me. But I couldn’t take the chance he would kill my family. The same man had helped kill my parents so I knew the lengths he would go to.
With trembling hands, I grabbed my dress—the one that was too big now— I’d been wearing for my date with my husband before I went into labor and pulled it over my head, leaving the hospital gown on to hide my body. Then I carefully removed the gown before tucking my arms into the sleeves of my dress.
“Hurry the fuck up or I will make the goddamned call,” he hissed.
With my panties ruined from when my water broke and wearing postpartum mesh underwear in their place, I didn’t have to risk the bastard seeing anything there. When I went to get my bra my eyes caught on the end of a chain tucked in the bag and I realized it was my necklace.
Oh God, I need the necklace.
Doing quick work, I pulled my arms back out of my sleeves, hooked the bra and pulled it up over my feet and up my body. Once on, I shoved my arms back through the holes and almost panicked that there was no way to get the very item I needed so Paxton could find me.
That’s when I saw my phone.
Knowing he would never let me have the phone, I grabbed it out of the bag where the man could see it, not raising it all the way, but hanging onto it in plain sight.
“You think I’m fucking stupid, bitch? Hand that to me.”
Instead of moving forward and putting it in his outstretched hand, I slid it hard across the floor, past his booted feet, getting the second of distraction I needed as his eyes veered from me when they followed the phone.
In those few precious seconds, I snatched up my necklace and shoved it in my bra.
His gaze whipped back to me, gun still raised, as he moved toward the phone. But he didn’t pick it up. He smashed it with his booted-foot and it shattered into pieces. I was shocked the nurse wasn’t running into my room at the noise but she was probably with someone else. For her that was a blessing because I had no doubt the guy would shoot her on the spot.
“Get fucking moving.”
I’d slipped my shoes on as I watched him kill that lifeline I may have had, being my phone, but it was a sacrifice I had to make to get the necklace which was easier to hide.
I hoped it was the only lifeline I needed.
