I clear my throat and try again. “Who is it?”
There’s a dry cough that I realize belatedly is a nasty chuckle. Then a man’s voice, cold and unfamiliar.
“I’ll only tell you if you promise not to scream.”
33
ELIANA
choke point /CHok point/: noun
1: bottleneck in kitchen workflow that slows service.
2: where the hallway narrows. where his hand covers your mouth.
I’ll only tell you if you promise not to scream.
I don’t know if he rehearsed that one or if he was just feeling inspired in the moment. But whatever the case, it has the intended effect.
I freak the fuck out.
My mind is sprinting through possibilities. Is this one of Aleksei’s men? Has Harold betrayed us already? How did anyone know I’d be here? The appointment was made under a fake name, paid for in cash, and chosen specifically because it was far from anywhere Aleksei might think to look.
And yet here we are.
I’m trapped in a locked exam room, blind, pregnant, wearing nothing but a paper gown that doesn’t even close properly in the back. My only weapon is Excalibur, which I grip so tight my knuckles ache. My phone is in my purse on the chair across the room, which means it might as well be on the moon for all the good it does me now.
There’s no one coming to my rescue, either. I made Yas stay home and Bastian doesn’t know where I am. I have only myself to blame. Myself and my dumb convictions about boundaries and independence and all those things that seem so stupid now.
“Who are you?” I manage to squeak out as Mr. Marlboro Red comes closer. “What do you want?”
He doesn’t answer my question. Just sucks his teeth and says, “You’ve made things very complicated, Ms. Hunter.”
The scuff of his shoes against the tile floor is worse than nails on a chalkboard. My free hand goes instinctively to my belly, as if I can somehow shield the tiny life inside from whatever’s coming.
I try to tell myself I’m not totally helpless. I’ve fought off a guard before with Excalibur—cracked his skull open in that hallway while Bastian carried Sage to safety. But that was different. I had the element of surprise and the advantage of righteous fury propelling me forward.
Here, I’m at every possibledisadvantage.
I wonder if anyone outside can hear us. Even if they could, would they do anything? Will Dr. Meredith and his charming bedside manner come back in time to interrupt whatever this is?
My bets are on “highly unlikely.”
When the man ventures closer again, I swing Excalibur recklessly.
It does a grand total of jack shit. He catches it easily. I hear him grunt with satisfaction as he wrenches the cane from my grip and casts it aside. The loss of my only weapon sends panic spiraling through my chest.
“That wasn’t smart,” he tuts.
I scramble backward on the exam table until my shoulders hit the cold wall. I open my mouth to scream, consequences be damned. Someone has to hear, someone has to help, there are nurses and patients just beyond these walls, or that too-kind-to-be-real woman who loved potato chips, or the laughing wife and her annoying husband worried about parking?—
But Marlboro’s gross hand clamps over my mouth before I can make a sound. Calloused, cigarette-stained fingers press hard enough to bruise. He smells revolting. For a moment, I’m genuinely concerned I’m going to asphyxiate on my own vomit.
The ultrasound photos slip from where I’d been clutching them against my chest. I hear them flutter down, and it’s such a small thing, such a stupid, insignificant detail in the grand scheme of what’s happening, but it breaks something in me.
Those images of my baby—ourbaby, Bastian’s child, the one he pressed his palm against just last night—lying like dead birds on the floor of this exam room while a stranger’s hand blankets my mouth and his other arm pins me against the wall like I’m nothing, like we’re nothing…
I try to bite his palm. My teeth scrape against a fold of his leathery skin, tasting ash and salt, but I can’t get enoughpurchase to do real damage. He grunts, rips his hand away, then slaps me once across the face.
