He closes the door behind him. There’s a sinister quiet to his movements that turns me ice cold.
“What are you mixed up in? Selling weapons?”
His jaw ticks, and something in him snaps.
He advances toward me, not with a senator’s graceful control, the polished stride of a man who spends his days shaking hands and kissing babies. Not with the warmth of a lover.
He’s predatory and swift, his eyes obsidian. “You shouldn’t have been listening.”
He grabs my arm and tugs me toward him.
“Preston, no!” I shield my stomach with my other arm as he slams me backward into the dressing table. The mirror rattles, bottles topple, and the expensive perfume he’d given me for our special day falls to the floor and shatters, enveloping me in suffocating fumes.
Fear cracks my chest wide open as he studies me with icy detachment. He’s trying to decide how difficult it will be to silence me.
I twist away and heshoves me. Hard.
My dress tears on a drawer handle, and I nearly lose my balance.
My vision goes blood red.
How could he? How could he risk hurting his child?
I find my footing and charge toward him, swinging. I aim for his jaw, and it feels like my fist hits bone. I kick out at him, scratch, throw another punch, but he catches my fist in his.
He hits me. Once, twice. Not hard enough to knock me out, but enough to daze me, and make my cheek flare with a pain that brings tears to my eyes.
“Stop! The baby!”
His fingers dig into my flesh as he grabs my jaw and forces me to look at him. “Do you think they care about that? Do you think I have a choice after what you’ve heard?” His breath smells like whiskey. His face is red with rage. “You stupid, nosy woman?—”
Desperate to protect the tiny life inside me, I shove him, but it does little good. He straightens, and his features change again, as if a switch has been flicked.
He smooths his tie and composes himself. He shifts from violent criminal back to polished politician in an instant, and the calm menace in his expression is the scariest thing so far.
“You have two choices, Kira.”
In my dream, I start screaming, and those screams wake me up.
CHAPTER 5
KIRA
A gruff voice comes out of the darkness. “You’re having a nightmare. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
I open my eyes to a warm, dimly lit room, where the shape of a man comes into focus. His size is imposing, even as his words offer comfort.
A fuzzy memory surfaces. This man has been taking care of me. Multiple men, actually.They saved me.
A faint flutter low in my belly sends a wave of relief through me.They saved us.
“Are you okay?” The man crouches beside my bed. He’s big and bearded, with shaggy brown hair. His eyes are edged with worry, and his expression softens his husky voice. There are two other men behind him.
“I’m … I’m okay.”
“You were having a nightmare,” he says, “but you’re okay now.”
“Where am I?” I think they already told me, but I might have been dreaming.
