But it’s a moment too long. Just as he reaches for his gun, Ransome lunges at him, taking him to the floor.
“Well, look who finally decided to join the party!” Tristan grits out as they roll around, each of them fighting for the higher ground. Both of them are trying to grab their guns, but neither can get their hands free long enough to reach back. Even if they could, it would be too messy. Too close-range. So instead, they fight bare fisted, one punch after another.
Finally, Ransome is able to pull something from his pants—a switchblade.
But before he can even open it, Tristan knocks it from his hands and it slides across the floor. Another wave of pain surges through my body. Electra looks down at me.
Then she scoots towards the knife. She’s able to get hold of it and scoots back over to me, fumbling with it behind her back.
A moment later, her hands are free and so are mine. “We gotta go,” she tells me.
“I don’t know if I can walk,” I cry.
“You have to. We have to.” Electra is insistent and tugs me to my feet. “Let’s go.”
Most of my weight is against her. We almost slip on something wet as we stumble our way back out of the warehouse, taking the path that I somehow manage to remember even through the blinding pain.
It’s then that I realize I am soaked.
I think Electra realizes it too.
“Your water broke,” she says as we get outside. “We have to call someone. We have to get help.”
I lean against the wall as Electra checks Tristan’s car, but it’s locked. Then she moves on to Ransome’s.
By the grace of God, it opens.
“Glove compartment,” I say, my words breathy.
“What?” she asks, looking back at me.
“A cell phone,” I manage to say. It’s the burner that he’s had since I met him. The phone that got me into this whole Ransome Rozanov mess.
My body tenses up again and I start to sob. With the contraction comes a burst of water. My hand slides over my hard belly and down to my thigh.
And that’s when I realize it’s not just water. My hand, and everything else, is covered in blood.
“No…” I murmur, just before everything goes dark.
54
RANSOME
I grab Tristan by the shirt and pound him hard enough into the cold concrete that his eyes rattle in his skull.
If he were anyone else—if he was staying alive on rage and cocaine—that jolt probably would have given him a concussion. But no such luck with him. Tristan just smiles and shoves me off.
I jump to my feet and so does he. Then we both step back.
He wipes the blood off his chin with the back of his wrist. “You got a lot of nerve showing up before I was ready for you.”
“I thought you were born ready.”
I can feel the blood dripping from my own brow, but I leave it. I’m not allowed to let my guard down at all. Tristan is probably the most unpredictable man I’ve ever met. He’s also the most unfeeling. His only soft spot is his own greed, which isn’t exactly something I can take from him and tie to an interrogation chair.
“I don’t understand why you keep assuming to know me, Rozanov. We aren’t the same. We don’t even want the same things.”
“You’re right.” As much as I hate the words, they’re not untrue. We couldn’t possibly be more different. And we definitely don’t want or value the same things. “I guess what I want to know is why? Why are you willing to risk everything you have?”
