I take a quick glance at my fingertips—one is split open, blood welling. That’s when I notice a bullet notched into the floor nearby. A tiny crater in the tile. Someone tried shooting.
Lucky bastard missed.
NINE
MARA
“Stop squirming,” Chase hisses as he tugs me through the narrow hallway behind the ballroom. “I’ll never let them have you.”
Bile rises in my throat as the tang of cold metal handrails ghost my palm as we descend the stairs, moving down into the underground parking garage.
The stairs jerk us around a corner, my pulse hammering as we barrel through the door into the parking structure. If I let him get me into a car, I’m done for. He will ship me off to some private island, never to be seen again.
A flicker of fury surges in me and I stop firmly, causing him to turn back to look at me.
“What the fuck are you doing, bitch?” He glares at me with those cold eyes of his.
Freedom, or death.
Those are the only two options in my life.
Better if I die with my dignity intact.
I raise my knee up quickly, crushing his balls. He howls and pushes me out of his grip, clutching himself. I slip and slide a few steps ahead.
“You really think you’re the fucking boss of me?” I challenge. And for the briefest instant, he just stares at my face. A spark of doubt flashes in his eyes, and a tiny victory blooms in me.
Chase snarls and hauls me forward again. “You’re going to fucking regret that.”
I bolt forward. The garage is wide and cold, lined with silent sleeping cars and distant shadows. As I run, the temperature drops significantly, or maybe it’s just my adrenaline causing my blood to run cold.
Chase sprints behind me, a dark blur in my periphery.
I clear the hood of a parked SUV in a single jump, momentum carrying me past it. There’s a hollowclangas my elbow smacks the side of another car, but I don’t stop.
“You’re not getting away!” he roars as his hands clamp on my shoulders from behind, wrenching me to a halt.
We stumble and crash against the concrete wall. Gravel digs into my elbows, and he’s on top of me in a heartbeat, knees pinning my thighs.
Chase’s breath is hot on my neck. “You belong to me,” he snarls. “No one else will have you.”
His hands twist my wrists together above my head, cutting off my escape. My back arches against the wall, and I feel a smear of sweat across my skin, my heart forcing blood to pump through my body in fury and fear.
This is exactly where he wants me—tiny and helpless and at his mercy.
Chase leans his forehead against mine. His eyes glitter madly. “You can’t escape destiny.”
I jerk my elbow up, smashing it into his side. A grunt, and suddenly, he isn’t holding me so tightly.
He jerks sideways, startled.
“Get off,” I choke out, my voice a strangled whisper.
He just laughs as he lunges toward me again, but then the world stops when I hearhisvoice.
“Get down!”
A metallic crack.
