Every little detail confirmed this was where she was meant to be, but if Mitch didn’t want her then why should she hang around? Why stay with someone when she wasn’t who they wanted? Maybe Mitch had been using her and now that they’d slept together, he was looking for any reason to move on.
That didn’t ring true with the man she knew him to be. He definitely wasn’t thewham-bam-thank-you-ma’amtype of guy.
Her breath whooshed out of her when she walked into someone. Lost in her thoughts she hadn’t seen the group walking toward them. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She offered the man a smile, but it froze on her lips.
Danger!Danger!
The word screeched in every facet of her mind. The group of men they’d run into weren’t a group out for an early morning stroll, they were a group on a mission and somehow she and Mitch had become their targets.
The man she’d run into had a scar running down the left side of his face. His eye was covered with a patch. It was obvious the reason for one was because of the other. There was nothing friendly about his face or his demeanor.
“I’m sorry.” She tried again, but her words fell on deaf ears and her arm was yanked behind her. “Ouch.”
“Hey asshole, leave her alone,” Mitch said and tried to grab her back but the others in the group all descended on him, dragging him away.
A scream caught in her throat as they started to kick Mitch. “Stop! What are you doing? What do you want? I’ll give you my purse, phone anything. Just let us go.”
Nadia was babbling. Saying things she shouldn’t but all she wanted was to change everything about the morning. If she’d been honest with Mitch about the job offer and talked to him, they could’ve still been in the hotel room. Safe and sound. Away from the danger they’d walked into.
“Hey boys did you hear that? This bitch is willing to do anything.” He ran a hand down her back and squeezed her ass. Her stomach turned and her skin crawled and she struggled to get out of the creep’s hold but he was just too strong.
She looked over at Mitch and her fear increased ten-fold. He was on the ground, blood pouring from a cut in the middle of his forehead. His bottom lip was split and a bruise was already forming on his cheek. But it was the blank stare in his eyes, that had her knees buckling. A look she recognized all too well. Mitch was lost in his mind. Lost in the well of fear where reality and memories coalesced. Lost and she wasn’t close enough to be able to reach him and help him out.
Nadia only hoped that somehow, someway he would find the strength to beat his demons.
The hands holding her tightened their grip to the extent she almost couldn’t breathe. She wouldn’t give in to them. She’d fight with everything she had. No way would she make it easy for these bastards to take her down.
Nadia looked again at Mitch, they were now kicking him in the ribs. Mitch had curled in on himself to minimize the damage from the blows. At least his self-preservation instincts were still intact.
Maybe she could pull him out of it. She had to try. Their time together couldn’t end this way. Nadia didn’t want the last thing he remembered about her to be their argument.
“Mitch!” She screamed his name. “I need you. I love you.”
The declaration popped out of her but she didn’t care. It hadn’t been her intention to say she loved him. She hadn’tknown for sure until this second, but amidst the fear coursing through her, peace settled in too. If her life was about to end at the hands of these men then she wanted him know. Wanted Mitch to know she loved him. That she’d declared it for the universe to hear. And she hoped he heard it too. He had to know that no matter what happened he was loved.
How the hellwas he under attack? He was on base. Wasn’t base supposed to be a safe place? There was no such thing as a safe place in war.
Air rushed out of him on a gasp as another kick landed right above his kidneys. If he didn’t do something he was going to die in this hellhole and he didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when his life was looking up. But how could that be? Nothing monumental happened to him when he was deployed. Relationships were always the last thing on his mind.
However, in the far recesses of his consciousness Mitch acknowledged that yes, his life was looking up. That there was a big reason for him to live.
“Mitch! I need you. I love you.”
The voice sounded familiar and he wanted to grasp onto it like it was a life raft in the stormy seas of his life. He opened his mouth to tell the person to keep talking, but nothing came out.
“Mitch please. Come back to me.”
Yes!
Yes!
He wanted to come back. To her. To this shadow woman who needed him. Who loved him.
Loved him.
Nadia.
Nadia loved him?
