I was hurt and aching, but this need to get away was a powerful force that wouldn’t quit.
My skin was cut and bleeding from their strikes, but a latent need to kick their asses and show them that I was unstoppable charged through my veins.
So this is what it means to have maternal instincts.
I narrowed my eyes, zoning out at the sounds of cars moving outside.
I’d always had a bleeding heart, empathetic and crushed to witness anyone in pain. I cared like that about my cousin. I’d fussed over Andre like this as well. But this, this fiery combativeness that I wielded at my uncle’s claims about how he’d use my child…
Try me.
Try me, you asshole.
I dare you to take this baby from me.
Shifting again, I winced at the dull throb in my upper back. Any way I moved, it hurt, but that, too, would pass.
I closed my eyes and willed myself to cling to hope. To believe this couldn’t be my end. In the blissful darkness of my closed lids, I prayed that someone else would want to help me.
That Anya had gone home safely and told the others that I’d been taken.
That Andre knew that my uncle had kidnapped me and was holding me hostage.
And that he’d want to come and save me.
I opened my eyes at the sounds of more cars being moved on the driveway, in and out of the four-car garage.
Don’t hold your breath.
I smirked, hating how little faith I could have in the man I’d tried not to submit to. He’d been right about me when he said I was independent. I was. Now, I had to be. No one else was going to save me. Hell, it might be up to me.
I was alone in this cell.
I was facing a solo journey of an escape.
Anya cared. Claire and Natalie would too.
But for all I’d done and confessed to, the others wouldn’t.
Oleg. Mikhail. All the Orlov forces. They’d never trust me and would never want to help me.
But will Andre?
Did he feel anything for me?
Willing the threatening tears to stay away, I sucked in a deep breath and listened to the sounds of the cars outside.
Sweat clung to me, dripping over my face as I sat still in this sweltering cell.
Rain had tapped on the window earlier, but now, a definitiverat-a-tat-tat-tatreached me.
Narrowing my eyes at the sound, I realized that the shadows had changed. The headlights outside were different, blocked by a figure.
Hope blossomed. Joy filled me at what I thought I was seeing.
No one in this house would care to help me. Every one of the Giovanni soldiers would stay loyal to my uncle.
But outside the house…
