Darkness surrounded Melody. A black so thick that, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t pierce it. Her hands were outstretched in front of her as she tried to feel her way to safety, but she couldn’t see them. And she couldn’t see any of the obstacles in her path. She was rushing forward blindly, quite literally.
It was so heavy around her that she could almost feel it pressing in on her body, like she was trying to swim through an oil slick. It coated her skin with grease and filled her mouth and nose, choking her, making it impossible to breath, impossible to scream or cry for help. Not that it mattered. She knew there was no help in this place.
Panic was there, along with fear. A terrible, all too familiar old friend. She could feel it coiled like a snake in the pit of her stomach as she stumbled forward, trying to find her way to the light. Trying to find her way out of the darkness, but she couldn’t see where she was going.
Her eyes were opened as wide as they could go, and she still couldn’t see a damned thing except for the endless, despairing dark. She would be lost there forever. She would never escape. Her breath hitched. She would never see Christian again, or get to hold him or kiss him or tell him that she loved him.
As she watched, though, something in front of her shifted. It was so minute she almost missed it, but, yes there it was! Something new. The tiniest pinprick of light like a single star burning faintly in the distant night sky. But it was there, and it would guide her towards the light and out of the darkness. She knew it would.
Biting back the fear that made her legs shake like jelly, Melody forced her body to keep moving, running now as fast as she could towards the light. It was getting bigger and brighter with every step, and as she passed out of the dark, squinting around at the brightness, she let out a whoop of laughter.
The sound of joy, though, quickly morphed into a scream of denial.
She knew where she was now.
She was back in the room where it always started. The long, endless hallway in Enrique’s palatial home.
Melody wanted to cry. She wanted to fling herself to the floor and give up. But before she could even move, heavy booted footsteps sounded behind her.
She didn’t want to turn around and see, but she didn’t have a choice. It was like she was a puppet dancing on someone else’s strings. But she already knew exactly what would be there. It didn’t make it any better when she looked behind her and saw Enrique.
As always, he was the monster out of her nightmares. Everything was the same. The hallway, the man, the awful look of rage and contempt in his black eyes. Only this time, something was different.
He was holding her baby in his arms. Her baby!
Terror flooded her body, but it wasn’t the same fear that had held her frozen before. This one propelled her forward, rushing towards Enrique instead of away from him. Because she could only think of one thing. He had her baby. And Melody had to save her child. She would do anything, fight anyone, to protect her baby. Especially from someone like Enrique, who only knew how to destroy the people around him.
Terrified, Melody screamed at him, trying to beat him with her fists, to claw at him, anything to make him let her baby go, but it was like there was a glass wall separating them, and she couldn’t get to him. She couldn’t get to her child.
Wildness filled her and she pounded against the invisible wall until her hands were bloody and her fingernails were torn and ragged. She didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was the tiny, helpless bundle that Enrique clutched in his arms.
Enrique’s handsome, awful features twisted into a sneer.
“You’ll never see your baby again, angel.” His voice was smooth and so cruel it was like a knife being stabbed into her chest. “My child now.”
Melody opened her mouth to scream again as he disappeared, along with her baby. Just… gone. As if they had never been. Her child, gone forever. Taken from her.
Melody woke up with a gasp and instinctively turned towards Christian, but she pulled back when she found… nothing. He wasn’t there.
She sat up in the bed, pushing down the rumpled sheets, and stared around the dark empty room. She had no idea what time it was. It was still dark outside, but the sky was just starting to turn a charcoal gray instead of an inky indigo.
Melody ran her hand against the sheets of the other side of the bed. They were cold. He must not have been there for some time, for his body heat to all have faded.
Confused, and still shaken from her nightmare, Melody pushed herself out of bed. She rose to her feet, padding around the room softly until she found Christian’s t-shirt and slipped it over her sleep-tousled hair.
She walked out of the room, and headed down the stairs, following a light glowing from the kitchen. Melody paused for a moment, just drinking in the sight of him sitting at the kitchen table.
He was so handsome it was almost too much for her to take. She wrapped her arms around her belly, reassuring herself that her baby was fine and safe, and thought that, if it was a little boy, she wanted him to look just like her father.
A small smile quirked up one corner of her mouth. God help Christian if it turns out to be a little baby girl. She had a feeling he was telling the truth. He would be a nervous wreck.
Melody traced him with her gaze, taking in the strong line of his shoulders and chest, down to his hands, that were callused and shaped from hard work and dedication, on the table full of cash…
Wait a minute. What? Table full of cash? Melody forced her still sleep fuzzed mind to back up and focused on the kitchen table. She didn’t mean to, but she gasped, drawing Christian’s attention to where she stood on the threshold.
She had never seen so much money in her life! There were stacks of cash littering the table top and piece of paper laid out in front of Christian as if he’d been tallying it all.
“Melody! This isn’t what it looks like.”
Her brows furrowed at Christian’s odd words.
“Really? Because it looks like a boatload of cash laid out on the kitchen table.”
“Oh, um, alright. Well, I guess it is what it looks like, but…”
Christian shook his head, running hands through hair that looked like it hadn’t been the first time. Or even the second or third.
“Christian, where did all this money come from?”
Melody was still in shock as she took a few steps closer. Christian finally noticed what she was wearing and his eyes grew heated and heavy-lidded for a moment as he took in his t-shirt that barely skimmed the very tops of her thighs.
“Christian?” Melody asked again, and he shook his head.
She was secretly pleased that she was enough to distract him, but she had too many questions. Namely, where the hell had all this money come from? And what was Christian doing with it? And why hadn’t he told her about it?
“Look, Mel, where it came from isn’t important.”
“I really think it is, Christian.” Melody planted her fists in her hips and gave him her best surly Bianca look. “Christian. Tell me the truth. Where did you get the money?”
He was silent for so long she was nearly sure he wasn’t going to give her an answer, but finally he let out a long, hissing sigh.
“You’re not going to like it.”
Okay, well she really didn’t like that. Or being lied to.
“Just tell me already.”
Christian nodded, spreading his hands as he obviously searched for a good answer.
“Just the truth, Christian. That’s all I ever need from you,” she whispered softly.
He looked stricken by her words. He let out another sharp breath, but finally he answered her.
“I stole it from the gang.”
“What?” Melody gasped. “What gang?”
“The Devil’s Martyrs. It was the money that Enrique owed them to pay off his debt. He brought it with to the meeting, even though I’m pretty sure he had no intention of actually handing it over.”
Christian paused, drew in another deep breath as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying just as much as Melody couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“During the shoot-out, Craig handed me the bag and told me to take it. And I just… did,” Christian said with a shrug. “I didn’t think twice about it. I just grabbed the money and ran.”
Worry ran through her as she absorbed Christian’s words.
“You stole this from your gang? And Enrique?” she whispered. She couldn’t say it any louder. It would make it too real.
He just nodded, and his confirmation made her suddenly feel like she was going to vomit.
“Christian, how could you do this?” Melody shook her head. A million ways this could come back to bite them, or end them in an early grave, flew through her head.
“I know it seems crazy at first, Mel, but look at this,” he said as he pushed the piece of paper in front of her, “With this much money, we’ll have more than enough to leave the state. Hell we could leave the country if we wanted. We could get a house for our baby, I could start my own practice.”
Melody glanced down at the sum and nearly choked when she read the number, and the amount of zeroes that came after it. Her gaze flew back to Christian’s.
“This is right? There’s this much money here?”
He nodded again, this time leaning forward in earnest.
“Just think about it, Mel. We can finally get our clean start. We can finally get the life we always wanted.”
The last thing in the world that she wanted to do was get into a fight with him, but she knew what he was saying was a fantasy. Melody pushed the paper away.
“We have to give the money back.”
“What?” Christian looked at her in shock. “This is our ticket to freedom.”
“No, this is our ticket to getting shot in the head. This is our ticket to getting our baby killed. You don’t steal from Enrique and live, Christian. And I don’t think the Devil’s Martyrs would think any more kindly of it either.”
She dropped down into the chair next to him and grabbed one of his hands in hers, trying to make him see.
“If we keep the money, they’ll come after us. And they’ll come after our child,” Melody said, trying to reason with him. “I know how Enrique works.”
But Christian just shook his head, refusing to see reason, refusing to give in, no matter how many arguments she threw at him. And with every refusal, Melody grew more and more panicked.
She opened her mouth to try one more time, frustration and fear making her words sound harsh, but before she could get them out there was a high-pitched ring of a text message that came from the bedroom upstairs.
Christian’s sighed in relief, anger lining his own face as he made a hasty excuse and went to go answer it. Leaving her all alone, staring at a table full of more money than she’d ever seen before, and all she could see in front of her was a death warrant.
She just had to make Christian see the same.