29
The only person in that room as frozen in shock as Mia was the goon standing before her wearing black jeans, a black shirt, and a black skull cap that hid his face but not his blue eyes. The shock of finding her, the mayor’s wife, naked and crouched between the equally unclothed thighs of the man who’d kidnapped her was as clear as day in those blue orbs.
The goon recovered faster than she did, and before Mia could fully realize what was happening, Linc had taken fierce hold of her arms, wrapped his callused fingers so tight that a shot of pain blazed through her and tossed her to the floor. Mia’s body went flying just as the first shot of gunfire rang out.
She hit the floor a second later, scrambling against the slippery wood. The bed blocked her from the doorway, so she could no longer see the masked man on the other side, but she did hear him scream something in Russian. Probably speaking to whoever was with him. His screams were short-lived, however, because another gunshot rang out and cut off the rest of his sentence. A shot Mia could only assume had come from Linc’s gun. A shot that must have landed because, a second later, silence dominated.
Her heartbeat hammered in her chest as she replayed the words that man had just said in her mind. Words that had made sense to her because she spoke perfect Russian. Words that had caused her eyes to expand to twice their size and sent a cold chill racing down her spine.
Just as the words paralyzed her with fear, Linc’s feet pounded onto the floor next to her, and she looked up just in time to catch sight of him, still naked, with a gun trained on the door. Waiting for the next asshole to come barreling through so he could put a bullet between their eyes like had the first. Skin now flushed with adrenaline from the attack and not from having his dick in her mouth, Linc moved slowly across the room. He swept the white button-down shirt he’d ripped off Mia’s body, days earlier, off the floor and flung it at her without looking.
“Get dressed,” he growled. In the next instant, his face curled in fury, and he pulled the trigger three more times, sending three shots barreling straight into the body of whoever he’d just seen come through that door. The return-fire missed Linc by a hair and ricocheted off the wall.
Mia’s breathing grew ragged through her clenched teeth as she threw the shirt on, her fingers trembling so hard it was a struggle to do up the few buttons Linc hadn’t ripped away in a blaze of passion a few days earlier. More gunfire blazed through the air, making her ears ring, and when she saw Linc disappear from the corner of her eye, several hushed profanities left her lips. If he got hurt, she didn’t know what she’d do.
She couldn’t sit by idly as he did.
So once she got her shirt on, the missing buttons leaving it hanging crookedly on her body, she leaped to her feet. The sight of Linc on the other side of the room, struggling with a goon for control of a gun, stopped her heart mid-beat. For a moment, her limbs were frozen.
Her wide brown eyes fell to the floor where three men Linc had already taken out laid motionless, and still, she couldn’t move. Another man came barreling into the doorway, his squinted hazel eyes flying across the room. Those hazel eyes landed on her, widened, and snapped Mia out of her trance.
Because she knew he was there to take her.
To take her from Linc.
To take her back to Malik.
With a gasp, she turned on her heel and raced into the kitchen, leaving Linc still wrestling for control of the gun on the other side of the room. Just as she turned to run, the goon pushed off the doorway and charged after her, the stomp of his combat boots right on her heels proving that he was close.
Too close.
Before Mia could make it across the room and into the kitchen, the goon’s arms were around her waist, drawing a strangled scream from her tattered throat as he lifted her clear off her feet. Her legs kicked wildly as he carried her away and, in sheer desperation, hopelessness tightening her every bone, she lifted her elbow into the air and sent it flying back into his gut with all her might. The pain of the blow caused him to release her, dropping her back down to her feet as he bent forward with a heave. Freed, Mia raced back into the kitchenette. The goon recovered quickly and was right on her heels once more.
She flung herself onto the kitchen counter, her fingers clawing for the same butcher’s knife she’d had at Linc’s chest. The goon’s arms came around her waist again just as she seized the knife in a trembling hand and swiveled on her heel, howling as she swung the blade through the air as fast as she could, slashing the sharp end straight across his throat. Blood spurted from his neck and splashed onto her face, dotting her skin, and he stumbled back with a scream.
Mia followed with her teeth bared.
He held his neck with both hands, and his limbs instantly weakened, his knees threatening to cave in before he could make it out of the kitchen. He grabbed hold of one of the dining chairs, attempting to find balance, but it was no use. His knees gave out, and he crumbled into a heap on top of the dining table, wheezing for breath.
Mia came up behind him, raised the knife over her head, and plunged it into his back, propelling the blade as deep as it would go with an animalistic growl burning her throat.
A strangled gasp left his lips just before a river of blood raced up his throat and spilled out of his mouth, splashing down onto the table, making him choke on his own plasma.
With a deep breath, Mia yanked the knife out of his back, bringing his gagging and retching to a complete halt. Silence dominated the kitchenette once more. Nothing but her own gasping breath there to fill the space.
Never.
She was never going back.
The dark victory she felt in her heart was short-lived, however, when the name of the only person in that room she cared about came blazing through her mind and heart like a tsunami. Linc. With a sharp gasp, she dropped the bloody knife. It clattered to the floor just as she snatched the gun from the limp hand of the goon she’d just stabbed and raced out of the kitchen.
She made it into the main room just in time to see Linc lying on the floor, on his back with another goon above him—his gloved hands locked around Linc’s neck, choking him to death. One look at Linc’s reddened face as he thrashed for his life, croaking under the fierce grip of the hands squeezing his neck and Mia lifted the gun, pulling the trigger without another moment’s hesitation, sending three bullets into the man’s back. The gun backfired with each shot and nearly took her off her feet each time, but she hit her mark regardless. And, even as she stumbled, the goon collapsed lifelessly on top of Linc.
The breath Mia hadn’t even realized she’d been holding left her lips as Linc shoved the man’s flaccid body off him with a disgusted look on his face.
This time, the sight of a huge man barreling toward Mia didn’t send panic surging through her heart. The debilitating need to run didn’t crush her bones. The fear didn’t eat her alive.
Because it was him barreling toward her. Him seizing her wrist in a death grip. Him pulling her across the room and out of the door with his gun drawn.
It was him.
And, as long as he let her, she’d follow him to the ends of the Earth.
Their strangled breathing met and mixed together as Linc pulled Mia out into the hallway, pointing the gun both ways to make sure the coast was clear, still holding her wrist with his free hand. He met her eyes over his shoulder and used his gun-toting hand to press his pointer finger to his pursed lips, shushing her. Mia nodded her understanding as he pulled her toward the stairway railing that sat directly outside the door of the room.
Their room was on the tenth floor, near the top of a winding staircase, with only one floor above them. The hallway went silent, but they both knew better. If Malik had sent seven goons in London, odds were good he’d sent fourteen to Venice. If not more. The battle wasn’t over.
It couldn’t be.
Proving both their unspoken thoughts correct, just as Linc was about to lean over the railing to look over the edge, a goon one story up was looking over the railing as well. The long black tie of his suit hung down as he did. Mia noticed the very tip of that tie was hung low enough for Linc’s long arm to reach.
As if reading her mind, Linc reached up and seized the end of that tie, wrapping it around his hand to give him enough leverage to haul the goon’s body over the rail. With one deep, guttural growl, he did, heaving the tie with all of his might. The goon screamed as his body was towed over the edge, and then he was falling, his horrified howls growing louder with every story he passed until he slammed into the concrete floor ten doors down.
Mia peeked over the edge just as the sound of the man’s skull cracking rang all the way back up to the tenth floor. Several other heads jutted out from the floors below to look down as well. Each one covered in a black skull cap. Linc placed one hand on Mia’s stomach and pushed her back while pulling the trigger with the other. One, two, three shots blazed out of his gun. Three shots for the masked heads poking out from below. A spark of white light lit up the muzzle of his gun every time Linc pulled the trigger.
Mia assumed he must’ve hit his mark all three times because he didn’t fire again.
Had he got them all?
With his hand still on her stomach, holding her behind him, Linc looked over his shoulder and met her eyes again. They both remained deathly silent, waiting for any noise. Any indication that there was someone else in the building.
Then, a rustle. Another rustle. A muffled curse in Russian. More footsteps pounding up the stairs from several floors below. The unmistakable cock of several more guns.
Mia’s heart stopped.
Linc’s must’ve too, because a deep cringe crossed his face and, with a shake of his head, he seized her wrist once more and dragged her back into the room. As always, Mia followed him without question—across the room, and toward the open balcony doors.
Just as they were about to step outside, she paused.
Linc looked over his shoulder as she did, his eyes wide, chest swelling in a gasp. Something flashed across his green orbs. An unspoken question. A question that must’ve hurt him because he squinted at her. In the blink of an eye, she saw the moment his mind convinced him that he’d lost her. That, somehow, in the last half a second, she’d decided she was no longer on his team. That she’d no longer follow him. That she no longer wanted him. That she was ready to go “home” with the goons still charging up the stairs below. To go home to Malik.
When Mia pulled her wrist from his hold, his eyes expanded even more, confirming her suspicions. Without a word, she turned back into the room, amazed when he didn’t immediately recapture her wrist and remind her she was still his captive. As quickly as she could, she leaped onto the bed, crawled across it, and seized the yellow stuffed bear that he’d left sitting on the bedside table. The yellow stuffed bear he had yet to explain his attachment to, but she now had a pretty good understanding of regardless.
Yellow bear in hand, she raced back to the balcony and presented it to him. His shoulders and chest collapsed in a relief so visible it warmed her heart. His wide eyes relaxed too, back to their normal size, and a gentle smile crossed his lips, knowing she was still with him.
Knowing she was still behind him. When he stepped outside onto the balcony, she was with him. When he climbed out to the balcony’s stone rails, still naked as the day he’d been born, she was with him, climbing onto the ledge beside him. When he looked down into the sparkling waters of the narrow Venice canal below, so did she. They both caught sight of the empty waterway ten stories down. Of the motorboat parked there that hadn’t been there before. He looked at her, entwined their fingers, and clutched her hand tight. She looked up at him and clutched back.
They gave a soft nod.
And then, they jumped.
As they barreled down toward the water, all Mia could fathom was the birds they’d just startled with their jump, frantically flapping their wings. The agitated fledglings hurried out of their way as they fell. Then, in seconds, they were engulfed in the sparkling blue waters of the canal. Drowned in the dark blue world below.
As they let themselves sink, knowing at that moment they had no control, Mia and Linc’s eyes locked under the water, and she wanted to stay there forever. She wished they both had gills and could breathe underwater. Exist in a world where there were no slave trades, no missing kids, and no Malik Ali.
Linc seemed to accept that there was no running from that world, however. That there was no running from a world where his daughter was still held captive—because he was the first to paddle for the surface once their bodies had finished sinking to the floor. Mia was right on his heel.
They both took care now to draw in the heaving gasps their lungs begged for when they emerged from under the water. Any small noise could alert the men who still believed they were in that building, ten floors up. It was bad enough they’d already made enough noise by splashing down into the water. They couldn’t risk making any more. The memory of the noisy splash they’d just made remained fresh in their minds, causing them to swim toward the white motorboat as quickly as their limbs would allow. The yellow bear, now saturated with water, felt ten times heavier in Mia’s hand, making the swim to the boat a little more strenuous. Once they were alongside the edge of the boat, Linc took her waist and hoisted her inside. The boat tilted under his weight as he followed her in.
By the grace of God, the keys to the boat were still in the ignition and, coming up behind the wheel with a determined scowl, Linc didn’t waste a moment turning the key, filling the quiet canal with the roar of the engine before slamming his foot down on the gas. The boat blazed forward, causing Mia to fly back into the passenger’s seat with a yelp, unprepared for how quickly the powerful machine had just propelled ahead. The sopping wet bear hit her chest as it flew back too before landing in her lap with a plop.
As they careened down the waterway, she turned to look behind her, taking hold of the back of the boat. Her eyes followed the long line of white foam and bubbles the propellers created on the surface of the canal, squinting against the spray of the water just in time to see Malik’s goons come charging out of the building in the distance, looking both ways frantically. One goon caught sight of them and pointed toward the boat as it blazed away. The other’s followed his finger and caught sight of them as well before clapping their hands on top of their heads in frustration, ripping their masks from their faces, and screaming with all their might.
Their Russian profanities filled the air and echoed on the tight, narrow walls of the canal just as Linc steered the flying boat around the corner and out of sight.