Page 16

At the sound of his low voice, Lainey quit fussing and turned her head, trying to look over at him.

I couldn’t blame her for her curiosity. She’d probably only heard an up-close male voice a handful of times in her young life.

“You alright? You hurt?” he asked. His warm breath should not have given me the shivers.

“I… no. Yes.”

“Which one, baby?” he asked.

There was an aching sensation in my chest—and, well, somewhere else entirely—at the casual pet name.

“Yes, I’m okay. No, I’m not hurt.”

“What about her?” he asked.

“How do you know she’s a girl?”

“She’s decked out in pink.”

“She’s okay.”

She would let me know if she wasn’t. In fact, she seemed calm and curious. And completely oblivious to the fact that her mother was hanging on by a thread.

“Shh. Shh,” he murmured when we heard footsteps again, and a gasp escaped me. “Put your arms around me.”

I didn’t stop to think.

I wrapped my arms around him. Fine. I maybe evenclungto him. Just a little. To, you know, sell the scene. No other reason. It didn’t feel good or anything like that.

Lainey started to wiggle again, and my instinct was to start to bop my body up and down.

Voices came closer, the same ones—I was sure—as before.

“That’s good,” the man said, likely thinking I was pretending to writhe against him, not trying to calm my baby.

Joining in the show he thought I was putting on, his hips ground against me.

The moan that escaped me?

Unexpected.

Humiliating.

But sure helped to sell the story we were trying to create, I guess. And I could lean into that if he did something as embarrassing as question me about it.

“He’s not gonna be happy she got away,” I heard drifting down the alley.

Not a minute later, there was the slam of car doors. The roar of an engine. Then a car pulling away.

“Think we’re good,” the man said, releasing my butt. It took just a second longer to remember to release my leg from around his waist.

Freed, the man took a step back.

And it was then that I realized what had been pressed up against my stomach.

A gun.

Not only had he been willing to pretend to bang me in an alley to protect me, but he’d been ready to, what, shoot his way out of the situation, if it came to that?