Zoe

“I’ve heard enough.”

The fierceness in his tone had my belly twisting as I turned.

I don’t know why I didn’t just keep walking, keep minding my own damn business.

But I didn’t.

I looked over.

Just in time to see four men in the lot.

Two of them pushed the third man to his knees as he bent forward, face bloodied, body shuddering with sobs.

I still didn’t move as the fourth man reached into his pocket and drew out a gun.

It wasn’t until he pressed it to the man’s temple that I seemed to remember that I wasn’t cemented to the ground.

But the second I set my foot back down for the first step, it crunched on something that had heads turning in my direction.

I didn’t stop to think.

I wrapped my arms around my baby to keep her from bouncing, and I ran for our lives.

A yelp escaped me at the loud bang as I cleared the alleyway.

“Go!” one of the men shouted. I was surprised I could even hear him past the whooshing of blood in my ears as I flew down the sidewalk.

If there was ever a time I was thankful that I’d always been reasonably active in my life, it was as I ran away from men with guns and a willingness to use them against someone who had already clearly been beaten into submission.

Even so, it had been ages since I ran and my thigh muscles burned as my feet pounded the pavement, each step a prayer that I could go just a little faster.

Lainey was wiggling in her carrier, her tiny body crushed to my hammering heart.

I didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

But behind me, I could hear the thud of shoes on the pavement as the men gave pursuit.

Desperate, I shot down a side street, knowing I was heading further away from my car—and the relative safety I could find within.

But if there was one hard truth I knew, it was no matter how athletic you were, men with their longer legs and stronger thighs could easily outrun you if the motivation was strong enough.

My motivation was stronger, though.

It was strapped to my chest. Whimpering, little knees pushing against my belly.

“Shh. Shh,” I whispered, frantic.

My heartbeat wasn’t even in my chest anymore. It was everywhere. In my throat, ears, the soles of my feet.

The road seemed endless.

Empty.

Unsafe.

But still, I ran.

Because stopping wasn’t an option.

I burst down the cross street like a bullet, nearly stumbling over a random cardboard box in my path.

The streetlights overhead flickered, disorienting me as I focused on putting one leg in front of the other.

Lainey’s weight bounced with every stride. My arms ached from holding her so tight. The straps were rubbing my shoulders raw.

A pathetic little whimper clawed at my throat, but I swallowed it down. There was no time for weakness or self-pity.

I charged up another street, not entirely sure where the hell I was or where the heck I was going. So long as it was away, I didn’t care.

Behind me—somewhere, I didn’t even know where—there were voices. Distant, winded. Getting closer?

Don’t look back.

My lungs screamed.

My side cramped.

But adrenaline pumped through me like jet fuel.

“Shh. Shh, baby. Please,” I pleaded with Lainey, who was gearing up to wail. I could just sense it. You would be able to hear her half a mile off if it got to that.

My eyes darted over every corner, every doorway. But there was nowhere open, nowhere safe.

I could hear footsteps thudding closer.

But it was right then I saw someone.

Finally, someone.

My stomach clenched, not sure who he was, if he could be trusted any more than the men hunting me down.

My gaze whipped over him. And every inch of the guy spelled out one word: trouble.

From the tousled hair that toed the line between blond and brunette to the tattoos up and down his arms, hands, and neck.

He was dressed in a wrinkled white tee, soft-worn blue jeans, slides, and some type of leather vest.

And, perhaps most alarmingly, he smelled like beer.

“Someone after you?” he asked, and something about his voice loosened the vice around my neck.

But I was breathing too hard to speak.

So I gave him a nod, then turned to look, swearing I heard voices growing closer.

“Come here,” he said, reaching for my arm. I didn’t even try to pull away. I just let him remove my arm from my baby. His gaze slid down, spotting the carrier, the little head, arms, and legs sticking out. “Shit,” he mumbled, tugging me down the narrow alleyway that grew darker with each step.

I was still trying to even out my breathing when the voices grew closer, louder.

“Alright, work with me here,” the stranger said.

Then he was pushing me against the wall, his body half-blocking mine—and especially Lainey’s—from view.

He reached down, grabbing my thigh and yanking it up.

“Put it around me,” he said, his voice a little desperate for me to understand, to know what he was doing, what his plan was.

My mind was too overwhelmed with fear to think clearly, though.

So I just… did it.

I wrapped my leg around this strange man’s hip.

This was no time for my belly to swoop and my sex to clench.

So I was going to go ahead and pretend none of that happened as I reached to rub the restless Lainey’s back instead.

She was calmer now that I wasn’t running, wasn’t making her little body jolt and bounce, and was no longer clutching her so hard she was probably freaking out.

The man’s head ducked down near my neck.

I was suddenly acutely aware of the sweat dripping down my skin, of how I kind of always had that sour milk scent to me from burping Lainey, how my hair was unwashed and likely not smelling great either.

He didn’t seem to notice as his one hand went to my ass and the other reached back into his waistband for something.

I felt something cool press against me, but I was too busy panicking when I heard the voices draw closer.

Dangerously close.

“It’s okay,” the man whispered, his hot breath on my neck. “Just relax.”

“Hey,” a voice called, making me jump and press my lips together to keep a cry in.

“Fuck off,” the man said, his hand massaging my ass as his head moved a little, acting like he was kissing me or my neck or something.

“Have you seen—”

The man suddenly turned toward them.

“Do I fucking look like I’ve seen anything?” he growled at them. “Fuck off so I can finish here.”

The snarl in his voice really sold the story. He was a man getting interrupted while trying to seal the deal with some random chick in the alley.

The man’s face turned back into my neck.

“Just give it a minute,” he murmured.

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 even clung to 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?

Who the hell was this guy?

Warning alarms started to go off in my mind, wondering if I’d possibly traded one bad situation for another.

I watched as the guy crept down the alley. No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t creeping. He was swaggering. The man swaggered.

His arm—and gun—hung down by his side as he reached the mouth of the alley, glancing one way, then the next. Even stepping out and walking a few feet in each direction before turning and making his way back toward me.

Where I was still frozen in the spot.

Well, no.

Not frozen.

I was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm from head to toe. My legs felt too wobbly to keep holding me up.

Without even meaning to, I slid down the wall, the brick pulling up the back of my shirt and scraping against my bare skin.

“Whoa, alright,” the guy said, reaching back to tuck away his gun, like this was some action movie.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

This was my real life.

And I’d just run for my life with a baby strapped to my chest from men with guns and a clear willingness to use them.

Only to be saved by an equally scary-looking dude with a gun that he handled with a casualness that made me think that he, too, wouldn’t think twice about using it.

Against me, my intuitive little Lainey started to wriggle and fuss.