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“I had him.” Bile rushed to the base of Chase’s throat, but he managed to choke it back down. “I fucking had him!”

An animalistic growl filled the open air around him as he slammed his fist hard against the side of the bed of his truck. The black metal caved inward as if it were made of tin foil.

Chase didn’t feel the pain as the skin covering his knuckles split. He didn’t notice the bright red blood beginning to ooze from the cuts.

The only thing he felt was despair. The face behind the wheel of that fucking van was the only thing he could see.

“There was no way you could’ve known the asshole was going to pull this shit.” Archer stepped up beside him. “And beating yourself up…mentally or physically…isn’t going to help bring your girl back home. Trust me.”

“He’s right.” Lucky made his way from his car to where Chase and Archer stood. Obvious guilt seemed to fill the man’s bright blue gaze. “Besides, if there’s anyone to blame here, it’s me. I’m the one who ran the guy’s background.”

A deeply muttered curse sounded from behind them half-a-second before Van’s imposing form joined the small group. The look in the man’s dark eyes matched the deep scowl covering his tanned and rugged face.

“Levi Taylor,” he growled the reporter’s name. “ That’s who you need to be pissed at. That’s the only person you should blame. Now, y’all can stand around here and keep pointing fingers at yourselves, or we can get to work trying to figure out why the asshole targeted Scottie.”

The group of private security specialists grew quiet as the truth in the man’s words sank in. Van was right. This wasn’t productive, and it damn sure wasn’t going to help bring Scottie back.

“Look deeper,” he turned to Lucky, who seemed to have shaken off some of his remorse as well. “There has to be a reason he went after her. Some sort of connection between the two.”

“Already on it.” He lifted the state-of-the-art tablet held securely in his hand. “I’m cross-referencing the two for anything they may have in common. If there is a connection between Scottie and this psycho, my program will find it. Trust me.”

“I do,” Chase didn’t hesitate to let his friend know.

He trusted Lucky with his life. And more importantly…with Scottie’s.

“I’m also collecting CCTV footage from all the cameras in the area, but there’s a shit ton in the city, so it’s going to take a bit for my program to locate and track that specific vehicle.”

“What about Dawari?” Archer mentioned Kaamisha Dawari as a possibility. “Could be this guy’s been ordered to use the women we love against us as a means of retaliation.”

“I don’t think so.” Chase shook his head. “When I first saw the prick watching us that night, I thought maybe. But if his beef was with the team, why not kill me?”

His head shook from side-to-side again, pacing the immediate area of the broken and weed-filled parking lot. “This was personal. He left me alive, because he didn’t give a shit about me. Scottie was his target.” And now the bastard has her in his fucking clutches. “He’s good, though, I’ll give him that. Not a professional but calculated.” The memory of the psycho pissing his pants in “fear” came rushing back. “He’s a damn good actor, and willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.”

“Apparently what the fucker wants is Scottie.” Logan joined the group after having been talking with the detectives on scene. To Chase he asked, “How you holdin’ up? You get that cut on your head checked out yet?”

He was definitely concussed and probably needed a couple dozen stitches. But as long as Scottie was still out there…

“I’m fine.”

The look on Logan’s worried face said he wasn’t buying it for a minute. Fortunately, the former SEAL also didn’t argue. If Chase had to guess, it was because Logan understood.

What he was feeling. Thinking. The all-consuming helplessness threatening to take over.

Logan, Archer, and even Lucky…they all knew what he was going through. It was a hell he didn’t wish on his worst enemy, and one Chase wasn’t sure he’d survive.

“Hey Boyer!”

They all turned to see Detective Travis Knox making his way over to where they all stood. Chase met him halfway. Technically, the man was assigned to homicide, but the department—namely, Knox—and the Eagle’s Nest group had an understanding.

We scratch his back, he helps us out when he can.

“You find something?” Chase asked, feeling as if his sanity was hanging on by a thread.

Regret filled the tall man’s light blue eyes. “Not yet. I was just letting you know the techs are finished processing your truck. As you know, with the airbags deployed, it’s not drivable.” He handed Chase a business card. “That’s a tow service I’ve used before. Oh, and I already spoke to the property’s owner, and he said there’s no rush in getting it moved.”

He took the card, shoving it into his jeans’ back pocket.

“If you do leave it here overnight”—Knox spoke up again—“be sure to take out anything personal before you go. Never know when some assholes will show up looking to steal whatever they can find.”

“Thanks, Travis.” Chase shook the decorated detective’s hand. “Appreciate it.”

“You sure you don’t want EMS to look at that cut?” The man’s gaze grew concerned. “I talked them into staying a little longer in case you changed your mind about accepting medical care.”

“I’m good.” He was far from fucking good, but whatever.

Time spent with the paramedics was time Scottie couldn’t afford for him to waste.

“I’ll call if anything new comes up,” Knox offered. “I trust you and your team will do the same.”

“Of course,” Logan answered for Chase and the others.

The man gave them all an appreciative nod before turning and walking away.

“Come on.” Lucky put a hand to Chase’s shoulder. “You work on getting your shit from your truck, and I’ll check on the programs I have running to see if anything’s popped up.”

Accepting that nothing more could be done until they had a bead on Scottie’s location, he followed Lucky’s suggestion and moved over to the still-opened front passenger door. His intentions were to get the paperwork from his glove box, but Chase froze mid-reach when he spotted the purse lying on the floorboard below.

He assumed the partially unzipped bag had been thrown to the floor on impact. Either that or when she was forced from the truck.

Chase carefully began gathering the items scattered about, putting them back inside her bag so she’d have her things when she returned.

A cherry ChapStick. Her set of keys. A small, round mirror. Her wallet.

The items blurred as a well of unshed tears rushed to the surface. But Chase blinked them away, refusing to give in to his fear for the woman he loved.

Something else caught his eye. Something made of white plastic that was sticking half-out from beneath the seat.

Chase reached down, pulling the item free. At first, he had no idea what the damn thing was. But then…

Oh, my god!

No way. No fucking way this was real.

But as he read the word displayed in the tiny, digital window, Chase knew inside his heart it was true.

Pregnant.

“Logan!”

Natalie’s shouted voice came from someplace behind where Chase remained frozen. She sounded alarmed, and winded. But he couldn’t seem to get his body to move enough to see what the woman wanted.

“Nat?” Logan sounded surprised to see his wife at the scene of the crime. “Sweetheart, what are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay?—”

“There’s something you need to know!” She sounded much closer now. “Something Chase needs to know. It’s about Scottie. It’s something she told me right before they left the shower.”

“Scottie’s pregnant,” Chase said the strange words aloud.

The woman he loved was pregnant. And there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that the baby was his.

“H-how did you?—”

“This.” Chase interrupted Natalie, turning around to show her and the others what he’d found. “It must’ve fallen out of her purse when that man…”

His voice cracked, so he cleared it but said nothing more. At this point, what was there to say?

Scottie was pregnant, and she hadn’t told him. And now she’d been kidnapped by a madman for reasons he still didn’t understand, and he had no idea where she was, or even where to start looking.

Learning she was pregnant with his kid only made the desperation eating him alive inside that much worse.

Please, God. Please don’t take them away from me! Not now. Not before we even have the chance to ? —

“She was going to tell you.” Natalie spoke up again. “W-when you two got back to your apartment. She was afraid you wouldn’t be happy, but I told her?—”

“Not happy?” Chase’s eyes flew back up to his sweet friend’s brown stare. “I love Scottie with everything I am. Sure, she said she was on the pill, but…these things still happen, you know? I mean, I get that none of that shit is a hundred percent. What I don’t understand is how could she think I wouldn’t be happy that we’d made a baby?”

Sympathy shone through Natalie’s worried gaze. “You two only recently got engaged, and she was afraid you’d think it was too soon.”

Too soon? He’d waited fourteen fucking years for this particular dream to come true. Everything he'd always wanted was finally within his grasp, but now…

I can’t lose them. Not now. Not fucking ever!

Chase felt a strange sort of peace fall over him, and he realized what he needed to do. Come hell or high water, he would find her. He’d find Scottie, and then he’d bring her back home where she belonged.

They were going to get married, and then they were going to have a baby. In that fucking order. After that, Chase planned to spend the rest of his life protecting them with all he had.

Protecting and loving them both . With all his heart and soul.

I’ll find you, sugar. If it’s the last thing I fucking do, I will find you!

Scottie pushed her legs to go faster than ever before. Her muscles burned, and she nearly lost her footing more than once. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. If she did…

He’s going to kill me.

A thin branch slapped against her cheek, but she pushed it aside with her still-bound hands and kept on running. In the back of her frantic mind was the worry she’d harmed the baby when she’d fallen out of the back of the van, but it was either fall and run, or stay and…

Die.

She wasn’t dying. Not today. Not when she finally had so much to live for.

Her determination to survive pushed Scottie to move faster. Forced her legs to work harder. She had to put as much distance between her and the man who’d taken her as she could. After that, Scottie would worry about the fact that she’d most likely be lost in the middle of a freaking forest.

“Oh, Scottlynn…” The singsongy voice traveled to her through the trees.

Run faster!

As if Chase were right beside her, coaching her toward the way out of this mess, Scottie continued pushing her body to its limits. Continued racing as fast as she could through the trees.

Praying the shadows cast by their natural canopy would be enough to keep her hidden when the time came, she ignored the urge to stop and continued forging onward.

Please don’t let him catch me! Please don’t let me die!

The branches and leaves blocking her path began to blur with the silent, frantic prayer. But Scottie quickly blinked away the unshed tears, knowing they were a waste of energy she couldn’t afford to lose.

“You can run, Scottie,” the man shouted her name like a curse. “You can run all fucking night, but it won’t matter. I’m going to find you, and when I do…I’m going to make you pay for taking the one person who ever cared about me away!”

There it was. The real reason this man wanted her dead.

For a brief moment in time, Scottie felt a splinter of empathy for the man intent on ending her life. Grief was something she understood all too well. Losing her mother, especially at such a young age, had been a massive blow no sixteen-year-old should ever feel.

While this man may not be reeling from the loss of a parent—or even that of a blood relative—it was clear her stalker’s death had affected the mentally unstable man in a way that had sent him on a vindictive path to murder.

“Stop running from me, you stupid, fucking bitch!”

Any empathy she’d been feeling vanished in an instant with the rage-filled order. If this guy thought she was going to just stop and give up, he was even crazier than she realized.

But her legs were growing weaker, and her heaving lungs were burning in their fight for more air. Scottie knew she couldn’t keep going like this forever, which meant she needed to find a place to hide, and she needed to find it now.

Her panic-stricken gaze flew from left to right as she scanned her immediate area. A thick group of wide-trunked trees stood in the distance. If she could get there without the man seeing her…

Not allowing herself a second’s worth of time to question or second-guess, Scottie veered off to her immediate right. Running straight for what she prayed would end up being her saving grace, she began closing the distance with surprising efficiency and ease.

She thought she was home-free. That her plan was going to work. However, all that rejuvenated hope vanished in an instant when the tip of her booted toe hit a fallen branch.

Scottie lost her footing and fell. The air was forced from her lungs with an oof .

For a brief moment, she was too stunned by the sudden fall to move. Seconds later, she heard the snap of a twig, and her fight or flight instinct kicked right back into gear.

Using her bound hands, she awkwardly pushed herself up to her feet. This time, when she resumed her previous path, Scottie was sure to pay closer attention to the ground she was covering.

Any delay in reaching her goal could be the difference between living and dying. Another impact to her body could risk the life of the child she prayed was still safe within her womb.

Please be okay, little one. You and your daddy both have to be okay!

Another stick snapped, and Scottie knew she was cutting things close, so she cleared her mind of all distractions, focusing solely on her own survival.

The group of trees in her sights was only a few more yards away. She gave herself another final push, and within seconds, Scottie was there.

She sped around to the other side of the trees. Her feet slipped on a pile of leaves, and she had to throw out a hand to the nearest trunk to keep from falling.

Her heart raced to the point she feared it would literally explode, but she ignored the painful pounding in her chest and quickly tucked herself in the niche the combined trunks had naturally formed.

Scottie’s hands flew to her mouth to keep from whimpering in fear. If this didn’t work…if that man found her…she had no doubt she’d be murdered right here in these trees.

Chase can’t find me like that. He can’t live the rest of his life with that image in his head.

If the worst happened and she didn’t survive, Chase would live each and every day believing her death was all his fault. Because that’s the kind of man she loved.

He was a protector. A warrior. And if he survived that horrifying crash and was able, Scottie knew he and his team were already out there somewhere, doing everything in their power to find her.

He’d never stop looking, of that she was certain. Question was, would he make it to her in time to save her from a killer, or would the man she loved more than life itself be damned to a fate worse than death?

Nothing about what had happened had been Chase’s fault. But as sure as Scottie knew that to be the God’s honest truth, she also knew if the situation were reversed, she’d blame herself, too.

This was it. The next few seconds would determine the rest of her life.

She brought a hand to her flat belly, allowing only a few tears to fall. Then Scottie closed her eyes, held her breath, and waited for her killer to come.