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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mya

My hair was whipping around my face as the boat raced across the water. Dario’s gaze was trained on the small, dark line of the shore as if he could will the little boat to go faster.

I pressed a hand to my belly. I was going to have to tell him. I had pleaded for him to choose me. Why had I done that? What had come over me?

But I realized that I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to either of us and I hadn’t told him about the baby.

“Getting closer,” Dario said tersely as he changed course a little. “There’s a little dock over here at the edge of town. I should have cell reception again there, and I can call my guys to come and get us.”

“Okay,” I called into the rushing wind. I hoped he was right.

We managed to reach the little dock and Dario artfully pulled the boat up to it and tied it off. He held his hand out to me, and helped me clamber up onto the wooden planks.

We hurried up the wooden steps that led up to the small local road nearby. Dario hustled me over to a small clump of trees near the road and pulled out his phone.

“Ivan? Yeah, we got out. We’re at the edge of town. Yes, by the old wharf,” he said into the phone. He turned back to look at the road as he spoke. “Yeah, send the guys over. We need to get out of here as soon as?—”

There was a sudden screeching sound and two cars came tearing around the corner right at us.

I froze in terror, leaning up against the trees behind us, my fingers scrabbling for purchase.

Dario gave me a hard shove, launching himself into me as he threw us out of the way of the racing cars coming in our direction. He turned back over his shoulder and fired into the car.

I hit the ground with a loud thud, instantly fearing for the baby.

As I rolled over and attempted to stand up, confused by the ringing in my ears from the report of Dario’s gun, a terrible crashing sound echoed in the quiet as the car drove into the trees where we had been standing.

“Stay here,” Dario said to me, scrambling onto his feet and running after the other car. I heard more shots and the sound of another thud.

“Mya!” Dario shouted. “Come on!”

Mindlessly, I got to my feet, racing toward the sound of Dario’s voice.

I arrived just as he was pulling the driver from the second car, dumping him on the ground.

I ignored the hole in the man’s head as Dario climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Get in,” he told me.

I slid into the passenger seat. He was already accelerating away before I could even close the door. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Fine, just a little…” I didn’t get the words out as I suddenly felt sick. I rolled down the window to get some air, hoping that the queasiness in my stomach would disappear. The cold wind hit my face, making me gasp.

What had just happened?

Thinking of how much danger we had just been in, and how I had just fallen down so hard scared me. I closed my eyes, but it was no use. I threw up out the window, gagging and choking, not sure if I was sick or just terrified.

“Mya?” Dario called to me as he navigated a corner roughly. “Mya I’m sorry.”

“Just get us somewhere safe,” I said to him, before throwing up again.

“Why did Nico kill Jason?” I heard myself ask as I spit bile out of my mouth. “Does it have something to do with why people are trying to kill us right now?”

It was hard for me to think that Jason could have been involved in anything questionable. I wanted to call Luis and get more information about Jason’s death, but I knew I would regret involving him.

When Jason had died, I’d gotten only an overview of the circumstances surrounding his death because, at the time, it had been an ongoing investigation.

Even after the investigation was closed, I’d been pretty much kept in the dark. My knowledge of the events leading up to Jason’s death was limited. I just knew that Nico had shot him. I assumed it had been because Jason had caught him doing something illegal and had attempted to bring him in.

Jason had been a beat cop. He liked the adrenaline rush he got from doing something different every day and never knowing what his day would hold. He also liked to serve the public. That’s who he was.

Part of me was terrified that Dario would paint a different picture of Jason. We’d had money problems, but nothing more than your average middle-class American couple. I couldn’t picture Jason taking a bribe or being on the take.

And frankly, there was no way in hell Luis would do that either, but isn’t that what Dario had said? That someone close to Jason could be implicated. Besides Luis, as far as I knew, Jason had had no other close friends.

I had convinced myself that Dario was telling me lies to control me. He was hard to read; sometimes he was thoughtful, even considerate. Other times, he was distant, aloof and untouchable.

“He had a good reason,” Dario said, his voice tight. He was looking in the side mirror intensely.

“I want to know what it was,” I insisted.

Dario glanced at me, and for once, I saw softness in his gaze. “I can tell you, but now isn’t the time.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, turning to look at the road again. He clearly knew the road like the back of his hand as he anticipated all the twists and turns. I saw headlights behind us, and my heart started to race again.

I turned in my seat, looking behind me, accidentally hitting my elbow against the door.

I winced. I’d attempted to catch myself on my elbows when Dario pushed me out of the way to stop the car from running us both over.

Was the baby okay? I put my hand over my stomach, then realized what I was doing and pulled it away. I hadn’t fallen on my stomach, so the baby would be fine, right?

My hand found its way to my neck and stroked the locket there. Instantly, I felt calmer. For the millionth time, I thought of her.

My mother was strong. She had been a force to reckon with. She would have been brave in the face of this kind of threat.

Suddenly, I felt the same way. I knew the enormity of the situation. I was pregnant and scared, married to a Mafia kingpin who clearly had a price on his head. And mine.

But as I looked over at Dario, I knew that he was trying to keep us safe.

With sudden, shocking clarity, I knew that there was no way to escape this. All I could do was lean into it, embrace it, and hope that there was light on the other side of this terrible situation.

A pair of headlights approached us. Oh God, were there more people coming for us?

Panic gripped me, even after the car went around us and drove out of sight without incident.

“Are you okay over there?” Dario glanced at me with a stoical expression on his face. However, I could see a hint of concern in his eyes that he was desperately trying to hide.

“Fine,” I breathed out. I wasn’t. I was having a panic attack.

The events of the night were all pounding in my head. I couldn’t shake them. I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom.

I started to shiver, but it wasn’t even that I was cold. I just couldn’t seem to stop.

“Just breathe, Mya. Breathe. Close your eyes and breathe,” he told me as he navigated another turn. He reached out and gripped my freezing-cold hands with his own.

I closed my eyes and did as he told me. He kept my hands in his, holding them tightly. I breathed in and out, trying to calm down. I was holding his hand so tightly that I wondered if I was hurting him.

I felt silly at the thought. There’s nothing I could do to hurt him. He was so strong and unyielding.

It was a quality I admired in him, I found myself thinking. Could the qualities I hated in him be ones I could come to admire as well? That thought jolted me to the present.

When had I started admiring the man who had roped me into a marriage I didn’t want?

It took a herculean effort to pull my hands from his. It was then that I realized that I was crying. To my surprise, he brought his hand up and gently wiped away my tears before looking back at the road.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said simply. “Look at me, Mya.”

I forced myself to meet his eyes.

“You’re going to be okay. I know you’re tired. I know you’re scared. But just hang in there, okay? We’re going to be safe.”

An emotion I wasn’t ready to acknowledge made my heart skip a beat. I trusted him. When had things changed between us?

Suddenly, I had found myself trusting this man. I was conflicted. I couldn’t feel this way about him.

But what if I did? Jason’s goodness, the belief in his perfection, had been a shield I used to hold Dario off, to keep myself stuck in the past.

But what if he hadn’t been so good after all? What if he had been doing something terrible behind my back?

What if Dario wasn’t actually the bad guy in all of this?

The silence between us stretched out as Dario drove. I was lost in my thoughts, worried about the baby, worried about myself, and wondering what was next.

Yawning, I let myself turn to look at him. He didn’t seem tired at all. His eyes were focused straight ahead. He had stopped glancing in the rearview mirror.

“Get some sleep,” he said, not looking at me. Could he feel my eyes on him?

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” I had almost fallen asleep earlier, but then in my mind’s eye, I saw the driver with a hole in his head, and my eyes popped back open.

I’d never seen a dead body before. Jason’s death had been so clinical, and a hospice worker had informed me of my mother’s death.

I hadn’t wanted to see her body.

I suddenly felt so tired, as if I had run out of energy to be upset.

“I think you’re right. I’ll take that nap.”

It didn’t take long. As soon as my eyes closed, I was sound asleep.

What felt like seconds later, the feeling of the car slowing down and stopping woke me up. My eyes shot open.

“Where are we?”

“Somewhere safe,” he said shortly.

He climbed out of the car and I rubbed my eyes in a sleepy manner, waiting for him to open the door for me. As he did, I climbed out of the car and looked around.

We were near a marina. I didn’t understand.

“I own this marina. Well, the shell corporation that owns it.”

Of course.

“No one will think about looking for us here. I keep a few boats here to meet with clients from time to time.”

That made sense. He had shown me quite clearly during our time on the island that he liked sailing and enjoyed being out on the water.

We headed toward the docks. We passed a few yachts and kept walking until we came up to a much larger boat than the others.

He climbed aboard and then held his hand out to me. I took it, and he pulled me aboard.

It was a beautiful boat. I didn’t know boat terminology, I just knew there was a top part and a little stairway that led to the bottom part.

I didn’t need luxury. It could have been a pile of dirt, and I would have slept on it right now.

As soon as I saw the huge bed in the fancy bedroom, I crashed.

At one point in the night, I felt him crawl into bed next to me. He placed an arm around my waist and I cuddled up against him, not caring that I wanted to consider him my enemy.

He wasn’t. He’d taken care of me.

In the morning, the sun was peeking into the room. I woke up with him leaning on an elbow and looking down at me. His hand was in my hair.

“Good morning,” he said. His eyes were guarded, but he had a calmness about him that was reassuring.

I thought about how I had tried to shoot him last night.

When I had fired the gun, I had found myself unable to shoot to kill. I hadn’t known it was Dario. I figured I would just maim the person coming to get me.

When I realized it was Dario I had shot at, I had felt horrified, immediately running to check on him, to confirm that he was safe.

A small corner of my mind had acknowledged that I should have shot him right then. There would have been no witnesses and I would have been free of him, just like I had wanted to be for so many months.

But all I had felt was overwhelming relief that he was safe, that I hadn’t hurt him.

“Thank you for not shooting me,” he said, his words echoing my thoughts too closely for comfort.

I looked away.

“Want a shower?” he asked me.

I nodded, and he pointed toward the spacious bathroom.

I felt wobbly. I figured it was exhaustion and an excess of emotion making me feel so unstable.

The shower was small, but big enough to be serviceable. As I turned on the shower, I put my head against the smooth tile and took a breath that turned into a sob. Last night was scary.

And I still didn’t know if the baby was okay. I was so scared. I sobbed harder, feeling so many emotions at once that I couldn’t focus on any particular one.

It was exhausting. I felt overwhelmed. I wanted to scream in frustration and cry at the same time. It was too much.

I tried to muffle my crying, but I guess he heard me from the other room. He knocked and then entered before I could say anything. I kept my head turned away from him.

“Are you all right?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I wasn’t all right. Far from it.

The water hit my face, and I waited until I heard the door close, but I never heard that sound. The next thing I knew, I felt hands on my shoulders and then a caress running down my back.

His touch was soothing and completely innocent. He massaged the tension in my shoulders for a while. Finally, he turned me around toward him. His hair was slick with water.

Droplets hung on his eyelashes. He pulled me toward him and just held me. For minutes, we stood there, with his arms wrapped around me.

I felt like he was lending me some of his strength. I closed my eyes, reveling in the moment. This man, for better or worse, had changed me. Something had shifted between us.

I could feel him harden against me as I lay against his chest. I shifted against his groin, loving the feel of his hardness touching me.

He pushed the wet hair out of my face. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

I nodded, still unable to speak.

He didn’t hesitate as he picked me up. I raised my legs, wrapping them around his waist. The shower stall was so small that we were already snug against each other. A perfect fit.

He entered me gently, bringing his lips down to mine simultaneously. I groaned against his mouth as he kissed me. Finally, I could touch him like I wanted to touch him.

My hands were around his neck, then touching his chest, feeling the wide expansion of his shoulders. I couldn’t touch him enough.

His warm skin felt so good beneath my hands. He couldn’t tell me what to do right now. He couldn’t pin me down.

I let my hands explore his body as he pushed his dick into me, stretching me, filling me, over and over.

“You’re so beautiful and so brave,” he said, brushing his lips across my ear. The only sound I could hear was our ragged breathing and the sound of his skin slapping against mine as he dove deeper into me.

I arched my back, letting him go deeper, wanting to feel all of him, wanting to forget my fear and my desire to keep him at arm’s length.

He moaned as I gave him more room to slide in and out of me and I gasped as he sped up his strokes.

“You take me so well,” he said, his voice slightly rough in my ear, but his touch gentle. “I’ve never been with anyone who took me like you.”

“Make me forget,” I said to him, panting with the rising tide of pleasure. “Make me forget everything but this.”

“Mya,” he groaned, leaning down and biting the place where my shoulder met my neck. The sudden spike of pain, the possessiveness of the gesture, wrecked me.

This time when I came, I screamed his name. The force of my orgasm made my head hurt, and all of my thoughts ceased. I was reduced to the stunning pleasure ripping through me and the throbbing of my pussy around his dick.

He abruptly stepped away from me, and I cried out in protest as he pulled out of me. But then, I saw what he wanted as he pushed me to my knees.

I kneeled in front of him, looking up at him teasingly. He grabbed my head and pushed his dick into my mouth. I could taste my wetness on his cock.

The water of the shower cascaded across my face. Something about the open expression on his face, the way he took charge without forcing me, was incredibly hot. I was turned on as I pulled him further into my mouth.

To my surprise, he didn’t let me help him finish that way. When he was on the cusp of coming, he pulled me up yet again, but this time, he turned me around until I was pressed against the wall, ass in the air. He spread my legs from behind. I leaned forward and put my hands up against the tile.

He surprised me by tracing his dick between my cheeks. He let it rest against a part of me no man had ever enjoyed. My breath caught. Would it hurt? I’d never done it that way.

Not today, it seemed, as he slid his dick further down and entered me. I closed my eyes as pleasure leaped to life in my veins again. My body gripped his dick. It was greedy.

It clenched around him like it had missed him even though it had been mere minutes since he had made me come. Before I knew it, he was gasping, this time saying my name.

Eventually, he pulled slowly out of me. The water was running cold by now. I was fully naked to him now.

I became instantly self-conscious. This wasn’t like the other times we’d had sex, in the dark where he couldn’t see every detail of my body.

I was afraid that he would notice that my belly was rounder, that my ass was bigger.

To my surprise, he wrapped his arms around me and just held me against him. He reached over and turned off the cold water.

I relaxed against him, questioning everything I thought I knew about Jason’s friends on the force and questioning everything I thought I knew about the man who’d led me to safety last night.

Emotionally, I’d been a mess lately, and he’d been there for me in his own way. How many times had I been on the brink of losing it and he had stepped in to reassure and comfort me?

He got out of the shower first, and wrapped me in a towel, and then grabbed one for himself.

He left to find something to wear while I dried myself off. I had a lot of unanswered questions. Too many.

When I walked out of the bathroom, steam followed me. I didn’t see Dario. I called out to him. Where was he?

I made my way over to where I had seen him last and tried not to be annoyed. Where was he? I hated his disappearing acts.

There was a time when I’d felt alone in the world, and suddenly, with him, I didn’t feel that way anymore. My feelings were surprising and confusing.

When had I stopped hating him? The real question was, had I ever hated him to begin with?

I sat down heavily on the bed, still wrapped in my towel, and noticed a closet door open across from the bed. I stood up, hoping to find something in it to wear.

There were boxes on the floor of the closet, the type of boxes one found in older office buildings.

As I went through the closet, I saw something light-colored that looked like a piece of fabric. A shirt maybe, I thought to myself, hopefully.

I reached for it and tugged, unearthing a box that had been hidden toward the top of the closet. It came falling toward my feet, the contents of it spilling into a messy pile.

I bent down, noticing the box contained lots of photos, and started picking them up. Something caught my eye. It was an image in a photo that I couldn’t quite place. I pulled it out, noticing that it looked like home.

The photos in my hand, I noticed, had actually fallen out of one particular envelope. I studied them closely. No wonder I found them familiar.

Some were pictures of the police station where Jason worked and then there were others of the building where he was transferred about a year after we were married.

There were other pictures of people I didn’t recognize, all officers. I went to put the pictures away when I saw a familiar picture of Luis getting into the squad car with Jason.

My heart skipped a beat and my pulse raced as I looked down at the picture. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, and he looked determined as he stared at something in the direction of the person taking the picture.

It was sort of eerie. I looked through the rest of the pictures and gasped when I came across one of myself. We were sitting outside of a taco truck with Luis, eating and laughing.

And then there were more pictures, one of me coming out of work, a pile of folders in my hand. I was running in another. Each and every photo of me had been taken before Jason had been murdered, I realized.

My hands shook. I felt like I was going to be sick. How long had Dario been following me?