Page 36 of Rescued Dreams (Last Chance Fire and Rescue #8)

THIRTY-FIVE

N icholas dragged her back over the rail. Amelia wasn’t sure it had been his intention to only make it look like he was going to hang her from the chandelier. She thought he probably would have killed her, depending on what Ridge had done in that moment.

She hadn’t expected Nicholas to shoot him.

Kill him.

Her mind was a hot haze of questions, painful sensations, and the utter heartbreak of what she had just seen.

She stumbled onto the carpet and almost fell, dragged back to the rail by the rope around her neck. Nicholas untethered her with one cut of a knife he sheathed back on his belt.

I guess you’ve thought of everything.

This scenario was over. But the outcome had cost her everything she wanted.

Ridge.

Her mind spun at everything that had happened so far tonight.

This whole thing was why it had taken so long for him to show up in her life, looking for revenge.

The man had planned this thing on an elaborate scale.

Maximum pain and maximum casualties. There was no way he expected to get free of the situation.

He was far more likely to be determined to kill himself along with the rest of them at the end of this cat-and-mouse game.

No one had noticed he was this far gone.

He certainly hadn’t sought help.

Nicholas dragged her by the arm, her hands tied behind her back.

Thankfully that had enabled her to grab the rail and keep from falling.

That would have meant strangling herself on the rope he’d tied around her neck.

But if he’d pushed her off the rail, she would never have been able to maintain her grip.

Ridge was dead.

The twins were going to be devastated—if they survived. He might’ve already killed them, though they’d been alive when he dragged her out, and he hadn’t left her side since.

She couldn’t make much noise behind the cloth tied around her mouth.

If she could, she would scream and not stop.

Nicholas needed to be admitted to a psychiatric facility for the criminally insane. There was nothing else, except for his death, that would keep him from hurting more people.

He froze.

She heard it too—voices.

He dragged her along the carpeted hallway, going faster until they were practically running, then into a room where he left the door cracked and stopped to listen.

She wanted to make noise. Scream.

Fight him.

All her strength had evaporated, leaving her without the will to fight him, even if she were able to succeed. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot her, because that wasn’t how he wanted her to die. But she knew he would make her suffer for trying to overpower him.

A low male voice drifted to them from somewhere down the hall. “Nothing she said made sense. But as long as she’s safe and out.”

“I’m not so sure.”

It was Kane and Maria.

Nicholas shifted, and she felt the barrel of the gun press against her ribs. Amelia sucked in a breath through her nose.

“This whole thing doesn’t add up. Let’s—Ridge!”

Footsteps pounded down the stairs.

A tear rolled down Amelia’s cheek while she huddled in the dark with Nicholas. Her friends had no idea where she was. They weren’t going to save her, and right now she didn’t see how she could save herself.

Aren’t You supposed to help me get out of things like this? Maybe it didn’t work that way. Her grasp of faith was tenuous at best. Can You help me? Ridge, the twins, and Olivia…They all need You. Get them out. If I don’t make it…

It doesn’t matter.

She would rather die knowing they’d survived. But right now, she had no idea. They could just as easily be casualties of this whole thing.

His sick plan.

Nicholas dragged her from the room, continuing down the dark hall, away from that scene in the lobby. Where Ridge lay dead on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

He shoved another door open, and her shoes hit wood floor. The temperature dropped drastically, and Nicholas stopped long enough to flip on a light. “Down the stairs. Now.”

He was almost crazed with energy. The dangerous gleam in his eye was nothing she wanted anything to do with. But here she was. Trapped by her past mistakes.

It was a form of justice, keeping a balance to life, that she paid like this. People like Maddie and Ella should never be hurt because of her mistakes. There was nothing she could do about that.

Wasn’t God all about vengeance as well as love?

About justice and things being fair.

Mercy.

Amelia figured she could use all of that right about now. And if she could, she would send it all to Ridge and his sisters. To Olivia, who had been helping out apart from her job and didn’t deserve to be hurt.

She would give all the goodwill she had to them if it meant they would go on.

“Go.” He pushed her toward the dark staircase.

She should fall on purpose, stumble down the stairs and go flying, injuring every bone in her body. Which would, of course, be excruciating, but it would also hopefully ruin whatever plan he had in place.

She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Walking down the stairs was dicey, her hands tied behind her back.

The spiral wood staircase was steep and seemed to descend into darkness.

She stumbled a couple of times but kept her balance by leaning against the side wall all the way down.

Amelia was pretty sure she got a few splinters in her arm, but right now, that was the least of her worries.

His breath on the back of her neck.

The gun pointed at her.

Others in danger, and there was nothing she could do about it.

This was a nightmare she couldn’t escape from.

Making everything she’d had with Ridge feel like a dream she would never have. It wasn’t real. Not now that things had gone so wrong and she was certain they were all going to die in this house.

She stumbled off the bottom step and let out a relieved breath. What are we doing, Nicholas? She had a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but he’d silenced her ability to do that with this cloth cutting into the sides of her mouth. They were going somewhere. Leaving the others behind.

Nicholas dragged her by the elbow, through a set of doors and into a garage, empty except for one car, a mid-size Toyota with the engine running. Their footsteps echoed on the concrete.

Amelia shivered. The air down here was frigid. She looked around but saw only a ramp that led up, which had to be how cars got in and out. Nothing else. Just a place to store cars.

There was something on the wall at intervals. She didn’t quite understand what she was seeing, but it looked like what she’d seen in a training textbook.

About bomb disposal.

Amelia cried out behind the cloth and tried to get her arm from his grasp. He didn’t let go.

Nicholas was going to blow the house.

He would detonate those charges he’d bought from someone in the military and collapse the building—destroy it all—and kill everyone inside.

She struggled more, blinded by the fear for her friends.

Nicholas held her arm with that punishing grip and shifted. Before she realized what he was doing, he kicked her in the thigh.

Pain exploded in her quad muscle. She collapsed to the floor, crying.

Across the concrete, she heard footsteps.

“Took you long enough.” Cherry set a hand on her hip, one knee cocked in attitude and her other hand on her baby bump. “I was about to leave without you.” She tipped her head back and laughed.

Amelia breathed hard behind the cloth. He dragged her up, and they stumbled toward the pregnant woman. The one Amelia had believed.

Felt sorry for when she’d shown up in town, on the run and destitute.

Grieved over when she thought Cherry had been killed.

Cherry glared. “Why is she here?”

Nicholas whipped around to her. “Shut up and get in the car. She’s coming with us.”

“I didn’t sign up for that. She ain’t part of the plan.” Cherry huffed. “You get in the back and I leave, and no one knows you’re in the car. That’s what you said.”

“Plans change.” He pointed the gun at Cherry. “Do you want to die for real this time?”

Amelia could only stand there with no power and no idea what was happening to her friends upstairs. She didn’t think the plan had changed at all. More likely, Nicholas had a number of ways this could go down and had prepared for every eventuality.

With the amount of time he’d had to plan, there was no way this wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

“Fine.” Cherry huffed a breath. She turned and sauntered to the driver’s door, pulling it open so she could get in. “Just as long as I get paid.”

“You get money when I get money. Got it?”

Cherry slid into the front seat.

Nicholas was taking her from here, leaving destruction in his wake.

Cherry was the getaway driver. No one would suspect a pregnant woman—apparently not even Kane and Maria.

They’d been suspicious of her but let her go.

Which had turned out to be a good thing, considering they’d discovered Ridge at the bottom of the stairs. Left for dead.

If he could be saved, they would be able to do it.

Meanwhile, she would be long gone.

Nicholas opened the trunk of the car. “We’re getting cozy for the ride. But I’m sure we’ll both enjoy it.”

Cold washed over her, and she shuddered.

But as long as her friends weren’t the target anymore, wasn’t this better? Not her preference for the outcome, but she could handle whatever Nicholas was going to do to her. What counted was that the twins got free of this situation.

Nothing that happened to her mattered.

Not if they lived.