Page 33 of Winter’s Heart (Three of Hearts #1)

NIKKI STOOD, YAWNED, stretched and ambled over to the kitchen window. On the outside, she needed to act bored and perhaps a tad frustrated. Hiding how she was truly feeling on the inside, which was like a boiling cauldron of oil about to spill over and scorch everything in its path.

Tonight was the night.

She was supposed to appear via video link to a packed courtroom in Oslo.

Everything was in place; they just had to wait for exactly the right moment. Which would be soon. Very soon.

Jacob looked up from the book he’d been reading at the kitchen table and gave a wan smile.

She ambled over and draped an arm around his shoulders, pretending to lean down and read from the book he held in his hands.

Jacob seemed as relaxed and bored as she did, but when she touched him, the muscles in his back were so tense they felt like they were molded from iron; a dead giveaway as to the true anxiety humming through his body.

It was nearly midnight, and the sky was cold and full of snow outside.

They’d had a late dinner, and Nikki had made sure to eat all of it, even though her stomach rebelled at the thought, because she’d need all her strength for what was about to come.

It’d been nine days since Russell had smuggled the computer in.

And in that time, there’d been no more escape attempts.

No more meltdowns. Nikki had behaved like someone who’d been beaten into submission.

Someone who’d accepted her fate. Jacob had spent many hours in the few days after they’d received the laptop painstakingly explaining why she could never try that kind of thing again.

How she might’ve got herself killed, and how their best chance now was just to play the waiting game.

She needed to stop believing that she was going to change the world.

That one stupid court case wasn’t enough for them to lose their lives over.

And besides, he was sure Linstead was a man of his word and would let them out once the trial was finished, and then they could resume their lives.

It’d all been a show, of course. Jacob played the logical, practical cop, while she played the hysterical damsel in distress who realized the error of her ways, then finally agreed that she would behave.

But behind the scenes she’d been madly analyzing and writing and thinking and strategizing.

Those first two days after she’d got her hands on the computer, she’d spent a lot of time in bed recovering .

The ordeal had been too much for her and she’d used that excuse to stay in her bedroom, to pull herself together after Linstead’s cruel treatment while Jacob talked her down, but in truth she was writing, while he covered the sound of her typing with his unceasing monologue.

She’d sent her notes off to Russell with a few hours to spare before the deadline.

The official statement wasn’t up to her normal standards, but all the pertinent points were there, and hopefully the judge would allow her to elaborate on the day so she could push her point across.

And her point would be that Diàoyú Aquaculture was openly flaunting Norwegian rules and regulations governing its plastic waste pollution.

It was damning evidence, and exactly what the Norwegian government wanted to hear.

There would be other expert witnesses, of course, looking at the health of the fish, the quality of the final product for human consumption due to an elevated level of disease, the quality of the water surrounding the farms and effect on wild marine flora and fauna populations because of high fecal loads, that kind of thing.

But her testimony could be the final nail in the coffin that ended the Chinese company’s fish farming days forever in Norwegian waters.

If it were proven the fish farming company was not adhering to protocol, then it was actively breaking the law.

Which was why Diàoyú had been so determined to get rid of Tammy, Antoine, and Nikki.

But they’d sorely underestimated her. And Jacob.

She and Jacob together were a force to be reckoned with.

This court case might not stop this Chinese company from setting up its farms elsewhere around the world, but Nikki hoped that other countries were watching and learning, and would halt the practice once and for all.

Or at the very least make sure these companies were held accountable to mandatory regulations and management from now on.

The past week had been a lesson in self-control.

Showing one face to the cameras and listening devices, while keeping their actual conversations secret, only talking freely in the shower.

Which’d been highly frustrating. Sometimes she’d forget and open her mouth to ask Jacob about a detail that’d been bugging her and then have to change tack halfway through her sentence when she realized what she’d said.

Jacob had a plan, but because they only had snatched moments here and there to talk it through, she was more vague on the details than she’d like.

At least her house was now spotless. She’d taken the hours of boredom and turned them into a cleaning frenzy.

She’d even spring-cleaned the kitchen cupboards and her own wardrobe, handing over bags of unwanted items to Miller through a crack in the front door for her to get rid of.

Miller had tried to start up conversations with Nikki, but she’d stone-walled the agent, only answering in mono-syllables and only if it were truly necessary.

Miller had betrayed her, as had the other FBI agents who were in on this farce of a protection detail, and Nikki would never forgive that.

The one bright spark in the endless week had been Jacob.

They made love every night, under the cover of darkness, muffling their cries of ecstasy with a pillow or a hand, but sometimes she was so overcome nothing would stop her.

And right then she didn’t care if the world knew that she and Jacob were having sex.

Lots of sex. Good sex. Great sex. Phenomenal even. Gosh, he was good at sex.

It was the one thing she didn’t want to end. But today everything was going to change, and she had no idea where they went from here. What did the future hold for the two of them? Her arm tightened around his shoulders, drawing him in, feeling the strength of him.

Raised voices sounded from the front driveway.

They were here.

Jacob looked up from his book, straight into her eyes. And she knew this was it.

Everything was ready. Her backpack was stashed in the back of the wardrobe with the computer and iPad and everything else she might need.

All she had to do was get her shoes and jacket on.

Quick.

But she didn’t want to let go of Jacob, and as he stood, she clung to him. He stared down into her eyes, and she felt a sudden lump form in her throat. So many words unsaid that wanted to erupt from her mouth, but they were out of time.

The voices got louder, and Nikki could hear chanting.

It was another simple plan that, if carried out correctly, would see her and Jacob free.

Russell had recruited every member of the Marine Institute, his family and all his friends and told them to congregate out the front of Nikki’s house and demand to be let in to see her.

Oslo was nine hours ahead of them here in Seattle and she was due to take the virtual stand at one p.m. tonight, which also played into their favor; the FBI wouldn’t be expecting anything to happen at midnight on this sleepy street on a Monday night.

Jacob hoped that the sheer size of numbers would render the FBI agents ineffective; they wouldn’t be able to shoot over a hundred people all at once, and more to the point, they wouldn’t dare.

These were law-abiding, innocent civilians.

If the agents tried to blast their way out and killed or wounded even one person, their careers would be over.

Linstead and Miller were smart enough to understand that the moment they were confronted with the mob.

Sabitino might not have been so cognizant, and may have shot first and asked questions later, but he was out of the picture, so all the better.

“Go on,” he said, staring down into her eyes.

“You’re ready. We’re ready. Let’s get out of here.

” He took her shoulders as he leaned in to kiss her on the lips.

Passionate and deep, as if he were putting his stamp on her, claiming her, letting her know how much she meant to him.

Then he pushed her gently back, and his eyes hardened as his gaze left hers and sharpened on the scene through the kitchen window.

“Go,” he said again, this time not looking at her.

“I’ll see you at the rendezvous, just like we planned. ”

Unable to talk past the increasing lump in her throat, she merely nodded.

Drawing away from Jacob, already missing the feel of his big body against hers, she watched as he grabbed a chair and made his way into the hallway to bar the front door.

She wondered whether this was all worth the risk.

They were putting their lives on the line today.

She almost called him back. But then Tammy and Antoine’s sacrifice would all be for nothing.

Then Diàoyú would win. And that wasn’t an option.