11. Mila
MILA
H e found me.
He fucking found me.
My legs burn with each step I take, but I don’t stop. I can’t. I have to get the fuck out of here before he catches me for good. This time, I don’t think I’ll make it out alive. All this time, I’ve been worried about the ghost of my past, but it’s been him.
God, how could I have been so stupid?
Barreling through my motel room door, I nearly fall on my ass as the water from the light rain outside causes me to slip on the tile. I catch myself on the bed, falling to the dirty carpet and drawing my knees up to my chest, my body frozen.
He’s here.
He’s actually fucking here.
What the hell am I going to do?
“Get up,” I mutter, forcing my legs to move, even though they’re shaky.
I don’t know when the next bus will arrive, but I’ll hike until then. As a last resort, I can make my way through the woods. He won’t find me out there.
I scurry around, shoving all my stuff in my bags without any order. I don’t have time for order.
I don’t know where he went after I ran, but if I know him, he already knows where I am.
Fuck, I have to run.
A knock sounds at the door and I hold my breath, that old familiar feeling of dread washing through me.
Fuck.
Of course, he’s been following me.
One doesn’t simply shoot Christian Cross and get away with it. There are always consequences.
“Casey, dear,” June’s voice filters through the busted wood, and instantly, I let out a sigh of relief. I’d forgotten I was supposed to meet her.
“Just a minute,” I call, my voice shaking. I shove the remaining items in my bag before I zip it all up just as another knock sounds.
Sorry, June. A little busy trying not to get murdered here.
Rushing to the door, I open it, prepared to tell her I’m leaving with no questions asked.
Then I stop dead in my tracks when it’s not the light brown pair of gentle eyes that belong to June on the other side of the door.
No . . . It’s the deep blue eyes of the devil himself.
“Oh, fuck.”
Christian leans against the doorframe, looking up at me through his lashes. Every single nerve ending in my body short circuits, and that’s the only telltale sign that lets me know I’m—unfortunately—still breathing, and this is real.
He holds up a syringe, clear liquid sloshing around inside as if it’s mocking me.
—Scratch that. This is really real.
I fall back a step. Christian steps into the doorway, blocking the only exit.
“No more running, Mila.”
He’s so fast, I barely register the sting in the side of my neck until the burn of whatever he’d injected me with slips through my veins.
I stumble the moment the room rushes around me, the edges of my vision instantly darkening. It feels like slowly slipping under the water, allowing it to rush over you and steal your senses one by one until there’s nothing left.
Like drowning. Christian Cross feels like drowning.
“Chri-chri—”
I can’t get the words out. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. The world rushes around me, the ground tilting on its axis underneath me, and I sway, nearly crashing to the floor.
Christian catches me, arm around my waist, and walks me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed behind me. I don’t even realize I’m lying on my back until his eyes are over mine, consuming me.
The old, familiar scent of him washes over me.
Leather, whiskey and the forest mixed with that little bit of something mouthwatering that’s completely him.
What used to mean safety now means sure death at the hands of the only man I’ve ever loved.
How egregiously poetic.
“Shhh . . .” he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of my face. I blink up at him through the tears in my eyes, his gaze consuming me. My voice gets caught in my throat, and I can feel myself sinking into the bed beneath me. “Let it all go, sweetheart.”
He’s here to make me pay for what I did to him.
Tears slip out of the corners of my eyes, and I fight the poison slipping through my veins with everything I’ve got, but it’s no use. I can’t move. All I can do is feel him as the darkness carries me away.
“I told you I would find you, Mila,” he murmurs, brushing a loose curl from my forehead. His eyes are darkly deranged. Maddeningly handsome but so chillingly calm it steals my breath away. Or maybe that’s just the drugs he injected me with. “There’s not a corner of this earth where you’ll ever be able to hide from me.”
Then everything fades to black.
I’m dead.
That’s the only explanation for the splitting migraine radiating through my temples.
My head feels like it was split right down the center, and when I open my eyes, it throbs even worse.
What the fuck happened?
The pain is the only thing that tells me I somehow managed to survive, and judging by the fact that I’m no longer staring at a stain on the ceiling that looks like Bob Marley, like the one at the motel, I’d say last night wasn’t just some crazy-realistic dream.
Which . . . can only mean one thing.
I wiggle my hands and toes as the blood spreads through them. My legs and back are sore, like I haven’t moved in days, and my mouth is dry like I’ve been sucking on sawdust.
My eyes water as I take in the rough timber ceiling, the soft, warm glow of a lamp on the nightstand, and the antique quilt covering me.
Was I kidnapped by Christian Cross, my former bodyguard and love of my life, or someone’s sweet little grandma?
Somehow, I sit up, gazing around what can only be described as some kind of cabin straight out of a fantasy novel.
I’m in a bedroom I don’t recognize, surrounded by the softest sheets I’ve ever felt before. Outside, the wind howls, and one glance at the window shows me it’s pitch black with darkness.
Which brings me to my next problem.
He found me.
Not the one I was expecting, but him .
And now I’m fucked.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I whisper to myself, wincing in pain when I throw the covers off me and scoot to the edge of the bed. Either he spent the night using me as a punching bag after he injected me with whatever the hell was in that syringe, or I fell harder than I thought on the pavement.
My heart bottoms out in my chest when I stand, and the bed creaks under my weight. I listen for any sounds of footsteps, but none come. In front of me, a railing overlooks what has to be the first story of the cottage, and warmth radiates from below with the cackle of a fireplace.
I listen for any sign that he could be near, but I’m met with nothing but silence. My bag sits in the corner and I silently tiptoe over to it, lowering to grab my shoes off top. I slip them on my feet, gritting my teeth at the pain radiating through my shoulder. When I’m done, I sling the bag over my shoulder and start towards the stairs.
Only something stops me.
Shaky visions of the other night dance through my head. Opening the door to the one man I thought I’d never see again, standing outside my motel room.
Him injecting me with whatever he used to knock me out.
Waking up here, surrounded by his scent, but him being nowhere in sight.
It’s a trap.
He wouldn’t go through all the trouble of finding me just to let me run out in the dead of night after a nap.
Carefully, I drop my bag to the floor, backing away from the door. Kicking off my shoes, I sink back to the old mattress.
Will he kill me?
I shot him. I shot him and ran, and he swore he’d find me if it were the last thing he did.
“Welcome to the land of the living.”
I jump, letting out a scream at the voice that sounds right behind me. I whirl so fast my hair slaps me in the face, a tangled mess of knots from sleeping on it for God only knows how long.
None other than Christian Cross sits in the chair beside the bed. Conveniently, the one area of the room I didn’t glance at before I got up.
Seeing him now, in the flesh, is like seeing a ghost, and I can’t describe the pain in my chest from the wicked gleam in his eyes.
Like he wants to hurt me.
“ You .”
“Hello, little devil. Miss me?” He cocks his head, his gaze traveling over me with a dark glint in his deep blue eyes. It’s been six months of running since I last saw him. Six months of wondering if he was alive and if the bullet I’d used to shoot him had killed him on that rooftop.
Tears sting in the backs of my eyes at the visions of that night on the hospital rooftop. Watching him lay there, helpless after I shot him and knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it.
He stands to his full height, a force to be reckoned with in the small cottage. Rippling muscles under a black T-shirt. Harsh jawline. Beautifully devastating eyes that shine in the glow of the bedside lamp. He’s just as handsome as he’s always been.
Only now, he’s going to make me pay for what I did.
I stumble back, holding my hands out in front of me as a panic I’ve never experienced takes hold.
“Stay away from me,” I warn, backing into the dresser and making it rattle from the impact. My voice is scratchy from how long I slept, and my mind is foggy like I’m just waking up from a year-long coma.
Hell, maybe I am, and I just don’t know it. It would explain how sore my back is.
Christian chuckles, stepping towards me, and I back up, gripping the dresser for support because my legs threaten to give out on me.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” He takes another step forward, and I realize I have nowhere left to run. “No gun to stop me this time?”
“Christian,” I warn, pressing myself flat against the walls. Tears burn in my eyes, and in the dim lighting of the bedroom, he looks like a demon stalking towards me. “Please, just let me go.”
He chuckles darkly, his eyes flashing with a caustic violence I’m not accustomed to. Not from him.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mila.”
He rounds the bed, and I push off the wall, but he’s faster, catching me around the waist and hauling me back into his front. I fight in his hold, a breathless cry leaving my lips, but he’s too strong and has at least a foot or more of an advantage on me.
He tosses me on the bed and climbs over me, his body caging mine even as I fight him. He brings his hands up, and instinctively, I flinch, cowering from the blow I’ve subconsciously come to expect.
“Shhh . . .” he soothes gently, his hand instead brushing the hair back from my face. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Like a scared dog, shivers roll through me, and I bow my head to the side, shutting my eyes.
“I do-don’t believe you,” I manage to croak, fighting against the onslaught of voices battering at the inside of my head just from his body on mine, pinning me down.
Dirty little whore.
Look at all that blood.
Your tears are so beautiful, tinged in red.
I suck in a ragged breath, and his fingers slip over my face, down the scar on my jaw, then up to the one at my hairline.
“You left me on a rooftop to bleed out, Mila,” he whispers, his face so close to mine, I can smell the mint and tobacco on his breath. “I told you I’d always find you.”
“You don’t understand,” I whimper, but it’s useless.
“I understand perfectly, little devil,” he murmurs, dropping his lips to my ear. A shiver runs down my spine, and I’m more than a little embarrassed about the heat gathering in my stomach from the rough grain of his voice. “Now . . . you’re going to tell me why.”
“I can’t,” I breathe, shaking my head, but his fingers grip my chin, forcing my gaze to his. It’s like staring into the center of a black hole. Humming silence and the promise of death loom in the depths of those eyes.
The same eyes I’ve laid awake at night thinking about. The same ones that used to look at me with a kind of adoration you only read about in romance novels and books like Pride and Prejudice.
Now, they hold nothing but bitter darkness.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I whisper.
“Oh, but you did, baby.” His voice has an edge to it I can’t understand. This Christian isn’t the one I fell in love with. This Christian is volatile. Deadly.
Not a care for anything in the world, let alone me. Probably not even himself.
“And now you’re going to fix it.”
“How?”
He cocks his head to the side, eyes glinting with dark amusement.
“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
I shake my head, tears slipping down my cheeks and onto the cotton sheets below, but he merely smirks.
“What do you want from me?”
“Hmm . . . What do I want from you?” he muses, his fingers slipping lower over my sternum where I know he can feel my racing heartbeat. “Tell me who you were running from, and I’ll think about letting you go.”
I stare at him, my pulse racing in my throat with uncertainty.
“Just tell me what you want, you freaking psychopath,” I growl, fighting again against his hold, but it’s no use. He’s a foot taller than me and at least a hundred pounds of muscle heavier, especially after my lack of food in the last few months.
In a flash, his eyes darken to midnight, his gaze searing on my skin as he looms over me. His voice is low and soft, deadly calm, sending a shiver of fear through me.
Who is this man? This isn’t the Christian Cross I left on the hospital roof all those months ago.
“Revenge.”
My stomach turns, but even worse, my heart aches like it’s being ripped out of my chest. I never wanted to hurt him. I never wanted to be the one to put that bullet in his chest.
“Is this about the rooftop?” I breathe, my voice catching in my throat. I knew that if he didn’t die from what I did to him, he would hate me for it. I never expected him to find me, though. Not before he did.
“Is this about money?”
He brushes the hair back from my face, letting out a dark chuckle. “I’ve got enough money to buy anything in the world, Mila. What I want can’t be bought.”
In a fresh wave of anger . . . I fight against him, my hand connecting with his lip and my knuckles grazing along his teeth. It hurts, but I’m too busy processing what he said to give it any care.
“Fuck you!” I growl, bucking underneath him, but he’s too big, and I’m out of breath. Am I that weak? “Get the hell off me!”
He simply takes my hands in his, pinning them above my head while I continue to give him everything I’ve got. His breathing is just as erratic as mine, but the bastard hasn’t even broken a sweat.
“Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness, Mila,” he warns, brushing his nose along the side of my face, inhaling my scent like he’s committing it to memory. “I don’t tolerate temper tantrums.”
“Get off me !” I spit, but he just laughs in my face.
“No.”
“Are you insane?”
God, he has to be because the asshole laughs.
“What?” I challenge. His hand lets go, and he fists both my wrists in one of his hands. His free hand slips down, over the curves of my neck, then lower, to my stomach. “I shot you, and now you’re just going to kidnap me and rape me? Use me to carry out whatever your sick little revenge plan is?”
His eyes light with dark amusement. “We both know if I wanted you, I wouldn’t have to rape you, sweetheart. And unlike your stepdaddy, I prefer my women willing.”
“Oh, how noble of you,” I roll my eyes. His fingertips dance across the bare skin where my shirt has just barely ridden up above my jeans, and despite everything, heat settles in my core from the brush of his fingers. “I hate you.”
“That’s a shame,” he murmurs, his hand sliding up my side and bringing goosebumps in their wake. “Because I love you,” he taunts, throwing the exact words I’d said to him when I shot him back in my face.
“You’re an asshole .”
“So I’ve been told.” His fingers graze my racing pulse in my throat before slipping up to tug my bottom lip from between my teeth. His gaze flicks from my eyes down to my lips before coming back.
“So, what? Why did you bring me here?”
He leans in, pressing his lips to my ear, and I hate that my body responds to his touch, heat gathering between my legs. “I told you, sweetheart. You’re going to give me everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Christian, you can’t be serious. You can’t kidnap me.”
“Oh, I think you’ll come to understand exactly how serious I am.” He pauses, looking down at me. I hate the amusement in his gaze. “You going to hit me again if I remove my hands?”
“Probably.”
Shaking his head, he stands, towering over me. His dark stare bleeds into mine, stealing my breath.
“Welcome to hell, baby.” His teeth glint wicked and sharp in a cruel smile. “I’ll be your tour guide.”
A ringing cuts through the throbbing pulse in my ears, and he smirks down at me, turning away to answer his phone. I listen to the sound of another man on the line, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.
Instead, I do the only thing I can think of and grab a dusty, hardcover bible resting on top of the nightstand.
And then I swing it at his head.
I catch him off guard, knocking him forward. He stumbles into the wall with a curse and drops his phone.
I don’t stick around to see what he does next, though, taking off towards the stairs like a bat out of hell. I nearly pitch myself down the iron staircase in my flurry, and my ankle throbs with a dull pain, but I ignore it. I’ll find somewhere once I’m out of here to lay low and lick my wounds later. For now, I have to run.
It takes a few moments before Christian’s dark chuckle sounds from above and his footsteps sound on the floorboards near the stairs. He’s not even running, but he manages to reach the bottom of the stairs just as I’m barreling towards what I hope to God is the front door and running into the night.
The cottage is small and in the wilderness, surrounded by trees at the edge of a large open field. From what I can see in the dark, there’s not a single light in any direction and my only hope is that he didn’t drag me out to some deserted island where I’ll never be able to escape.
“Mila . . .” Christian’s voice looms from the darkness, raising every hair on the back of my neck. “You’re not going to get far.”
My heart pounds in my chest, my mouth dry, but I don’t stop. I left my bag behind. My sweatshirt and my hat, my fucking shoes , but none of that matters if his only plan is to turn me over to God knows who when this is all over.
I’d rather freeze to death than ever see that man again.
“Little devil . . .” Christian calls, way too close for comfort when I push through the thick underbrush and into the trees. “Come back inside. You haven’t eaten in days.”
“Fuck off!” I yell back at him, my voice shrill with fear and the rushing wind around us. Why the hell is it so windy?
I push faster, forcing my legs to carry me through the heavy thicket when my foot catches on a rock, and I fall straight to the ground.
I groan the moment I land, my elbow erupting in pain. I lay there for a moment, sputtering as my body registers the sudden sound of his footsteps gaining on me.
He’s going to catch me .
Hauling myself to my feet, I rush through the trees. Limbs scratch my face and snag my worn clothes, but I don’t stop running.
Never stop running.
Unless, of course, you nearly run straight off a cliff overlooking jagged rocks below and the rough waves of what can only be the Pacific.
Oh my God.
He really did bring me to a deserted island.
Christian stops a few feet behind me, and when I turn, horror-struck to face him while the rush of adrenaline that was carrying me washes away like he’d doused me with a bucket of cold water.
“Told you, you wouldn’t get far.”
His voice is dark and full of malice. A deadly conviction that I am, without a doubt, completely and utterly fucked.
Christian steps into me, his hand coming up to wrap around my throat and tug me away from the edge of the cliff.
All five stages of grief slip through me before the only sensation I can feel is sinking.
“We finally get that island vacation we always talked about,” he sneers, and it’s at that moment, nearly two days without food catches up with me, and everything goes black.