Chapter 28 Amber
AMBER
The helplessness of being smaller, younger, and less than…
He gripped the back of my coat, grunting his impatience at how long it was taking me to get Henry out of his carrier.
No.
No!
No, no, no. No!
Feeling his hand on my clothes was too much. I couldn’t overcome the trigger fast enough. It was too much like the night my innocence was stolen. When that man came into my room and grabbed my clothes. When he—
Henry whimpered as I brought him out of his carrier. As if he could sense my distress and he needed to “talk” to me. To reach me. I knew their cries, but this wasn’t one.
It worked, though. His little fussy whimper snapped me out of the horrible past and clicked me back into place in the present. To right now as these two hijackers told me to get out of the car.
I was the only thing standing between the twins and danger.
They relied on me to keep them safe, to get them out of here.
And I wouldn’t fail them like that. I couldn’t.
I wasn’t going to experience that nightmare again. Not here on the sidewalk. Not now as I hurried to get the twins into my arms at once.
These assholes took the driver out in this carjacking, and now they wanted me to hurry away from it on foot. While carrying both babies. Through the snow and cold.
Rage heated me inside, burning the spikes of fear. There was no time to shut down and be afraid. Not with them in my charge.
I scowled at the men, hoisting both babies into my arms and wrapping my coat around them the best I could. It wasn’t much of a protective shield from these armed men. But I hoped I kept them warm enough in this cold.
“Fucking move it.” The other one kept his hand on his gun but hid it under the flap of his coat.
And that was a clue I got ready to use.
He didn’t want to reveal to the whole world that he was kidnapping us.
Because we were in the city. Pedestrians and bikers and dog walkers were all around us.
Like last time, when I screamed for help at that church, knowing it would send Roman and all the Orlovs into the room, I sucked in a deep breath.
Scanning the surroundings as I walked with the two flanking me, I opened my mouth to scream for help.
The one on my left was faster. He slapped his hand over my mouth and snarled. “One noise outta you and I’ll shoot the boy.”
Henry?
My arm tightened around him reflexively to the threat. I couldn’t bear to think of him hurt. Or either of them harmed at all.
But his warning didn’t add up. The last time, they’d wanted him. The man who’d broken into the side room at the church had told me to give him Henry. To hand over the boy.
Now… they’d want him dead?
It didn’t make sense. Nothing did. Like how they’d known to stop the car and get me. How—
Emily cried louder, as if she was getting more frustrated that I wasn’t able to soothe her as I speed-walked through the night.
People glanced at us as I hurried along.
Please stop them, I thought as I passed a man carrying groceries.
Help me, I begged in my mind when an older woman narrowed her eyes at us while she opened her front door.
“You make that little bastard shut up or else,” the man on the right told me.
“Let us go,” I replied, trying to hold Emily closer and convince her by sheer will to calm down.
“No. Fuck no,” the first man said. “We ain’t letting you go.”
“We could lose these fucking kids,” the other man groused.
No! I held them closer, desperate to stay with them. I was not abandoning them. I wasn’t endangering them by leaving them on the sidewalk!
Because in the back of my mind, I knew he’d come. I felt it deep in my bones.
Roman would be suspicious when I didn’t show up for dinner.
He’d call and look into it. I bet the driver would be found left on the curb and they’d get word.
They’d probably try my phone and find it smashed on the sidewalk.
Trackers in the cars, too. I knew they had them with how strict they were on security.
And with all the people around, the cameras everywhere…
He’ll come.
He has to come.
So long as I’m not taken anywhere else…
“Shut that kid up,” the man said again, making me hurry faster.
“I can’t. Just let me go.”
“No.” The other man tried to grab my elbow and steer me faster.
“We’re not risking our asses to get Roman Orlov’s bitch just to lose her,” the taller one said.
Me? They’re after me.
These men, ones who seemed like the men William used to have around as security at his parties, were after me, not the twins. But… their motivation was to do with Roman. Not William demanding my return?
What?
“I’m not anything to Roman. Just the nanny,” I insisted.
“Good luck convincing anyone of that,” the taller man taunted as he pushed me to hurry into a building.
A dark doorway had been opened for us as we approached.
It was a tall structure that looked like an industrial complex or warehouse, but I’d been too harried to pay attention.
Too stuck on surviving and protecting the twins to even know where we were headed.
“No!” I backed up on instinct, knowing that if they moved me, my chances of Roman finding us would go down.
“Get in there, bitch,” the other man said, shoving my back so hard that I stumbled into the unlit corridor.
Off balance from holding the twins, I pitched forward.
Arms reached out toward me as someone stepped in from another opening off the side.
But as hands grabbed me and pulled me further off balance, I screamed and lost it.
“Let me go!”
Another hand covered my mouth as gunfire erupted.
I hunched my shoulders, covering the babies as the person who’d grabbed me just inside the building urged me to get out of the hallway.
“Amber, go.”
Sergei?
I squinted and strained to see. I panted and tried to catch my breath to understand that my ears weren’t playing tricks on me.
They weren’t. They couldn’t be.
I heard him despite the gunfire behind me. Past Emily’s cries and Henry’s wails.
A dim bulb overhead cast just enough light for me to make out his face. The twins’ uncle was here. That was Sergei guiding me out of the range of danger.
Relief hit me so fast, I could’ve passed out. My knees got shaky. Palpitations kicked off in my heart. But I kept going, guided by the fact that help was here. That he was here.
I turned once I reached Lorne. He gathered me into his arms off in another room. A few Orlov guards stood with him, ready to protect us all.
And as I turned, looking back in the direction that Sergei ran, I spotted Roman.
Lethal.
Furious.
With a gun in his hand as he lowered it from killing the two men who’d taken me and the twins.
Breathing steadier, I drank in the sight of him, saving me like the violent hero he was.
He’d come, just like I anticipated he would.
He’d come, just like I prayed he might.
And now as he locked his dark gaze on me and stalked toward me, I knew that they were right.
I was his.
Not the way they’d said it.
I wasn’t Roman’s bitch.
But as he hurried toward me with tunnel vision and his jaw set in a stiff lock like he was grinding his molars to pulp, I saw how much I wasn’t just the nanny.
I wasn’t just a woman to warm his blood.
I was the one he’d kill for.
With that vulnerable look in his eyes as he stared at me, I got the impression he’d need to check me over a hundred more times before he’d relax. That he’d need to reassure himself that he still had me in his life.
“Amber.”
I ran from Lorne, bringing the twins to him as he held his arms out. Behind him, Sergei and other men were busy by the bodies.
Pressing against him and helping him take Henry while I held Emily, I acknowledged that this was the moment. This was when I wouldn’t wonder anymore.
They’d come in here like the cavalry, not the cops, and handled the situation themselves.
With gunfire. With violence. With protection that I knew I could always count on.
Like the Mafia.
I shivered against him, relishing the heat from his body. The solid rock wall of his hard body for me to lean on. He wrapped his arm around me, holding me tight like he’d never want to let go.
“How did you…” I swallowed hard, my mouth so dry.
“We tracked them as soon as we could. They own this building, so we took a calculated guess that they’d bring you here. To ambush them in here as soon as you arrived.”
They. Roman and his family knew enough about these men to anticipate their moves.
It was far too late to worry about my past and present worlds colliding. It wouldn’t help me any to ask how they could know someone from William’s orbit. I had to keep up and accept that they did, whatever the circumstances of that overlap might be.
I peered up at him. “Can we go home?” I asked.
He nodded, guiding me out of there. He didn’t leave my side once, and I was grateful to be steered to his car waiting in the back.
The second we all climbed in, I snuggled against him and tried to calm Emily.
Rubbing her back and shushing her with little reassurances that she would be okay seemed to help, but she wouldn’t let go of my shirt.
Her tiny hand remained clutched on the fabric like it was a lifeline.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked as we rode through the night.
I shook my head. “Didn’t even touch me other than to push me to walk faster. He didn’t touch the twins, either.” As we rode back, I gave him a replay of what happened, from the second the driver’s door was opened to the moment I saw him at that building.
He listened without interrupting, and by the end of my explanation, we were back at his building. The parking garage convinced me that I was safe again. That I was home and no longer at risk of anyone capturing me or the twins. But the relief was short-lived.
We headed up, carrying the twins. They’d fallen asleep on the ride, but I knew that might not last.
On the ride up in the elevator, Roman texted on his phone then gave me all his attention.
The intense gaze he gave me showed his worries. How deeply this had impacted him with fear and anger and urgency.
Walking into his penthouse, the silence between us stretched and lingered into an uncomfortable pressure.
“Maybe we can put them down since they’re asleep,” he said as we carried them toward the nursery.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But in your room? I think… I think I’ll only feel calmer if I can see them and hear them and…”
He nodded, not challenging me about it.
We laid them in the crib as gently as possible. When they didn’t wake, he took my hand and led me to the bed. He sat on the edge closest to the crib they shared. And as he guided me to sit on his lap, I lowered my gaze and caved to his request.
For a long while, we simply sat there. Breathing. Just being. Slowly coming down from the rush of danger and action I never wanted to face.
It was foolhardy of me to ever assume I wouldn’t, though, and with that sobering fact smacked into my conscience, I gave up trying to hold it together. Tears slipped from my eyes, slow and hot at first.
“It will be okay,” he said, rubbing his hand on my back as he tucked me close, letting me stain his shirt with my tears.
You don’t know that.
You can’t know that.
He couldn’t, because he didn’t know what I did. He wasn’t aware of my past and my connection with the men who’d snatched me right off the street with his children.
And with a sharp pang in my heart and a hefty dose of anxiety ruling my mind, I had to admit that the time had come to fully trust him with my identity. I had to confide in him that I feared who I was would continue to be a risk to the precious babies sleeping in the crib mere feet away.