Chapter 41
Samantha
I’d locked myself in the bathroom, panicked, screamed and cried into a towel. Now my eyes are swollen and I’m just numb.
“Mama?” Rona’s tiny fist knocks on the door.
“Be right out, sweetie.” My voice is lifeless.
I stare at myself in the mirror, and feel like I’m looking at a stranger.
I’ve stopped shaking. I’ve stopped feeling.
I wish I could stop breathing, but I have to get through this.
I have to keep it together for Rona’s sake.
This isn’t over. Even though Michael thinks he’s won, there will come another day when I’ll escape with Rona again.
Whether it be a week from now or a year.
I just have to survive one day at a time until then.
The letter was from Michael. He’s here. He explained how his men put underwater explosives on the hull of The Lucky Sinner. And if I don’t come out with Rona in one hour, he will blow it up. Not just with us on it, but the sixty or so people blissfully unaware their lives are in danger.
I can’t live with that. Maybe he’s even bluffing, but I can’t take that chance.
So, I open the bathroom door. The sight of Rona happily jumping on the bed, singing almost breaks me.
She has no idea what’s coming and won’t understand why I’ve brought her back to the prison we escaped.
Who’s going to watch her? Is Celia still alive? I pray that she is.
I sit down on the bed and pull her into my arms. She stills, sensing something is wrong. A sob breaks from my chest. I choke another down and pull her back so I can look into her eyes. They’re wide with fear.
“I’m so sorry, my sweet girl.” I stroke her hair.
“We have to go back to New York with Michael.” Michael never spent time with her, so she doesn’t know him as Daddy, just as the man who’s house we lived in.
“Just for a little while. I won’t see you as much, but I promise it won’t be forever. Do you understand?”
Her bottom lip pushes out in a pout. “With Cece?”
I force a smile. “Hopefully.” My chest cracks open. “Now, let’s get ready to go.” I give her one more long hug, taking in her scent, her warm little body. Then I pack a bag.
I pick up Rona’s coloring book and crayons and get a flash of Rona on Killian’s lap coloring a unicorn together. He’s telling her she doesn’t have to stay in the lines, she can color wherever she wants on the page and she’s giggling. I fall to my knees.
That’s the man she deserves as her father. The man I deserve. The man I… my God. My eyes blur as the realization of how I’ve fallen so hard for Killian and the pain of losing him sears through me like a hot knife.
The alarm on my phone goes off. Ten minutes. Fuck. I don’t have time to fall apart.
I quickly push aside my heartbreak and shove a few more things into the bag. Then I set it by the door, steel myself and open the door.
The guard meets my eyes. “Everything all right, Doc?”
“No. Rona’s running a fever, and I left her Tylenol in Killian’s office. Would you mind getting it for me?”
He nods, so trusting of me I’m hit with a wave of guilt. “All right. Just lock the door and don’t open it for anyone until I get back.”
“Thank you.” I wait a few seconds and crack the door. He’s gone. I throw the bag over my shoulder then scoop up Rona in my arms.
Killian had shown me a secret storage locker at the end of the hall that opens into a narrow gangway. That gangway leads onto the dock so we can escape without being seen by his guards. It was supposed to be to run from trouble, not run from him.
When I’m in the middle of the hall, I turn and look up into the camera.
The terror of this moment is like a wildfire, burning everything to the ground except what’s important.
And what’s left standing is Rona and Killian.
This may be the last time Killian ever sees me, and I need him to know how I feel.
I know it’s crazy. Feeling this so quickly. But there’s no other word for it.
“I love you,” I mouth. Then I let him see the raw truth in my eyes before I walk myself and Rona back into a living nightmare.