Chapter 7 #3
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She sprinted toward it, Liam’s footsteps pounding behind her. She flung the door wide, and her breath lodged in her throat.
Chaos. Papers scattered, her chair overturned, one monitor spiderwebbed with cracks. A glass shattered in lethal shards on the floor.
Her stomach lurched.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Liam’s growl filled the space as he stepped inside. “Who would do this?”
Her gaze locked on the counter where a small brown box sat untouched amid the destruction. Sealed shut, Liam’s name sprawled across it in black Sharpie.
“I bet it’s those teens.” Liam moved toward it. “They probably figured out you gave me the photos. I’ll—”
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm, nearly tackling him. Trackers. Coco’s warning. If that package connected to the files…“Don’t touch it.”
Confusion flickered in his blue eyes before his expression went blank, reading her panic. “What aren’t you telling me, Nim?”
Words lodged in her throat. The weight of everything—her past, the files, her feelings for him, the life she’d been running from—crashed down, smothering her. For the first time in years, she had no idea how to keep moving forward.
“Nim?”
Her name snapped her back. She turned, started collecting some of the glass shards, her hands trembling. She didn’t look at him. “Could be nothing. But I’ve been hiding here because I ticked off some Russians.”
A pause from the man behind her.
So maybe moving on would have been the better choice.
“Russians? Like Putin?”
She looked over at him, nodded. “Can you hand me that trash bag?”
He picked it up and started shaking it out.
“Not government. More like organized crime.”
“The Russian mob is after you?” His eyes widened.
“No…Yes…It’s complicated.” She moved to drop glass into his bag when a shard sliced across her palm.
She jerked her hand back. “Ah, shoot!” Blood pooled in the gash, then dripped onto one of the cushions.
She reached for a towel, but Liam scooped it up and took her hand. He inspected it, then pressed the towel against the blood. “You need stitches.”
He was right, but butterfly bandages and superglue would have to suffice. “I can’t have my name in any digital system. The Russians can hack anything. Which is why I should probably”—she swallowed, then managed the words, somehow—“move on.”
Liam looked at her. Really looked at her. The kind of look that reached in and grabbed hold of her, stilled the terrible, lonely trembling inside. His eyes were a wash of blue and heat and strength.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She couldn’t move.
“And I don’t mean that in a hostage sort of I-got-you-now way. I mean…” He drew in a breath. “Please, please, don’t think you need to run from this. From me.”
Aw. He couldn’t look at her that way if she hoped to keep her resolve.
She pulled her hand from his grip. “Don’t you see? I’ve put you at risk. If I leave, they’ll follow me and you’ll be safe. You’ll be—”
“What? Are you kidding me?” He frowned, his jaw tightening. “Then they’ll be after you! And you’ll be alone. How is that better?” He inhaled hard, then shook his head. “I’m serious. You’re not going anywhere.”
He appeared almost fierce, and if not for the sudden glaze in his eyes, she might have gone cold. Instead, his words, his tone, simply wrapped around her, settled inside her.
No, no, she wasn’t. She nodded. Okay…
He blinked hard and got up. Pulled out his phone and sent off a quick text. A few rapid-fire exchanges later, he pocketed it. His voice turned soft. “Meg, the park doctor, will meet us at the clinic in twenty minutes. Before it officially opens.”
“But medical records—”
“She said she won’t check you in, officially. I told her it was that or you’d try to superglue it yourself. C’mon. No argument.”
He reached for her hand.
And heaven help her, she took it. “Please don’t let me get you killed.”
“It’ll be okay, Nim.”
The way he said it, she just…believed him.
Or desperately wanted to.
Her gaze landed on the package. “Think she’d X-ray that package too?”
“Yep.” He wrapped the package in a blanket, then put his arm around her shoulders, steering her toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get you fixed up.” But he stopped as they stepped from the camper. “And Nim? Whatever this is, whoever’s after you—we’ll figure it out. Together.”
The word together hit her harder than any declaration of affection could have. She’d been alone so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone in her corner.
“You don’t know what you’re signing up for.” She shook her head. “If I tell you everything—and I mean everything—there’s no going back. You’ll be in this as deep as I am.”
His eyes softened. “Nimue, I’ve been in this since the moment I pulled you back from that trail edge. The only difference is now you know it too.”
She searched his face, looking for doubt, for fear, for any sign he didn’t understand what he was offering.
“Are you sure?”
His blue eyes held hers. “How about you let me decide if I’m brave enough to stick around.”