50. London
Itried to fight the stranger when the SUV pulled to a stop, but I had no choice but to freeze when he pressed a knife to my throat. It wasn’t a silly little switchblade either. It was a full-blown, fancy-ass knife with etchings carved into the blade and wooden handle.
A man who spent that much money on a knife was a man who took pride in owning one. Who probably really enjoyed using one.
Therefore, I stopped fighting and got out of the vehicle, taking in my surroundings and feeling rage rush through me when I realized where we were.
It was a private airstrip.
And sitting on the tarmac was a small private jet.
The screech of tires drew my gaze. Whoever drove the SUV was already hurtling away, done with their part in my kidnapping.
Hatred threatened to overwhelm me as the stranger nudged me forward toward the stairs that led onto the plane. I knew who I would see as soon as I stepped inside, and the dark feelings building within scared the shit out of me.
The stranger gave me a brutal shove when I paused at the top of the stairs. I stumbled into the plane, barely taking in the plush leather seats and mahogany tables. It wasn’t huge inside. There didn’t appear to be any attendants on board.
In the middle of the jet seated at a booth was my ex.
Nick slid out, eyes hard as steel, a small, triumphant smile curving his mouth.
“I told you I’d bring you home. You didn’t think I’d disappear without you?” He cocked his head, his gaze traveling over my body like it was something he owned.
For a second, I almost lost myself in the violence of my animosity. In my furious indignation that this man, this vile piece-of-shit human being, thought he had the right to take control of my existence. To literally steal me off the street and fly me to some godforsaken place.
Rationale miraculously fought through all my roiling, explosive emotions.
If this plane took off, I might be lost to my family forever.
I might not get off this plane alive.
A glance to my right revealed the stranger blocking the still-open doorway. His fancy knife hung on a leather strap clipped around his waist. His fingers tapped the top of it as if in warning.
“Nothing to say?” Nick asked, drawing my gaze back to him. “Two years we’ve been apart and you have nothing to say.”
Refusing to engage with a madman, I looked over my left shoulder into the cockpit. The pilot was already seated, readying the jet for takeoff.
The pilot had to know Nick was on the run. He was doing this for money, endangering his own life by throwing his lot in with Nick. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
A fire extinguisher hung on the wall of a hidden storage unit at the cockpit entrance. Before fear could convince me otherwise, I darted for the heavy canister, grabbing it off the wall, and plunged it with my whole weight into the back of the pilot’s head.
Hands grabbed at my hair and waist; pain rioted across my scalp as I was hauled out of the cockpit. Triumph cut off my cry of pain as the pilot slumped forward, unconscious.
“You bitch!” I heard Nick seethe at my ear seconds before I was tossed violently onto the floor. My head caught the side of a table before I hit the aisle. I groaned, pressing a hand to the throbbing ache near my temple as my vision pulsed in and out.
“Is he dead?” Nick barked.
I looked up through the hair that had fallen over my face to see Nick bristling as his henchman leaned into the cockpit.
“He’s just out.”
“I fucking knew we should have hired a second pilot.” Nick whirled on me, eyes blazing. “You think you’re smart?”
I hurried to my feet, the world spinning a little, whether from the blows to my skull or adrenaline. Probably both. “Honestly? Yeah, I think that was pretty smart.”
“We need to get off this plane,” Nick’s security stated calmly. “Find alternative travel.”
“You don’t touch her.” Nick flashed him a murderous look, halting the stranger’s stride. “She’s mine to deal with.”
His security nodded and stepped back, clasping his hands on his hips. Waiting.
My pulse raced as Nick moved toward me. I braced my legs and my ex cocked an eyebrow. “Are you going to fight me, baby?”
“I’m not your baby.”
His palm swung out so fast, I couldn’t have prepared for it. It cracked with force against my already bruised cheek. He hit me so hard, I flew back into one of the tables, pain flaring across my waist. I scrambled to right myself, but he hit me again and I lost my footing, falling to the floor.
Suddenly, he was over me, his menacing face in mine as he grabbed my chin in his hand, squeezing too hard. “You are going to pay for all your misbehavior. But right now—” I cut him off as I grabbed between his legs and twisted his balls through his suit pants.
“Fuck,” he wheezed out. Agony strained his features as he collapsed over me, the veins in his forehead popping.
Those dark, awful feelings that made me despise him even more for inciting them took over.
I wrapped my hands around his throat, choking him as I used all my weight to flip him onto his back, straddling him.
Sensing my kidnapper move behind me, I sat up and turned, my eyes at waist height, immediately zoning in on that fancy knife strapped to his hip.
My next move surprised him. It surprised me.
I felt like I was outside my own body as I yanked the knife from the holder and slammed it into his upper thigh before he could react.
The stranger’s roar filled the plane as he tottered on his heels, grasping at the wound.
I whirled to Nick just as he jolted upward, throwing his weight into me and taking me down onto my back.
My head banged against the floor, discombobulating me.
Nick’s face hovered so close to mine, but it took me a second to register his wide-eyed expression as he slumped over me. His face turned purple as he made a horrible gurgling sound and blood suddenly splattered out of his mouth, spraying across my face.
I winced, blinking rapidly.
That’s when I felt something wet and warm sliding down my right hand.
And I remembered the knife I held. Felt the heavy weight of Nick’s body on it.
Nick let out another bloody gasp before his body relaxed, sinking down into me. At the feel of his flesh sliding down the blade, I cried out in horror.
He’d fallen on the knife.
Right through his black heart.
“Oh God,” I whimpered. Shaking, I released the handle of the knife and Nick’s body collapsed over me, my face suffocating in his shoulder.
Disbelief and terror had me shoving him off, rolling him onto his back.
He landed with a heavy thud; his dead eyes stared at nothing.
The knife was fully embedded in his chest.
I raised my shaking hands. My right was covered in his blood.
Nausea rushed up my gut before I could stop its momentum, and I turned my head just in time to vomit on the floor and not on Nick’s dead body.
A grunt had my chin jerking up as I wiped my mouth with my left hand.
The stranger had slumped to the floor by the cockpit and stretched a hand toward the hidden storage.
I had to get out of here.
My survival instincts blew past the horror of accidentally killing my ex-boyfriend.
I was out the jet door and hurrying down the steps when the sirens hit my ears.
I looked up from watching my feet just as police cars pulled onto the tarmac.
And behind them, a familiar Discovery. Relief made my legs give way, and I stumbled on the last steps.
Police officers jumped out of vehicles with their guns raised.
Shocked, I lifted my arms, palms out. The sight of the blood on my hands made me realize why I had weapons aimed at me.
“London!”
I searched beyond the police officers, and when I saw Murray’s face, his expression slackened with fear as his gaze lifted upward behind me. That fear spiked my heart rate, and I spun around only to find Nick’s henchman, expression vicious, as he aimed a gun at me.
I shut my eyes as a pop sounded.