by Kat Mizera
Nowhere Left to Run
Kat Mizera
Copyright © 2019 by Kat Mizera
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
Cover Photo: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Elise Duncan
Editors: Tera Cuskaden, Ashley Martin
Created with Vellum
Contents
Also by Kat Mizera
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Coming Soon
Also by Kat Mizera
Las Vegas Sidewinders Series:
Dominic
Cody’s Christmas Surprise
Drake
Karl
Anatoli
Zakk
Toli & Tessa
Brock
Vladimir
Royce
Nate
Sidewinders: Ever After
Jared
Ian (TBD)
Inferno Series:
Salvation’s Inferno
Temptation’s Inferno
Redemption’s Inferno
Tropical Inferno (formerly “Tropical Ice”)
Romancing Europe Series:
Adonis in Athens
Smitten in Santorini
Lucky in Lugano
Alaska Blizzard Series:
Defending Dani
Holding Hailey
Winning Whitney
Losing Laurel
Saving Sarah (TBD)
The Nowhere Trilogy:
Nowhere Left to Fall
Nowhere Left to Run
Nowhere Left to Hide
Other Books:
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting Bobbi (Susan Stoker’s Special Forces World)
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting Delilah (Susan Stoker’s Special Forces World)
Brotherhood Protectors: Catching Lana (Elle James’s Brotherhood Protectors World)
1
Casey
I became Mrs. Nicholas Kingsley in the private chambers of a Las Vegas judge, at eleven o’clock in the morning. My parents were our witnesses, and the whole ceremony took less than ten minutes. Afterward, we went back to the Charleston for a secluded family lunch where we ate and opened a handful of token gifts sent by startled family members who didn’t know what to think. By four o’clock, everyone was gone, the gifts had been carried up to what was now our suite, and I sat staring at the walls of Nick’s bare living room. I’d wanted to curl up on Nick’s bed, but it didn’t feel right. Not yet anyway.
Nick had been my best friend my entire life, and while I couldn’t imagine being married to anyone other than Erik, I’d done what I had to do for my baby. I wasn’t as upset as I’d been when Erik had initially left, but somehow it felt like being resigned to this fate was almost as bad.
“What can I do to make this feel at least a little like home?” Nick asked, coming in and sitting beside me on the couch.
I looked at him with a smirk, since levity seemed a much better solution than sarcasm. “You could buy a king-sized bed, for starters.”
“Huh?” He looked around in confusion. “What size is mine?”
“It’s a queen, you dork.” Picking on Nick felt a tiny bit normal since I’d been doing it most of my life, and I hoped he thought so too.
“Oh.” He looked confused. “Okay. I’ll order one tomorrow.”
“Good. I toss and turn a lot these days, and I need room at night.”
“Casey.” He took my hand and gently squeezed it. “Would you be more comfortable sleeping in the other room? No one will know what goes on in private.”
“No.” I shook my head and moved closer to him. “This isn’t about sex or anything like that. Even if we were madly in love, and happy as clams, I’d still want a bigger bed. I move around all night, and you know that.”
“Yeah.”
“But as far as sleeping alone, no, I don’t want to. I want to sleep next to you, curl up with you when I’m cold or tired or sad. You’re still my best friend.”
“I’m glad.” He smiled. “Well, I’ve got some homework to do. Do you have any plans?”
“Not hardly. I’m kind of lost, honestly. This is supposed to be our honeymoon, so I can’t go hang out at the studio or anything since that would look weird if anyone spotted me. We have to make this look real, right?”
“You want to go away somewhere for a few days?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Not really. You?”
“No, but in the interest of making it look real?”
“I guess we could.” I paused. “We both love Coronado. Want to go there? Swim in the ocean…maybe surf a little? I could use a few days at the beach. You want to?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “Let me make some calls.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I squeezed his arm. “You have homework and I need something to do.” Nick had started taking college classes at UNLV.
“Fine by me.” He winked playfully, and I went to get my laptop.
Thank god he was my best friend. I definitely wouldn’t be able to do this with anyone else.
Coronado was one of my favorite places on the West Coast, located on a peninsula in San Diego Bay. I’d been here at least a dozen times, several of them with Nick, so we got to town and checked into the famous Hotel del Coronado, our favorite. I didn’t feel much like a bride on her honeymoon, so we kept our entrance low-key, but once we were in our room overlooking the ocean, I relaxed. Nick had settled in to do more homework, and I was staring out at the water, my mind drifting to Erik. I wondered where he was and what he was doing, if he was safe. Being apart was hard, but not knowing what was going on was harder. I assumed he was in Europe somewhere, close enough to get to Limaj but not in the country. Even with safe houses, it couldn’t be as safe as I’d like him to be, but all I could do was speculate.
I’d brought an acoustic guitar with me, so I sat on the balcony with it and began playing random songs like I’d done when we were in Crete. What a wonderful few weeks that had been, probably the best of my entire life. Even with Sandor there as a kind of third wheel, it had been relaxing and intimate. I liked Sandor, and he was good about disappearing, so the times when he was around had never been a hardship. Aziz was a bit aloof and unfriendly, but he wasn’t family, so that probably made a difference. All I knew was that I wished we were there now, together, enjoying the food and sunshine
and each other.
“You want to get some dinner?” Nick’s voice startled me, and I looked up, realizing a few hours had gone by.
“Oh, let’s do room service tonight. I don’t want to go out.”
“Okay.” He sank into the chair next to me. “Want to watch a movie?”
“Sure.”
It was a relaxing three days. We only went out twice. Once to a nice restaurant in San Diego and once to the beach, but mostly we stayed in and hibernated. That’s something people on a honeymoon would do and it allowed me the privacy I needed and Nick time to study. He was taking his classes seriously and going away not too long before finals had to be stressful for him, but he was a good guy, willing to do whatever was necessary to make things easier for me.
He didn’t have to get a degree, but he wanted one because neither his father nor his grandfather had one. The Kingsley family had made their millions through their mob connections, good decisions, and a little luck, but Nick wanted everything to be on the straight and narrow. Though Nick’s father, Nicky, had cut most ties to the mob, Eddie still had business associates that were involved, and Nick’s plan was to eliminate all the ties to those connections by the time he officially took over the hotel. Nicky wanted to retire, so Nick was getting hands-on training while going to college and would undoubtedly be completely in charge by the time he was thirty.
“I’m thinking of taking some classes as well,” I told him as we ate dinner. “Maybe in January. The baby won’t come until May so the semester will be over by then. If not, I’m sure they’ll make an exception for the birth of a baby.”
“I’m sure they’ll work something out for you.” He dipped a bite of his prime rib in Worcestershire sauce before popping it in his mouth. “You gonna study music?”
“I think that’s the most logical choice.”
“Have you thought about where? I mean, UNLV is fine for business, but I don’t know if their music program is any good.”
“I already read music and play a bunch of instruments. It’s more about getting the degree than learning anything.”
He cocked his head. “So why do it?”
I frowned. “Why are you doing it? Technically, you already own the freakin’ hotel and you’re learning the ins and outs from your dad. What’s the piece of paper going to do for you?”
He paused. “I guess you have a point. It just seems like unnecessary stress for you with everything going on.”
“Feels more like a good distraction,” I admitted. “Maybe after one semester I’ll change my mind. With a newborn, studying might be the last thing I want to do, but in the meantime, it’s not like any type of education ever hurts.”
“I will concede that point.” He grinned at me.
We finished dinner in companionable silence, found a movie we both wanted to watch, and fell asleep to the sound of the waves in the background.
When we got home, I did some research on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and discovered the School of Music had a lot to offer with degrees in composition, performance, jazz, and education. Performance would be my preference, and I made an appointment to talk to the director there. I would probably be considered a bit of a virtuoso in guitar, but I was also skilled on the piano, though classical music wasn’t my favorite. I spent days researching options and filling out forms. It kept me busy and distracted from the media shitstorm going on. Nick and I had been spotted in Coronado, and while I’d been expecting it, the negativity of the headlines hurt. I knew it was a carefully calculated campaign to keep me and my baby safe, so I tried not to let it bother me, but sometimes it was hard to miss the stares I got around the hotel. Most people knew better and kept their mouths shut, but there were a handful that gave me side-eye or shook their heads slightly when they saw me.
Nick was vigilantly protective, almost always by my side when I wandered down to the casinos or restaurants, but he wasn’t my babysitter and I was tired of hiding. Even if I’d had an affair, which I most certainly hadn’t, it wasn’t like I killed someone. Shit happened. The press, and everyone else, was going to have to get over it. There had to be bigger scandals than this somewhere in Hollywood, right? I hoped so.
“Where are you off to today?” Nick asked one morning a few weeks before Christmas.
“I’m going down to UNLV to talk to an advisor about my options and see if I can start classes in January. I’m only planning to take two or three, start out slow, but it really depends on what they say.”
“You can take classes in the summer and online too,” he said. “And I still need English Composition II, so if you take Comp I in the spring, I’ll wait, and we can take the second part together in the summer. If you want.”
I managed a smile. My hope was that Erik would be home by summer. But we had no idea so there was no reason not to make tentative plans. They could be changed, after all, and it didn’t hurt to have a backup in case things took longer than we were counting on.
“Sounds good,” I said out loud. “It’ll be fun to take a class together. I don’t think we’ve done that since high school chemistry.”
He grimaced. “That was an awful class.”
“It was.” We laughed together.
“All right, well, I’ve got class at eleven, so I’ll see you later.” He bent to kiss the top of my head, something he did often, and I fondly watched him go.
If circumstances had been different, things could have been really good between us. He was hot. Like, model/movie star hot. His mother, Tricia, had been a supermodel in the eighties, and he had her refined looks with his father’s coloring. Jet-black hair, blue eyes, perfectly aligned features that made him both photogenic and handsome in person as well. His body was toned and rock-hard—something I knew from personal experience—and he was a giving, energetic lover. A year ago, I would have been happy to marry him. But everything was different now and what could have been a wonderful relationship full of shared interests, good times, and lots of sex was really more like having a roommate.
It felt weird, but I was going to power through each and every day until Erik was back with me. I didn’t have a choice.
2
Casey
The only thing I enjoyed about Christmas this year was hearing from Erik. It was a quick phone call, but the sound of his voice was the best possible gift I could have gotten from anyone. Mostly, we talked about the baby.
“Have you thought about names?” he asked me.
“You know, I have. We can’t name him after you or anyone in your family, for obvious reasons, and I don’t want to name him after Nick. What if we name him after my dad? Lucas is a good name, and we can call him Luke?”
“I love that,” he said gently. “But what if it’s a girl?”
“You said that’s not possible.”
He chuckled. “I’m willing to entertain the notion since we don’t have a lot of time to talk about this stuff.”
“We’re going to have to talk about that next time,” I said. “’Cause I haven’t come up with anything.”
“Okay.” He let out a breath. “I know this was short, but I have to go.”
“Dammit.”
“I love you, beautiful.”
“I love you too.”
“I’ll call soon.”
“Merry Christmas.” I hung up and went back in to the party. It was Christmas Day, and the Kingsleys were hosting their annual Christmas dinner with an eclectic group of friends and family, but nothing was the same this Christmas. I tried to smile as I opened presents and pretended everything was okay even though it wasn’t.
Liz hadn’t come this year, either, which I found odd, and I approached her mother curiously.
“Hey, Melissa.” I gave her a hug. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” Her shrewd eyes looked me over carefully. “Something is different. Are you pregnant?”
I swallowed. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Congratulations.” She paused. “
You’re not letting those ridiculous tabloids upset you, are you?”
“A little,” I responded. “It’s hard not to. It’ll blow over soon, though. At least I hope so.”
“You just keep your head high,” she said firmly. “You have a wonderful man and a supportive family—that’s all any of us need.”
“Thank you.” I’d always liked Nick’s step-grandmother. “So, where’s Liz this year?”
“The Charleston Monte Carlo is having their soft opening this week so she couldn’t get away.”
“Oh, yeah, the grand opening is in January.”
“Yes. Her father and I are planning to attend. We hoped you and Nick would come as well, but he said he can’t get away because of school?”
“Yeah, we both have classes starting soon so it would be hard to travel all the way to Europe.”
We talked about random topics for a while and then I excused myself in search of my parents. I hadn’t seen much of them lately and I’d missed them, especially my dad, who’d been busy at the studio. It was officially opening the first week of January so he’d been working twelve-hour days getting ready. I’d done my best to help, but there wasn’t much for me to do until it actually opened, so I wanted to find out where things stood.
“Hi, honey.” He hugged me as I sank into the chair next to him.
“Are you ready for the grand opening?” I asked him.
