by Brook Wilder
Enrique’s handsome, awful features twisted into a sneer.
“You’ll never see your baby again, angel.” His voice was smooth and so cruel it was like a knife being stabbed into her chest. “My child now.”
Melody opened her mouth to scream again as he disappeared, along with her baby. Just… gone. As if they had never been. Her child, gone forever. Taken from her.
Melody woke up with a gasp and instinctively turned towards Christian, but she pulled back when she found… nothing. He wasn’t there.
She sat up in the bed, pushing down the rumpled sheets, and stared around the dark empty room. She had no idea what time it was. It was still dark outside, but the sky was just starting to turn a charcoal gray instead of an inky indigo.
Melody ran her hand against the sheets of the other side of the bed. They were cold. He must not have been there for some time, for his body heat to all have faded.
Confused, and still shaken from her nightmare, Melody pushed herself out of bed. She rose to her feet, padding around the room softly until she found Christian’s t-shirt and slipped it over her sleep-tousled hair.
She walked out of the room, and headed down the stairs, following a light glowing from the kitchen. Melody paused for a moment, just drinking in the sight of him sitting at the kitchen table.
He was so handsome it was almost too much for her to take. She wrapped her arms around her belly, reassuring herself that her baby was fine and safe, and thought that, if it was a little boy, she wanted him to look just like her father.
A small smile quirked up one corner of her mouth. God help Christian if it turns out to be a little baby girl. She had a feeling he was telling the truth. He would be a nervous wreck.
Melody traced him with her gaze, taking in the strong line of his shoulders and chest, down to his hands, that were callused and shaped from hard work and dedication, on the table full of cash…
Wait a minute. What? Table full of cash? Melody forced her still sleep fuzzed mind to back up and focused on the kitchen table. She didn’t mean to, but she gasped, drawing Christian’s attention to where she stood on the threshold.
She had never seen so much money in her life! There were stacks of cash littering the table top and piece of paper laid out in front of Christian as if he’d been tallying it all.
“Melody! This isn’t what it looks like.”
Her brows furrowed at Christian’s odd words.
“Really? Because it looks like a boatload of cash laid out on the kitchen table.”
“Oh, um, alright. Well, I guess it is what it looks like, but…”
Christian shook his head, running hands through hair that looked like it hadn’t been the first time. Or even the second or third.
“Christian, where did all this money come from?”
Melody was still in shock as she took a few steps closer. Christian finally noticed what she was wearing and his eyes grew heated and heavy-lidded for a moment as he took in his t-shirt that barely skimmed the very tops of her thighs.
“Christian?” Melody asked again, and he shook his head.
She was secretly pleased that she was enough to distract him, but she had too many questions. Namely, where the hell had all this money come from? And what was Christian doing with it? And why hadn’t he told her about it?
“Look, Mel, where it came from isn’t important.”
“I really think it is, Christian.” Melody planted her fists in her hips and gave him her best surly Bianca look. “Christian. Tell me the truth. Where did you get the money?”
He was silent for so long she was nearly sure he wasn’t going to give her an answer, but finally he let out a long, hissing sigh.
“You’re not going to like it.”
Okay, well she really didn’t like that. Or being lied to.
“Just tell me already.”
Christian nodded, spreading his hands as he obviously searched for a good answer.
“Just the truth, Christian. That’s all I ever need from you,” she whispered softly.
He looked stricken by her words. He let out another sharp breath, but finally he answered her.
“I stole it from the gang.”
“What?” Melody gasped. “What gang?”
“The Devil’s Martyrs. It was the money that Enrique owed them to pay off his debt. He brought it with to the meeting, even though I’m pretty sure he had no intention of actually handing it over.”
Christian paused, drew in another deep breath as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying just as much as Melody couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“During the shoot-out, Craig handed me the bag and told me to take it. And I just… did,” Christian said with a shrug. “I didn’t think twice about it. I just grabbed the money and ran.”
Worry ran through her as she absorbed Christian’s words.
“You stole this from your gang? And Enrique?” she whispered. She couldn’t say it any louder. It would make it too real.
He just nodded, and his confirmation made her suddenly feel like she was going to vomit.
“Christian, how could you do this?” Melody shook her head. A million ways this could come back to bite them, or end them in an early grave, flew through her head.
“I know it seems crazy at first, Mel, but look at this,” he said as he pushed the piece of paper in front of her, “With this much money, we’ll have more than enough to leave the state. Hell we could leave the country if we wanted. We could get a house for our baby, I could start my own practice.”
Melody glanced down at the sum and nearly choked when she read the number, and the amount of zeroes that came after it. Her gaze flew back to Christian’s.
“This is right? There’s this much money here?”
He nodded again, this time leaning forward in earnest.
“Just think about it, Mel. We can finally get our clean start. We can finally get the life we always wanted.”
The last thing in the world that she wanted to do was get into a fight with him, but she knew what he was saying was a fantasy. Melody pushed the paper away.
“We have to give the money back.”
“What?” Christian looked at her in shock. “This is our ticket to freedom.”
“No, this is our ticket to getting shot in the head. This is our ticket to getting our baby killed. You don’t steal from Enrique and live, Christian. And I don’t think the Devil’s Martyrs would think any more kindly of it either.”
She dropped down into the chair next to him and grabbed one of his hands in hers, trying to make him see.
“If we keep the money, they’ll come after us. And they’ll come after our child,” Melody said, trying to reason with him. “I know how Enrique works.”
But Christian just shook his head, refusing to see reason, refusing to give in, no matter how many arguments she threw at him. And with every refusal, Melody grew more and more panicked.
She opened her mouth to try one more time, frustration and fear making her words sound harsh, but before she could get them out there was a high-pitched ring of a text message that came from the bedroom upstairs.
Christian’s sighed in relief, anger lining his own face as he made a hasty excuse and went to go answer it. Leaving her all alone, staring at a table full of more money than she’d ever seen before, and all she could see in front of her was a death warrant.
She just had to make Christian see the same.
Chapter 12
Christian let out the breath he’d been holding at the sound of the text message. It was a weak excuse, but he was grateful for any to get away for a minute from arguing with Melody. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but she flat out refused to even consider keeping the cash or even a portion of it.
He rushed up the stairs, but he didn’t immediately go to get his phone. In all honesty, he didn’t care. The only person that he truly cared about at the moment was sitting downstairs, intent on arguing with him no matter how much sense his words made.
Christian went to the bedroom window and looked outside. For a long several minutes, he just stared up at the night sky as it bled into dawn.
It must still be early, only five or six in the morning, and he hadn’t slept a wink. He was tired, though. Afraid. Trepidation. Concerned for Mel and their baby. Yes, he was all of those things. But mostly he felt wired, as if he was balanced on a set of scales and just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It was a feeling that had haunted him since the day before. Since he’d walked inside his home after seeing his best friend with a bullet hole in his arm and Melody standing, looking so alone in the world that his heart broke into a million pieces that he was still trying to put back together.
He’d never been so afraid in his life, and he’d done some dangerous shit for the Devil’s over the past couple of years.
The sky outside the window was starting to lighten towards the horizon, a barely-there blue, so soft like it was made of downy feathers. He looked, but he didn’t really see. His thoughts were far away. On his own past, and Melody’s.
He couldn’t help but wonder at how far each of them had come, and just how much farther they could go. Especially with all the money on that table downstairs.
“Damn it!” Christian bit off the softly spoke curse as frustration flashed through him once more.
They needed that money. How could she not see that?
It made perfect sense to him, but no matter how he’d laid it out to her, she had flat out refused, saying over and over again that they had to give it back. That they couldn’t keep it. That it was too dangerous.
But with that amount of money, they could disappear.
As Christian stood there, the sun continuing its slow and steady ascent outside, he racked his brain to try and come up with an alternative plan. But if he gave the money back, it had all been for nothing.
Hub getting hurt, Craig getting shot. Giving up the location to his house to Enrique. Christian knew he could never go back there. Not until all this was settled. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to put Melody in danger like that again.
But, in the back of his mind, and in the pit of his stomach, was the niggling worry that Melody was right. What if they kept the money, and Enrique came after them? What if they kept it, and he had the Devil’s Martyrs gunning for him and his family?
Just the thought of that sent him into a cold sweat. He knew exactly what sort of violence and retributions Bones, the crew’s president, and the Devil’s Martyrs were capable of. Deadly and quick. Without mercy. No second chance.
Christian let out a growl of frustration as his thoughts circled around and around each other, not getting him anywhere at all.
What the hell was he going to do?
He was so conflicted, full of frustration. But there was no easy answer. There never was. Not when it mattered. Not when it was important. And Melody and their baby were the most important thing in the world to him.
Christian was still standing there, staring sightlessly out of the window when suddenly Melody’s arms wrapped around him from behind.
He let himself sink into her embrace, trying to just stay in the moment and keep the rest of the world at bay.
“I’m sorry about arguing with you,” Melody whispered against his back, holding him even tighter. “It just scares me so much. The idea of you getting hurt, or our baby. I know what Enrique will do to you, and that scares me even more.”
Christian shuddered at the utter sweetness in her words.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or the baby.”
“But what about you? Who’s going to keep you safe?”
The simple question struck a chord in him. No one had ever worried about him. No one had ever cared if he was safe, and that fact that this little slip of a woman wanted to protect him made him feel warm and cold all over.
“I don’t know the right answer,” he finally said after he could speak again. “But whatever it is, we’ll decide on it together, alright? We’ll make the decision together.”
He felt her nod behind him.
“I would like that. Maybe we can wait and talk to your father before deciding anything.”
“Hub?”
“He’s the vice president of the gang, Christian. If anyone knows what we should do or how they would react, it’s him.”
“Alright. I can agree to that,” he said, pulling her around until he could hold her properly in his arms, feel her softness pressed against him. “On one condition.”
She glanced up at him through a thick fringe of lashes, suspicion glowing in her dark gaze.
“What condition?”
“Just a kiss.”
Slowly, the suspicion melted into a beautiful smile.
“I think I can do that.”
Christian lowered his mouth to hers before the words even all the way out of her mouth, and he reveled in the taste of her. He didn’t think he would ever get enough.
He was growing breathless, and his body was tightening painfully, by the time he pulled back enough to look down into her face.
“You know, we could always just go back to bed and never leave again,” Christian suggested, more than a little serious.
Melody let out a tinkling laugh, like windchimes.
“Now, that sounds like a fantastic plan.”
She was still laughing when he kissed her again, their tongues tangling together as he drew another small gasp from her.
His hands moved to the hem of his t-shirt, which looked a hell of a lot better on her than it did on him, when his phone rang again. Another text message.
“Just ignore it,” he whispered, pleading with Melody.
But she was already pulling back, even though the heat in her eyes told him she didn’t want to.
“What if it’s about your dad? Or Craig?”
Christian rolled his eyes, his body already painfully hard for her all over again. The only thing he was interested in doing was stripping her naked and getting back into bed with her, and not leaving until neither of them could walk straight.
But he could hear the worry in her voice, and he knew she wouldn’t be satisfied until he checked.
With a very put-upon sigh that made Melody’s kiss-swollen mouth kick-up in a smile, Christian moved to find his cell phone. It was still in the back pocket of his jeans that had been discarded carelessly on the floor.
He pulled it out, rushing to get it over with so he could get back to more important matters, but the number that showed where the text message had come from made him freeze.
“It’s from you,” he muttered, and Melody’s brow furrowed in confusion as she walked over to peer over his shoulder.
“What are you talking about?”
“The text messages. They came from your phone?”
“But that’s impossible. I lost my phone after Enrique’s men…”
She trailed off in horror as Christian opened the messages.
The first one was all text. It read simply: Want her back alive?
The second message was a picture, obviously taken with the camera on the phone, and it made his blood boil and fear flood his system all at the same time, until he was shaking so badly he could barely make out the image. It didn’t matter. It was burned into his mind.
Bianca, with a black eye and bruised face, tied up by her wrists and staring tearfully into the camera. There was fear in her eyes, and he’d never seen her afraid.
Melody turned to him, covering her mouth with one hand as shock filled her eyes.
“Oh my god. Enrique has Bianca.”
Chapter 13
Melody looked from the photo to Christian, and then back again, but she flinched away from the image. She couldn’t stand to see Bianca like that, tied and beaten.
“One of Enrique’s men must have grabbed my phone during the scuffle,” Melody said numbly. “They must know about the money.”
“I don’t think this is about the money,”
Christian growled.
Melody stared at him. She’d never heard such anger in his voice before or seen it in his blue eyes. Right now, they were as hard and dusty as the morning sky outside.
“What else would it be about?” she asked.
He flicked her a glance but didn’t answer. He was already moving, rushing about the room and packing everything he could. He tossed her a bag that she hadn’t seen him carry in last night.
