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He’s big, and so very handsome, a dark strand of hair caressing his brow. “I have an emergency. I have to fly out tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. A client in LA is backing out of a deal that affects my clients here in Houston. I have to get him back in. My boss is losing his mind. It’s a billion-dollar deal.”
“Can you leave later? Can you come inside and—”
“Not tonight. I’m sorry, baby. I really am. I want to meet Cole. I know you care about him,” he strokes my hair, “but I need to go.”
“Just come in and let him see that you really exist.”
He holds up the ring. “I exist, baby, for the rest of your life. I’ll be back and with money in my pocket to take you anywhere you want to go.”
“I want to go inside with you.”
“Next time,” he says, cupping my head and kissing me, a seductive caress of his tongue against mine followed by another, drugging me to the point that when it’s over, I’m in another place. That place only he takes me.
“I’ll call you in the morning. You’ll be asleep when I land.” He kisses my hand right over the ring and then turns and walks away.
I stare after him, feeling weird about this, the way I do at random times with Noah, like I don’t know some of the secrets he keeps. I inhale and turn back to the restaurant, dreading the moment I tell Cole what just happened. He’ll ask if I really know Noah. He’ll make me question myself and the man I plan to marry.
I blink back to the present and understand now what had upset me then. Noah, Aaron, had a job for the CIA that night. He had to leave. If I’m honest with myself, something felt off with him at times, not quite right. It was that edgy, dangerous thing he oozes. I knew there was more to him, but I ignored it. I liked it. I can’t blame him fully for my own decision to know and ignore, but I do wonder if we will ever have a normal life together. Is that what I want? Normal? Banging starts on the front door, jolting me out of my own head, and then I hear, “Open up, Ashley.”
It’s Aaron, and I push to my feet, hurrying forward to unlock the door and pull it open. He stands in front of me with blood smeared on his face. I have my answer. No. I will never have a normal life with Aaron.
“Let’s go, now,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me forward.
“Our bags,” I say.
“No time,” he replies, pulling me outside and forward. I change my prior thought. Who cares about normal? I wonder if I’ll have a life to live at all when this is over.
Chapter fourteen
Ashley
My feet sink into the snow, the deep tracks Aaron and I leave as he guides us to a wooded area with a map to our travels, while cold air turns hot with the adrenaline shooting through me. Aaron pulls me into the center of a cluster of trees and takes my gun, shoving it in my coat pocket, pulling me close, his hand on my head, lips at my ear as he whispers, “Move fast and say nothing.”
He pulls back to look at me, a question in his brown eyes, that damn blood on his face foreboding. I don’t know how I know Aaron isn’t hurt, but I know. That blood isn’t his, and I thank God right now for that fact. I nod my agreement. It’s enough for him because he doesn’t look for more. He takes my hand and starts guiding me toward the back of the cabin, stepping in his existing footsteps, at least I think they’re his. I really hope they’re his. Or maybe, I think, these are the footprints of whoever he killed on his way to pick me up again. All I can do now is run, ready myself to fight, and pray the vehicle we’re getting out of here in is nearby. Not that I know what vehicle that might be as I was drugged when I arrived, which isn’t really a thought that suits me well right now.
We charge forward, and I have no idea why, but as we approach the back of the cabin, my heart lurches, a sixth sense setting my adrenaline pumping. Aaron must feel it, too, as he grabs me, shoves me behind him, and the next thing I know, he’s throwing a punch at another man. One punch, a second punch, and then he’s twisting the man around, holding him from behind, and oh God, he snaps his neck and drops him to the ground. I’m still trying to process what just happened when he pulls his gun, leans around the cabin, scans, and then grabs my hand again, and pulls me forward.
This time we run and run hard, and there’s no obvious vehicle for our escape. We run for the wide range of woods, and I’m officially freaking out. How are we going to survive in the woods? Are we so desperate we have no other option? And my God, he just killed someone in front of me, snapping his neck. I shove that thought out of my mind. I shove everything out of my mind but surviving. We enter the woods, and Aaron doesn’t stop. He pulls me even with him, seeming to assess where I’m at and how I am, but he doesn’t speak and neither do I. We’re going to die today. I feel it in my blood, and I can barely breathe. I don’t want to die. I push harder, my hand sliding into my coat pocket, around my not forgotten gun.
And so I run.
We run.
Through snow and trees, through obstacles left and right, but there are no men with guns, and in that, there is survival.
We run for what feels like miles, and then finally, there’s a truck in a clearing: our ride, our escape. We aren’t going to die. We’re going to live. I can’t feel my feet, but it doesn’t matter. I look at Aaron, and I can see relief in his face. He believes that we’re going to live, too. I feel hope. I feel happiness. I can almost feel my feet just from the joy of it.
We clear the trees, and all that joy escapes me as two men step into our path. No three. Oh God. We’re dead. They charge at us, and I pull my gun, but even as I aim to shoot, I feel a thundering force to my head, and that’s it: everything goes dark.
I blink awake into darkness to the sound of a voice and a swaying sensation. A radio. A vehicle. I’m in the backseat lying down, I think. A storm of pain in my head. I groan from the pain and squeeze my eyes shut, listening as the radio says, “Tomorrow is sunny and warmer, at least for the mid-afternoon hours—”
Sunny and warmer?
What happened to the snow?
