Limitless Love (Lotus House #4)(3)

“Are you?” Tears pricked the back of my eyes. “Mila…” I gasped and swallowed down the emotions clogging my throat.

“Just come home. We want to tell you together.” Her voice was loud and jovial, which meant I was probably right.

Chills raced up and down my spine, and a lightness filled me with such excitement I could hardly breathe. I wanted this for my friend. “Okay. Home. Thirty minutes if traffic is light.”

“See you then. And Moe, be safe.”

“I always am.” I clicked off the phone and walked in a daze to my car.

If my assumption was correct, Mila was about to tell me that she was pregnant with Atlas’s baby and they were getting married. Everything I could have ever hoped for my best friend was about to happen. Life could not get any better than this. For her.

“Stuck-up fucking cunt,” a voice growled from a dark corner behind my car.

I spun around and came face-to-face with a masked man. I could only make out two holes for his eyes and one for his mouth. My hands shook, and I dropped my keys as I backed up toward the center of the garage, closer to the light. That’s when I saw the knife. A small blade, about four or five inches. The man walked toward me as I scrambled back on too-high heels. Each step sounded louder than the last.

“What do you want?” I pointed to my purse that I’d also dropped when I saw the man. “I’ve got money and credit cards in my purse. A couple hundred dollars. And my keys. Take my car. Just leave me alone.” I put my hands up in front of me to show I wasn’t going to be stupid.

“You think you’re so smart. Rich and powerful. You’re nothing but a filthy, greedy bitch.”

“Wh-Wh-What do you want?” I backed up as he moved closer. The lights were directly overhead, and if anyone came down or drove up, they’d see me. Someone had to come. They just had to.

I stayed as calm as I could. “Please, just take whatever you want.”

“Oh, I will. I’m going to take your life. Then all that money will go to the right person. Not you and that little fucking beaker baby.”

Tears fell down my cheeks as the man advanced. His voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it through the roar of fear. He growled his words as if to mask them the way he did his face.

The man lifted up the knife in all its heinous glory. “Time to die, bitch!”

At those words, I screamed, turned, and ran as fast as I could. My pencil skirt was tight around my legs. I pulled it up a few inches to gain more speed. It wasn’t enough.

With every step, he gained on me. “Run for your life. That’s right. Run, bitch, run. There’s nowhere you can go I won’t find you!” he roared before getting so close I heard the heavy gusts of air bursting past his lips.

I tried to zigzag, but it was too late. A searing pain ripped through me as the knife pierced just above my hip. He yanked upward, the blade slicing up my back and knocking against my upper shoulder blade. The entire right side of my body had caught the blade, and I roared out as I crumbled to the ground in a ball of agony. The wound felt like an intense fire licking along the entire side of my back. Before I could react, my attacker was on top of me, straddling my sides and crushing my hips into the pavement.

He dug a forceful hand into my hair and tugged my head back hard. As I tried to push myself up, blood poured down my back and onto my hand. I screamed, kicked, and pushed off the concrete, but nothing would get him off me.

That’s when I heard it. Laughter. He was laughing as he held me down. “Not so all-powerful now, are you, Monet…”

When he said my name, I knew who was hurting me.

Jesus. Lord no. Why?

“Kyle! Why are you doing this to me?” I pressed back, attempting to look at him and make eye contact, but my vision flickered in and out. Everything around me got darker around the edges.

He put the knife to my throat and dug the tip in. I cried out when I felt blood trickling down my neck.

My thoughts scattered. Lily. Kyle. Getting him off me. “Kyle, please, we have a daughter. Lily…”

“That beaker baby is not my daughter. Never was, never will be.” His voice was angry, violence seeping off his tongue with each word.

“You’re listed as the father on her birth certificate!” I groaned in pain, trying to remind him. We’d made that decision together. The two of us. I thought we’d wanted the same things, but no. He didn’t. He’d wanted a child of his own. One I wasn’t able to give him. But I wasn’t the problem. It was his ineffective sperm that weren’t capable of doing the job. I thought choosing donor sperm would settle the problem and bring us closer together. I had never been more wrong. It tore us apart beyond repair.

Kyle’s spittle hit the side of my face when he sneered against my cheek. “Which will only make it easier to take all the money when you’re dead and we put her up for adoption.”

“No!”

“Yes!” he growled, pulling my head back so hard my back bent unnaturally and I thought for sure he’d break my spine. “Any last words?”

“Go to hell.” I knew no matter what happened to me, Lily would end up with Mila and Atlas. She’d promised me when Kyle and I had divorced she’d be her guardian, and I had the legal papers in place to make it so. I knew Atlas and Mila would adopt her if the worst happened.