No Place to Run (KGI #2)(20)

“And we figure in where?” Garrett demanded.

She threw him a disgusted look. “You encroached on Mouton territory. You f**ked with the family business. You were a target as soon as you showed up looking to score a deal.”

“That was five months ago,” Sam pointed out. “Why now?”

Her lips twisted. “You were bait. They were waiting for me to come to you. I stayed away as long as I could. But I’m getting bigger and clumsier by the day. Soon I’ll be completely defenseless. So I came here because I was sure you’d at least protect your child.”

Sam looked up and closed his eyes in frustration. “So you stayed away, kept the knowledge of my child from me even though you were both in danger, and you did this all to protect me.”

Rage burst in her eyes like a flare. It was a sharp mixture of anger and grief and of helpless anxiety.

“You know what? Fuck you.” She looked to his brothers, including them in her fury. “Fuck you all.”

She rolled to the side, shoving at Donovan as she slid to the floor. Her knees buckled, and she would have gone down in a heap if Donovan hadn’t shot up to catch her.

Still, she shook him off and wrenched her arm from his grasp. A spasm of pain whitened her face, and her blue eyes went pale.

Sam moved across the room to cut off her escape route to the door. He made sure he took her uninjured arm, his other arm going around her waist to trap her against him.

She tried to shove him away, but he held tight.

“Get the shot ready,” he ordered Donovan.

“No!” She struggled harder until he feared she was going to hurt herself more. “Sam, you can’t keep me here. They’ll find me! Are you insane? I get that you don’t care about me, but for God’s sake, think about your child. Your baby!”

He maneuvered her to the bed and wrestled her down until she was pinned to the mattress. Tears were trapped in her eyes, but none fell, probably held back by sheer determination not to let him see her bleed.

He grimly held her down, staring into her tormented eyes.

“Right now I don’t give a damn about what you did in the past. Let’s get that clear. You were a lay. A fling. You played me. Okay, fine. I can deal with that. But if that’s my child—if there’s any chance that you’re carrying my baby, you’re not going anywhere. And I goddamn well protect what’s mine.”

Hurt filled her eyes, and once again, he felt like he was crushing an innocent. Some innocent. Goddamn, she was Alex Mouton’s daughter.

“I don’t deserve to die, Sam. No matter what you think I did, I don’t deserve to die.”

His hands gentled on her shoulders as Donovan closed in with the syringe. Despite his anger and shock, Sam smoothed his fingers over her cheek in a gesture meant to comfort her.

“You’re not going to die, Sophie.”

Donovan slipped the needle into her flesh, and she jerked in surprise, her shocked gaze going to Donovan. Panic flared in her blue eyes, and she went crazy.

“No!” she shouted hoarsely. “God, please, let me go. Please!”

Her begging nearly undid Sam. Even Garrett looked discomfited by the desperation in her cries.

Sam dropped down and pulled her into his arms. He held her against him to still her struggles. When she finally figured out she couldn’t win against him, she sagged in defeat, her noisy sobs echoing sharply across the room.

“Jesus,” Donovan muttered as he recapped the syringe. He threw it angrily into his bag and turned away, his shoulders tense.

Sam held on to her, stroking her hair, offering her comfort even though it was the last thing he wanted to give.

There were several missing pieces of the puzzle. She hadn’t told them everything. A lot didn’t make sense, but now wasn’t the time to try to drag it out of her. She was hysterical, in pain, and soon she’d be out when the drugs hit her system.

Most importantly, he and his brothers had to move fast. If all she said was true—if there was any possibility that she was telling the truth—they had to lock down their entire family.

He needed to contact Sean. He needed to pull in Steele and Rio and their teams. Mom and Dad and Rusty were vulnerable, as were Ethan and Rachel. They could all be targets.

He looked up to find Garrett staring fiercely back at him, and he knew Garrett was thinking the same things he was.

Sophie went completely limp against him, and he carefully pried her away from him to see that her she had finally surrendered to the painkiller Donovan had injected.

Her eyes were swollen and her skin was blotchy and red from crying. She looked delicate and frail, but underneath that deceptive façade was a devious woman who had no compunction about carrying out the orders of her father—a man who’d been responsible for more deaths than a lot of wars.

And the hell of it was she was carrying Sam’s child. Which meant, like it or not, she was going to be forever tied to him through that child. No matter what she’d done in the past or what her motives were now, he had to protect her and keep both her and his son or daughter alive.

He carefully extricated himself from around her and made sure she was arranged comfortably on the pillows. He pulled the covers up over her body and then turned to face his brothers.

“Let’s go,” he said grimly. “We’ve got to move fast.”