No Place to Run (KGI #2)(25)

She tried to laugh, but her throat closed in on her. “What would you have done, Sam? If I had unloaded that kind of story on you, would you have believed me? You would have been angry, just like you are now. You would have been suspicions of any information I gave you about my father.”

He nodded grudgingly and sighed his acknowledgment.

“I waited long enough for you to leave and then I took my opportunity. I was helped by two employees in my father’s house who were loyal to my mother and, as a result, me. I’ve been running ever since.”

“When did you find out you were pregnant?”

She closed her eyes, remembering all too vividly the fear and the joy. The panic that she wouldn’t be able to keep herself or her child safe as her pregnancy progressed.

“It hasn’t been long,” she said huskily. “Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy slipping from place to place, keeping one step ahead of my father’s men, I would have realized that the fatigue and sickness wasn’t due to stress and fear. When I noticed my pants were snug and I hadn’t been eating well, I tried to remember the last time I’d had a period. Then I knew.”

“That time in the shower,” Sam murmured.

She smiled faintly. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you come to me immediately? If you were in trouble and you knew where to find me, why didn’t you come before now?”

If only it had been that easy.

“As I said, I didn’t know I was pregnant until six weeks ago—”

“Is that the only reason you came? Because you’re pregnant?”

He sounded accusing, and she just stared at him. What had he expected?

“It’s a big part, yeah,” she said, her chin going up.

She could be as belligerent as him any day of the week. Damn it, but she was tired of having to defend herself.

“This is the first place they would have looked for me. They’ve probably been watching you for months, waiting for me to show up. It’s the only reason you’re still alive. My father had information on KGI. While he may not have had the balls to launch an all-out attack on you here, he would have done whatever was necessary to take you out. He’s a patient man when it comes to vengeance.”

Sam’s frown deepened. “What changed then? Why now?” The overt suspicion in his voice hit her like a poisoned dart. Yeah, she knew he had a right, but it was starting to seriously piss her off.

“What changed is that bastard caught up to me. What changed is that I’m not as fast or as agile as I used to be. Being five months pregnant with your child changes a lot, including my ability to take care of myself and protect us both from ass**les that my uncle sends.”

“Uncle?”

Sam latched onto her slip, his eyes sharpening.

“Uncle, father, whatever. They’re partners. Either way I betrayed them both. They won’t forgive that.”

“We were led to believe that Tomas Mouton was a patsy of your father’s and nothing more. He had no power. Alex pulled all the strings and Tomas just took up space in Mouton’s organization.”

“I’m sure that’s true.” Indeed it was. But with her father dead, Tomas would have seized his opportunity to take over the network. And his first order of business would have been to recover the key Sophie had stolen and execute her for her betrayal of the Mouton family.

She kept that information buried, unsure of how much if anything she should tell Sam about the key or the fact that she’d killed her father. There was such a thing as too much information all at once. She wanted Sam to be willing to offer her and their child his protection, not toss her out on her ass at the first opportunity.

“Sam, look at me,” she begged softly.

His gaze lifted and he met her eyes. She flinched at the lack of emotion, but she swallowed her pride.

“I know what it looks like. I know you have a right to be suspicious. You think I’m here even now on some fact-finding mission for my father, or maybe I’ll take you down while you sleep because who would suspect a banged-up pregnant woman, right?”

His lips thinned. He wasn’t amused by her statement at all. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, but she was too afraid of his rejection, and if it came now, it would crush her.

“I took a risk by spending so much time with you in that hotel. I lied to my father and said whatever I had to say not to raise his suspicions, because I wanted to be able to return to you each night. I knew you weren’t offering me forever. I knew I was a fling. You don’t have to beat me over the head with that. But I’m not the only one who lied here. You did too.”

She sucked several steadying breaths through her nose and regained control of her emotions.

“I also knew that when I gave you the information on the arms deal that you’d leave without once looking back and that it would be up to me to escape my father’s grasp. So yes, if you want to look at it like that, I used you. I used you to get away from my father, but I never gave him a damn thing about you. I didn’t sell you out. He never even knew I’d leaked the information. No, I didn’t sell you out, Sam. I sold my father out. For you. And for a hell of a lot of other people he would have hurt.”

“And now he’s after you. For what, revenge?”

She swallowed and turned her head away. Revenge? Revenge sounded personal. Tomas would make an example of her. A rite of passage in his new role of leadership. He’d want to deal effectively with her. She’d be an example to others how traitors were dispatched. The fact that she was his flesh and blood would only raise his stock among his followers. Like her father, he’d be viewed as a man not to cross. But most importantly, she held the success of that empire in her hands. And for that, he’d be willing to risk everything.