The Gamble (Colorado Mountain #1)(213)

“You can’t do that,” she told him and he leaned back, throwing his arms out.

“No?” he asked then planted his fists on his hips. “Watch me.”

“Harry!” she shouted when he started to move around the bed. “If you hurt Nina, you won’t have me,” she threatened, Harry’s body rocked to a halt and he turned on her.

“Yeah? You gonna run away?” he asked snidely and I watched Bitsy close her eyes tight then my eyes went back to Harry when he kept speaking as he untied my ankles. “This is what people know. Shauna wanted Max. She always wanted Max. And she used that Robert guy like she used everyone else. When he became expendable, he was gone. When Nina got in the way, she was gone. Shauna’ll wake up and she won’t know shit. And all they’ll know is that she’s here with the gun that made three bodies dead and she has the residue on her hand. She f**ked herself with her play on Curt, makin’ her a suspect in his murder so they’ll probably pin that on her too. But don’t worry about Shauna, Bits. She’ll make a good bitch in prison. She’ll have her shit sorted exactly as she wants it before she finishes buttoning up her orange jumpsuit.”

Then he was finished with my ankles and started walking toward me again and I started moving on the bed, ineffectually shifting my body to get away from him, running into Bitsy as he pulled a set of keys out of his jeans pocket.

“Don’t do this, Harry,” Bitsy whispered from behind me as he leaned toward my hands and I kept trying and failing to move away.

“Please,” I begged, using Bitsy’s words, “don’t do this.”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“Please,” I whispered, “please. You may think Max had everything his whole life but you don’t know me. I didn’t. I didn’t have everything my whole life. My Dad left me when I was a baby –”

“Shut up,” he repeated, still working at my hands.

I didn’t shut up. “My boyfriends cheated on me, stole from me, beat me –”

“Shut up,” Harry said again.

“The brother I loved, I adored him, Harry, loved him beyond anything, he had his legs blown off and couldn’t hack it so he committed suicide.”

Harry turned to me and clipped, “Shut up!”

I ignored him and kept going. “Today, I was happy, Harry. It was the first day in a long, long time I woke up happy.”

My wrists were freed but before I could make a move I was being dragged from the bed.

“Harry! Don’t!” Bitsy screamed.

I struggled but Harry was big, he was a mountain man and he dragged and shoved me toward the door even as I twisted and pulled and tried to flee.

“Harry! Please! Don’t do this!” Bitsy screeched from behind us.

Calm, Nina, calm and think, sweetheart, Charlie said in my head as Harry kept control of my struggling frame and shoved me through the door into a dark hall. Keep talking, talk to him.

Instantly, I took my brother’s advice.

“I understand what it means. I understand how it hurts to have everyone think poor Harry because they always thought poor Nina. But now I’m happy. And I’m sorry if this hurts you but Max is what makes me happy. Please don’t take that away. Not from Max, from me.”

He caught my wrist and yanked it behind my pack, pulling it high until it hurt so much I cried out. He positioned himself at my back and marched me forward, his lips to my ear.

“Keep your mouth shut, Nina, or I’ll gag you again.”

I clamped my mouth shut and clenched my teeth together to stop myself from crying out at the pain in my arm. Harry yanked me to a halt, reached beyond me, opened a door and the cold swept in as he pushed me outside.

Okay, Nina, he’s just pulled out his gun. You need to get his gun, sweetheart, he’s holding it in his hand. You need to get it, turn it on him and shoot like Max taught you to do. You with me, Neenee Bean? Charlie said.

I’m with you, I replied though I didn’t think I was.

It was night, dark, we were in the mountains surrounded by pine so thick it shrouded the space and kept out the moonlight.

You’ve only got one hand, Nina, so you’re going to have to be creative. You’re going to have to turn, very fast, very, very fast, sweetheart, and use your head. Aim at his chin and reach for the gun at the same time you have to lift up your knee, hard, honey, as hard as you can, and aim for his crotch. You got that?

I got it, Charlie.

Harry marched me forward and I saw the dark outline of a body in the snow and I knew it was Robert Winston, dead, in the dark, his body in the snow just like I was going to be if I didn’t get away from Harry.

I had to get away from Harry.

Wait for it, sweetheart. Wait for me to say the word. You get a hole in him, you go. You run as fast as you can. I’ll guide you.

Okay.

“Harry! Don’t do this!” I heard Bitsy shout from far away.

Harry kept marching me, his hand at my wrist twisting my arm so high and tight, the pain shot from my shoulder all the way to my fingertips.

“You’re hurting me, Harry,” I said quietly.

“I told you, Nina, shut up,” Harry returned.

“You’re going to kill me, I’m asking you to stop hurting me before you take everything from me.”