flight. She hadn’t been airsick in ages.
She’d said nothing, and he hadn’t wanted to bring it up himself. But he’d silently worried.
For that matter, he was still silently worrying.
He debated putting the champagne back—he didn’t want to pressure her—when he heard the click at the door. He had to grin. She’d come up, obviously planning on surprising him, but he was more than happy to turn the tables on her. And even more happy to finish what they’d started downstairs in the bar. He hurried to the door and stepped behind it, intending to reveal himself when she closed it.
Except it wasn’t Nikki.
Instead it was a blonde-haired man with an automatic weapon. And Damien stood in shock and horror as the son-of-a-bitch opened fire, laying out a spray of bullets across the whole goddamn suite.
Chapter Eight
The room is in chaos, but one scream stands out of all the rest, sharp and clear.
It’s mine, and I have to force myself to stop. To realize that my throat is raw and that I need to stay still. To stay quiet. To fade away from the sight of the man with the gun and the man beside me, holding me still.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. He’s dead.
Damien is dead.
I can’t think. I can’t process. I can’t understand anything that is going on around me.
All I know is that the tall man in the mask opened fire into the men’s room.
All I know is that my husband was in there.
All I know is that my muscles are straining to run for him—to find him, to help him—but that the man beside me is holding me down.
Damien. Please, God, no. Not Damien.
“Let me go!” My voice is a both a cry and a snarl, but the man keeps me firmly in place. I look up, registering finally what I saw moments ago. Red.
“You.” I recoil back, then yank free of his grasp. “Let me go. I need to—”
“To what?” His voice is low. Harsh. “To go to him? They’ll shoot you the moment you stand up.”
“I have to know if he’s—”
“Nikki,” he says gently. “If he was in that bathroom, then Damien is dead.”
I draw a deep breath, trying to convince myself that he’s right. I want to scream. I want to cry.
“Stay here. Stay calm.” His voice is low. His lips barely moving. “We can get through this, but not if you fly off the handle. And right now, that means if you want to stay alive, I’m your husband.”
“What?”
“If they see you alone with two drinks, they’ll know you’re with someone who’s missing. Probably a man. If he’s dead—and we don’t know that he is—you could be a problem. Easier for them to just get rid of you. If he’s alive, then they’ll know you’re his weakness.”
He turns to look at me. “So you tell me. Who am I?”
My gut twists into knots as I whisper my reply. “Right now, I guess you’re my husband.”
He nods. “Hush now. He’s coming.”
I watch as one of the two men collects the phones from Aubert and his two companions. Then he snaps at the cowering date couple at the two-top, taking their phones and ordering them into the booth next to ours, putting all of us in the same section of the restaurant. He demands the anniversary couple’s phones, too, then heads toward us.
I start to tremble. A bone-deep shivering that consumes my whole body.
“Deep breaths,” Red whispers. “You need to stay calm.”
I know. Of course I know.
I nod, then dig deep inside myself, finding the well of strength that Damien always says I have in me.
But do I? Can I really get through this?
“Phones. Now.” The man in black stands right in front of us, then nods at the table. I put my phone down, grateful there’s nothing identifying on the lock screen. Beside me, Red does the same.
The man in black tosses them in a to-go bag along with all the others.
“Name?”
“Nina Stanfield,” I say as he glances at something on his own phone, presumably a guest registry.
“You Dennis Stanfield?”
“That’s right,” Red says. “Her husband.”
“Now be good boys and girls, and when this is over, you’ll get out of here. Nobody needs to get hurt.”
I want to scream that they already hurt my husband, but Red’s hand tightening on my arm shuts me up.
Then the man in black turns his back on us, as if hammering in the point of who has the power here, and walks slowly away.
I yank my arm free