Page 55 of Surprise Baby for the Enemy

“Hello, Mr. Warwick,” I hear myself say.

“Come now,” Thomas Warwick’s voice says from the other side of the phone. “We agreed to speak on a first name basis last time, didn’t we?”

Last time, when he crouched on my chest and beat my face to a bloody pulp for betraying him.

“So we did,” I say, and have to swallow to wet my throat. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Thomas?”

Is it obvious I’m keeping my voice low? Does he know I’m with his sister? There can be no other reason for this call after six months of radio silence.

“I thought I’d let you know that I’m back in town,” Thomas says. “I decided to cut a very enjoyable honeymoon short in order to check in on things. Imagine my surprise when I realized you’re not even here.”

Anger and dread course through me in equal measure. He’s building up to a threat with the quiet certainty of a predator circling cornered prey, and I have no choice but to wait for the reveal.

“And neither is Raleigh.”

There it is. He knows.

“Not to worry, though,” Thomas continues. “We located you both almost immediately. That’s a beautiful little farm your mother has. Very… picturesque.”

Every muscle in my body tenses. I look out the window to my left, half expecting suited men to walk out of the trees beyond the fields at the back of the house.

I don’t see any, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

My feet start moving me toward the staircase to the attic, where I left my tool belt and gun yesterday. I can’t imagine Thomas would start a fire fight in a building he knew his sister was inside, but I’d rather be armed than find out the hard way.

“Still with me, Derrick?” Thomas asks pleasantly.

“Just tell me what you want,” I snarl. I don’t care if it’s an unwise tone to take with my former benefactor. This man has held himself over me for months, and now he’s threatened my mother in a haven I’ve lost blood, sweat, and tears trying to keep secret and safe.

Thomas’s tone cools. “I want you to bring my sister back to me before the day ends. If you don’t, there will be nothing left of that house when the sun rises tomorrow.”

I find my tool belt buried in the drawer, and close my hand around the grip of my gun, as useless as it is right now.

“And if I do?”

“Then you’re the only one who has to die.”

The line goes dead. I throw my phone across the attic and don’t even care that the screen explodes when it hits the wall.

My phone.

Raleigh’s phone.

It was dead the last time I saw it on the floor of my room before we even left the city. Did she get a hold of a charger somehow? At what point did she tip off Iris to her location? And why the fuck didn’t she say a thing about it to me?!

No- I’m jumping to conclusions. Last night, Raleigh showed me the last of her truths. Thomas found me, found this house, but that doesn’t mean it’s Raleigh’s fault. I saw the way she looked at my mother, the way her eyes went glassy when shereceived her warmest hugs. Would she still call for help even when she felt so happy? And from her brother no less, when she was desperate to escape him as much as she was to escape… me?

My stomach sinks.

How many times has she told me that she wants to leave; leave me, leave the country, be anywhere but here? And she’s already proved how reckless she’ll be in the service of her attempts to run. My Corvette can’t be used as a witness, but if that car could talk, would it tell me that she was relieved as soon as she left the shadow of my house?

Was last night a surrender to her feelings for me, or resignation that she had to get her brother’s help in order to escape this time?

Doubt worms its way under my skin and into the cracks in my thoughts. When I asked her to let me keep her and our baby, she challenged me to take her instead.

God… how could I be so stupid?

How many times can one man fall for one woman’s pretty fucking lies?

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