Page 5 of Surprise Baby for the Enemy

“We don’t have five minutes,” I say, a little louder. I cup her cheek. “Come on now.”

Raleigh turns her face into my hand, then seems to stir to real consciousness. Her eyes flutter open. The wrinkle between her brows deepens as she realizes she’s in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed, with a man who’d just callously accused her of seducing him the last time she was awake.

She jerks away from me, tumbling off the side of the bed. I reach to catch her too late, and the movement sets my whole body on fire.

“Where the fuck are we?!” Raleigh demands hoarsely, stumbling into the corner of the room furthest from the door.

I open my mouth to respond, though what I expect to say, I don’t know. At that moment though, the door opens, and I can’t focus on Raleigh. I have to perform, for my life and for hers.

The man who walks in is almost completely hidden by his clothes. Baggy cargo pants and heavy combat boots fill out what, from his less-baggy long-sleeved shirt, looks like a wiry frame. The hood of a black sleeveless trench coat is pulled up, bathing his face in shadows. Only his eyes are visible, gray and piercing above a black cloth face mask with jagged white teeth painted onto it. His gaze flicks from me to Raleigh, and back to me, like a snake sizing up a meal, and whether or not he can swallow it whole.

He’s barely 5’5”, maybe 5’6”, and even with his clothes hiding the size of his frame, I’m sure I could knock him down with relative ease. But then two other men enter the room behind him, dressed, disorientingly, in almost identical clothes. They’re both taller, and one of them is noticeably heftier.

There’s a heavy black pistol in each of their hands.

So much for rushing the door.

“Hello Mr. Lindman,” the lead man says, his voice raspy like a life-long smoker. “The name’s Silver. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the man who killed my father.”

I didn’t need confirmation that whatever’s happening, it’s about me, but I appreciate having it. “There might be some mistake, Mr. Silver,” I say with a practiced, cautious smile. “I haven’t killed anyone that I can recall.”

It’s a fantastic lie. Back when I was trying to pit Thomas Warwick and Morgan Speare against each other, I took advantage of a firefight to kill the District Attorney right next to his wife. It wasn’t personal- he’d been a close political ally of Warwick’s. But I hadn’t lost a moment of sleep over it either.

“Is that right?” Silver asks, taking a step into the room. Every instinct in me is howling to get up off the bed, but I don’t know ifmy knee will give out, and I don’t want to instigate when I don’t know what this man wants. “You don’t recall killing Morgan Speare? That’s funny. You’ve sure spent a lot of the last few months bragging about it.”

Wait, Morgan? That’s who this is about? But, to my knowledge, Morgan Speare had no children of his own. Only a niece named Clara, who ended up allying with Thomas Warwick against her own uncle.

I act too slow to hide my confusion, and Silver cocks his head, eyes locked like a bird of prey who’s just spotted a weakness. “That’s what I thought.” The gun in his hand flies up, pointed straight at my chest. I hear Raleigh whimper from the corner, but I don’t dare take my eyes off the gleaming barrel. “You killed my pops, Mr. Lindman. After you made him promises and shook his hand, you sided with his enemy and burned his house down. A house that was supposed to be mine. That doesn’t sit right with me, y’know?”

Very slowly, I raise my hands in surrender. “There really has been a mistake,” I say, more measured than before. I get the feeling playing the clueless innocent won’t appeal to this man. “I never turned on Morgan. Thomas cornered me. Someone inside his camp figured out my plans with your father and he got the jump on both of us. I had every intention of seeing my deals with Morgan through.”

“Call me crazy,” Silver hisses, “but I don’t believe you.”

A bead of sweat slips down the side of my face, trailing through the dried blood. I have seconds to fix this, and all I can do is repeat myself.

But then Silver jerks the gun up, pointing it at the ceiling. “Luckily for you, you’re more valuable alive than dead, at least for now. You’re a hotshot sheriff, so you’ve got political sway. You’re buddies with Thomas Warwick, so you’ve got an in withhim. So you’ll tell me all Thomas’s biggest weaknesses, and I’ll let you live.”

This should be a good opportunity, but my stomach immediately sinks. Whatever this gun-toting maniac asks me to do, I can’t agree. Not in front of Thomas Warwick’s sister, who can report on me the second we get out of this- if we even do. Maybe I could lie, say whatever I need to say in order to survive, but this man has already tracked me down, broken into my house, and physically injured me. If I betray him after all that, I don’t even want to consider what would happen next.

Not to mention, a weakness of Thomas Warwick is in the room with us, and Silver has no idea.

“I don’t have any ins with the Warwicks,” I say, slow and calm. “Thomas left me a bloody mess in my own office the night the Speare estate burned down, and he’s been watching me ever since. If I agreed to help you, he’d know within hours, and he’d be all too happy to kill me.”

I don’t dare look at Raleigh, who would let Thomas know even sooner than that. Right now, she’s a civilian who got caught in the crossfire. If I draw attention to her-

The gun cocks in Silver’s hand. He levels it on me again, and my whole body seizes. The world narrows to Silver’s eyes and the barrel hovering beneath them. “Funny. So would I. And I’m the one who’s in the room with you, holding a gun to your head. So why don’t you start taking me seriously, huh?” He lets the words hang in the air, waits until I nod before going on. “I’ll repeat myself only one more time, Mr. Lindman. You’ll tell me what makes Thomas Warwick tick, and I’ll let you live.”

I have to lie. If I don’t agree to help this man, I’m dying today, and god knows what will happen to Raleigh before they kill her too. I lick my lips, open my mouth-

The door behind Silver bursts open. Another man, dressed the same as his colleagues, rushes in. “Boss- you need to-”

Silver whips to face the newcomer. “I’m in the middle of a fucking interrogation, and you don’t even bother to knock?!” he demands. I half expect him to level the gun on his own goon, but he keeps it trained on me.

His henchman stumbles back. “S-Sorry boss. I’m sorry. I-I just-” He looks around the room, takes in Raleigh and I and the gun I’m staring down. “There’s something important I need to-”

“It can’t fucking wait?” Silver hisses.

“No boss, no! I need to tell you right now!”

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