Page 18 of Sapphire Tears

I whimper under my breath and try wriggling free again, but the zip ties hold fast. “Please,” I beg, trying a different tactic. “My arm is injured. Could you just loosen the restraints a little bit?”

A shake of the head. “Nope.”

“Afraid a pregnant woman half your size will overpower you and run?”

He chuckles, but makes no move to come any closer. “My orders were clear. The boys’ll be here soon to pick you up. I’m just supposed to keep you company until they arrive.”

The panic is starting to creep up in my chest like rising bile. Is this what Milana felt when she was taken? The fear, the desperation, the sheer helplessness. Of course, she’d been so much younger.

It would have been so much worse for her.

“They won’t want a pregnant woman,” I say, taking a shot in the dark.

The man keeps tossing the knife again and again. “You’d be surprised, sweetheart,” he says with a lurid grin. “Lotsa guys are into that sort of thing.”

I’m dangerously close to throwing up. It isn’t just the fact that I’m here. It’swhyI’m here.

Kolya Uvarov is a good man. That’s what I’d come to believe after months spent under his roof. And yet everything I’ve heard since leaving his protection points to the polar opposite.

The same pair of questions that has been torturing me for days crops up again.

Where do the lies end? Where does the truth begin?

I drop my head and stifle the sob in my throat. Ironically, I can feel Kolya’s ring prick at my chest where it’s settled in the cup of my bra.

And then I see lights approaching. I hear the subtle roll of tires on gravel.

The man notices it, too. “Looks like your time’s up, darlin’,” he says. “Word of advice: you might survive if you smile more.”

“Word of advice: go fuck yourself.”

He shrugs for what I hope is the last time. “Fair enough. Can’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

The car stops some distance away. My abductor shuffles off towards the main entrance of the barn.

He’s almost at the threshold when the gunshot goes off.

8

JUNE

I gasp and duck my head down low, unable to move, or take cover, or do anything but pray.

The bearded man makes a horrifying gurgling sound as he stumbles back toward me. “F-fuck! Don’t fuckin’ sh—”

Another gunshot screams through the darkness, and then he doesn’t speak anymore.

The silence that follows is almost worse than the chaos. A tense few seconds pass. Five, ten, twenty—

And then a shape materializes at the mouth of the barn. My heart is thumping hard against my chest. I’m trying desperately to come up with a plan of escape, when the shadow gives way to the full form of a man.

“Adrian!” I breathe.

“Jesus, June,” he gasps, tucking his gun in the back of his pants and rushing over to me. “Are you okay?”

“I… I…” Words won’t come, though. They’re all caught up in my throat, refusing to budge.

He palms my cheeks in both hands and stares at me with blue eyes that are so much darker than his brother’s. “Hey,” he says softly. “It’s okay. You’re okay now. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

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