Page 130 of Twilight Tides
“I’m not your baby.”
His palm swung out so fast, I couldn’t have prepared for it. It cracked with force against my already bruised cheek. He hit me so hard, I flew back into one of the tables, pain flaring across my waist. I scrambled to right myself, but he hit me again and I lost my footing, falling to the floor.
Suddenly, he was over me, his menacing face in mine as he grabbed my chin in his hand, squeezing too hard. “You are going to pay for all your misbehavior. But right now—” I cut him off as I grabbed between his legs and twisted his balls through his suit pants.
“Fuck,” he wheezed out. Agony strained his features as he collapsed over me, the veins in his forehead popping. Those dark, awful feelings that made me despise him even more for inciting them took over. I wrapped my hands around his throat, choking him as I used all my weight to flip him onto his back, straddling him.
Sensing my kidnapper move behind me, I sat up and turned, my eyes at waist height, immediately zoning in on that fancy knife strapped to his hip. My next move surprised him. It surprised me. I felt like I was outside my own body as I yanked the knife from the holder and slammed it into his upper thigh before he could react. The stranger’s roar filled the plane as he tottered on his heels, grasping at the wound. I whirled to Nick just as he jolted upward, throwing his weight into me and taking me down onto my back. My head banged against the floor, discombobulating me.
Nick’s face hovered so close to mine, but it took me a second to register his wide-eyed expression as he slumped over me. His face turned purple as he made a horrible gurgling sound and blood suddenly splattered out of his mouth, spraying across my face.
I winced, blinking rapidly.
That’s when I felt something wet and warm sliding down my right hand.
And I remembered the knife I held. Felt the heavy weight of Nick’s body on it.
Nick let out another bloody gasp before his body relaxed, sinking down into me. At the feel of his flesh sliding down the blade, I cried out in horror.
He’d fallen on the knife.
Right through his black heart.
“Oh God,” I whimpered. Shaking, I released the handle of the knife and Nick’s body collapsed over me, my face suffocating in his shoulder. Disbelief and terror had me shoving him off, rolling him onto his back. He landed with a heavy thud; his dead eyes stared at nothing. The knife was fully embedded in his chest.
I raised my shaking hands. My right was covered in his blood.
Nausea rushed up my gut before I could stop its momentum, and I turned my head just in time to vomit on the floor and not on Nick’s dead body.
A grunt had my chin jerking up as I wiped my mouth with my left hand.
The stranger had slumped to the floor by the cockpit and stretched a hand toward the hidden storage.
I had to get out of here.
My survival instincts blew past the horror of accidentally killing my ex-boyfriend. I was out the jet door and hurrying down the steps when the sirens hit my ears. I looked up from watching my feet just as police cars pulled onto the tarmac. And behind them, a familiar Discovery. Relief made my legs give way, and I stumbled on the last steps.
Police officers jumped out of vehicles with their guns raised.
Shocked, I lifted my arms, palms out. The sight of the blood on my hands made me realize why I had weapons aimed at me.
“London!”
I searched beyond the police officers, and when I saw Murray’s face, his expression slackened with fear as his gazelifted upward behind me. That fear spiked my heart rate, and I spun around only to find Nick’s henchman, expression vicious, as he aimed a gun at me.
I shut my eyes as a pop sounded.
51.London
It took me a second to realize I was still alive. My eyes flew open just as Nick’s hired thug tumbled down the steps, lifeless.
I whirled back around and saw a police officer lowering her rifle.
She’d just saved my life.
I raised my arms as an officer approached me with his weapon raised. “I didn’t …”
“Stay there, hands up.”
