Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series) (22 page)

“I’m okay,” I say for my own benefit as
much as
his
.  “We’ll be okay.”

Leo nods and smiles at me, but it’s a
sad smile.  “Yes, we will.”

He dips his head toward me, kissing me
softly and caressing the side of my face. 
As he
holds
his hand there
,
I take as much comfort from it as I
can
,
because I know what he’s about to say
next
.

“I need to talk to Jack before Mark
gets back.  Will you be okay here?”

“Yes.  Talk to Jack.  I’ll be fine.”

Leo kisses me one more time before
sitting back up on the bed and pulling a blanket over me.  “Get some rest.”

Somehow through all of this pain my
facial muscles remember how to smile.  “Always telling me to rest.”

With a knowing
look
, Leo stands up from the bed and turns off the light.  He leaves
the room, locking the door behind him.

Choice

I lie sideways in bed facing the wall, wide
awake and waiting for Leo to return from his planning with Jack.  My body and
mind are exhausted, but I can’t stand the thought of sleep right now.  I know
he’ll be waiting for me there: Mark’s smug face and eager hands ready to play
out in my nightmares what could soon be my reality.  I didn’t want to face him
without Leo by my side, so
when Leo left the room to talk with Jack,
I turned the light back on and forced my body to stay awake.

My mind wanders through so many things,
thoughts of regrets and the choices I’ve made and the choices I have yet to
make.  In the silence of the room
,
I’m analyzing and
thinking and driving myself to the brink of insanity about my situation and how
helpless I feel to direct the course of it.

I don’t want to feel helpless.  I can’t
lose hope.  I need to be strong.

With a deep breath
,
I push the reset button on my thoughts, refocusing on Leo and our
relationship and future.  I have to believe there is a future for us.  We can’t
have gone through all of this for nothing.

I’ve lost control in my situation, and
that scares me.  My time with Mark’s crew has shown me this business and these
people are all about control.  In my victories that started with stealing the
black book from Ruiz and developed into countless deals being struck and
pockets being emptied for Mark thanks to me, I felt that important control I had
regained.  I fed off that feeling when I finally found my purpose in this
criminal world, and now it seems to have dissipated from me, gone into the
nothingness.

I need that control back.  I want to
steer my own fate.

Mark holds all the cards except one,
and it’s not a card I’m willing to use lightly.  It’s not something I even
fathomed using until Jack shared his suspicions of Mark’s plan that involve
s
forcing me to hand over that card.

My womb. 
Utilizing t
he parts of me that prepare me every month to grow a living thing
inside me.  I’m saving that card for the man I love, to start a family with Leo
someday, and Mark wants to steal it from me.

What if I give it away first?  Right
now I have a choice.  In one hour or one day or one week that choice may be
ripped away from me.  Using that card is the only way to ensure that Mark can’t
win, regardless of whether Jack’s plan to get me and Leo to safety works or
not.

It’s a frightening enough realization
to think about willingly letting a man plant his seed inside me.  Being an
unwilling participant in that same situation is unfathomable.

Adrenaline shoots through me when I
hear keys in the lock at the door
,
but when the quiet
footsteps approach the bed
,
I know it’s only Leo. 
It’s only the man I love.

He’s at my side in an instant and
kisses my cheek.  “How are you?”

“We should do it first,” I blurt out. 
There’s no use delaying these words.  I need to say them before I change my
mind.

“Morgan?  What are you talking about?”

I swallow the lump lodged firmly in my
throat and look up at him.  “Right now the choice is mine, and I choose you. 
If Jack’s plan fails and I have to face what Mark has in store for me, I want
to know that there’s a piece of you growing inside me, not him.”

Leo lips part
,
but no words come out.  He tries to speak several times before finding
success.  “Jack has a good plan.  He’ll get us out.  You don’t need to go
making decisions like th
is
based on the possibility
that Mark will get his hands on you.”

I’m trying to be strong
,
but I can’t hold back my tears any longer.  “I don’t know if I can
take that chance.”

“No.  Don’t do this to yourself.  Don’t
do this to me.”  There’s a
low
tremble to Leo’s voice
that scares me.  “You know this is my greatest fear.  If I do what you’re
asking me to
do
and we fail, then I will have played
right into the hand Mark dealt my family when he hired my father.  I can’t give
him another piece of my family to sacrifice into the machine of his business. 
It’s too much to ask of me, Morgan.  It’s too much.”

Leo stands
up
from
the bed and walks away from me, his rejection leaving me completely empty
inside.  There is no further life to embrace within me.  I let it all go, all
emotion and feeling and thoughts of happiness.  They dissipate into the air
around me, and I wonder if I’ll ever get them back.

I turn to the wall and cry silently
into the pillow.  I won’t fight Leo on this.  I won’t make my request of him
again.  It was foolish of me to think he would even remotely consider the idea.

Leo’s footsteps fill the room, slow and
even, back and forth.  I try to focus on them to distract my mind, to take away
my pain.

When his pacing finally ceases
,
I’m afraid he’s about to reach for the door and leave me, but he
stands next to the bed instead.  I hear his clothes hit the floor before he
slips himself behind me, forming his body to mine so that we are in perfect physical
alignment.  My breath catches as he kisses my shoulder and sneaks his hands
around my stomach.

“Is this what you really want?” he
whispers.

Fresh tears escape me.  I’m barely able
to speak.  “Yes.”

Leo slowly rolls me onto my back.  He
climbs on top of me, gently kissing every part of my face
while
he
lifts my shirt and bra over my head and
works my jeans and underwear down my legs.  When he straddles my
waist
,
a palpable tremor rushes through his body.  In
his moment of hesitation as he looks down at me beneath him
,
a tiny voice inside me screams at me to make him to stop, but I
can’t
listen to it
.  I will not let Mark take this
choice away from me.  I have to let this happen.

Sitting up on his knees, Leo presses
against me and hesitates again before sliding inside me.  Though we’ve had sex
countless times, it’s different in this moment.  It’s somber and strained.  I
feel Leo’s regret with each thrust into me.  Every bit of pain I’m causing him
by asking him to do this is apparent in his face and his movements.  There’s no
passion
to this, and if not for the love I know we
share together, this would be nothing more than the physical meeting of two
bodies to serve their primal purpose.  This is not lovemaking
; it’s
procreating.

Despite the sadness of this connection
between us, the physical response of
our
bodies is
undeniable
, and it’s not long before Leo’s thrusts peak in speed and he
erupts within me.  For that short time I let go of all the pain and worry to
let this potential product of the two of us be created out of pleasure and
love.  I’m set free from it all in the moment my orgasm peaks as Leo continues
to move within me.

Coming back down is hard.  When my mind
clears, the reality we’re brought back into is devastating.  My body shakes as
the tears that never ceased continue to flow out of me a
t
an even more rapid pace.  Leo holds himself inside me and leans
down to cover my upper body with his.  I feel the wetness of his own tears
against my cheek and desperately wish that I could make them go away.

I came here to save Leo, but I fear
I’ve only made everything worse.

Different

Leo holds me all night, his arms and
body wrapped around me in every possible way to maximize the contact between
us.  He knows I need him, and he needs me just as much.  Our entire fucked
-
up world got even more twisted in the course of just one evening,
and I don’t know where that leaves us.

It’s different waking up this morning
knowing that tiny natural processes in the creation of life may be occurring
deep within me.  Part of Leo and part of me may be coming together to make
something that should be beautiful and amazing, an absolute miracle, but in
reality this is not something Leo or I would have chosen for us, at least not
right now.  We’re just starting our lives together
,
and we are not truly free, still under constant threat from Mark and trapped
within his walls.  This is no time to create a baby.

A baby.

My entire body shivers
,
and Leo instantly holds me closer to him.  The heat of his chest
against my bare back gives me comfort.  I can feel the sting of tears behind my
eyes
,
but I won’t let myself cry.  I need to be strong
for me and for Leo.  I need to be strong for our baby who may or may not be
forming inside me.

“Morgan,” Leo whispers, his voice
raspy.  “You okay?”

I think about Leo’s question and answer
truthfully.  “No, but I will be.”

His arm adjusts to allow his hand to
linger over my lower abdomen.  I know exactly what he’s thinking.  As we both
lie still together
,
the miracle of life is racing to
complete its mission within me.  It’s the scariest thing I have ever
experienced in my life.

“I’m sorry, Leo.  I’m so
fucking
sorry.”

Leo quickly shushes me before turning
me over to face him.  “You have nothing to apologize for.  I shouldn’t have
reacted the way I did.”  He pauses cautiously.  “I’m just so afraid of losing
you.  If I lost you and our baby,
it would devastate me
.  I can’t even fathom it.”

“I know.  I gave us even more to lose.”

“Don’t say that.  You didn’t force me
to do this.  I made the decision to go forward with it.”

I stare at Leo’s face, noticing every
worry line
on
his forehead even through the strands of
dark hair that try to hide them.
 
“Jack’s plan has to
work.”

“It will,” Leo says confidently.  “It’s
a sound plan.  I don’t want you to worry, okay?  Jack’s taking care of
everything.  We just have to play our parts.”

“When?  When is this going down?”

“As early as tonight.  We won’t know for
sure until Mark accepts the meeting.”

Relief washes over me at the thought of
getting the chance of escaping Mark without another night passing.  “Thank
God.”

Leo sits up in the bed and looks at me
seriously.  “We need to act completely normal until then.  If we act
differently, he’ll know something’s up.”

Act normal when I’ve had my boyfriend
try
to impregnate me to prevent a psychotic
criminal mastermind
from raping me in my sleep?  Sure.  No problem.

“Fuck.”
 
I
throw my head back against the pillow and close my eyes.

“Cussing like a sailor.  That’s
definitely acting normal for you.  Good job.”

I’m about to open my eyes and give Leo
an irritated smirk when I feel his lips on mine.  He’s kissing me slowly and
tenderly, calming the pain and worry that have been permanently running through
my veins since Jack’s visit the prior evening.

When Leo pulls back and I finally open
my eyes to see him, I’m reminded
of
why I’m here and
what I have to do.  It’s time to pull my shit together and make it through this
final stretch in our journey against all odds to be together.  It’s time to
finally get back at Mark for the horrific things he’s done and plans to do to
me and
to
Leo.  It’s time for my own revenge.

I instantly sit up in the bed, more
determined than ever to beat Mark at his own game.  “I
’ll
be my normal rebel self.  I’m ready to face him.”

“Good.  Let’s go.”

Leo helps me up from the bed, and we
quickly shower, dress, and go downstairs to the mess hall, keeping to our normal
routine.
 T
he room is busier than usual and exceptionally
loud and rowdy for
this time of
morning.  We eat
breakfast quickly,
eager
to meet up with
Mark to monitor for the call from Jack’s
friend.

When we reach Mark’s office
,
a sharp pang of panic seizes me when I first see him, but I will it
away and put up whatever walls I can to maintain my strength and keep myself
from running out of the room.

Mark’s already busy on the phone, deep
in some conversation about a large rush order of amm
unition
.  They seem to be haggling about price, and Mark is visibly
frustrated by it.
 
Leo lingers around Mark’s desk as I
take a seat on the couch.

“Fine.  We’ll discuss in person.”  Mark
pauses a moment to listen to the caller.  “Yes, we’ll bring the product to the
meet.  Seven o’clock.”  He hangs up without another word and hands a piece of
paper from the desk to Leo.  “Jesus fucking Christ.  This guy’s a pain in the
ass, but he supposedly has deep pockets.  He wants to discuss pricing in person
and quickly, so we’re going tonight.  Seven o’clock.”

It’s happening tonight.  In less than
twelve hours
,
Leo and I will be free.

Mark’s attention turns toward me, his
usual devious grin that means he’s up to no good shining brightly on his face. 
“I think your expertise could be of use for this one, dear.  Let’s milk this
guy for all he’s worth.”

“Gladly,” I reply with a smile, a very
genuine and unafraid smile.

For a small moment I feel like the old
me again.  Well, the
new
old me.  I forget that this
monster in front of me has his own
evil
plans to ruin
everything I’ve worked for.  I forget about the latest decision I made to
change the course of my life and Leo’s life.

The battle we’re about to face is just
on the horizon, peeking over and showing itself to me in an attempt to frighten
me away, but I won’t stand down. 
I’m
in too deep
,
and
the only direction to move is up.  I’m going to reach for
that horizon and make it to the sky among the clouds.  I may just reach for the
stars.