She froze. “You wouldn’t.”
“Like hell.”
Oh, God, he’d kill the baby. Just as he killed Nick. “No, please, don’t hurt the baby, but Nick, we can’t just leave him.”
“Let’s go, Marla,” Monty insisted, irritation tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“No . . . I’m not who you think I am.”
“That’s all right, sweetheart, ’cuz, neither am I. Now you can come quietly with me or I’ll kill the kid.” His voice was flat. Toneless. He wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. She was sure of it.
Kylie had no choice. She looked back to see Nick lying in the hallway, his face white and drawn, his lifeblood spilling onto the shabby carpet. “But
we have to call an ambulance, do something, I can’t just leave him here . . . Nick . . . Oh, God, Nick . . . I love you.”
“Save it, Marla. You don’t know the meaning of the word.” Montgomery grabbed her arm and yanked her, dragging her toward the service elevator.
“Nick,” she cried, horror gripping her heart. She’d lost him just when she’d found him, when she’d discovered who she really was. Now he was dead. Killed. Gunned down. Because of her. “Why did you kill him?” she cried, dying inside. She couldn’t lose Nick. Not when she’d just found him, discovered who she really was.
“He was expendable.”
“Expendable?” she whispered, clutching her child, sick inside. “No one’s—”
“Shut up, cunt,” he growled in that same ghastly voice he’d used as he’d loomed over her bed at the house. “Lover boy bought it and now you and me, we’re gonna get it on. Just like before. And you’re gonna love it, baby.” He ran the barrel of his gun down the side of her cheek and she reached for it, but he aimed it straight at her son’s head. “Uh, uh, uh. Don’t want to see baby’s brains blown all over the elevator, do you?”
Kylie nearly threw up. She was shaking, her legs weak. Fear gripped her heart in icy talons. “You’re out of your mind,” she said as he pressed the button for the basement level and ripped the baby from her arms. She tried to grab James again, but Monty shoved her against the side of the car. The baby screamed.
“Either you come with me quietly, Marla, or I take this kid and I’ll either kill him before your eyes or, better yet, I’ll leave with him and you’ll never know what happened to him, got it? You won’t know if he’s alive, dead, or if I spend my days torturing him. You’ll spend the rest of your life in your own private hell.”
“I’ll kill you first!” she cried, eyeing the alarm on the panel of the car and knowing she’d never use it, never take the chance with her son’s life.
Monty’s grin was pure evil. “Try it, bitch.”
She let her arms fall to her sides. “What—what do you want?”
“Just what you do, Marla. Everything. Every fuckin’ thing.” His gaze raked down her body. “I want what I deserve.”
Nausea roiled up her throat. “You tried to kill me. You jumped in front of Pam’s car on Highway 17 and then you were in the hospital and in my room. You put some kind of poison in my juice.”
“That was tricky. I had to sneak into your room, but I’d done it before. See, honey, you’re smarter than you look.”
She remembered the figure she’d seen in her window. “You failed,” she threw back at him, refusing to be intimidated
“Not for long.” He turned to the baby. “Shut up, kid. Shut the fuck up!”
“He’s just a baby!”
“Not just a baby. Conrad Amhurst’s damned grandson. Shit.” He spat out the words as the car jolted to a stop.
Kylie’s head was spinning, her brain trying to come up with some means of escape as he prodded her out the door and into the basement parking garage that smelled of grease and exhaust. “Here,” he said, nudging her up a single, concrete flight of stairs and onto the street where the wind ripped around the buildings and the sky was dark as night. She thought of Marla and Alex, Eugenia and Phil Robertson, Cherise and Donald Favier. How many people were in on this deadly plot? How many people had died, all for the sake of Conrad Amhurst’s money? Pam Delacroix. Charles Biggs. And now Nick. Precious Nick.
Because of her.
Because of greed.
Because she’d always wanted to be another woman.
Now, as she walked through the blustery morning, she had one eye on the gun Montgomery concealed in his parka, the other on her child. Could she risk screaming for help, snatching her baby away and damning the consequences? No . . . there wasn’t enough time.