I wish he’d stop toying with his food and just bite so I can know what I’m dealing with. “Let him go,” I say.
Before I can draw my next breath, he grabs me by the neck, lifts me clear off the ground and with a few powerful strides, takes me to the edge of the road. He dangles me over the side of the mountain by one strong hand. Hundreds of feet sprawl beneath my frantically kicking legs. Lush jungle, the curvature of a rushing river with rocks like fangs jutting from the water sprawls so far below they look like game-board pieces. Breathing is impossible, not just because of the huge hand cutting off my air supply, but because of the helplessness and fear scrambling up from my belly, anaerobic and nauseating.
“Stop!” Wallace shouts from the back of the truck. “You’ll drop her!”
He’s silenced. I can’t tell by what or whom, but his raised voice is swallowed in abrupt quiet.
“I don’t care if she falls,” Abe says, the cheeks of his mask lifting with a smile that infects his blue eyes with a diabolical gleam. “I’ll hold her here until she learns who’s in control, or dies.”
This is power at its worst. A madman who, by loosening his fingers, could end my life, hurling me to certain death. By tightening them, he could do the same, choking the very breath from me.
He squeezes, sick pleasure flooding his bluebell eyes. The irrepressible sound of me fighting for air, for life, fills my own ears. My hands fly to his arms involuntarily, even though if he drops me, I’m dead. I can’t stop them from begging for relief from the iron manacling my neck.
I’m going to die.
The thought sprints through my head so fast I can barely catch it. I envision him dropping me, and my belly hollows out like I’m already falling.
The thick muscles of his arm bulge and strain with the effort of keeping me suspended. Despite his obvious strength, he’s struggling to hold my weight and I feel his fingers on my neck slipping. His skin peels under my clawing nails. Tears fall over my cheeks, my body’s desperate response to the torturous grip at my throat.
His face wavers as my strength fails and my arms drop. Thoughts, images flood my mind. My father bent over his papers, glancing up, love in his eyes, to find me standing at his office door. Mena sprinkling sacred pollen across my cheeks and plunging me into the cold, cleansing river. Kimba and Vivienne, stretched out under spring sunshine, our laughter floating over the Amstel river.
Maxim.
Oh, God, Maxim.
“Doc.”
His name sputters over my lips on a choking moan. Sobs rack my thrashing, gasping body dangling over a fatal fall. The tangled brush of the landscape below tilts as my consciousness surrenders. Behind my eyes dawns an unlit sky, a blanket of darkness that smothers all sight and every sound. A thousand images my mind and heart have hoarded tattoo themselves behind my eyelids as they fall closed.
Meeting Maxim for the first time amid a spray of rubber bullets in the Arizona desert. Finding him again on a moonlit night in Amsterdam. Lost with him, found with him in a labyrinth of hedges, rediscovering us after years apart. A squandered decade. Will I ever get to make up for lost time? To tell him I love him? God, I love him so much and he doesn’t even know.
And now . . . now it’s too late.
Acknowledgments
In the author’s note at the beginning, I thanked some of the women who guided me in writing this book, but it bears repeating. Sherrie, Makea, Andrea, Nina and Kiona, thank you for sharing your tribes, your stories, your heritage with me. For teaching me, opening my eyes to so many things I had walked right past all my life. You are remarkable women, and I hope readers see some of your strength, courage and wisdom in Lennix, the character your stories helped me create.
There are so many people who are always supportive, but there is a circle of friends who put up with me when I’m writing, creating covers, crafting blurbs. You poor, longsuffering souls! LOL! LJ Shen, thank you for being my czarro, and telling me with loving blunt force when something sucks and threatening bodily harm if I go against your recommendations. LOL! Dylan Allen, Corinne Michaels, Claire Contreras, Nikki Sloane, Willow Winters, Nana Malone – you guys must roll your eyes so hard when I send over yet another version of the cover and blurb you’ve seen a hundred times. Thank you for being honest and patient and showing my projects the same loving attention you would your own. It means the world to me. Lori Jackson – girl! I know I’m such a diva, and you just keep sculpting and shaping and modifying the covers until I, and my chorus/committee of opinions, are satisfied. THANK YOU!! Jenn Watson – always and every time. Thank you for stroking my hair when I’m anxious and keeping a smile when I’m demanding and biting your tongue when I start trying to do your job and then fail and have to ask you to fix it. LOL! You and your hive are amazing, and I never take your thoughtfulness and professionalism for granted. Tia from Honey Mag, thank you for always being a voice of truth and for all your assistance. I’m so glad we found each other!
To my promo team – thank you!! Specifically thank you to my team captains Joanna, Brittany, Vanessa and Shannon. You guys keep us on the right track, and I could not do this without your boots on the ground! To my Kennedy Ryan Books group on Facebook, THANK YOU for being my virtual soft landing. You keep me encouraged and give me a safe place to celebrate every single day. I love you!
With every book, I’m reminded that this is all so great, but it feels pale and insufficient without someone to celebrate with. That’s my #LifetimeLovah of 22 years and counting. Thank you to my husband who puts up with the mad rush to deadlines, the weeks of repetitive take out food, the near-condemned state of our house when I’m trying to finish a book, with a wife who whispers dialogue under the sheets and talks to herself out loud all day long. I know it must feel like you live with a madwoman half the time, but you always make me feel loved and supported. You hold me when I cry and you make laugh every day. I love you and “would do it all again.”