LITMIR.BIZ

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noticed the blood on his sleeve, and her eyes softened. But realization dawned and the softness quickly transformed into anger. “My God, you’re part of this.”

      “That’s not how it is.”

      She looked as if she wanted to hit him. “Things never change with you, do they, Chase?”

      “This is no mission,” he said, hating that his tone was defensive. His work with Eclipse and his penchant for risk taking had been points of contention between them from the beginning of their relationship.

      “Save it,” she said.

      “We don’t have time for this now, Lily.” Taking her hand, he tugged her more deeply into the hall. She resisted, but her efforts were token and he easily muscled her to the alcove outside the rest¬ rooms. “We have to get out of here right now.”

      “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

      “You don’t have a choice, damn it.” He glanced toward the lobby. “Those bastards mean business.”

      “Who are they? Why are they doing this? Why do they want to hurt me?” Her questions came in a flurry.

      “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll figure it out later. For now, I need to get you out of here.”

      “Chase, damn it—”

      He cut her off, ushering her to the farthest wall of the alcove. “For once in your life listen to me.” He glanced toward the lobby. “Stay put. I need to see where they are.”

      Pressing his back flat against the wall, he sidled to the hall entrance and peered into the lobby. The two gunmen stood in the center of the atrium, looking around. Chase slipped back to the alcove.

      Lily had ventured only a few feet, her hand placed protectively over her abdomen. She’d always been strong willed and capable, not the kind of woman who needed or wanted protecting. But standing there with fear in her eyes and a baby growing inside her, she looked incredibly vulnerable. The need to protect her rose inside him in a dangerous tide.

      “Let’s go.”

      She didn’t resist as he pulled her toward the emergency exit at the end of the hall. A sign above the push bar on the door told him an alarm would sound if the door was opened. Since it was the only exit they could reach without being seen, he didn’t have a choice but to take it and hope the alarm had been rendered inoperative because of the blackout.

      “If that alarm is intact, all hell is going to break loose when we go through this door,” he said.

      “In case you haven’t noticed, hell already has broken loose,” she shot back.

      “Can you run?”

      She glanced down at her belly. “What do you think?”

      “I think you don’t have a choice.”

      Chase hit the security bar and shoved open the door. A shrill alarm split the air. “Run!” he whispered.

      The door opened to the sidewalk on Harrison Avenue. Abandoned cars that had run out of gas during the massive traffic jam that had followed the blackout littered the street. Flames flickered from a drum where someone burned garbage, but there was no one in sight. The street was pitch- black and eerily quiet.

      “This way.”

      Chase pulled her into a run, and they headed north on Harrison at a fast clip. She didn’t complain, but he could feel her struggling to keep up. She’d once been quite athletic, so he knew it was her pregnancy slowing her down.

      “Come on,” he said. “You can do it.”

      “I’m moving as fast as I can,” she said between pants.

      Behind them, a shout echoed, telling him at least one of the gunmen had spotted them. “Faster!” Chase shouted. “Run!”

      A volley of gunfire shattered the night. A yelp escaped Lily when a bullet ricocheted off the brick facade of a building inches from her head. Terror whipped through Chase. He glanced at her, saw blood on her cheek and his heart stopped dead in his chest.

      Lily must have noticed his expression. “Piece of brick knicked me,” she said. “Keep moving, Vickers.”

      “That a girl,” he said, and urged her faster.

      Midway down the block, the yawning black mouth of an alley beckoned. Praying they didn’t encounter a dead end, Chase cut right and they traversed it at a reckless speed, their footfalls echoing off the brick walls on either side. Considering the advanced stage of her pregnancy, Lily was amazingly fast on her feet. But not fast enough. Twenty yards in, another gunshot rang out.

      “They’re still shooting at us!” she cried.

      “Keep running!”

      “I’m spent, Chase. I can’t go much farther.”

      Cursing, he pulled his pistol from the waistband of his slacks and returned fire blindly, hoping it would be enough to slow their pursuers. All the while the thought of her falling to a bullet tortured him with horrific images.

      The alley opened to another side street. Chase headed right toward Chinatown, a bustling section of the city where foot traffic, greengrocers, fish markets and ethnic shops crowded the narrow streets. Left without a vehicle, he figured their best hope of eluding their pursuers was to get lost in the crowd.

      “Chase, tell me what’s going on.” The words puffed out on each breath as they cut down Kneeland Street.

      “I don’t know,” he said.

      Digging in her heels, she stopped and jerked her hand from his. “Don’t lie to me, damn it. We’re not talking about just me. We’re talking about this baby.”

      He didn’t need to be reminded of that. The fact hadn’t left his mind since the moment he’d spotted her. Setting his hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes and recapped everything that had happened back at Hancock Tower. “I checked the passenger’s ID and everything was cool.” Remembering, he gritted his teeth, incensed with himself for having let the man get the jump on him. “Until he pulled a gun.”

      “And you have no idea why?”

      “No.”

      “Why did you come to the hospital?” she demanded. “Why involve me?”

      Looking left and right, he guided her to an alley that would take them into the heart of Chinatown. “When the guy was in the limo, he said some things that made me think he was going to hurt you.”

      “Hurt me?” She laughed, but it was a tense, humorless sound. “Why? What made you jump to that conclusion?”

      “He told me I was about to lose everything that I—” Realizing what he’d almost said, Chase cut the words short. “He mentioned you by name.”

      Even in the semidarkness he saw the color drain from her face. “I don’t understand. Why me? I don’t even know these people.”

      “Evidently, they know me.”

      “But we haven’t been together for…”

      Something pinged in his brain. “Seven-and-a-half months,” he finished.

      But Chase’s mind was already jumping ahead to something he’d been wondering about since the moment he’d spotted her in the hospital atrium. Until now he hadn’t had a chance to work out the timing of her pregnancy. Looking at her, on some primal level, he suddenly knew.

      He knew.

      His heart raced. Not because of the men with guns, but because he was remembering the last time he’d been with Lily. Seven-and-a-half months ago…

      When he looked at her, he saw the answer in her eyes. He

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