Laila knew why, and she’d be damned before she let him force himself into her body.
She stood in front of Jorge’s crib protectively. “Go away.”
“Not possible. But I can make your death painless”—he dragged a fingertip down her bare arm—“with the right persuasion. Why don’t you start by getting on your knees?”
Laila assessed her options. They were few and pitiful. He had her cornered. “No.”
With a thunderous scowl, he seized her arm. His pupils dilated as if violence excited him. “So you like it rough? You want it to hurt?”
He didn’t simply mean her murder.
She shuddered. “I do not want it at all.”
“Then play nice.” He reached for his zipper. “If you’re extra good to me, maybe I can be persuaded to spare you.”
“Cabrón,” she snarled, fighting every instinct to retreat, but Jorge was the son she would never have. Leaving him unprotected wasn’t an option.
Her assailant’s eyes narrowed with violence and the promise of pain before he groped his way down her body and jerked her against the hard ridge of his penis. Savagely, he cupped her backside, snarling when he found her phone.
He tore it from her pocket. “Who did you last call?”
Laila spit in his face.
He wiped his cheek dry with his sleeve and shoved her against the wall with a glare that promised agony. She stumbled back into Jorge’s diaper pail, its cold metal grazing her leg.
“Who?” He shook her. “The police?”
She pressed her lips together, refusing to answer.
“Bitch.” The thug hurled her phone to the hardwood floor, shattering it beyond use. “You won’t be calling anyone else.”
Laila tried not to panic. Her link with the outside world was gone, but did it really matter? No one had ever fought for her. As always, she would fight for herself—and Jorge.
She pushed free and bent to the diaper pail, lifting it between them by its sleek chrome sides.
The criminal sent her an amused stare. “That won’t shield you from me.”
He was right; it wouldn’t.
Instead, Laila swung it at his head.
The metal bin clocked him in the temple with a satisfying thud. He wobbled before crumpling to the floor, his phone clattering from his pocket and skittering to her feet.
She’d done it. No, she wouldn’t feel remorse for hurting another human being. He would have raped and killed her if she hadn’t fought back.
Now she had to get out before Victor finished on the other side of the house or got suspicious. The police were likely minutes away—if they were coming at all. In Mexico, Emilo and his goons had paid them all to look the other way. For all she knew, these assholes had already infected local law enforcement, too.
With trembling hands, Laila scooped up the stranger’s phone, flashing the device across his face to unlock it. Quickly, she changed the passcode as nerves made each breath roar in her ears. She had to call her sister. Valeria must be frantic. But Laila couldn’t let her sister run home—and straight into danger.
For now, she shoved the phone in her pocket, hoisted Jorge’s diaper bag, along with some clean clothes she’d been folding before Valeria’s call, onto her shoulder, and lifted her sleeping nephew from his crib. Thankfully, he didn’t stir. Then she climbed the recliner in the corner and jumped out into the inky night.
Before she could shut the window behind her, the bedroom door crashed open. Her gaze connected with a familiar black stare, shooting fury and retribution.
Victor.
Clutching Jorge protectively, Laila ran.
Since arriving here after the breach of their safe house in St. Louis, she’d done one important thing to prepare for an emergency: learned the neighborhood and planned escape routes. She knew places to hide where Victor hopefully wouldn’t find her.
As she dashed across the yard, her heart thudded painfully when he scrambled out the window in pursuit. Laila launched herself behind a pair of palms and through some overgrown oleanders. She crouched to hide, groping in the dark until she encountered the fence separating their house from the place next door.
Her first week here, she had discovered a gate buried behind climbing bougainvillea and clipped the fast-growing vine just enough to open it and slip free. The effort paid off now. Laila disappeared through the foliage, biting back a hiss when branches scratched her bare arms, then emerged into the neighbor’s yard. The house sat dark since the single man who lived there worked nights.
She made her way to his shed, which he seemingly didn’t lock, and breathed a short sigh of relief. Victor was undoubtedly wondering where and how she’d disappeared. It would take him a while—and a flashlight she would see coming—to figure it out.
Inside the dark, confined space, she watched through the tiny prefab structure’s window for light or movement as she soothed a groggy Jorge with one hand and pulled her assailant’s phone free with the other, quickly turning off location services. Then she rang her sister to reassure her.
No answer.
Laila tried to rationalize reasons Valeria wouldn’t answer, other than Victor’s brother, Hector, or another of Emilo’s underlings somehow finding her. She couldn’t imagine many.
Beating back panic, Laila dialed her sister again. After four rings, Valeria’s voicemail kicked in.
With her heart racing, she cut the call and started to text—until she saw a flash of light eking from the gate she had just used to escape.
No time to warn Valeria. She had to put distance between her and Victor.
Jorge fussed, grunting, a furrow forming between his half-open eyes as he worked up a wail of displeasure.
“No. No…” Frantically, she used one hand to search the pockets of the diaper bag to find her nephew’s pacifier while trying to placate him with the other.
If Victor got his hands on her, she was dead. And Valeria would never see her son again.
Anxiety choked Laila until she found the rubber nipple and worked it into Jorge’s mouth. He took to it, sucking contentedly and settling back into her arms with a slumberous sigh.
Grateful, she let herself out of the shed and stole across the neighbor’s patio through the shadows. On the far end, she let herself out the backyard on the side of the house, where she plastered herself against the fence, panting hard.
Thankfully, she didn’t see any of Victor’s other goons—yet. She needed to get out of the neighborhood, but Valeria had taken their one car to the concert. She knew none of her neighbors. The police still hadn’t arrived. And she wouldn’t get enough distance to escape Victor with a sleeping toddler in her arms.
She had to think.
Scanning the street, she spotted the house occupied by an older woman who walked her three dogs nearly every morning. Shortly after she and Valeria had been relocated here by the EM Security team, Laila had observed a gathering there. A wake, based on the fact everyone had worn black. The woman’s husband had probably passed away since Laila had never seen a man there.
She had also noticed that the woman often left her keys in her car.
Taking one last glance around the empty cul-de-sac, she dashed to the small SUV, avoiding the streetlights, and said a prayer upward as she pulled the door handle. Unlocked. Thank God!
Since she had no car seat for Jorge, she clutched the sleeping toddler against her as she grabbed the keys from the middle console, then slid into the driver’s seat and eased the door shut, hoping Victor hadn’t heard.