A Secret Vow: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance (23 page)

The intense moan and crackle of burning timber stops him in his tracks. My heart leaps into my throat. That must be Mortar. He’s alive, he’s escaping, he’s coming for me. That’s the only thing it can be.

Grady knows it, too. He redoubles his speed as he staggers down the next few steps. We’re halfway down the staircase when I look behind me and see Mortar. His knee is twisted at an awkward angle, but there’s no denying the fire in his eyes. He winces as he starts to climb down the stairs in pursuit of us.

Each bump of the stairs jolts my already battered body, but Grady is relentless. We’re three stairs from the bottom, then two. Mortar is so close behind us. I stretch out a hand. I can almost reach him. He’s one step back. Grady tugs open the door. It careens wildly.

Mortar’s fingertips brush against mine. He’s stretching as far as he can. He hops down the last step at the same moment that Grady crosses the threshold of the building. His hand is wound in my hair. There’s no getting away.

I’m reaching for Mortar. Only a few more inches and I can grab hold. He swipes for my hand, misses, bumps the door.

Then, the rusty screech of metal. The door has been tortured long enough. It leans away from its hinges, separating at long last, and falls with a clang between Mortar and me.

Grady slogs through the grass on his injured legs. I’m screaming. Mortar is trapped behind us. The building has begun to sag, seeping smoke from every crack and crevice. The fire must be burning through the structure now. It can’t be much longer until the whole thing collapses—with Mortar stuck in it.

There’s a tiny sliver at the top of the doorframe. I see Mortar’s fingers gripping it. The roof is so close to caving in. He doesn’t have long.

I’m shrieking at the top of my lungs as we approach the police cruiser. “Shut up, bitch,” he mutters as he throws me in the back of the car again. “He’s as good as dead.”

Just before the door slams shut behind me, I see the roof give way. The whole building falls into itself, throwing sparks a hundred feet into the air.

“Mortar!” I scream over and over again. “Mortar! Mortar!”

He can’t be dead. If he is, then I’m about to be dead, too.

Chapter 16

Mortar

Pain. Everywhere. My body is a million and one cuts, bruises, burns. Every motion brings a stab. My knee is an epicenter of heat where it took the brunt of the weight from the falling beam. I can already tell that the kneecap is smashed. God only knows what else is fucked up down there.

I have to ignore it. Can’t lose focus. Can’t let go. There’s one thing to concentrate on: Grady. I’m not letting him get away.

He’s dragging Kendra across the yard. He’s got a fistful of her hair. She’s screaming, thrashing, but it’s not doing a damn thing. She needs me. I need her.

I grit my teeth. I can taste blood in my mouth. The heat is pouring at my back from the fire upstairs. It’s out of control. There’s no stopping it. The whole building is going down. Without the support beams in the ceiling, it’s going to collapse. I have to get out of here before that happens.

The door. Can’t believe it fucking gave way. Now, of all possible moments. How many times did I remind myself to fix it for her? How many times did I put it off until later? Now, when it matters, it fucks me. I’m stuck. Trapped.

I have to get out.

I let loose a roar. It rips from the bottom of my stomach to the top of my throat. The energy pours through me, giving new life to my aching muscles and broken bones. The metal door is wedged against a jutting steel rod at a weird angle. I have to push hard enough to bend the rod back so I can slide the door away.

Through the crack between the fallen door and the top of the doorframe, I see Grady throw Kendra into the back of his cop car. He turns to look at me.

I’m shoving on the door, throwing all of my weight against it. Every muscle, every tendon, every vein is flexed to its fullest. My life depends on it. Her life does. My baby—he needs me to get out of here.

One more try will do it. I can hear the metal groaning. It’s about to give way.

One. More. Try.

I clench and throw my shoulder into it. My hands scrabble at the bottom, lifting up and away. The rod bends, fighting me the whole way, until finally, just as I’m reaching the very last of my strength, it submits. The door is light in my hands now, moving up, moving away, moments away from letting me free.

Then the roof collapses.

Sparks sear my cheeks and hands. I cry out, covering my eyes against the sudden onslaught of heat. The door falls back into place. I hear Grady’s car roar to life.

No.

Flame is burning on all sides. Steel screeches in the skyrocketing temperatures. Everywhere around me, the building pops and moans. Outside, Grady’s tires squeal on asphalt.

No.

I find the bottom of the door one more time, squat, take its full weight into my hands and heave upwards as hard as possible. The metal shrieks the whole time, but inch by inch, the goddamn thing moves. I throw it to one side.

Sunlight. Air. I shield my eyes against the piercing rays. Grady’s car bowls past me. He’s headed for the water. My motorcycle is propped against the curb, a dozen yards away. I ignore the agony in my knee as I limp towards it. I’m going as fast as possible. Every motion is torture. My body feels utterly broken.

I reach the bike. Grady yanks a hard right, taking him out of view. There’s no time to waste. I have to follow him. I twist the key in the ignition. I bite back pain as I swing my leg over the seat. I’m barely on before I’ve cranked the throttle wide open.

The world begins to blur into long streaks of color. I round the corner and see Grady’s car, weaving between traffic, on the long road towards the pier. The ocean on our left is boiling gray. The sun is low, brooding. The wind is hot on my face.

This is it. This is the highest speed. Not just the bike itself, though the dial on the speedometer is tilted all the way to the right. But
speed
in every sense. I’m chasing the last thing that matters to me.

It’s like I’m a racer again. There’s only one thing in sight: the finish line. Everything else is background noise, irrelevant. It won’t help me forward. Nothing will. There’s only me. Me, the engine, and the target.

A memory hits me.

I’m fourteen years old. Colin and I are getting onto bikes for the first time. We clamber onto the sticky leather seats. Our legs just barely reach the pegs. He looks at me. We start the engines at the same time.

They sputter for a moment. When the roar catches, it’s like a drug. I look to Colin and I know that he feels the same. The hum of the cylinders kicking, the steady growl like we’re mounting some wild beasts—it’s addictive. I’ve never felt so powerful before.

The road before us is long, dark, and empty. There are no streetlights. No sign of life. There’s only this: stars overhead, an engine below me, my brother by my side. I push up the kickstand, twist the gas, and we explode into the night, leaving behind a world that doesn’t care about us and never will. I have everything that matters right here. I have family. I have speed.

I’m free.

Cars are honking as I zoom around them, slicing through openings barely wider than my bike. The wind is yanking on my hair and my clothes with strong fingers, trying to hold me back, trying to stop me from going this fast.

But there’s no stopping me. Not when there’s a reason for the speed. My old lady is up ahead, and she’s pregnant with my baby, and there’s not a damn thing in this world that can come between me and her. A broken body can’t stop me. A crooked cop can’t stop me.

Nothing can.

I’m closing the gap between us. Grady must see me in his rearview and panic, because he twists the wheel to send his car across the median. I curse as I follow him, squeezing tight onto my handlebars to stop myself from being thrown off the back of the bike. Somehow I manage to stay on it as I bounce over the concrete bump.

Looking up ahead, I see the pier swim into view. We’re a quarter mile from where it begins, but approaching quickly. Oncoming traffic lays on their horns and peels off to the curbs as we fly down the wrong side of the lane. I’m still fifty yards back, but every second brings me closer.

The bike is moaning under my grasp. I’ve never pushed it this fast before. “C’mon, baby, keep it together,” I whisper to it. It can’t fail me now. I can’t allow that.

Barely five hundred yards before the beginning of the pier. It stretches out across the water, decrepit, weighed down with tourists and shitty restaurants begging for foreclosure. The wooden barrier lining its edge is soft from years of exposure to the elements.

I can’t hear anything over the roar of the wind in my ears. I’m hunched low over the handlebars, urging the machine on ever faster. Twenty yards behind. Fifteen. The speedometer is nudging close to two hundred miles per hour.

People scream and dive out of the way as they see us coming. What a sight this must be—a police car being chased by an outlaw on a motorcycle instead of the other way around. I imagine this is some sort of first.

We slam off of the asphalt road and onto the wooden planks of the pier. There’s only a couple hundred yards left before we explode out over the open ocean. At this rate, that distance will only last us a few seconds.

I’m close enough to touch the taillight of the cruiser. I can see Kendra, slamming her fist into the back window, screaming at the top of her lungs, although no sound can reach me through the ripping wind. Grady is behind the wheel.

I inch forward. Ten seconds until we reach the barrier.

I don’t even know what I have in mind. Pull Kendra from the car? At this speed, she’ll be killed. Try to shoot Grady? The car will crash, and she’ll be killed.

I look up. Five seconds until collision. He’s going to have to stop. There’s no way he’ll just keep going over the edge, right? He’s a murderer, not suicidal. He won’t take her down with him. He won’t.

Three seconds. He’s not stopping. I touch my fingertips to the glass. Kendra presses hers back against mine. I’m helpless to save her.

Two seconds.

One second.

If he’s going over, I am, too. I’m not letting this bastard take my woman to the grave with him. Where she goes, I go.

After all, I made her a promise. And I never break my promises.

* * *

We break through the barrier and soar out over the water. Time stops. I’m already floating off of the seat of my bike, weightless in the air. The waves crash fifty feet beneath us. The mass of a police cruiser flying off the edge of a pier would be ridiculous if it didn’t have my wife in it. But the man behind the wheel is determined to kill her, whatever the cost.

I see her face behind the plated, wire-reinforced window. She’s as gorgeous as ever—sharp cheekbones, the pink slash of her mouth, those eyes, so open and trusting. Her skin is the same dusky black as it was when I first saw her, gleaming and soft against the fabric of that white couch. The memory feels centuries old, despite how little time has passed since I first walked up to her and told her she was beautiful.

I think back to what she’d told me in the studio.
I love you, Mortar.
I couldn’t keep denying it. There was no more running away from what I felt. This wasn’t just a pact anymore, no longer just some silly compromise we’d made. It was real and vibrant and alive.

The salt air filling my lungs is tangy and perfect. It clears the vestiges of smoke from my body. But a moment later, we plunge through the surface of the ocean, and water rushes in to take its place. The water is cold, sloshing, writhing with bubbles and frothy wave caps. I open my eyes and immediately cringe as the salt stings me. Every cut on my skin is burning in the briny slush.

I can’t figure out which way is up. The waves knock me around. I’m disoriented, thrashing around in the water. My leather jacket is soaked. The weight of it and my heavy boots drags me towards the sandy ocean floor.

Squinting through the whirling darkness, I see the car, nosing into the soft silt. Bubbles erupt from the tailpipe. I’m already running out of breath, but I can’t risk going back up for air. I need to find Kendra.

I take two hard strokes, propelling myself towards the submerged vehicle. The taillights glimmer in what little sun manages to pierce this far to the bottom. My chest is burning and my hurt knee dangles uselessly to the side.

I’m swishing water aside with my hands as I work my way towards the car. I reach it and feel my way towards the back door. My hand finds the door handle. I yank hard, but it won’t budge. The fall must have damaged part of the mechanism. Planting one foot on the trunk, I kick away as hard as I can without letting go of the handle. It gives with a metallic groan.

Kendra’s limp body floats up.

Her hair is a swirling cloud of black. The lazy ocean tides pluck at her arms where they float by her sides. She’s unconscious.

Stars are popping in front of my eyes. I’m about to run out of air. If I pass out, we’ll both die down here. We need to reach the surface. I pull Kendra towards me, sinking to the bottom. I find purchase in the soil, lean down, and then launch myself up.

We shoot ten feet up, but it’s not enough. I start to kick, flail, anything to move us closer to air. My muscles are seizing without oxygen. The light is starting to fade from my eyes. A few more strokes. Almost…there.

We break the surface of the water. I gasp. Air never tasted so good.

Slowly, excruciatingly, I tow Kendra in towards the beach. We reach the sand and I pick her up in my arms. She still hasn’t woken. I carry her away from the waves until the exhaustion takes over and I can’t walk anymore. I fall to my knees, careful to keep her head from knocking against the ground.

I lay her out. “Kendra, wake up, please,” I whisper to her. I smooth the wet bangs back from her face. She’s deathly pale. The water was so cold. “Please, Kendra,” I repeat. “Come back to me.”