Free Ransom for a Prince by Lisa Childs Page B

out.”
    “Jessica…”
    “That was almost five years ago.”
    “He hurt you.”
    She flinched as if reliving the pain. “That first night he got out, he put me in the hospital.”
    “Oh, my God…”
    Her breath shuddered out, as if with relief. “But that’s how I got away. A nurse realized what had happened and who he was. She gave me some money and a bus ticket. She helped me leave.”
    “Where did you leave?”
    “New York.”
    Not only had she changed her appearance but also her speech. He detected no trace of city in her soft voice. “You put a lot of distance between the two of you. No wonder he hasn’t found you.”
    “Until now,” she said, the color draining from her face again to leave her eyes so dark and haunted.
    “He was one of those men in the van?” If so, Sebastian wished to hell that he’d taken the damn shot now.
    “No.” She shuddered. “But they are his men.”
    “He has men? Who is he?”
    “Evgeny Surinka,” she repeated the man’s name. But it meant nothing to Sebastian. She added, “He emigrated to the United States with his father when he was just a twelve-year-old kid. His father is an infamous Russian mobster. Or he was, until Evgeny took over.”
    No wonder she had been hiding for so many years. To protect herself and her child.
    “And do you have a child?” he asked.
    “A daughter.” A smile lit up her face so that it glowed with love. Her beauty stole away his breath for a moment. “She’s four.”
    “Where is she? Is someone holding her?”
    “She’s safe at the ranch with my friend Helen Jeffries. Helen owns the Double J. She would never let anyone take Samantha. She treats her like she’s her granddaughter. Hell, Samantha might be safer with Helen than she is with me. Evgeny doesn’t know about her,” she said. Her voice cracking with emotion and old pain, she added, “I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left.”
    During his years as a military sniper, Sebastian had had to kill marks he’d never met—because it had been ordered. This was the first time he wanted to give the order for the kill, the first time that he wanted to pull the trigger out of vengeance rather than duty. No matter, though, killing Evgeny Surinka would definitely be for the greater good.
    “He can never find out about Samantha,” Jessica said, her voice breaking with fear and sobs. “He would hurt her to hurt me.”
    Sebastian pulled her into his arms, clasping her trembling body close. “He won’t hurt either of you. I won’t let him.”
    “You won’t be able to stop him. No one can stop him,” she said, her voice rising with hysteria. “I just need to get away. I need to go back to the ranch, get Samantha and run as far as I can, like I did last time.”
    “You don’t know that he has found you,” he said. “Some of the hit men hired to kill us have connections to the Russian mob.” He drew in a breath and admitted what he’d just shared with Antoine. “I was shot at earlier today. I was alone. It had nothing to do with you.”
    He believed that now. There was no way this woman would have asked someone to shoot at him—even just to scare him off. She’d already had more than enough violence in her life. So had he, really.
    “You were shot at earlier? Are you okay?” she asked, her dark eyes brimming with concern.
    He nodded. “They missed.”
    “Who shot at you? The men from the van?”
    “I don’t know. I couldn’t see who it was.” That was all he’d been able to tell his brother, too, much to his disgruntlement. But Antoine was going to have Jane take the bullet from the Hummer and run ballistics on it. He’d wanted Sebastian to show Jane where the shooting had happened as well, but he could not leave Jessica alone.
    “Then it could have been someone else who shot at you, whoever blew up that limo. But I know who’s after me. Evgeny.”
    “A hit was put out on you, too,” he warned her. “Because of what you witnessed. That has nothing to