2
One year later…
Serena Carson jolted wide awake to an ear-splitting wail and the fading images of an avenging angel, stroking her like she belonged to him. Which was crazy. She didn’t belong to anyone now—well, except to her three-month-old daughter.
With a groan, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and rolled out of bed, padding barefoot over to the crib near the wall of the bedroom. “Hush now, baby girl. Momma’s here,” she crooned as she reached in to scoop up the hungry baby, then carried her to the rocking chair in the corner before hiking up her shirt so her daughter could latch on to her sore nipple.
Whenever she’d imagined having a family of her own someday, Serena had never thought it would happen like this. Not that she was complaining. She wasn’t. Whining wasn’t in her nature. Nope. She’d been raised by a strong, powerful woman to be a strong, powerful woman herself. It was the same way she intended to raise her daughter. And even though her adopted parents were dead now, Serena fully intended to carry out her duty, come hell or high water.
Or kidnapping.
Yeah, that last one still made her blood run cold. Seven months she’d been stuck in this place—first as a scared, pregnant hostage who’d feared for her life every day despite her luxurious surroundings, and now as a scared, single mother with an infant, still living in constant fear that today might be the day her life came to an end.
The baby sighed contentedly and sucked harder, making Serena bite back a wince. Gracie had Serena’s thick dark hair but had inherited her father’s eyes. She leaned back and sighed, adjusting Gracie on her chest. Figured her only one-night stand had ended with a lifetime of consequences, but there you go. Not that she regretted having her daughter. Not at all.
She just wished the circumstances were different.
In her mind, an image of her avenging angel rose once more, wearing the face of the man who’d changed her life forever. Serena started, earning a squeak from Gracie. Serena didn’t even know the guy’s last name. Only his first—Noah. The Navy SEAL. That was all she knew. Oh, and that he had the kindest blue eyes she’d ever seen. The same as the angel in her dreams. The same as their daughter.
God, her hormones must still be out of whack. She wasn’t usually so sappy.
And she knew exactly why she kept dreaming about an angel with Noah’s face. Because of his tattoo. They’d met because of their ink, at the art gallery. He’d been checking out her ass from across the room while she’d gotten the crusader artwork across her hip. In truth, maybe she’d been checking him out too, even before he’d worked up the resolve to walk over and start making conversation. She’d spotted him clear on the other side of the gallery and hadn’t been able to look away.
Hard to ignore six-feet plus of solid, sculpted muscle and pure alpha-male swagger.
Wind made the shuttered windows creak and Serena slowly turned to stare at the slatted early-morning sunshine glowing across the hardwood floors of the grand villa where she was being kept. The villa was beautiful, she had to admit.
But even if it was in the lap of luxury, being a kidnap victim sucked.
Gracie finally fell asleep, mid-suckle, and Serena carefully dislodged the baby from her breast before smoothing her nightshirt down and carrying her daughter back to the crib for a nap. While the baby slept, she showered and changed, then returned to the bedroom to start her usual morning ritual of scribbling in her journal, then staring out the window until a maid arrived with her food. Then it was another long day of knitting and playing with Gracie and hoping to hell she found a way out of this place before those two thugs who were guarding her decided to come up here and finish her off for good. She tried not to think about their death threats often because they only made her anxiety worse, but sometimes there wasn’t anything else to think about.
Those days were the worst.
Even months after the kidnapping, Serena still berated herself on a daily basis for not being more careful, for not being able to fight off her attackers, for making the idiotic decision to come to her family’s estate here in St. Dourdane on the South American coast in the first place, instead of staying at home like pretty much everyone had advised her to do once she’d found out about the pregnancy, including her OB/GYN. But no, Serena hadn’t listened to them. Had only wanted to get away, to try and get some space and time alone to regain her equilibrium after news of the impending baby had rocked her world. Little did she know that soon-to-be little Gracie’s surprise appearance in her womb would only be the start of her troubles.
She’d planned on working while she was here too, of course. The charity foundation she’d taken over after her parents’ death in a plane crash was doing great work in the poorer villages of St. Dourdane, making sure children had the education and literacy skills they needed to escape a life of poverty. She’d planned to check out their efforts first-hand, maybe do a bit of social media promotion for the cause, drum up more donations. And sure, her trip here had been rushed, without the usual security precautions, but she’d figured she’d be safe enough. She’d intended to be in and out so quickly that no one would have the chance to plan an attack, since only a few key people within her family’s candy company knew about her travel plans. Besides, she’d always loved coming here. She still had fond memories of her parents and brother spending time on the estate when they’d been kids. Swimming, hiking, playing on the beach. Postcard perfect stuff.
Then she’d been kidnapped, taken in the dead of night by the thugs, who’d tied her up and blindfolded her, threatening to kill her if she made so much as a sound. She’d gotten a brief glimpse of their faces before they’d put the blindfold on, their hard features and lethal expressions seared into her mind forever. She’d seen the same men around the villa a few times, enough to make her put off any plans for escape until she knew she was strong enough, post-delivery, that she could make it. Or until things got so desperate that staying became more impossible than risking her life and the life of her baby for a chance at freedom.
A familiar panic tightened her throat before she swallowed it down. She was fine. Gracie was fine.
For now.
On paper, getting stuck in some luxury villa for months on end sounded great. Until you realized you were in complete lockdown. No phone. No internet. No TV. No access to the outside world at all. The only reason she knew precisely how long she’d been in here was because Serena had managed to swipe her midwife’s cell phone when the woman had been here to conduct her eight-week postpartum check. Before her theft had been discovered, Serena had noticed the date and managed to send off a hasty text message to both her brother, Nate, and her best friend, Bella, in hopes maybe one of them might still be looking for her and could track her location by GPS. But she’d barely hit Send before the thugs caught her and smashed the thing into a million pieces. She wasn’t sure if the message had actually gone through or not. Given she was still stuck in her paradise prison, most likely not.
So yeah. Serena was doing her best to stay positive until she could find a way back to civilization because what else was she going to do? She was all Gracie had in the world. She needed to be strong for her baby. And sure, looking on the bright side got harder and harder each day, but the alternative was unthinkable.
She finished brushing her long dark hair, then wandered back over to check on her daughter. They had each other. It was enough. Honestly, it was more than she’d had at that age. Whoever her biological mother had been, she’d left baby Serena in a box at a fire station and never returned. Margaret and Harold Carson, wealthy chocolatiers, had adopted her at four months and the rest was history. Never once had they made Serena feel like she wasn’t their flesh and blood, and she couldn’t imagine having any other parents.
They were a family. By love, if not by blood. Even the plane crash couldn’t take that away.
Gracie stirred in her crib and Serena s
miled down, reaching a hand in for her tiny daughter to grasp. “Hey, there baby girl. Momma loves you. Yes, she does. Momma loves you so much. Momma—”
A loud crash cut off her words. Pulse tripping, Serena’s gaze darted to the door. Oh God. Were the thugs back again? She’d heard some of the staff whispering the other day when they thought she didn’t notice. She didn’t speak much Spanish, but still picked out the words matar and la heredera—“kill” and “the heiress”—so yeah. Not reassuring at all.
Her pulse raced as muffled male voices echoed up the stairs to the second floor where Serena’s room was located. That was new. Men were always there, making sure she didn’t escape, but they’d largely left her alone. On a regular basis, she only interacted with the cleaning staff. She could only think of one reason for the men to break from the usual protocol.