‘You’re saying goodbye. Stop it!’ she ordered.
‘After you’ve won those awards, I want you to think about what you want to do with your life. You’re talented… and beautiful… but don’t waste time turning up at parties you don’t want to go to just because you think you should. Find out who you are, Autumn. Find out who you want to be.’ He struggled to eke out the words.
‘I won’t let you leave me. I won’t. You can’t leave me!’ she yelled, though her voice faltered. ‘People don’t leave Autumn Raine!’
‘Give your mother a chance. She’s kept secrets her whole life. I think she did it to protect you.’
He wheezed and began to cough. Every convulsion made the blood spurt out of the wound faster. He struggled to breathe.
‘Please, Nathan, I can get help. There must be a damn phone in here somewhere.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll find one.’
‘No, don’t leave me,’ he said, reaching for her hand and gripping it in his.
*
She burst into tears and laid her head against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. It was still there, his cologne, his perspiration, much stronger than the smell of his blood. This couldn’t be the end. She wouldn’t let it be the end. She needed him, and she was sure he needed her, too. They’d had no time to figure out what they could be together.
She raised her head to look at him. ‘Let me go and get help. I heard the helicopter, too. I could go and look.’
‘It’s too late,’ he insisted. His voice was nothing but a rasp now, barely audible, unlike his breathing which had become noisier with every motion.
‘What’s going to happen now?’
‘What?’
‘My dad didn’t come. What’s going to happen? Am I going to be running from kidnappers all my life?’ she asked.
At the moment, she didn’t really care what her future held. But she didn’t know how to make this situation better. She wasn’t sure that idle talk was the answer, but she couldn’t just sit there and watch him slip away. It was better he stayed conscious, and the longer she could keep him with her… well, help might come.
‘He’ll come,’ Nathan said.
‘But he was too late, to save you.’
‘He wasn’t coming to save me. He was coming to save you… but that was my job,’ he responded with a smile.
She watched his eyes close, then the loud breathing stopped and she panicked, dropping his hand.
‘Nathan! Nathan, wake up! Nathan! Oh God! No! Please! Nathan!’
She shook him, took him by the shoulders and shook him as hard as she could manage, but his body didn’t react the way it should.
‘British Army! Put your hands above your head!’
Autumn let out a scream of terror as half a dozen troops dressed in black combat clothing stormed into the room. They were aiming machine guns at her, gas masks covering their faces.
‘Miss Raine, your father’s waiting for you. Let’s go,’ one of the men said, grabbing Autumn’s arm and hauling her off the floor.
Autumn pulled away from the soldier. ‘You need to help this man, Nathan… he’s my… he’s my security,’ she said.
Another soldier knelt down by Nathan’s body and shook his head at his colleague.
‘You need to help him. You need to do heart massage or something. He was breathing, just a second ago. He was talking to me. Stop pulling my arm and let me go to him! If you won’t do anything, I will!’ she shouted as fresh tears flooded her face.
The soldier grabbed a black jacket from his colleague and put it around her shoulders to cover her up. ‘Miss Raine, this area isn’t secure. We need to get you back to headquarters.’
‘I’m not leaving him! I’m not going anywhere until you get an ambulance! I don’t believe there’s nothing you can do! I don’t!’
She folded her arms across her chest and tried to look as defiant as she could. It was a hard look to pull off when her heart was breaking in half.
‘Flynn, start CPR. Give it five minutes, then call it in,’ the soldier relented.
‘I’ll help.’ Autumn dropped to her knees beside Nathan.
‘That I can’t allow. We need to get you safe,’ the soldier ordered. He took hold of Autumn’s arm and dragged her back up to her feet.
‘Please, I just want to be with him,’ she pleaded, watching as the other soldier removed his mask and began the routine of resuscitation.
‘There’s nothing you can do. I doubt there’s anything anyone can do,’ he told her bluntly.
*
The helicopter had been hovering, confirming their location and liaising with the team on the ground. A van had been waiting outside the warehouse she’d been held in, to escort her to Secret Service headquarters. Since she’d arrived, she’d lost count of the number of times she had heard the words ‘de-brief,’ ‘operation,’ and ‘target.’ For her to lose count was one thing, for her not to care she had lost count was something else entirely.
The room they had put her in had a view of the London Eye, just like her apartment. It was farther along the river, but the sights were all there, laid out before her. The Thames, the Houses of Parliament, they were places of significance, but what she really wanted to catch sight of was the motel she had stayed in with Nathan, and the Marisson. Those places were important to her now. Nathan was important, and no one had even mentioned his name since she’d been brought here. She wanted to hear that he was alive, that he was in hospital recovering, that she could see him.
She hadn’t spoken to anyone, not one word, since she had been brought into the offices. She was tired, her throat was dry through a mixture of dehydration
