Read Online Bodyguard's Baby Surprise by LISA CHILDS - Free Book Online Page A

Maybe it was just a coincidence that it had an Illinois plate. But it wasn’t a chance he was willing to take—not with Annalise’s safety at stake. So he careened into the lot behind the car.
    He’d had to ditch his shot-up SUV, too. It was probably good that Logan had hired him since he now had a Payne Protection company vehicle. It had more horsepower than even his government SUV had had. He pushed hard on the accelerator and headed toward the sedan.
    Before he could ram it, shots rang out. But the bullets didn’t strike his vehicle. They hit the glass of the SUV Candace drove, shattering the rear window.
    Had Annalise been hit?
    Rage coursing through him, he continued to drive straight toward the car. But as if the driver had finally noticed him, he gunned his engine. Nick could have chased the car as it sped from the lot. He didn’t.
    His heart was beating hard and fast with fear and dread. He had to make certain that Annalise was okay. She was his only focus—she and the child she carried.
    * * *
    Garek Kozminski’s skin itched beneath his clothes that suddenly felt too tight, too constricting, like all the bars and bulletproof glass of the concrete fortress. He had been in prison before, a long time ago. And he’d vowed to his sister and to himself that he would never go back.
    But he had been back—to visit his own father. And now he was visiting the man who’d tried to step into his father’s place when Patek Kozminski had gone to prison. But like his father, Viktor Chekov had only wanted Garek to steal for him.
    â€œBring back memories?” Chekov asked as he settled onto a chair across the table from Garek in the visitor’s area.
    Too many memories. But Garek refused to admit that to the former crime boss—his former boss. He just grunted. “I didn’t come here to get all sentimental with you,” he said.
    â€œHave you come to gloat?” Chekov asked. He looked older now than his fifty-five or sixty years. His hair was even grayer. His face was gray, too, and wrinkled. And he’d gotten thinner, his shoulders bowing as if he didn’t have the strength to hold them straight anymore. Or as if he carried too heavy a weight on them.
    Guilt?
    He doubted Chekov had enough of a conscience to feel any guilt. To feel anything.
    Except concern for his daughter. That was what had driven him to confess to all his crimes in order to reduce her sentence for the people she’d killed and had tried to kill.
    â€œNo gloating,” Garek said. He couldn’t believe he had once feared this man. But he’d been a kid then—afraid of what the crime boss would do to his younger brother and sister if he defied him. “No reason to gloat.”
    â€œYou’ve gotten your revenge,” Chekov said. “Doesn’t it feel good?”
    â€œIs that what this is about?” Garek asked. “Revenge?”
    Viktor’s dark eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œRevenge,” Garek said. “You brought it up. Isn’t that why you’re going after Nicholas Rus?”
    A gasp of surprise escaped Viktor’s thin lips. “Nicholas? He’s in danger?”
    â€œIt almost sounds like you care,” Garek remarked. And the surprise was all his now.
    â€œI like Nicholas,” Chekov admitted. “He’s one of the last honest lawmen.”
    â€œHe’s changed that,” Garek said. “He’s found other honest lawmen. He’s cleaned up River City.”
    Chekov snorted. “I’d expect a naive remark like that from your brother, Milek. Not from you.”
    Milek was the sensitive one—the artist. No one had ever called Garek naive.
    â€œNicholas would never make such a naive remark,” Chekov said. “ He knows better. He knows there’s no cleaning up corruption. Men will always be greedy for money. For power.”
    â€œWhat about revenge?”