Chapter 20

Chapter

Twenty

December 23 rd

5:19 P.M.

It felt like a lifetime since he’d gotten the text message threatening Jessica.

In reality, it hadn't even been twenty minutes.

Somehow, Donovan had managed to make it across town and to his building. The cops had ordered him to stand down, let them handle things, but he had no intention of sitting out there and waiting.

Not when Jessica and Freddie were upstairs.

There were no guards he could see in the building lobby and that told him everything he needed to know.

His stalker was there.

In his building.

Possibly already up in the penthouse.

As he ran toward the lift, it felt like he was trapped in a dream, one of those ones where no matter how hard you tried to move your feet seemed like they were encased in concrete. It took too long to reach the lift. Too long to punch in the code to get to the penthouse. Too long for the lift to go up past all those floors.

When the doors finally did open and he was standing in the lobby too many things struck him all at once.

The door to his home was standing open.

Scattered in the doorway was a pile of gift boxes.

Shoved off to the side was the still body of one of the guards.

Running quickly toward the body, a quick check of the guard’s pulse told him the man was still alive. There were no injuries he could detect, and he assumed the man’s attacker had drugged him.

Donovan shoved to his feet and ran inside his home.

It was quiet in there.

Deadly silent.

As he ran from room to room, finding them all empty, his fear continued to grow.

Where were they?

What had happened?

How had a stalker everyone was on the lookout for managed to not just get into the building but all the way up to his penthouse, and get the drop on an armed guard?

It didn't make sense.

He was missing something.

Only it was hard to think of anything other than his fear for Jessica and Freddie.

The sight of her phone lying discarded on the floor by the door caught his attention and he bent and scooped it up. She’d told him her passcode, and when he typed it in the phone immediately opened to a view of the security camera.

Could finding answers be that simple?

When he looked through the recent history his mouth dropped open when he saw who had knocked on his door this evening.

“No,” he murmured aloud.

It couldn’t be.

How could he have gotten things so wrong?

As he watched he saw his secretary, Jana, approaching the guard. Not suspecting her to be a threat he wasn’t prepared for her to jab a needle in his neck. Once the guard had passed out, Jana knocked on his door and had an exchange with Jessica before producing a weapon and marching both Jessica and Freddie into the lift, which then headed up to the roof.

The smart move would be to stay there, wait for the cops, share what he’d learned, tell them where he believed they were, and let them handle it.

But that meant waiting.

And he couldn’t do that.

So smart move or not, Donovan headed for the stairs that led to the rooftop garden. They were slightly off to the side so when he got up there Jana might not realize, and he could assess the situation and figure out how to get Jessica and Freddie out of there alive.

Still in shock that the person trying to ruin his life was none other than his secretary, he started up the staircase. Why would Jana do this?

They’d flirted when she first took the job a year ago. There had even been a night where he’d gotten uncharacteristically drunk and taken her to bed. In the morning he’d told her it couldn’t happen again, he was her boss and they’d made a mistake. He’d thought Jana had taken it well, she’d told him she wasn't after more and then the whole mess had started with finding out someone was stealing from him, and to be honest, he’d never given her a second thought. She did her job and didn't make waves when she absolutely could have over his inappropriate boss behavior.

Now he knew she had been the one stalking him and she’d taken from him the two most important things in his life.

As soon as he reached the roof he spotted them.

Jana was trying to herd Jessica and Freddie toward the roof’s edge. The building was twenty-five stories. If her intention was to push them over, then neither of them was going to survive.

Donovan knew he couldn’t let that happen.

“Jana, why don’t we just let Freddie go back inside. He has nothing to do with this and he’s only seven,” Jessica was saying as he slowly approached. She had her son tucked behind her, her body a human shield, and he knew she would do whatever it took to protect her child .

“No. The kid goes, too. Has to. You're both in the way,” Jana mumbled, a manic tone to her voice he’d never noticed before.

“I'm the one in the way,” Jessica countered. “He’s just a little boy.”

“No, no, no. It’s both of you. He bought the boy gifts. I took them back, but it didn't fix anything. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be me. I knew he was mine from the moment I met him. I tried to show him, but he said it was a mistake. Then you came along. You weren't supposed to get in the way. When his life was falling apart, he was supposed to come to me,” Jana snapped.

How much of everything that had happened was on her shoulders?

Had it been her all along?

Was she the one responsible for him getting drunk—on what at the time had been only two glasses of wine as far as he knew—the night they slept together? Was she the one who had been stealing? Who had set everything up? And for what? A chance to be with him? There had never been a chance of him turning to her for any reason, he just didn't feel anything for her.

“Go, climb over and jump,” Jana ordered.

Even from where he stood, he could see the stubborn look on Jessica’s face. She wasn't going to do it. She was going to try something.

With terror coursing through his veins that she’d get herself killed in an effort to protect her son, Donovan didn't think twice.

Just acted.

Lunging forward, he snapped a hand around Jana’s wrist, shoving her arm up so the gun no longer pointed at Jessica and Freddie.

The woman startled, fought him, managed to break free of his hold, but she stumbled and lost her balance.

Fear filled Jana’s eyes as her arms cartwheeled.

But it was already too late.

With a scream he’d never be able to get out of his head, she fell over the side of the roof.

They were standing there, frozen in place, until the scream was abruptly cut off.

Then Donovan reached for Jessica and Freddie, yanking them into his arms. He was never letting them go.

Not ever.

He’d had a taste of what it felt like to lose them and he didn't like it.