Chapter1.
Edge of Mercy
The rain poured on Nina and the baby she held close to her chest like it was a punishment.
Nina James had just left the hospital with her dying baby in her arms. She cried, hoping a miracle would happen, that the life she was living would disappear immediately.
Nina knew so deep in her heart that no one could save her. She whispered to her almost dying baby, cradled against her chest, “Hold on, my son, you won’t leave this world without mummy .”
Nina stood on the highway , wishing and praying for a car to run them over. She looked at the bright light of the car coming towards her, and in that moment, her mind slipped into flashes of fire burning in a house, screams, smoke. Her parents had perished in that fire. Everything else had been taken by the world. Now it wanted Mason too.
The car came closer, and still, she did not move.
It was a black Maybach.
A tall man stepped out of the car, he had a sharp jawline, eyes so cold and dressed in black-onblack suits and pants.
Nina didn’t flinch like she saw someone standing there, she looked so lifeless and pale, she just kept rocking her unconscious Mason.
“Jesus Christ,” the man muttered to himself, stepping closer. “I almost ran you over. Are you looking for someone to get you killed?”
She didn’t answer.
He screamed at Nina,”I asked you a f*****g question”,
The man glanced through and saw Mason’s little almost lifeless body, he was trying so hard to breathe.
“Get up. Let’s take your son to the hospital,” he said. There was no one on earth that could disobey his commanding voice, not even Nina
By the time they arrived at the entrance of the hospital, Nina fainted.
A dim light burned over her face. The smell of pills clawed at her nostrils. Nina blinked to find her self lying on a hospital bed feeling warm with the dry scrubs that replaced her soaked clothes she had on before.
She sat upright, panic overtaking her. “Mason! Where is my little boy?” she cried out.
A nurse rushed in. “He’s alive. He’s in the pediatric ICU and receiving treatment. The man who brought you in is covering the cost, even though he said he didn’t hit you, just that you were trying to take your life, and that of your baby. You could be jailed for that. But you’re lucky… he’s paying the bills.”
Nina’s eyes opened wide, . “Who is he?” she asked softly with fear on her face.
The nurse looked at her, stunned. “You really don’t know?”
Nina shook her head.
“That was David Moore,” the nurse said. “CEO of Moore Enterprises. A multi-billionaire. He’s on the hospital board.”
Nina never believed in luck. Not after what she’d been through. She knew everything came with a price. She needed to know why this man did what he did and more importantly, what he wanted in return.
David poured himself a glass of cognac as he stood at the center of his room, the largest room in the Moore Mansion
His thoughts kept circling back to her , the pale woman in the rain, the lifeless way she stood there, holding a child like he was her last thread of existence.
“Something about her disturbs me,” he said to himself.
Then he downed the glass and poured another.
Footsteps approached David’s room.
“You came home late,” Evelyn Moore said as she walked towards her son.
David didn’t look at his mother’s face. “I almost killed a mother and her dying son tonight.”
Evelyn, with irritation on her face, asked, “What did you do?”
“I took them to the family hospital and paid for everything.”
Evelyn got angry. “David, this country has so many poor people who want to die since they can’t afford anything while living. So they want a rich person to run them over so they can be buried well at least. You can’t keep helping them all.”
“I wasn’t trying to save her ass,” he said bitterly. “I don’t even know why I did it.”
She placed her hands with neatly painted red nails on his shoulder. “You are becoming too emotional like your father. You need to sit up, you own a f*****g empire,” Evelyn screamed at her son.
David’s face tightened.
“She is probably a dangerous lowlife. Whatever you feel, let it go, boy!!!” Evelyn said as she banged the door behind her.
Nina gently touched the ICU window's glass with her palm. Nina looked at her son with so much pain in her eyes.
“My baby , you will be healthy again ,” she said to herself in a murmur. “Please get up for mummy, I miss you.”
As she rested her forehead against the glass, Nina whispered, “Why would a man like that save someone like me?”
Behind her, a nurse passed quickly and whispered to another:
“She has no idea who he really is, does she?”
At this point Nina knew she was going to pay a price.
