Lucan (Steele Protectors 6)

by Carole Mortimer

  He scowled at the sudden change of subject. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but yes, I do need to wear them. I’m almost blind in one eye but can’t wear contact lenses. The glasses help compensate for some of that sight loss.”

  “How did it happen?”

  His nostrils flared. “As I said, that’s none of your fucking business.”

  Becca knew she was just wasting time, mainly because she was giving her brain time to catch up with her emotions. Bianca had betrayed her, and Silva was somewhere in London looking for her. Talking about something completely unrelated to either of those things was the only thing stopping Becca from screaming.

  She shrugged. “It is my business if you want me to go with you without a fuss.” There were plenty of people out on the streets, either on their way to or from their lunchbreak, she could ask for help.

  Those dark eyes narrowed. “Do I have your word you’ll then accompany me without making a scene?”

  Becca mulled that over for several seconds, at the end of which she decided that giving her word to a man whose intention was to kidnap her if she didn’t cooperate, wasn’t in the least binding. “What does the little wife you keep at home think of you abducting random women off the street?”

  “For one thing, I’m not married, or engaged, or even dating, so there’s no one ‘at home’ to think anything in regard to my actions. For another, I escorted you from your place of work. And there is nothing random about it,” he assured impatiently. “Now do I have your word?”

  She grimaced. “You do.”

  He nodded tersely. “I was in the military until five years ago, having been taken prisoner in Afghanistan shortly before the English army withdrew. They kept me in a hole for six months, feeding me scraps and throwing down the occasional bottle of water. Just enough to keep me alive. They also enjoyed pissing on me when they felt like it, and laughing as they did it,” he recalled bitterly. “The only times they took me out of that hellhole was when they wanted to beat and torture the hell out of me.” A vein pulsed at his temple. “I now can’t stand confined spaces, and one of my eyes was seriously damaged during one of those torture sessions. After I escaped, that damage to my eye also meant I couldn’t return to active duty. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk, so I resigned and moved into the public workplace,” he added flatly.

  Well, that was a lot more than Becca had thought he would tell her.

  A lot more than she wanted to hear, as she imagined this arrogant and powerful man being forced to live like an animal in the ground for months.

  It was equally shocking to her how much that explanation, given with so little emotion, made her want to put her arms about Lucan’s waist and hug him.

  A hug she was pretty sure this man, who gave off such a don’t-even-think-about-touching-me vibe, would rebuff without hesitation.

  “How did you escape?” she prompted huskily instead.

  He shrugged. “They got sloppy the longer they kept me prisoner, believing I was too weak to fight them. One day, I was able to kill the two guards who came to take me for another torture session. I was lucky enough to only have to walk and crawl for ten miles or so until I was picked up by a friendly patrol.”

  “Jesus…” Becca breathed. “How did you kill those two men?”

  His gaze was flat and unwavering. “I broke their necks.”

  Becca felt a cold shiver down the length of her spine. Not in horror at those deaths, but because of the way in which this man had been forced to live so inhumanely for six months, forcing him to return that cruelty with death.

  “It took months for me to recover from both the injuries and the months of captivity,” he continued harshly. “But once I was recovered enough and my brothers and I had all resigned from the army, we went off-grid and back to Afghanistan. We took every fucking member of that group out,” he added with satisfaction.

  Becca swallowed. “Wasn’t that illegal—” She broke off when she saw his mocking glare. “How many brothers do you have?” she asked instead.

  Lucan pulled himself back from those past memories to focus on Rebecca Shaw.

  He had been kept a prisoner for all those months, and during that time, no matter what they did to him, he had refused to tell his captors any more than his name, rank, and serial number.

  He hadn’t even known this woman existed until yesterday, and yet twenty minutes into talking to her, he was telling her things he hadn’t told anyone else. Even his brothers or the shrink the army provided.

  “Enough,” he answered her coldly.

  She quirked one blonde brow. “The person who owns my apartment building is named Rourke Steele. Any relation?”

  His jaw tightened. “One of my brothers, yes.”

  She looked taken aback. “That’s— I don’t understand. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence, considering the circumstances? I’ve lived there for the past nine months, since someone broke into my last apartment and I didn’t feel safe staying there anymore.”

  Lucan’s gaze sharpened. “Someone broke into your apartment?”

  Her mouth quirked. “I just said that.”

  “Did they take anything?”

  She shrugged. “Just trashed all the furniture and the few generic paintings I had hanging on the walls.”

  “But nothing personal?”

  Her expression grew guarded. “I don’t own anything personal.”

  “No family albums? Letters? Stuff you’ve kept from your childhood and school?”

  “No,” she bit out tersely. “I’ve noticed there are Steele apartment buildings all over the London skyline,” she continued to probe. “Six of them, according to the brochure I read.”

  “What brochure?”

  “It arrived in the mail a couple of days before the break-in,” Becca dismissed.

  As far as Lucan was aware, none of them had ever produced a brochure to advertise the exclusive apartments for rent in their totally secure buildings. They hadn’t needed to. All the apartments, in all six buildings, had been snapped up well before the opening five years ago. Tenants went and others moved in, of course, but there had still never been any brochure.

  Could all that have been Hailey, looking out for her little sister?

  Hailey came to work at Steele Protectors a year ago, and three months later, her little sister, albeit unknowingly, had moved into one of the Steele apartment buildings?

  Lucan was convinced the break-in at Becca’s last apartment, and the convenient timing of the brochure arriving to advertise the apartments in the Steele buildings, was too coincidental for it to have happened any other way than by Hailey’s hand.

  But again, he couldn’t tell Becca any of that without revealing that Hailey was actually Becca’s sister, Cassie.

  He fucking hated having his hands tied like this, and if the situation became life or death, he would have no choice but to out Hailey.

  “Does six apartment buildings mean there are six Steele brothers too, including you?” Becca pushed.

  His mouth twisted. “I believe my parents kept trying for a girl.”

  “Did they ever have one?”

  “After a fashion. They adopted one fifteen years ago,” he supplied at her puzzled expression. “I’ve told you enough for now,” he dismissed harshly as she seemed about to continue asking questions. “You said you would come with me quietly if I answered some of your questions,” he reminded.

  “I did, yes.”

  “Well?” he barked.

  Becca glanced again at the people hurrying by. Typically, they rarely even glanced at Becca or the man standing beside her, too caught up in their own thoughts or looking at their cell phone screen.

  Unfortunately, despite now having had it confirmed Ernesto Silva was out of prison, she still had no idea if Lucan was a friend or a foe. “One more question,” she insisted. “If you and your brothers are property owners, then what are you doing here, as you claim, trying to protect me from Silva?”

  “Be
cause once we were all out of the military and returned from Afghanistan, we decided to own and run our own security company. It’s called Steele Protectors.”

  Her frown deepened. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t someone have needed to hire your company for you to have been sent to protect me?”

  “Enough,” Lucan rasped. “I’m not answering another fucking one of your questions.” He lightly gripped her arm and began to walk briskly down the street, taking Becca with him. “But for the record,” he growled, “no one sends me anywhere!”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  He came to such an abrupt halt that the man walking behind them studying his cell phone screen almost walked into him. Lucan’s glare was enough to warn the guy against saying anything that might provoke any other response from him.

  He waited until the other man had continued on his way before looking at Becca from between narrowed lids. “What didn’t you understand about I’m not answering another fucking one of your questions?”

  Oh, Becca had understood him perfectly. She just wasn’t satisfied with the answers she had received so far. In fact, she felt as if his replies now posed more questions than answers.

  But she could be patient if necessary. For now. “Fine,” she agreed tersely.

  She balked slightly when, after walking for several more blocks, he suddenly veered down a side road before coming to an abrupt halt beside a black SUV. The brief flash of the lights told her he had unlocked it with a fob, before he reached out and opened the passenger door and turned to look at her expectantly.

  Becca glanced at the SUV. Not only did it look as solid as a tank, but the windows were tinted so that it was virtually impossible to see inside the vehicle. Meaning she wouldn’t be seen either once she climbed inside it.

  She frowned. “How did this get here?”

  He scowled. “I parked it here.”

  Becca inwardly celebrated the fact he seemed to have forgotten that minutes ago, he had told her not to ask him any more questions. “When? You were waiting outside my apartment building this morning—you know, the one that conveniently belongs to one of your brothers,” she added pointedly. “You took the same tube train here as me, and then you stood across the street from the museum all morning. How or when, precisely, did you park this SUV here?”

  Lucan realized this woman was going to need careful watching. Or rather, what he told her in future would need to be monitored. What else he told her, Lucan corrected irritably. Because he had already told this woman far too much. About himself and his family. And what he was doing here.

  “I parked it here around six o’clock this morning and then walked to your apartment,” he answered her.

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew it might become necessary to get you out of London quickly, and I needed the transport to be able to do it in.”

  “That’s what you’re doing right now, is it, getting me out of London?” she scorned.

  He nodded tersely. “Because, as I’ve told you, we believe your WP handler has been compromised, and we know Silva is in London looking for you.”

  “This ‘we’ is you and your brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  Did he hesitate before answering that question? Becca couldn’t be sure. For the past few minutes, she had been trying not to think about Lucan’s earlier statement about Bianca. Accepting that Ernesto Silva had been released from prison was hard enough but she had needed to give herself extra time to come to terms with even the idea that Bianca not only hadn’t informed her of that release, but that the other woman was no longer covering her back.

  There was no way Becca could continue to avoid facing those facts now Lucan had repeated the statement in his brisk no-bullshit manner.

  Meaning it was true, and Bianca really had betrayed her to the man who might feel, as Cassie was no longer here to punish, that he had a perfect right to kill Cassie’s sister instead out of revenge for his twin.

  When she first came to live in England, there had been regular weekly, then monthly phone calls to Bianca. But nowadays, she rarely contacted Bianca outside the regular six-month check-ins. Just knowing the other woman was there, that the system was in place to remove her if it became necessary, had allowed Becca to become comfortable in the life she had made for herself.

  To the point she had actually become complacent?

  No, Becca didn’t think she had done that. Spotting and then knowing Lucan Steele was following her this morning was surely proof of that. If she was guilty of anything, it was that she had relied too much on Bianca, as her handler, being the one person who would never betray her.

  Which it now seemed she had, by omission in regard to Ernesto Silva’s release, if nothing else.

  “Get in the car, Becca,” Lucan instructed, obviously out of patience with any further delays. “Do it now and voluntarily, or I can simply pick you up and put you in there myself,” he warned. “It’s your choice.”

  The words he had used certainly gave Becca no choice. Well, one word in particular.

  Oh, not his threat, but because of something else. Something that had hit her with the force of a blow.

  So much so she was too numbed for further argument as she climbed inside the SUV. Just as she had absolutely no fight left in her as she sat in the passenger seat and let Lucan Steele pull on and then fasten her seat belt before closing the door and going round to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  Becca was vaguely aware of him opening the door and getting in behind the wheel. Of his searching gaze on her for several seconds before he gave a shrug at her silence and started the engine and then expertly accelerated the vehicle out into the flow of London lunchtime traffic.

  She remained numbed as he drove, totally unaware of her surroundings.

  Because minutes ago, Lucan had called her Becca, and only her dead sister, Cassie, had ever shortened her name in that affectionate way.

  Chapter Four

  “Who are you?”

  Lucan had wondered how long the silence would last. Now he had his answer. Precisely as long as it took him to drive out of London and onto less busy country roads. “I told you—”

  “That your name is Lucan Steele. You don’t like confined spaces, and you’re almost blind in one eye, both because you were kept as prisoner in a hole in the ground. You have five brothers and an adopted sister. You and those five brothers individually own apartments building in and around London and also run a security company together called Steele Protectors. Did I miss anything?” she challenged.

  Not a fucking thing!

  What had Lucan been thinking, revealing all that to a woman he had known for a matter of minutes? All without receiving a single blow or a threat of coercion. What the hell sort of interrogator was he? An out-of-practice one, if he could so easily have revealed all that about himself and his family to a virtual stranger.

  A virtual stranger I react more viscerally to than I ever have to any other woman.

  When feeling under attack, Lucan knew it was best to attack right back. “As I’ve said, your name is really Rebecca Diana Snow. The middle name was your maternal grandmother’s.” He glanced at her before turning his gaze back to the road ahead. “Your parents were Randolph Edward Snow, US senator, and Ellen Elizabeth Snow. Both of them were shot and killed eight years ago, allegedly by an unknown gunman.” Because Lucan knew, from talking with Hailey, that she and the authorities knew exactly how the senator and his wife had died. “Your sister is Cassandra Ellen Snow,” he continued. “Eight years ago, she was kidnapped and held for ransom by four gunmen for six weeks. During her rescue, two of those gunmen were killed, one of them being Ernesto Silva’s twin brother. Ernesto promised retribution. Because of that threat, and you had no other relatives but your seventeen-year-old sister, you were put into Witness Protection and brought to London to live with foster parents Joan and David Reynolds. Joan was an old school friend of your mother’s. Your sister, Cassie—”

  �
�I repeat, who are you?” Becca demanded, her voice shaking with emotion.

  He scowled his displeasure. “I’ve already told you that.”

  “Then let me put it another way,” she snapped. “Tell me who hired you to get me out of London if it became necessary?”

  Fuck!

  He was no damned good at this verbal interaction stuff. Probably because he was usually the one demanding someone answer his questions and not the one answering them. It wasn’t helping that he found Becca’s quick mind and intelligence hot as fuck.

  Something he could no longer deny now the immediate danger was over and they were safely out of London and on their way to a safe house no one else knew about except Lucan. It was a remote cottage he enjoyed going to, but he’d have to sell it once this was all over, unfortunately. For the moment, he just wanted somewhere totally off-grid to keep Becca safe.

  Which, considering how he reacted to her, was going to be more difficult for him than he had realized. He never reacted to women in this visceral way, and he had no idea why this woman, in particular, was having such an effect on him.

  Oh, he wasn’t celibate by any means. At thirty-six, he’d had his share of hookups over the years. All of them to scratch an itch, and without the complication of any emotion other than a desire to satisfy that physical need.

  His awareness of Becca Snow didn’t feel anything like those past hookups.

  There was no denying Becca was physically beautiful, and that her body was willowy and sexy, but it was the intelligence shining in those bright green and long-lashed eyes that really did it for Lucan. He’d always been drawn to highly intelligent women. Unfortunately, the only reason women like that were usually attracted to a muscled bad-boy like him was to add another notch on their bedpost or pierce the unavailable vibe he gave off in spades.

  He doubted, if the attraction should turn out to be mutual, that Becca Snow would manage to see past the bad-boy image either.

  “No one hired me,” he answered honestly. He had actually volunteered for this job. This unexpected attraction he felt toward Becca Snow said it could turn out to be the most difficult assignment of his career, and that included his years in the military.