Mine to Keep

by Rhenna Morgan

  “Probably from the Dusty Dog,” Bonnie added. She looked up at Roman. “Seriously, I don’t see what the harm is. If she knows something about my brother, then I’ve got to talk to her.”

  “And risk your safety?”

  “Did you see her?” Bonnie fired back. “She weighs barely over a hundred and has zero muscle. I’m pretty sure I could take her if it came to that.”

  “And what if it is a trap?” The question came from Sergei, calmly sitting in his chair at the other end of the room with one leg crossed over the other. Unlike the passion she’d put behind her own words, his were deceptively calm. “What if someone put her up to drawing you out?”

  “Who?”

  His gaze stayed locked on hers, deadly serious. “Whoever has your family.”

  A kick to the gut couldn’t have hurt any worse. Couldn’t have sucked the air out of her lungs with any greater efficiency.

  Roman crouched in front of her and lowered his voice. “They tried to get you once. You have been under protection ever since. If they want another chance, they know they’ll have to draw you out.”

  “But with Jennette? How would they know she and Kevin had a thing?”

  “Maybe Kevin gave them her name,” Cassie said.

  Not taking his eyes off her, Roman added, “Or they saw her when she came to your father’s house.”

  Completely out of nowhere, Kir cut into the conversation. “What day were they taken?”

  So caught off guard by the question, it took a whole lot of redirecting mental resources and finger counting before Bonnie wrangled an answer. “Monday. January 20th.”

  Kir looked up from the screen. “Do you remember anything happening two days before that?”

  “Umm...that’s a Saturday, right? So, I’d have been working at the bar. I didn’t see Kevin that night.”

  Motioning to the laptop, Kir said, “That is the day the partition was created and the data added.”

  Bonnie frowned. She never used her computer at work. She never had the time and...wait a minute. “I didn’t have my computer that night. I loaned it to Kevin about three days before that. I guess that would have been around the 14th or 15th.”

  “He asked for it?” Cassie asked.

  “Yeah. He’s always trying to figure out how to make an easy buck, and he wanted to give writing app front ends a go. He said it’s a lot easier when you’ve got a Mac. He gave it back to me the day they disappeared.”

  Kir looked to Roman, who slowly straightened to his full height. Then to Sergei.

  Sergei nodded. “Figure out what the data is and who it’s tied to. Whoever has her family will be at the other end of the thread.”

  “Can we do that?” Bonnie said.

  Not taking his eyes off the laptop, Kir typed something and nodded his head.

  “How long will it take?”

  Sighing, Kir reclined against his seat back and shook his head. “It is hard to say. If these are account numbers as I suspect, we can run traces, but the process can be unpredictable.”

  Bonnie stood. “Then we go see Jennette in the meantime.”

  “No,” Roman said. “They want you. Or the computer. We will wait and let Kir find the connection.”

  “Knox could help us, too,” Evie offered. “Add some firepower to see if we can get there faster.”

  “Seriously?” Bonnie let her gaze linger on every person in the room. “You’re telling me any of you would be satisfied with sitting around waiting for some techno geniuses to connect the dots if you could talk to a person who says they have information now? I don’t buy it. Not for a second.” She glared up at Roman. “Least of all you. You’d be gone already, armed to the teeth like Rambo and snarling the whole way there.”

  Roman stared down at her, his lips pressed together so tight they were white. She was right, and he knew it, even if he couldn’t pry his mouth apart enough to admit it.

  She nodded. “Good. Glad you’re at least man enough to own it. Now, are you going to help me figure out how to visit Jennette and be safe about it? Or would you rather close your eyes, count to ten and give me a head start?”

  A low frightening sound rumbled from his chest and the tension in his neck and shoulders looked downright painful. Behind his eyes, it sure looked like he was scavenging for any last-ditch reasoning to talk her out of what she wanted. About a half minute later, he dipped his head in a terse nod, then faced Sergei and Kir. “Call Knox. Add whoever we can to trace the accounts faster. Then—we plan.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Roman didn’t like this. At all. It was a fool’s errand. Both his head and his gut acknowledged it as such, but there was no reasoning with passion, and his woman had a wealth of it. Her family might have caused her much pain, disappointment and frustration in her lifetime, but they were hers and she was ready to protect them as such.

  She’d been right to call him out. Had used the one argument he had no hope or right in arguing against. Then she’d followed it with good sense and allowed Roman, Kir and Sergei time to plan for as many eventualities as possible.

  He couldn’t have guaranteed he’d have shown the same reason had the situation been reversed. No one would ever touch his family.

  God help the fool who tried.

  In the passenger seat beside him, Bonnie stared out the windshield, eerily still and keenly focused. They’d taken every precaution. Fitted her in a Kevlar vest. Added a tracking device to her jacket and given her a wireless headset so that they could communicate with her once she disappeared from sight. Men had scouted the building inside and out and found no signs of suspicious activities. And while Bonnie would go in alone, two other men Jennette wouldn’t recognize would go in before her under the guise of making purchases.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  And short of blindfolding her, tying her hands and locking her in a room, he was powerless to do anything else to protect her.

  He parked parallel on the street and left his wheels turned for a fast escape. “I will ask you one last time—reconsider. If not for me, then for your brother and your father. They might not do things the way you want them to, but they would not want to live with your life on their hands.”

  And I cannot fathom a life without you in it.

  She twisted her head enough to meet his stare, and from the pain in her eyes, it looked as though she’d intuited his unspoken thought. “If this is the wrong move, then it’s on me. Not them.” She paused a beat and softened her voice. “And not you either.”

  Ah, but it would be. He’d never once ignored his instincts, and everything in him told him to put his truck in drive and leave right now, whether she liked it or not.

  She put her hand on the handle, ready to open it.

  “Wait,” he said before she could. He turned off the engine and unbuckled his seat belt. “She said she wanted to talk to you alone. She did not say I could not walk you in.”

  “Roman—”

  “No. This is non-negotiable. I will wait outside. She will not see me, but I will still be close if you need me.”

  Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it seemed her expression softened enough to show gratitude. She sighed on a heavy exhale. “I’m stubborn. Not stupid. So, okay. Just stay out of sight so she doesn’t freak out and clam up.”

  At a little after four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, the traffic on St. Thomas Street was steady, but not as busy as it would be in another four or five hours. The parking lot the frozen yogurt shop shared with other businesses sat like a dead-end alley between two buildings, most of the spaces full save for a handful.

  “Remember,” Roman said low enough so his voice wouldn’t carry. “Move quickly. Ask your questions and get out. Do not let her take you anywhere. Stay in plain sight. Preferably at the counter.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  They headed
toward the building, the gun hidden in the holster beneath Roman’s jacket a welcome weight. Bright blue skies stretched overhead, but the sun was less than half an hour from sinking behind the building at the far end of the parking lot and casting them all in shadows.

  A dark gray 4Runner pulled into the U-shaped parking lot, moving slowly. A man sat behind the wheel. Younger. Early to mid-twenties. He seemed relaxed and focused on finding a parking spot.

  Roman put himself between the buildings on their left and the cars on his right.

  The 4Runner slowed and signaled for a spot.

  Behind them another car pulled in.

  No, not a car. The Froyo van with its ridiculous logo of a frozen yogurt cone dressed up like a Brazilian dancer.

  Forty more feet at most and she’d be inside. The back exit was covered by Kir and Sergei. He’d have the front.

  Just ahead of them, the Froyo van had no choice but to stop, waiting for the 4Runner to get its awaited spot.

  Two more steps and a gunshot rang out. High and on his right.

  Roman spun toward the sound and pulled his firearm, keeping his body in front of Bonnie. The sun slanted across the parking lot, blinding him from the shooter.

  A car door slammed.

  Another gunshot.

  Roman urged Bonnie back toward the street, but a brown sedan whipped into the parking lot and blocked them in.

  The Froyo van door opened.

  And just like that four men were on him. He landed a shot to the first man’s leg. A second to another man’s shoulder. Before he could fire a third, one of their attackers kicked his gun from his hand.

  Footsteps sounded on the asphalt. Either his men closing in or more enemies to replace the others. He couldn’t stop to evaluate. Could only keep himself between Bonnie and his adversaries and fight for all he was worth.

  Bonnie shouted behind him. “No!”

  He whirled on instinct, ready to engage—but caught the butt of a shotgun to the temple.

  Everything stopped. Rattled and echoed in what seemed like slow motion as the world tilted and his body slammed against the pavement.

  And then, there was nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bonnie leaned against the hotel bed’s padded headboard, re-crossed her ankles atop the thick down comforter beneath her and crossed her arms over her chest. She hated sitting still. Hated any form of idleness. But having absolutely nothing to do but pretend the four-star digs around her weren’t a prison cell and stare at a hotel television was brutal. Especially, with the awful reruns that played at five o’clock in the morning.

  Not that she’d been able to really watch anything. Her thoughts were too tied up in how Roman was. On the dazed and pained look on his face as he’d fallen to the pavement and imagining how furious he’d be when he woke up.

  You mean if he wakes up.

  No. She couldn’t think about that possibility. He would wake up. Roman was made of tough stuff. If nothing else, he’d come to and find her just to give her hell for insisting on talking to Jennette.

  Jennette.

  “Hmmph,” she scoffed to the room at large.

  The guard sitting in the chair just inside her door cocked an eyebrow at her like she was nuts.

  Bonnie didn’t care. Jennette had set them up. Had all but confessed as much when she’d begged and pleaded with the guys who’d thrown her in the van behind Bonnie, screaming that she’d made a deal with someone named Rossi. What that deal entailed, Bonnie had no clue. What she did know was that Jennette hadn’t been hauled into the hotel with Bonnie, so if she was still breathing at this point, it would be a miracle.

  Served the bitch right.

  She uncrossed her ankles then crossed them the other way. Fuck but it was cold in here. The first thing the jerks who’d nabbed her had done was scan her for tracking devices, leaving her sans one jacket. The headset had been jerked out of her ear and tossed out the window, too.

  “You should sleep,” her guard said. He wasn’t a big guy—at least not compared to Roman—but Bonnie wasn’t about to fuck with him either. Pure evil shone behind his black eyes, the effect made more prominent by the sharp edges of his cheeks, nose and jaw.

  Bonnie shook her head and slunked a little lower against the headboard. “Like that’s gonna happen.” She rolled her head to meet his stare. “You seriously think I’m gonna strip and get all cozy under the covers while some crazy dude who snatched me off the street watches?” She scoffed again and focused on the television. “Fat fucking chance.”

  In her periphery, the guard shrugged. “Up to you.”

  Up to you.

  What kind of bullshit answer was that, anyway? She cocked her head and looked at him again. “Where the hell’s my brother and my dad? I know you’ve got ’em, so I wanna see ’em.”

  The man gave her the same creepy smirk he’d aimed at her after her last four tirades. “In case it’s escaped your attention, Miss Drummond. You’re not in a position to demand anything. You’re comfortable. You have food. Protection. You should consider yourself lucky.”

  Lucky.

  If she could find something with a sharp point or a cutting edge on it, she’d show him lucky.

  Asshole.

  She focused on her breathing.

  One slow, long inhale.

  One long exhale.

  Everything would be okay. Roman would find her. Even without the tracking device. He was crafty. Tenacious.

  Assuming he was okay.

  God, would he hate her after this?

  Well, I hate you now, her conscience said. Why the hell didn’t you listen to him?

  A good question. A solid one actually. Roman had been dealing with bad guys the vast majority of his life. He’d tried to tell her not to fall for it, but nooooo. She just had to get up in the middle of his giving a shit and have her say.

  Bad. Freaking. Idea.

  She huffed out a sharp breath. What the hell. She’d made it this long giving the jerk by the door all kinds of grief. One more round wouldn’t hurt. “Hey. Mean dude.”

  Her guard met her stare, but kept his silence.

  “Where’s your boss? Rossi or whatever his name is.”

  Her guard’s eyes narrowed to menacing slits and his voice dropped to an eerie pitch. “You would be wise to forget that name. Jennette should have as well.” He paused all of one heartbeat. “She’ll pay for sharing it.”

  Not good.

  Not good at all.

  Still, Bonnie kept her face impassive the same way she would facing down a bar fight about to erupt. “Whatever. I don’t care what his name is, but I wanna talk to him. Now.”

  Surprise flared on his face. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. And I want him to bring my family with him. If he’s gonna keep me against my will, the least he can do is show his pansy ass and give me some damned answers.”

  The man’s mouth twitched, but he pulled his phone from his pant pocket. “You’ve got a lot of fire, Miss Drummond. You’d better hope you don’t end up burned.”

  He typed something on his screen, then seemed to do a good two or three minutes’ worth of texting someone before tucking the phone back in his pocket.

  “Well?” Bonnie said.

  “Don’t push your luck. Maybe you could be smart instead and use your spare time to pray.”

  Yep. Definitely an asshole. If Roman did manage to find her, she was gonna ask if he’d be up for letting her get a few punches in before he gutted the dude.

  She sighed and waited.

  And worried.

  And yeah, she threw a few prayers in, too. Not that she figured God was in much of a mind to help her at this point. He’d given her a homerun lottery introducing her to Roman and Cassie and everyone else in their family, and look what she’d done with it.

&nb
sp; Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  The six o’clock morning news came on.

  Then the seven o’clock edition.

  Not a single word about the incident yesterday afternoon was reported. Actually, nothing of interest was reported—which was really saying something for New Orleans on a Sunday morning. Usually, someone somewhere got up to no good over the weekend.

  But today it was all fluff. An agricultural story. A tour of a local art gallery. A freaking cooking segment.

  Suddenly, the guard stood. He moved his chair a good three feet from the door then braced his feet hip width apart and clasped his hands loosely in front of him.

  “What’s going on?” Bonnie stood as well, her joints and muscles aching from the fight she’d given her captors the day before and the lack of movement all night.

  The guard ignored her, his blank stare locked onto the thick red curtains drawn over the windows.

  A click sounded on the room’s lock a second before it opened. Another of the men who’d taken her walked through first, holding the door ajar. Two more stood on either side of the jam in the hallway, each of them mirroring the same alert, yet impassive posture as the asshole who’d watched her all night.

  A second later, Kevin stumbled through the door as though someone had pushed him. “All right! All right!” he barked back at them, clearly not registering Bonnie’s presence. Not a big shock though, considering what his face looked like. It was more black, blue and green than it was white, and a few scabbed over cuts marked one cheekbone and the side of his mouth.

  “Kevin...” She hurried to him, but stopped on a harsh gasp when two guards half carried, half frog-marched her father in. They set him on the end of the closest double bed and retreated to the hall without a word.

  “Dad!” She steadied him with a grip on his shoulders and twisted to Kevin. “Jesus Christ, you both look like shit.”

  A new man she’d never seen before strolled through the door and the guards pulled it shut behind him. “This is what happens when people don’t cooperate with me, Miss Drummond.”

  Great. Another smug asshole. Just what she needed.