But just like the windows, getting to them wasn’t going to be easy with the whole tied to a chair thing happening.
Getting out of the chair was going to have to be her number-one priority. On TV, the way to get out of being tied to a chair was to tip it over and break it. She was pretty sure she’d seen Sydney Bristow on Alias do that very thing a time or two.
Of course, she was no Sydney Bristow. She could just as easily tip her chair over, crack her head open on the dirty cement floor, and bleed to death before anyone even knew she was here. That certainly wasn’t a very appealing idea.
But what choice did she have? Sit here and wait for Nik to come back? Who the hell knew what he had in store for her? For all she knew, he was planning to make her part of a woman suit he was stitching in his basement out of human skin, or wear her head around like a hat.
Damn you, Silence of the Lambs for putting shit like that in my head!
No, she had to get out of here before that happened.
Before she could analyze and overthink it too much (as she was prone to do), she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and threw all her weight to one side as hard as she could.
Every muscle in her body tightened, anticipating how much it was going to hurt to hit that concrete.
But the pain never came.
When she opened her eyes, her chair was once again upright, and she was eye-to-eye with her kidnapper.
The look he gave her was full of pity.
“I’m sorry, kotehok,” he said in that same soothing voice that had once turned her on. Now it just pissed her off. “I can’t let you do that. I’m afraid you’ll need to stay with me for a bit longer.”
Violet closed her eyes again and swallowed hard, wondering if a bit longer was a euphemism for until death do us part. The death being hers, of course.
Chapter Thirty
A few hours later, Seven, Lucas, Harper, Riddick, Benny, Mischa, and Hunter huddled around the conference room table at Harper Hall Investigations, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Lucas shoved his hands through his hair in frustration. “How can we not know where he’s holding her?” He threw Harper a sharp look. “You’re a psychic, for God’s sake. Can’t you figure it out?”
The look she lobbed back at him was equally sharp. “Yeah, sure. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll just look into my crystal ball and…oh, wait. My crystal ball is broken!” Her hands flew to her cheeks like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “What’ll we do now?”
He sighed. Yeah, he supposed he deserved that. He knew her power didn’t exactly work that way. Without something of the kidnapper’s to touch, Harper’s ability would do precious little to help them find Vi. But, in a desperate situation, reason often went right out the window.
Mischa shook her head, but didn’t look up from the Sentry file—which looked about a foot thick—she was digging through. “I don’t think sarcasm will help us in this situation, Harper.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Can’t hurt, either,” she grumbled.
Riddick stood up, moved behind his wife’s chair and laid his hands on her shoulders. To Seven, he said, “Are you sure about his designation, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “The only cleaner I knew who had a barcode on his forearm was designated 654590. He fit the description of the man Violet’s been dating.”
Seven was sitting next to Lucas with one arm wrapped around her stomach while her other hand was massaging her temple. She was the absolutely picture of guilt.
Well, fuck that, Lucas thought.
Lucas yanked her up out of her chair and pulled her down onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered in her ear before pressing a kiss to her temple. “We’ll get her back.”
She looked down at him for a moment like she might argue, but eventually, she nodded. He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding when she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his neck.
This is what coming home feels like, he realized. He’d wanted this for so long, and now, despite everything that was going on, home had finally fallen right into his lap. Quite literally, in fact.
And God help anyone or anything who tried to take her from him.
Lucas tightened his hold on Seven and let one of his hands drift up to tangle in her hair. She responded by wiggling even closer and letting out a deep, satisfied sigh. God, she felt so good. Smelled great, too. When this was all over and they had Vi back, the first he was going to do was take her home, toss her on the bed and not let her up again until…
Benny cleared his throat. Loudly.
When Lucas looked up and met his gaze, Benny said, “EHO, man.”
“What’s EHO?”
“Eye hard on,” Harper explained, gesturing to his eyes, which he was sure were blazing yellow, as they always did when he was angry, particularly stressed, or…turned on.
Well, shit.
Seven pulled back to see, and her softly whispered, “Wow, that looks even prettier in the daylight” did absolutely nothing to help the situation.
And that’s when he realized all work had stopped and he had everyone’s full attention.
Well…double shit.
Hunter’s expression remained politely impassive, but his wife looked like she was trying so hard to keep a laugh in that she might hurt herself. Harper gave him a wide smile and a not-at-all subtle thumbs up, while Benny hid a laugh—also not discreet—behind a cough.
Meanwhile, Riddick was looking at him in a cold, narrow-eyed, calculating way that made Lucas’s skin crawl. If he had to guess, he’d say Riddick was determining the most efficient way to separate his limbs from his body.
Lucas shrugged it all off, deciding that “well, fuck it” was going to be his new mantra. After all, that mantra was at least partially responsible for getting him here and getting this beautiful woman in his arms.
Mischa turned her attention back to the file and whistled. “Man, this dude has not had an easy life.”
Lucas frowned at her. “Can’t say I feel too sorry for him, seeing as he’s kidnapped our friend. None of us has had a particularly easy life and we haven’t kidnapped or shot at anyone.”
“No, I know that,” Mischa said. “But…still.”
“What’s his sob story?” Harper asked. “Maybe it’ll help us figure out why he’d take Vi and try and kill Seven.”
Mischa flipped through a couple more pages in the file. “Well, he was born in Russia. Mother and father were part of a Bratva, a Russian mafia family.”
“Like Viggo Mortenson in Eastern Promises?” Harper asked.
Lucas shook his head. Harper’s ability to relate any situation to television and movies was astounding. Not at all helpful, but astounding nonetheless. Playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with her was a real learning experience.
Mischa blinked at her. “Yeah, sure,” she said, clearly having no idea what Harper was talking about.
“Ooohhh, Naomi Watts was so hot in that,” Benny said.
And Benny’s ability to reduce any story down to the presence of hot women was, well, disturbing, really, and no more useful than Harper’s contributions to the conversation.
“As I was saying,” Mischa said in a tone as dry as day-old bread, “His family wanted out. Bratva’s aren’t real big on letting people out, so they killed them. Our guy had no other family and was sent to an orphanage when he was only a few years old. That’s where he got the bar code.”
Harper’s nose wrinkled up. “They branded him at an orphanage? I thought orphanages were run by nuns and missionaries and shit. You know, by people who actually want to help kids. What the fuck?”
“It’s not uncommon in some parts of the world,” Hunter murmured. “Especially not in orphanages that are really just a front for criminals looking to sell black market babies.”
“Ugh,” Benny muttered. “The world is just a fucking hotbed of sicko activi
ty, isn’t it?”
Truer words were never spoken.
“So, he was sold to Sentry?” Seven asked. “Like me?”
Lucas felt his jaw clench involuntarily. Hearing a word like “sold” in relation to the woman he loved made him feel homicidal.
“Yes,” Mischa said. “But it was much harder for him than it was for you.”
Lucas bristled at that. “What the hell, Mischa? She hasn’t had one easy thing in her life. I’m thinking your definition of easy must be fairly well fucked up.”
“You’ll watch your tone with my wife,” Hunter snapped.
The “or I’ll rip out your still-beating heart” was implied, not stated. Hunter was a vampire of few words, but he’d never really had any trouble making his feelings known.
Before Lucas could say anything to dig a deeper hole for himself, Seven pressed a kiss to his temple and leaned back to look him in the eye. His ire evaporated when she smiled at him. She was telling him, without saying a word, that she appreciated his support, but it was unnecessary.
Apparently Seven and Hunter subscribed to the same school of thought when it came to communication. Minimalists, both of them.
“Sorry, Mischa,” Lucas mumbled.
Mischa waved off his apology. “No worries. What I was trying to say is that, Seven, you were raised in the program. You didn’t really know anything else. So, you were pretty much the perfect Sentry employee. You took to their way of doing things easily. But our guy? He remembered what it was like to be in a family and be loved. He fought them every step of the way. Apparently, he was sent for reprogramming several times.”
“That can’t be good thing,” Benny said, then gave an exaggerated shudder.
“It’s not,” Mischa murmured. “It pretty much amounted to torture and brainwashing to break him.”
Lucas felt a shiver run through Seven, and he knew she was most likely remembering what torture and having someone try to break her felt like. He tightened his hold on her, hoping he could comfort her with his nearness like she comforted him.
Benny elbowed Harper and stage-whispered, “Is it wrong that I feel a little sorry for the kidnapper-slash-attempted murderer?”
Harper crossed her arms over her chest. “Well I do. God, I hate it when the bad guys make me feel sorry for them. That’s just not right.”
Riddick rolled his eyes. “I don’t care if they did all that to him and drowned his puppy. He kidnapped Vi and tried to kill my sister, so I don’t feel even a little bit sorry for the motherfucker. I say we find him and kill him.”
Now there was a plan Lucas could get behind. Who would’ve thought he’d end up agreeing with Riddick about anything?
Benny leaned over to Harper again. “You don’t really think they drowned his puppy, do you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Seems like something the Russian mafia or the sicko orphan-branding baby-sellers would do, you know?”
Benny nodded. “Word.”
“Is he…like me?” Seven asked quietly.
Lucas could’ve kissed her for bringing the conversation back on track and howled in outrage at the same time, because he heard the sympathy in her voice. She was feeling sorry for the dude who tried to kill her just like Harper and Benny were. If she had her way, Riddick’s “find him and kill him” plan—and had he mentioned how much he loved that plan?—was definitely in danger.
Mischa sighed. “I’m guessing so. It would certainly explain his record with Sentry. He was faster, stronger, and smarter than the other cleaners, just like you were. He was able to withstand reprogramming four times before breaking. Most didn’t survive the first.”
“Which would mean that when we find him,” Hunter said carefully, “his fate is in the hands of the Vampire Council, not the human police.”
Lucas and Riddick let out disgusted sighs in stereo. The “find him and kill him” plan was definitely off. Hunter was all about fair trials and unbiased evaluations before any actions were taken against a member of the paranormal community. Which was usually fine. It just wasn’t fine today.
Not when his wolf was ready to hunt.
“Oh!” Mischa cried out. “Here we go! Well, hello there, Nikolai Aleyev, otherwise known as Sentry cleaner designation 654590!”
And with a flourish, she pulled a picture out of the file and slapped it down in the middle of the table.
Finally, Lucas thought. Something they could use. He could scan this, run it through the federal database, see if facial recognition software could help them figure out what identity this guy might be using and where he might be. Then they could—
“Motherfucker!” Harper shouted, grabbing the photo off the table. “I know this guy!”
Riddick snatched the picture from her hand and scowled at it. “How do you know him? Is he a client or something? Someone you knew from Sentry?”
She let out a humorless laugh. “I wish. It’s much worse than that.”
A look crossed Harper’s face that Lucas had never seen on her before. She looked embarrassed.
Eventually, after a full minute of everyone watching her, waiting, she admitted, rather sheepishly, “I rented him the basement apartment a few months ago.”
Jesus Christ. He’d been right under their noses—quite literally—all along. “Son of a bitch!” Lucas blurted, slamming his hand down on the conference room table.
Harper let out a weak chuckle and gave the universal “Oops, my bad” shoulder shrug. “I know, right? I swear to God, he seemed really normal.”
“Babe,” Riddick said, shaking his head. “Did you run a background check?”
“I didn’t have to!” she said defensively. “I had my mother talk to him. She said he was a decent guy. Just…”
“Just what?” Lucas asked through gritted teeth.
Harper bit into her thumbnail and muttered, “She said he was a little emotionally…off, OK? She didn’t have much more to go on than that, but I didn’t think it was important because she said he was a decent guy! He called her ma’am, walked her to her car, and everything!”
“What did you think ‘a little emotionally off’ meant?” Mischa asked, incredulous.
“I don’t know. That he liked to dress up as a Smurf on the weekends and let German octogenarians spank him?” She threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know! Hell, ‘a little emotionally off’ could apply to any of us.”
Lucas had no reply to that. Couldn’t have come up with a reply if his life depended on it. Fortunately, Hunter put the conversation back on the rails. He said, “Let’s go check out his apartment. Harper, maybe you can pick up a vision from something of his. If not, Lucas, maybe you can trail him by scent.”
“Fucking finally,” Riddick grumbled. “A plan.”
Truer words, my monosyllabic douchebag friend. Truer words.
As they all piled into the elevator, Benny asked Harper, “Um…that bit about German old people spanking dudes dressed like Smurfs…you were just making that up, right? That’s not really a thing, is it?”
The look she shot him in response had them all suppressing a shudder.
Yep. So, pretty much all they’d established today is that Harper didn’t do thorough background checks before renting out parts of her building, and the world was a fucking hotbed of sicko activity.
Perfect. At least the day hadn’t been a total waste.
Chapter Thirty-One
Every bit of hostage negotiator training she’d ever had flew right out of Vi’s head as Nik knelt in front of her. Not that it really mattered. It’s not like any of the police department’s training covered what to do when you were the hostage.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, silently cursing her voice for trembling.
He looked her right in the eye, not an ounce of shiftiness or nervousness in his countenance—damn him—and said, “I need information about one of your patients.”
“I’m bound by doctor-patient confidentiality,” she answered on autopilot.
“I understand. But if one of your patients planned to hurt or kill someone, that doctor-patient confidentiality doesn’t apply. You’d be bound to tell the authorities, yes? Think of me as the authorities in this case.”
Damn him for sounding so reasonable. “If you suspected one of my patients of…wrongdoing why didn’t you just tell me in the first place? Why go through with the charade of dating me?” Of making me feel like a fool. Of making me actually believe you were a good guy, damn it. The good guy.
He at least had the grace to look a little ashamed of himself this time. “I never intended to lead you on or hurt you in any way, Violet.”
In the name of self-preservation, there were just a few things she was going to need to ignore, Violet decided. First of all, she was just going to have to ignore the way his thick, dark, slightly unruly hair fell across his brow while he spoke to her, and the way her fingers itched to smooth it back.
Stupid, self-destructive fingers.
The second thing she refused to notice was the way his rough, grumbly, lightly accented voice caressed each syllable of her name. And if she was to ever notice such a thing—against her will, of course—she would absolutely not find it sexy. Nope. Not. At. All. Sexy.
Finally, she was just going to have to ignore the sincerity shining in his pale green eyes when he said he’d never intended to hurt her. Because frankly, as she sat here tied to a chair, the words just didn’t ring true, no matter how beautifully they’d been delivered.
“And I couldn’t entirely rule out that you might be the intended target,” he added. “I had to make sure, and this was the only way I knew to get close to you.”
And get close he had. Close enough that she’d had her tongue down his throat.
Ugh. Yet another thing she was going to have to ignore: the fact that she’d kissed this man. And worst of all, she’d loved it and wanted more. Way more. Like, naked more.
“So, you think one of my patients could be trying to kill me,” she said, lowering her gaze and carefully erasing any hint of I don’t believe you, you freak show from her voice.
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