by AJ Nuest
“Charlie!” His shout echoed off the rafters in the front hall as he loped down the stairs two at a time to the bottom. But no answer came back except the uninterested drone of a late Tuesday morning, his heightened pulse and determined steps as he hurried toward the living room.
But she was here. She had to be. Probably ignoring the rule just like she had when she’d gone down into the garage with Trey.
Goddamn it, once Xander got his hands on her, he was gonna swat her ass for not listening. The stubborn woman knew better than to pull this shit.
Discarded carry-on lying on the floor. Toiletries strewn over the couch. No Charlie.
Fuck.
“Charlie!” Dread seized him in its icy grip as he raced toward Malcolm’s office. Empty. Striding for the bathroom, he straight-armed the door and the knob flew back, planting in the wall with a harsh crack of plaster.
No. Unacceptable. She had to be here. He’d only been upstairs, dammit.
A cold sweat broke over his skin. Asleep upstairs.
“Charlie!” The thump of his feet pounded through his head as he jogged for the library. Nothing. Pivoting on his heel, he sprinted for the kitchen, burst through the door and—
No. The mirror of his world splintered.
Broken dishes littered the floor. A silver butter knife spun a lazy circle on the stack of plates occupying the butcher block island. An open carton of eggs sat smashed on the counter, the yolks bleeding down the cabinets with a soft drip.
This couldn’t be happening. A loud whine screamed in his ears, and Xander shoved his hand into his hair. Goddamn it, this could not be happening!
Fear swirled in his chest, and he fisted the strands as the force gathered to an F5 typhoon that threatened to drop him to his knees. No, no, no! A roar blistered the lining of his throat. For Christ’s sake, he’d only been upstairs! What the fuck was happening?
Frigid air gusted across his shoulders, and he spun toward the back door as the hinges creaked.
The alarm winked at him with a green light, the operation fully functional.
Goddamn it! Another roar erupted behind his clenched teeth. How had they bypassed the security system? How in the hell had they known when to strike?
Muscles coiled, he darted a sharp glance around the room, looking for something—anything—that would explain a scene his mind was out-and-out refusing to accept.
She couldn’t be gone. She could not be gone!
His focus landed on the twirling knife, and he froze.
The screeching tires.
Son of a bitch, they’d only snatched her a few seconds ago.
He sprang for the back door, broken glass crunching under his feet. Gravel dug into his toes as he tore down the drive, arms pumping, lungs burning from the cold. Hitting the center of the street, he snapped his head left then right.
A set of tire tracks. He raced for south end of the block and dropped to one knee. Tacky under his fingers, leading west from the stop sign and disappearing down the adjacent road.
Springing to his feet, he twisted around, searching the neighboring houses and lawns. But there wasn’t one damn clue to where they’d headed after that.
No. His stomach cramped as he stared at the empty street. How was this possible? He’d lost her. He’d let his guard down for one fucking second and he’d lost her.
His entire body shook. Panic flooded his mouth with a metallic taint, and he spun to the side, pounding his forehead, trying like hell to get his brain to kick in.
Jesus, why? Every time he fell asleep he woke up to a worse fucking nightmare. He should’ve known better. Done whatever it took to stay awake. He’d promised to protect her and keep her safe, and he’d lost everything, everything because of one stupid mistake.
Shit…shit where did he start? Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head. He needed to think, dammit. Concentrate before too much time had lapsed. The first twelve hours in any missing persons case were critical.
Pitching forward, he braced his hands on his knees and fired off three rapid blinks at the asphalt, scrambling for any detail that would lead him in the right direction.
Okay, okay, who would be savvy enough to breach the security system and grab her right out from under his nose?
Ryan? The FBI?
He shoved to standing and clamped his hand on the back of his neck. Either of them could’ve done it. They both had the resources. But how was he supposed to—
The surveillance cameras.
He whirled toward the house and sprinted for the back door. Christ in Heaven, let whoever had grabbed her be caught on video. If they hadn’t cut the power to the grid. A strangled moan gurgled in his throat. Or found a way to disrupt the feed.
Kicking the door shut behind him, Xander tapped Eden’s number into his cell and slapped the phone to his ear. Whoever they were, the fuckers had made a catastrophic mistake. A dangerous growl built behind his breastbone as he surveyed the damage, looking for any sign that Charlie had been hurt. The smallest drop of blood, a single broken hair, and he’d spend the rest of his days making sure whoever had taken her expelled their last breath begging for death.
“Damn, dude, you have got the worst timing.”
Eden’s fiancé, thinking he was funny by yanking Xander’s chain. But he didn’t give two shits what he’d interrupted. Or whether or not the guy was a cop.
“It’s Charlie.” His airway constricted, and he closed his eyes, sucking air past the hard knot lodged in his throat. For fuck’s sake, he needed to get his shit together or she could be as good as dead! “She’s been kidnapped.”
A heavy silence whispered through the line. “When.”
Yes, thank Christ. A detail to help him focus. Keep him grounded and solidify the facts. Xander side-stepped the broken china and marched straight for the side door to Malcolm’s office. “Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”
“You get eyes on the perp?”
He flipped back the Renoir, tapped the code into the keypad and shouldered the safe room door. “I’m checking surveillance now.”
Static buzzed through the monitors, and Xander cursed, jabbing the button to rewind the feed. Kelly’s voice faded to the background as the video streaked backward from six different angles, the distorted buzz coming from the speakers amplified by the bare concrete walls.
One by one, the shots of the property reappeared, but Xander kept his thumb on the trigger until all six monitors were live. Timestamp 11:07 AM, he jabbed play and stood back, his focus darting from screen to screen as he tried to pinpoint any movement, any unnatural shifts in the bushes or trees.
The first camera winked out, and he tensed, stepping forward. Three minutes later, the next cut to static and so on down the line until nothing but a wall of white noise washed his face.
Dammit. He ground his teeth, shoulders hunched. The assholes had known exactly how and where to strike.
“I got nothing.” He turned away and jammed his thumb and index finger into his eye sockets. “Whoever did this knew what they were doing. Nothing on surveillance and the back door was wide open, but the alarm never triggered.”
Shock drenched him in another round of cold sweat, and he doubled over as a wave of vertigo threatened to slam him to the floor. “God, fuck, I can’t think straight.”
“Just hold tight. We’re on the first flight back. Eden’s got Archer on the horn, and he’s heading over as soon as they hang up.”
Jesus, no. Xander straightened and raked his hand through his hair. The last complication Charlie needed was a bunch of cops catching wind of how she’d gotten involved with Ryan in the first place. If they found out she’d broken into his place and stolen his shit, next thing they knew, she’d be cuffed and brought up on felony charges for breaking and entering. “I can’t have the police involved. Bringing them in will only make everything worse.”
But there was definitely one door Xander was gonna pound on until he got some answers. He
grabbed the cord to Ryan’s laptop, crammed it in the outlet and fired up the device.
“You can trust Archer. I guarantee he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
Like that was supposed to reassure him.
“You’re not hearing me. The line is too thin.” Bracing his phone between his shoulder and ear, Xander logged onto his private server and pulled up his email, opened a new window and downloaded his modified search engine onto the drive.
Kelly sighed. “Think of it this way. Would Eden go anywhere near Archer unless she was one hundred percent convinced he was a stand-up guy?”
Good point. For her to place that call meant she had a shit ton of faith in Archer’s abilities. Enough, she’d thought it a solid decision to immediately pick up the phone to ask for his help. “I don’t need to warn you what’ll happen if you or any of your police buddies fuck me over?”
Kelly grunted. “You’re not the one I’m worried about.”
Smart man with another good point. A cut and paste of the email addy for his contact at the Justice Department, and Xander punched enter. If Eden’s fiancé planned to be standing on his own two feet once she joined him down the aisle, he’d be wise to play it straight where her friends were concerned.
“Get him here.” The search bar loaded, and Xander stood back from the keyboard as Special Agent in Charge, Elias Byrne popped up on the screen. Several phone numbers were listed, and he fed each one into his reverse tracking software to locate Byrne’s private cell. “And tell Archer to slap a lid on anything he hears. I’m calling in a favor with the Feds.”
* * * *
Charlie’s butt was slammed into the frozen seat of a metal chair. A rough hand seized her hair, and pain shot through her neck as her head was wrenched back.
Dammit. She tightened her jaw around the filthy rag stuffed in her mouth, wiggled her fingers and tried to bring some life back into her dead hands.
The sharp edge of a zip tie sliced her wrists, and she winced as warmth spread and the binding grew slick.
Shit. Of the ones she’d been able to count, that had to make the third time she’d cut herself in the past ten minutes. Not that losing a little blood was any big deal. It wasn’t like she could feel the damage. And once she did, chances were good, nursing a few small scratches was gonna be child’s play compared to the penetrating ache radiating through her shoulders, stuck in the same awkward angle ever since she’d been hooded and tossed inside that reeking trunk.
A metallic clang echoed in front of her, and she started, nostrils flared to pull as much air through the black bag covering her eyes as she could.
She should’ve known this was coming.
Shivers wracked her body. Her knees knocked. Believing she was safe at Malcolm’s had to be one of the dumbest mistakes she’d ever made. A sharp click, and she breathed a sigh of relief as heat bathed her chest through the thin material of Xander’s shirt.
From the very beginning, she should’ve tried harder to explain what they were up against. Should’ve just set aside the crap from her past so she and Xander could concentrate on identifying her stalkers. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been given more than enough chances to stop this from happening. For God’s sake, how long did she think they would wait?
A constant drip trickled on her left, and she fumbled around for the legs of the chair, propping her heels out of the frigid water. Those first few minutes the vehicle had screamed away from the manor, she’d tried to mark the seconds. To pay attention and keep track of the turns. But two corners in, and she’d been working so hard to keep from slamming back and forth against the spare tire, she hadn’t had the energy to focus on anything else.
By the time they’d popped the lid and hauled her out of the back, she had no clue where they’d taken her, and was so frickin’ dizzy from breathing exhaust, she couldn’t guess if they’d traveled ten minutes or an hour.
The only thing she knew for certain, was the vehicle they’d used to transport her was not a black SUV.
God, Xander had to be half-crazy with worry by now.
A rusty hinge squeaked. Muffled voices neared under the scrape of a chair being dragged across the concrete floor.
But inside the hostage hood, the sounds faded to a meaningless consequence as an image of the man she’d grown to adore all over again swam into view.
Xander sprawled on the mattress in his bedroom, finally getting some well-deserved sleep. His thick hair slanted in a hundred different directions from the way she’d tugged and twisted the strands. Kissing her hand on the plane. The light in his eyes every time he looked at her. Leaving the bathroom in nothing but a towel only so he could give her the best damn night of her life.
She should’ve woken him before heading downstairs to make breakfast, not used her training to sneak out of his room like she toted a load of stolen merchandise on her back. But he’d spent so many nights wide awake because of her, she simply hadn’t been able to do it.
A tear formed in the corner of her eye. Her heart sank, and she bit her bottom lip as the bloated drop tumbled and slid past her nose. So help her God, if they’d hurt him… If they’d harmed him in any way, she’d make it her life’s ambition to bring every single one of them to their knees.
The only thing he’d ever wanted was to watch out for her. To love her like no one else had. And in exchange, she’d handed him this.
Torment. Fear and anguish.
A horrible ordeal filled with nothing but questions and the worst kind of monsters imaginable.
The bag was ripped off her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut against four hundred watts of a retina-singeing Halogen light bulb. Shock rocked her back in the seat as the duct tape slashed a strip of agony across her mouth. Her stomach clenched against the lingering sting, and she hunched forward, legs shaking in an uncontrollable bounce.
A surge of ice-cold water doused her face, and she gasped through her nose, choking and sputtering. Shit! Icy rivulets spilled between her breasts, forming a chilly pool under her butt. God, that sucked. A violent tremor cramped her limbs, and she nearly tumbled sideways onto the floor.
Oh, yeah. She was taking them down, all right. Starting with the asshole who’d pulled that move. She puffed the wadded rag onto her lap. The second she figured out how to free her hands, he was first.
“Good afternoon, Ms. McGovern. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to finally have you with us in person.”
The voice droned like a cheap knock-off of Darth Vader and, for a brief lapse, Charlie thought maybe the water had plugged her ears.
But it was voice-altering software. Coming from directly in front of her. And whoever was using it had taken the added precaution of sitting far enough behind the light she couldn’t make out any recognizable traits.
“Where are her pants? Looking at her like that is making me sick.”
“She wasn’t wearing any.” Second voice. Off to her right. A man with a slight southern accent. “You paid me to get her here and make sure she cooperates. You never said anything about what she was wearing.”
A tired sigh from out front. “Live and learn, I guess. My apologies, Ms. McGovern. Next time I hire someone with my associate’s skill set, I’ll make a note there’s no thinking outside the box.”
Based on the smarmy politicians he’d invited into his camp, that sounded exactly like something Thomas Ryan might say. Now if she could just get a clear shot at his face to be sure.
“K-k-kiss m-my ass.” The words stuttered from her lips between another set of bone-jarring shivers. “Apology n-not accepted.”
An ear-ringing smack snapped her head left. Cheek hot, the skin tight, Charlie slowly swiveled her face right and curled a calculating smile into the darkness.
Cooperate, huh? Too bad the prick who’d slapped her hadn’t done his homework. It was gonna take a little more than that to get what they were after.
She was used to being hit.
“Oh, I lo
ve that sound.” Chair legs screeched, and the shadow of a head rose over the square metal grate caging the bulb.
Tall, but not like Xander. A few inches over Charlie’s five-foot-five. That was, if she discarded the outline of the baseball cap covering her kidnapper’s hair.
“There’s nothing like a good, hard slap to bring someone to their knees.”
The narrow shoulders and trim build matched square with the pictures she’d seen of Ryan, but she’d never laid eyes on him in real life. Didn’t know how tall he was or whether he was partial to doling out abuse. “L-l-like ’em s-s-submissive, huh?”
Another open-handed smack, and Charlie braced, gritting her teeth until the stars showering through her vision morphed into a thousand tiny pinpricks that smarted her cheek.
“I thought you said we needed to move fast.” Clothes rustled on her right. “Give me a couple hours alone with her. I’ll make her miserable enough, she’ll give up whatever you need.”
Only one thing wrong with that statement. Charlie licked a salty drop of blood off the corner of her mouth. They were way too late.
Stealing her away from Xander hurt worse than anything they could do to her in this room.
Another weird mechanical sigh from out front. “You have information I need, Ms. McGovern. Information I’m fully prepared to let my associate use whatever means necessary to learn. So, before this goes any further, I’m hoping you’ll just spare us all the trouble and tell me what you’ve done with the formula.”
Wow. What kind of rocks did these morons think she had in her head? No one but Xander knew she’d broken in to Ryan’s condo. Well, him and, apparently, the two other people in this room. And even if he asked Eden for help, there was no guarantee they would find her in time to make a difference.
But that didn’t mean Charlie should automatically ignore any opportunity she had to offer her friends as much leeway as possible. And it certainly didn’t mean she should ruin any chance she might get at breaking out of this hellhole on her own.
Knowing where the formula was hidden was the one piece of leverage she had in her arsenal. If she blurted where Xander had stashed it, she’d be worthless. A liability. She wasn’t about to put him in that kind of danger any more than she was ready give these people good reason to kill her and do God only knew what with her body. “G-go to h-h-hell.”