Not only did the shield locate Imani but he was also able to listen in on her conversation with Lippman. He gave his pilot the location and spent the hour-long flight to Miami listening to Imani needle Lippman.
“You went to a lot of trouble to speak to me, Mr. Lippman,” Imani told him in an almost bored voice. “And yet you waste my time asking about a woman I don’t know. Does this woman even exist?”
“Don’t play games with me, Ms. St. John,” Lippman growled impatiently. “We all know that you and Jane are one and the same.”
“Oh, you know this, do you? And how could you possibly know something that’s physically impossible to achieve?” Imani smirked. “I assure you that there’s only one Imani St. John.”
“Cut the shit, Imani,” Lippman hissed. “Your name is Imani, but your surname is not St. John.”
“Well damn! You mean I don’t know my own name?” Imani chuckled.
“You find this amusing, Imani?”
“Very. You’re the typical man fumbling around in the dark to find his own dick.”
“Is that what happened with Ragnarson? He can’t find his dick to please his young wife?”
Imani laughed, clearly enjoying herself. “I assure you, that one knows where every eleven inches of his cock are at all time.”
Colt heard some snickers in the background. He shook his head at Imani’s arrogance. She was treating Lippman as though he were the one captured. And that dipshit Lippman had no idea that she was doing it.
“Lippman, when are you going to tell me what the hell it is that you want?”
“I am General Lippman! General!”
“Oh, my bad.”
Colt heard the amusement in Imani’s voice
“You don’t look like you’ve ever been a soldier. Real hard to see with all of that fat and all.”
“Careful, young lady. Your insolence will not be tolerated.
“Are you going to tell me what you want, Lippman? I mean, general?”
“You know what we want.” Lippman sounded frustrated.
Imani laughed again.
“Actually, no, I don’t. And exactly who is we? I only see your weak ass here. Where’s your partner?”
“We have ways to make you give us what we want, Imani,” Lippman bit out. He was clearly not amused.
“You do? You’re phenomenal, Lippman. I had no idea you’re a miracle worker, superhuman even.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Lippman muttered impatiently. “We need those weapons you created for Colonel Ragnarson.”
“Is that all?” Imani teased. “And here I thought you brought me here for my sunny personality. Everyone told you that I’m a simple engineer, right? I don’t make weapons, Lippman. Sorry.”
“You will give us what we want, or Ragnarson’s a dead man.”
Colt entered the house in Coral Gables where Lippman was currently holding Imani. He walked past the armed guards stationed outside and inside the house. He was so pissed he could chew nails. He’d been too soft with Lippman before. That shit wasn’t going to happen again. This fucker has threatened my wife for the last fuckin’ time!
“Wow! You really are stupid. Do you have any idea how badly Colt can fuck you up?” Imani was still taunting Lippman.
“Ragnarson has some friends, but mine are more powerful.” Lippman smirked with glee. “He is the most powerful. I want simple weapons for our men, and my friend wants your father’s formula. He has great use of that formula.”
Colt stood next to Imani. She didn’t give any outward appearance that she was aware of his presence.
“Ah, so you do want something else from me. My father’s formula, you say? Wanted by a very powerful man?” Imani made it sound like she was seriously thinking about Lippman’s request. “Just how powerful is your friend?”
“Once he has you, the colonel won’t have a chance in hell of getting you back.”
“I don’t understand why you think I would meekly go along what you and your friends plan for me.”
“You care about the colonel. We will get him, and you’d do anything we say to keep him alive.”
Colt wanted to strangle the little shit but decided to remove Imani’s restraints instead.
“Hey! What the hell’s going on?”
Colt would’ve found Lippman’s confusion amusing if he didn’t just want to kill the bastard. Once Imani was free, he stood behind Lippman with his Ka-Bar knife to his throat and Lippman’s arm locked in an awkward angle behind his back.
Lippman screamed in pain, causing the sharp edge of the knife at his throat to slice into his skin and blood to trickle down into the collar of his shirt.
Lippman’s men drew their weapons, pointing them wildly around the room.
Colt deactivated his shield and revealed himself. “Didn’t I tell you I’d kill you the next time you came after Imani? And this time she’s my wife, so what the fuck do you think I’ll do now?”
The sound of a sharp wet fart echoed in the room, and the repugnant smell clogged the air.
The soldiers shouted and trained their guns at Colt.
“Did you just shit in your shorts?” Colt asked Lippman with a smirk.
Lippman stopped breathing.
Colt didn’t bother looking at the soldiers pointing their guns at him. He pressed the tip deeper into Lippman’s skin. Every breath that Lippman took pushed the tip deeper, and blood poured down the collar of his shirt. “Tell your men to put their guns down,” Colt demanded.
Lippman didn’t move.
Colt pointed a gun at Lippman’s dick. “Tell them before I make you a damn eunuch.” When Lippman didn’t respond immediately, Colt cocked the gun.
“Put them down,” Lippman wheezed out. At the feel of the knife piercing deeper, he raised his voice frantically. “Put the guns down!”
As soon as the three men in the room dropped their weapons, Imani meticulously gathered them up.
“Are you hard of hearing, Lippman?” Colt asked once Imani came to stand next to him.
Lippman gurgled by way of an answer.
“Having difficulty understanding English?” Colt continued calmly.
Another gurgle.
Colt sighed to allow Lippman to hear his frustration. “I gotta tell ya, Lippman. I don’t understand your obsession with my wife,” Colt murmured. “It’s bordering on pure lunacy. What the hell do you want so badly that you don’t fear for your life? Don’t fear that I will tear you limb from limb?”
“If I could do half the shit he thinks I can do, I would be very afraid of me if I were him,” Imani taunted.
“I don’t want to get started on your part in this.” Colt gave Imani a hard stare. “My ring has been on your finger barely twenty-four hours, and already you have no understanding of what ‘until death do us part’ means. It sure as fuck doesn’t mean leave as soon as you don’t like what one of my family members says.”
“It’s probably the same difficulty you’re having in understanding what the ‘forsaking all others’ part means,” Imani drawled.
“I’ll deal with your ass later.” Colt glowered.
“Trouble in paradise?” Lippman smirked.
Colt pressed his knife more firmly against Lippman’s throat. The blade nicked Lippman’s skin more. “You’re even more of a dumbass than I thought.” Colt shook his head in disgust.
Lippman whimpered in pain, and his eyes bugged out in fear. He barely breathed out.
“You seemed to have gotten a new wound since I saw you last.” Colt stared at the thick cast-like bandage on Lippman’s left hand. He looked as though he was wearing a white glove. “Care to tell me what happened with your hand?”
Lippman paled further and closed his eyes but not before Colt saw the stark fear lurking in their depths. He knew he had to explore that. Anyone Lippman feared to that extent would be even more of a threat to Imani. It had to be his powerful friend.
“Since
you can’t seem to stay away from my wife, I think I’ll arrange a special trip for you, one that will permanently remove your ass from even the possibility of breathing the same air as she does.” Colt wanted to smile, as Lippman really started trembling then, and the repugnant scents coming from him were even more foul. “How does that nice long trip sound?”
Lippman remained stubbornly silent and kept his eyes closed.
“I much prefer to know who the hell he’s working for.” Imani frowned. “He says he has a friend who wants my father’s formula. Whatever the fuck that means. What formula? And why would I have such a thing?”
Lippman opened his eyes. His fear was now palatable. He was shaking so hard he kept cutting himself with the knife.
“Yes, his powerful friend. Who is this powerful person, Lippman?” Colt asked softly. “How about that, Lippman? You like breathing enough to tell us who’s giving you your marching orders?”
It happened so swiftly Colt had no time to react. Lippman impaled himself onto his knife. The ten-inch blade was now buried in his carotid artery. Thick dark blood covered both him and Imani as it spurted violently from the severed vein.
Imani screamed in shock.
Colt stared at the man in front of him, who was taking his last labored breaths. He had seen many gruesome deaths in his time in deployment. However, this was up there on his list of most gruesome. Not so much from the sight of the blood or the jagged open wound. No, it was offensive because a man who had served his country in so many wars had just taken his life so senselessly in an obvious display of extreme fear. Colt couldn’t even imagine that kind of fear.
The soldiers came forward slowly, the stunning turn of events evident in their gaze.
Colt pushed the dead weight from his knife, and the now lifeless body dropped heavily to the floor.
“Whoever the hell he is, he had General Lippman scared shitless,” one of the soldiers murmured to no one in particular.
The soldiers turned to Colt as if waiting for instructions on what to do.
Colt almost felt sorry for them. Whoever Lippman was working for would take this disappointment out on someone. After giving them instructions on how to report the incident and making a few calls to his contacts in the Pentagon to ensure this got taken care of without backlash to him or Imani, he escorted Imani to the hotel his assistant had arranged for them.
They received several shocked stares for the blood on their faces and clothes when they emerged on the street. So much had happened, and they were both tired from the long day. Colt was in no mood for people’s rude stares. He growled at them when they became too bold and tried to approach them. He wrapped his arm protectively around Imani and held her close as they walked. Despite the hostile acrimony that had been between them before, Imani clung to his arm, sometimes shivering as if she were cold even though they were in the heat of summer.
By the time they’d both taken showers to remove Lippman’s blood, it was well past midnight. Colt had ordered trays of food, which had been delivered while Imani was still in the shower. She sat in a borrowed hotel robe and stared at the food now as though it would be a herculean task to feed herself.
Colt pulled her from her chair and sat her in his lap. He wanted to smile when she didn’t protest but instead put her head on his shoulder and tried to go to sleep. He shook her awake gently and started feeding her some of the roasted potatoes, grilled beef, and vegetables from the tray.
She dutifully opened her mouth at his prompting, chewed, and swallowed the food every time he fed her. He didn’t stop until half of the food was gone and she had weakly put her hand up in protest that she was full. He placed her on the king-sized bed and tucked her in before going back to the table to finish his own dinner.
Half an hour later, when he crawled under the covers and pulled her into his arms, he was still thinking about who had enough power to place that kind of fear in such a well-connected man like Lippman. Clearly, whoever it was had to have been around and in power when Imani’s father was killed. This person had to be positioned to know what the physicist was working on and the security clearance to command men to kill him.
With Lippman they knew who and what they were dealing with. They knew where to look for the bastard. But this unknown enemy was hidden and therefore more formidable, more deadly. Colt was worried. He had to get Imani to take the threat to her life more seriously. She had to be willing to use her own technology to protect herself.
He fell into a deep sleep, still musing about ways to improve the security around his stubborn wife. His cellphone ringing in the early morning hours, when there wasn’t even a hint of sun in the sky, jarred him awake.
Colt picked up the loud instrument.
“Bring her to me, or your family dies.” The phone went dead after a location in Washington, D.C., was named.
Chapter Sixteen
Colt stared down at Imani still peacefully asleep after the turbulent day they had yesterday. Her lips were slightly parted, and a light snore wheezed through her nostrils as she hugged the pillow under her head. He wasn’t a sentimental man and didn’t normally engage in fanciful musings, but the love he felt for her had him torn with guilt.
Whoever was after her had called his personal phone, his cell, to threaten him with the lives of his family. He was ashamed that his first thought had been to take Imani out of the country and fuck everyone else. He already knew what Imani would say to that.
Instead, he’d called Justin, Matt, and his father. Together they agreed on how to get the family out of the country until Colt found the threat to Imani. Sarah wasn’t having it though. She refused to speak with him, and instead, he was forced to speak to Tony. Now that he’d sent a plane for his parents, his brothers and their families, and Tony with Sarah, he needed to wake up his little warrior so they could start their hunt.
He brushed his lips against hers.
Immediately her palm came up and smacked him lightly on the cheek. “Still pissed with you,” she mumbled without opening her eyes or moving her head from the pillow.
Colt laughed softly. He knew they didn’t have time for this, but he climbed back into the bed with her, despite being fully dressed to leave. Ignoring the urgency of their situation, he pulled her against his chest.
Instead of protesting, as he thought she would, she snuggled against him and sighed contently.
“I thought you were still angry with me.” He gently kissed her cheek.
She shifted closer to him. “Yeah, I am, but you smell so damn good.”
He chuckled and kissed her lips again. Sizzling heat coursed through him at the feel of her soft skin and the sound of the sexy husk in her voice.
“Hmmmm,” she sighed.
“Hmmmm, what?” Colt grinned and kissed her again.
“Hmmmm, I likey.” She smiled. “I’m pissed with you, but I’m a weak female.” She rubbed her body sensually against him as though she couldn’t get close enough to him.
He tightened his arm around her, trying to stop her movement. They needed to leave the hotel and didn’t have time for this. Whoever was coming after Imani could easily track them to the hotel. They had to keep moving until they identified the bastard and formulated an adequate plan to take him down.
“You’re too damn hot. Can’t resist,” she confessed softly.
“As much as I’m enjoying this, we have to get the hell out of here.”
She swung a leg over his hip and cradled his erection at the apex of her thighs. “Why? No one knows we’re here, right?”
He gritted his teeth, acknowledging now what a bad idea it had been to climb into bed with her. “I received a call about two hours ago. Whoever wants your father’s formula isn’t fuckin’ around. They’ve made threats against my family.”
She sat up abruptly, now seemingly fully awake.
“Shit,” he hissed in disappointment at the loss of her softness against him.
“What kind of threat
s?” Imani sprang from the bed, strode across the room to where she’d carelessly thrown her backpack the night before, and pulled out her laptop.
“What are you doing?” Colt reluctantly rolled from the bed as well and crossed over to her. “We don’t have time for you to research anything.” He lifted the laptop out of her grasp. “You can do that in the car, and I’d feel better if we were moving,” he murmured by way of explanation.
Imani frowned at him. “We need to find out who this person is. I need access to WiFi in order to do that.”
“When you get in the car or on the jet, you can research to your heart’s content. For my peace of mind, I need us out of here. The last thing we need is to have an all-out fight in this hotel. Too public.”
“Won’t that be their concern as well?” Imani moved toward the bathroom without waiting for his response.
Colt started gathering and packing away the items she’d taken out of her backpack last night. “This guy doesn’t seem to give two shits about human life or caution.” He marveled at the number of small gadgets she carried around with her. He had no clue what many of the items were but carefully packed them securely in her bag. “We need to move and start pulling Lippman’s files. Maybe we can get more information about who he was talking to or working with. I don’t believe this guy came out of thin air.”
Imani came back out of the bathroom. “No, he didn’t. That’s why I wanted to check something out. I remembered a man who used to be around my dad when I was a kid. If I could just remember his name, we could significantly improve our chances of finding him.”
Secret Obsession Page 20