It was all he was starting to see, and he was seeing it everywhere that he looked.
“Mark? Hey, Mark?”
He snapped his head around to meet Dallas’ worried face. “Yeah?”
“You doing OK, man?”
“No.”
Dallas paused. “Tomorrow, Mark. We’ll get to Francine tomorrow.”
“I know.” Mark turned back to the mountains, watched them plunge in to darkness as the sun slipped behind them. “I just wonder what kind of shape she’s gonna be in when we finally get there.”
**
Francine jerked awake, confused and disoriented. She blinked, lifted her head from the cold window.
“Good nap, chérie?”
She jumped, turned to see Henri next to her in the van. It was pitch-black outside, and they were still driving. They hadn’t stopped the whole day, save for once when she’d pleaded a bathroom break. He’d sent her off behind a barn with a roll of toilet paper, and she’d frozen her ass off in the frigid cold.
It had been less than wonderful, but she’d loved those few minutes of freedom from him, no matter how uncomfortable. She’d stood under a clear, blue sky, head tipped back, just breathing. At that moment, she realized that she hadn’t actually breathed since seeing Henri on the TV screen back at the safe house.
“Yes, merci.” She stifled a yawn. “Where are we now?”
“We just crossed in to Ohio.”
“Ohio?” she said, incredulous. Damn, they were making good time, and she felt her grace period running out rapidly. Vermont was twelve hours away, and if he drove through the night, they’d definitely be in Vermont by the next morning. “Is the special place in Ohio?”
“Oh, non. We have a little ways to go yet.” Henri smiled teasingly. “Shall I tell you where we’re going now?”
“Yes!” Her enthusiasm was too bright, too fake, and she knew it. She rushed to balance it out wth some sultry sweet talk. “You’ve kept the secret from me for so long, mon amour, and I’m dying to know. Where are you taking me?”
He paused, enjoying her excitement. “Vermont.”
“Vermont?” She stared at him. “What’s in Vermont that you love so much?”
“A cabin in the mountains.” He glanced over at her, happy to be able to share it with her at long last. “It has spectacular views, a fireplace…” His eyes darkened with lust. “And a huge, soft bed.”
Her stomach lurched, and she swallowed down her bile and disgust. “It sounds perfect.”
“It is.” He focused on the road again, and that was when she allowed a shudder to emerge. “I need to get some rest, so we’ll stop at a warehouse up ahead that I found. No heat inside, but we’ll just cuddle together under a blanket on the mattress in the back. Body heat is best anyway, yes?”
“Yes,” she said faintly, her whole body tensing up at the thought of being held close to him all night. Again. Her throat and neck still hurt badly, and the bruising on her pale skin was horrific… but she could say that his attack on her the night before had had one silver lining. Namely, that she’d been unconscious all night, and had no memory of being sprawled out next to him.
She couldn’t expect any such reprieve tonight. Tonight, she fully expected to lie awake all through the long night, her skin crawling, trying not to vomit at his vile touch. The thought of the hours and hours ahead of her almost made her wish for a beating to knock her out cold.
Almost.
Chapter Fourteen
Late the next afternoon, when Francine saw the sign welcoming them to Vermont, she felt something inside of her just burst open and explode in to life.
She was both interested and relieved to discover that – at long last – what she was feeling wasn’t fear. Fear was, ultimately, weakening, dark, and confusing. Fear made a person’s mind scurry from corner to corner, frantically seeking exit and escape. It muddied the thought process, compromised judgment, sapped a person’s power.
No, it wasn’t fear that she felt, and thank Christ. What she felt was something harder and stronger and smarter than that. Brighter, too, glittering like a silver sword, just cutting through the dark terror that had surrounded her for the past two days.
What she was feeling was the sheer, uncompromising will to survive. To do anything – fucking anything – to see the sunrise tomorrow.
In this moment, she knew, with everything that she had and that she was, that she was willing to kill Henri to save her own life. In this moment, Francine decided that she was going to do everything within her power to just live. Or she was going to die fighting. Die trying.
“We’re close now, chérie,” he said.
“How much farther?” she asked.
“About three hours. Maybe a bit less.”
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost five o’clock. She took a deep breath, felt that determination to survive this grow keener, stronger.
So. They were just a few hours from the inevitable show-down between them. The final confrontation, the last stand that only one of them was going to walk away from.
Francine was now decided to do anything and everything to be the one to do just that.
**
The men landed in Burlington, Vermont at six o’clock that evening.
Mark had spent the ten-hour journey almost beside himself with impatience. They hadn’t managed to get a direct flight on such short notice, and had had not one but two stop-overs. Thank God they’d been short stop-overs, so the men had just grabbed their carry-on bags and dashed through the airports to make the connections.
They had been quite a sight, naturally: four huge, glowering guys stampeding to the gates. More than one female passenger had stared in open admiration as Mark, Dallas, King, and Ian had barrelled on past; quite a few men had enjoyed the view, too.
As soon as they were off the plane, they bolted to the car rental place. The woman behind the counter actually backed up a few feet when they stormed on up to her, looming and furious.
“SUV. Now,” Mark snapped as Dallas slammed down the credit card.
Petrified, the woman nodded. She knew better than to ask any unnecessary questions; she also knew that whatever these guys were going to get up to with the vehicle, they’d want insurance. All the insurance.
Thirty minutes later, they were standing at the SUV, looking around. King saw a man approaching with a black bag, hurried over to meet him.
The others watched as King opened the duffel bag, rummaged through its contents. He nodded, said something, handed over a thick envelope. The man took it, tucked it in to his long coat, turned, and walked away.
King came back to the car, looking grim.
“Everything alright?” Dallas asked him.
“Yeah. He brought everything I asked for.”
“Right.” Ian stared at King, feeling like he was seriously walking the legal line here. “Your personal weapons delivery guy, huh?”
King glared. “A work colleague.”
“And he couldn’t deliver a pizza along with some ammo?”
King paused. “Say what?”
Ian shrugged. “If the man can bring us guns, why can’t he stop off for some food, too? I’m starving.”
Dallas snorted, and even Mark lightened up for two seconds. King, though, just glared harder.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “What is it with you Texas boys and your smart mouths? Is there an overabundance of snark in the air and water down there or something?”
Dallas and Ian just grinned, and climbed in to the SUV.
Less than a minute later, Mark was peeling out of the airport. He turned right, nailed his eyes on the mountain range in the distance. Floored it.
“How long?” he growled at Dallas.
“About ninety minutes of driving, man, then at least an hour on foot.”
Mark
exhaled impatiently, pushed down harder on the accelerator. Dallas paused, glanced at the speedometer, wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have fought harder on Mark’s insistence to be the one to drive.
“An hour of driving,” Dallas amended. “Assuming you get us there in one piece.”
“Don’t you worry about me,” Mark said. “I’ve got this.”
“Yeah?” Ian asked from the back seat, hanging on for dear life. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Mark was a semi-pro race car driver back in the day,” Dallas explained to the other men.
“Oh, yeah?” King said, totally cool as he peeled open a power bar. He was widely experienced in breakneck-speed car journeys, and barely noticed that Mark was seriously hauling ass. “Semi-pro, huh?”
“Yep.” Mark shot past a line of cars. “Helped me pay for college.”
“You ever crash?” Ian asked casually.
Green eyes glared daggers at him in the rear view. “Never.”
“Well, that’s good,” Ian said, opting to go for the positive. “Carry on then, man.”
Mark ignored everyone now, just focused on the road ahead. It unrolled like a long, gray ribbon in front of him, and in his mind’s eye, all he saw was Francine standing at the end of it. She was so beautiful, just so fucking beautiful, and he hurtled himself through space and time towards her.
Hang on, babe. Just hang on for me, OK? I’m coming.
**
Henri pulled up to the cabin, killed the engine.
“Welcome home, chérie,” he said. “I hope you’ll be very happy here.”
“Oh, I will,” she said mechanically. “It’s lovely.”
He was so thrilled to have her here at long last, that he didn’t notice her colorless tone. He opened his door, indicated with his head. “Allons-y.”
Francine nodded, opened her own door. She looked around, and naturally, there wasn’t another building or human being anywhere in sight. They were, really and truly, all alone in the mountains. Just her, and her personal sociopath.
Henri unlocked the door, swung it wide for her. She walked past him, entered the cabin. When he closed the door, she felt like a prison cell door had just clanged shut behind her.
All was silent and still in the open living room space. Her stomach clenched, and suddenly, she realized that she’d been secretly hoping for Mark to be here already. This whole time, in the back of her mind, she’d been expecting him to come bursting out of a bedroom right about now, gun drawn. He’d shout for Henri to stand still, and Henri would be so shocked that he’d do exactly what he was told. Then Mark would knock Henri out, and take Francine in his strong arms, and kiss her senseless. Fade to sunset, end scene.
A stupid white knight fantasy. Pathetic damsel-in-distress thinking. The kind of fantasizing that had no place in the here and now, in this harsh reality. The kind of thinking that had allowed her to avoid facing what she now knew that she had to do.
Francine had to save herself.
“What do you think?”
Henri’s question brought her back in to the moment. She looked over at him, saw the hungry look on his face. He had expectations for tonight, she knew that… and she was going to deny them to him.
Every. Single. One of them.
He wasn’t getting a single goddamn thing from her voluntarily, not any more. From now on, he’d have to fight her for every inch; he’d have to wrestle and wrench everything from her grasp, because she was good and done just handing things over.
“It’s perfect, mon amour,” she said, her voice sexy and smoky, just the way she knew he liked it. Sure enough, those cold blue eyes flashed heat. “It’s just as you said it would be.”
“I’m sorry that it’s so chilly,” he said quickly.
Her smile was pure happiness. “Maybe you can light a fire?”
“Ummmm.” His guttural growl repulsed her, but she kept her face relaxed. “Good idea.”
“And is there any place that I can get cleaned up?” she asked. “I need to wash.”
“We both do,” he admitted. “So, I’ll unpack the van and start the fire, and you can have a nice, long bath. I don’t have a shower here, I’m afraid.”
“I love baths. We have hot water?”
“Yes. I need to turn it on, and it’ll take about ten minutes to heat up, so maybe take a glass of wine in to the bathroom and wait? There’s an open bottle of white in the fridge.”
Francine looked over at the attached kitchen, saw a knife block just standing right there on the counter.
“Wonderful,” she said, really meaning it. “I’ll get some wine, mon cher, and you warm me up.”
He moved towards her now, slow and deliberate, and she stood her ground. She had to get him to leave her alone in here long enough to get to that kitchen and open some drawers, and that meant that he had to trust her, completely. She had to turn in an award-worthy performance now – her life depended on it. It was, quite literally, the performance of her life. For her life.
When he gathered her close and looked down at her, she didn’t wait. She pushed herself up on her toes, threw her arms around his neck, pressed her lips to his. When his tongue slipped in to her mouth, she moaned, responded fully. She tasted him too, stroking his mouth, her hands sliding to his chest.
Henri groaned, pulled back. “Go. Get ready for me.”
“I will.” She gave him a soft, sweet kiss. “I want you, mon amour.”
He went to the kitchen, fumbled with something under the sink. “Ten minutes, chérie, and then you’ll have hot water.”
“Merci.” She opened the fridge, took out the wine. “Can I pour you some?”
“Please.” He watched her reach up high on the shelf, take down two wine glasses. She poured one, handed it to him, wishing that it was poisoned. “I’ll get everything from the van.”
“Good,” she purred.
He went back outside now, and she stepped to the left, watched him for a few seconds through the crack in the living room window curtains. Yes, he was at the van, and she had about thirty seconds to get her hands on something lethal, and get to the bathroom. The knife block was just too visible – he’d definitely notice if five knives suddenly became four. Something else, and fast.
She opened drawers at random, shut them as quietly as possible. And when she saw the corkscrew, she froze. It was a traditional one, with just the sharp, metal spiral and the wooden handle.
Perfect.
She grabbed it, shut the drawer, picked up her wine, dashed to the bathroom… and all not a second too soon. She’d just closed the door when she heard the front door open.
Francine backed away, breathing hard, hid the corkscrew under a towel. She started the water, then sat on the edge of the massive, sunken tub and stared at herself in the mirror above the sink. Despite her exhausted appearance – pale cheeks, purple rings under her eyes, lines and bags that seemed to have surfaced overnight – she took a good, hard look at her face. She really looked at herself, like she was taking a last, long look at an old friend.
The next time she looked at her reflection, she might be a killer. She wondered if she’d be sorry about that.
Then she realized that she wouldn’t, pas du tout.
Not at all.
**
Mark, Dallas, King, and Ian hoisted their backpacks, checked their infrared goggles and guns one last time. It was getting really dark now, and the wind was picking up, but none of them noticed.
They were about two miles away from Delacroix’s cabin… and hopefully, two miles away from Francine.
They started walking, sticking to the marked paths as much as possible, following the GPS directions on King’s satellite phone to a ‘t’. The last thing anybody needed was for them to get lost in the dense forest. They were the damn rescue mission – no way they were goi
ng to get themselves in to any kind of trouble if they could help it.
King led the way, moving quickly and quietly despite his massive size and weight, and the other men found themselves emulating his movements. The man was a natural predator, they saw, and here in the wild, he was totally in his element. Tracking, hunting, trapping: Henri Delacroix was his prey, and to a man, they knew that he didn’t have a chance of hiding from King.
They were heading up a steep incline now, and when King reached the top, he stopped so suddenly that Mark walked smack in to him, Ian collided with Mark, and Dallas huffed out a small laugh at the sight.
“Smooth, boys,” he muttered.
Both Mark and Ian glowered over their shoulders at him.
“Shut it,” King hissed, yanking off his goggles. “Lights about four hundred feet up ahead.”
Without a word, they all dropped to their stomachs in the snow, crawled up the path. King lifted the binoculars around his neck, stared at the lights in the distance.
“That’s it,” he said. “The cabin.”
“You sure?” Ian said, picturing the four of them bursting in on some unsuspecting couple on a romantic weekend get-away, or a nice family watching a movie together. “Totally sure?”
“One hundred percent,” King said, passing the binoculars to Mark.
He stared at the cabin, then took a good look around it, squinting to see in the light spilling from the windows. “There’s a vehicle there.”
“Yep,” King said. “I saw that.” He narrowed his eyes. “How’s your distance aim, Neilson?”
Ian furrowed his brow. “Good.”
“Good enough to cover the front and back doors, and to shoot Delacroix in the fucking knees if he tries to bolt?”
“Yep. For sure.”
“Good.” King took a deep breath. Yeah, Dallas was the ex-sniper here, and was probably the surer bet for a distance take-down, but King was sure that Mark was going to need Dallas with him when they found Francine – if they found Francine. “So me, Mark, and Dallas go in. You stay out here, and keep an eye out. If he gets out and away somehow, you bring him down. Don’t kill him, you hear me? Just stop him. Forcefully.”
Solid Heart (Unseen Enemy Book 7) Page 19