“Dammit,” he said. The window provided no escape, either. In addition to being barred, it had been painted shut likely decades ago. Their assailants had chosen this room well.
“Did you see any sign of Chad when you looked around the apartment?” he asked.
“I saw a shirt with blood on it, but I couldn’t tell if it was his.” She walked over to the corner of the room to the flannel shirt. Pinching its sleeve in a place that wasn’t stained with blood, she lifted it. It was an extra-large. She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn Chad wore a medium. Even if that were true, it didn’t stop her from thinking the worst.
“Do you think this was what he was wearing when they cut off his finger?” Her voice sounded tinny and foreign, like it was coming from someone else. She dropped the shirt.
Eli shrugged. “We don’t know anything for sure yet. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine.”
He was lying, but she appreciated that he was making an attempt to lessen her panic.
Eli patted his pockets until he found his phone.
It was ridiculous, but for a moment she hoped he was calling someone to help. But who was there to call? They were here in Spain alone, and their closest ally was her family in Sweden. It would take them at least half a day to get to them. By then, she and Eli were likely to be killed.
Besides, the last people they could call was her family. If the Turkish terrorist group was behind their abduction, then they couldn’t risk getting all of her family together in one place. Actually, it didn’t even matter who had set them up to walk into this trap. They couldn’t allow her family to follow suit.
She remembered Eli’s team member—the one he’d asked her to find before coming here.
“Are you going to call Watch Dog?” she asked, pulling her own phone from her pocket.
At some point the screen had been cracked, most likely when she had fallen to the floor or perhaps when the man had kicked her while she had been down.
“Yeah, Frogger is nearby.” Eli tapped on the screen. “He can put together a team and extricate us before morning, I’m sure.”
Though she was relieved that they had an exit strategy, she wasn’t sure how it would look that another team was going to bring them to safety. If it got out that Watch Dogs had saved her, a member of STEALTH, her family’s company would lose their hard-nosed edge in the contractor market.
But what did it really matter, as long as they made it out alive?
Ego didn’t have a place when it came to life and death.
Watch Dog could have this victory. She would even send them a gift basket. Maybe something from their new line of tactical wear.
She chuckled at the thought.
Eli glanced over at her and furrowed his brow. “What’s so funny?”
Checking her smile, she stopped, but not before glancing at his blue button-up. “Nothing. I must be tired.”
She turned back to her phone and texted Jarrod an encrypted message.
Eli and I have a situation here in Spain. Going to call in Watch Dog. You all need to stay away. We will get out of this. But in case we don’t, give my little Anya and the rest of the family hugs for me. Love you all.
After she hit Send, she turned off her phone, hoping to save the battery and, admittedly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see her brother’s response. No doubt he would flip out.
Hopefully everything would turn out all right and soon they would all be back home at the ranch, out of danger and celebrating the holidays.
She closed her eyes and thought of it now. In her fantasy Christmas, Eli was sitting next to her opening presents as they drank eggnog and laughed about all the trouble they had found this year. They would talk about Trish and how, when she was young, she had loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michelangelo had always been her favorite.
And this was the first year they were going to get the chance to spend Christmas with Anya. Though she had only just recently entered their lives, she had changed everything. That girl was incredible. She had an extra chromosome, which made her extra in every way—and none more than her ability to bring joy to the family. She was the light in everyone’s eyes. One minute around Anya and it was easy to forget your troubles and just enjoy the moment. She was the linchpin that kept every one of them grounded and centered. She needed them just as much as they needed her.
The thought of everyone made Zoey ache with longing.
She and Eli should have never come here. They should have just waited until they had found more evidence about Chad’s location. They should have played it smart. But no, she had been in such a damned rush to get to him that she had brushed their rules and protocols to the side.
Now it was not only going to cost her, but it was going to cost Eli everything, as well.
There was the sound of men talking from outside the door, and she and Eli stopped moving. They both slipped their phones away.
Her heart skipped a beat with the turn of the doorknob.
“We need to kill them.”
“No,” the second man said, his voice thick with an accent that she couldn’t place. “We need them at least until Chad arrives. Then you can kill them for all I care.”
She felt the blood rush from her face and she sank down onto the edge of the bed that sat at the center of the room.
“As long as Chad thinks they are here, we’re covered,” the second man continued. “If we keep them alive, they are nothing more than a liability.”
“I said no,” the first man growled. “If we kill them and Chad somehow finds out, we will be back to having nothing. We need them as leverage. That’s an order.”
Were these men military? They had to have some sort of hierarchy. Maybe they were operatives just like them.
She choked on the urge to cry. It was nothing more than frustration, she reminded herself. That was all. She just had to keep from losing her cool and everything would be okay.
The second man let loose a string of expletives at the man’s refusal. Yeah, maybe they weren’t military after all, but it didn’t eliminate the likelihood that they were contractors. Which meant they were looking to score the bounty on Chad’s head.
“Just leave them for tonight. Tomorrow, if we haven’t heard back from him, we will kill them,” the first man said.
She could almost hear her clock ticking down to zero hour.
As their footfalls moved away from the door, she looked around the room for anything that could help them get out of there. The window bars refused to budge and there were no grates or openings in the floor or ceiling large enough for them to slip through. All they had were their cell phones and their wits.
“Tell your guy we’re going to need him here sooner rather than later,” she said, turning back to Eli, who was currently staring at his phone.
“Already done.” Eli sighed. “But he’s not at the address I gave you. He’s traveling—and still a ways out. Until then, he told us to stay put.”
She laughed at the idea that they had any other option.
Her headache worsened and she lay down on the bed, pulling up the down comforter around her tired body.
Eli dropped the phone onto the floor beside the bed and moved in next to her. “I’m sorry I got us in this mess,” he said.
“What?” she said, sitting up slightly so she could look him in the eye. “You aren’t the one who went all gung ho into this. If I would’ve stopped to think for more than three seconds, and not let my emotions get away from me, we wouldn’t be here. This is all my fault. Not yours.”
“Yours weren’t the only choices made. We did this together. This isn’t just on you.”
It was strange, but she felt a bit stripped of her strength by him taking some of the blame. She wasn’t sure that she liked the sensation. She deserved to feel responsible for all the bad things that were coming their way after al
l she had put Eli through.
He motioned for her to fold into his arms. “You don’t get to carry the burden of guilt all by yourself, my love,” he added.
She laid her head against him, finding comfort in the melodic rise and fall of his chest. My love, he had said. Was that his hint that he was falling for her again?
She ran her fingers over the buttons of his shirt and made small swirls on the fabric. This, being with him in bed, was something she had missed after they had gone their separate ways. Was she ready to open her heart up and let this happen—if they got out of here alive?
He kissed the top of her head and drew in a long breath. “You know I love you, don’t you?” he whispered into her hair.
Her entire body tightened. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hear those words, it was just that they came as a surprise. Sure, there were feelings between them, but love? Maybe he meant the kind of comfortable love that came with time and two people who became accustomed to one another.
Just because he said he loved her, it didn’t mean his feelings were a romantic love, the kind for which people sacrificed and gave everything they had for the other: sleep, money, time, opinions and even habits...
He was certainly sacrificing everything he had for her right now.
She wanted to tell him that she loved him, too. But she had to stick to her guns. She couldn’t get them out of their predicament, so the best thing she could do to protect him was to keep the truth away from him. At least until they were on the outside. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t take this chance to show him how she felt.
This was their night...their one last chance together. For all she knew, it could be their final goodbye. And if all they had were these few, precious hours, she was going to make the most of it.
She gazed up at him and gave him the look that had always been her cue to make love. In their past life, she had given him this look what must’ve been thousands of times, but none of them felt as important as this moment. This last moment.
She regretted all the mistakes she had made when it came to him. “Eli, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I left you back then.” The lump formed in her throat and she tried to swallow it back, but it refused to budge. “I never wanted to break your heart. But after we lost the baby...it changed me.”
He tightened under her, but said nothing.
“Every time I closed my eyes, all I saw were the swirls of her dark brown hair—your hair. And her big green eyes—she had your eyes. And that sweet little pointed nose—she had my nose.” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “I never knew I could know such love and such heartache all at the same time.”
“She was beautiful, just like her mommy.” Eli ran his fingers through her hair, comforting her. “When she died, so did a piece of me... And then when you split, the rest of me withered away.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice was raspy with unshed tears. “I felt like I wasn’t myself anymore. I was just a shell. But I feared that if I stayed, I would be constantly reminded of the future we could have had, just by looking in your eyes—her eyes.”
He nodded, but was silent for a long moment. “You weren’t the only one hurting, Zoey.”
“I know.” She wished she could go back in time and correct her wrongs. “And I also know that no amount of apologizing will ever be enough.” She put her hand over his heart. “I was so myopic. All I could do was concentrate on my own pain and agony. I just shut down.”
“Do you know that when you disappeared, I didn’t stop looking for you until I knew where you had gone and that you were safe?”
She hadn’t thought of the days after she had left him and run to a cabin in the Rockies in a long time. She had holed up for nearly six months. She’d only let Trish know where she was, so they wouldn’t come looking for her.
Once in a while, her sister would bring her food and check on her to make sure she was still alive; but beyond that Zoey had seen no one. Even with Trish, she had barely spoken a word, but her sister hadn’t forced her to make conversation. Instead, Trish had just talked to her about what the family was working on, and assignments that they had taken.
The only thing Zoey had been capable of doing was continuing her drone strikes and IT work—which she did with manic diligence.
“Did Trish tell you where I was?” she asked.
Eli gave her a guilty look. “She knew how concerned I was about your safety.” He drew in a long breath.
“Just so you know, if I could go back in time and make things right, I would. I would never run away from you like that again... No matter how badly our hearts get broken by the world.” She moved atop him, straddling her legs around him.
He slipped her fingers between his and raised her hands so she was kneeling over him. He reached up and kissed her lips. In his kiss was a deep sadness and an equally deep well of desire.
“Make me a promise...” he said, his breath caressing her lips. “And we can start over, no guilt.”
“What?” she asked, her voice as smooth and supplicating as his touch.
“Promise me that if we make it out of here alive, we can quit screwing around.”
She smiled as she kissed his lips. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s get married.”
She stopped moving and stared into his emerald eyes. He was being serious. A gust of joy breezed throughout her body. She wanted to say yes, a thousand times yes, but she stopped herself from getting too excited.
Though she feared her own demise, and what it would do if she told Eli the truth, he was going to hurt either way. He loved her. He wanted to marry her.
If she agreed, they could revel in the joy that came with promises of forever—at least for one night.
“Yes, Eli.” As she answered, she realized she had never told him that she loved him, but he didn’t seem to care. It was almost as if she didn’t have to put words to her feelings as he already knew how she felt.
He took hold of her and pulled her down hard, his lips crushing against hers in his excitement.
Whether she ever had the chance to tell him or not, she loved this man. She would love him until the end of time and then probably even long after. He was hers and she was his, and she never wanted it any other way.
He pushed up her shirt and lifted it over her head, exposing her naked breasts. He cupped them in his hands as he sat up and moved to take her nipple in his mouth. She savored the feel of his mouth on her and how he tenderly thrilled his tongue against her sensitive nub.
She bit back a moan.
They would have to be quiet. Silent even, in their lovemaking. Their silence, mixed with the threat of danger, swirled together into a heady elixir of desire.
She hurried, taking off his pants and his shirt; stripping him of all of his underclothes in her rush to feel him.
This was it, their last moments together. This was the only future they were promised.
She kissed him, trailing her mouth down his chest until she found him. He tilted his head back into the pillow and she could hear his breath quicken as she swirled her mouth around him.
“Zoey,” he said as she tasted him. “I want you. I’ve wanted you every moment...of every day...” His voice was faint, slipping into the euphoria.
She would be lying if she tried to tell him that it had been any different for her.
He was her everything, just as he always had been.
His body grew harder and impossibly harder as she played.
“Come here,” he said, calling her to move atop him. “I need to feel you. I’ve missed you for so long.”
She moved over him, slipping him into her gently as she rocked her hips back and forth. Their movement was easy and unrushed, as if they were both savoring the limited time they had together, and every thrust, every circle and nudge of her hips was a day they had been apar
t.
Their lips met as he sat up and pulled her into his lap, their knees pointing toward the ceiling. As he drove deeper and deeper into her, she thought of how much time she had missed by making one stupid decision and running away.
At least for this one day, this one moment, they could have the past that she had so foolishly stripped away.
Her breathing quickened, and she tried to force her body to listen to her mind. She wanted this moment to last—she couldn’t let herself go. Not yet. But he felt so good. Being in his arms. Feeling him inside of her.
She buried her face into his neck in order to try and quiet her throaty moan as her body released, giving in to the ecstasy of being with him.
As she collected herself, she started to move again. This time, just for him.
Tonight, they would have everything the other offered—love above all.
Chapter Twenty
The next morning, before dawn, the door to their bedroom flew open. Zoey pulled herself out of Eli’s arms, afraid that if their enemies saw them together they would know the most effective way to hurt her. Pajama dude was still wearing the beanie from the night before, but instead of looking bored and confused by their presence, now he looked pissed off.
“Get in there,” he ordered, shoving Shaye into the room with them.
She turned back as soon as he threw her inside. “No. These people will kill me. You can’t put me in here with them,” she pleaded to the man as he slammed the door shut.
There was the click of the lock. Shaye screamed after the man. “Come back! No! This is absolutely unacceptable. Just wait until my father hears about what you have done.” She stopped for a moment as she stared at the door. “You will be dead before nightfall!”
Ever so slowly, she turned around to face them, a look of disgust and anger burned across her beautiful face.
“What in the hell are you doing in here?” Zoey asked, staring daggers at her.
She was definitely the kind of woman that Chad would go for. She was curvy and there was a dimple in her chin. Her long blond hair was free and falling in loose waves over her shoulders. Zoey hadn’t noticed before, but the woman had eyes the color of blue glacial ice. As angry as she was, Zoey was surprised that the heat of her stare didn’t cause the icy color to melt and become the hot orange hue of flames. Fire and ice... Chad’s MO when it came to the women he had dated in the past.
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