“What room?” Spike asked.
“The Room,” Jake said. “Where he takes all his hoors.”
Jonny slammed a fist to the table. “Shut the fuck up, Jake!” he shouted.
“I didn’t think to check it,” Kit said. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone and thumbed in a number. He instructed whoever answered to go to the Saur Rd. office park.
“Why would he go there?” Craigie asked. “Only time he ever goes is when—”
“You shut up, too!” Jonny ordered. “What is it with you stirrers?”
“It’s okay, Jonny,” she said. “I have no illusions I’m the only woman he takes to that place.”
“Eh, well it’s disrespectful for them to mention it,” Jonny said, glaring at his friends. “And you’re the only one he’s seeing right now.”
“As far as you know,” Jake said under his breath but she heard him.
“You think he’s with another woman, Jake?” she asked, quietly.
Jake shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You said the two of you didn’t part on good terms last night,” Spike reminded her. “If he was brassed off at you, maybe he went to a bar and picked up a piece of tail. He could be at her place.”
“Bloody hell, Spike, not you too!” Jonny snapped at her.
“He wouldn’t do that,” Craigie said. “Trust me, I know.”
“And exactly how do you know?” Jake demanded.
Craigie looked down at the table. “I just do.” When Jake pressed, he shook his head. “Doctor-patient confidentiality so leave off.”
Kit’s cell rang and he answered. “Yeah?” Storm clouds formed over his face. “Then kick the fucking thing down, you moron!”
“Kick what?” Jonny asked.
“The door to the Room,” Kit replied. His anger was so great at the stupidity of his men his knuckles were white on the cell phone.
Then his face leached of color.
“What?” Jonny demanded.
“We’re on our way!” Kit said. He turned wide eyes to Jonny. “They found him.” He cut his eyes to her. “They’ve called an ambulance.”
“What happened?” Jono asked. He reached out to put his arm around her.
“Someone beat the shit out of him.”
“That fucking Ukrainian—” Craig began but she shook her head.
“No, it wasn’t her,” she said. She looked at Jonny. “It was his mother.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Night Twenty-Two
“He’s got a concussion and a broken nose,” Craigie had told them the night before. “His left shoulder is dislocated. Same one as when he was a kid.”
“His mother,” she said. “If there was any doubt…”
“Yeah,” Craigie said. “My thought, too.”
“What else?” she asked. “I know there’s more.”
“He has severely bruised kidneys and three broken ribs—one of which punctured a lung.”
“Oh my God!” Spike whispered.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds, Chrissy,” Craigie said. “They inserted a tube to evacuate the air around his lung so he’s breathing better. As long as we can keep the little bugger in bed and resting the puncture should heal on its own in a week or so.”
“Kit told me they messed up his face pretty bad,” Jonny said. “How bad?”
“Mostly cuts and bruises,” Craigie said. “Nothing that will require a plastic surgeon. Because of all the blood and swelling, it looked much worse than it really is. Thankfully there was no damage to his eye sockets or jaw. There are a few loose teeth but none that got knocked out.”
“How the hell did the bastards know about the Room?” Jake asked.
“I want to know how the hell they got in the Room!” Spike said. “There are only seven people with keys and six of us are right here!”
“Crims can pick locks, Spike,” Jonny said. “That’s the easy part. As to how they found out…” He shrugged.
“He was followed,” she told them. “Most likely before all the crap with his mother started. I’ve never met her but…”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Craigie said.
“I imagine she’s a pretty smart woman,” she finished. “She would want to have all the information on him she could get just in case it was needed.”
“Lina’s right,” Spike said. “We know how conniving the bitch is.” She clenched her fists. “Me more than most.”
She looked at Spike and the tall blonde shook her head.
“I didn’t work for her but my mum was one of her girls. Synnie got me out of there when he took over running the company. I was eleven. He sent me to boarding school. I would have wound up like Mum if he hadn’t.”
“We all owe him,” Jake said. “He takes care of his own.”
“And we’re going to take care of him,” Jonny said. “We’re going to find that bitch and put an end to her once and for all! She’s hurt him for the last fucking time!”
Five sets of eyes flicked to her.
“Are you with us, little beaut?” Craigie asked.
She nodded. “You bet your ass I am. You guys do whatever you have to do to make sure she gets out of his life and stays out of it. She’s toxic to him and sooner or later she’s going to destroy him.”
Kit had been standing quietly in the corner of the waiting room. He wasn’t one of the Kiwis whose loyalty was to Synjyn McGregor but he was just as much a part of the group. They looked to him.
“We’ll find her,” he swore. “Andrews—the man I sent to the Room—says there is evidence there was a woman in the Room last night. That evidence is now in the hands of the police.”
“What kind of evidence?” Spike asked Kit.
“The soap dish from the john was on a table beside the chair and there was lipstick on the cigarette stubs put out in it.”
“He’d never take a woman who smokes to that room,” Jonny said. “We all know how he feels about people who smoke.”
“His mother smokes,” Spike reminded.
“You think she would sit there watching them beat her son to a bloody pulp and drag away on a ciggie?” Jake asked.
“Hell, yeah, she would!” Craigie said. “Wouldn’t be the first time she’s had him beaten and sat there watching. Remember when Thames broke Synnie’s fingers?”
“Who’s Thames?” she asked.
“The bouncer at the whorehouse,” Spike told her. “Mean sod. He was there to keep the johns in line. He used to knock Synnie around whenever the mood hit him.”
“To teach him who was the alpha male in the house,” Jonny said. “There was that time he beat Synnie so bad he had to have stitches.”
“I do remember that,” Jake said, nodding. “Synnie couldn’t go to school for a week. I can’t recall what it was he did to get the shit kicked out of him though.”
“He didn’t need to do anything,” Jonny said with disgust.
“Poor bastard was damned to hell the moment he was conceived,” Craigie said.
“There will be DNA on those ciggies,” Jake said. “If it’s her, they’ll know.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t prove she was involved or that she ordered the beating,” Spike said.
“I think I have a way for us to confirm it,” she told her.
* * * * *
His hand was cool as she ran her fingers over the back of it. He was unconscious and had been since they’d loaded him into the ambulance. As soon as they arrived at St. Gregory’s Hospital, Craigie had taken over as his personal physician. After a brief consult with a cardiothoracic surgeon he had allowed her into the ICU to see him. Later that afternoon, they had moved him to a private room and she had followed the gurney—her hand clutched in Craigie’s.
Though it would take time to recover from the injuries his mother had her minions give him, he would have no permanent injuries. Despite the terribly battered condition of his swollen face, there would be no ugly lasting scars.
Now she sat in the dimly lit room listening
to him breathing softly, thankful he was alive.
His eyelids fluttered and she tensed. For the last half hour he had been struggling to wake but each time he’d sighed and slipped back into unconsciousness, his body going limp once again.
“I’m here, Kiwi,” she said softly, rubbing his hand. “I’ll be right here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere, baby.”
He could hear her voice and fought to drag himself out of the quagmire that had sucked him under its oily black blanket. There was no pain where he lay but there was a deep, abiding agony of his spirit. He could hear the worry in Melina’s voice as she spoke to him. She was striving to sound upbeat but her words quavered. The nervous stroking of her fingers across his hands told him she needed the contact more than she needed to provide it. He wanted so desperately to reassure her he was all right, that everything was going to be just fine, but he could not pull out of the darkness no matter how hard he tried.
“Any change?”
He recognized Jono’s voice and was glad his friend was there for her.
“He tried to open his eyes,” she said.
“That’s a good sign, eh?” Jono asked.
“I hope so.”
Their voices faded into the background and the buzz took over again. His ears were ringing and he figured that had to be from the multiple hits to his head the son of a bitch with the cowboy boots had administered. At least he didn’t feel the pain he’d felt as he lay helpless on the floor unable to move. Idly, he wondered how much damage the men had done to him and what he’d look like the next time he stared in a mirror.
Not that it mattered. He’d never been vain about his looks. They weren’t anything in which he’d had a hand. His mother had been beautiful in her day and pictures he’d seen of his father in his young manhood had been those of a very handsome man. His mother’s relatives he’d seen at his grandfather’s funeral had all been good-looking. He’d inherited good genes if nothing else, he thought.
She let go of his hand—drawing him back on his tether to the bed—and he wished he could protest. Trouble was, he couldn’t open his eyes no matter how hard he tried and he could not move. It almost felt as though he were encased in concrete, though he could feel, and he felt them picking up his arm, inwardly cringed as the needle was plunged into the crook of his elbow.
He strained to hear what was being said but the buzz was too loud. It drowned out everything except the low mumble of their voices.
“I’m in here, Lina!” he shouted. “I’m in here, baby. I haven’t left you!”
More importantly, she hadn’t left him. She was right there beside him. She’d been talking to him, touching him. He’d felt her kiss his forehead several times.
“I’m here, Kiwi. I’ll be right here when you wake up,” she’d said.
Every time she called him Kiwi his heart soared.
He sensed her moving away from him—actually felt her physically leaving his room—and wondered what they were going to do to him now. He’d been rolled away and lifted, put through machines that rumbled and machines that had made loud clicking sounds. He’d been turned and prodded and poked and had needles jammed into him. He felt and sensed and heard all of it though he could not react to any of it. He felt like a piece of meat being slapped onto a conveyer belt and it was humiliating and irritating and discouraging.
What if he stayed like this for the rest of his life? What if he couldn’t move because the pricks who had brutalized him, beaten him so savagely had damaged him beyond repair? What if he was locked in this darkness forever?
He thought of Drew imprisoned in his body.
A single tear rolled down his cheek and he felt someone put a hand to his face. The buzz was so deafening he couldn’t hear what was said beneath the low rumbling of the speaker but he sensed compassion in the touch and in the tone.
“Lina,” his mind whispered and then he felt her hand on his again. He knew her touch. Among all others in the universe, he would know her touch and the scent of her drifted into his nostrils.
He mentally relaxed. She was with him again and he felt safe.
And he felt wanted for the first time in his life.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Night Twenty-Three
The full page ad read:
$100,000 REWARD!!
DID YOU TAKE PART IN THE CRIME THAT HAPPENED in the Saur Rd OFFICE PARK
on the evening of November 21, 2013??
Complete immunity from prosecution is guaranteed IN WRITING to the party willing to come forward and give testimony against the person responsible for the planning of the crime which occurred on that evening. Detailed information is required. No charges will be filed against those who actually carried out the offense. WE ONLY WANT THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR PLANNING THE CRIME, NOT YOU!
Contact the Fulton County CrimeStop Hotline at (555) 752-3584
“Is that what you wanted?” Spike asked.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s perfect. Let’s hope it works and one of the men gets greedy.”
Radio and television spots were running every hour. It was only a matter of time before the right person contacted them.
“There is no honor among thieves,” Jonny reminded her. It was Saturday morning and he’d come over early to bring her the ad. “He’ll call sooner or later. He has a hundred thousand reasons to pick up his phone and make that call.”
“Lina, have you had any sleep?” Spike questioned. “You look so tired.”
She nodded toward the couch in front of the windows. “I’ve taken some catnaps but I want to be there when he wakes up. I don’t want him seeing strangers or being concerned that he doesn’t know where he is.”
“Tell you what,” Jonny said. “I’ll spell you. How’s that? You lie down and Spike and I will watch over our boy.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You look buggered.”
“I could stand some sleep,” she said. “You’ll wake me if…”
“I will,” Jonny said. He shooed her toward the couch then took a seat beside the Kiwi’s bed.
She stretched out on her side—facing the bed—and tucked her hands under the pillow. Just before she closed her eyes she watched Spike walk behind Jonny’s chair. He reached up to take Spike’s hand, brought it to his lips, kissed her knuckles, then placed her palm against his chest. Spike leaned over and put a kiss to the top of Jonny’s head, caressing his shoulder with her other hand.
She smiled. So that was the way of it. The thought pleased her and she wondered if the Kiwi knew there were tender feelings between his two friends. Sighing, she closed her eyes on the loving scene and almost immediately drifted into sleep.
And into dreamland.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Come here, woman,” he ordered.
He was leaning against his desk with his arms crossed. He was barefoot—one ankle crossed over the other—and his white shirt was unbuttoned all the way to his waist, the opening revealing the thick swirl of his chest hair. Black trousers fit tightly to his taut thigh.
She walked slowly toward him. The skirt of her long teal-green gown caressed her legs as she moved. The gown was gossamer soft and the hem slid seductively across her bare toes. The neckline of the peasant-style bodice dipped low to expose the tops of her breasts and the little cupped sleeves clung precariously to her bare shoulders.
“You wanted to see me, Mr. McGregor?” she asked, her head down.
“Look at me when you speak,” he said, his voice sharp.
When she raised her head and locked her eyes with his, a tremor ran through her. There was blatant desire stamped on his chiseled features and his gaze was blazingly hot.
“When I call you, Melina, you drop whatever the hell it is you’re doing and come to me right then,” he said, his jaw tight.
“Yes, Mr. McGregor,” she said. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and saw his gaze dip to her mouth before those stormy blue eyes snapped back to hers.
“Are you deliberately trying to provoke me, Me
lina?” he demanded.
“No Sir,” she said, shaking her head. “I would never do that, Mr. McGregor.”
His eyes narrowed. “And I say you are,” he stated.
“Sir, I was not—”
“Stop talking!”
She shivered and took a step back.
“Don’t lie to me! I punish those who dare lie to me, Melina.”
“P-punish, Sir?” she questioned. She took another step back from the hard stare with which he pierced her.
He cocked his chin toward the far wall. “Pull down the bed,” he commanded.
She felt her eyes widen. “The b-bed, Sir?”
“Unlike you, I didn’t stutter, Melina,” he snapped. “You heard me.”
She turned her head toward the wall where two elegant handles were spaced about three feet apart. His hiss of annoyance set her feet into motion and she hurried to the bed, pulled it down on its hidden hinges, stepping out of the way so it would not fall on her. She lowered it to the floor, opening the legs to position it. She turned to face him, her hands clenched tightly in front of her.
He had not moved but his eyes were fixed on her. He arched a thick dark brow.
She knew what he wanted and took a hitching breath before lifting her right hand to the sleeve of her left arm. She pushed the material downward, baring her left breast to his view then pulled her arm free of the garment. Without giving herself time to waver, she took a deep breath and pushed the sleeve from her right arm, baring her other breast. The cool air in the room washed over her and she shivered.
“I’m waiting,” he said.
She put her hands to the folded bodice at her waist and pushed the gown downward past her hips and thighs then let it drop at her feet, leaving her completely naked. She stepped out of the gown.
He stood where he was but his eyes crawled over her like hot embers. His gaze lingered on her breasts, at the juncture of her thighs then moved lazily, insolently back to her face.
“Cup your breasts for me,” he said, his voice thick with undisguised hunger.
She slid her hands to the undersides of her breasts and lifted them.
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