by Zara Chase
“Let go of me!” She kicked his shin.
“Ouch, you little bitch!” He slapped her face hard, the sound ringing round the quiet apartment like a gunshot. “I should have gone for you, not your mother,” he said almost regretfully. “I like a woman with a bit of spirit.”
Sabine continued to struggle. “In your dreams, buster.”
He forced her against the wall and pressed his body against hers, his breath peppering her face. She tried to lift her knee and bring it up to his groin, but he anticipated her.
“Don’t damage the goods, dear, I need them for my work.”
“You bastard!”
He ripped her top and gouged at her breasts. He was way too strong for her, and although she struggled like a wild beast, she couldn’t get away from him.
* * * *
The guys screeched to a halt outside the apartment building, where Amos waited for them.
“What’s happening?” Otto asked.
“No idea,” Amos said. “You asked me to wait.”
“Yeah, okay.” Fin pushed past him. “Let’s get in there. I don’t like this one little bit.”
“This is Wayne,” Amos told the guys as soon as they got into the lobby. “Wayne, has an English lady been round asking for Pearce?”
“Yeah, I let her into his apartment a while back.” He glanced at the four scowling men. “Did I do right?” he asked nervously.
The guys shared a glance, but no one bothered to answer Wayne. As one they headed for the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator.
“If he’s laid so much as a finger on her,” Otto said, leading the way, “I’ll rip his fucking head off.”
“You’ll have to wait in line,” Fin said mordantly.
They got to the door of 308 and heard raised voices. They tried the handle, but the door wasn’t unlocked. That would have been too much to hope for. Otto was about to put his shoulder to it, but Fin stopped him.
“Let’s do it together and try to break it down first time to keep the element of surprise.”
“I have a better idea,” Gabe said, pressing the bell.
The voices paused, but no one answered the door.
“Okay,” Gabe said, shrugging. “Do it your way.”
Fin and Otto both put their shoulders to the door, and the flimsy lock popped open. Fin stepped into the room, scowling malevolently. He was flanked by an equally menacing Otto, who, judging from his tightly clenched fists, wanted to cut to the chase and deck Pearson then and there. Gabe and Amos were right behind them. Sabine was now surrounded by an abundance of rippling muscles and glowering expressions all focused on Pearson, who released her from his death grip.
Sabine brought her knee up, catching Pearson in the groin. He howled and doubled over, clutching his family jewels. Fin was ready to commit murder, and Sabine’s name was top of his list for taking this risk alone. Even so, he managed a brief smile at her actions.
“Who the hell are you?” Pearson asked, recovering sufficiently to turn in a half circle to face each man in turn. The colour had drained from his face, and he no longer looked nearly so sure of himself.
“Your worst nightmare.” Fin gave Pearson’s chest a hard shove with the flat of his hand, and he fell into the nearest chair. “Sabine wanted to come alone. We should have figured that scum like you wouldn’t think twice about raising a hand to a woman.”
“Get off on hitting women, do you?” Gabe asked.
Otto’s glare deepened. “Jerk!”
“What do you want?” Pearson asked.
“Did he hurt you, babe?” Gabe examined Sabine’s arm where Pearson had grabbed it and scowled at the imprint left by his fingers on the side of her face. His expression became positively lethal when he looked at her torn top.
“No, I’m okay.”
“Can I hit him, Fin?” Gabe asked. “Please say yes.”
“Not yet. First of all, Mr. Pearson is going to get his cheque book out, figuratively speaking.”
“The hell I am!”
“You aren’t exactly in a position to negotiate.” Fin reached for his bag and extracted a laptop, which he fired up. “Go and find his computer, Otto.”
Otto disappeared into the bedroom and returned with the machine. “I’ll get it going,” he said.
“That won’t do you any good,” Pearson said, appearing to regain a little of his cockiness. “It’s password protected.”
“I beg to differ,” Fin said calmly. “Let’s think about this. We heard you admit to Sabine that you stole from various women, including her mother, and that you sent someone to murder Sabine.”
“Not her, I—”
“Doesn’t matter who the intended victim was. Someone did die on that beach and that makes you an accessory.”
“No, it doesn’t. You broke in here so anything you heard is inadmissible.” Pearson’s chin jutted aggressively. “I know my rights.”
“Jerks like him always do,” Amos muttered.
“You invited us in,” Gabe said easily. “The doorman will vouch for that. He buzzed through to say we were here, and you invited us up.”
“You really ought to tip better,” Otto said, smirking.
“But you just broke my door—”
“Did we?” Fin shrugged. “We found it like that.”
Pearson shook his head. “I don’t fucking believe this.”
“Then perhaps you’re starting to understand how some of your victims felt,” Sabine said sweetly.
“Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do. You are going to transfer all the money you stole from Sabine’s mother, plus interest of, shall we say, five percent.” It was Fin’s turn to shake his head. “No, let’s be generous and make it ten.”
“You’re delusional,” Pearson snarled.
“Nope, I’m an avenger, and in that capacity I’m telling you that you’ll also return the money you stole from…”
Fin snapped his fingers, and Otto recited the names and amounts from memory. They included all the people who had contacted Sabine through her website and whose stories she had verified, plus the guys’ American client.
“Plus the standard ten percent, of course,” Fin told Pearson.
“You’re mad,” Pearson said again. “Even if I felt inclined to do something like that, which I definitely don’t, transferring such sums would set all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the banking world.”
“Fortunately, I’m a stockbroker, and it’s your lucky day because you’ve just opened an account with me, which will satisfy the banking regulators. Still, to be on the safe side, I assume your accounts are somewhere like the Caymans.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“And it won’t take my buddy here half an hour to get into your computer and find out.” Fin quirked a brow. “How do you think we found you in the first place? If he does that, we’ll know the exact amount you have squirreled away. Unlike you, we’re not thieves and only plan to recover the amounts we know you stole so that we can return the money to its rightful owners. I daresay there are a lot of other victims we know nothing about.”
“And if we find all their money as well we might be tempted to relieve you of it and donate it to some charitable cause,” Otto said, playing with Pearson’s computer and immediately getting through the passwords because he’d already cracked them back home.
Pearson noticed and scowled. “And you call me a crook.”
“We call you a damned sight worse than that.” Fin glowered at him. “Anyway, it just so happens that there’s a couple of accounts of mine in that part of the world just waiting for you to feed them with some of the money. It makes life so much easier to avoid all that banking red tape, don’t you find?”
Pearson kept on arguing, but there was only ever going to be one outcome. In the end he deflated like a pierced balloon and, swearing beneath his breath, logged into his online banking system.
“Never should have gotten so greedy,” Otto taunted. “If you hadn’t taken Sab
ine’s mother’s house, you might have been able to carry on with the Lothario scam.”
“Can I hit him now?” Gabe asked when Pearson pressed the button to transfer the last of the money and stood up to glare out of the window.
“You need to think about your hands,” Otto told him. “Wouldn’t do to damage them, in your profession. Let me hit him.”
“I can deck the bastard without hurting myself,” Gabe protested. “He hit Sabine and can’t be allowed to get away with that.”
“No, I agree but—”
Fin tapped the subject of their bickering on the shoulder, and Pearson turned to face him.
“What now?” he asked irascibly.
“This.”
Fin drew back his fist and planted it squarely in the middle of Pearson’s ageing but undeniably handsome face. There was a nasty crunching sound of cracking bone, and a gush of blood spurted from his nose.
“That was for Sabine, her mom, and all the women you ripped off,” Fin said, flexing his fingers.
“You’ve broken my fucking nose,” Pearson said, clutching his face, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Aw, we wanted to do that,” Gabe and Otto said together, sharing a high five.
* * * *
A short time later, Sabine left Pearson’s condo surrounded by her three alpha males who’d just restored her mother’s property to her like it was no big deal. The only problem was they were still scowling, and this time their displeasure was directed at her.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Fin said, taking her arm and steering her toward her Jeep.
“But I—”
“Save it for later.” He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Otto and Gabe, not saying a word to her, headed for their truck.
“Did you really hear him admit all those things?” Sabine asked when they’d driven some distance in tense silence.
“Nope, but I knew you would have asked him and that he wouldn’t be able to help bragging.”
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“Sabine, I can’t talk to you right now. If I do I might have to pull this car off the road and spank you until you can’t sit down for a week.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Do you realize what danger you put yourself in? Where were your brains? You know he didn’t think twice about commissioning a murder, for fuck’s sake, and you knew we had it covered.”
“I didn’t want to be a burden.”
“A burden?” He shot her a bemused sideways glance. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m keeping you from seeing other women. I thought that if I—”
“What other women?”
“Oh, stop pretending, it’s sweet but unnecessary. I heard you this morning whispering sweet nothings to someone called Mimi.”
The rigidity left Fin’s features, and he threw back his head and laughed. “Is that what this is all about? You were jealous and so acted on impulse.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Fin removed one hand from the wheel and covered one of hers with it, back to his normal self again. “Mimi is seventy-five years old and lives in a retirement complex in Naples. I’ve been looking after her investments for ten years.”
Sabine’s mouth fell open. “Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh.’” Fin shook his head. “Christ, Sabine, when I realized where you’d gone, I almost died a thousand deaths. Don’t ever do anything like that to me ever again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You will be when I get you home.”
“Well, at least we put Pearson out of business,” she said, unable to stop herself from grinning.
“He’s finished ripping off vulnerable women, at least for the time being.”
“You think he’ll start again?” she asked, discouraged.
“Yep, because we made a severe dent in his nest egg, and it’s the only way he knows how to make money. The only consolation is that he can’t return to England because of that outstanding warrant.”
“Yes, but it seems unfair that he got away with murder,” Sabine said.
“It would be next to impossible to prove and would get us involved, which we don’t want.”
“I suppose not. It must be difficult to be a vigilante if everyone knows who you are.”
“We hit him where it hurt the most, in his pocket.”
“Not to mention his nose,” Sabine added, giggling as she recalled Pearson’s horrified expression. “That’ll stop him for a while.”
“Yeap, Gabe will tell you that a broken nose never looks the same again when it heals. He’ll lay low for at least as long as it takes to recover his ‘beauty.’”
“I guess.”
“Besides, I meant it when I told him that we’d publish his picture and all his aliases online. It won’t stop him, but it will make it harder for him to rip off anyone else.”
“The first place people take their suspicions nowadays is the internet,” Sabine agreed, nodding. “His wings have definitely been clipped.”
“You took a good shot at clipping something else with that knee of yours.”
“I’m so grateful to you guys,” Sabine said, swamped by a fresh bout of love for each of them. “I can’t believe you got all my money back for me.”
“Why not?” Fin dealt her another bemused look. “We told you that we would.”
“But you made it seem so easy.”
“Things usually are if you’re patient.” He flashed a sexy smile. “That’s what we’ve been trying to teach you this past week or so. If you do your research, put in the necessary preparation, and take things slowly, the result is always more satisfactory.”
“Yes, I know that now. You three are great teachers.”
“Need a refresher course?” Fin asked.
“Always,” she said happily.
Chapter Fourteen
“We’re gonna have to start thinking about the future soon,” Sabine told Mulligan a couple of days later. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“Hi,” Fin said, drifting out onto the terrace to join her and leaning in for a kiss.
She glanced up at him and died a little inside. He looked even more devastating than usual today. Hair flopped across his lovely green eyes, and the day’s growth on his cleft chin only added to his rugged appeal. His lack of a shirt gave her a graphic reminder of his toned six-pack, making the thought of parting from him even more torturous. Otto and Gabe, similarly garbed, weren’t far behind him, only adding to her turmoil.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said to them all. “It’s a lot to ask, but could Mulligan stay here with you?”
“Sure he can stay here.” Fin frowned. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“Well, I didn’t know if you’d thought about having a dog.”
“We have you, so we have Mulligan,” Otto said.
“Besides, we’re fond of the mutt,” Gabe added, scratching said mutt’s ears.
“I could fly him back with me, but I don’t like the idea of him being put in a crate in the hold of a plane. He’d be scared. You know what a big wuss he is.”
“Fly back where?” three voices asked together.
“England, of course.” Why were they making this so hard for her? “It’s where I live, in case you’d forgotten.”
“You’ve got the freedom to live wherever you like now that money’s no longer an issue,” Otto reminded her.
“What do you have to go back there for?” Fin asked.
Gabe nodded. “Right, no job, no house.”
“Besides, Mulligan would be devastated if you left him,” Otto said.
Sabine glanced at her feet. “I’m just in the way here.”
“Where the hell did you get that idea?” Gabe asked, scowling. “Didn’t we welcome you with open arms?”
“Literally,” Otto added.
“Yes, I know, but I’m cramping your style.”
“What is it, babe?”
Fin gently ran a hand down the side of her face. “Don’t you want to stay with us?”
Sabine shook her head, convinced that she’d misheard him. “You want me to stay?”
“Well, of course we do,” they all said together. “We thought you knew.”
“In what capacity?” Sabine stared into three impossibly handsome faces, each one alight with expectation, and the clamp that had seized her heart whenever she thought about leaving them eased slightly. “You’re commitment-phobes,” she said slowly.
“Not, apparently, if we’re in love,” Fin said.
“It’s taken you to make us realize that,” Otto added.
“Besides,” Gabe said, grinning as though he’d thought of some irrefutable argument. “You can’t possibly leave, because you’re my muse. You inspire my best work, and I need you to pose for me for—oh, the next twenty years or more.”
“Make that the rest of her life,” Fin said.
“What would Dalí have been without Gala to inspire him?” Otto asked.
“Antony without Cleopatra?” Fin asked, getting into the spirit of things.
“Antony wasn’t an artist,” Gabe pointed out.
“Don’t split hairs.”
As Sabine listened to the now familiar bickering, her jaw literally dropped open. They were serious. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t love us as much as we love you.” Fin looked devastated. “I knew this was too good to be true.”
“Oh, I do. I absolutely do. How can you doubt that after the games we’ve played this last couple of weeks?”
“Then why the hesitation?” Gabe asked.
“Well, you three, how can I explain this? You’re all so glamorous, so forceful, so dynamic. You could have absolutely any woman you wanted. I’d never be enough for you, not long term.”
“Prove it,” Otto challenged.
“We love sharing you,” Fin said, trailing kisses down her neck. “You’re right that we’re all afraid of commitment, or were, but having you between us gets us through that.”
Her lips parted in a slow, infectious smile as she allowed herself to believe they were actually serious. “You really want me to sign on for life with the three of you?”