Headlights flooded the car and Rio’s hand fell open, releasing the door handle he’d been trying to pull. Someone was here to help.
Why, why, why?
The words pierced through his muddled brain again. This couldn’t be natural. A bright light flashed in his head. Someone had drugged them.
He struggled against the darkness sliding across his mind, inch by inch. His battle to keep it at bay got an unexpected boost when someone yanked open the driver’s side door, flooding the car with light and freezing cold.
Rio peeled one eye open. Two men crowded the doorway, and the smell of tobacco revived him even more. He tried to control his slack mouth to ask for help, but before he could one of the men spoke…in Russian.
“Are they out?”
“Looks like they’re out cold…in a manner of speaking.”
The other man guffawed, and Max stirred and whimpered in the back seat.
Rio immediately shut his one functioning eye. If they thought he was out, he’d accommodate them.
“Prince Maksim is awake.”
The back door of the car jerked open, and Mad Prince Alexi whispered, “My son, my son.”
As buckles snapped and Max’s jacket crinkled, Rio concentrated all his efforts on moving one finger. He couldn’t do it. Alexi was stealing Max right from under his nose, and he couldn’t do a damned thing to stop him.
“And the princess?”
“Take her.”
Alexi’s words punched Rio in the gut, and hot rage coursed through his mind, but not his body, which remained on vacation.
More snaps and rustling amid Max’s whining. “Is Mommy sleeping?”
“Yes, my son. She’s very tired, but we’re going to bring her back to Glazkova with us. We’re going to be a family again.”
Rio yelled, “Over my drugged body,” but the words remained imprisoned in his head.
A sliding noise and Rio could no longer feel the warmth of Tori’s body in the next seat. They had her.
Max sniffled. “What about Rio? We’re supposed to have Christmas.”
“We will have our own Christmas in Glazkova, my son, my prince.”
The back door slammed shut, and Max’s cries became fainter. The cold air still whooshed inside the car from the driver’s side, and Rio held on to one corner of his consciousness. He had to discover where Alexi was taking them.
Bodies again pressed against the driver’s side of the car. The smell of tobacco, booze and garlic kept Rio awake, and he breathed in the mingled odors like a smelling salt.
“What about him, Prince Alexi?”
The other man grunted. “Shoot him. He’s a filthy CIA collaborator.”
“No.” Alexi spoke sharply. “Tomas said McClintock finished that bowl of soup. He should have enough dope in him to keep him out for several more hours. He won’t know what hit him and by the time he wakes, if he wakes, we’ll be secure in our hideout until this miserable weather clears and we can take off.”
“Why not just off him so he can’t come after us again?”
“The CIA won’t care about a family dispute over custody. They’ve proven that time and again. But killing one of their top independent contractors? They’d never stop coming after me. Leave him. Maybe he’ll die of hypothermia. The CIA can’t blame me for that.”
A big hand grabbed Rio’s forearm, and for a split second he thought Alexi had changed his mind. Then the hand threw Rio’s arm to the side and burrowed into his pocket. Not finding what he was seeking, Alexi’s thug reached across Rio’s body to the other pocket and scooped out his cell phone.
Someone sank into the driver’s seat, and the SUV rolled down the embankment, sinking into the soft carpet of snow. They planned to leave him here to die.
Leaving all the doors open, the man clambered back to the road, his boots crunching the snow. The cold air splashed Rio’s cheeks and soaked into his skin. If he didn’t move, and soon, he’d freeze to death. He blinked his eyes and forced his fingers to move.
I didn’t drink as much of that soup as Tomas thought, you SOB.
As the other truck roared to life, Rio groaned and reached across the seat in a futile effort to rescue the woman he loved.
Several minutes later, with the cold wind blasting his face and ripping through his body, Rio stretched his arms and legs as he awakened back to the land of the living. He staggered from the car and scooped up handfuls of snow, warming it into water between his gloved hands. He began drinking the cold water, filling his belly to bursting. Then he leaned forward and shoved two fingers down his throat. He retched and vomited into the scrubby bushes by the side of the road.
Whatever Tomas had slipped them in the soup was fast-acting, but Rio could make sure no more of the drug insinuated itself into his bloodstream. He threw up once more, his gut clenching into a spasm.
Then he grabbed more snow and rubbed it all over his face. Stamping his feet, he waved his arms above his head to get his circulation pumping at a normal rate.
At least this storm would keep Alexi on the ground and close by, giving Rio an opportunity to find them. If Alexi took Tori to Glazkova, Rio would never see her again. The Zherkovs practically owned that country. The Mad Prince could do anything he wanted to Tori, and he’d continue to endanger Max’s life.
No. Rio would never allow that to happen.
He hauled himself up the embankment and onto the road. Squatting next to the tire tracks on the road, he poked at the pieces of his cell phone crushed beneath the tire of Alexi’s car. He squinted into the snow-covered night. They’d headed north, nothing but wilderness that way. Of course, they wouldn’t want to stay in Silverhill, and they couldn’t get through to Durango. The storm he’d cursed hours ago now became Rio’s best friend.
But he couldn’t go wandering into the mountains in a blizzard. He’d probably end up walking off the edge of a cliff. Alexi obviously had a plan. He’d planted Tomas here for a couple of years as insurance, and that policy had just paid off. Tomas had already scoped out a hiding place, a backup plan. Alexi had called it their hideout.
Rio didn’t know the first thing about this terrain. But he knew who did.
Fully revived, Rio tucked his chin to his chest, folded his hands beneath his armpits and strode up the roadway. After ten minutes of walking on a couple of frozen sticks he used to call legs, he spied a revolving yellow light in the distance. He lurched to the side of the road. If Alexi had made a U-turn to check up on him, he’d lose his one chance of finding Tori and Max.
The grating noise of the vehicle preceded Rio’s ability to determine its shape or size. But as the wide-load behemoth drew almost abreast of him, a surge of relief coursed through his chilled body. Snowplow to the rescue.
Rio stepped in front of the vehicle, waving his arms like a lunatic. The snowplow ground to a stop, and a bundled-up figure with just his eyes showing leaned out of the door.
“What are you doing out here?”
Waving his arm behind him, Rio yelled back, “My car stalled out on me. Can you turn around and take me to the McClintock ranch?”
The man pulled his hood farther over his face. “The McClintocks? What do you want with the McClintocks?”
Rio stepped into the light. “I’m Rio McClintock, they’re my half…my brothers.”
“Right. I heard you were in town.” He shoved his hand into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a phone. “I’m just going to give them a call. Small town, you know. We look after our own.”
Rio held a frosty breath. Would his brothers turn their backs on him now? What right did he have to expect anything from them? No. They’d at least help Tori. They’d do anything to help Tori.
After a brief conversation on the phone, the driver said, “Hop on in.”
Fifteen minutes later, the snowplow lumbered its way up the long drive to Rod McClintock’s ranch, clearing the path as it went forward. Jumping from the vehicle, Rio thanked the man and then bounded up the front steps.
The door swung open before Rio even reached the porch. Warmth and laughter spilled from the house, and lights glowed a cheerful welcome. In another time—there was nothing cheerful about the news he brought.
Rafe propped up the door with his shoulder, Rod and Ryder crowding in behind him. Rafe’s smile faded as he took in Rio’s solitary form. “What’s going on? Where are Tori and Max?”
Rio heaved himself up the last step, his jaw tight, the backs of his eyes aching with cold. “Alexi took them and I need your help.”
SOMETHING PINCHED HER inner arm, and Tori tried to swat it away, but rough hands cinched her wrist and upper arm, holding her still.
Tori moaned and shifted on the hard earth. When her captor released her arm, she rubbed the sore spot on the inside of her elbow. Her head pounded with drumbeats of pain and her tongue stuck to the roof of her dry mouth. Max whimpered near her ear, his soft, sleepy body burrowing into hers.
She curled an arm around him and struggled to sit upright. A man holding a syringe backed into the semi-circle around the fire and collapsed next to his weapon. Her gaze shifted from one man to the next, resting on Alexi front and center. The restaurant and then sleep, encroaching, mind-numbing sleep.
She licked her lips, hugging Max tighter. They’d been drugged. And drugged again—she glanced at the pin prick in her arm. Her gaze darted around the dark, hollow cave as terror seeped into her bones. What had they done with Rio?
Alexi tsked. “Looking for your boyfriend? Don’t bother. He’s dead.”
His words sucked the air from her lungs, and she doubled over, resting her chin on Max’s curls. Oh, God, she’d done this to Rio. She’d lured him into her dangerous world, bound him to her, all the while knowing Alexi would never relinquish his son. But what did he want with her?
She blinked her dry eyes and raised her head. “Tomas? The soup?”
Alexi rubbed his hands. “Prescient of me, wasn’t it? I knew you’d head back to this godforsaken land one of these days, and I wanted to keep my options open.”
She gulped. “How’d you know? How’d you time it for this night?”
He lifted his shoulders, uncharacteristically clad in a heavy down jacket, lined with fur, of course. “I didn’t. But I knew you’d make it to that restaurant eventually. All the locals do, don’t they? I’m always ready for anything, Victoria. You should know that by now.”
Rio dead.
She shoved the thought from her brain, buried it in her consciousness to take out and examine later. She still had a chance to escape. The blizzard had grounded Alexi’s operation and ruined his plans.
“What was in that syringe?”
“Just a little something to revive you, or you would’ve been out for a long time.”
She almost wished that all-encompassing sleep had her in its grip. “What am I doing here? I figured you’d come for Max, but why me?”
“So many questions.” Alexi poured himself a cup of hot coffee from a steaming thermos, the smell of the brew turning Tori’s already unsettled stomach.
“My dear, you’ve become a loose cannon out in the big, bad world by yourself—following me, bothering my staff, working with the CIA. I think it’s time for you to return home. You’ll be safe and secure in Glazkova.”
Panic roared through her body, shooting her full of adrenaline. Her leg jerked. “I’m not going back.”
“You will.” He blew on his coffee. “You won’t ever leave Maksim again. And if that weren’t motivation enough, I’m simply going to drug you up and load you on my private jet.”
Tori forced her lips into a stiff smile. “Not going to happen.”
Alexi shook his head, almost sadly. “This storm is supposed to wear itself out by tomorrow. We’ll spend the night in this cozy cave and head for the plane tomorrow before anyone even realizes you’re gone.”
“Someone will find my brother’s car on the side of the road. They’ll find Rio’s…Rio.” She ended on a sob. The McClintocks would come after her. They’d find her and avenge their brother’s death.
Alexi threw his head back and laughed. “The car is down an embankment, probably covered with two feet of snow by now and McClintock’s body is a Popsicle.”
Rage boiled her blood. She’d kill him with her bare hands. She shifted Max’s body from her lap and rolled the blanket around him, tucking the ends around his chin.
She rose to her haunches and scooted closer to the fire in the center of the cave. She knew their location. Hell, if you grew up in Silverhill and had make-out sessions with the opposite sex, you had intimate knowledge of the caves.
Her muscles tensed, ready for anything. Alexi’s two henchmen had weapons, but they lay carelessly on the ground by crossed legs. She’d bet one planned to guard her at night, at gunpoint, but with everyone wide awake now, except Max, they’d gotten lazy.
She liked lazy. She knew how to take advantage of lazy.
Alexi tipped more coffee into his cup and poured an other. “Coffee, Victoria? It’s going to be a long, cold night.”
She held out her hand, trying to control the trembling. This might be her last act against her ex-husband, but she doubted the goons to her right would shoot her. Alexi didn’t want her dead. God help her, he wanted her as his wife again. She could see the twisted desire in his obsidian eyes.
As Alexi extended his arm, the cup of hot coffee in his hand, Tori clenched her fist and smacked it against the cup. Alexi spewed a litany of Russian curse words as the liquid scalded his hand. The men jumped up, and then the ceiling of the cave seemed to crash in.
Four men dropped into the middle of the cave, and Tori rolled her body over Max’s, peeking over her shoulder at the chaos unfolding. Rod struggled with one of the men, finally smacking him on the back of the head with the butt of his gun. Ryder had already subdued his man with a chokehold, and the man slithered to the floor, unconscious. Rafe had positioned himself at the cave’s entrance, weapon aloft, securing the area.
And Rio. Rio! He and Alexi grappled on the cave floor until a gunshot echoed through the caverns. Tori gasped and covered her ringing ears. Her gaze locked on to the two figures. One peeled away from the other.
Rio lurched to his knees, holding his shoulder. Then he scuffled to her side wrapping his arms around her and an awakening Max. Tori pressed Max’s face against her side and buried her own in Rio’s wet jacket.
“I thought…he told me…” She couldn’t finish the thought that had ripped her apart, darkened her world for ever.
“Shh.” He kissed her hair while he rubbed circles on her back. “He left me for dead, but remember? I never finished that soup. How’d you wake up so quickly? I figured we’d find you unconscious.”
“Alexi gave me something to revive me. He just had to gloat. Is he…?”
Ryder dropped Alexi’s arm and nodded, running a zipper across his lips and pointing to Max.
“I think he’s drifting off again. He had some of our soup. We need to get him to the hospital.”
Rafe burst through the cave opening, waving his gun. “Everything secure? Are there any more, Tori?”
“I didn’t see any. What are you going to do with these two?” She gestured to the two men laid out on the cave floor.
“The Agency will pick them up, but you need to lock them up tonight, bro.”
Rod unraveled a length of rope. “We need to revive them to march them out of here. I sure as hell am not going to carry them out of the mountains.”
Rio pushed to his feet and helped Tori to hers, taking a dozing Max from her arms.
A shudder coursed through her body. Alexi dead. Her nightmare had just ended in the caves of Silverhill. She placed her hand over Rio’s heart and even beneath the layers of his jacket, shirt and long underwear she could still feel its steady beat.
“How’d you know? How’d you find me here?”
Rio jerked his thumb toward the three men rousing the prisoners and tying them together for the trek out of the mountains, the mountains t
hey knew like an old familiar friend. “My brothers showed me the way.”
Epilogue
Rio brushed the pad of his thumb across Tori’s cheek as she blinked back tears watching Max rip into his biggest present under the tree. A present from the McClintock brothers.
Max dragged a saddle out of the box and shrieked above the already deafening sound of the other McClintock kids tearing wrapping paper and demolishing boxes. Rod’s boy, Jesse, crawled to Max on his hands and knees nudging Ryder’s little girl, Shelby, out of the way to have a look at Max’s big gift. Rafe’s daughter, Kelsey, the oldest of the brood, looked on with a superior smirk on her face.
Their mothers, Callie, Dana and Julia, clustered on the sofa, cooing over Julia and Ryder’s newborn baby boy.
Max lugged the saddle to his mother. “Can I ride a horse now, Mommy?”
She stroked a curl out of his eye. “Well, someone has to teach your first. You can’t just go jumping on a horse, even with a brand-new saddle.”
Max turned his green eyes on Rio. “Can you teach me, Rio?”
Rafe erupted in laughter. “You’re going to have to find a better teacher than Rio, son.”
Rio clenched his jaw momentarily until he met his brother’s bright blue gaze. He grinned and ruffled Max’s hair. “Rafe is right, Max. I think your best bet is Rod ’cuz I heard Rafe is reckless and irresponsible.”
This time Rod laughed as Rafe’s mouth hung open. “You got that right, but don’t let it get out. He’s the sheriff of Silverhill, you know.”
“Help me out here, bro.” Rafe turned to Ryder who had plucked his son from his wife’s arms and was dabbing drool from the baby’s mouth.
Ryder skewered Rod with a piercing look. “Talk about reckless. At least Rafe met his wife in high school. Rod picked his up by the side of the road, already wearing a wedding dress.”
Callie jumped from the sofa and draped her arms around Rod’s shoulders. “Hey, that’s totally uncalled for. He was just living up to the McClintock code—protect, serve and rescue.”
“Yeah, and at least he does it here at home instead of in fifty different countries around the world.” Rafe leveled an accusing finger at Ryder.
A Silverhill Christmas Page 18