Payton looked to Adam. “Keep her out of trouble.”
Mira turned to Adam and stared at him, silently warning him to tread lightly.
He shifted his stance so that he was facing Mira, completely ignoring Payton. “I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you safe. Not because you’re weak and not because of any order. I’m doing it because you and I aren’t done. Not even close. Once this is over, I want you whole and safe so that we can continue where we left off.”
Just like that, she was thinking about the sex they’d just had. Hot, against-the-rules, on-the-desk sex. “We’re not done?” she asked, her voice a mere squeak of sound.
“Far from it. So when I tell you to duck or run or hide, know that I’m telling you that so we can keep breaking the rules.”
Payton cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, nor do I care. But I think you should go now.” He slid a piece of paper across the desk. “This is the access ID for Sage’s tracker. Don’t activate it unless you must. As long as the tracker is hidden, we have a chance at finding him.”
Mira glanced at the paper and memorized the code. “Where was he last spotted?”
“I’ll send you the coordinates while you gear up. Just don’t be long. Sophie’s life is on the clock now.”
* * *
Riley had asked Sophie to marry him. She still couldn’t get her head around it.
Who did that? What man in his right mind asked a woman he hardly knew to run off to Aruba with him?
And what woman in her right mind said no to an offer that good?
Sophie still couldn’t believe she’d had the strength to say no. Only the certain knowledge that he’d wake up one morning soon, resenting her for ruining his life, had kept her from saying yes.
She’d so desperately wanted to say yes.
Riley sat in the backseat, glowering. Gage drove the car, his eyes covered with shades so that she couldn’t see where he was looking or what he was thinking.
“This is idiotic,” said Riley.
“You promised,” said Gage. “No complaints.”
“You can’t tell me you think this is a good idea—taking Sophie out in the middle of nowhere and dropping her off so that she can be abducted.”
“Not my call,” said Gage.
“It’s brilliant,” said Sophie. “Out in the country there’s little risk of anyone getting hurt or calling the cops. As long as I don’t fight back, they won’t hurt me.” Much. “They want me alive, remember?”
“How will we even know which men are Stynger’s and which are Sage’s?”
The reflective lenses of Gage’s glasses lifted toward the rearview mirror. “I’ll know.”
“There’s still time to rethink this,” said Riley. “We can turn around and take you back to my place. That sounds a whole hell of a lot better, doesn’t it?”
She shifted in her seat to face him as best she could. “I want this over as much as you do, but it’s a done deal. You said you wouldn’t make a fuss.”
“No, you said I wouldn’t make a fuss. I said I was coming with you. I never stipulated that I wouldn’t try to stop you.”
“Deal or get out,” said Gage.
Riley leaned back and crossed his arms over his powerful chest. “I’m dealing,” he told Gage. “Not well, but I’m dealing.”
They drove awhile. Riley watched her the whole time, and she couldn’t figure out why. He seemed to be studying her, or possibly looking for something he couldn’t quite find.
“What?” she finally asked him.
“Why aren’t you afraid?”
“It’s not time to be afraid yet. Once it is, I promise I’ll be all over it. But right now, in this moment, I’m safe and comfortable. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”
Gage’s glasses flicked back to the mirror. “She’s a keeper.”
“Hands off,” said Riley. “I saw her first.”
Gage grinned and kept driving.
“You know what to do when we get there?” asked Riley.
“Yes. I go in and hide in the basement until the bad guys huff and puff and blow my door in.”
“Use your weapon to thin their numbers, but try not to kill them all.”
The idea of taking a life repelled her, but she’d do whatever it took to take Sage down. Besides, she could aim for arms and legs as well as anyone.
“Gage and I will be nearby, but not so close that you’ll be able to see us.”
But they would be there. About that, she had no doubt.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d trusted a man as much as she did Riley. Maybe she never had. She sure as hell hadn’t trusted her father. And the string of boyfriends she’d had over the years . . . she trusted them to steal her cash while she slept, but that was about it. She’d trusted Lorenzo Soma enough to let him coax her into bed, and all that had earned her was a miscarriage that had nearly broken her heart.
“I’ll try not to look for you,” she said.
“You’re tagged with multiple tracking devices. We’ll be able to find you no matter where you go, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Gage turned onto a dirt road.
Now she was starting to get nervous.
Riley cupped her shoulder and leaned forward. His voice was quiet, and even though Gage could hear him, the words seemed to be for her ears alone. “I won’t leave you. You won’t see me, but I will be there, Sophie.”
Just like he’d been there for her before, in Colombia. She wouldn’t have lived through that night without him. He’d stayed behind with her when they’d been trapped inside the villa. He’d stayed with her when she couldn’t keep walking. Even when the bullets were flying at them and they were being hunted through the jungle—her leaving a trail of blood behind that was way too easy to follow—he hadn’t left her.
She covered his hand, soaking in the hot power of his skin against hers. “I believe you.”
Gage slowed as he pulled into a long, gravel driveway. A little house sat at the end of the drive, aged and unassuming.
“This is it,” said Riley. “From here on out, it’s just like we planned. They may be close, so watch what you say.”
“I’ll go in with her.” Riley pulled his hand away and donned a cool mask of indifference. Gone was the warmth in his eyes. She knew it was for show, but it still made her insides curl up to see it.
Gage shook his head slightly but said nothing.
“I should be the one to get her settled.”
“You’re too close.”
Sophie desperately wanted Riley to stay with her for just a little longer, but it was more important that they did this right. “We stick with the plan.”
The car stopped. She reached for her door handle.
“No,” said Riley. “Wait for Gage to come around and get you out.”
“And then it’s just like we planned,” she repeated.
“That’s right.”
She nodded. “I go inside and wait to be taken.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“In position.” Gage’s voice came over the comms.
Beside Mira, Adam went tense.
“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?” she asked.
He shifted in his seat and said nothing. The armored car they waited in near her father’s current location seemed to grow smaller.
The sky was heavy with clouds the same shade as Adam’s gray eyes. The bare branches of the trees in the park where they waited swayed on a cold wind. Even with the windows closed, Mira could smell snow in the air. Weather reports indicated that they were in for some flurries, but she hoped that it was no more than that. Anything that obscured visibility was going to make it easier to lose sight of her dad.
“He’s a good man,” said
Adam. “Not much of a talker, but you can see it in him—that inner core of goodness running all the way through him.”
Mira had never really thought about it, but now that she did, she realized Adam was right. “He’s always been there whenever anyone has needed him. That’s probably why Bella partnered you with him. He’s not the kind to throw your past deeds in your face every day. Like I did.”
He flashed her a smile. “You haven’t tried to use that against me in at least twelve hours.”
She stared in the direction her father was hiding. She couldn’t see him from here, but she knew he was close. That was enough to make her skin crawl. “The last two times I saw my dad, he tried to kill me. If I see him again, he might succeed. There doesn’t seem to be much point in carrying a grudge against you—especially since you were the one who kept me alive both times.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the sky darken as the day ended and the storm moved in.
“There’s something I want you to know,” said Adam. “Just in case things go . . . badly.”
He had her complete attention now. She stifled a spurt of worry and turned in her seat to face him. “Nothing is going to go badly. I forbid it.”
He gave an amused grunt. “I like your plan, but there’s still something you should know.”
“Save it for after the job.”
“No. It can’t wait. I need at least one other person to know the truth.”
And he was trusting her? That made a little warm spot light up right in the middle of her chest. “Okay. If it’s that important.”
He looked past her, taking several deep breaths as if to gather his nerve. “Gage is Eli.”
Eli, his lost little brother.
Shock streaked through her, leaving a numb path in its wake. “Gage is your brother?”
Adam nodded.
“Does he know?”
“No. No one does. Except me and your father.”
“How is that even possible?”
“He was adopted when he was young. I don’t think he even remembers that he has a brother.”
“Why haven’t you told him?”
“Everyone sees me as suspicious at best and the enemy at worst. I wanted a chance to prove to him the kind of man I really was before I let him know we shared blood.”
“You should have told him.”
“Not yet. I mean, how would you have felt to know that your only biological sibling was working for the people you dedicated your life to destroying?”
“But you were only working for them so you could find him. That has to count for something.”
“Does it? Does it change the way you feel about the things I’ve done?”
Mira thought about it. Really thought about it.
If Clay went missing, what would she do? How far would she go to find him? She loved him like a brother, and she couldn’t think of very many things she wouldn’t do if his life was at stake.
Did that make her a bad person? She didn’t think so. And the more time she spent with Adam, seeing how he ticked, the more she came to realize that they were more alike than she’d ever suspected.
She took Adam’s hand in hers. “You should tell Gage who you are. He deserves to know that he has a brother who would do anything for him, the way you did.”
“If he rejects me, I don’t think I could handle it. I’ve searched for him for so long . . .”
“He won’t reject you. And if he does, you’ll simply win him over, the way you did me.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Have I won you over, Mira?”
“I don’t want to kill you in your sleep anymore. That’s got to count for something, right?”
“I know I have a long way to go to truly earn your trust, but I will. Even if it takes me the rest of my life.”
Mira was reeling from that proclamation and all the attached implications when the comms squawked to life. There was a loud boom, like a tree crashing into a roof. Then a woman let out a terrified, blood-curdling scream. Sophie. Gunfire erupted, filling the car with its explosive noise.
Silence filled the line for a second, giving Mira time to count every one of her frenetic heartbeats.
“They have her,” said Riley, his voice coming through gritted teeth.
Mira had to breathe deeply to stem the urge to vomit.
That poor woman. She’d done nothing to deserve the fear she suffered. She was innocent—another victim of a man Mira could have killed a dozen times over.
If only she’d had the nerve.
A little poison in his morning coffee. A bullet in his head as he slept. Or she could have made it look like an accident, just like he’d done to Mom.
If Mira had taken her father out when she first realized just how twisted he really was, she could have saved so much suffering.
But she hadn’t. He was her dad, and she’d let that cloud her better judgment.
Mira’s phone buzzed, alerting her that her father’s tracking device had begun to move.
She turned on her mic as she held the screen up for Adam to see. “Movement on this end. We’re in pursuit.”
Adam started the car. His expression changed as he went into work mode. Gone was the sweet warmth she’d glimpsed a moment ago. In its place was the stony-faced badass she recognized all too well.
She turned off her mic again. “Are you going to tell me what you meant by that ‘rest of my life’ remark?”
He didn’t even look at her as he pulled out into traffic. “Only if we survive.”
* * *
Riley had to be physically restrained from going after Sophie. If not for Gage’s unbreakable hold on his arm, Riley would have been hot on the heels of that van that carried her away, screaming and sobbing.
He prayed to God her terror was more for show than real.
“We need to go,” said Riley.
“Patience,” said Gage.
“Fuck patience. We can’t let them take her far. What if we lose her signal?”
“We won’t.”
This was part of the plan. Riley kept telling himself that as he counted off the seconds.
Payton’s voice came over the comms. “I see the van on satellite. We’re tracking them now.”
They stayed in place, hidden from sight, just in case there was a backup team covering the van’s getaway. He had no idea how much time passed, but it felt like way too much.
“Now?” he asked.
Gage laid a hand on Riley’s arm. “Patience.”
Riley growled. “If that was your woman being dragged away, you wouldn’t be so damn calm.”
Gage looked at him then, blinking twice as if surprised. “Your woman?”
“Yeah. She is. I even asked her to marry me.”
Gage let out a low whistle.
“Don’t worry. She said no. Well. Actually, she told me to ask her again if we survived.”
“Smart woman.”
“Why? Because she didn’t say yes or because she waited to tell me no?”
Gage grinned. “Idiot.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
His grin widened. “She’ll say yes.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged.
“You don’t even know the woman. How can you possibly know she’ll say yes after this is all over?”
Gage grinned. “You’re cute.”
“I’m cute? That’s why she’s going to marry me? I’ve been cute for a long time and I’m still single.”
“Right woman this time.”
So Gage thought Sophie was going to say yes.
That meant a lot to Riley. Gage didn’t talk much, but he was always listening. And he was as astute as hell. If he thought Sophie was the right woman and that she was going to say yes,
then odds were she was.
That thought bolstered Riley’s spirits and made him straighten his spine. The woman he was going to marry had just given herself up to be used as bait. She was taken, and he was going to do everything in his power to see to it that she came back to him alive and well. Even if he had to pry her away from the bad guys with his bare hands.
And as soon as he got her back in his arms, he was never letting her go again.
Chapter Thirty
Sophie did her best not to pee her pants in fear.
The guys who had abducted her were silent, practically ignoring her where she crouched in the back of the van.
They’d cuffed her to the wall, forcing her to brace herself every time the van turned so she wouldn’t slide across the slick metal floor and dangle by her wrists.
Her ribs ached where one of the men had hit her. She’d shot him in the leg for his effort. Three times. He was laid out on the floor of the van, leaking blood.
He glared at her over his crooked nose, his gaze promising payback.
Sophie was smart enough to not spit in his face, but she was definitely entertaining some vivid fantasies of doing just that.
The van lurched and rocked as they sped to wherever it was they were going. After what she thought was about an hour, they stopped.
One of the men stepped in front of her. He was in his late thirties, with a receding hairline and a fresh scar bisecting his chin. “Strip.”
“Not only no, but hell no.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This is about making sure we’re not followed. Now, do it, or I will help.”
She held out her arms. “Unlock me. I can’t do anything without my arms free.”
He hesitated for a second, then did as she asked.
The second he unlocked her and stepped back, she bolted for the door. She knew she wasn’t going to get away. That wasn’t even her intention. But if she didn’t make her desire to get away look real, they’d start to suspect that she was exactly where she wanted to be.
Kind of.
Chin Scar grabbed her around the waist before she hit the door. He hauled her back, while she kicked and clawed the whole way. The second he dumped her on her ass, she cowered, pretending to be suitably fearful.
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