by Leah Brooke
Their lives were in danger, and unless she did something soon, they would both end up like Lawrence. Poor Lawrence. He’d been so nice, and they’d killed him.
He was dead. The man who’d smiled at her, who’d brought them dinner and fruit just hours ago, was dead.
She rushed to catch up with Nick, not wanting to let him out of her sight. Even if she found a way to escape, she couldn’t leave him.
Oh, Nick. How do I get us out of this? Please wake up!
They ran down the dock to where a boat stood waiting, and in no time at all she found herself ushered onto it, her bare feet sliding on the deck. Although it was still too dark to see anything clearly, the thud of Nick hitting the deck made her cringe.
“Jesus, he’s big.” The other man rolled his shoulder.
As soon as Munson released her, she rushed to Nick’s side.
Dropping next to him, she winced at the hard, cold deck against her skin and managed to get her legs under his head to cushion it. “Nick, please wake up. Baby, please wake up.”
When he stirred, she looked over her shoulder to see the other man starting up the boat and Munson pointing his gun toward the house, scanning the area.
When the boat took off, she braced herself as best she could and bent her knees to keep Nick’s head on her lap. The combination of fear and the wind now blowing over them made her tremble with cold, but also made it nearly impossible to hear.
Bending close to Nick, she sniffed, tears blurring her vision. “Nick, baby, please wake up.”
“Julianna?”
Her heart leapt with joy, until she looked over her shoulder to see Munson approach. She bent as close to Nick as she could, hoping he would hear her frantic whisper. “Keep still. Keep your eyes closed.”
Munson approached and squatted next to them, raising his voice to be heard over the engine. “You’d better wake your boyfriend up before we land. Sam doesn’t want to carry him again, and I sure as hell ain’t doing it. We’ll drag him, and he won’t look too pretty after that.”
“I’m awake.”
Julianna whipped her head around as Nick struggled into a sitting position. “Damn it, Nick.”
Munson stood again, towering over them. “Good. Now you two just sit still until we get where we’re going if you don’t want me to shoot you. I don’t feel like carrying either one of you.”
He walked away without a backward glance, his limp more pronounced than before as he moved back up to where the man with all the cologne, the one she now knew as Sam, drove the boat way too fast into the night.
She and Nick both struggled to a better position, sitting up and leaning against the side of the boat for support. She wanted desperately to lean against him, but didn’t know how badly he’d been hurt.
His eyes searched hers in the darkness. “Are you all right?”
Nick’s voice came out weak and thready, but much stronger than it had been just a minute ago.
Nodding, she struggled against the ropes at her wrists, trying to loosen the strain on her shoulders. “Yes, I’m fine. How about you? Where are you hurt?”
Nick groaned. “Just my head. What did they do to you? You’re shivering. Lean on me, little one.”
Despite the circumstances, or maybe because of them, Julianna warmed at his usual endearment and leaned against him as best she could, resting her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Nick, they killed Lawrence.”
Nick’s body tightened. “They must have killed everyone. There’s no way they would have been able to get past Mike, Jay, and Ron. Did you see anything when they brought us out of the house?”
She closed her eyes against the mental image of Lawrence lying dead on the kitchen floor. “Nothing. No one. Just Lawrence. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine. Did you hear them talk about anything?”
Lifting her head, she closed her eyes as he bent to hear her, his silky hair brushing her cheek.
“He said he was kidnapping us, well, you, for ten million dollars. He said something about being tired of taking jobs over the years, and he wants to retire and stop running.”
“So why the hell did he take you, damn it?”
Julianna shrugged and looked out into the darkness, still stinging from Munson’s claim that a woman Nick and Steve shared would be worthless to either of them. Under the circumstances, it was silly to be hurt by such a thing, but it made her wonder if it was true. “He said he was taking me to keep you in line.”
Nick stilled. “Look at me.”
Julianna lifted her head, turning toward him. “What is it?”
Nick cursed. “It’s too dark to see your face, but…something. What is it?”
Julianna looked away. “We’ve been kidnapped, for God’s sake. Isn’t that enough?”
“Hmm.” He kissed her hair, a simple gesture that brought tears to her eyes. “Don’t worry, honey. Steve and the others will find us. This is what he was trained for.”
Julianna nodded as the knot in her stomach tightened. “Munson was trained the same way.”
* * * *
The sight of Lawrence lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor hit Steve hard. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, he and Adam kept their guns up as Doc raced into the room.
Knowing his fear for Nick and Julianna would only cloud his mind, he forced it back, but it had to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done. It had taken them far too long to get here, and it was broad daylight by the time they landed. They’d spent the time in the air planning and on the phone with Victor ordering supplies.
Craig dropped next to Lawrence. “He’s still alive. Help me get him to one of the beds.”
“No. Get him on the plane. We’re leaving as soon as we check the house.” Hearing a noise, Steve whipped around, pointing his gun at the French doors, shocked to see Mike, Doc, and Ron staggering in. All three looked pale, weak, and mad as hell.
“You look like shit. What the hell happened? Did Munson get the drop on you?”
Mike grimaced. “We never even saw him. Bastard put something in the food. We just woke up.” He came the rest of the way into the solarium and looked through the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh, hell.”
Drawing his own gun, he glanced at Steve, shaking his head as if to clear his vision. “Have you checked the house yet?”
“No. Doing it when we came across Lawrence.”
Ron came up behind him with his own gun drawn, his face tight with anger. “Feels empty.”
Steve took a deep breath, fighting back fear. “Yeah.”
Searching the rest of the house revealed a small amount of blood on the white bedroom carpet, Nick’s cell phone lying open near it, and the fact that someone had disarmed the security system, something that Adam took personally.
“Son of a bitch. How the fuck did he—I’m sorry, Steve. He should never have gotten past it.”
Steve shook his head. “Munson is probably one of the few men alive who could have. Let’s get airborne and see if we can locate that boat. This bastard always seems to be one step ahead of us.”
This time the niggling at the back of his neck couldn’t be ignored. Nick and Julianna’s lives depended on him getting this right, and something about this entire thing didn’t feel right at all.
* * * *
Nick pulled at the ropes again, hoping to eventually weaken them enough to break them. Being separated from Julianna was worse than anything they could have done to him, and Munson had to know it.
He’d heard her scream earlier and hadn’t heard anything from her since.
His hands were sticky from his own blood as he worked to loosen the ropes, and he’d had plenty of time to do it. He’d only succeeded in gaining a small amount of slack, but he considered every little bit a victory that would take him that much closer to rescuing Julianna and getting the hell out of here.
They’d been here all day, and other than Munson and his sidekick sticking their heads in every once in a while, he’d been le
ft alone. No food. No water. Nothing.
It was already light when they’d arrived at some sort of warehouse on the water. Judging by the time it had taken them to arrive and the weather, he assumed they were in Florida, but he didn’t know for sure. They’d tied him to the chair and left him there, and he couldn’t stop wondering if they’d done the same to Julianna.
Had they beat her? Raped her? Was she already dead?
No, he’d go crazy if he thought that.
“Come on, Steve. Where the hell are you?” Furious that he hadn’t been able to protect Julianna, he vowed to himself that as soon as they got out of this mess, he would make it up to her and never leave her so vulnerable again.
The enormity of how Julianna would change his life hit him, scaring the hell out of him and at the same time filling him with a sense of purpose, a rightness that had been missing in his life.
She would chafe at the security that would surround her from now on, but he’d be damned before anyone got to her this way in the future.
Tugging at the bonds again, he looked up when he heard the steel door being shoved open, keeping his expression bland as Paul Munson came through it. Although Nick knew him to be only a few years older than Steve, he looked much older.
He moved directly behind Nick’s chair and tightened the ropes it had taken hours for Nick to loosen.
Hiding his wince, Nick looked over his shoulder and eyed Munson coldly. “You know, of course, that I’ll hunt you down. There’s no place on earth you can hide.”
Munson came around to stand in front of him. “I know that if I let you live, you would. That’s why I’ve got to kill you.”
He pulled out a digital camera and snapped a picture of Nick, looking down at the image and, apparently satisfied with the picture he’d taken, tucked the camera back into his shirt pocket.
“I know you have the brains, the money, and the tenacity. I’ve studied you. You wouldn’t have gotten where you are without them. Steve’s going to spend the rest of his life feeling guilty, knowing that he’s the reason you’re dead—the guilt I’ve felt ever since Ike Vernon killed my family. He’s going to pay for getting in the way of my revenge.”
Lifting a brow, Nick eyed Munson, letting only pity show. “The way I understand it is that you ambushed Steve and the others. Not exactly professional.”
Paul Munson’s face turned red, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “They locked me out! I was supposed to be in on that raid and the bastards locked me out.”
He took a deep breath as though regretting his outburst. “But I’m smarter than they are, and I had the right friends. I found out about it.”
Nick stilled, something about Munson’s smugness setting off warning bells. He’d learned long ago to be able to read people and knew that Munson had a secret he was just dying to tell.
“What friends do you have? Steve has more friends than you ever did, friends he can count on.”
Munson laughed coldly. “That’s what you think. Since you’re not going to live long enough to tell him, I’m going to tell you. Then you can die with the knowledge that you and Steve have both been duped. Do you want to know who warned me about the raid? Who gave me the security codes to your house? Who told me where you and your whore would be? Who’s been giving me information all along, keeping tabs on you and letting me stay one step ahead of you?”
He whispered a name.
And Nick saw red.
Chapter Eighteen
Hearing the scrape of the lock on the steel door, Julianna stiffened and backed up against the far wall. Wincing at the cold, rough concrete blocks against her skin, she held her breath, waiting to see who would step inside.
Sam had come in earlier, untied her, and offered her something to eat if she would spread her legs for him. He’d held the knife against her neck and used it to flick off the top button of the shirt she wore. When she’d spit in his face and told him to go fuck himself, he’d hit her, backhanding her the way Munson had earlier.
Damn, her cheek hurt.
Munson came running in and dragged Sam out of there before he could use the knife on her, furious that he’d snuck in. He evidently wanted her and Nick alive until he got his money and didn’t trust Sam very much at all.
That was hours ago, and she hadn’t seen either one of them since. During that time, she’d come to the conclusion that using Sam’s apparent lust for her would be the only way out. She knew they didn’t have much time before Steve paid the money and Munson killed them.
She’d heard Munson’s cold laughter earlier and Nick’s cursing as a door opened and closed again and had an idea which direction to go to find Nick, but couldn’t be sure.
Since darkness had fallen again, she saw nothing but a flashlight as someone entered, the dim light against the far wall creating an eerie shadow of the man who entered. The light from the flashlight swept over the room until it landed on her and shone in her eyes, blinding her to everything else.
“There you are. Trying to hide from me, whore?”
Sam.
Lifting a hand to shield her eyes, she attempted a faint smile, wincing at the pain in her cheek. “Sam, I wondered if you’d come back.”
Just saying his name made her want to throw up, but he might be her only way of escape. He paused, the light lowering.
“You remember my name?”
“Of course I remember your name. I can’t believe a man like you works for someone as demented as Paul Munson. Where is your boss, by the way? Won’t you get in trouble for being here?” Bracing her knees, she forced herself to remain motionless as he took a step closer, nausea rising up in her throat.
“He’s not here right now. He went out to call your boyfriend and tell him where to leave our money, so we have a little time to ourselves.” He took another step closer, shining the flashlight over her legs and slowly upward until he got to her face. “What do you mean, a man like me? What do you know about me? You wouldn’t even give me the time of day in the elevator.”
Julianna shrugged, her mind racing. “My boyfriend is jealous, and we’d just had a fight. I was on my way up to see him. You saw the way he acted. He would have killed you. Even your boss knows how dangerous he is.”
“He’s nothing.” Sam came forward, the scent of cologne even stronger now and mixed with sweat, making her sick to her stomach, but she got a glimpse of the leather knife sheath at his side and braced herself for what she had to do.
He kept coming closer until he stood only a foot away. As she’d feared—and hoped—he drew out the knife, the blade still stained with Lawrence’s blood.
“If he was a real man, he wouldn’t need his friend’s help to satisfy his woman. Me, now I know how to make a woman scream.”
Knowing this would be her only chance to get out of here alive, she didn’t bother to hide her fear, knowing he would be expecting it and it would make him overconfident.
She’d give anything for some of that confidence right now.
Lifting her chin, she straightened, pleased to see that even in her bare feet she stood at eye level with him. “The only way you can make a woman scream is by hitting her.”
Although prepared for the blow, she cried out when he hit her throbbing cheek even though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t.
“Leave her alone! Julianna!”
Nick’s furious scream came from a distance and gave her the courage she needed, the pain in her cheek reigniting her fury.
Bending her right knee, she pushed at the wall behind her, using her strong legs and size to knock Sam off balance, at the same time grabbing the hand with the knife. Knowing she’d have very little success in taking it from him, she turned the blade toward him as they fell together and he rolled on to her.
It all happened in a split second, and other than a sharp intake of breath, he made no sound at all.
Terrified, she shoved at him, struggling to maintain her grip on the hand holding the knife as she pushed at him with the oth
er. Using her legs, she finally managed to push him off of her and scrambled away, gulping in air, the low, tortured whimpers coming from her throat sounding wild and animalistic.
The light from the flashlight lying on the floor several feet away shone on Sam’s motionless legs, the stillness of his entire body sending a cold chill through her.
“What the fuck are you doing to her? Julianna!”
Grabbing on to Nick’s voice like a lifeline, she got to her feet and took a tentative step toward the flashlight, watching Sam’s legs for any sign of movement. With each slow step, a voice in her head screamed for her to hurry, but it seemed to take forever to reach the flashlight.
Once she did, she bent to retrieve it and straightened, not at all surprised that her hand shook as she shone it on Sam’s face.
When she saw that his eyes remained closed, a sob escaped and then another.
Dear God, she’d killed him!
She forced herself to shine the light lower and onto his blood-soaked shirt.
“Julianna! What’s he doing to you?”
Nick’s voice had her scrambling, gathering the blood-stained knife that lay beside Sam and racing for the door, coming to a sliding halt when she heard a cell phone ring.
A cell phone. She could call Steve. He would know what to do.
The horror of what she’d done threatened to overwhelm her.
Racing back, she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and searched Sam’s pocket until she found it, trying not to think about the fact that she was touching a dead body. When the phone slipped out of her hand and she bent to retrieve it, she was surprised to find her hand covered in blood.
The cell phone rang again, startling her.
Scared it might be Munson calling and he would know something was wrong when Sam didn’t answer, she ran for the door and through it, following the sound of Nick’s frantic voice.
The light coming from several camping lanterns seemed unusually bright after being in the pitch-dark room, and she had to keep her eyes half closed as she raced across the warehouse. Grateful that they lit her path, she ran to the only other closed door, cursing herself for not checking Sam for keys.