Elite Ops Complete Series

by Lora Leigh

  “Walk with me.” She held her hand out to the younger girl, and waited until it was taken before turning back to John. “We’ll just be a moment.”

  That didn’t stop the two couples from rising to their feet and following behind her as she walked to the open patio. Stepping outside she turned back to them, refusing to be denied now.

  “I think Journey and I can handle it from here.”

  John and Travis both stared back at her for a long, silent moment, obviously prepared to refuse the demand.

  “I think I can conduct a conversation by myself,” she stated. “I promise, we won’t go far.”

  The group that stood just outside the patio didn’t looked pleased. Beauregard Grant looked frankly pissed, if the glitter in his gaze was any indication.

  The cool solitude that awaited, just on the other side of the small grotto she led Journey to, would be a very welcome relief.

  “What’s going on?” Tehya asked as they stepped into the rose-and wisteria-covered sheltered area.

  “I don’t know.” The stress in Journey’s voice was apparent. “It’s Beauregard, Teylor.” Journey turned to her, tears glittering in her eyes. “I think he’s involved in something very illegal, and I think he’s going to attempt to force me to accept the proposal he made tonight.” Her voice broke. “Teylor, what am I going to do?”

  “And I think you may have been warned to keep your stupid bitch mouth shut!”

  Tehya hadn’t sensed anyone, she hadn’t seen so much as a shift of a shadow, but she knew that voice. She knew the evil in that whisper and she knew, she’d just been caught by her enemies.

  Her lips parted on a scream that never came. A heavy cloth came over her face, a noxious scent invaded her nostrils, and seconds later, darkness washed over her.

  CHAPTER 20

  Tehya came awake slowly to the sound of Journey gagging and coughing in reaction to her own return of consciousness and the effects of the chloroform used to disable them.

  Sitting up from the thin mattress that had been laid over a rough low table, Tehya swung her feet to the floor as she swallowed tightly and forced back the reflex to gag.

  It wasn’t her first experience with the sleep-inducing drug. As she stared around the room, she was horribly afraid it wouldn’t be her last.

  “Teylor?” Journey’s voice was weak, shaky. “Oh, God, what happened?”

  “We’ve been kidnapped.” Tehya stared around the room. It wasn’t large by any means. The dim lights high on the metal walls were battery-powered rather than electric.

  “Where are we?” Terror filled the young woman’s expression as well as her voice.

  Tehya breathed out roughly. “It’s a shipping crate. The type they use for overseas shipping.”

  A sob echoed through the area.

  Beauregard. She wondered if he was behind this. God, he had to be. But he wasn’t old enough. He couldn’t have been associated with Sorrel.

  “Teylor, what’s happening?” Journey whispered.

  Tehya fought to clear her mind. She needed to think. She needed to figure a way out of this.

  She remembered hearing Gregor Ascarti’s voice as the cloth went over her face. He was involved, but he wasn’t the one calling the shots.

  As that thought went through her mind, she heard the sound of metal scraping against metal and the heavy door at the end of the metal shipping crate swung open.

  “Let’s go.” Ascarti, Mark Tenneyson, and Ira Arthurs stood at the entrance, heavily armed.

  Tehya stood slowly, her gaze locked on Ascarti.

  He was frowning at her, glaring, actually.

  “You were supposed to be dead,” she whispered.

  He grunted at that. “If you’d had your way, I would be. Fortunately for me, I think I might have actually survived.” He smiled then. A reptilian smirk that sent a chill racing up her spine. “Unfortunately for you, perhaps. Now let’s go.” He waved the handgun toward the darkness outside.

  “How did you get into the gardens?” she asked as they moved slowly from the crate.

  “A little inside help,” he revealed, his slimy voice amused. “Now, be a good little girl and let’s finish our business. Then I can go about recouping my money from that little hit your friends made against my stash.”

  “What hit?” She played dumb. She’d perfected that illusion through the years.

  He laughed, clearly refusing to believe her. “Let’s go, Ms. Fitzhugh. Someone is very interested in talking to you.”

  Keeping Journey close to her, Tehya ignored the other girl’s confusion as she followed Ascarti.

  She was right, they had been held in a large metal shipping crate stored inside a warehouse on the docks. She could hear the sounds of the ships outside, voices calling out and machinery running.

  Across from the crate, the doors to an office were thrown open, and it was there they were led.

  Tehya stepped into the brightly lit room, her heart racing, fear drying her mouth and making her knees weak. As the men gathered there came into view, she felt something inside her soul wither and die.

  At the same time Journey cried out in denial and confusion, then in fear as one of the men behind her all but threw her onto a tattered leather couch at a signal from her father as she moved to race across the room.

  Stephen Taite, Craig Taite, and Beauregard Grant stood watching them. Stephen was propped against the edge of an old desk, his arms crossed over his tuxedoed chest, his expression hard and brutal. Journey’s father, Craig, grimaced in disgust as Journey cried out to him.

  Only Beauregard remained completely unaffected, cold, brooding as he watched.

  Tehya sat down slowly at the other end of the couch, fighting to make sense of it, to believe what she was seeing.

  “Ah, I remember that look.” Stephen’s smile was cold, cruel. “The same look your dear mother had when we caught up with her in Nicaragua. I believe she may have actually cried, though.” The pleasure in his voice was sickening. “And I would have thought by now you would have explained who you are. The daughter of our dear departed Francine, Tehya Fitzhugh.”

  “That’s not true,” Journey cried out hoarsely.

  “It’s true,” Tehya told her quietly, “and they’re the reason Mother died.”

  “What are you doing?” Journey cried out before Tehya could speak. “Father? Grandfather? Have you lost your minds?”

  Stephen flashed a hard frown at her.

  “If she opens her stupid mouth again, gag her,” her father ordered.

  Tehya turned her head slowly, not wanting to face what she knew she would see in the young girl’s eyes. She was only twenty-two. She might not have grown up with an affectionate father, but she had grown up with a semblance of confidence in the world and her place in it. That was being stolen from her grip now by the very men she trusted above all others.

  “Will you gag me as well?” Tehya turned back to the three men.

  Stephen smirked back at her, his lined face twisted in a parody of amused tolerance. “If I gagged you, dear, then I wouldn’t be able to hear the answer to the question I have. And you will answer it, or Journey will pay the price.”

  He smiled benignly at his granddaughter.

  It was Beauregard’s reaction Tehya caught, though. A flash of something bitter, heated as he slowly tensed his arms unfolding and hanging, ready at his sides.

  “You killed my mother.” She felt numb. She stared back at Stephen and Craig. How horrified, how terrified she must have been when they caught up with her.

  Stephen chuckled. “She thought we were there to help her. That her father had sent us after she contacted him.” Satisfaction filled his smile. “She was rather upset to learn that wasn’t the case.” He turned to his son. “We did enjoy our last hours with her, though, didn’t we?”

  Craig’s answer was a fond smile as Journey’s smothered cry of horror sliced through Tehya’s senses.

  What the hell was she supposed to say now?
<
br />   “Now, my dear, it’s like this.” Stephen’s expression became hardened once again, the monster inside him gleaming through his eyes as they focused on her. “If you want to ensure your dear cousin Journey has a reasonably content life from here on out, you’ll answer my question and do so without a fuss. Refuse me, or dare to attempt to lie to me, and she’ll die with you.”

  “I’d rather die!” Journey cried out, her voice echoing with rage and pain as she tried to surge to her feet.

  She was caught, and just as Craig ordered, the two men behind her fought to gag her. And they had to fight until Beauregard strode quickly across the room, caught her and jerked her arms behind her.

  The cries, the hatred, and the fury that spilled from Journey’s lips struck at Tehya’s heart. The sound of the other girl’s sobs was excruciating to hear.

  Tehya forced herself to watch as, strangely gently, Beauregard bound her hands, then placed a wide strip of gray tape over her lips.

  She was silenced, but she still cried.

  Journey kicked out, striking Beauregard’s leg with her shoe, though there was no reaction from him to even give Journey the satisfaction that she’d at least brought him discomfort.

  “Now that we’ve taken care of that.” Stephen sighed as he turned back to her. “Did you understand the rules to her continued safety? Or do you have questions?” His gaze sharpened. “Or do you want to be as stupid as your mother?” He spoke to her as though she were a moron, the superiority he obviously felt leaking through every pore in his body.

  Would Beauregard Grant really allow Journey’s family to kill her? He had stepped in to keep Ascarti’s gorillas from hurting her. He’d bound and gagged her with gentleness despite her attempts to fight him.

  “Were you behind my mother’s kidnapping?”

  Stephen rolled his eyes and shook his head as though amused by her question. “Let’s get this out of the way, then, dear. I kidnapped your mother for Sorrel, but he didn’t keep his end of the bargaine once he got what I wanted. He swore she was unaware of what I wanted when he was only attempting to steal it for himself.

  “You worked with Sorrel?”

  His smile was filled with pride. “I did. Though, now I will command as I should have been doing all along.” He shot his granddaughter an irritated look. Now, does Journey live or die?

  He wouldn’t allow Journey to live. Beauregard might believe Stephen Taite would keep his word, but he wouldn’t. Tehya could see it in his face. Journey would be lucky if she lived to see the next week out.

  “What do you want?” She was at least curious why her mother had died.

  “She gave you an account number,” he stated. “A code of sorts. I want it.”

  Why hadn’t she guessed? Why hadn’t her mother guessed?

  Perhaps the fact that her mother had never suspected her family was behind her kidnapping and the deaths of everyone who tried to help her, Tehya hadn’t suspected either.

  The shock was horrible. It lanced through her system, it destroyed parts of her she feared would never heal, and left her soul bleeding in agony.

  Tremors raced through her, sobs catching in her throat, searing her chest.

  “Money,” she rasped. “This is all about money?”

  “A rather large amount of money,” Craig answered smugly. “To my calculations, minus the four hundred thousand your mother stole, it should now be close to three point two billion dollars in gold, cash, bonds, and yearly shares in Taite Industries. A legacy Bernard refused to turn over to the family until Francine’s body was found. A legacy that was amassed over nearly a century of the Taites’ superb business sense.”

  “As well as nearly a century of laundering the funds my father, his father, and his father before him made in the careful sale, trade, and trafficking of women Sorrel’s clients preferred. And Bernard never knew; that legacy should have never been his. Should have never been given into his safekeeping at our father’s death,” Stephen finished, his voice becoming progressively furious until he was glaring at her in malevolent rage. “Taites and Fitzhughs have always worked together, but we were smart enough to keep from being caught.”

  All for money.

  He had murdered everyone who had ever tried to help her mother. He had murdered everyone her mother had cared for, and everyone Tehya had cared for.

  “Sorrel thought he could convince your mother to give him the set of numbers that would allow him to take possession of the accounts,” Craig continued. “He promised your mother she’d have her freedom.” He smiled. “She didn’t trust him, I gather.”

  No, Francine hadn’t trusted the man who had kidnapped her, imprisoned her, and raped her repeatedly for years. And Tehya had trusted him even less.

  Stephen straightened from the desk. “Now, do you die alone?” He glanced back at Journey. “Or do you go with company?”

  Tehya turned and stared not at Journey, but at Beauregard Grant instead. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze flat and hard as he stared back at her.

  Once again she wondered if he would really allow Stephen and Craig to kill her and Journey. There was something about him that wasn’t ringing true. She hadn’t been looking closely enough at him, she admitted. She hadn’t paid enough attention because he also wasn’t aligned with Sorrel. He hadn’t been around before Sorrel’s death. He hadn’t shown up on her background checks on Sorrel.

  Who was he?

  Her gaze slid to Journey. It wasn’t fear in her eyes now, it was rage and pain. Tears washed down her face, but Tehya recognized the agonized demand in the other girl’s eyes. A demand that Tehya give her father and grandfather nothing.

  It was all for money, and the money wasn’t worth protecting. Tehya had known about the legacy her grandfather had ensured her mother knew how to access since she was a child. She knew the set of numbers that would open a vault in a Swiss bank and give the bearer a fortune unimagined.

  It wasn’t worth dying for, but neither would she, could she, give them the satisfaction of ever acquiring it.

  She turned back to the cousin and the great-uncle whose family she had once dreamed of being a part of. Ached to be a part of with a hunger that nearly had destroyed her.

  “I never knew the key to the account,” she whispered, and it was nothing less than the truth. “I couldn’t remember it.”

  Anger flashed in Stephen’s face. “Don’t lie to me, bitch,” he snarled, his fists clenching now as though the urge to strangle her was barely held in restraint. “She would never have let that fortune go.”

  “Because you wouldn’t?” she whispered. “Her safety and mine was more important or she would have come home. She would have taken what she thought was hers and she would have hired enough bodyguards to ensure no one touched her again.”

  So why hadn’t she done it?

  Tehya didn’t have the key. What she did have was the safe deposit box where her mother had hidden the paper she had placed the key on. She made Tehya swear she wouldn’t attempt to access the money until she knew that not just herself, but also the family would be safe.

  Bernard Taite’s death had terrified Francine and she had believed that the rest of the family could be in danger. She’d had no idea the family was in on it.

  Stephen sighed before his fist clenched and he came closer.

  Just that quickly Beauregard stepped in front of her.

  “Journey’s mine,” he told the other man harshly. “I won’t have what I want from her affected by your treatment of this one.”

  Amazement filled Stephen’s face as Tehya tensed, preparing for a confrontation and, hopefully, a chance to escape.

  Just as she thought she would have it, a heavy knock sounded on the door, jerking her attention behind the two men.

  “What do you want?” Stephen barked.

  The door opened and two male figures stumbled into the room and collapsed to the floor.

  Tehya stared at them in amazement, blood clotting at th
e side of Rory Malone’s face and at the back of Turk Gillespie’s head.

  “Who the hell is this?” Craig Taite stood almost frozen, amazement filling his voice as it filled Tehya’s mind. “What’s going on here?”

  Stephen turned back to Tehya, and before Beauregard could stop him, before Tehya could guess his intent, he struck her hard across the face, throwing her back against the couch as hell seemed to explode around her.

  The lights went out as flash explosions took out the far wall and lit up the darkness outside. Shouted orders began to echo around her as she jumped across the couch and threw Journey to the floor seconds before she felt the bullets whiz past them.

  Stephen was screaming at Craig and Beauregard, demanding they get him out of there. As Tehya’s eyes opened, though, she knew her cousin wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  He stared back at her from his position on the floor as she felt Rory and Turk suddenly moving.

  Journey was lifted from the floor along with Tehya and ran for the door.

  “No! No, you won’t,” Stephen was screaming in outrage as Ascarti suddenly stumbled in front of them, the handgun he carried slapping against Tehya’s head as Rory came to a hard stop, his arms holding her tight around her waist as Tehya clutched the derringer she had managed to slip from the garter holster she had worn.

  “Not her,” Ascarti rasped, a crazed smile at his lips as Tehya lifted the derringer to his chest and fired.

  She wouldn’t see another die. She wouldn’t hear of it. She wouldn’t know of it. She wouldn’t allow it.

  It ended here.

  She watched as a look of amazement came over his face. Shock.

  Rory knocked the gun from his hand and Tehya watched as he fell, sinking to the floor as Rory and Turk rushed them out.

  Behind her, Jordan and his men and only God knew who else were swarming into the office and kicking ass.

  He had sworn he would protect her, and he had.

  He had promised her it would end here, and as Rory pushed her into the back of an Elite Ops med-van, she knew, it was definitely ending here.

  She watched as, a black-masked, medical operative cut the bindings from Journey’s wrists and pulled the tape gently from her lips.