Bound to the Bounty Hunter

by Hayson Manning

  Not a single fucking thing.

  Zeb’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Let me run this.”

  “No,” he barked, the words grating out of his raw throat.

  “You’re too close, man, let me run this.” Zeb’s hand gripped deep into his shoulder.

  Harlan closed his eyes, pulling himself together. Every thought had to be laser-focused on finding Sophie and bringing her back to him. If he let her lovely face into his head he’d be screwed and so would she. He couldn’t think about her attitude and how she made him fight for a glimpse of Sophie the woman. He wanted Sophie the woman, all of her, and he wasn’t going forward without her in his life.

  The world was closing in. One wrong move and he could jeopardize her, which meant for once stepping back and putting Zeb in charge.

  He stared at Zeb and nodded.

  Zeb’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “I’ve got this.”

  Harlan turned at the slap of the door opening.

  Annie and Gemma ran into the room, breathless and pale.

  “Have you found her?” Annie asked, her eyes wide, mismatched flip-flops on her feet.

  Zeb moved directly to her side, looking pissed. “I told you to stay where you were, and I’d keep you updated.”

  Annie glared at him. “Yeah, well, you tell me what to do a lot, but this isn’t about you or me, this is about Sophie. When she’s back, this will be over, and you’ll be gone.”

  Zeb’s eyes narrowed.

  “Please,” Gemma pleaded, nervously rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, rubbing her biceps.

  “Let’s run what we have.” Zeb planted his legs wide, his arms crossed.

  Pacing the room, Harlan gave them a quick rundown on the meet with Babic. He had to keep moving. If he stopped… “I checked with county, and the jumper Sophie took down at a local gym is still locked up.”

  “Have you spoken to Petrov?” Zeb asked.

  Harlan shook his head. He wasn’t going to punch in that number until he had confirmation, either way.

  “I know how Sophie got out,” Gemma said in a quiet voice. “The night we went to Hostage for a girls’ night out, I picked her up in a local park. She talked about running the maze, a demon slayer dog named Fang, and going through fifteen backyards.”

  “We’ll work that angle. Call cab companies. Was there a pickup from the park today?” Zeb spoke to Arabella who walked into the room.

  “Got it.” Ten minutes later, she nodded and swiped her finger across her phone. “The cab took her to a large suburban shopping mall, twenty-five minutes away from the park.”

  “We need people on Sophie’s circle. But if we didn’t know where she was, how could they?” Harlan asked, still pacing, not letting any of the images of Sophie being someone’s fuck-toy into his head because, if he did, he’d lose it.

  Zeb moved closer to Annie, who took a giant step away, her gaze narrow. “I will stab you if you come near me.”

  Israel moved directly to Gemma, who looked up at him, startled. “No, I’m good, but thanks, Thor,” she whispered.

  Israel didn’t move.

  “No seriously, I’m good.” Gemma’s voice started to rise and she backed away. Iz moved with her.

  “Sophie said she had a plan,” Annie said, her eyes flashing. “Said you wouldn’t talk to her, so she was running her own thing.”

  Gemma held out her phone as if it would bite her. “I received phone messages asking if I knew where she was, and if I did to let the guy know and I’d receive an envelope of cash.”

  “Fuck,” Harlan said as the words sank into his body like drops of acid, searing through his flesh.

  “She took down the number.” Gemma’s eyes filled with tears.

  Annie reached out and grabbed her friend’s hand. Iz took the phone and held it to his ear, his face darkening.

  “No answer,” he said. “I can ping the cell tower the last call came from. It’ll take time. These guys are professionals; they’ll have routed this fucker all around the world, I imagine, but I’m on it.”

  Harlan’s blood turned to ice. He’d kept Sophie out of the loop and controlled the situation, so she’d taken matters into her own hands. He should have talked to her this morning. He should have been here.

  Pongo pushed his nose into Harlan’s hand. Three swift pops filled the air. Anguished brown eyes stared up at him.

  Harlan picked up a chair and threw it against the wall.

  Zeb nodded to Iz. “Let us know, yeah?”

  Harlan dialed Babic.

  No signal.

  The man was never out of range.

  Cold sweat crawled across his body.

  “Iz, can you run this number for me?” He barked out Babic’s number.

  After what felt like four hours, but had been only twenty minutes, Iz closed his laptop and stood.

  “I’ve hacked the CCTV of the area. Sophie walked into a Starbucks and willingly walked out five minutes later with a man. The image is grainy and I can’t get a detailed look at him. They left in a black Jeep. I could only get a partial on the plates, which were obscured, intentionally.” He paused. “I cross-referenced roads in a twenty-mile radius, but with only two digits from the plate to run, the variables are too great.” His face pained. “I’ve pinged the number you gave me. It’s turned off. The last signal came this morning.”

  Harlan stopped pacing and said the words that speared straight into his barely beating heart.

  “We’ve got nothing.”

  …

  Sophie moved her feet slightly, then her hands.

  No cuffs.

  That’s a good sign.

  A pillow cradled her head. She tugged on the blanket that covered her.

  Another good sign.

  At least she wasn’t naked, shackled to a concrete wall in a rotting cell with a cellmate called Bubba.

  “Sophie?”

  A vaguely familiar voice infiltrated her haze.

  “Sophie, you’re safe.”

  The friendly voice didn’t hold a threat.

  She opened one eye and shuffled backward.

  “You.”

  Dug looked down at her, his face deeply unhappy.

  Her stomach rolled, and her hand covered her mouth. “I need to go to the bathroom.” Her body was now awash with unpleasant, urgent sensations.

  She stood, fighting a wave of nausea and the wobbles. Dug walked ahead of her, opened a door, and flicked on the light. With her hand over her mouth, she pushed past him and rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  After her body was empty, she gulped a mouthful of water out of the faucet. She touched the red mark on her neck and winced.

  She checked out the room. One window, too small to climb out of, no doors that led to other rooms. Her hand hit her back pocket.

  Damn.

  Her phone hadn’t made the journey with her.

  She quietly opened the bathroom cabinet, looking to find something she could use as a weapon.

  Don’t think I can fashion a bar of soap into a killer weapon.

  “Sophie, are you okay?”

  Her eyes flicked to the door.

  No lock.

  “Have you got my Taser?” she asked, leaning against the door, gripping the door handle. She was no match for Dug, but she’d go down fighting.

  “No.”

  She leaned her full weight in to the door. “Who are you, and why did you have me kidnapped?” Her teeth chattered. She ignored the bats trying to escape out of her chest.

  “I didn’t kidnap you.” His anger was palpable.

  A memory floated through her brain. Just before the man stabbed her with a hypodermic needle, he’d said another woman’s name.

  The doorknob turned. She pushed back.

  “Who are you?” she said, trying to resist the twist of the metal.

  “Come out, we need to talk.”

  Dug had never scared her, but she didn’t know him. Her internal radar hadn’t picked up
any threat from him, and he had saved Annie.

  She gnawed the inside of her cheek.

  “I’d never hurt you.”

  With nowhere to go, she released the handle, and the door opened with a smack.

  He dragged his hand through his hair, exactly the way Harlan did, and Sophie’s world tilted dangerously. Dug grabbed her cold hand and walked her into what would have been a living room, but a small, round table and two plain wooden chairs filled the space. An Allen wrench sat on the table.

  She looked for her bag.

  Nothing.

  The room didn’t offer much on its occupant. Two pillows and a blanket lay on the floor. No TV, no sofa, no pictures. She craned her neck to see into the small kitchen. No toaster, no kettle, no plates. Seemed Dug went for minimalistic decor. Thick curtains hung from every window.

  “Do you have my bag? I need to phone Harlan, Titus, and my friends.” Her heart hitched. People must be going out of their minds wondering what had happened to her.

  “I don’t have your bag or your phone. It was fucking luck that I got you.”

  She jolted at his tone.

  “Sit, we need to talk.” It wasn’t an invitation but a command.

  “I need to phone my friends.” A slight note of hysteria crept into her voice.

  She sifted through her head trying to remember any actual phone numbers, cursing herself and her useless, sluggish brain.

  “Sophie. I’ll take you back to your place. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

  Wait.

  She gripped the back of the chair.

  “I was in a Jeep. How did I end up here?”

  “I followed you from the mall and waited for a quiet intersection. It took longer than I anticipated.”

  Her fingers dug in to the wood. “Why didn’t you take me to a hospital or call the police?”

  He simply stared at her. She could read nothing on his face. She rounded the chair and perched on the edge.

  “What were you doing at the mall alone?” Dug sat across from her, seemingly loose and relaxed, but his sharp eyes rested on her. “Why did Franco send you to the mall alone?”

  She opened her mouth then snapped it closed.

  “We can sit here all night.” Dug leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his knee, arms across his chest.

  “All night?” She shot out of her chair, pulled back a curtain, and stared into the darkness. “How long have I been here? Wait. Where am I exactly?”

  Dug’s hand tugged the curtain back into place. “You’ve been out for hours. The safest place is here, and where this is, is on a need-to-know basis.”

  Her head snapped back.

  Oh no. Oh, hell no.

  “Do not tell me, I don’t need to know,” she said, unable to stop the anger creeping into her tone.

  “You don’t need to know.” Dug’s unwavering gaze never left her.

  Her blood started to steam.

  Why was it that nobody kept her in the loop?

  “What’s Franco running?”

  She sat but pressed her lips together.

  The neutral mask Dug always wore slipped, and she sucked in her breath at the fear that rolled across his face.

  “You could have been killed or used as a toy.”

  “He isn’t running anything. I was there to make a deal so none of the people I care about get hurt,” she said, unable to catch the tremor in her voice. She took a deep breath. “I’m sick of people not telling me why people I care about are getting hurt. My life. My play.”

  Dug listened intently, his total focus seemingly on her.

  She met his gaze. “It’s all a misunderstanding. Before I was punched with a hypodermic, the man said another woman’s name. It isn’t me he wanted, which I don’t get. Why are people I know getting hurt when it’s another woman they want?”

  “You need to talk to Franco.” Dug’s mouth dropped to a thin line.

  “No, I don’t. This is my mess, care of good old Dad, which I have to clean up.” Hysteria had started to raise her voice, but she didn’t care. “I can do this on my own.”

  Dug leaned forward suddenly, catching one of her hands. “If I hadn’t needed groceries and seen you the moment you stepped from the cab, I’m thinking this would have had a whole different ending.” Dug squeezed her now-trembling hand. “You have to talk to Harlan and trust him.”

  His words seeped into her brain.

  Trust him.

  Maybe she’d been a fool thinking she could do this on her own. Maybe she couldn’t. If Dug spoke the truth, and it had been only luck that he’d spotted her, she could have been far, far away with the man from the Jeep using her as his play toy.

  The words too stupid to live flittered across her brain.

  She swallowed.

  “Why didn’t you take me back to my place?”

  “Because if Franco had left you out in the open and exposed, you wouldn’t be going anywhere near him.” Dug gentled his voice. “You’re going to have to decide if you trust Franco enough to talk to him. You two are playing a dangerous cat-and-mouse game. Next time you might not be so lucky.”

  She sucked in a breath through her teeth.

  This meant standing in front of the man, emotionally naked, and exposing the part of her heart she’d kept guarded all her life.

  “What if I can’t?” she whispered, raw emotion scraping her throat and tears spilling down her face.

  He wiped a tear with his thumb. “Then I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  “Who are you?”

  Dug swiped his thumb again across her face, regret soaking his words, a wistful look on his face. “Someone you’ll never know.”

  She stared at him until her eyes burned.

  “Soph, it’s time to make your choice.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Harlan had gone back to the control room to check in, which he could have done via a text, but he wanted to make sure his team was doing okay. They all felt the loss of Sophie at a personal level. After the check-in, he’d be heading back to her place, where he figured she’d turn up.

  If she turned up.

  Fuck.

  He could not run that scenario.

  “Twelve hours since she disappeared, and we have nothing.” Zeb dropped into a chair and swore.

  Edgy tension gripped the room. Arabella had taken up residence, refusing to leave. Coffee was delivered from the café on the corner every hour. Iz and his other comms man, Quade hadn’t moved from their chairs since Sophie had disappeared. Every CCTV camera in Denver continued to be hacked in the search for the Jeep.

  The walls started pushing in.

  His phone pinged. Another text from Annie.

  Gemma and Annie had promised to stay at Annie’s, and he’d give them hourly updates. Zeb and Iz checked in with them every twenty minutes. Harlan had put outside security on them as well as Titus and Sally.

  “I’m out. You know where I’ll be.”

  Chairs swiveled in his direction. He got slight nods from all.

  Half an hour later he threw his keys on Sophie’s kitchen counter, inhaled the scent of raspberries, and froze. Each passing hour reminded him with a silent punch to the heart. There was a reason he didn’t get close to anyone. Emotions fucked with your decisions, made you weak.

  Made you vulnerable.

  He hated the feeling eating his gut, making him hyper-aware, when he shouldn’t be feeling anything. Especially now, when he needed to be focused, but images of Sophie assaulted his brain at completely random and unpredictable moments.

  The terrible, cold pressure in his body that he’d never see her again tore through his skull. He’d take the pulsing ache in his head over the empty blackness in his heart.

  He hadn’t felt like this since he’d been a kid and he’d watched cancer eating his mother alive. The vulnerability, the fear, the helplessness, all came crowding back. He’d vowed that day that he’d never let those out-of-control feelings bombard him agai
n. He’d gone through life shut down, which had worked brilliantly until Sophie had inched her way under his skin.

  His phone rang. “Have you found her?” Annie asked.

  Harlan closed his eyes, willing patience. “Not yet.”

  “What about if we do a missing persons on TV?”

  “We’ll find her.”

  “Promise?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll get her back.”

  “She’s in deep with you,” she whispered.

  He flinched at the stab of pain, unable to deflect it, then stuffed his phone into his pocket.

  The front door opened at the same moment his phone signaled an incoming text.

  His hand automatically reaching for the gun tucked into the back of his jeans, his heart exploding out of his chest.

  Sophie took two steps inside, saw him, and jerked to a halt.

  He stalked across the room and pulled her against his body, her rapid heartbeat barely keeping up with his. He inhaled her sweet raspberry scent, and the tension started to bleed from his body.

  “Harlan, I can’t breathe,” she said and only then did he hold her by her shoulders, not letting her go.

  Never letting her go.

  She stared at him, her face terrifyingly blank. Her dog threw himself off the sofa and lumbered over to her. She spun out of his hold, sank to the ground, and buried her face in her dog’s neck.

  He planted his legs wide and folded his arms across his chest. He sucked in an audible breath. “Did anyone hurt you?” he ground out.

  “What?” She kept her face buried in her dog’s neck.

  “Did anyone hurt you?”

  “No.” She stood, and her fingers went to the angry welt on her neck.

  He glanced at the welt, then back to her, rage building in his body. “Somebody did hurt you.”

  Punching walls wouldn’t help right now; instead he pulled the tie from her hair, buried his face in her neck, breathed deeply, and touched his lips to her skin, inhaling her. His eyes unfocused, feeling only…her.

  “Fuck, Sophie. I lost you. I had no angle to run. Nothing. You put yourself out there, made yourself vulnerable, then you were gone.” He dragged his hand through his hair, acid in his mouth. He tucked her stiff body under his chin. “Gone.”

  Her body started to loosen, her head nestled into his neck.

  He closed his eyes.