by Lynne Graham
‘You pervert!’ she sobbed with rage.
‘You loved it,’ he slung at her, grimacing with pain as he hauled her back to him with remorseless determination.
‘Don’t move… If you don’t move, nobody will get hurt,’ a completely strange male voice intoned flatly in a startling interruption.
‘What the—?’ As Rico’s head spun round he fell silent, his entire body freezing with a tension that leapt through Bella as well like a lightning bolt.
Following the stilled path of his gaze, Bella looked in turn at the two men standing there. They were wearing black Balaclavas. Both of them had guns. Her jaw dropped, a sharp exhalation of air hissing from her.
‘Keep quiet… Now back away from him slowly.’ The taller one was addressing her. Her! Bella blinked, paralysed to the spot, unable to believe that the men weren’t a figment of her imagination, and yet, on some sixth-sense level, accepting them, fearing them, sensing their cold menace. ‘Move… What a clever girl you’ve been, getting rid of his guards, but frankly you’re surplus to requirements. Is she worth anything to you?’
The scream just exploded from Bella. She didn’t think about screaming, didn’t even know it was coming. The noise just whooshed up out of her chest and flew from her strained mouth—a long, primal wail of terror. And the taller man flew at her, knocking her to the ground so hard that he drove the breath from her lungs and bruised every bone in her body. A large hand closed over her mouth and then something pricked her shoulder, making her gasp with pain… and she was plunging down into a frightening, suffocating tunnel of darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
BELLA was cold and sore. Her head was aching. Something was banging. It sounded like metal on metal—a brutal, crashing noise. Maybe it was inside her head. She had a horrible taste in her mouth and her throat hurt. Her arm was throbbing as well. She felt every sensation separately. Her brain was shrouded in a fog of disorientation. Thinking was an unbearable effort, but she willed her eyes to open.
Her dilated, still semi-drugged gaze fell on a blank wall. She moved her head and moaned with discomfort. She was lying on a bed—a hard, narrow bed. The unbearable banging stopped, but her ears were still so full of it that it was a while before she could actually hear. And then she heard footsteps.
‘I was hoping you’d stay comatose. Then I wouldn’t be tempted to kill you…’
The tangle of glorious hair moved and she turned over ‘Rico?’ she said thickly.
‘Why didn’t I call Security? Why didn’t I just ring the police?’ Rico da Silva breathed in a driven undertone as he stared furiously down at her. ‘Shall I tell you why? I let lust come between me and my wits. Dios mío…the one time in my life I stray off the straight and narrow I land the gypsy’s curse and nearly get myself killed. If I come out of this alive I’m still going to take you to that police station! And, if there is any justice in the British legal system, you’ll be locked up for ever!’
Her lashes fluttered during this invigorating speech. Then, slowly, jerkily, she pulled herself up onto her knees. ‘What happened?’ she mumbled weakly.
‘I’ve been kidnapped.’
‘Oh.’ Incredibly it didn’t mean anything to her until she remembered those final few minutes in the car park. The men, the guns, the violence. A wave of sick dizziness assailed her. ‘Oh, dear God…’ she said shakily.
Rico da Silva already looked so different. His jacket and tie had been discarded. His shirt was smeared with grime. His black hair was astonishingly curly, tousled out of its sleek, smooth style. ‘No hysteria!’ he warned with lethal brevity.
‘You said…you have been kidnapped. But I’m here too.’ Bella swung her legs down and slid slowly off the bed.
‘I begged them to leave you behind. I told them you were so thick that you wouldn’t be capable of assisting the police. I told them you were worthless…’
She thought about it. “Thanks…I suppose you did your best.’
‘Do you have a single, living brain cell?’ Rico slashed at her without warning. ‘Am I condemned to spend what may well be my last hours on this earth with a halfwit?’
Bella stiffened as though she had been struck. She was far from halfwitted. Indeed, she had an IQ rating which put her into the top two per cent of the population, but that was a fact she never shared. It tended either to intimidate or antagonise people.
Rico da Silva wanted an argument, she sensed. She understood that. He needed to hit out and she was the nearest quarry. Forgivingly she ignored him and concentrated on exploring their immediate environment and its peculiarities. She touched the wall. ‘It’s metal.’
‘Be gtateful. At least they gave us airholes.’
She wasn’t listening. She scanned the bed, the single chair, the lit battery lamp. It was the only source of light. And she was used to the kind of light that came from paraffin, gas and batteries. She had grown up with it, sat in darkness when there was no money for replenishment. There was no window. She brushed past him to pass through the incongruous beaded curtain covering a doorway which his bulk had been obscuring.
In the dim light beyond she saw a gas-powered fridge, a small table, another chair, an old cupboard, and what looked like a tiny, old-fashioned stove heater connected by a flue to the metal roof. And then she glimpsed the door. She grabbed at the handle, suddenly frantic to see daylight, and was denied. The wooden partition concealed only a toilet and a sink. No windows—no windows anywhere. Her throat closed. She rammed down her panic and drew in a sustaining breath.
‘What are we in?’ she demanded starkly.
‘A steel transport container. Most ingenious,’ Rico explained without any emotion at all. ‘I hope you’re not claustrophobic.’
She never had been until now. Automatically she felt the cold metal walls, stood on tiptoe to touch the roof, felt the airholes he had mentioned, and a long, cold shudder of fear took her in its hold. ‘It’s like a metal tomb.’
‘What time is it? My watch was smashed.’
Somehow that casual enquiry helped her to get a grip on herself. Moving back through the curtain into the other section, she peered down at her watch. ‘Ten past seven.’
‘Time to eat.’
‘Eat?’ Bella echoed shrilly. ‘We’ve just been kidnapped and you want to eat? I want to get out of here!’
‘And you think I don’t?’ Lean fingers gripped her taut shoulders as he yanked her forward. Grim dark eyes held hers. ‘I’ve been conscious for two hours longer than you. I have been over every centimetre of every surface of this metal cell. But for the airholes it’s solid steel. We have nothing here capable of cutting through solid steel,’ he spelt out with cool, flat emphasis. ‘Have you ever looked at the bolts on container doors? That is the only other option…’
She glanced past him to see the doors which were so closely shut that they were almost indistinguishable from the other walls. ‘We’ll never get through those either,’ she mumbled sickly. ‘People have died in these containers… suffocated, starved—’
‘I have not the slightest intention of suffocating or starving,’ Rico cut in with ruthless assurance. ‘And, if one is permitted to take hope from appearances, neither have my kidnappers any such intention. Dead, I’m not worth a cent.’
‘Appearances?’ she prompted jerkily.
‘Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to plan this operation and take the minimum number of risks,’ Rico pointed out. ‘The necessities of life have been supplied. We have food and water. They have no immediate need to venture into further contact with us. They must be very confident we cannot escape. This leads me to believe that for the moment we are as safe as it is possible to be in such a situation.’
‘S-safe?’
‘I would feel more threatened if one of them was sitting in here with us,’ Rico said drily. ‘Or someone had come along to tell me to stop making such a racket when I was thumping the walls.’
‘The noise—that was you,’ she registered, shaking her he
ad.
‘I wanted to know if there was a guard out there…or even if it was possible to attract anyone’s attention. But, this time, no joy.’ His sculpted mouth tightened to a thin, hard line. ‘However, we will keep on trying. There is always the chance that we could be heard at any time of the day or night.’
‘Yes.’ He was giving her something to hang on to—a slender hope. Bella nodded, almost sick with the nerves that were threatening her wavering composure. He had had the time and privacy supplied by her unconsciousness to come to terms with their situation. She had not had that time or that privacy. She was angry and scared to the same degree. Somebody had deprived her of the most basic of human rights—freedom. But even worse than that was the terror that in the end they might take her life as well.
‘You hear that silence?’ His nostrils flared as he flung his dark head back. ‘Now we listen for some sound of humanity—traffic, a dog barking… anything.’
‘These walls would act like double glazing, I bet. A friend of mine has just got new windows in and you can’t hear the traffic through them…’ Her voice trailed to a halt as she glimpsed Rico’s arrested expression. ‘Sorry, I sort of rattle on some—’
‘Stop rattling,’ he articulated with ruthless precision.
‘You mentioned food?’
‘In the fridge.’
‘Enough for two?’ she whispered as it suddenly dawned on her that his kidnappers could never have planned on having to imprison two people.
‘We’ll conserve it as far as possible. The same with the light. We have no idea how long we will be here,’ he delivered smoothly.
The wild idea that in a strange way Rico da Silva was in his element occurred to her. It doused her urge to scream and shout uncontrollably. Pride kept her quiet. There he was, certainly tense but on the surface as cool as ice.
‘Anybody could be forgiven for thinking that this has happened to you before!’ she muttered with scantily leashed resentment.
‘I have been prepared for this situation by professionals. Although I admit I did not expect to have to put what I learnt into action.’
Bella flashed through the beaded curtain and sank down on the chair by the table. Wrapping her hands together, she bowed her head. She just could not believe that this was happening to her. She just could not credit that she had been kidnapped. That was something that occurred to strangers in the headlines… and they didn’t all come out alive! Her stomach heaved again.
‘How rich are you, Rico?’ she asked in a wobbly voice.
‘Filthy rich.’
‘Good.’
He had said that the kidnapping had been well organised. Hopefully they were not in the hands of maniacs. There would be a ransom demand and Rico’s bank or his family or whatever, she thought vaguely, would pay up and they would be released just as soon as the money was handed over.
‘Will they want money for me?’ she muttered helplessly.
‘I doubt it.’
She was worthless. His own assertion to the kidnappers drifted back to her. And she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander caught up in something that was nothing to do with her. And it was his fault. But for him she wouldn’t have been in that car park! On the other hand, if anything happened to Rico—if, for instance, stress made him drop dead with a coronary—the kidnappers might just kill her to get rid of her. ‘Surplus to requirements’… Nobody was going to pay for her release!
‘Are you healthy?’ she whispered.
‘Very.’
In silent relief she nodded. But still she couldn’t believe that it was real. Just twenty-four hours ago she had not even known that Rico da Silva walked this earth. Helplessly she pointed out to him that this time yesterday they had not even met.
‘And wasn’t ignorance bliss?’
‘I don’t see why you have to be so nasty!’ Bella snapped. ‘Personally I think I’m taking this very well. I’ve already been threatened and assaulted by you—’
‘By me?’ A lean hand thrust the beaded strands aside. Poised in the doorway, Rico surveyed her with incredulous, blazing golden eyes. The cool-as-ice impression was only on the surface, she registered. Beneath it lurked a deep well of near-murderous rage, rigorously suppressed and controlled.
‘Yes, by you. Then I get thumped and drugged and kidnapped. I wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for you!’ she suddenly spat.
‘And I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you.’
‘I b-beg your pardon?’
Black lashes dropped, screening his piercing gaze. ‘Forget I said that—’
‘Oh, no, as you once said to me, don’t keep me in suspense!’ she shrieked.
‘Cool down… and grow up,’ Rico drawled in a soft tone that none the less stung like acid. ‘How we got here is unimportant. The only item on our agenda now is survival.’
Bella studied the floor, tears burning at the back of her eyes. It was shock. She was still in shock. She wanted to ask him what he had meant just now. She wanted to know what had happened after she’d blanked out back in that car park. But she pinned her tremulous lips together instead.
‘Let’s eat.’
Eager to do something, she leapt off the chair and opened the fridge. It was bunged to the gills. Great, she thought for a split-second. Her next thought was entirely different. Dear God, how long were his kidnappers planning to keep them here? And, assuming that they hadn’t added to the hoard when they’d realised that they had not one but two victims requiring sustenance, that was an enormous amount of food… most of which wouldn’t keep that long even in a fridge—salad stuffs, cold meats, cheeses, milk, bread, butter. All perishable.
‘There is a stock of tinned goods in the cupboard as well as extra lights and several batteries, plates and cutlery.’
‘We could light another lamp—’
‘We don’t need it. Anything that we don’t need we save,’ he reminded her.
Bella burrowed into the cupboard, locating a tin of stew. ‘If you light that stove, I could heat this on that little hotplate.’
‘There’s no fuel.’
‘We could smash up a chair or something,’ Bella persisted, shivering.
‘The ventilation in here is wholly inadequate. Fumes might not escape. We could be suffocated. The stove cannot be lit.’
The boss man had spoken. Bloody know-it-all! Her teeth ground together. It was freezing cold and it was likely to get considerably colder. He had a lot more clothes on than she had. And where the heck was she to sleep? One bed. Two dining chairs. A metal floor. Guess who would get the floor?
She found a bowl and peeled some leaves off a lettuce, before marching through to the sink which had the sole water supply. When she returned she stood at the cupboard, her back turned to him, washing the salad. And guess who gets to prepare the meal? she thought caustically.
She felt slightly foolish when she turned round to find that he already had two plates on the table, sparsely filled. The pieces of hacked cheese and the tomatoes complete with stalks made her mouth unexpectedly curve up into a grin. He was even less domesticated than she, but she liked him for making the effort.
‘What happened after I got the needle in my arm?’ she asked flatly as he reappeared with the second chair and she sat down.
An ebony brow quirked. ‘Why talk about it?’
‘Because I want to know!’
‘I was afraid you would be shot when you screamed. The smaller one was very nervous. He was taking aim when the other one brought you down.’
Bella bit at her lower lip. ‘I didn’t mean to scream.’
‘I suppose it was a natural response,’ Rico conceded shortly, his mouth clenching.
But not a miscalculation that he would have been guilty of making, she gathered. He had been on all systems alert but in icy control. And for some reason he wasn’t telling her the whole story. She sensed that. ‘What did you do?’
&nbs
p; ‘I deflected his aim,’ Rico admitted.
‘How?’
‘By wrenching his arm.’
Perspiration broke out on her brow at the image which his admission evoked. ‘You could have been killed!’
‘I could not stand by and do nothing.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘There was a struggle and the other one struck me from behind. I remember nothing more. And when I came to I was in here and my watch was smashed,’ he bit out.
‘At least you weren’t.’ She dug up the courage to look up from her plate, her face flushed and troubled. ‘Thanks for not standing by,’ she muttered tightly.
‘Don’t thank me. What I did was foolish. He would not have fired that gun. His companion was in the way, probably already in the act of injecting you with the drug that knocked you out. Sometimes instinct betrays one badly,’ he completed grimly.
He was denying the fact that he had saved her life. He didn’t want her gratitude. But Bella was deeply impressed by his heroic lack of concern for his own safety. ‘Instinct’, he’d called it, depriving the act of anything personal. However, that did not change the fact that many men would have put themselves first sooner than risk their own life at the expense of someone who was little more than a stranger.
A stranger. Rico da Silva ought still to feel like a stranger to her, only he didn’t any more. Shorn of the obvious trappings of his wealth, the male across the table was as human as she was. But she reminded herself how deceptive the situation in which they were now trapped was. They were stuck with each other. This uneasy intimacy between two people from radically different worlds had been enforced, not sought.
‘If I hadn’t been there, what would you have done?’ she found herself asking.
‘There is no profit in such conjecture.’
‘You’re a typical money man, aren’t you?’ Bella condemned helplessly. ‘No such thing as answering a straight question!’