by Beth Abbott
What?
He couldn’t for the life of him work out what she meant.
He hadn’t helped her?
Of course, he would help her, and Niko should know that.
So, why was she worrying about him anyway? Didn’t she realise he could take care of himself?
Niko fussed for a little while longer, but he couldn’t make out anything in her mumblings except fear and anxiety.
Running through her words just left him more confused.
In her dream, someone must have helped her get away, presumably from Ilya. But for whatever reason it wasn’t Hollywood that had helped her.
Well, that didn’t make sense at all.
Who had rescued her?
Kellen? Possibly. The other Guardians? Not likely. She was barely on nodding terms with them. Drago? He was Ilya’s man. She’d made that quite clear.
Hollywood tried to relax his muscles and realised that at least his cock had started to soften. That was some relief, anyway.
Maybe she was the informant after all, and she was expecting the rescuers to be strangers to her. That would explain why she wasn’t expecting Hollywood to be her white knight.
Hollywood tried to settle his breathing into a regular pattern.
Niko was dreaming. That was all.
He shouldn’t be trying to figure out the meaning behind anything, because everyone with an ounce of sense knew that dreams were ten percent grounded in reality and ninety percent grounded in fairyland. You couldn’t rely on them, and definitely shouldn’t try and make sense of them. That wasn’t their purpose.
Niko had probably eaten something that had disagreed with her.
Hollywood smiled.
Kellen had stopped eating cheese years ago, as it made him restless in his sleep.
That was it! Niko had eaten something that had sparked off a chemical reaction. That was all a dream was.
Hollywood closed his eyes again and tried to relax.
If only he could figure out which part of her dream contained the ten percent of reality.
Chapter 52 – Hannah
Hannah sat in her office with her nose on her desk.
Literally, her nose was on her desk.
“Hannah? Are you asleep?” David’s voice sounded amused, and in the background, she could hear JT’s chuckle.
“Do you know anyone who sleeps with their nose on their desk?” She mumbled. “I’m meditating. Leave me alone.”
“Can’t you meditate after the meeting instead?” David suggested. “We’ve got half the Hungarian police force joining us on a video link in a few minutes, all waiting for you to dazzle us with your wisdom.”
“My wisdom ran out. All gone.” Hannah grumbled. “I’m not wise anymore. My brain fried last night, and I’m all out of dazzle.”
She heard footsteps coming towards her but couldn’t be bothered to open her eyes. Two hours of sleep in almost forty-eight hours was just not enough for her to give a rat’s ass about who was approaching her.
It could be a frenzied knife-wielding maniac, and she still couldn’t work up the energy to give a shit.
Warm arms wrapped around her and she felt Danny’s lips nuzzle against her neck.
“Come on, sweet-cheeks.” He pulled her upright, so she was leaning back against him. “All those suits are waiting around for the genius that is Hannah Simons to come and impress the hell out of them. You’re not going to disappoint your fan-club, are you?”
Hannah cracked one eye open to stare into her husband’s handsome face.
“Maybe we could sneak off home and you could make love to me while I sleep.” She whispered. “You distract David, while I make a crawl for the door.”
Danny’s chuckle reverberated through his chest and into her body.
“Honey, I’ve told you a hundred times already, I refuse to make love to you when you’re asleep.” He shook his head. “It’s nowhere nearly enough fun as when you’re awake. You don’t make those funny noises when you’re sleeping.”
“We could record them next time, and you could just play them back.” She smiled sleepily. “It’d be almost the same thing.”
“No, it would not.” Danny kissed her nose. “And I refuse to compromise on the point. Awake or abstinence. Your choice.”
“Meanie!” She pouted.
“Come on, Hannah.” David said cheerfully. “Chop-chop! Time is money, y’know.”
Hannah just about found the energy to turn and glare at him.
“No, David, time is not money.” She shook her head, tiredly. “Time is hours, minutes and seconds. Money is pounds, pennies, dollars, cents, and all the other coinage and noteage. If you can’t tell the difference, then I think we should be worried about other areas of your education, because the schools you attended must have been shit!”
“Ok, grumpy-pants.” Danny slid his hand under her legs and lifted her from the chair. “I think you need to splash some cold water on your face to wake yourself up, and then get your ass into the conference room to talk to the suits. I promise you, the minute you’re finished, I’ll take you home, so you can get some sleep.”
Hannah closed her eyes and was just enjoying the feeling of being carried when Danny dropped her legs to the floor, expecting her legs to hold her up.
She opened her eyes, grabbing the bathroom sink to stop from falling over.
Danny’s reflection over her head in the mirror had her scowling.
“You can give me all the filthy looks you like, sweetheart, but you are going to splash water on your face to wake yourself up, or I’m gonna do it for you.” He grinned. “And I guarantee, you won’t be nearly so dry afterwards if I do it.”
Unable to help herself, Hannah summoned up the energy and blew a raspberry at him.
“There’s my little spitfire!” Danny laughed.
Hannah wanted to be mad at him, but it was impossible when he looked so effing sexy!
“Unless my going to the toilet is about to become a spectator sport, why don’t you take your chums and head back to the conference room.” She suggested. “I’ll be along in five minutes, when I’ve located my last ounce of energy.”
“Okey-doke.” Danny smiled easily. “I think you’ll find it next to where you left your sense of humour.”
Hannah flipped him off with a smile just as she shut the bathroom door in his face and turned the lock.
Asshole!
Gorgeous, Danny asshole!
Hannah smiled tiredly. She loved that man with every fibre of her poor, aching being.
She used the toilet quickly, and as directed, splashed some ice-cold water on her face to wake herself up.
It was a bloody good job she never wore mascara, she mused, or she’d be sitting at the conference table looking remarkably like a panda. A very, very tired panda.
Stepping back out into her office, she grabbed a lipstick out of her purse and ran it over her lips. It was only a light shade of pink, but she hoped it would lift her colour from pale and insipid, to pale and slightly interesting.
“Ready?” JT stood by her door.
“No.” Hannah scowled, grabbing her tablet, and flouncing past him.
Yeah, she was good at flouncing.
“Gentlemen, and lady.” She said by way of a greeting as she entered the conference room. “I apologise for my tardiness. It’s been a busy few days.”
“Hey, Hannah.” Niels’ image was on the screen directly in front of her. “Danny was saying something about you working long hours. You look fresh as a daisy to my old eyes.”
Hannah smiled at the camera in front of her.
“Honey, I may feel like crap, but that doesn’t mean I have to look like it.” She tutted. “My mama would never forgive me if I didn’t present myself ‘audience ready’.”
“I should look so good while feeling like crap.” Kaz complained.
“Shall we get started?” David suggested, and as Hannah switched on her tablet, JT leaned forward and flicked a switch to bring th
e rest of the screens to life.
“Good evening, everyone.” Hannah smiled. “Thank you for your patience. I’m Hannah Simons, Senior Operational Director with Guardians Security in London. We appreciate you joining us this evening. Did you all get the brief I sent over?”
“Madame Simons, my name is Captain Milan Bako. I’ve been tasked by the Police Commissioner to help you in any way I can. I have with me Major Kovats from the Hungarian Defence Forces.” The man on the main screen smiled at her. “Having reviewed the various pieces of information you sent over to us, the Commissioner has decided you would best be served by a Special Forces team backed up by some officers from one of our special police units based in Budapest. I hope that satisfies your requirements?”
“Yes, thank you, Captain.” Hannah nodded. “We were thinking very much along the same lines ourselves. The men we already have embedded with the traffickers all have military backgrounds, and specifically those skills you would normally find in SF. We’re also sending a few of our associates to work with you, to make sure there are no cases of mistaken identity when you move in. They’re already on a flight to Budapest this evening.”
“We have the file you’ve sent over, so my men will be familiar with the identities of your operators.” The Major smiled. “However, if you have additional people you want to work with us, then we’ll be happy to accommodate them.”
“Thank you, Major.” Hannah smiled. “Of course, in addition to our concerns for our men, there are over a hundred women being trafficked, and their safety has to be paramount. Unless the operation is sharp, and your men infiltrate cleanly and without warning, we can’t put it past Ilya Federov and his men to use the women as human shields.”
“That is fully understood, Madame. Our friends at Interpol have passed all the details to us.” The Major nodded. “We will be moving in on foot for the last mile, so there should be no way they’ll hear us coming. No vehicles will come anywhere close to the warehouse until they’re given permission.”
“Is there any way a team could move in ahead of time, and be waiting for them when they arrive?” The Captain asked. “It would be so much easier if we could be lying in wait.”
“I’m sure it would be much easier.” Hannah agreed. “But there are several reasons why that wouldn’t work. JT, do you want to explain?”
JT stood up and smiled at Hannah, knowing her deference to him was deliberate.
“Hannah has already identified that they keep a permanent workforce at the property, which gives us an idea that they might call ahead before arrival to make sure the site isn’t compromised before they get there.” JT explained. “Plus, the trucks and the vans don’t travel in a convoy. Sometimes there can be a half an hour gap between the first and last vehicles arriving. We don’t want to move forward until we know that all of the vehicles have arrived.”
“Madame Simons, you said that they had already moved a considerable amount of cocaine from Turkey into Romania. Is there any suggestion that they’ll be moving more drugs across the border into Hungary?” The Major asked. “We just want to know the extent of what we’re dealing with.”
“As far as we’re aware, the drug shipment was offloaded in Bucharest. We have no intel to suggest that Federov has picked up any more drugs.” Hannah confirmed. “Of course, I also have no more intel on what has happened to the millions of euros he received for the drugs. If you were to find the money on him, or in any of his vehicles, I’m quite certain that the law would let you confiscate such a large amount under the ‘proceeds of crime’ legislation. That might be a welcome bonus to help you justify the extra pay for unsociable hours.”
“We’ll make sure we search the vehicles thoroughly, Madame.” The Captain smiled. “If there’s nothing else we need to know, if you’ll excuse us, we have a meeting scheduled with the Police Commissioner and the Mayor, to let them know what is going on. We’ll arrange to have your people picked up from the airport and schedule a meeting with them later this evening to go over the plans. How many should we expect?”
“There’ll be four of them, two male and two females.” Hannah confirmed. “The females aren’t going to be part of the mission itself. One of them is one of our company doctors. She’ll be on hand to treat the women with any minor injuries, once the operation is over. The other female is a translator who speaks a dozen languages. She will talk to the women once they’ve been freed, to ascertain where they came from and how they were taken.”
“We’ll make sure they have everything they need.” The Captain nodded. “Until we speak again in the morning, I wish you a goodnight.”
Hannah clicked off the screens and flopped back down into her seat.
“Now can I go to sleep?” She groaned.
“Would you like me to carry you to the car, my little sugar plum, while you doze off?” Danny stood up next to her grabbing her tablet and shoving it in her hand.
“Yes, please.” Hannah pouted. “My poor feet are aching.”
Instead of picking her up and gently carrying her off into the sunset, Danny reached down and pulled her out of her chair, throwing her up over his shoulder. Bent over double, her head and arms hung down right next to his derriere, and the temptation to smack his ass was too much to resist.
“This is not what I had in mind, Danny.” She growled.
“It’s exactly what’s been on my mind for the last half an hour.” He turned and nipped at her ass with his teeth. “In fact, I find I’m enjoying it so much I may even have to relax my ‘no sleeping’ rule just this once.”
Hannah smiled. The longer he carried her like this, the more she was getting used to it, and the easier she thought it would be to fall asleep.
He was definitely either gonna have to kiss the ‘no sleeping’ rule goodbye, or else take matters into his own hands when he got home.
Either way, she didn’t think it was going to be a night she’d remember.
Chapter 53 – Niko
From the first moment Niko had woken up, she’d been on edge.
The light on her phone had been blinking on and off to let her know that a message was waiting, and it had taken her ten minutes to pluck up the courage to read it.
“Everything on schedule for tonight.” It read. “Make sure you’re ready once you get to the destination.”
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Hollywood was still asleep.
“Will be ready on time.” She typed. “Tell your people to be careful. Potential for collateral damage EXTREME.”
She switched off the phone and tucked it under the pillow.
This was it. The day when she would either get away to make herself and her son a new life, or… or… She could barely finish the sentence. The words ‘or die trying’ kept flashing in front of her eyes like a lighthouse beacon.
A week ago, she would have been so excited at the opportunity to finally escape from her brother’s reach. Today, not quite so much. Obviously, she still wanted it enough that nothing would change her mind. But the thought that these would be the last few hours she would spend with Hollywood, and even Kellen, made her sad beyond words.
Kellen had been so kind to her and Roman at such a difficult time, she would forever be in his debt.
Hollywood had been infuriating at first, that was for sure. But he had changed over the last few days, and now, he was… What was he?
Niko couldn’t begin to work out what Hollywood was to her. These last few nights they’d shared a few kisses. No big deal, really. Was it?
But it was a really big deal, she knew.
She’d only been kissed by two men in her life.
Roman’s father had been the first and had been special simply because of it. His kisses were nice, and sweet, and as a young naïve woman, that had been perfect at the time.
Hollywood’s kisses were molten lava, fireworks, and rollercoasters, leaving her red hot, dazzled, and completely unsettled.
But she so wanted more of them… more of him.
&nbs
p; How ridiculous was it that after only a few days, she was already seeing him as someone special?
He was suspicious, cranky, and opinionated.
He was also handsome, sexy, and with a body like nobody else she’d ever seen before.
Moreover, there was something genuine about the guy. Not only was he smart and funny, but he was honest and very straightforward, saying what was on his mind, even when he knew you weren’t going to thank him for saying it.
Plus, for someone so handsome, he was remarkably casual about the way he looked, and not in the slightest bit vain. No glancing in mirrors, no constantly combing his hair. That was unusual to say the least.
She thought about how quickly he’d taken to Roman and thought nothing about picking the little man up and carrying him, whenever he thought her little boy was tired.
Niko sighed. There was a lot she was going to miss about Hollywood, not least those damn kisses.
“Why’re you sighing?” His whispered words were closer to her ear than she’d expected. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing important.” She turned to face him. “Just not looking forward to another day cooped up in the truck with Roman. As good as he is, it’s still stressful on all of us.”
Hollywood brushed aside a loose curl that had fallen in front of her eyes.
“He’s a good kid.” He smiled. “I don’t know what his daddy was like, but I think he got his personality from his mama.”
“Grumpy and temperamental?” She wondered out loud.
“More like impulsive and mercurial.” Hollywood grinned.
“Same difference.” Niko shrugged. “At least Roman is sweet like his daddy. Vasili never had a mean bone in his body.”
“Neither do you.” Hollywood protested. “There’s a difference between being mean for the sake of being mean, and being forthright, to stop those women being hurt or worse.”
“I doubt that they’ll ever see it that way.” She sighed.
“Maybe not. But that doesn’t make them right.” He pointed out. “Anyway, it’ll all be over soon. And then you can do what you want.”
“Soon?” Niko wondered what he was talking about. The trip was supposed to last another five days according to the original schedule.