She hated herself for trembling, for the rush of adrenaline and fear that jolted through her system, sending her up on her toes. She wasn’t going to make a run for it, and she wasn’t going to fight. Not here. Not like this. Not with Dimitri so close. She had seen what Henry could do to people from afar. She had no idea what he was capable of up close.
Henry, in contrast, seemed relaxed, at ease. Uncaring or unmoved she bled. She didn’t say a word, and when the brush moved again and Dimitri stepped out with another man beside him, gun to his temple, she schooled her response to one of average, run of the mill terror. Never mind that when she saw him, she wanted to press against the knife and wound herself more, if only to distract Henry.
“Get rid of the knife,” Dimitri said gruffly.
“I don’t think you’re really in a position to make demands,” Henry said, and then Lauren saw something more, the blood blooming on Dimitri’s shoulder. Had he been shot? Wouldn’t she have heard that? No—no. His clothes were rent with a thick slash. That wound had been made by a knife. She stared in horror, and Henry leaned down to nuzzle her ear.
“There, there, darling. I know this must be alarming. But you must understand the power you have over men. This might make you understand why it is so important that we marry now, before someone like this begins to think he has a chance with you.”
“He never—” Lauren said hotly, but Henry only laughed.
“Oh, believe me, I know. You wouldn’t waste your time or your body on some bootlicking bodyguard stinking of fish and filth. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t entertain aspirations. And it’s that insult that I cannot abide. Among so many other things.”
“He didn’t insult me, Henry.” Lauren’s voice was clear and high, and she could only hope it sounded imperious, but reasonable. She couldn’t seem to focus anymore on anything but Dimitri’s shoulder. “He barely spoke to me. He was here to protect me and make sure I didn’t go anywhere else. That’s all.”
“Is that all, Dimitri?” Henry’s words were a taunt. “Then you wouldn’t mind this, I suppose.” Lauren felt Henry’s hands shift, felt him grip the thin cloth of her sundress. Before she could draw another breath, Henry ripped it ruthlessly down and away, exposing her bra and the curve of her breast.
“Henry!” she protested with a gasp.
But Henry wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Dimitri, who stared at them from across the clearing with murder in his eyes. Beside him, Henry’s bodyguard never wavered from his ready position, the gun point-blank at Dimitri’s head.
“That’s right, isn’t it,” Henry said, and she tensed as his hand moved to palm the weight of her breast in his hand, rubbing it coarsely. “You can see, can’t you darling? See the fury and possession in his gaze? He’s a disgusting, rutting bull. If I hadn’t come today, God only knows what he would have done to you.”
“Let go of her,” Dimitri growled. He sounded like he was going to rip Henry limb from limb. Henry clearly noticed it too.
“Insufferable, isn’t it?” he murmured. “He has to go.”
“What?” Lauren did pull away from Henry now. “Are you insane? You can’t kill him. You don’t need to kill anyone. I’m going with you, Henry, and the bodyguard is going home. Home,” she said more clearly when Henry didn’t move and Dimitri didn’t either. She tried again. “I’m not going to start our married life with the blood of an innocent man on my hands. Let him go now, and let’s get out of here.”
Henry looked at her a long minute. “You know I’d do anything for you, darling,” he said, sighing heavily. “Why don’t you go and say good-bye to him personally? I know he’ll appreciate that. Here.” He tucked her dress up beneath her strap, rendering her slightly more presentable. “That should help.”
“I don’t want to say good-bye to him.” The quick jerk of Henry’s gaze to her eyes sent a surge of satisfaction rushing through Lauren. Insufferable prick. He’d been testing her, wanting to watch her with Dimitri. It wasn’t a bad move. The bloodstain was only gathering in intensity at Dimitri’s shoulder. If he didn’t get out of there soon and back to the rover, would he have the strength to get to a hospital? Or whatever passed for a hospital on this island? She straightened under Henry’s shrewd gaze. “I want to leave.”
Henry’s smile was affectionate again, truly affectionate. He pulled her roughly into his body, his hand around her neck, smearing the blood from where he’d sliced her neck. She winced but didn’t stop him from pressing against her, because if that got them out of there more quickly, then she was all for it.
Then Henry spoke once more.
“I want to make love to you,” he all but groaned into her ear. “Here, now. With that beast watching.”
“What? No!” Lauren went rigid as Henry stepped away from her. He took off his jacket and tossed it over one of the hanging pieces of plane sculpture, and shot out his cuffs. That was when she saw the gun stuck into his waistband.
“Henry, you can’t be serious,” she said, not needing to fake her desperation. “I’m not going to make love to you here in front of strangers. It will be our first time! Surely we can come up with something more romantic.”
“You’re my wife, or you will be. You need to start acting like it.”
Lauren couldn’t help it—she curled her lip. Henry laughed at her expression. “You’ll learn soon enough. I think your first lesson should be now.”
“No!” As Henry pulled the gun out of his waistband, Lauren rushed forward, pushing his arm to the side. He cracked her in the face, and she faltered. And then an unearthly growl sprang forth from the far edge of the garden.
“Lauren!”
Dimitri was done with following orders. Turning to the side, ignoring the pain in his left shoulder, he cracked his right elbow down hard against the throat of the man standing next to him, driving him to his knees. With another roundhouse punch, he leveled the man. Then he turned and bounded toward Lauren and Smithson.
The two of them were in a battle for Smithson’s gun. Lauren, in her ridiculous shift, torn and hanging from her shoulder, was fighting the man as fiercely as anyone he’d ever seen. But Smithson was no stranger to a fight. With another resounding crack, he struck Lauren in a body blow that caught her across the shoulder, and she went flying as he whipped around. He stopped Dimitri cold with his raised pistol.
Dimitri raised his hands, his attention torn between Lauren and Smithson. “Take it easy, Mr. Smithson. This is a misunderstanding.”
“Yes, it is. Yours.” Smithson drew himself up. “This is how it’s going to work. You’re going to die like the good little bodyguard that you are, and I’m going to collect my fiancée and return to my yacht. I’ll express my condolences to the king and queen, maybe settle a nice cash amount on your family—assuming you have a family—and wash my hands of the whole affair.”
Lauren was pulling herself to her feet, and Smithson flicked a glance to her. “I didn’t strike her hard enough to bruise, and my doctors will pronounce her fit and competent. And, fortunately, you won’t be around long enough to complain.”
She wobbled a little, and Dimitri fought to keep himself from clenching his hands into fists. His orders were good ones, solid ones. He couldn’t kill Smithson, had to take him alive or not at all. He sure as hell wasn’t planning to die by the idiot’s hand either, of course, but Lauren didn’t know that apparently.
“Henry—no,” she said, her voice so ravaged and broken, it distracted both Dimitri and Smithson. Slowly, as they watched, she dropped to her knees, her hands up in supplication.
She was begging. This woman, this proud, defiant, spoiled woman who had every advantage handed to her and never needed anything in her life, was begging for his life.
“Don’t kill him, Henry,” she said, knowing instinctively not to give Dimitri a name, a face. “He’s nothing to you, the merest inconvenience. His words don’t have the weight of yours—or of mine. And I will be your wife, dedicated to you in all things. I will do whatev
er you want, be whatever you want. All for this one favor. Don’t take a life as we set forth to embark on ours.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Smithson’s gun never wavered, but he seemed transfixed by Lauren, marveling at her. Her torn clothing and disheveled hair somehow didn’t stack up to the strength of her face, her eyes. The rigidity of her body as she kept kneeling in a position of perfect prayer. Beseeching Smithson, who appeared to be enjoying being beseeched. Bastard.
“Because you have everything, Henry. You don’t need to add an insignificant death to the ledger. You more than anyone know the value of having someone be in your debt. I will be in your debt, for this as in so many things. I will owe you so much more than I can ever repay. I will be yours, without murmur, without opposition. What you want, I’ll want. What you crave, I’ll give you. Give you or find for you. And I will never leave you.”
Henry’s focus sharpened. Something seemed off about that, and Dimitri thought again about the documents on Smithson’s boat. The marriage contracts, binding and final. Why was he so fixated on securing Lauren Grant to him, forever and always? It couldn’t be her money. He had that in spades. So what…?
Lauren wobbled, fell, scrambling up to her knees again as Smithson watched her struggle, a smile playing over his lips. “He may not live the night anyway, Henry. Look at his shoulder. That’s a lot of blood. Why do the work of nature if that’s what’s in store for him?”
She pulled herself upright then and edged closer, and Dimitri blinked. She wasn’t moving toward Smithson; she was moving in a direct line—toward him. Not toward him precisely, but between Smithson and him. As if despite everything, she could still regain control of the situation somehow.
“And if he does live, who would take the word of a critically injured man against yours?” Lauren continued. “He’ll have no supporters alive, but if you kill him, he’s a martyr.”
That seemed to get Smithson’s attention, and Dimitri fought another surge of outrage at Lauren’s intervention. She was playing a dangerous game here. No, he wasn’t planning on taking a bullet from Smithson’s gun—one wound was enough for tonight—but he could tell by everything in Lauren’s body, her words, the tone of her voice that she’d already made up her mind to take that bullet for him. As if that would change anything, as if that wasn’t the dumbest damned thing he’d ever heard in his life.
As if that didn’t make his heart want to stop, right there in the middle of the clearing.
“Threaten him, Henry,” Lauren said quietly. She’d almost dragged herself into the direct line of sight between the two men, but she stopped, smart enough to know that capturing Smithson’s attention alone was better than having that attention split between two focal points. But she was speaking so softly now that Dimitri had to strain to hear her. “You have the power of the world at your hands. You know that. You’ve always known that. Because it’s true. Tell him now what will happen to him if he tries to cross you. Make him understand.”
Smithson’s lips twisted, but his expression was supremely smug. “That’s the Lauren Grant I have come to know and love,” he said, waving the gun at her. “You tell him.” He watched her hungrily as Lauren pivoted, reaching out to Dimitri, her face resolute.
“If you leave this place alive, you must never go after Henry. He will always win.” Her words were deliberately cold. She didn’t look at Dimitri. Couldn’t look at him, he realized, whether to protect him from Smithson or because she would falter, he didn’t know.
But he found he yearned for the feel of her gaze upon him once more. Wanted nothing more than to drink in her beautiful eyes, her smile.
She continued in a wooden tone. “Whatever your weak point is, he’ll find it. Your childhood friends you had lost complete contact with, until a pattern forms that you can’t ignore. Former lovers. Current lovers. Family members. Coworkers. Pets. Your bank accounts. Your treasures. Your mementos. Things you didn’t know you cared about desperately, until they were taken away from you. He applies the right pressure, and he applies it quickly and assuredly, so that he doesn’t have to reapply the pressure again. Because with the first touch, he has already broken you.”
“You’re making me seem quite frightening,” Smithson drawled, clearly enjoying the moment.
Lauren didn’t turn to him. “And when he grants you some sort of reprieve, it isn’t over. It’s never over. That’s his genius. He’ll remind you in ways you can’t imagine that he is always out there watching, always waiting for you to make a misstep, say or sometimes merely think the wrong thing. He’s everywhere.”
“Why, Lauren, I’m flattered.”
Dimitri’s lip curled. He couldn’t abide allowing this man to live another second. Just as he couldn’t abide the fear that rolled through Lauren like a sickness, the incredible hopelessness. That she was consigned to a future without rest, without escape. No one should feel that way.
“And yet,” Smithson continued, “I think the lesson isn’t quite over yet. You should never try to talk me out of something that gives me so much pleasure, Lauren. Remember that.”
He lifted his gun, and Lauren screamed.
But the shot that came was fast—too fast!
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Dimitri reacted to Smithson lifting his gun to surge forward and away, to get himself and Lauren out of the trajectory of the bullet, but Lauren jumped sideways, her arms outstretched, as if in a single leap, she could cover his body with hers.
But it was Smithson who staggered back at an unexpected angle, Smithson who fell as Dimitri lurched toward him, the blood bursting from Smithson’s head irrefutable proof that he wouldn’t get up again. Dimitri turned, bracing himself to launch at the guard who stood at the edge of the clearing, the man he’d dropped to the ground but hadn’t—quite—knocked out.
The man who threw his gun down as they watched, and rubbed his face with a grimace.
“My thanks. I’ve been waiting for a chance to take him out for over a year,” he said, his accent once again placing him as Russian, though he spoke clear English. “He cheated my employer in one of his financial schemes. My employer took offense, but he is a patient man, and now he will be a happy man.” He looked up to the night sky. “The owners of the yacht Smithson commandeered are dead, you should know, dumped into the sea. You won’t find them. However, there’s a brace of his men left aboard who I’m sure would turn on him in an instant. He was not well liked.” He scanned the dark forest around them. “Unfortunately, if his men see me, I get shot. I don’t suppose there’s another way off this rock?”
Dimitri pointed. “Path to the secondary port. The bartender will set you up if you have money.”
The man’s teeth flashed in the darkness. “Money, I have. Sorry about your shoulder. I cut for show. Smithson liked blood. A lot of it. With you injured he relaxed his guard just enough.”
It was Dimitri’s turn to smile. “It’s the only reason you’re still alive.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lauren couldn’t stop shaking. It all happened so quickly, and yet at the same time, she couldn’t stop seeing everything as if it was in slow motion. Dimitri lurching forward, the sound of the gun, her turning in time to see Henry falling back and collapsing to the ground. His eyes were open the whole way, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He wasn’t looking at anyone.
“Lauren—Lauren, how bad are you hurt? Is it only your neck?” Dimitri was at her side again, his voice brusque and firm. He placed a balled-up wad of cloth against her collarbone where Henry had sliced the deepest, and it took her a second to realize where it came from.
She stared at Dimitri’s bare chest. “You just couldn’t wait to get naked again in front of me, could you?”
Dimitri laughed gruffly, then he pulled her against him, lifting her in one swift move.
“Wait—your shoulder!” she protested. “You’re injured worse than I am.”
“Bloody but not deep,” he dismissed her concern. “Henry apparently n
eeded to vet his bodyguards more closely, but there was no faulting the man’s aim.”
He reached the edge of the swaying trees, then set her on her feet and dropped to a crouch. He picked up a small pile of weapons and equipment, stowing his gun and knife efficiently. Then he waved the phone at her. “He didn’t hurt me badly. He also didn’t destroy my equipment right away, the way he should have. So I had a suspicion he might prove useful in the end. As I proved useful to him.”
She swayed a little but stepped back from Dimitri when he stood. “Where is he now? Are you going to let Stefan and Cyril know?”
Dimitri grinned in the glow of his phone as he powered it back on. “Not yet, I don’t think. He deserves a head start.”
“But Henry…his other men—”
“That we’ll need to address. But first, let’s get you out of here.”
The flight back through the trees was swift. She refused to let Dimitri carry her, because the wound at his shoulder still seeped blood, despite his clamped hand on it. Her own wound was far shallower, but he wouldn’t accept his shirt back until they reached the rover.
“Dimitri, you have to go to a doctor,” she said, trying to force her words to remain steady.
“Not necessary for either of us, though you’ll get the full workup when we get back to shore, so brace yourself for that.” As he spoke, he half ripped, half knifed his shirt into long, rough strips, quickly and competently instructing her on how to wrap his wound. The remaining cloth he used to form a neat pad, which he handed to her. “Pressure is key. I don’t have tape, but they will on the boat.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve bound up a lot of wounds?”
“Not as many as you might think.” He flashed a smile. “The GNSF are too fast for most of our enemies.” He looked up and squinted to the port, nodding once. “The speedboat is here. Let’s head out.” The phone was at his ear as he turned, leaving Lauren to trail behind him as he connected a phone call. They spoke in rapid Garronois, and she found she didn’t have the heart to translate. She hadn’t lost that much blood, but suddenly—nothing seemed to matter anymore. A curious melancholy settled over her, impossible to shake. She managed to keep her feet until they reached the boat, and with quick dispatch, her wound was reviewed, her vitals checked, and she was pronounced not likely to go into imminent shock. Dimitri left her side the moment she had the blanket around her and the boat turned toward open water. She stared through the narrow windows as the boat picked up speed, and found herself drifting…drifting…
Captured (Gowns & Crowns #2) Page 20