Sweet Seduction Stripped (Sweet Seduction, Book 7)

by Nicola Claire

  "They were expecting us," Nick countered. Then, "Brook and Koki are moving in now. I'm going to head out to meet this prick face to face."

  "Alone?" I cried.

  "I'll cover you from in here," Ric offered, reaching over and squeezing my trembling hand. "We'll be his eyes and ears, Dancer. Come on, you take cameras one through ten, I'll take the rest."

  I followed his directive robotically, welcoming the familiar sensation of tapping in instructions to bring those particular cameras up on my screens, taking over control from Ric's terminal.

  I zoomed an image up, showing a shadowed figure in one of the lower floor halls, dust making identification impossible.

  "Second floor," I told Nick.

  "I'll wait out in reception. If I have to fall back, make sure you activate Carmel's distraction."

  And then he was out the door and heading off down the hallway toward the elevators and the emergency stairwell by Carmel's front desk.

  "Carmel has a distraction?" I asked.

  "Yeah, it's about as lethal as her personality. Her words, not mine."

  We watched and we waited. Police cars arriving and cordoning off the street, no more sightings of masked men or shadowed figures. Returning my attention to the download from C&C, I was relieved to see I'd managed to catch everything I'd gone for. If there was more incriminating evidence on that system, it would have to wait. Right now my attention had to be for ASI and what Sala was up to. And why we hadn't seen Jaxon/Mitchell anywhere yet.

  The longer we sat there in a suspended state of heightened anxiety the more I couldn't understand this move. It was suicidal. Like King's had been at the District Court. There was no way Jaxon could have thought he'd get out of here once we'd called in the real cops.

  Unless of course he had control of the real cops. Not Pierce, I doubted that guy was on the wrong side. But maybe others. I checked out the images of the police cars again, noting they were all marked vehicles with the flashing lights on top. No unmarked detective sedan, all front line staff.

  "Where's Pierce?" I asked.

  "Still coming?" Ric offered, glancing at my screen.

  "Or waylaid," I countered. Everything we'd done had been expected. This was no spur of the moment attack.

  Ric hit a button on his keyboard, connecting a call.

  "Pierce. Where the hell...?" Pause. "I see." Pause. "OK, we'll make do."

  "Well?" I demanded.

  Ric just let a slow breath out and brought up another camera view on the main screen.

  My father's hospice. With flames billowing out of the front window. Somehow alarms had not been triggered here. Bryan Messing's handiwork? Pierce's car was parked just down the street, behind the fire engines and HEAT vehicles and a shiny, black behemoth Hummer belonging to Jaxon Harding, aka Mitchell Wallis.

  "Pierce will get to him," Ric said quietly. "My guess, Harding's not even there. The car's a message, nothing more. The goal was to distract Pierce, tie him up, until whatever is meant to happen here goes down."

  "But what's meant to be happening here?"

  "I don't know," Ric replied, staring hard at his screens.

  I couldn't work it out. It just didn't make sense. Why threaten my dad, again, and then blow me up whilst inside ASI? Because that's the only thing I could envisage, another bomb like the one at Sweet Seduction appearing here. Destroying ASI and Nick Anscombe, the reason why Mitchell's brother was behind bars.

  And still, it didn't make sense. Jaxon was definitely not who I thought him, but I understood him better now. And that included his desire for, his obsession with, me. That hadn't gone away, it had just changed over the months and become something else. No less as desperate, no less as important to him, than it was in the beginning. Just different.

  So, why blow up ASI with me inside?

  Was it, if he can't have me no one can? No, that wasn't Jaxon. He'd just take, take, take. Never give up. So, what the hell?

  "There!" Ric shouted. Then into his mouthpiece he said, no doubt to Nick, Brook and Koki, "Lauofo, leaving via the south-east side. Car waiting, black Ford Territory, heading east on Railway Street."

  "On it!" we heard Brook say, followed by a similar confirmation from Koki.

  I watched as their black motorcycles sped off in the direction of Sala's escape vehicle, feeling on edge and strung out and aware that this was not done yet.

  "Anything else?" Nick asked from the reception area.

  "Building looks clear on my side," Ric supplied. "Amber?"

  "I haven't seen movement since we spotted Sala," I offered.

  "All right, I'm going to do a sweep," Nick advised. "Find out what the hell he was up to."

  "Hold on," I announced, watching cops in SWAT gear move out from the line of police vehicles.

  "What the fuck?" Ric exclaimed. Then, "Incoming. AOS. And they've got battering rams."

  Nick swore, then ducked behind Carmel's desk, pulling out her shotgun, and coming tearing back down the hall towards us. Ric released the lock on control, letting him in.

  "Any weapons you shouldn't have in here?" Nick demanded.

  I shook my head as Ric said, "All licensed."

  "Good. I'll house this one appropriately, everything else should be above board. How long we got?"

  "Five minutes," I said glancing back at the measured and cautious approach of the Armed Offenders Squad.

  "This just gets more and more fucked in the head as the day goes on," Nick commented, storming out of the door again.

  "Do we go to them?" I asked Ric.

  "No. We wait until they knock on the receptionist's door."

  "Why?"

  "Because I've got a feeling they'll shoot anything that moves or surprises them. Something's got them alarmed."

  "Sala," I whispered.

  "Do you have any idea what he could have been doing here?"

  I shook my head, closing my eyes, and then reeling at the images that flowed through my mind. All the files I'd read as they'd downloaded. All the figures and emails and memos and ledger balances. And image upon image upon image.

  Including plastic covered cocaine bricks and a huge stash of what I had assumed was illegal guns. I opened my eyes and brought up more of the pictures on the screen before me, those I hadn't had time to commit to memory, those that led me to documentation of arms deals and stolen property, and a huge cache of weapons taken from the New Zealand Police.

  "Guns," I said.

  "Set up," Ric finished.

  But we were too late, the AOS were banging down our front door.

  "Where the hell would Lauofo have put them?" Nick barked over the speaker once Ric had advised him.

  "The camera in the gym is jammed. Only just noticed it because it gives a wide unhindered view of the main room, but not the lockers against the far wall," Ric advised, cursing himself softly under his breath.

  "On it!" Nick shouted. "Delay the AOS."

  Ric stood up and moved to the main door to control. Then promptly spun back and stalked towards me, pulling his gun from the belt of his jeans and placing it on the desk beside me.

  "Do you know how to use this?" I shook my head. "Look here," he instructed, lifting the weapon up again.

  "Is this wise with cops storming the building?"

  "Don't touch it unless you have to. When they request access in here, open the door and move well away from the firearm, hands up and open for them to see. But if shit hits the fan like I think it will, and it's not the AOS on the other side of that door, you shoot the son-of-a-bitch."

  "You think he's here," I breathed, stunned.

  "This is where the show is, isn't it?" Yeah he was right. Jaxon wouldn't miss this for the world. "Now pay attention," Ric ordered and gave me the fastest lesson in using a pistol that anyone had probably ever received.

  And then he kissed me. Desperately. Frantically. As though I was the very air he needed to breathe. And with tears stinging the backs of my eyes I watched him walk away from me, feeling like a part
of my heart had been ripped from my chest and left a gaping, bleeding hole in its place.

  I followed his progress on one screen, the AOS about to ram the main door - which would be unsuccessful as that door was built bank vault thick - and Nick on another tearing toward the gym in the far corner of ASI HQ.

  For the first time since I'd stepped foot in this room, I felt it was too small. Too silent. Too achingly closed in. I wanted out there. I wanted to be standing next to Ric. I wanted to protect him. How, I did not know. I just wanted it.

  I kept looking for Jaxon, expecting to see him in amongst the men dressed like a SWAT team. He was behind this, I was sure. But he wasn't at the front door when Ric opened it. He wasn't the police office who moved forward with lightning speed and whacked Ric with a baton. Not on the head, where most would suspect to be targeted.

  But on his bad leg, directly above his bad knee. Because they knew who he was and where his weakness was, and they knew this because the man who had told them stood right outside control's door.

  I was shaking and tears were falling and I guess that's why I'd missed Jaxon appear. I should have been watching, but how could I look away from the more than dozen hits Ric was receiving to his legs and lower body?

  I tried to be thankful that it wasn't his face, wasn't his head being fucked up. But I couldn't. Because the brutality was so significant it made bile surge up my throat and flood my mouth. I choked it back down as Jaxon casually knocked on the control room door and my eyes skidded across the desk to Ric's gun.

  Then I picked up some papers sitting on a nearby table, covered the weapon with them carefully, and sat down within reaching distance, before I turned all the monitors off and unlocked the door.

  He walked in with pure relish in his eyes, the same eyes that I had gazed into on many occasions while he whispered sweet nothings in my ear. The same eyes that devoured me when I danced around the pole in our lounge in nothing but a thong. The same eyes that had stared lethally at Ryan Pierce.

  "Baby, I'm so glad you've decided to play the game at last."

  "This is a game... Mitchell?" He flinched, but covered his surprise with a nasty smirk.

  "I would have told you everything, there was no need to lower yourself to Anscombe Securities & Investigations' level."

  "As opposed to your level?" I couldn't shut up. I thought it was probably a bad idea to be goading him. But I couldn't shut up.

  I hated him.

  "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Amber," he advised. "Take it from me, you won't like the hard way. It involves the IT geek getting hit one too many times by accident with a reinforced metal baton. It might even involve a secondary explosion at the hospice where they're still trying to reach your dad. No matter what, it will involve ASI getting caught with a shit-tonne of police issue weapons stolen some time last year and the crime never solved."

  "You're a psychopath, you know that? You're crazy."

  "Psychopath," he said, rolling the word over his tongue like he was tasting it. "But not crazy. Far from it. Do you have any idea how hard it was to ingratiate myself into Declan King's inner circle and not have the infamous radar hear about it? Do you have any idea how hard it was to get King to agree to accompany the team that infiltrated the District Court Building? And what about head office? They think my shit smells sweet. The young police detective who gave up a promising career in the limelight to go so deep under cover even the local Criminal Investigations Bureau couldn't shine their Maglite torches on me. That's not crazy, baby. That's genius."

  Huh. That word suddenly lacked the power it'd had only a short while ago.

  "Well," I said, turning to my keyboard and entering a command. "You and I have differing opinions on genius then."

  "What? You've recorded everything I've said? How predictable." Oh, he knew I'd hate being considered that.

  "No, that would have been too clichéd, wouldn't it?" I said, smiling sweetly, then enlarging the image on the screen showing the shot of him shooting the bound man in the head.

  "What's that?" he said, voice lethally quiet.

  "It's a verified, non-doctored, true-blue image of you killing a blind-folded, bound, and beaten man."

  I hadn't had time to test it. But I wasn't lying when I'd said to Ric that it wasn't necessary. I knew. And by the look on Jaxon's face right now, I'd been right.

  "Are cops allowed to do that sort of thing?" I went on. "Or is it OK if you're so deep under cover not even the local CIB can shine a light on you? I'm not sure," I said conversationally. "I think it might go over a little bad for you, Mitchell. Especially considering it's been accompanied by half a dozen further shots implicating you in a number of illegal activities, that I could swear were not sanctioned by head office."

  "Stop calling me that!" he snapped. "And what do you mean, 'it's been accompanied?' Accompanied where?"

  "The New Zealand Herald for one. Copies to TVNZ and TV3. I threw a bone to Sky News, as well, just for the hell of it. Oh, and in case I forget, I also cc'd your old bosses. You know, the ones in head office."

  "You little bitch!"

  And there was the snapping of that coil. The unravelling of that tight, tight spring. The fallout of his pent up rage and anger. All of it directed at me.

  But it was OK. Because I had sent copies to all those people. Because I'd also recorded our conversation, as clichéd as that may be. And because I'd broadcast that recording throughout the entire building. Including the reception area where I prayed Ric was still alive and breathing.

  It was OK. Even if I couldn't reach the gun under the papers quick enough. Even as I felt his hands wrap around my throat and begin to throttle the life out of me. It was OK. Because I could see the fire had been extinguished at the hospice on the reinstated LED screens. Because Pierce's car had arrived out the front of ASI, along with Koki and Brook's black motorcycles, and several more SUVs.

  And it was OK, because I'd kept my head like Ric does, when he's in control and overseeing a dangerous job for his team. I'd not vomited with fear or burst into tears. I'd trapped the bad guy, I'd reversed the pieces. I'd tricked him. Fooled him.

  Like he'd fooled me.

  So, it was OK when my vision blurred and my breaths stopped. And the world started to turn grey. It was OK.

  And then he suddenly flung me away from him as though he'd only just realised he was killing the one person left in his life that meant a damn thing.

  He knew I was no longer his. More proof he could not have received. And yet, at the last moment my Jaxon emerged and he released me. Pushing me away in mortified panic, allowing me to get close enough to the door release to disengage the lock before collapsing.

  He staggered back as an AOS member slipped in to control, held a gun to his head and proceeded to read him his rights.

  And as Nick came storming in on the heels of more AOS members, with Brook rushing behind carrying a medic bag, I knew it would be OK. At least for me. Because I was breathing, and Nick was congratulating me, and Brook was shaking his head and whistling at the bruises on the side of my neck and saying, "Girl, you got some fine moves on you."

  So, it was OK.

  Until I rasped, my throat so bruised and battered the words sounded like a knife being dragged over a chalkboard, "Ric. Look after Ric."

  "You call him Ric?" Brook asked, lips spreading in a wide smile. "Cool. I'm gonna call him Ric from now on, too."

  "Ric," I repeated, no pleaded.

  "No one gets to call me Ric, but my Dancer," a voice said over Brook's shoulder.

  Dragging his bad leg behind him, leaning on Koki with a determined scowl on his face, and piercing, vibrant, astonishingly beautiful green in his eyes.

  Yeah. It was OK. It was more than fucking OK.

  It was transcendent. That's what it was.

  Epilogue

  You Lucky Bastard

  Eric

  I think I'd died and gone to heaven.

  It sure as fuck beat the hell I'd been in for
the past few weeks. Physiotherapy and me are not on good terms. Unless of course the physio nurse is dressed in golden glitter and an itty-bitty thong.

  Oh, hell yes.

  I watched as Amber swung herself around a dancer's pole in a move that defied gravity and had me drooling like a fucking pervert from my vantage point spread out on the couch looking up into pools of melted chocolate, sex-messed chestnut tresses, and an arse that was still pinked up from our recent disagreement.

  Oh, hell yes.

  Amber knew how to disagree just right. Perfectly. And then beg for a spanking afterwards.

  I adjusted myself in my pants determined to hold out for the finale. If I was lucky, it'd be like the finale I received last night when we checked into the resort. If I was really lucky - and I'm thinking I might just be that guy - it'd be like the finale I get every single night of our very long and happy married life.

  A married life we were starting this evening, because fuck it! We don't play by the rules, Dancer and me.

  She'd been through hell too, and I was determined to make it up to her. Harding had gone down swinging fists, but the evidence Amber had accumulated - and fuck me, spread around the world to every major news channel there was, forcing the upper echelons of the New Zealand Police Force to answer some hard questions, like who the fuck employed Roan McLaren's brother? - had sent the man down for years. Right alongside big brother. Lauofo and Messing got swallowed by the fallout as well, tying up a case we'd been working on for far too long.

  But that wasn't what really had made my Dancer's world turn to hell. Not even the fact her fiancé couldn't stand upright for three whole fucking weeks without someone to hold on to could be blamed for that kind of hell.

  No. Her dad had passed away. Amber was still in mourning, but the last words her father had said to her, along with, "I'm proud of you, darling," were "Do it."

  So here we were, in Fiji, about to do it.

  And there she was giving me one last pole dance, which would hopefully turn into a lap dance, before we both said "I do."

  Nine fucking years younger than me and she was all woman. She stole my breath. She owned my heart and soul. I was lost to my Dancer, and fuck me, I hoped I would never be found.