by Lori King
Hurrying into Garrison’s Grocery, she gave a quick wave to Don Garrison, who stood chatting with his son, Bannock. She allowed herself one tiny second to admire the way Bannock’s uniform fit his muscular body before she shifted her thoughts back to the three muscular men she had waiting for her at their condo. Tonight they were going to grill, and Michael had promised to make margaritas for her. They had invited the families in the condos on either side of theirs to join them in a picnic. Kind of a house warming party and neighborhood meet and greet all at once. She had to hurry so that she could get there before everyone else showed up.
Stepping around the corner into the canned foods aisle, she ran headlong into Dane Hutchinson, knocking both herself and the loaf of French bread he was carrying to the ground.
“Gaby! Are you okay?” Dane said, reaching to help her back to her feet.
She flushed with embarrassment as she looked up into his concerned face. “Yes, I’m so sorry, Dane. I wasn’t watching where I was going, and my mind was on other things.”
“No worries, Gaby. If the worst thing that happens to me today is smashing into a beautiful woman, then I’m sure I will die happy.”
She giggled and smacked his thick shoulder. “Stop it. I was just hurrying to pick up a few things before heading out. I seem to be barreling through a lot of people lately thanks to distractions.”
“Ah yes, I heard a rumor that you were seeing those new officers. Bannock said they are good guys, and I suppose if they are distracting you so much then you’re happy. Right?” Dane asked as his eyes searched hers.
“Yes, Bannock is right, they are great guys, and I’m sublimely happy. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, because things are going so well,” she said with a toss of her head.
Dane frowned slightly, and she noticed his eyes go over her shoulder to Bannock. “Yes, well you and Bannock seem to have that paranoia in common. I better let you get finished so that you can go out. It was good to see you.”
“You, too, Dane, and again, I’m sorry!” Dane brushed off her apologies with a wave of his hand before joining Bannock where he was chatting with his father. They were an unusual pairing, and most of the island seemed to believe they were gay, but Gaby didn’t think so. Something in her gut told her that they were close but not lover close. Shrugging off her feelings, she refocused on the task at hand.
Garrison’s was adequate albeit small, and she managed to find the items she was looking for as well as the éclairs in barely ten minutes. She was feeling ridiculously proud of her flash shopping trip as she headed down the alley between her shop and the grocery store to her car. She was looking at the car parked neatly behind her building when she heard a scratch behind her. Turning, she caught a flash of movement that left her shaken and nervous. She took a step toward it thinking that she needed to know what it was, only to hear Austin in her head telling her to stay safe. Instead of pursuing the movement, she spun back to the front and hurried to her car. She knew the moment she turned the key that something was seriously wrong. The engine didn’t even turn over. It didn’t click, it didn’t grind, and it sure didn’t catch.
Reaching for her purse, she grumbled about the “stupid car” as she fumbled for her cell phone. She had barely enough time to register her car door opening before Tristan was plunging a needle into her bicep, and everything went terrifyingly dark.
“Where is Gaby?” Kendrick asked as he stepped back into the house from the patio. Austin and Michael were in the kitchen getting things out in preparation for dinner, and they glanced at each other in confusion.
“I don’t know. She was going to stop by the store before she came over. Maybe the store was really busy?” Michael said with a shrug.
“That was almost an hour ago. I don’t think it’s possible for Garrison’s to be that busy. It’s too small of a store.” Austin looked apprehensive now, and suddenly Kendrick’s concern blew up into a bon fire of nerves.
“You don’t think…”
“No, she’s probably just running late. Gaby is always late, cut her some slack, guys.” Michael grabbed the dish of hot dogs on the counter and passed them to Kendrick with a laugh. “She promised us that if he kept harassing her she would tell us, so trust her to keep her promise.”
Kendrick nodded and looked to Austin, who nodded back. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, I’ll put the first round of hot dogs on, and if she’s not here by the time they come off, we can worry then.”
He went back to the patio trying hard to quell the nervous anxiety building in his belly. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Gaby. It was that he didn’t trust her ex-boyfriend. Tristan Rogers was a man used to getting his way. It didn’t seem to fit his profile for him to just give up on Gaby now.
A cold douse of water on her face woke her up once Tristan had gotten her upstairs to her apartment. The way her body felt he probably dragged her up the stairs by her arms.
“Wake up, Gabriella. You can’t very well wire money if you’re unconscious.” Tristan’s upper New York accent sounded sharp to her ears, and she cringed.
Shaking her head gently to clear the cobwebs, she frowned at her ex-boyfriend. “What are you talking about, Tristan? And what did you do to me?”
Her limbs felt excessively heavy, and even her eyelids were struggling to stay open.
“Just hit you with a quick sedative. It’s short-lived, so you will feel right as rain in a couple of hours.”
She finally got a good glimpse of him, and she inhaled sharply. His usually picture perfect appearance was shoddy at best today, and he wore several days’ growth on his normally clean-shaven chin. His eyes were a little spooked like a man on the verge of crazy, and for some reason that thought struck her as funny. Any man who would sedate a woman to win her back had obviously fallen off the crazy wagon already.
“Why would you sedate me?”
He smiled at her. “Well, to keep you quiet of course. I couldn’t very well have you screaming at me in the alleyway and drawing attention to us.” He handed her her own cell phone and smiled like nothing odd was happening. “Now, I just want you to give your bank a quick call and wire transfer money into my bank account on the Cayman Islands.”
Tristan gave the instructions as though he were giving his personal assistant her daily errand list and not holding Gaby hostage and asking for ransom. “Have you lost your mind? Why would I do that?”
For a moment he stared at her, astonished that she would argue with him, but then he seemed to come back to the present and he slid a pistol out of his pocket. “Because, Gabriella, you don’t have a choice.”
Panic welled up in her chest, and she struggled to keep it off of her face. “I don’t understand, Tristan, you have plenty of money—”
“Had! I had plenty of money, but the recession hit and my father had all of it tied up in stocks that went belly-up. So now I’m broke and desperate. I wanted this to go easy, but you had to travel to the island to “find yourself” and you broke it off with me. Do you know how much time I wasted trying to court you? Like I needed to grovel and beg for a woman.” His laughter was loud, and his body was tensed, ready for her to fight him.
“I don’t know what to say, Tristan. I’m sorry your father took a hit when the market fell, but I can’t just wire you millions of dollars.”
He smacked her hard across the cheek with the butt of the pistol, and she yelped in pain. Her face bloomed with it, and she could feel the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. “You don’t get it, Gaby. You don’t have an option. If you don’t, I will shoot you and steal everything in this house of value while you bleed to death.”
“I can’t because I don’t have it, Tristan! The money in my name is secured in investments and annuities. I couldn’t just do a simple wire transfer even if I wanted to,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes.
Her answer seemed to catch Tristan off guard, and he studied her carefully before responding. “Fine, then call your dad and tell him that he has ni
nety minutes, or he will be planning your funeral. In fact, tell him that I want his personal plane here in ninety minutes at the airport ready to get me the fuck out of here. After those two conditions are met, he can have you back.”
“Tristan, you can’t do this. Daddy won’t ransom me! This is crazy!”
He smacked her again, catching her temple this time and making her ears ring. “Shut up! He will do it. I know he will. He loves you more than money, so he will pay any amount to get you back. Now, get him on the phone, Gaby.”
Tears ran down her cheeks, though she couldn’t have said if it was from the pain in her cheek or from fear. Several tensely silent moments passed while she considered her options, and Tristan stared her down waiting for her decision.
She wasn’t a fool. Tristan had lost his grip on reality, and he thought that her father would transfer the money without question, but she knew William Larkin better than anyone else. He would ask questions and seek help before he would agree to a madman’s terms. Instead of trying to explain all of that to Tristan, she just nodded and held her hand out for the phone.
By the time she hung up, she knew that Tristan wasn’t going to let her live through this. Even if she survived until the money transfer, there was no way he could leave her behind as a witness to his crimes. The fear of death washed over her, leaving her stomach twisting violently. Today was not a good day to die.
Austin grabbed his phone and frowned down at it when he noticed the number was blocked. “Hello?”
“Is this Austin Curtis?”
“Who is this?”
“William J. Larkin. I’m Gabriella’s father.”
Austin’s brain stopped functioning as he processed the fact that Gaby’s father was calling him on his cell phone. This was weird. He hadn’t even been introduced to the man yet.
“Mr. Larkin, this is Austin, what can I do for you, sir?”
“I just got a phone call…Tristan Rogers has Ella.”
“Fuck! Are you sure?” Austin asked, feeling the panic rising in his chest.
“Yes. She called me herself, but he was listening in instructing her on what to say. He said no police, but you guys aren’t just police…Gaby has been dating you.”
Austin’s heart was in his throat and blood was pounding in his ears, making it hard to hear William Larkin over the phone. “What does he want?”
“Several million dollars wired to his bank account, and a private plane to escort him to the Cayman Islands.”
“What is he going to do with Gaby?
“I don’t know. She didn’t say, but she was scared, Mr. Curtis, which means it’s serious.”
“Where were they calling from?”
“I don’t know that either. It was her cell phone number as always. Curtis, I will do anything for my daughter, even pay this ransom, but I’m afraid that he will hurt her either way. I only have ninety minutes, and I’ve wasted ten minutes of it tracking your number down and calling you. You and your brothers have to help me find her.”
“We will, Mr. Larkin. Don’t pay that ransom just yet. I’ll call you back.”
“Thank you! You don’t…I mean…Gaby is all I have left in the world. Please find her.”
“Mr. Larkin—William—I would sacrifice my own life for your daughter as would my brothers. We’re in love with her.”
Austin heard the heavy sigh over the line, but he waited silently. “Okay. We’ll talk about that more when you find her. Just keep her safe, son.”
When he hung up the phone, Kendrick and Michael were already moving toward the front door. They had taken note of the urgency in his tone while he spoke to Gaby’s father and had already holstered weapons to their bodies.
Austin filled them in as they drove to Gaby’s last known location—her apartment. Finding the door to the apartment swinging open, her car gone, and the building empty was not necessarily unexpected, but it still sent the sense of panic flying high over all three of them.
“Austin, we need to call in Jackson. We don’t know this island well enough to find her.” Michael’s voice cracked with fear, and Austin closed his eyes to get a handle on his own emotions.
“Okay, Mike, you call in LT. Kendrick, you go next door and ask if anyone saw anything. I’ll search the apartment for any clues as to where he might have taken her. My first thought is the airport, since that’s where he is planning his escape, but I don’t know enough about this guy.”
The three made quick work of canvassing everyone, and Jackson had a team on their way to the airport as well as the ferry crossing by the Marina just in case Tristan had taken her there. Just when the three of them decided to head for the airport, his cell phone rang on his belt. Snatching it up, he snapped hello into it. His eyes grew wide when Gaby’s voice came over the line.
“Austin, it’s me. I don’t have much time. I’m locked in the trunk of my car. Tristan kidnapped me.”
She was whispering, and it was hard to hear her over the sound of the road, but Austin immediately hit the button for speaker phone so that his brothers could hear her too. “Gaby! Thank God you’re okay! Where is he taking you?”
“He didn’t say, but he turned east when we left the apartment. He’s going to kill me, Austin. He’s already told me so. It doesn’t matter if Daddy wires the money.”
Austin and Kendrick cursed, while Michael just looked pale. “We’re coming, love, hang on for us. We’re on our way now.”
“I know you’ll do your best, but just in case I wanted to tell you three that I love you. With every fiber of my being I love you, and if by some miracle you find me in time, I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”
A tear slipped down Michael’s cheek, and Kendrick’s eyes looked as glassy as Austin’s felt. “We love you, too, Gaby, and we will be holding you to that promise shortly. Don’t give up on us. No matter what happens, you live for us, love. Injuries heal in time. Just stay alive.”
They heard the sounds of the road muffle, and a second later a car door slammed shut. Just as Austin thought he heard the trunk opening, the phone clicked off, and they were left blind again. His heart ached, and his stomach was balled up tighter than a baseball.
Without a word, the three men were back in their car and flying down the road to the east. While Kendrick drove, Austin called Jackson.
“Stone.”
“LT, I just heard from Gaby. She was in the trunk of her own car, and Rogers was driving. She said he went east after leaving her apartment.”
“East? The only thing east of town is…shit…Austin, he’s taking her to the cliffs.”
“The cliffs?” Austin questioned, but hearing Michael’s hiss of anger, his chest tightened. “Okay, Michael knows where we’re going. Meet us there.”
“Curtis, don’t do anything stupid. I know you have feelings for her, and hell, I adore Gaby, but don’t go playing the hero.”
“Meet us there, Jackson.” Austin clicked the phone off, hearing Michael on his own phone having a similar conversation with Bannock as they drove.
When he hung up, his face was steadier. “Bannock and Dane saw her about thirty minutes ago at Garrison’s. With that short of a time frame, he can’t have gotten her to far yet. I think we still have time, but we have to step on it.”
They now had backup combing the whole eastern side of the island, but Austin was still terrified they would be too late. The fear overwhelmed the excitement that he should have felt getting to hear his woman tell him that she loved him for the first time. He was going to beat Tristan Rogers’s ass if he hurt one hair on Gaby’s head.
Chapter 14
Tristan pulled her body from the trunk. She had barely had time to slip her phone back in the pocket of her jeans before he opened the trunk lid. It was a miracle she had managed to sneak the phone out with her when he carted her out of the apartment to begin with. Now if she died at least she knew that she told her men she loved them. Sorrow filled her, but it was coated with determination. She wasn’t willing
to roll over and bare her throat just yet.
Once he had her on her feet, she was able to survey their surroundings as he gripped her wrists tightly. “Tristan, why didn’t you just ask me to float you a loan?”
“I have no money, Gabriella. I can’t even afford the terms of a loan. Not that a spoiled little princess like you would ever understand what it’s like to be destitute. Not when you have your father to pay your bills and help you set up shop on paradise.”
Gaby didn’t mention that she was the one who sought out a small business loan to start her shop, or that her father didn’t support her or pay her bills for her. Tristan didn’t seem like he was in the mood to listen to reality at this point.
He managed to tie her hands together with a zip tie before she could react or use any of the self-defense moves that Kendrick had taught her. She stared at them as though they were a foreign object and not attached to her. She couldn’t even feel the tie holding them together she was so numb, and she began to wonder if she was going into shock already. Her only injury up until now was her possibly cracked cheekbone and the bruises on her butt and back where her body had bounced on the trip up the stairs. But Tristan’s eyes had a wild look in them, and his movements with the gun were jerky as he pushed her ahead of him onto the worn path through the woods.
It was the same path that just last week she walked with Michael, but that felt like a lifetime ago. Knowing that she was walking toward her death sentence did nothing to ease the ache in her chest or the fear in her gut.
“Tristan, what are you going to do with me? Dad said he would wire the money. Can’t you just leave me here in the woods? It would take me more than an hour to walk back to town, and you’ll be in flight to the Caymans by then.”
“Gaby, did I ever mention how much the sound of your voice grates on my nerves? No? Well it does, and it did the whole time we were dating. I suppose I could have searched out a bigger fish, but you were the easiest one to bag. A woman willing to do anything to please her father will most certainly date the son of well–to-do family friends if directed to. It was a fairly easy setup, and you fell right into it. Until you decided to rebel.”