A View to a Thrill (Masters and Mercenaries Book 7)

by Blake, Lexi

  Al Krum stood in front of him. Simon was fairly certain at this point that wasn’t his real name. Obviously he had something to do with the very companies he’d accused of kidnapping and killing him. So he was some sort of computer guy. It only made sense. He’d managed to find Chelsea, or rather The Broker. He’d found her and gotten close to her.

  The question at this point was what he wanted from her.

  Simon couldn’t miss the way Al’s hand was tangled with hers.

  So he knew part of what the bastard wanted. Simon couldn’t wait to wrap his hands around the man’s throat and squeeze.

  Al nodded and the ship’s motor began.

  “So we’re heading out, then?” He needed Jesse to know they were on the move. “I don’t suppose we’re staying here in Venice?”

  Al settled Chelsea into a seat opposite Simon’s. “I don’t think you need to know exactly where we’re going. I think you only need to know that you’re a pawn here. If you want to stay alive, you should probably be honest with me. I want to know where Ian Taggart is. We can’t find him. Is he staking out Chelsea’s apartment? I know he’s here from the description of my man at the airport.”

  But he hadn’t been able to track Ian. That was good to know. Ian had actually been into Chelsea’s flat. The fact that Al didn’t know where he was meant that not only had the distraction he’d planned worked, but that Ian had checked Charlotte into hospital under an assumed name, so she was safe.

  The boat hummed beneath him, and Simon wondered briefly if he should take the chance. The trouble was how close Chelsea was. The boat, for all its opulence, was very small. All it would take was a stray bullet to take her out. He could throw himself over the side as a distraction, but he couldn’t swim with his hands bound.

  “Simon, we have you.” Jesse’s voice was quiet in his ear. “You’re leaving the docks. We caught it on security cam and we have the name of the boat. We’re checking records right now. We will find you. Sit tight unless the situation changes. We’ll find you, man.”

  Sit tight. He really didn’t have a choice.

  The boat picked up speed and Simon looked over at Chelsea, who was wearing that infamous mask of hers again. Aloof. Slightly disdainful. She turned away and started asking Al a question.

  Thank god. She was going to play it safe.

  He looked out over the lagoon as they turned back into the canals and hoped safe was the way they stayed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chelsea walked into the magnificent townhome. She had to give it to Al’s decorator. He’d done a fabulous job. Or she. Whoever it was, the whole place was done in modern tones belying the historical architecture of the façade. Al walked in front of her, showing her into the parlor.

  “I like to work here.” There was an elaborate setup complete with three computers and a massive screen that connected to each.

  “You can’t do the quantum work here.” So far, from what she understood, all quantum work still had to be done in very cold rooms. Super cold. The systems couldn’t handle heat.

  “No. This is more of a vacation spot. I prefer to do fun things here. Not that the quantum work isn’t fun. It’s just that’s more like my day job, and I like to concentrate on hobbies here.” He gestured to a spot behind her. “Bring him in here, please. He’ll find this interesting, too.”

  She didn’t actually like the sound of that, but she also didn’t want to get separated. Somehow she thought not knowing what was happening to him was much worse than knowing. She pretended to be deeply interested in his computer setup when all the while she just wanted to look at Simon, to let him know how sorry she was for bringing him into all this.

  It appeared everything was top of the line, including his Internet setup.

  “I feed it through the company so it has use of our satellites as well as our fiber optic lines. My father left me a fortune, but his real gift was the technology company. He viewed it as mere speculation, a blip on his radar, so to speak. He was more interested in his real estate companies. He thought I was an idiot for paying more attention to tech. I hope the old fucker’s watching me from Hell.”

  Where Al would no doubt join his dear old dad one day. “So I take it the woman on the video wasn’t your mother.”

  She’d only seen a few seconds of the video they’d found while she was at the ranch before they’d whisked it away from her, but it had made her believe they were serious.

  Al sighed a little. “No, my mother is alive and well and shopping somewhere. Useless thing. I did need to make you believe they really would kill me so I picked up a prostitute. No one will miss her and my guard got to screw her before he killed her. It was a good deal, really. You will note that I didn’t touch her myself. I have a thing against germ-infested hookers. I’m a bit more picky than my friend.”

  Excellent. She would note his standards in the very sarcastic eulogy she was planning for him. “So what is this job you want me to do?”

  He stared at her for a moment as though deciding what he should do. She could almost see that big brain of his working. So smart. He was brilliant, really, but that didn’t mean a thing because there wasn’t a lick of humanity behind his eyes. “I suppose since you know about Nieland Affiliates that you’ve figured out this is all about a court case.”

  How much should she tell him? She worried if he picked up on another lie, someone was going to get hurt. “Yes, this is about the patent case.”

  “Very good, sweetheart. I’ve used this approach before and it’s worked for me, but this particular case is the most important of all. You see, I’m a little behind. Some dumbass professor in Seattle has been working in a private lab and they are just the teeny tiniest bit ahead of me. I found out and made the decision to move ahead with applying for the patent. Patents are a little like races—you really want to be at the finish line first even if you have to cheat to get there.”

  Billions of dollars were on the line. Whoever got credit would be owed big bucks every time a company used the technology. It would apparently go to Nieland or the man who actually made the breakthrough. Al was determined to make sure it was his company.

  “Why don’t you just money whip them?” Chelsea tried to make her tone as bored as possible.

  Lawsuits like this one happened every day. Big companies could easily get the little guys to give up by burying them in legal fees. Nieland could keep a lawsuit going for decades. It would potentially give them time to catch up and overrun the little guy.

  “I did try. This suit has been ongoing for three years. I expected him to give up by now. I even offered the little fucker a fifty million dollar deal to pull out.” He shook his head. “Do you know what he’s planning on doing with it? He wants to put it out there for free. Like it’s a fucking app of the day or some shit. He’s a do-gooder and he’s funded by some organization with deep pockets that wants to save the fucking world through technology. He’s not going away so I needed to do something about it.”

  “That’s when you started killing the people in your way,” Simon said.

  She looked at him. He was so beautiful but she hated the way his suit had wrinkled. He was always perfectly polished. He needed that control and they’d taken it from him.

  Al nodded. “Yes. I did. It was fun actually. I thought about hiring assassins, but that’s a bit clichéd, don’t you think? I wanted to be the one who pulled the trigger, so to speak. I made a little game out of it. Could I find ways to kill them with a stroke of my keyboard?”

  “Pacemakers?” Simon asked as though he wasn’t talking about murder, just another socially acceptable topic of conversation like the weather.

  Al gestured to his thugs and one of them moved away. “Absolutely. That was easy. Medical devices aren’t truly well protected. Who would think to fry a man’s heart through the very device that’s supposed to save him? Besides, it hurt a competitor. Now they’re being sued for faulty products. I love a twofer.”

  “You changed the DA’s p
rescription,” Chelsea surmised.

  “Again, a very simple thing to do. I exchanged it for something she was brutally allergic to. So sad. I actually had to pay for that one. The pharmacy chain is part of my organization.”

  The Collective couldn’t have been happy about that. It must have made it uncomfortable at their yearly evil picnic. “So you killed the people who would be troublesome and replaced them with friendlier judges and lawyers. I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “The problem is the judge I selected to take over the case decided to fucking retire. The new judge is very antibusiness and extremely young and healthy. I haven’t figured out a way to kill him yet. I need it to look like an accident. What he does have is a very nice sports car with technical assistance. You know what I’m talking about.”

  She did. Many luxury vehicle makers offered services that aided the driver in everything from giving directions when lost to calling emergency services when they detected an accident. Cars had gone high tech years ago, and that made the very technology that enabled numerous services vulnerable to hackers like herself.

  She drove a car that didn’t have a computer chip in it.

  “You want to cause an accident.”

  “Oh, no.” He strode to stand right in front of her. “I need you to cause an accident. A bad one. Judge Gold is on a family vacation for the next few weeks. He and his family are at their cabin in Colorado. In order to get to the cabin, they have to go over several mountain passes, but one in particular the judge tends to drive on a daily basis. Wolf Creek Pass. It’s quite dangerous if a driver is distracted.”

  “Why me? Why couldn’t you do it?”

  “I’m having trouble with the system. Believe it or not, the freaking car company has better firewalls than the medical companies. And this is a small manufacturer. They aren’t a part of my group so I can’t find a way to get access. It’s been troubling. The judge is only going to be in Colorado a few more days. I need to get this done now. I need the best.”

  So he needed her. Shit. “So this is the job you tried to hire me for?”

  “I thought it would be the kind of thing that could bring us together. I intended to pay you handsomely. And then I was going to show up as our hacker friend Al again and get close to you. But then I realized you’d been compromised. You stopped running and settled in with a company with known Agency contacts. Why did you go with your sister? You didn’t need her.”

  The Broker might not have needed Charlotte, but Chelsea certainly did. She was fairly certain Albert Nieland wouldn’t get the whole “family love” thing. “I was bored and I wanted to see how the other side lives.”

  So well. She loved being in an odd family. The McKay-Taggart team watched out for each other, and that was why she had to stall.

  Because no matter what he thought of her, Ian would be here and not just to retrieve Simon. She might have told herself that at one point in time. Ian would come to save her because she was his pain in the ass sister-in-law.

  Yes, Satan was getting another hug from her.

  She had to give him time to get here. He would come with Jesse and no matter how many men Al had, they wouldn’t hold Ian Taggart back.

  She had faith. It was weird since for so many years she’d had absolutely none, and now she realized that she had faith in her giant ass of a brother-in-law, and she definitely had faith in the man she loved.

  Simon would come around. She just needed to keep him alive long enough to give Ian time. Then she would do whatever it took to stay close to him. She would wear him down, get past his hurt, and convince him that she was the right woman for him.

  “Has it been terribly boring for you?” Al asked.

  Boring? It had been the best months of her life. Nothing was boring with Simon. The man could turn afternoon tea into the sexiest twenty minutes of her day. Everything about the man called to her. She just wished she’d heeded the call from the beginning because even a few wasted months were too much.

  She wanted every minute she could have with him.

  “So boring.” She had to keep her tone bland. “They watched me every damn minute of the day. The only times I was allowed on the net was when the big guy needed help. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Maybe now I do.”

  “Oh, I’ll give you a place, sweetheart. Like I said, I’ve always wanted you. Do you understand how hard it was for me to keep my hands off you while we were here?”

  “Why did you?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t want to scare you away. You were more comfortable with me because you thought I was gay. And also, your sister is a little intimidating. She was a roadblock between us. I thought about taking her out, but you seem to care about her and no one else.”

  She fought hard not to shudder at the thought. “Well, she’s moved on.”

  “Yes, I can see that. And so have you. When did you decide to give sex a try?”

  “I thought it was time.” It had been time the minute she’d met Simon.

  “And he was the right guy?” His eyes trailed toward where Simon stood in between his thugs.

  “He was there and he was single. Don’t try to make it more than it was. He’s attractive and I was curious.” God, please let him understand.

  “So he’s meaningless to you?”

  “To me, yes, but he means the world to Ian Taggart. Big Tag doesn’t leave his men behind. You should let him live and then Tag probably won’t come after you.”

  “I doubt that.” His voice went low and seductive. “But then I also doubt that he’s meaningless to you. You forget, dear, that I had a man watching you at the Malone Ranch. Gentlemen?”

  The bigger of the two men reared back a fist and planted it firmly in Simon’s stomach. There was a dull thud and then Simon was sucking in air.

  “Don’t hurt him!” She couldn’t stop the shout that came from her mouth.

  The smaller of the two took a swipe at Simon’s jaw, the sound cracking through the room. Simon’s body crumpled and they started to kick him hard.

  “Please!” She turned to Al, utterly unable to watch her big handsome Brit get his ass kicked.

  He gripped her arms. “Yes, I rather thought you were lying to me about your feelings for that idiot.”

  Simon’s head came up, his eyes laser focusing on Al and the place where his hands were on her body. “I swear I’m going to kill you for touching her.”

  Al hauled her close. “I’ll do more than touch her.” He put his arm around her throat, the other hand sliding possessively over her belly. He leaned in, whispering in her ear. “If you want him to live, you’re going to do everything I tell you.”

  Slowly, her eyes on Simon, she nodded.

  She shivered as Al spoke into her ear, softly, like a lover would. “I knew you would say yes to me. Why don’t you sit down and we can get started. I bet you can get into that system before they can kill your boyfriend.”

  Her hands shaking, she took a seat at the desk.

  She let her fingers start to fly as she began to test the system for weaknesses. As Al began to talk to his men, she found his weakness.

  He wasn’t watching her. As quickly as she could, she slipped onto the web and pinged a certain site. It wasn’t much, but a smart man would see that little tiny open door and push his way through.

  She prayed Adam Miles was as smart as she thought he was.

  Simon’s life depended on it.

  * * * *

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it seemed endless. Pain was a constant companion, but he couldn’t let it stop him.

  No more than an hour, he estimated. An hour of being brutalized. Sixty minutes of pure hell. Three thousand six hundred seconds of holding on to life and breath because he knew all he had to do was keep going. All he had to do was wait until they turned around because he had an ace up his sleeve.

  In his hand, really.

  They’d made a mistake when they’d hauled him out. A mistake that might save him and
Chelsea, but he had to wait to take advantage.

  While they’d hit and kicked him the first time in the parlor, the key to the cuffs had fallen out of the big thug’s pocket. He’d failed to reattach it to his larger ring and the tiny silver thing hit the carpet. Simon had quickly turned, almost certain that he’d be discovered, but they were far too busy kicking him in the gut and then the back. He was sure the move looked like he was trying to protect himself when all he was doing was getting to that key.

  He’d been able to palm the key in his fist, but then they’d dragged him through the house, their hands so close to the place where he was hiding his prize that he’d been certain he would lose it.

  They’d carried him up a flight of stairs, tied him to a chair, and then shoved a filthy rag in his mouth. He would have explained that he wouldn’t scream, would deeply prefer to not come down with whatever new form of syphilis was obviously on the gag. He had a perfectly nice gag in his kit and he knew it was clean, but they didn’t give him that option. His jaw ached because the rag was improperly placed and forced his muscles into positions they shouldn’t be in. He had to concentrate to get enough oxygen.

  But all his focus was on that little piece of metal in his left hand. He forced himself to squeeze so he could feel it, know it was real and there. If he didn’t, he sometimes thought he’d made the whole thing up. A dream to help him get through the nightmare.

  Pain exploded along his chest as he was hit again. He could feel his skin open, blood beginning to flow.

  “Don’t kill him. The boss wants him alive so he can kill him,” a voice said. It was hard to see at this point. “I guess this shows you what happens when you fuck the boss’s girl.”

  His girl. Chelsea was his. Only his. She’d never been anyone else’s, and if he died here, she would still be his. Al had no idea who he was dealing with if he thought taking Chelsea Dennis would make her his. Chelsea couldn’t be taken. She had to be earned.

  “I’m just playing. I won’t kill him. Brits are sturdier than you think.” One of the two had brass knuckles on his punching hand. He was the taller one. Gio. He didn’t remember the smaller one’s name. Probably because Gio was attempting to knock him into next week.