How much could she move?
Her hands were tied. What about the rest of her?
She shifted one foot, then the other.
Her feet weren’t tied, that was good.
What was around her? What could she see?
Fiona rolled her head to one side and froze.
Scott crouched a few feet in front of her, watching her. He’d looked at her like this so many times before. She’d always taken the flat stare to be…disappointment. That he wanted her to be more or something she wasn’t.
Now she could see it for what it was.
Predatory.
He’d been waiting and watching for the moment he could do this.
Scott was Nova.
Marco had been right, and she hadn’t trusted him.
“Hello, Badass Brat.” Scott’s smile wasn’t…right. He bared his teeth, his lips pulled back, and she thought he might bite her.
“Nova…” She breathed the word.
“I have to say, I didn’t expect you to figure it out.”
“Marco did.”
“That stupid soldier boy?” Scott’s mouth twisted up into a snarl. “He’s a fucking idiot.”
Fiona swallowed. Engaging Scott ran the risk of riling him up more. She needed to stay calm. The calmer she was, the calmer Scott would be, right?
Scott stood and paced the width of the basement.
A long, rectangular window covered in bars was the only source of light. Besides a few shelves, a table and chairs, the basement was empty.
“I had this perfect plan, you know? Good Global has been trying to puzzle out NueEnergy’s secrets for a while. I figured it had to be something simple. They were paying someone off or cutting corners. I had no fucking idea it was a shell corporation.” Scott kicked the other chair, sending it sliding sideways.
Marco had said something similar. That NueEnergy wasn’t really a viable company. They just did enough business to pretend to be one.
“Do you know how hard I had to work to just fall into Good Global’s lap like that? For fuck’s sake, could you make a bigger mess?” Scott stopped a few feet away, staring at her.
This was her fault?
She’d pushed paper and answered phones. NueEnergy’s illicit activities were as much of a shock to her as anyone else. Maybe she’d wondered at their lack of growth, but it’d never mattered to her because it wasn’t her business to know.
“Because of you, I’m out of a job. Again!” He threw up his hands.
“I’m sorry, Scott.” She needed to placate him. Agree with whatever he said. Keep her cool.
Someone was looking for her, weren’t they?
Or was Marco…
Oh God.
She couldn’t think like that.
Scott took several slow steps toward her. There was something about the way he stared at her. The crazy lights were on behind his eyes.
Fiona planted her feet on the ground and pushed, inching farther away from him, but he was faster. Scott planted his knee between her thighs, weighing the chair down. He wrapped his hands around her throat, his thumbs curling around her windpipe.
“No—help!” She screamed and threw her weight backward, but Scott was heavier.
“I had plans to kill you in your sleep, but whatever gets the job done. You’ve ruined my fucking life, you bitch! Now I’ll take yours…”
Randy shoved the black case into the tech’s hands.
“Were the bodies disposed of?” he asked his lead from the secondary team.
“Yes, sir.” The man didn’t offer extraneous details, which was why he was so valuable.
This whole fucking thing was a nightmare.
“I want a full report. Who were they? Why were they there?” Randy thunked his fist against the overhead compartment. In the scheme of things, he needed to know the unknown.
Marco and his friends were a factor he had a handle on. He’d deal with them later. This whole thing was a fucking disaster, all because George and Eli couldn’t ensure a couple security measures were in place.
“Well?” Randy snapped at the tech.
“Sorry, sir, the system is running slow. Probably due to takeoff.” The tech hunched his shoulders.
Randy was asking a lot of a few good men, but he needed answers. Now.
What had Fiona and Marco gotten their hands on? How much did they know? And what about that video? Whoever was filming now had footage of a triple homicide, and that was leverage Randy couldn’t afford. He needed to know more about the men, who they were attached to, and who would be looking for them.
“I’m in, sir. Sorry, this laptop’s just running real slow for some reason. I’ll handle it when we get back to the office.”
“Good. What do they have?” Randy leaned over the tech’s shoulder as the plane took off.
“I…don’t know. There’s no order here.”
Fuck. More hassle.
“Someone find me that damn woman.” Randy straightened and stalked to the front of the plane and where he’d left his things. When they landed, he needed to have answers ready or it was his neck on the block.
Lila’s knees gave way and she sat in the chair.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Her phone rang and she barely managed to answer it with her shaking hands.
“Paul?” She hated the way her voice broke, but she was a desperate woman.
It’d never supposed to go this way. They were to watch, to steal a little data, things the government did every day.
No one was supposed to die
“Lila, sorry. I got your message.”
“Please tell me something opened up.”
“What’s wrong?” Paul’s rich, warm voice soothed her. He might be a flirt, but he was a stand-up guy.
“Things…have gone sideways. I don’t fully understand what happened, but…if you can think of anything that would put me—”
“There is something, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“Anything, Paul. You—you don’t know how badly I need out of here.”
Paul sighed. Whatever it was, it had to be bad.
“Paul, you might be saving my life.” She knew this Randy person’s type. He was a killer. And soon—he’d come for her.
“I might be putting you in danger,” Paul said softly. “The NeoTank Project is officially active. They need…handlers.”
“I’ll do it.” What better way to protect herself from a predator than to align herself with a bigger, badder one?
“Lila, this means—”
“Going dark. Off the grid. I know.” She pulled her purse out of the drawer while her mind unboxed a plan.
Lila Hershel was a dead woman as of today. Randy couldn’t track and kill someone who was already presumed dead.
Marco wiped Danny’s blood off on his jeans. He was hyper aware of everything. The shift of the air conditioner, the wind whistling through the cracked window, the smell of sweat.
“What the hell?” Danny yelled from the back seat.
He was fine, but the tumble to safety had scraped up his already raw face. Head wounds bled like a bitch, but Danny would be okay.
Fiona though…
Marco shoved his hand through his hair. He wanted to punch something. Scream. Cry like a baby.
“Marco,” Felix snapped. He swerved through traffic.
“How far out are we?” he asked.
“A few minutes.” Felix glanced at him, lips pressed tightly together.
Thank God Ghost had installed the tracking app on Fiona’s phone. They’d been left scrambling when Scott’s team ploughed into the meet. Marco didn’t know what’d happened to those three men, but the last he had seen of them wasn’t very promising. Randy was a killer. At any opportunity, he’d go for the throat. Maybe the only reason Marco and Danny got out of there was because suddenly Randy had an armed threat to face down?
Marco jammed his finger against the headset. It beeped once.
“Ghost. Talk to
me.”
“Leave me the fuck alone, Marco. I can’t do anything if you’re hounding me. I’m sitting in the back of a goddamn car trying to do this.” Ghost’s voice was more of a snarl. Marco got it. Ghost hadn’t signed up for something of this scale and Marco was asking for the moon.
“Has she moved?”
“No,” Ghost replied.
Marco closed his eyes and prayed he was wrong.
“We should be on top of her.” Felix slowed the SUV. It had been Scott’s. Now it was theirs.
“There. Stop.” Marco opened the passenger door before Felix could apply the brakes.
Marco took a few steps and stopped at a metal garbage bin. He peered into the depths, nothing but run of the mill garbage in sight. He pulled out his cell phone and hit dial.
He heard ringing.
From the garbage can.
He reached in and rummaged around until he felt the vibrations.
There it was.
Her phone.
Marco glanced at the screen and flicked his thumb over the End Call button.
“Park the truck. We start searching here.” He wiped the face of the phone off and pocketed it.
Where would he go if he were Scott? Both NueEnergy and Good Global would want him now, so he’d be prepared to shed this identity. He’d need internet access. A hacker like him would live and die by his WiFi access. Fiona would draw attention. She’d been on the news and publicly still presumed kidnapped.
Scott couldn’t take her anywhere public. The only places open to him would be the sort of establishment that accepted cash and no IDs. But if he wanted to avoid any human contact altogether, where would he go?
“Hey, Ghost, you there?”
“Fuck you,” the other man grumbled.
“Can you do a search for rental properties, anything that’s for sale, within easy distance of…a coffee shop, library, something that would have public WiFi access? Have any rentals reported break-ins recently? Maybe something near public transportation?”
“What am I? Your fucking Google?” Ghost was snapping at him, but the sound of keys clicking in the background was loud. “Not just anyone can get police reports this fast, you know?”
“Yeah, and I don’t want to know how you can do that.”
Felix and Ian strolled down the street toward him without Danny.
“Where’s my cousin?” he asked them.
“In the truck, though he’s bitching up a storm,” Felix replied. “What do we have?”
“I swear, if one more of you asks me a single fucking question I’m going to pump you full of lead.”
Marco was the only one who could hear Ghost. They hadn’t been prepared to have a team, just the two of them.
“Ghost is working on it,” Marco said.
“You know, he might not even be in this area.” Ian turned in a circle. “If I were him, I’d drop the phone and run.”
“He’s a serial killer who likes the internet. He’s low on situational awareness.” Marco gestured down the street. “There.”
A coffee shop was a block away.
They made it to the corner and peered in all four directions. The area was older, with established homes and neighborhoods. Exactly the kind of area where Scott could slip in and hide. He was normal looking, as though he belonged.
“Okay, you aren’t going to like this,” Ghost said.
“What?”
“I’ve got five locations within a mile of where you are that fit the bill. There would be six, but that last one was reported broken into so it’s off the list.” It stood to reason that any property broken into recently had too much attention already on it. Scott—Nova—would want something away from prying eyes.
“Hit me with them.” Marco pulled out his phone.
“Emailed.”
Marco pulled up the message and cursed.
The addresses were dotted around in a two mile radius. It was a lot of ground to cover and they had one vehicle.
“I’m headed to you,” Ghost said. “You should know, the cops are all over the place. Keep your heads down.”
“No, go to that furthest address. Ian, Felix and I will split up.” Marco glanced at the other two.
They all knew what the odds were. Aegis’ bread and butter was asset recovery, which was a nice way of saying they got people back who were kidnapped or taken hostage. Typically in foreign countries. On home soil, they mostly did bodyguard work, and left asset recovery to the authorities.
Fiona didn’t have the luxury of waiting on the cops, and Marco couldn’t slow down to get them caught up or prove that he was one of the good guys. They would have to handle this.
Ian and Felix took off in different directions. Felix went back to the SUV while Ian jogged toward a bus stop.
Too bad Marco didn’t have his motorcycle. His buddy west of Denver still had it stashed for him.
Marco headed northeast, his eyes peeled. The address he was headed to was a half mile away. More than enough time to agonize over what Scott could be doing to Fiona right now.
This was all Marco’s fault.
If he could just find her, save her, get her somewhere safe…
All he wanted was for her to be alive.
For as long as Marco had lived he’d never thought he could feel so deeply for someone that wasn’t blood. He’d accepted that lust was about as far as it went with him, that maybe he was just broken—and then she’d happened. He’d never deserve her and wouldn’t ask for her forgiveness. All he wanted was for her to be happy. And safe.
He turned down a residential street. The homes were close together, with uniform brick walls and wide porches.
A white sign with the red words FOR SALE captured his attention.
Marco swallowed.
Fiona could be in there…
25.
Scott leaned in close. Brat’s face was purple and her eyes bulged nearly out of her head. He’d imagined this moment dozens—hundreds—of times. It was so much better now that it was a reality.
A few more seconds and she’d be done. Dead. Finally!
Her movements lost some of the frantic flailing. Even in death, she was still a brat.
Another moment…
Her knee jerked up, ramming his balls toward his tailbone.
He grunted and his hands slid to her shoulders. For a moment, he struggled to draw in air.
Fuuuuck, that hurt.
The bitch.
Brat sucked in deep breaths, her body shuddering. Tears wetted her cheeks, and she sobbed. He was so close he could feel the caress of her breath on his cheek.
Yeah, he was going to hurl.
He’d almost finished the damn job.
Scott pushed off her and hobbled a few steps, one hand on his groin.
“Help!” Brat’s damaged throat made her cries too soft and broken to be heard beyond these walls.
He turned, watching her wobble the chair a bit. The color was coming back to her cheeks, but her gaze was disoriented. Her fear…
Scott grinned. Her terror was…exhilarating. Everything he’d ever wanted. He could do this again, and again, and again.
Now…that was something to think about…
Scott took a step toward her and leaned in.
He could smell her fear.
Brat whimpered and tried to wiggle out of the restraints, but he knew how to tie a damn, fucking knot. She wasn’t going anywhere.
He wrapped his hands around her neck again and squeezed.
This time she fought twice as hard. She kicked out, thrashed her head from side to side. He pressed the heel of his hand against the curve of her throat harder, waiting for that flicker, the moment when her life hovered between this one and the next.
She jerked her head and twisted out of his grasp. The chair toppled sideways, and she cracked her head against the floor.
“Stupid bitch!” He stood over her and let her get a few breaths in.
Her breath wheezed past her lips, and her eyes r
olled in her head.
Good, she was coming back around.
How many times could he take her to the brink and snatch her back? This was almost better than killing her outright.
Marco shoved the back door of the white bungalow closed.
She wasn’t there.
He checked his phone.
Ghost didn’t have her.
Ian didn’t have her.
Felix—
Marco’s phone chimed with a negative from Felix as well.
That only left one more possible location, unless Scott was long gone. Marco didn’t know if he should hope she was at the fifth location, or somewhere else. If she was there, Scott was killing her. If he’d taken her on the road…Marco dreaded what would happen if Scott had ample time and resources on his hands.
All this time he’d worried about NueEnergy and Good Global getting their claws in her.
Scott was worse.
He was the snake in the grass. The wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He’d planned this. Maybe spent years setting it up. Who knew? Scott had motive and years of anger to throw at Fiona. And Marco might only have moments left to save her.
Marco mapped the remaining address. He was closest, but it was still a hike.
He jabbed a button and took off at a jog.
“Where are you?” Felix didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“I’m at…” He squinted at the intersection signs ahead and rattled them off.
“I’m three minutes away from you.”
“Hurry.”
Marco didn’t stop at the intersection. Felix would find him. He was resourceful like that. A good team was worth their weight in gold, and Marco had the best at his back. Now, they were in a race to find Fiona before Scott exacted his revenge. Fiona, in all her abandon, had shown him what he had to live for, that he wasn’t broken, that he had a heart, that he could love. He couldn’t lose her.
Fiona’s nerves were on fire. Everything hurt. Ached. Throbbed. She was going to die. Her mind floated in a sea of darkness. She could feel the edge where life met death. It wasn’t far away. Each time Scott wrapped his hands or pressed his foot to her throat he nudged her a little bit closer to that line.
If she could just die, this would all be over.
No more fear of Nova.
Dangerous Protector (Aegis Group Book 5) Page 26