He knew who had killed Kayisha, and he knew who had taken the artifact. Now all he had to figure out was what the hell Charlie had done with it.
Chapter 25
Caitlyn felt the walls shaking with the rumble of recorded thunder. She turned to Jared. Beating on Sloan was bad enough, but this was beyond cruel. It was horrifying.
“Stop that!” she said. “Stop it right now! Turn it off!”
Jared turned his cold eyes on her.
“Don’t be silly, Caitlyn,” he said. “It’s the only thing that will make him tell us what we want to know.”
“He has PTSD,” she hissed. “Do you have any idea what that will do to him?” Her stomach churned at the thought of Sloan inside that room, unable to escape the thunder that went on and on and on. He was strong, but no one was that strong. It would break his mind so badly he’d never be able to come back.
And Jared was doing it to him without a single qualm. He was a monster. How had she never seen that?
Caitlyn’s fingers curved into talon shapes. Rip his face off. Slash his eyeballs. Tear his flesh from his bones. “You fucking bastard,” she said. “You’ll destroy him.”
Jared gazed at her. “But he’s dead anyway,” he said reasonably. “The punishment for murder is to be put down. I can’t let that happen until he tells me where to find the artifact.” He added, “And I don’t like you using that kind of language. I suppose your animal friends allow it, but I won’t.”
“You’re enjoying this,” she said. “You’re tormenting him because you think I care about him.”
Jared got right up in her face, gazing into her eyes. He wrapped his hand around her throat. Caitlyn was suddenly aware of how strong he was—he could snap her neck with one movement.
“I know you care about him, little Caitie,” he said. “You have a schoolgirl crush on that cat.” He spat the word like it was dirt in his mouth. “Those mammals, all hairy and horny and out of control. You girls think they’re so sexy.”
His lip curled in distaste. “So you ran away and had your little fling. Don’t worry. I’ll give you plenty of opportunity to make it up to me.” He ran his hand down her body, lingering over her breast. Caitlyn wanted to puke.
“As soon as this is over, we’ll have our mating ceremony, and you will have explicit instructions as to how to run my home, cook my meals, and please me in every way.” He leaned in closer, his grip painful. “You’ll soon get into my way of doing things. In fact, I anticipate you’ll be begging for me to let you please me.”
He dropped his hand and moved away so she could see the video monitor. “You want to see what your brave little kitty is doing?”
Sloan was tearing at the grating embedded in the floor, trying to get to the speakers to stop the thunder. His fingers were bloody from trying to dig through the concrete.
Caitlyn closed her eyes. “I don’t have feelings for him,” she said. “But it’s cruel, what you’re doing.”
Jared shrugged. “We need to recover the artifact. It’s for the greater good.” But his eyes were avid as he watched Sloan struggle.
No it isn’t, she realized. It’s for you.
Jared had a personal stake in this. He’d always been ambitious, and his greatest desire was to be a field agent, not a handler. He undermined me the whole time I was in training, she realized. Told the brass my visions made me unstable. He couldn’t stand that she might accomplish something he hadn’t.
If he could find this artifact, bring Sloan to “justice,” he would be the golden boy of the Agency. He could write his own ticket.
And Jared would do anything to make that happen.
Everything started clicking into place in her mind.
The unsanctioned safe house.
The fact that his men had brought Sloan’s truck here, instead of holding it for the evidence team to process on-site.
And the crew she’d seen heading into the shop as they drove away, the ones she’d barely paid attention to.
That wasn’t a crime scene investigation team. It was a cleanup crew.
They’d made Sloan disappear without a trace. And Caitlyn along with him. No one would ever know what happened to them.
She’d be sent back to the clan to mate with Jared, a prisoner. And Sloan would be dead.
She had to get them out of here.
Caitlyn began assessing the room for escape possibilities. She might not be a fully trained agent, but she’d read every damn manual and instruction book while she was sitting at her admin desk, in between transcribing reports.
Items that could be used as weapons: chair legs, laptops, computer or electric cords, monitors, knees, feet… just because she was cuffed to the table didn’t mean she was helpless.
Even if Jared thought it did.
Fucking Jared. Fucking, fucking Jared. Hell, cursing did make her feel more powerful. No wonder the Bad Bloods did it all the time.
Outside the door, she heard raised voices. It sounded like an epic shouting match.
Jared’s head went up, and he frowned. “Damn rookies,” he muttered. “No discipline.”
The noise got even louder, and Caitlyn’s eyes widened in shock. She recognized that pissed-off bellow. Flynn.
What the fucking hell was Flynn doing here? How had he found them?
“Stay here and watch her,” Jared said to the guard, and went out to see what was going on. When he opened the door to the hallway, Caitlyn caught a few words of the ruckus going on near the front door.
“…unlawfully detaining a member of my crew,” Flynn shouted. “I demand to see the charges against him, and to…”
Jared shut the door behind him.
Caitlyn’s mind raced. She had to get free now. She had to get to Flynn, and tell him where Sloan was, so they could break him out of here.
She started coughing, as if she had something stuck in her throat. The guard narrowed his eyes, and Caitlyn played it up, bending almost double, choking off every inhale as if she couldn’t breathe.
The guard looked concerned. “Are you okay?”
She ignored him, coughing fit to choke. Finally he came over, unscrewing the top of her water bottle. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her. “Drink this—”
Caitlyn grabbed the nearest laptop off the table and swung it at his head as hard as she could. It had a metal body, nice and solid, and she heard the crunch as it connected.
Sorry, she said in her head, and then, Dammit. I’m still a fucking good girl.
The guard crumpled to the floor, unconscious, and Caitlyn dropped to her knees beside him, fumbling at his utility belt for his keys. Every second was precious. Jared could come back any time, although it sounded like Flynn was still keeping him occupied.
She wondered why Flynn was arguing instead of fighting. That didn’t seem like his style.
She found the key and unlocked the cuffs, flexing her wrist to get the circulation back in her hand. Then she ran for the door and cracked it open. Seeing no one in the hallway, she dashed next door to Sloan’s room.
Hands shaking, she found the key that unlocked his door and ran inside.
Sloan sat on the floor near the wall, looking stunned. Caitlyn knelt in front of him, taking his bloody hands gently in hers. “Sloan? Sloan, it’s me.”
He stared through her into the distance, his eyes glassy and unfocused. “Kayisha?” he whispered.
“No,” she said, bringing his hand to her lips and kissing it. His face was still bruised and misshapen. “It’s me, Caitlyn. Come back to me, Sloan. We have to get you out of here.”
Just then, the window glass smashed behind the iron bars that blocked it, and Xander’s face appeared. “My thoughts exactly,” he said. “Already on it.”
Chapter 26
While Caitlyn sat stupefied, her mouth open, Xander clipped huge metal hooks around two of the bars. They had steel cables attached to the ends, and when he was finished, he gave a thumbs-up to someone outside before ducking out of the way.
> Caitlyn heard the roar of an engine. The steel cables went taut, and the bars pulled straight out of the wall, leaving a window-sized hole with crumbled concrete around the edges.
Xander climbed through the hole, took one look at Sloan’s condition and said, “Fuck.” He glared at Caitlyn. “What the hell is this? You’re supposed to take care of him.”
“I know.” Her stomach clenched.
Xander knelt down and supported Sloan as he stood. “Come on, asshole. It’s a good thing you have me, because clearly you can’t be let out on your own.”
Sloan mumbled, “Fucking took you long enough,” and Xander snorted, but Caitlyn saw a faint grin touch the corners of his mouth. Then he looked back at Caitlyn, his eyes dark and angry again. “Are we taking her too, or leaving her?”
“Are you fucking kidding?” Caitlyn said. “I’m not staying here.”
Xander said to Sloan, “She betrayed you.”
Caitlyn’s heart caught in her throat, but Sloan shook his head, wincing. “She didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
He looked into Caitlyn’s eyes, and just said, “I know.”
Warmth surged through her, and she squeezed his arm gently before they turned to go.
They hustled through the hole in the ruined wall. Luckily the house was a one-story ranch style, so they were at ground level. Keeping low, they hurried across the lawn to an unmarked black van at the edge of the yard. Through the open back doors, Caitlyn could see Jasmin working the mechanism that rewound the steel cables.
The side doors slid open as they approached. Tristan leaned out, helping Xander get Sloan inside. Caitlyn and Xander piled in after him. The doors slammed shut and they took off, sending up rooster tails of mud and grass.
Xander got Sloan settled on a quilted pad in the back of the van, and then climbed forward into the passenger seat, glancing worriedly over his shoulder. Brody was driving, but he also kept glancing into the rearview mirror, trying to see what was happening with Sloan. Tristan sat hunched up on the floor just behind the passenger seat, his long legs bent so his knees were against his chest, his arms wrapped around them.
“How is he?” Brody asked.
“I’m okay,” Sloan mumbled. Xander muttered something that sounded like “not okay” and “fucking moron.” Sloan continued, “Where are the others?”
“Flynn’s creating a distraction,” Caitlyn said, glancing at the others for confirmation of Flynn’s intentions. “That man can cause a ruckus when he wants to.”
“You have no idea,” Xander muttered. Tristan grinned.
“Tank’s with him,” Tristan added. “For additional scariness. Lissa’s driving their truck. Or rather,” he glanced at his watch, “right about now she should have it parked across the entrance to the driveway, blocking pursuit while Flynn makes his leisurely way over to it.”
Caitlyn grinned. Go Flynn.
Jasmin scooched over to Sloan with the medical kit. “Anything broken?” she asked.
“A couple of fingers,” Sloan said. “And my nose.”
Jasmin smirked at him. “Where do you want me to start? Are you more worried about the use of your fingers, or your pretty face?”
“Fuck you,” Sloan said. “Fingers.”
Caitlyn caught her breath. Without full use of his fingers, he wouldn’t be able to play the guitar. He’d be devastated.
Jasmin was probing the swollen flesh of his right hand. “This isn’t too bad.” She jerked first the middle finger out straight, and then the index finger.
“Fuck, Jungle Kitty,” Sloan gasped, squeezing Caitlyn’s fingers practically to a pulp with his other hand. “I thought Brody was teaching you to be sweet and gentle.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if,” she said. “Take some ibuprofen, pussy.” Sloan dropped Caitlyn’s hand just long enough to give her the finger.
Caitlyn noticed, though, that Jasmin’s hands were deft and gentle as she taped the injured fingers to a splint, and then straightened Brody’s nose. He yelped.
“Shit,” she muttered. “How many times did they break it?”
“Not that many,” Sloan said. Caitlyn bit her lips. A lot. They’d broken it a lot.
“Any flashbacks?” Tristan said.
Sloan didn’t answer, and Caitlyn wasn’t going to say anything if he wasn’t.
Xander didn’t have her delicate sensibilities. He said, “Hell yes. They had a fucking thunder and lightning show going in his cell.”
Jasmin’s eyes dilated and she hissed. Brody growled, feral and scary. Tristan cursed under his breath. Then he said to Sloan, “Is it okay if I just check your neural pathways?”
Sloan gave as much of a shrug as he could while lying on the floor with someone cleaning his cuts and scrapes. “They’re about as scrambled as they usually are, I imagine.”
Tristan gestured to Caitlyn that they should change places. “You can still hold his hand, if you want,” he said.
She watched, fascinated, as he put one hand on the top of Tristan’s head, and the other gently on his forehead. Tristan closed his eyes.
After a moment he opened them, frowning. “Have you recently recovered some memories?”
“Maybe,” Sloan muttered. “I don’t know. Give me a few minutes, okay?”
Tristan nodded, still looking troubled, and slid back against the wall of the van.
Caitlyn stroked Sloan’s fingers, her mind racing. He’d called her Kayisha when she came in the room. Was he having another flashback then?
What had he remembered? Would it help, or would it just put him in more danger?
They got back to the compound and helped Sloan into the main house, where he sank gratefully into one of the oversized leather sofas. He tugged Caitlyn down next to him, and she sat down gingerly, not wanting to jostle him and cause more pain.
“Are you really okay?” she whispered.
He nodded, and pulled her over for a gentle kiss. Caitlyn let out a little sigh. She’d been so terrified of losing him, of never being able to touch him again. Never feeling this.
Jasmin and Xander were moving the heavy wooden dining table out of the way. Xander pulled open a set of long, narrow trapdoors set into the hardwood floor, and Jasmin jumped down into the waist-deep hole.
“What’s that?” Caitlyn murmured to Sloan.
“Wait for it,” he said.
Jasmin started handing up weapons. Rifles, machine guns, explosives, and…
“Is that a grenade launcher?” Caitlyn whispered.
“Hell, yeah,” Tristan said, from the opposite sofa. “My sister used it to help defend this place when the Nashville wolves attacked us last fall.” A grin spread across his face. “She was almost six months pregnant at the time.”
Caitlyn stared. “Get out of town,” she said. “I don’t even know her, and I already want to be her when I grow up.”
“Dude,” Xander said from his place beside the weapons cache. “She was badass. If I ever find a mate, I totally want her to be able to shoot a grenade launcher.”
“Put it in your eHarmony profile,” Jasmin said. She finished counting out boxes of ammo and jumped out of the hole.
Just then Flynn came through the front door, followed by Tank and Lissa. Everyone went on the alert.
“They following?” Brody asked.
Flynn shook his shaggy head. “I would have called. But keep the weapons out, just in case.” He looked around. “Any coffee?”
“In the works,” Brody said from the kitchen.
Flynn nodded. “I don’t like it that they’re not following,” he said. “They went to a lot of trouble to acquire Sloan. Why would they give up now?”
“Planning their next move?” Tank suggested.
At that moment, Flynn’s phone started emanating the distinctive sound of an incoming Skype call. He looked at the screen, raised his eyebrows, then frowned. “Jared Fucking Donnelly,” he said.
“Shit,” Sloan muttered.
“Are you going to ge
t it?” Tristan asked, since Flynn wasn’t moving.
“He’ll call back,” Flynn said. “Brody, get my laptop from upstairs and link it with the TV down here. I want to be able to stand right here and look intimidating as fucking hell on Donnelly’s screen. The rest of you, get back out of camera range. Especially you two.” He gestured to Sloan and Caitlyn.
With a muffled groan, Sloan hauled himself to his feet and moved to the kitchen, settling on one of the island barstools. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Why do bruises have to hurt more later than they did when you were getting them?”
“I told you to take ibuprofen,” Jasmin said as she passed.
Sloan grinned. “Grab the bottle out of the cabinet for me, Jungle Kitty?”
“What am I, the maid?” Jasmin muttered. “Get the painkillers, Jasmin. Count the ammo, Jasmin.” She tossed the painkiller bottle to Sloan, who fielded it neatly and winked at her. She shook her head, rolling her eyes.
Brody set up the laptop, sending the signal to the big-screen smart TV over the fireplace, which had built-in wi-fi and a webcam. Flynn stood in the middle of the floor in his t-shirt, cargo pants and combat vest, arms folded, tree-trunk-sized biceps bulging.
He cradled an AK-47 in his arms, and he did, in fact, look intimidating as fucking hell.
Skype rang again, and Flynn sent a nod to Brody. The wolf tapped the laptop screen, and Jared’s image came up on the TV, looking grave and official. He opened his mouth, but Flynn didn’t even give him the chance to start.
“What the fuck do you want, Donnelly?”
Jared looked taken aback, but he stuck to his script. “I want to start by informing you that this is an official communication from the Shifter Intelligence Agency, about your involvement with the escape from custody of Sloan Devlin and Caitlyn Anderson earlier today. I’m requesting that you deliver them immediately into my hands.”
Flynn said, “Why would I do that? Assuming that I had them, which I’m not saying I do.”
Jared said, “Please, Mr. Flynn, don’t insult my intelligence. It’s no coincidence that you and your lieutenant showed up to demand Devlin’s release at the exact moment he was broken out of our facility.”
Bad Blood Leopard (Bad Blood Shifters Book 3) Page 13