Shadows (Black Raven Book 1)

by Barcelona, Stella

  “Is it true?” Barrows’ voice broke off as he choked in panic.

  “I don’t know if he has them now, but he sure as hell came close this morning. He sent kidnappers after them. His attempt was foiled with not a second to spare. Last I heard the marshals had established a safe house, and they were taking them there. Dammit, but this hurts,” she said, wincing as she turned to her side and sat up in the bed, wrapping the sheet around herself to cover her nudity, before sitting all the way up and easing herself off of the bed. She groaned when she was fully upright. “Son of a fucking bitch, this hurts.” She lifted his chin with the crook of his finger, and said, “What the hell did he do to you?”

  Barrows shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said, her tone quiet but confident, her determination visible in the steady gaze she shared with him.

  “Shhhh,” Barrows said, eyes wide, glancing up, around, and at the walls. “They’re listening.”

  Jennifer’s eyes blazed. “Good. I hope the fucking bastard who is doing this to us is listening. He’ll realize that we’re smarter than him.” She broke eye contact with Barrows and glanced around the room. “I need clothes.”

  “What happened this morning?” Barrows asked.

  “Aren’t you listening? The monster who has us attempted to kidnap your daughters.” She walked around the room, pulling open cabinet doors and slamming them shut when they didn’t have what she was looking for. “A private security contractor who was hired to do prison security, and who now is trying like hell to find you, happened to be on the scene. Lucky for all of us, he’s tough, tenacious, and, by all accounts, brilliant. Sebastian Connelly. Black Raven. He prevented the kidnapping, took Skye and Spring to a hospital to make sure they were okay, and they were heading to a marshals’ safe house. I don’t know if they made it there, because these bastards kidnapped me. I was in my office. Three men entered.”

  She opened the final cabinet in the room, where there were neatly folded linens and clothes. Rummaging through the stacks of linens, wincing in pain with each move that she made, she continued, “They gave me something. Chloroform. I don’t know. I passed out. Woke up in a room down the hall, where a man in a mask whipped me.” She glanced at Barrows. “He whipped me as he asked me questions about your work. I don’t know what the hell all of this is about. But whatever it is,” she sneered at him, “it’s your fault and once again, I’m having to think a way through a mess that you’ve created. I can do a lot with my legal expertise,” she turned her attention back to the clothes, “but the technological aspects are a little over my head. It’s time for you to step up to the plate.”

  He stiffened. “Hospital? Jesus. How badly were my girls hurt?” Barrows demanded, not addressing the bulk of Root’s concerns, his paternal instincts blinding him to personal peril.

  Trask chuckled. The video monitors and audio mics were catching every nuance of the interaction between Barrows and Root, revealing that they were almost as narcissistic as he was.

  Root shook her head. “As far as I know, not anywhere as bad as what the bastard’s done to us. It would be damn nice right now if you were more concerned about our immediate survival.” She yanked down a few stacks of folded clothes and found a pair of drawstring pants and a hospital gown.

  She glanced at Barrows. “Shut your eyes.” She dropped the sheet, exposing her naked body, seemingly unconcerned about the strong possibility that they were on camera. She pulled on the drawstring pants and hospital gown, which she tied in front, wincing as the gown touched her wounds.

  “I talked to Skye while they were being examined at a hospital. She and Spring were scared but physically fine.” Root gathered her hair off her face with both hands, winced, then dropped her arms, face pale. “Just having that conversation required me to pull every string I’ve ever managed to collect, Richard.” She drew a deep breath and shot him a furious look. “I told you from the beginning not to cut me off from them.”

  “Don’t you understand that I had no choice,” Barrows said, his expression pleading with her for understanding, as he wheeled himself over to her and continued. “You know that. The only thing in the world that would get me to do what these people want would be threats to my girls. I did everything in my power to keep them from being used in that way.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want you in the position of being their protector. It’s too much responsibility.” He paused. “Who has us?”

  “I don’t think this madman is a who. I think he’s a what,” Root said, “and the answer is fucking obvious. He’s a rich, powerful, sadistic psychopathic freak.”

  Trask glanced at Dunbar, who was sponging perspiration off of his brow. Root’s description of him was accurate. He loved it, but Dunbar was holding his breath, awaiting his reaction. “She doesn’t mince words, does she?”

  Dunbar’s dark hair and dark eyes made his face seem even paler as the color drained away. “No.”

  “Don’t look so afraid,” he said to his assistant, turning back to the monitor as he added, “I know exactly what I am.”

  “And he’s got my data,” Richard said, his desperation and despair apparent in every word. “He’s got it. For the last few days I’ve done nothing but stare at the programs that he’s running, analyzing the code, and wondering how he got it. It had to be Young, but why would Young give it to him?”

  “Don’t worry about that now. Focus on how we’re going to get the hell out of here.”

  “For the first couple of days, they tried to make me believe that they were with the government, that there was some sort of emergency. I fell for it. Until I ran the programs. I was hours into testing and realized that he had an incomplete set of code. He’s got 92.6% of the LID,” Barrows eyes were wide. He dropped his head to his hands, his temples meeting his palms, and rested his forehead on his palm. “I let him know there’s more. Dear God,” he lifted his head to meet Root’s gaze. “I let him know he had an incomplete set of code. I should have told him what he had was meaningless.”

  Root got on her knees, gently touched his hands, and said, “Richard, look at me.”

  He slowly lifted his head.

  Root’s dark eyes were steady, her gaze strong. Even through the camera, Trask could feel her strength. “You have to give him what he wants.”

  Trask held his breath, anticipating whether Barrows would now agree.

  Barrows shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Hell,” Trask said, anger pulsing through his veins. “Still resisting.”

  “He will eventually kill us,” she told Barrows, voice merciless. “He told me to tell you that. I believe him, and so should you.”

  “I’m sorry. My life is expendable. Shadow Technology and LID Technology is not. I’m sorry-”

  “Well, my life is not expendable!” She snapped, grimacing in pain as she walked stiffly to the bed and sat on it, easing her butt to the mattress. “If we don’t get out of here, they will kill us, and I suspect not before testing our pain threshold further. I can’t handle another whipping like that, Richard. I absolutely cannot! The girls are safe—for now. But who knows whether they’ll be safe in a day? An hour? You have to make sure they’re secure, and to do that, we have to get the hell out of wherever we’re being held. You have to give the man what he wants. Are you listening? Just give it to him. We’ll get out of here and you’ll figure out a way to undo whatever damage he causes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Barrows said, hanging his head and shaking it, resisting yet physically looking like he had the spine of a goddamn beaten puppy. “There’s a limit to what I can do, and I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

  In the room filled with monitors and other surveillance equipment, Trask glanced at Dunbar. “It’s time for more persuasion.”

  Dunbar nodded and made a phone call. Trask would have walked away from the monitors, but he realized that Root hadn’t given up.

  “Stop apologizing,” Root snapped a
s she stood up and started pacing in an eight-foot line, directly in front of Barrows’ wheelchair. “I’ve negotiated with the best. I know how to assess relative strengths and weaknesses. Right now, our strength is that we—you—have something that he wants. We need to give this man what he wants, and it certainly isn’t you saying you’re sorry. Let’s figure out a way to give it to him where he has to keep us alive. What we have has value to him only if it is operational. That’s his problem. God knows how long he’s had your data, but he needed you to tell him that he had an incomplete data set? Don’t you see?”

  Barrows stared absently at her, his head turning slightly as she walked, following each step. “See what?”

  “Come on, Richard, would you please use some of your magnificent brainpower and think. He needs your knowledge to make LID Technology work, so that he can access Shadow Technology and break into PRISM and the databases that integrate with PRISM. That’s our ace. His people aren’t smart enough to manipulate the programs or diagnose problems. Even if you give him the data, he’ll need to keep you alive to run the systems.”

  Jennifer Root was making perfect sense. Trask just wished Barrows would see it that way.

  All color drained from Richard’s eyes. “No. I’d rather die.”

  Root stopped pacing. She stood directly in front of Barrows, as the door opened and four men wearing white jumpsuits and white masks walked into the room. “You bastard. He’s going to kill me before he kills you.”

  Root said it like she believed it, and the reality was she was right. As Trask’s fingers itched in anticipation of a kill, Barrows and Root locked eyes.

  “Richard,” she said, backing away from the two men who walked towards her. “Listen to me. It is only a matter of time before he has Skye and Spring.” She ran from the men. When they caught up to her, she slapped at their hands and punched at them to get away. “He won’t stop trying.”

  A few minutes later, mask in place, Trask walked into the examining room as his men strapped Barrows to his wheelchair. His aides had restrained Root by strapping her to an examining chair. The aides had left her clothes on, but in her attempt to break free her robe had come untied. Her left breast was exposed. It was full and, because she wasn’t a young woman, the gentle curve of it slightly sagged.

  Still tantalizing, though, with a light pink nipple that complimented her easy-to-bruise, creamy-white skin. The arms of the chair were wide enough for her hands to be splayed out, palm down. Each finger of her right hand was separately tied to the table with zip ties that were locked so tight they were cutting her skin.

  “Richard. Please listen to me.” Her eyes were focused with horror on his mask, but her words were for Barrows. The woman had balls. She wasn’t going to panic. “He knows that you told Skye to run. It is only a matter of time before he finds them. You do not want this man to have your daughters. Don’t you understand that cooperating is inevitable?”

  Barrows averted his eyes from her.

  Trask went to a drawer, selected a knife, and went to Root. He bent to examine her hand, smelling the sweet smell of fear that was now rising from her body, enjoying the fast pace of her breaths. “You think about which finger is your least favorite, as I tell Richard a few things.” He turned to Barrows, a blistered and broken man in a wheelchair. He walked closer, took the man’s chin in the cup of his hand, and gently lifted his face. Barrows’ blue eyes were wide with fear, and he wasn’t even fighting his restraints. Nor was Barrows fighting his touch. More than fear, he saw resignation, and that bothered him.

  He gentled his tone, realizing that the brilliant Richard Barrows was no different than any other man. He needed empowering. “I want something that you can give me. You have the power here. You have my word that if you give me the code, I will never harm your daughters. I’m close to them. I know who is protecting them. You need to understand me, so nod a bit, okay?” Dear God, the man had no spine. “The lives of your daughters will depend on your understanding exactly what I’m saying.”

  Barrows nodded.

  “Sebastian Connelly and Black Raven are good, but they’re not perfect. They have delivered your daughters to a safe house that I control. Nod if you understand that.”

  Barrows, wide-eyed and sweating profusely, nodded. He returned to Jennifer, but his words for Barrows as he lifted the knife to her hand. “Even if your daughters would somehow manage to escape, there’s a big problem. While the U.S. government would be fascinated to know the drama that is unfolding with their technological intelligence, the secrecy that they demanded for the project is now working against them. No one knows what is happening, so no one with the government is offering your daughters the type of assistance they would really need to protect them from me, the kind of assistance that would keep them off the grid for years to come. For them to disappear again, they need to rely upon their own devices, and I know all of that. I know all assets that are in their current, past, and next names. I know that you had carefully crafted backup plans for them, with alternate identities.”

  “There is no way you know their next identities.”

  “Bridgette and Brandy Tillman.” As he rattled off the names, Barrows slumped further in the chair. “The only thing that I don’t know, is where, in the goddamn universe you created, with bank deposit boxes in every major city, with more houses than an abacus can count, with storage units and safety deposit boxes that number in the thousands, what I don’t know, is where you may have hidden the backup for the LID. Jennifer,” he said to her, but his eyes were focused on Richard, “have you decided which finger?”

  “Please, Richard,” she screamed, as he pushed the sharp point of the knife into her index finger. Minimal blood, maximum pain. It would get worse, much worse. Slicing the skin was easy. Goose-bump thrills ran down his spine as he scraped the tip of his knife through flesh and weaved it into her knuckle. He smelled the flood of urine that escaped from her body as she howled with pain. “Richard! Tell him what he wants,” she panted, screaming in pain as he pivoted the blade down and pressed hard, into the knuckle. “Tell him what he wants.”

  “There’s backup that includes the code that you don’t have,” Barrows yelled over Jennifer’s screams.

  “Yes?” The metal had cut through the edge of delicate bone, but he hadn’t started sawing at it. He leaned on the knife, the metal grinding deeper, as she shook her head and screamed as loudly as she could. His eyes locked on Barrows’ eyes. “Well,” he said, having to yell so that Barrows could hear him over Jennifer’s howls of pain, “where’s the backup?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  11:45 p.m., Monday

  They’d left their intermediate stop, a private airport, ten minutes earlier, and on the dark hilly roads they now travelled she was losing her sense of direction. The 5:45 a.m. message from her father would be critical. Getting to the message depended upon Skye finding her way back to the interstate. If there were road signs, though, she didn’t see them. Plenty of trees stood tall at the edge of the road—mostly skinny pine trees, with other foliage in the mix. There was another left turn, and a right. With no streetlights, the night was inky dark. Two Black Raven vehicles led the way. The state troopers had departed once they pulled into the hangar. Two other Black Raven vehicles were in back.

  Once inside the hangar, Sebastian had stepped out of the Range Rover, stretched, and gestured to her to climb into the back seat with Spring and Candy. He got into the front passenger seat, and an agent, who called him sir and so far had not uttered another word, had slipped into the driver’s seat. Sebastian hadn’t stopped working for one minute. He was either listening intently or talking to Ragno. He’d had a few conversations with someone named Zeus. If his arm hurt, he didn’t show it. She doubted he’d show if he was tired, hungry, bleeding to death, or horny. The man was a robot.

  Focusing on the sequence of turns that they’d made since exiting the interstate —two right, one left, another right, one left, one right, another left— helped Skye bloc
k out the bare-chested man. Hell on earth was what he was, because his good looks were an irresistible lure, from his penetrating, blue eyes, to his golden-brown, wavy hair. His broad, muscular shoulders, and taut abdomen that was ripped with muscles would make a sculptor itch for a mallet, chisel, and a fresh block of stone. All of that exposed skin and muscles, just inches from her, made her acutely aware of how long she’d gone without sex.

  In her partying days in the fast lane, she’d had plenty of it. She’d had so much of it that she’d started taking it for granted. For years, Dr. Morris, one in a long line of therapists that her father insisted she see, had insisted that her sexual escapades were self-destructive. Dr. Morris had theorized that she was stuck in a pattern of being attracted to unavailable men, as a way of protecting herself from serious emotional attachments. Her grief over her mother’s death was the root of her problems.

  It was an interesting theory, but it didn’t make her stop doing anything she usually did. She continued partying, until three things happened in the space of three months: she’d become aware of her father’s legal problems, the tabloid press had published a bare-breasted photo of her readying herself for a dive off a yacht while she was on a date with a famous, and very married, movie producer, and she’d gotten into the car accident in the Keys. The three occurrences rattled her so much she decided to slow down, which meant giving up the pursuit of men and sex. She had a lot to think about, and men complicated life. So she gave them up. Abstinence had been easy.

  For a while.

  As of this morning, easy was officially over. Easy had ended when Sebastian had walked across the street with Candy in his arms. Even though she didn’t like one thing that had happened since he showed up, he had awakened a deep-rooted awareness of her need for good sex.

  Focus on turns. Not on the fact that any soap he had used in his last shower had worn off and now, the fresh, powerful woodsy fragrance that his body emitted—reminding her of a long ago hike through a redwood forest—was pure him. If she’d had any doubt in her life about the powerful pull of pheromones, sitting in the SUV with him dispelled it. Without even glancing at her or touching her, his presence was inspiring a steady pulse of desire, between her legs and deep within.