by Avery Flynn
But there wasn’t time to whine about it now. She had to find Devin. Taking off at a quick jog down the alley toward the Jeep, she kept to the building’s shadows and collided with a rail-thin tabby cat tearing around the corner. It bounced off her shins and continued along the alley as if a pack of wild dogs were on its tail.
Ryder’s sixth sense electrified the hair on the back of her neck and she slowed her pace. Approaching the end of the building with caution, she peeked around the corner at the now bustling Main Street. Shoppers shuffled down the sidewalks, stopping every few feet to look in a store window. Cars and mopeds puttered down the main drag, many circling the square at a crawl, trolling for a parking spot. Even the birds chirped as if all was right in the world.
Ready to sprint out into the street, she spotted a tell-tale reflection. She peered closer and spied the outline of Devin’s buzz cut hair. Relief took the starch out of her spine.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. It scratched against her skin like a stiff tag on a new shirt.
That’s when she spotted a woman with a glossy ebony bob in the window of the coffee shop and bakery across the street from Tea Time. A couple of lowlifes loitered outside the glass front doors. Ryder narrowed her gaze. The woman turned her head so she faced the street and took off a pair of oversize white Chanel sunglasses. Bingo.
Ryder whipped out her phone, accessed the camera, and zoomed in. The picture was fuzzy, but confirmed it was Sarah Molina.
The woman had elephant-sized brass balls to hang out in plain sight with only a pair of lackeys as protection. The goons in question were more interested in flinging rocks at the island cats roaming the streets than keeping an eye out for trouble.
Ryder was scanning the perimeter, searching for a secondary entry and exit point to the bakery when a dark blue, older model van slowed in front of the café and the side door slid open. The guards dropped their handfuls of pebbles and hustled into the vehicle. The van burned rubber as it pulled away from the curb, leaving Sarah on her own.
Okay. That should make the grab and dash a little easier. There might be more goons inside the bakery, but Ryder wouldn’t know until she got closer.
This was her chance. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, sharpening her focus. She glanced up at the rooftop garden above the bakery, grabbed her phone, and dialed Devin’s number. “She’s in the bakery across the street.”
“What the fuck is she doing there?”
Sarah sipped from a mint-green cup as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Maybe she’s sneaking a cup of coffee instead of tea.” Ryder stayed out of Sarah’s line of sight as she crossed the bustling street and made her way toward the bakery.
“I’m on my way down.” The sound of Devin’s feet thumping across the roof echoed over the phone line.
“No, Devin. You get the Jeep.” She paused at the corner of the bakery, her back flat against the cement wall so she couldn’t be seen from the window. “I’ll grab her and meet you out front. Then we’ll blaze a trail for the airport. Alert the jet to be ready to take off.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to trust me to know how to do my job. Be out front in three minutes.”
”Ryder—”
She clicked off her phone, more than finished with that conversation, and kept her face averted as she strode toward the door as if nothing in the world was the matter. After two years of following cheating husbands and sneaking wives, she knew the drill well. Skulkers drew attention. People who acted like they belonged somewhere blended into the scenery.
Angling her body so her face couldn’t be seen and inhaling a deep breath, she reached for the bakery door handle.
The screech of brakes sounded behind her. Ryder didn’t have to look back to know trouble had arrived. In the front door’s reflection, she spotted the dark blue van with a bruised up Long Hair in the driver’s seat and Freckles riding shotgun. She watched them with a muttered curse, but something else had captured their attention.
“Americano.” Freckles pointed down the street.
She turned in time to see the hot pink Jeep peel around the corner, heading straight for them.
The bakery door opened behind her.
The Jeep squealed to a stop.
Behind the wheel, Devin’s eyes rounded. “Ryder!”
In the next instant, everything went black.
…
Devin’s throat closed as Ryder crumpled to the ground in front of the bakery and lay unmoving. They’d gambled and lost on whether Sarah had laid a trap, but the payment was more than he was willing to give. Adrenaline hit his blood stream at one hundred proof.
One of the Molinas’ gorillas loomed over her, holding a broken ceramic cat in his right hand. Devin didn’t think, he didn’t consider, he just knew. He was going to kill that man. Slowly.
Powered by blood-boiling rage, he shot out of the Jeep. His only aim was to destroy everything within reach and get to Ryder.
Men poured out of the van like rats escaping a sinking ship. Most were bruised and battered from the day before. Each looked more than ready to even the score. Devin didn’t give a shit. Pulling Ryder out of this shit storm and getting her on the jet was all that mattered.
He executed a hammerfist punch, connecting with a long-haired guy’s jaw. The crunch of breaking bone fed the flame of fury inside him. He wheeled around, executing a chest-high side kick that planted his boot against the second thug’s sternum.
After that, it was just a maelstrom of jabs, kicks, and punches. Each was meant to inflict the most severe pain possible and clear a path to Ryder.
He got within arm’s reach of her when a forearm as thick as a redwood wrapped around his neck. In the next heartbeat, only his tiptoes touched the pavement.
He landed an elbow to the man’s solar plexus. Air wheezed out of the giant, but his grip stayed true. Smelling blood in the water, the other goons circled closer. The cocky looks on their faces showed they thought they’d already had this thing won.
They were wrong.
Back in his mixed martial arts days, the fights were hard, but they were one-on-one. The odds were majorly against him now, but what was on the line mattered a hell of a lot more to him than a champion’s belt.
Blackness danced around the edges of his vision. He had to get out of this choke hold or he’d never get to her.
Tucking his chin into the crook of the goon’s arm, Devin raised his shoulders and jerked his chin into his attacker’s forearm. The pressure loosened. Air whooshed into his lungs. He dropped enough for his feet to touch the ground. Immediately, he delivered a chop punch to the asshole’s groin and twisted. He burst from the thug’s deadly hold.
In that single moment of clarity, he fell back to his MMA mantra: focus, finesse, fight.
Eight guys on their feet, two on the ground, and one too busy holding his smashed nut sack to be of much trouble. A glimmer caught his eye. Sarah stood behind one of the thugs.
Understanding whacked him in the face.
Cut off the head and kill the snake.
Using reserves he didn’t realize he had, Devin pivoted away from Ryder and plowed through a freckle-faced goon like a three-hundred-pounder versus a bag of chips. Grabbing Sarah’s arm, he pulled her close so she stood between him and the pack of enforcers. He slid his other arm around her throat, ready to snap it clean in half.
“Long time no see, Sarah.”
Taken by surprise, she didn’t even try to break free. “I suppose you think this is the optimum solution?”
“Returning the money is your best option.” He softened his tone, hoping to remind her of the easy working relationship they’d had for the past ten years. “You return the money, we leave. No authorities get involved. You don’t serve time.”
“Jail? Are you kidding? Did you know George and I met on Andol? My father told me he’d disown me if I left with George. I was young and did it
anyway. I gave George my undying loyalty and he repaid me by hiring a flighty nincompoop in a short skirt. I made him pay, and he’ll keep paying when the MultiCorp deal falls through. It’s past time for me to get my due, and no one’s taking it from me.”
One of the thugs grabbed Ryder. She was awake, but groggy.
Devin wanted to pluck out the guy’s eyeballs and grill them on a skewer. But action without the benefit of thinking first had never turned out well for him. That’s how James had ended up as he had. Devin couldn’t risk hurting Ryder any more than he already had by dragging her into this mess. He had to protect her.
She blinked unfocused eyes and feebly pushed away the guy’s arm, but it didn’t move an inch. A crowd of tourists watched from a safe distance while the locals, on the other hand, kept their gaze purposefully averted. There wasn’t a cop in sight. Naturally.
He had to play this just right or it would go sideways. That couldn’t happen.
“Tell your little army to let her go.”
“No.” Sarah sounded as bored as if he’d asked her about the weather.
He tightened his grip around her neck. “Let. Her. Go.”
“Oh, I would if it was just me, but my son is quite particular about his reputation.” She shrugged. “You two caught him flat-footed with the diamonds-in-the-tea-pots scheme. It would be bad form to let both of you go.”
There it was. The out he’d been looking for. “Fine. Leave her. Take me.”
Sarah tsk-tsked and shook her head. “Ah, self-sacrifice. I know that stage of love all too well. It’s not the most comfortable place, is it?”
His gut screamed for him to pull out all the stops and go full-on crazy, but he couldn’t. The only way he’d get Ryder out of here was if he used his brain instead of his brawn.
He released Sarah. “Let her go and I’ll go willingly. Maybe my father will pay a ransom.” He shrugged.
Sarah, well aware of the billions his father had in the bank, considered him for a moment. “But your father hates you.”
“He does, but he hates looking weak even more.” Letting kidnappers keep his first born would do just that.
“Get him in the van.” Sarah glanced at Ryder, who was still fighting weakly against her captor, then back at him. “Leave her.”
Relief seeped into his marrow. He had no fucking clue what would happen to him next, but he imagined it would be painful and prolonged. It didn’t matter, as long as Ryder was safe.
Two of the men grabbed his arms, shoved him into the vehicle, and tied him to one of the seats.
As the van doors slid closed, the last thing he saw was Ryder sinking to the ground.
Chapter Fourteen
“You can be anyone you want to be, with the right outfit.”
— Melody Minagar
Ryder cracked open her eyelids and light pierced through her eyes like a shiv, jabbing into her pounding brain. Reflexively, she squeezed them shut again and tried to process the anxiety chewing a hole in her stomach. Her memory of how she’d gotten here, and where exactly here was, was a jumbled mess. The last thing she remembered was the blue van pulling up, followed by the Jeep and—
Devin.
Her breath caught as a hot flash of fear razed what was left of the haze fogging up her thinking. Had he made it to the bakery? Did the Molinas have him, too? She’d asked him to trust her judgment and he had. Fuck.
That decision may have cost him his life—or at the very least his freedom, and possibly a whole lot of pain.
Finding him wasn’t an option. It was the only option.
While it may be warranted, panicking wasn’t going to do shit to get either of them out of this situation. Without opening her eyes, she took in a deep breath and used her other senses to gather intel and figure out where in the hell she was. She didn’t dare let on she was awake, in case she was being watched. Crisp sheets and a soft mattress lay beneath her. Salty air wafted in from the left. The quiet click of a door shutting broke the perfect silence. In or out? Best to bet on in and act accordingly.
A squinty-eyed peek confirmed she wasn’t outside the bakery anymore. She was in the suite at the Palm Inn.
Soft footsteps sounded behind her, setting off her internal alarms.
If the Molinas were planning to kill her, she sure as hell wasn’t about to make it easy for them. She visualized the room, searching her memory for a weapon.
She rolled to her side facing away from the door and wrapped her fingers around the bedside lamp’s solid brass base. In one fluid motion, she sat up, twisted, and brought the lamp down toward the approaching target.
“Oh good, you’re awake—” Borja’s greeting ended in a squawk.
She stopped the lamp’s downward path inches from his black hair. “Where’s Devin?” she demanded. Her chest heaved, not with exertion but with the desperate, aching need to know. She couldn’t attribute that kind of physical reaction to a missing client.
Devin had become much more than a mere client, well before she’d ever had the good sense to realize it…because she’d been too caught up in constantly proving what a badass she was.
Borja held his hands up, palms out. “Everything will be fine. The Molinas are nowhere near here. You’re safe with us.”
“Where is he?” she asked again.
“I do not have good news on that front.” Borja took several steps back from the bed, his gaze locked on the heavy lamp in her hand. “He is alive—at least he was when he got in the van. But the Molinas have him.”
Ryder jackknifed off the bed, intent on finding Devin. But the room swum before her and the lamp fell from her grasp. The throbbing in her head intensified, rattling her molars. Borja’s hand on her shoulder gently pushed her back down to the mattress before her knees gave way.
“Take these.” The hotel manager held out two white pills and a glass of clear liquid.
She pushed his hand away. “Forget it. I remember what happened last time I had something to drink here.”
“What do you…? Ah, the wine. It is particularly potent. But this is plain water and aspirin. I promise.”
“Potent? It was drugged.”
“Oh, Mama likes to talk about its mystical powers, but it’s just home-brewed wine that’s fermented too long. It always gives me the worst headaches. Speaking of which—” He dropped the aspirin in her hand and held out the water glass. “Take this, it will help.”
The pills carried the markings of a major pharmaceutical company on one side and the word aspirin stamped on the other. She sniffed the liquid. If it was drugged, it was unscented. “Why are you helping me?”
“Not everyone on the island is happy with how things work in Andol City.” He shrugged. “We do what we can.”
His tone was as easy as if she’d asked about that night’s dinner special, but his nostrils flared with emotion.
“What have they done to you?” she asked, sensing there was a story there, and not a good one.
A dark shadow crossed Borja’s face and his jaw tightened. “You notice I have my mother here, but not my father.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was twelve. They kept Mama for three weeks before we could scrape together enough money to pay the ransom.”
Ryder couldn’t miss the raw pain that deepened each one of the lines dividing his forehead before he looked to his feet, blinking rapidly. Better not to go there. But that look did not bode well for anyone they’d kidnapped.
She popped the aspirin in her mouth and swallowed a mouthful of water. “Do you know where they’re holding Devin?”
“I imagine he’s at their farm.”
Picturing the small, single-story house with its weathered appearance and lack of guards, she couldn’t get it to jibe with a secure location. “The house with the pineapples out front? It didn’t seem like a good spot for that.”
“Oh, not there. They have a much bigger place a few miles further inland.” A knock sounded at the door. “That must be your friends.”
> She tossed the pills in her mouth and washed them down with the water. Everything ached, but nothing hurt more than the knowledge that all of this was her fault for rushing in when she should have called for backup. She just prayed it wasn’t too late for Devin. She grabbed the bedside telephone and dialed.
Her brother picked up on the second ring.
“Tony, I need you. How soon can you be here?”
Silence loud enough to break her eardrum thrummed through the line before he answered. “How soon do you need me?”
…
The sun had almost disappeared below the western horizon when Maltese Security’s three musketeers filed into Ryder’s hotel room. Carlos shuffled in first wearing a Dr. Who T-shirt, jeans cuffed at the ankles, and a commiserating grimace. Cam strutted in next. They had to have been airborne for nearly ten hours, yet he looked like he’d just walked off a magazine cover with his glossy hair and almost too pretty face. He gave Ryder a quick wink and a thumbs up.
Her big brother marched in last, looking about as happy as a vegetarian at a North Carolina barbecue where greens fried in bacon fat was the only non-meat option.
Ryder held up her hand before Tony could open his mouth. “You’re right and, yes, I need your help.”
All three men stopped in their tracks.
Cam was the first to recover. “Who are you, and what’ve you done with Ryder?”
She rolled her eyes. “Stuff it, Cam.”
“That’s more like the Ryder I know and love.” He flashed his signature wicked grin.
“The Molinas have taken Devin captive.” Just saying the words made her stomach cramp, the perfect accompaniment to the dull pounding of her head and the ache in her chest no amount of medicine could dull. “I can’t get him back without your help.”
She gulped around the rock lodged deep in her throat and glanced down at her matching bracelet of interwoven gold threads and recalled the feel of his strong hands on her foot during their plane ride to The Andol Republic. His touch had been the only thing keeping her sane when her fear of flying had gone into the danger zone. And at their blessing ceremony, his nearness had kept her from running away in a panic. Even this morning, when he’d been annoyed as all hell and thinking her plan was nuts, he’d trusted her.