Bondage 101: Don’t let skin turn blue.
I sigh, stretching out my fingers to stop the ache, hoping to keep the blood flowing. It’d be very easy to give in to the emotion threatening to rip me apart, when I catch masculine voices coming from somewhere. I’ve heard the heavy door open and shut a couple times, but no one’s come to see me.
Though this isn’t the first time I’ve heard voices, and now I’m beginning to wonder in the silence of my mind if I’m imagining voices that aren’t there. I force my attention away from the annoying drop of water next to me that just won’t go away, and soon begin to believe those voices are actually real as they get closer.
And closer…
And closer…
Then the door opens and figures form in the shadows.
I’m sure there’s an appropriate response for watching the governor walk into a room, but my mind shatters me into silence. Is he here to rescue me? But wait, how did he know I was here? Does that mean there are cops here, too? But why is he with the guy who held the gun to my head? And where is the other man?
Slowly the obvious begins to appear, though it’s not until I look into the governor’s face that I admit to myself that he’s definitely not here to rescue me. In fact, he’s here to do the exact opposite.
My silence is swept away with anger that I cannot possibly control. “How could you, Tobias?” I snarl, wishing I could use the rope around my wrists to strangle the life out of him.
Tobias doesn’t even flinch at my words or pay any attention to them as he saunters into the room, stopping directly in front of me. “Hello, Hadley.” His eyes flick to my wrists before they lift to my face again, the side of his mouth arching. “While I do think you look beautiful in ropes, it’s just not as fun this time, is it?”
My breath catches in my throat. “You were the other…” My stomach tightens, desperate to heave the last thing I ate all over him. Because now I know a truth I would never want to admit to myself: I’d been used in a plot to murder my father, and I’d fucked the man who wanted him dead. “Did you…” I can barely say the words. “Did you set this all up?”
“Don’t take it too personally,” he explains without a single hint of remorse in his voice. “It was a necessary evil. You were a means for me to get what I want.” He moves to the spot where the water is dripping and holds out his hand to catch the droplets. “When we learned you attended that club, and so did the congressman, the plan fell very neatly into my lap.”
“You’re disgusting,” I snap at him.
“Perhaps.” He lowers his hand and wipes his palm against his pants. “Or perhaps you were just asking for trouble, being a young woman in a place designed for men.”
Now he’s a sexist prick? I never liked Tobias Harrington, and my father wasn’t particularly fond of him either. But now? Now I know my instincts were right.
I begin to tremble as he shoves his hands into his suit pockets, which makes him look so out of place next to the other guy. It’s like Beauty and the Beast, but this is no fairy tale. It’s my nightmare. “And this plan is?”
Tobias begins to circle around the chair, dragging his finger along my arm. “There’s been talk, you know…” I refuse to move, not allowing him to take anything else from me, as he continues. “Our party needs a candidate to run in the presidential primaries next year. Word on the street was the party was looking to your father, and I was the second choice.”
Of all the things I thought this could be about, this hadn’t even been on the list. “You have got to be kidding me,” I gasp in utter disbelief. “You tried to kill my father so they’d pick you instead of him? Do you understand how insane that is? Jesus Christ, Tobias, why wouldn’t you ask him first if he even planned to run?”
“It didn’t matter what your father thought on the matter,” Tobias says coolly, moving back in front of me. God, his eyes are soulless. “He could have been persuaded. The people wanting him to run are wealthy and have more power than I do.”
I shake my head, trying to understand how a man like Tobias, who has all of California at his fingertips, would do something so insane. Dad lived for politics, but to have the stamina to run for president? I couldn’t see it. Besides, Dad had goals, and running the country wasn’t one of them. He enjoyed a nine-to-five job that kept him home most weeks and his weekends free to spend with Mom in Napa Valley. That’s the guy he was.
I keep the thoughts to myself as Tobias adds, “You know your father. If he thought others needed him, he’d step forward.”
Yeah, that is my dad. He’s nothing like the despicable man in front of me. I carefully word my question to get the answer I need. “So your only other option was to try and have him killed?”
“I tried to have him go away quietly. And when that didn’t work, well…” There’s no remorse in his eyes until he adds, “You shouldn’t have showed up at the house. You should have let your father die there, then you wouldn’t be here. You were never the target.”
First, I sigh in utter relief, knowing from his answer that my father’s made it through surgery and is clearly out of danger. Second, I freeze in fear because now I’m in that danger. “But now I am the target?” I hate to ask.
“Now I’m left with little choice,” Tobias says, stance wide, hands again stuffed into his pockets. “Your father would be a martyr. If anyone had doubts about him before, they’d side with him now. He’d be chosen on that fact alone because he’d make the ideal candidate. The public would love a story of the senator who nearly died but fought back to become president.”
I couldn’t even believe my ears and tried to catch up, to understand Tobias’s plan. “And you think this will force him to retire?”
“It may or it may not.”
I see the firmness in his eyes; he’s already decided. And now I see that all that I’ve done to protect myself and my father in the end is going to cost me my life. “Please explain how you think this will work.” I need to stall. I need more time.
Ryder, my heart cries out.
Tobias’s expression is steady and cold. “It’s doubtful he’ll have the support for president now. A grieving father, his supporters won’t believe he could be one hundred percent focused, possibly have poor judgment after all that has happened, and that will weaken his candidacy,” Tobias says, moving off to the side, allowing the other man to step in beside him. “But, at the same time, I’ve come to a realization that time has run out. I can’t take any more chances.”
My heart slows, which even I realize in the situation is unexpected. It must be fear, I tell myself. It’s the worry for my own life, and the realization that I control absolutely nothing in this moment. “What does that mean?” I ask, locked into a stare-down with the man facing me now.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” Tobias says softly, and that’s when my heart doesn’t slow, it kicks up, as he steps back even more. “But your father needs to go away for good. There’s too much heat around all this now, and with the nosy bodyguard digging where he shouldn’t be, I can’t let this go on any longer.”
Time slows, and every movement seems to last a whole minute. Tobias covers his ears as the other man steps forward, and it’s right then that I see he’s wearing a full body coverall.
“No. God. No. Don’t do this!” I beg as he pulls his gun from the holster at his side.
Tobias ignores my pleas and stares at the floor as he adds, “There’s no going back now.”
Then there’s nothing. No Tobias Harrington. No killer. No cold and dismal room.
There’s just me and the gun aimed at my head.
Ryder
I raise my gun, passing by the governor’s BMW parked in front of the abandoned asylum in the south end of the city, and I hurry through the front doors with my team at my back. Once inside, a staircase leads up and down, and I gesture for Shawna and two other team members to move upstairs, as Lee and I will clear downstairs. Logic tells me the basement is the perfect place to hold Hadley—pe
rfect because this building is meant to hold in the sounds of screaming.
Slowly, stair by stair, we make it downstairs, guns aimed at any threats coming our way, as we begin the painstaking task of clearing, room by room. Some are empty. Some are eerily still full of hospital equipment. And one room even has children’s toys. But the silence remains until we reach the end of the hallway. That’s where I hear voices. Not only male voices, but Hadley’s voice is there, too, and it’s exuding fear.
I don’t hesitate. I move swiftly toward the open door.
There’s a lot I can handle as a man. But even I have my limits, and so I burst into the room with Lee at my back. And my limit is reached when I find a gun trained at Hadley’s head for the second time. I can’t even process what it does to me, as it strips all my training and all my logic, sending me into a fury that knows no bounds.
Training tells me to shoot on sight. But the desire to protect calls for action.
I plow into the man holding the weapon at Hadley’s head. I hear Lee behind me bark an order at the governor, but he’s not the threat here. He’s weak, and he’s also not the one I currently want to school. He’s not the man holding a gun, threatening the life of the woman who has claimed my soul.
I lunge forward as he turns, firing off a shot. The sound is deafening in this small space. I leap to the side, but not fast enough, and the bullet grazes my shoulder. I grit my teeth, not allowing the burning of my flesh to steal my focus. I’m on my feet in nearly the same second and lurch forward again, determined to ensure the only person getting hurt here today is the man in front of me.
Hadley’s screaming my name, building more and more fire within. I keep my mind blank, ignoring both the fear and the relief in her voice. I stay focused on the man as we crash to the ground.
He makes his move, attempting to raise the gun. My gun slips from my hand as I grasp his wrists and fight to keep his arms pinned to the cement ground. Though the force of my hands around his ignites his fingers to pull the trigger, and the bullet crashes into the wall, far too close to Hadley.
Done with the use of weapons and relying on my MMA training, I strike a hard blow to his face. Day after day, the stress has been building, and today I plan to release it entirely on the one man who deserves it. This should be a logical decision—knock him out and disable him—though logic can’t stand in comparison to emotion. I want this man to hurt.
I want him to bleed.
Using the rawness staining my soul, I crash my skull against his, causing his head to smack against the cement. His elbow comes up, smashing into my nose. The loud crack and the rush of blood tells me that he’s broken it, but that’s not the first time and I highly doubt it’ll be the last.
I spit the blood from my mouth, groaning as I take another blow to the head. But I manage to finally get the gun out of his hands, although sadly the gun isn’t in my hand either. It slips away from us both and I jump to my feet, ready to pounce.
The other guy gets there first, tackling me to the ground, and I grunt with the force of his weight on mine as I hit the cement. He goes to deliver a punch, but I roll out of the way and dodge the hit, quickly jumping to my feet.
He’s slower this time, and it gives me that split second to see that Lee has his gun trained on the governor’s head, while his knee is pressing into his back, pinning the governor to the ground.
“Do. Not. Kill. Him,” I bark at Lee, right as my opponent starts toward me.
There are still too many unknowns. I need answers not only for myself, but for the senator when he awakes and demands to know why this has happened to his family. For all he’s done I want the governor to suffer in jail, not be let off easy by death.
The hitman attacks again, using the full strength of his muscles, sending us both flying toward the opposite wall, and I nearly see stars. I shake my head, clearing it, not allowing the darkness to take me, hearing a strangled groan above me.
But suddenly, I realize I haven’t injured him, as a crash followed by a piercing scream fills the air. I’m on my feet a second later, greeted by the sight of Hadley lying in the mess of the broken chair, blood pooling along her cheek from an obvious gash on her forehead.
And that’s when I see it. The flash of metal aimed at her head. “Fucking bitch,” the man growls.
I’m sure what happens next is only seconds long, but time seems to halt as I dive for my gun by the door. I have one shot. That’s it. And that shot is either going to come from my gun or my opponent’s.
My fingers wrap around the cool metal as I near the ground, spinning my body and aiming the gun in the guy’s direction. The loud bang echoes painfully off the walls as my arms shake with the power of the gun.
Slowly, his body crumples to the ground.
Then, “Police,” a man shouts, entering the room. “Get on the ground.”
A dozen men rush into the space around me, and I drop to the ground face-first and lace my fingers behind my head, staring at Hadley, unsure if my gun was the only gun that went off.
There’s more blood by her head now than what had been there before. But I don’t know if that’s because she’s made the wound she had worse by tackling the man, or if she’s been shot. I also know better than to move in the presence of police with their guns trained on me, but I shout in nothing short of desperation, “That’s the senator’s daughter. Help her.”
“Don’t move,” a cop says, stepping in behind me, as two more move toward Hadley. “Identify yourself.”
“Ryder Blackwood. Chief of security for Senator Winters.”
“Where is your weapon?” the cop asks, placing his hands over mine on my head.
“Left side of me on the ground.”
The cop moves slowly then and picks up my gun, removing the magazine. “Any other weapons?”
“No, sir.”
A pause.
I look to my left, seeing that Lee has been cleared of his weapon and now the cops are handcuffing the governor.
“All clear, Blackwood,” the cop finally says. “Good work.” I rise to my feet as the cop lowers his assault rifle and gestures to the limp body a few feet away from me. “I take it that’s our perp.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your team disabled another one upstairs.” The cop clicks his radio. “One DOA. We’re all clear here.” He moves to the man, flipping him over onto his back. “We’ve been looking for this guy. FBI has a warrant out for his arrest. From what we’ve heard, he’s a hitman, responsible for over twenty murders throughout North America. The other guy upstairs has a rap sheet a mile long.”
My blood runs cold that Hadley was anywhere near guys like that, when suddenly Alex rushes into the room, grasping my arms, looking me over. “Thank God, you’re all right. I called in the location and explained that we’d found the senator’s shooter when I heard you’d found Hadley.” She smiled, a big proud grin. “I knew a SWAT team was on its way to take down a drug house around the corner, so I intercepted them.”
I cup her shoulder, glad she’d obviously been listening in through my communicator. This situation was much easier to explain with the cops on scene than having to explain it after. “You did the right thing.” But it’s not the cops I want to look at right now. And it’s not Alex, no matter how much I appreciate her. I swiftly move to Hadley lying on the ground, fighting against the shake of my hands.
Two cops are with her; one is checking her pulse. I move in, regardless that my move may be considered inappropriate. “Is she all right?”
“She’s got a strong pulse.” The cop then clicks his radio. “We need EMS in here.”
Both men move away then, and I reach for Hadley’s head, cradling it in my hands, sliding my fingers against the warm stickiness of the blood. “Hadley,” I say softly, seeing movement all around me, but my attention is only on her. “Hadley. Sweetheart. Wake up.”
Her eyes flutter. “Ryder,” she barely whispers.
“You’re safe,” I tell her, my chest finally
relaxing, letting me breathe easier. “I’ve got you.”
Chapter 18
Hadley
Beeping and voices is what I wake to, but sleep has dug its claws into me. I fight against the heaviness of my eyelids, though it’s like a thick blanket rests over my face. Sometimes light comes in, but mostly the darkness remains.
It’s not until the fourth time my eyes open that I realize all the noise has stopped. The view through the window with the yellow curtains tells me it’s morning now and it’s a dreary Monday morning at that. Raindrops beat rhythmically against the window, as I turn my head on the pillow to face the doorway. That’s when I find two warm eyes, making everything better. “Hi,” I say to Ryder.
He gives me a gentle smile, sitting on the edge of the chair, legs spread and elbows resting on his knees. “How are you feeling?” he asks, voice soft.
“Well…” I take an inventory of my body, suddenly realizing a bandage is on my head, and beneath that bandage there’s a deep throb at the back of my skull. “I feel hurt,” I admit, scanning the room from the hospital bed.
Blank yellow-painted walls, horribly uncomfortable pillows, terrible fluorescent lighting; apparently, I’m at the hospital. I think back, trying to recall what’s happened. I remember Ryder showing up in that room. I remember him fighting and wrestling with my captor. And I remember plowing into them, chair and all, trying to help. After that, I’m drawing a blank. “What happened?”
“You bashed your head pretty good when you fell,” he explains, watching me oh-so-carefully. There’s an emotion in his eyes that I can’t quite pinpoint, as he adds, “They gave you ten stitches when you got here.”
That bashed-up head is also a little fuzzy, and when I feel the bandage around my entire head, I try to remember what happened after I attempted my first, and hopefully last, tackle. “God, it’s all a blur. I don’t remember even coming to the hospital.”
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