Were they a private company?
Did they know who we really were?
We took a turn down a service hallway. The sounds of other passengers milling around in the airport drew farther and farther away as we moved to the end of the hall and stopped in front of a metal door. Xavier’s guards moved aside and pulled him up against the wall with them while the one on my right side stepped forward and swiped a plastic card through the automatic lock mounted on the wall beside the door. A soft click sounded as the door unlocked. He pushed the door open and held it.
The other guard beside me grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me inside.
I turned back to Xavier as we passed him.
He must have known how badly I wanted to say something. Anything. Because his hard gaze told me to hold my tongue, so I passed through the door without uttering a word, and held his gaze until it was closed between us, cutting us off from each other, and leaving me alone with the two guards.
The one holding me pulled me to the metal table in the room. Upon it was a white plate piled high with glazed donuts. Beside the donuts was a cup of coffee accompanied by mini creams, sugars, and a plastic spoon.
I was pushed down into one of the chairs.
Then the two guards moved to stand on either side of the door.
I glared at them. “What the hell is this about?”
Neither of them even bothered to look at me.
Was I that weak? Did I not even deserve their eye contact?
I got to my feet. “Answer me. You can’t keep me here without reason. I know my rights. Open the door.”
“Sit down, miss.”
“No,” I spat, rushing forward and pointing a finger up into the face of the man who’d spoken. He was tall. Nearly as tall as Xavier. With cropped blond hair, unfeeling green eyes, and shoulders nearly as wide as the doorway itself. “Tell me what I’m doing here. Tell me where you’ve taken my husband.”
Tell me he’s safe.
He arched a thick blond eyebrow at me. “Sit. Down.”
I had half a mind to stomp my foot. But that wouldn’t help things. That was something the old me would have done. I was not that girl anymore.
I was the girl who’d been through hell and back already, and these assholes weren’t going to intimidate me.
No. Fucking. Way.
I scrunched up my nose and planted my fists on my hips. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, asshole.”
“Violet Wynn,” he said casually.
I could feel the color draining from my face.
He smirked. “I suggest you do as I say and put your ass in that chair.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Sit down, Miss Wynn.”
“Who do you work for?” I practically screamed at him.
He remained as impenetrable as ever.
Shaking with anger and fear, I stomped back to the table and stood beside it. I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of sitting. I would hold on to some semblance of defiance for as long as I could.
The other guard was still ignoring me. He seemed completely disinterested in me while his partner rolled his shoulders in amusement.
Jerks.
The both of them.
Where the hell had they taken Xavier? What were they doing to him? Were they hurting him? Was I over thinking all of this and just on high alert because I’d been running for my life?
And who the hell were ‘they’ anyway?
The urge to suddenly curl up into a ball on the floor in one corner of the room became overwhelming. Instead, I drew my arms tight around myself and stared at the cement ground and tried to think of something I could do to find out where Xavier was.
There was a soft knock at the door.
My muscles tightened and I stood stiller than stone as the two men on either side of the door stepped aside. Then the door swung slowly inward, an audible groan of metal on metal came from the hinges, and the two guards stepped back out into the hall.
Part of me hoped it would be Xavier walking through that door.
Naively, I prayed he would take my hand and lead me back through the airport to our gate, where we would patiently wait for our flight to Madrid, board the plane, order a glass of champagne, and sit back while we flew overseas and far away from this place.
But I knew it would not be Xavier stepping through that door.
I was still surprised when the man who filled up the doorframe smiled at me and cocked his head to the side.
“Violet,” my father said, his voice warm and full of relief. “My girl. I’m sorry you had to wait for me.”
The door closed behind him.
My tongue became glued to the roof of my mouth.
My father was dressed in a gray suit. I could smell him from here. Musk, cigar smoke, and cedar. He looked worn and tired, more so than I ever recalled, and his smile was wary as he stepped closer and spread his arms in a hug that he probably expected me to fall into.
I did not.
Staying exactly in place, I was rooted to the spot by the floor like my feet had melted into the concrete.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” My father asked. His arms slowly lowered to his sides.
“How did you find me?” I whispered.
He let out a soft chuckle that he might have intended to be reassuring. It was not. The hair on the nape of my neck stood up and warning bells started shrieking in the back of my head.
I wasn’t scared for myself.
Xavier was in big trouble.
Wherever he was, he was certainly not safe. Not if my father had a hand in this.
Hell. He might not even be breathing.
Don’t think like that, I thought sharply as my father reached for me, took my forearm, and gently pulled me to him for a hug. It was impossible for me to relax in his embrace and he picked up on the tension and held me at arm’s length to peer into my face.
“Are you alright, Violet? Tell me that heathen hasn’t hurt you.”
“Heathen?” I whispered, my breath hitching in my throat.
My father smiled softly. The corners of his eyes crinkled. “You’re safe now, Violet. He can’t hurt you. He can’t come anywhere near you ever again. I’ll not let any harm befall you. You’re safe.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
My father’s eyes narrowed. It was a miniscule expression, so small and so quickly I almost missed it. He cupped my cheek. “You need rest, Violet. Come. We can talk of things later once you’re home and comfortable. Let’s get you out of this place.”
I jerked away from him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Violet.”
“No,” I said hurriedly, taking several steps back until I was pressed up against the far wall. I had as much space between us as I could manage and it still wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
Where was Xavier? What were they doing to him?
Correction. What had my father arranged for them to do to him?
My heart beat wildly and my fingertips went numb. My lips felt swollen and heat rushed to my face and all I could taste was the bitterness in the air.
Then I realized it was fear that I tasted. Unbridled, wicked, all consuming fear.
You might not ever see him again.
“Let’s go home, Violet.” My father came toward me again.
“I’m not going anywhere without him,” I said.
“Without who?”
“Xavier. I won’t leave without him. You can’t force me.”
My father’s smile stretched into a grin that I had never seen on his face before. “Oh, don’t worry about him, sweetheart. He’s coming with us. You can be sure of that.”
Chapter Seventeen
Xavier
My ears were ringing.
It hurt.
A lot.
And the world was spinning end over end in a swirl of darkness that I couldn’t navigate. My tongue tasted like copper and wherever I was smelled like bleach, gasoline, an
d latex.
I knew long before I fully gained consciousness that I wasn’t going to be opening my eyes to a comforting sight.
I was right.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at a damp brick wall about six feet in front of me. Between me and the wall was an empty steel chair that appeared to be identical to the one I was sitting in.
No. Correction. It was identical to the one I was tied to.
There were shackles around my ankles and the legs of the chair. My wrists were bound to the armrests with layers upon layers of duct tape. There was a belt or a strap of some sort around my waist and chest that held me in place against the back of the chair. And it was fucking tight.
The room still spun too much when I turned my head to the side to get a better look at my surroundings, so I slowed things down and stared dead ahead at the brick wall and waited for things to settle down.
I’d taken a hit to the head at some point. That much was obvious.
I mentally checked other body parts. I had full motion in my hands. No broken fingers or bones there. My arms were good. Shoulders, check.
Nothing appeared to be damaged. There was just the ear splitting headache and the foul taste of copper in the back of my throat that suggested there’d been blood in my mouth at some point. Or the hit to the head had been so severe that I was imagining the taste of blood.
I didn’t know which was preferable.
How had I ended up here? And where exactly was that? I certainly wasn't in the airport interrogation room anymore.
Right. The airport. The guards.
Violet.
I strained at the bonds on my wrists but they didn’t give. With a deep breath I tried to calm myself down. Panicking now wasn’t going to help me, or Violet. I had to figure out where I was and how long I’d been there before I figured out what to do next.
Going over the events I could remember, I tried to piece things together. Flashes of jumbled memories bounced around in my head until I was able to pick them apart and start making sense of them.
I remembered the guards separating us. I remembered the way she looked at me right before they closed the door on her, cutting her off from me. And I remembered being ushered back down the hall through another door into an interrogation room, where I was pushed down into a chair and told to sit and wait.
The four guards waited with me. I replayed the scene in my mind.
One of the guards in the far corner kept eyeing me. He was nervous, I could tell. Which meant he knew exactly who I was and what I’d done.
I leaned back in the chair and looked around at the four of them.
They were all casting nervous looks my way.
If we weren’t in a confined space and the door hadn’t been locked behind us, I might have tried to take them on. But I was woefully outnumbered and still injured, and there was no telling who was coming down that hall to see me. Things could end very badly if I decided to go ape shit in here.
And they had Violet. I couldn’t risk them hurting her if I tried to get loose.
I nodded at the guard by the door. “Who do you work for?”
“Shut up,” he growled.
“What’s this about?”
“I said shut up,” the guard said, taking a step closer to me.
Clenching my jaw, I lightened my tone. ”Listen man, you’ve got the wrong guy. My girl and I were just heading to Madrid for our honeymoon, and—”
“Cut the shit,” the guard said, barely affording me a glance. “We know who you are and don’t give a damn about the rest of it. We were sent to bring you and the girl in alive. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re just waiting for our ride.”
“Who sent you?”
He glared at me.
One of the guards lifted a hand to his ear and spoke into his earpiece. “Yes sir. We have him. Yes. She’s safe. Unharmed, it would seem.”
I had a bad feeling about this.
The guard continued speaking into his earpiece. “Very well, sir. We have it with us. We’ll see you in ten.”
And that’s when the largest of the four guards had rushed me and stabbed me in the side of the neck with a needle.
He smelled like mustard and bologna.
Hot serum raced through my veins and I responded as I usually do in those situations: with rage. I elbowed the man holding me in the gut. He doubled over with a grunt and I shoved him out of the way with the sole of my boot on his hip—a movement that took more effort than I expected. The serum they’d injected me with was slowing me down already. The guard stumbled into the wall as the other three converged upon me.
They wasted little time.
Pain erupted in the back of my head and I went to my knees. Darkness crept into the corners of my vision and little stars exploded behind my eyelids. I tried to shake the dizziness but it stayed put.
When I tried to push myself up to my feet, they struck me again.
And again.
At some point, oblivion took me.
Right. The injection.
The cowards hadn’t even bothered to make it a fair fight. They’d just taken me down with a little needle and probably packed me up like luggage and toted me out of the airport and into the trunk of a car and brought me here.
Which brought me right back around to where I’d started.
I opened my eyes.
“Where the hell is here?” I breathed.
There was still dizziness and pain when I turned my head, but I ignored it. The room I was in was small. Maybe fifteen feet wide by thirty feet long. Give or take. There was nothing in the room besides me and the second empty chair. The only light was that provided by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling on a long cord. I suspected I was in a basement of some sort, or part of a basement. This small space could double as a wine cellar perhaps. There was no natural light of any kind and it could just as easily have been midday as midnight.
I tugged to no avail at the duct tape on my wrists until I was out of breath and red in the face. The strain made my head hurt and it felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my skull.
So I relaxed and cursed the concussion I was positive I had.
I couldn’t catch a fucking break.
Neither could Violet.
Where the hell was she? Did the guards still have her back at the airport? How long had we been apart for? Hours? Days? Was she safe?
Was she alive?
I grit my teeth. I couldn’t ask those sorts of questions right now. I had to keep my head on straight. This was do or die time, and not the first time I’d woken up in a strange place tied to a chair.
It wasn’t the third, either.
Jesus. I needed water.
The dryness of my tongue, the ache in my throat and the tightness in my stomach told me I hadn’t had anything to drink in a while.
So it had definitely been longer than just a few hours.
I’d been sitting here for at least ten, if I had to guess.
And who knows how long it had taken to get here, wherever that was.
Licking my lips, I tried to ignore the taste of blood.
The lock in the door behind the chair in front of me suddenly slid in a circle. I watched, fingers tightening on the armrests, as the door slowly swung open. A guard in a dark suit stood on the other side. I peered around him, not caring who he was, but hoping I could get my bearings with just a little more information.
All I could see past him was a long hallway lit with fluorescent ceiling lights. At the far end, one of them flickered unreliably.
Then came the sound of footsteps.
Slow, steady, even.
A man appeared at the far end of the hall. He had a gray moustache, broad shoulders, and carried himself with an air of power. His hands were in the pockets of gray slacks that matched his suit jacket, and I recognized him immediately.
Jonah Wynn.
Fuck me sideways.
Jonah came to a stop at the door, nodded at the guard,
and stepped inside. The guard closed and locked the door behind him.
Jonah stared at me and I stared back.
Then he unbuttoned his jacket, swung around the empty chair before me, and took a seat. He fished a cigar out of the breast pocket of his jacket along with a lighter, then lit it while he crossed one leg over the other. He took a couple long draws to get the cigar smoking, and then held it out to me. “Puff?”
I narrowed my eyes at him as smoke rose in front of my face.
“Suit yourself,” Jonah said, settling into his chair to get more comfortable. He took a few more draws of his cigar as he looked me over. “You’ve certainly had a rough few weeks, haven’t you, Xavier?”
I kept my mouth shut.
Jonah chuckled. “Well, I suppose I’m not surprised. My daughter can give any man a run for his money. Even an expert assassin like yourself.”
My silence didn’t seem to ruffle his feathers.
Jonah smiled at me. “You’re in a pretty bad spot, son. I know everything. And, lucky for you, I’m a very wealthy man who was able to track you down before you cost my daughter her life.”
“Her life was jeopardized because of you,” I growled.
“Perhaps. But she’s safe now. And I know all I need to. I know about your parents. And how they died. And I know you took Violet’s punch card because you wanted vengeance on me.” His lips parted to reveal his white teeth. “But she won you over, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t deserve to die.”
“You’re right. She’s innocent. And she’s the only good thing I’ve ever made. I’m sure we can both agree on that, at least.”
I agreed. But I wasn’t going to say anything.
Jonah took another drag. “So here we are. I have my daughter back safe and sound. And I have you. The Shades number one target.”
“They’ll come for me.”
“I’m counting on it. In exchange for your capture, the Shades were willing to take the mark off my daughter. All I have to do is hand you over to them when they arrive. Lucky for me, they never specified what condition you had to be in when they received you, and I don’t think Arman will mind if you and I have a bit of fun before he shows up. What do you think, Xavier? Do you want to play ball?”
Dark Lover: Sins of the Night Page 10