Walking away from him before he had the chance to say anything else, Zara travelled the familiar route to the CI building. Staying on the edge of the pavement near the streetlights, she made a point of smiling at everyone she passed in hopes they would remember her if something unthinkable happened to her and they found themselves making a statement to police. Zara knew she was being paranoid, but with Grant’s odd behavior and everything Raven had said, the possibility that something bad could happen was a recurring theme in her thoughts.
Using her security codes, she got into the CI complex and assumed that the night guard was on his rounds when she didn’t see him at his desk. This was a nice time of night to be in CI. Usually it was a bustling hive of activity on the lower floors. Now it was quiet, still, and safe—the subdued emergency lighting was her only companion. The motion sensors, which activated the main lights, took a few seconds to register her movement. Once they did, the lights flickered on in her wake after she’d passed through each section.
The executive floor was cool because the usual ambient heat from lights and bodies had been abating since quitting time yesterday when the full staff departed. The lights on this floor were off because she deactivated the motion sensors at night before she left.
Heading in the direction of her own modest office, she passed the executive reception desk, and went behind the silver screen that blocked Grant’s office from passing eyes. Her office was small, but located adjacent to Grant’s in a testament to how impatient he was when he needed her.
Zara slowed when she noticed that the blinds over the internal glass wall of Grant’s corner office were closed. They’d been open when she left a couple of hours ago. The four walls of his office were smoked glass, so she should have a broad view over the buildings surrounding CI. Instead, she only saw the outside of his blinds.
Trying to decipher who could have closed them, she came up with only one candidate: Grant. Her fingerprint was one of two that opened his door. Even the cleaning staff was only allowed in when either she or her superior were present. Confusion and intrigue only grew the nearer she got because the door was actually open, which was another oddity. Either they were being robbed, or Grant was here.
She couldn’t think of what could be so important to bring her boss into work at this time of night, especially on a weekend. But Grant didn’t scare her, so her paranoia eased. Her boss didn’t even kill the spiders that snuck onto the top floor despite their lack of security clearance, so he’d never hurt her. The prickle of panic that had heated the back of her neck began to subside.
Heading toward the door, she planned to find out why he was here and to offer assistance with whatever he was working on. But when she heard the rumble of an unfamiliar male voice, she slowed, and came to a stop beside the vacant outer assistant’s desk. The woman who sat out here during daylight hours was tasked with wrangling those waiting to see Grant, a job that Zara didn’t envy.
Her suspicion about Grant being here was confirmed when his voice followed the stranger’s. The warmth of her panic began to rise again. Craning to hear more, she narrowed her eyes and concentrated.
“No deal,” Grant said.
“I want both,” the unfamiliar voice said. She knew her job and who Grant was working with and that voice didn’t belong to any of their clients or colleagues.
The men weren’t exactly arguing because no one’s voice was raised, but their conflict leached from their hostile inflections. “Kahlil, I told you not to come here,” Grant said with the air of a man who had better things to do. “You interrupted my night for a meeting that should not be taking place. If your boss thinks he can threaten or intimidate me then he’s underestimated who he’s dealing with.”
“No, Mr. McCormack,” Kahlil said, speaking with ominous urgency. “We know exactly who we’re dealing with. Don’t forget who started this.”
Zara didn’t want to miss any hints about what they were talking about. Silencing her own thoughts and emotions, she absorbed their words.
Grant became stern. “You weren’t the only one who got the offer, and until I’m satisfied there won’t be a deal.”
“What you’re offering will change the course of the future,” Kahlil said, ambitious and declarative. “Don’t pretend you’re naïve to that. You don’t want to upset your buyer.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Grant sneered. “It’s been considered, you buy from me, and the contracts will be ironclad. If you try to come after me I’ll blow the whistle and ruin you.”
“Ruining yourself too.”
“Better that than dead,” Grant said. “You think I’ll do business with a man I can’t trust?”
“You said you perfected the kill switch,” Kahlil said.
“Yeah,” Grant said. “Don’t forget that.”
“You can trust us. Just don’t think that you can disrespect us. We protect ourselves too.”
Their grandstanding betrayed how unintimidated they were by each other. But without knowing exactly what they were talking about, or who Kahlil was, Zara had no way to know if she herself should be scared or if their composed aplomb was genuine.
Grant cleared his throat. “You called this meeting. If you’re losing your nerve—”
“We want to bring negotiations to a close. Name your price.”
Holding her breath, Zara almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. CI had no official business with this Kahlil, of that she was sure. Raven had been right; there was some sort of deal going down. Kahlil wanted what she assumed Grant was selling. Grant had told her Albert Sutcliffe would be calling. With him and Kahlil in the running, there were at least two parties going head to head over this elusive product.
“You’re impatient,” Grant said in a superior drawl. “That concerns me.”
A bang made her jump and she guessed someone had hit the desk. “What do you expect to happen while you’re dicking around? You have a product and we want to buy it. I foresee no issues with the transaction.”
“I like a man who can hold his wad,” Grant said. “Take that back to your boss, Kahlil.”
This clandestine meeting was not meant for her ears and if Grant caught her out here eavesdropping then he may question her loyalty. Despite this suspicious behavior, the Grant she knew was rational and moral. Storming in to make accusations could embarrass him in front of this Kahlil, and she didn’t want a confrontation.
Zara had no memory of a client named Kahlil ever being associated with CI and Grant always called her before unexpected or last minute meetings, even the private ones. Clueing her in on all meetings meant he wouldn’t forget anything and could call on her for information he hadn’t retained.
When Grant and Kahlil’s conversation tailed off, she began to back away. Remaining as quiet as she could, Zara got around the screen and went straight to the elevator. The night guard would be finished with his rounds by now, so if she went out the main entrance, he would recognize her, meaning he could identify her to Grant. Zara didn’t want her boss questioning her ethics when he found out she’d eavesdropped on his meeting. Determined not to reveal her presence, she selected the parking garage floor and began to descend.
The elevator doors whooshed open and she strode onto the dark parking floor, which was deserted at this time of night. Rounding the pillars flanking the executive parking area, she was heading for the pedestrian exit on the far side of the space where she could input a security code to release herself from the building unseen.
What she didn’t expect to see was a vehicle parked in the executive area that didn’t belong to Grant. The dark car didn’t belong to the person whose spot it was in either, and the nearer to it she got, the more uneasy she became. Up and down, she was riding the adrenaline rollercoaster again—the building she’d previously considered a sanctuary had become unsafe.
Carrying on through the echoing concrete cavern, Zara fixed the glowing exit sign in her sights and kept on walking. Dull emergency lighting glowed as her only means o
f illumination and she just kept on going, trying to get to the exit as quickly as she could while ignoring the car she hoped was vacant.
The click of a car door opening quickened her pulse and revealed to her that she wasn’t alone. The beat of her heels on the floor sped up. The thump of her heart vibrated her limbs until her fingers throbbed. A figure rose from the far side of the anonymous vehicle and her vision began to blur. Hopes of an easy escape dwindled when the car door closest to her opened as well and a second male appeared.
“What are you doing here so late?” the man furthest from her asked as he rounded the car to meet his buddy by the trunk. Both of them had tanned skin and dark hair, suggesting Middle Eastern ancestry, but his accent was American without any foreign nuance.
Neither of the men was familiar to her, so she doubted they knew who she was. Except she couldn’t pretend not to hear them or feign ignorance that they were talking to her, because there was no one else around.
“I’m just leaving,” she called. Keeping her focus ahead, she continued on her trek, determined to reach her freedom. Her destination shrank into the distance. None of her strides seemed to bring her closer to the door, which had never appeared so far away.
“Didn’t answer the question,” one of them said as both closed in on her.
No, she didn’t and she wouldn’t because she had no explanation. “Why are you here?” she asked. Turning the tables on them, she prayed that her direct question would prompt them to retreat. It was doubtful they wanted to reveal why they were here.
But they weren’t that easily deterred and kept on coming toward her. When they blocked her route, she was forced to stop. Zara tried to side step, but the men moved in time with her attempts to dodge them.
“Don’t run away,” the one on the left said, while the other circled to cut off a rear escape. “We’re here with our boss. He’ll want to know who saw us.”
She didn’t want to panic; it was obvious that these assailants enjoyed seeing her squirm. If she screamed out or cried, they would get a kick out of her torment, which might trigger them into doing God knew what with her.
Suppressing her fear didn’t mean she was looking to provoke them, so she tried to allay their supposed concerns. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, but it was obvious they were some kind of security for Kahlil. Both were muscular and had a keenness about them that made her cautious. Bodyguards who had not gone with their protectee had to be edgy. Their decision to descend on her proved that they were itching to start trouble.
“What matters is that you’ve seen us,” the guy in front of her said. “And that poses a problem for our boss. We don’t like to be seen. That’s why we operate in the cloak of night.”
The guy behind her laughed. “The cloak of night, I like that,” he said. He was so close that his breath moved her hair at the crown of her head. She held her breath, with little choice except to remain in this sandwiched position.
Reminding herself of where she was, she found some of her gumption because it was ridiculous to suggest she’d done anything wrong when they were the ones here for some dark purpose. “If you’d stayed in your car, I wouldn’t have known you were here,” Zara said. At CI she was respected and dealt with awkward clients all the time, she couldn’t let them push her around here on home turf. “I’m important in this institution, so whatever you’re thinking about doing—”
A thick forearm came around her throat, forcing her to swallow her words as she was pinned to the man behind her. The one in front pulled out a switchblade and grazed the tip from the groove of her throat down to her cleavage.
Whispering his words, he was so close that he had to feel her trembling. “We’re going to make sure you stay quiet,” he said.
“How do you plan to do that?” she asked, the fog of each quivering pant moistened the air, but she held eye contact, determined not to be overcome by fear.
Resting a hand on his cohort’s shoulder, the man in front leaned in. “I’m going to show you what we can do. When we’re through with you, you won’t think about ratting us out. Your pretty head will be filled with so much horror that you’ll be scared to open those sugar lips ever again. Hope your boyfriend doesn’t come after me when you stop sucking his dick.”
Grabbing the back of her neck, he kept the knife in her cleavage and wrenched her forward, trying to force his mouth over hers. Adrenaline surged and Zara pursed her lips as she tried to twist away from the disgusting advance. Her attempts to shove him away only made him struggle to keep her close, using his partner as the wall to restrain her against. But she wouldn’t give in to this violation without a fight, she’d been standing up to strong, bullying men all of her life.
If she couldn’t get rid of the guy in front then a rear departure was needed. Knowing that they weren’t expecting her to, she reversed her fortune by reversing their roles. Using the man in front as her wall, she pushed, causing the one at her back to give out.
He recovered quickly, but their brief second of confusion gave her enough space to duck down and twist, to squeeze her body out from between them.
On her hands and knees, she tried to scramble away. One of them kicked her thigh then her ankle in a half-kick gone awry. Curling to protect herself, she fell onto her side in a roll, and tried to think.
Getting out of this wouldn’t be easy, she could go to the rear exit and maybe find a friend, or she could be running into a deserted alley, giving these men the perfect opportunity to do what they wanted with her. Going back upstairs would mean facing Grant and Kahlil, but that relied on the elevator arriving before these men caught up with her, which was unlikely.
The sound of a punch, then a thump put a stop to further assault. As her frightened thoughts sharpened, she unfurled her body to seek out the cause of her reprieve.
One of her attackers was flat on the ground. The second was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a tall man, dressed in black wearing a hooded leather jacket.
They punched and kicked, but she was mesmerized by the slick movements of the man in the hood. Both were trained, that much was obvious from the way they blocked blows and weaved around each other. In comparison, there was something so easy about the way the hooded man moved, about the deftness of his maneuvers. The other guy seemed frazzled and overwhelmed, but the guy in the black hood was calculated, moving only just as much as he needed to.
After blocking a punch, the hooded man landed his own hit. When his opponent staggered sideways, he curved a strong leg around to take his victim off his feet onto his back on the concrete with such force that he didn’t get back up.
Both of her attackers were on the ground, groaning or twitching, so she knew they were alive, but they weren’t in any hurry to fight again. The hooded man stalked over to her and held out a hand.
Bewildered, she just gawped at the hand as she tried to get her thoughts straight. “Get up,” he said. All she could see was the stubble on his defined chin and jaw. She didn’t know who this crusader was and taking the hand of a man so capable could be a transformative decision.
Being vigilant instead of hasty, she stayed on the ground. Her weight-supporting hands and ass were getting cold on the asphalt because her skirt had ridden up during the tussle, but she couldn’t throw her lot in with a stranger who could be as dangerous as the men who had just attacked her.
Her hesitation was noted by the stranger. He raised his hand to the back of his head to tug his hood back a couple of inches, just enough that the shadow lifted from his eyes and she recognized the man from the taxi rear-view mirror staring back at her. Shock made her mouth drop open, she’d been in trouble and Raven had materialized to rescue her.
“Zara, come on,” he said.
The edge of impatience in his voice was probably attributable to the residual adrenaline in his bloodstream from the confrontation, except he displayed no indication that he was harried. Raven, it turned out was true to his word. He’d said he was going to protect her and he’d just s
aved her from a situation she’d never have been able to get out of on her own. Nothing bad had ever happened to her when Raven was around and he’d proved he was capable of keeping her safe.
Gratitude made her snatch his hand, even though he was no longer offering it, and Zara scrambled up in preparation to run away with him. But when her weight landed on her feet, her legs gave way causing her to fall into his unyielding form.
His arm came around her ribs, beneath her arms, to hold her up. “What’s the problem?” he asked, keeping an eye on the men who were beginning to show signs of getting up.
“My ankle,” she said, keeping the weight off her injured leg. “I think I sprained it or—”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, displaying no concern for her pain or interest in her explanation. Dipping to hook his arm under her legs, her feet didn’t touch the ground when he swept her out of the parking garage and into the dark lane outside.
This was a pedestrian access, so there weren’t meant to be vehicles parked here, there never had been before. But he dropped her onto the back of a monstrous black motorcycle that was standing up in the narrow space.
“Hold on to me,” he said, taking his seat up front and kicking the bike into gear.
Placing her hands on his sides, there was no time to tell him that she hadn’t done this before. He grabbed her wrists and forced them all the way around his torso, merging their bodies. Her instinct to withdraw was quashed when he revved the engine and roared forward. The momentum made her clamp her elbows and her knees into him and all thoughts of polite decorum went out the window.
The vibrations of the vehicle, and the heat that began to permeate, stimulated her. With the tumultuous emotions caused by this eventful night, she struggled to pinpoint the source of her blood pressure increase. It could come from fear, arousal, or maybe something else. The rush of wind as they wound through the streets loosened her hair but she didn’t let go of him, she didn’t decrease her grip for a second.
Raven (Kindred #1) Page 5