by Zara Chase
After that Troy assessed his surroundings and was confronted by a barred window and a locked door. Great, just great! He looked up. The only outlet was a grid covering a utilities duct. Troy sighed. It looked as though he was going to have to do this the hard way.
He, too, carried a useful little gadget similar to the one that Porcha had used to effect her escape. His was sewn into a seam in his pants and had been missed when they frisked him. He extracted it from its hiding place and set to work on the screws that held the grid in place. He had nothing to stand on and could only just reach it by stretching up. Using his injured right arm was out of the question, and it felt awkward trying to prise loose tight screws without the right tool, using the wrong hand, and not being able to exert enough pressure from below. Still, what else was there to do to pass the time?
All the time he worked he thanked every deity he could name for Porcha’s safety. The unbelievable had happened. He’d fallen deeply and passionately in love with the feisty Englishwoman and would give his life without a second thought if it meant she remained safe.
But she wasn’t safe, he reminded himself, applying himself to the task in hand with renewed vigour. For reasons that escaped Troy, Sanchez-Punto was resolutely determined to find Sal’s diamonds and wasn’t letting anything stand in his way. Even if Troy got out of this, Porcha would never be safe until they either located the stones or neutralized Sanchez-Punto.
It took almost two hours of painstaking labor, but finally the grid fell free. Troy caught it before it could hit the floor, his good arm now aching almost as much as the injured one. Okay, now for the hard part. He had to haul himself one armed into that narrow space, crawl through it, and hope like hell that the other end didn’t come out in the guards’ main room. That would be just his luck.
Troy was grateful for all those hours spent in the gym when he managed to pull himself up at the first attempt with relative ease. The only problem was that the space was crowded with electric cables and air-conditioning paraphernalia, leaving little or no space for a man of his size—especially a man nursing an injury—to crawl.
With a deep sigh, he set about it anyway. He’d come through worse situations than this one, and no way was he beaten yet. He couldn’t see a thing in the dark, confined space and had to feel his way with his good hand. It was impossible to protect his injured arm as he crawled along on his belly, ripping his skin on the rough rafters and protruding nailheads as he went. At one stage, he banged his injury so hard against a misaligned beam that he almost passed out from the pain. He cursed when he felt fresh blood seeping through the dressing but concentrated on the task in hand—on surviving.
At last he could detect faint light coming literally from the end of the tunnel. The fact that it was an electric light wasn’t good news. It meant he’d emerge in a room that was in use. If it was permanently occupied then he was fucked, because it could only be a matter of time before he was missed, and even these idiots wouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out where he had to be.
The end of the tunnel was covered by another grid. If this one was screwed down as well then he might as well admit defeat. He peered through the grating and found it came out into a bathroom. It was currently unoccupied but had to be in fairly frequent use or the light wouldn’t have been left on. He could hear voices coming from a nearby room and the slap of cards against a wooden table. The guards were amusing themselves and not bothering to check on him. At last something had gone right.
Troy cautiously tested the grating by awkwardly twisting himself round in the slightly wider space at the end of the tunnel and pushing it with his feet. Much to his relief, it shifted. Presumably the one in the room he’d been in had been screwed into place to prevent any unwilling guests such as himself from escaping.
Nice try, scumbags.
About to pull the grill sideways into the tunnel to prevent it from falling onto the tiled floor beneath, Troy froze with it midway out of its housing when a burly guy appeared in the bathroom below. Had he heard a noise and come to investigate? If he glanced up he wouldn’t be able to avoid noticing that the grill was missing. Worse, Troy realized, a steady stream of blood was leaking from his arm and dripping onto the bathroom floor. He hastily inched his way back a little, hoping his body would soak up the blood and prevent anymore getting through. There was absolutely nothing else he could do to protect his position, other than to pray.
The guy peed for what seemed like an eternity, and Troy remained stock-still in his cramped hiding place, not moving so much as a muscle. Finally, he finished, zipped up, and left the bathroom. Fortunately, he wasn’t into hygiene. If he’d paused to wash his hands, he would almost certainly have noticed the bloody floor behind him in the mirror.
Troy gave him a moment to get clear and then awkwardly lowered himself into the bathroom. He made more noise than he was comfortable with, but something seemed to have gone his way for once and no one came to investigate.
The bathroom led directly into an upstairs corridor. A room to the right obviously contained the card-playing guards. The door was ajar, and Troy was fairly confident he could get past it without being seen. The problem was, how did he get out of the house? Presumably they’d left someone on guard downstairs.
Only one way to find out. Troy, feeling dehydrated and light-headed, crept stealthily along the corridor, pausing when he got to the door of the card room. He waited until a roar of laughter covered any noise he might make and slid past the door in one swift movement, expecting to be challenged at any moment.
His heart rate returned to a more normal rate when it didn’t happen. He paused at the head of the stairs, listening for sounds from below, but all was quiet. He couldn’t afford to linger in such an exposed place and cautiously made his way down, treading on the outside of the steps to avoid making them creak. There was only one light on in the hall and no signs of life. Troy was absolutely convinced that an alarm would sound if he opened the front door. Tough, because wasting time looking for an alternative exit wasn’t an option, nor was searching for a weapon.
Feeling exposed and vulnerable, he stepped forward and slipped the bolts back on the door, at the same time turning the key. He slipped through it just as a blaring alarm sounded and ran as fast as he could into the black night.
He could hear his pursuers shouting and slamming through the door behind him. It was essential to put distance between himself and them. Unfortunately, Troy didn’t know the area, but he kept as much as he could to narrow alleyways and dark spaces. He heard a car engine start but didn’t delude himself into thinking that they’d only follow him by car. This crew—or one much like it—had already fucked up by losing Porcha. They must be aware that their boss was all out of patience with them and couldn’t afford to let Troy escape.
He actually thought he’d shaken them off, until he caught a glimpse of one of them at the opposite end of the alley he was in. He prayed the guy would be too lazy to enter the narrow passageway. If he did, Troy was dead, because there was nowhere to run.
The guy entered the alley.
Troy didn’t stop to think. There was a large Dumpster just to one side of him. He dove into it, ground his teeth as pain ricocheted through his arm, pulled trash over his head, and tried not to breathe.
Either the guy hadn’t actually seen Troy in the alley or he was a complete moron. Either way, he didn’t look inside the Dumpster. Sanchez-Punto really needed to take a closer look at the caliber of goons he employed. Troy gave it five minutes and hauled himself out, covered in his own blood and smelling like a sewer rat. Not that he gave a shit. He was alive, and that was all that counted.
When he considered it safe to do so, he drifted toward a bigger road, hoping to find a place where he could call for the cavalry. The few people he passed on foot gave him a wide berth, for which he was grateful. Unsure where he was heading, feeling weak from loss of blood, Troy staggered on until he noticed a brightly lit building directly ahead.
A hos
pital. Wonderful!
He worked his way around to the entrance to the emergency room and slipped into the crowded waiting area. In this situation, a man covered in blood wasn’t quite so conspicuous. A few people twitched their noses as he passed them, but other than that, no one gave him a second glance.
He found what he was looking for on the corner of the reception desk. He kept out of the way of the harassed staff working the desk, gauging his moment. When their attention was temporarily diverted, he snatched the telephone receiver with his good hand and rang Adam’s cell.
Chapter Nineteen
“I still find all this rather surreal,” Porcha said, regarding Woollard with a little less hostility. “Someone should have said something.”
“I know that.” Woollard shrugged. “I thought you ought to be told, but Sal was having none of it.”
“Even so, I—”
Porcha stopped talking when Adam’s cell rang. He looked at the display but clearly didn’t recognize the number. He answered it anyway, his entire body jerking to rigid attention when he heard who was on the other end.
“Troy. Where are you?” he asked.
Porcha gasped. “What’s happening?”
“We told you he’d be all right,” Beck said, grinning inanely.
“Hang in there, buddy,” Adam said. “We’re on our way.”
“Where is he?” Porcha felt relief bubbling inside her. “Is he all right?”
Adam and Beck were already on their feet. “Miami,” Adam said. “How long?”
“It’s eighty miles,” Beck told him. “I’ll get us there in under an hour.”
“I’m coming, too,” Porcha insisted.
Adam looked as though he was about to argue, but in the end he simply nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
“You need me to come?” Woollard asked.
“No, we’ve got it, but we’ll come back here when we have Troy. We need to get this thing with Sanchez-Punto sorted.”
“I’ll be here. Good luck.”
Adam programmed the name of the hospital into the GPS as Beck hit the highway. Porcha sat in the back, admiring the way her two guys rode to the rescue of their best buddy with professional competence and little need for dialogue. In spite of the mess they were in, she felt safe and protected just by being here with them. More than that, she felt cherished, appreciated, and loved. Yes, loved. She instinctively knew that either one of them would have done what Troy did and sacrificed themselves to ensure her safety, and not just because they were assigned to take care of her. Unless she missed her guess, their feelings had gone beyond professional integrity, as had hers for them.
She examined the backs of their heads, resisting the urge to reach out and touch them both. They had their minds set on rescuing Troy, and rightly so. They didn’t need any distractions from her. Porcha breathed an inaudible sigh. How could she explain to all three of them that she would have done the same for them? There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind on that score, because she understood now what love really meant. Not the suffocating, restrictive sort of love that Sal had shown her and which was the only type she’d experienced until she met these three. What she felt for them went far deeper, was more intense and so absolutely right that it felt as though everything she’d done in her life up until that point had been leading up to this moment.
Call her greedy, but she loved all three of them with a deep passion that shouldn’t have been possible given the short amount of time she’d known them. Besides, how could one woman love and want three men equally? Porcha had no idea, she simply did. Not that it really mattered. It wouldn’t last much longer. Once they’d rescued Troy, she’d be able to return to England and get on with her life. They might have fond feelings for her and want to protect her, but she wasn’t stupid enough to imagine that it would end any other way.
True to his word, Beck got them to Miami in fifty minutes without being pulled over for speeding. They circled the hospital’s parking lot and found the entrance to the emergency room.
“I don’t see him,” Porcha said, peering anxiously round the large space.
“Don’t worry,” Beck said. “He’ll know it’s us.”
There was one corner that was darker than the rest. Beck pulled up there and flashed his lights twice.
A crouched-over figure emerged from the shadows, and Porcha let out an involuntary gasp as Adam jumped out and went to Troy’s aid. He looked seriously injured, and Porcha’s hand went to the door handle. She was a trained nurse. She could help him.
“Stay where you are,” Beck said sharply. “Adam’s got him.”
“But I can—”
“No, you can’t. It’s you they really want, remember. They might well be watching Troy, waiting for us and you to come for him.”
“Sorry, I didn’t think.”
The back door opened, and Porcha repeated her earlier gasp as she observed Troy, battered and bloody, barely conscious. His terrible smell barely registered.
“Troy!” She grasped his hand, and he squeezed it.
“Hey, babe.”
Adam threw a first-aid kit Porcha’s way. “See what you can do for him.” He climbed into the passenger seat, and Beck sped away.
“Just leave it,” Troy said when Porcha tried to administer help. “Get me somewhere safe then we’ll sort it. It’s not terminal.”
Porcha wasn’t so sure, but Troy’s eyelids were drooping, he was clearly exhausted, and she was so relieved to have him back that she didn’t argue. As an ex-nurse, she was well aware of the restorative powers of sleep and supported his head on her shoulder for the duration of the trip back to Jupiter.
Beck drove just as fast on the return journey, and as soon as they arrived, Porcha marched Troy into the master suite, stripped off his clothes, and went to work on him. Adam picked up his stinky clothing and disposed of it. He and Beck then stood back and let her get on with it.
“This wound needs stitches,” she said. “We should have stayed at that hospital.”
“No hospital,” they said in unison.
“They’d recognize it as a gunshot wound, which would mean police, dah-de-dah,” Adam explained.
“You stitch it, babe,” Troy said drowsily.
“But, I don’t—I can’t. You’d need an anesthetic.”
“He’s a big boy.” Beck’s grin told them that he was back to his old, irrepressible self. Even so, his cover was blown because, he’d made a poor job of disguising just how concerned he’d been about Troy, and Porcha would have fun later teasing him about that. “He can take it.”
“Well, all right then, but don’t blame me if you finish up with ugly scars on that gorgeous body of yours.”
“Hey, you never tell me my body’s gorgeous,” Beck said, affecting hurt.
“Those who ask don’t get.”
Porcha set to work. Troy hissed a few times, but apart from that he showed no reaction at all as she stitched his flesh back together in two places. He was pale, pain was etched in his features, but he really was a tough guy. Once she was done, she wrapped plastic round his upper arm.
“I’m afraid you really do have to hit the shower before you can sleep,” she told him. “You smell like you’ve been in a Dumpster.”
“That would be because I have.”
“It’s not the smell that bothers me,” she said, “but the dirt could lead to infection. You’ve got a load of small cuts on your abdomen.”
“That’s what crawling through ceiling ducts does to a person.” Troy looked dead on his feet but gamely tried to stand up. Adam gave him a hand. “Come on then, nurse, lead me to the shower.”
“I’ll join you,” she said, stripping off.
“Hey,” Beck protested.
“He can’t wash himself.” Porcha smiled sweetly at Beck. “Would you like to give him a hand?”
“Point taken,” he said, grinning as he stepped back.
“Hell no!” Troy said at the same time. “You think I’d trust him anywher
e near my delicate regions?”
Porcha chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”
Naked, she guided Troy toward the huge shower stall and switched on the water. She soaped him all over, and Troy actually sighed with pleasure. Hot water and getting clean appeared to revive him. Feeling light-headed with relief that they were all safe, she impishly took her time soaping his genitalia with a large sponge, repeatedly wiping it back and forth across his balls.
“Porcha!” Troy placed a hand on her arm. “I don’t want you to think I’m complaining, but I really don’t think I could manage it right now.”
She dropped the sponge, stood upright, and wrapped her arms carefully round his neck. “I thought I’d lost you, Troy,” she said, her voice breaking as the emotion she’d been holding in check came pouring out faster than the water poured over their heads. “You put your life on the line for me and almost died.”
“Hey,” he said, wrapping his good arm round her waist. “That’s what I do.”
“No one’s ever tried to protect me like that before. My brave husband actually tried to save his own miserable neck by dropping me in it.”
“Ah, but if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have met.”
“Don’t make light of this, Troy.” She tapped a finger lightly against his chest. “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you’ve done.”
Troy kissed her. “It’s okay, babe. It’s all over now, and we won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.”
Porcha didn’t understand how he could make such a promise but didn’t press the point.
“I love you, Troy,” she said simply, dropping her head on his chest. “I don’t know how it’s happened, but I love you all.”
“What, even Beck?”
“Of course.”
“Well, we love you, too.” He captured her lips in a drugging kiss. “Where have you been all our lives?”
Porcha pulled herself together. She had given way to temptation in a weak moment but couldn’t afford to indulge her vulnerable side indefinitely.