Great Exploitations (Trouble in Tampa)

by Williams, Nicole

  “Hi, Eve.” His was warm and genuine and reminded me of everything about Henry I’d fallen for so many years ago.

  “Who’s Henry?”

  The sharpness and nearness of the voice almost made me jolt. I hadn’t been expecting to hear that voice again, let alone on the private, restricted penthouse level.

  “Eve? Who’s that?” Henry’s voice had morphed into something else—something that was a far cry from warm.

  “It’s okay, Henry. I’m fine.” Turning around slowly, I dropped the phone to my side and put on a brave face.

  Rob Tucker stood not even two feet in front of me, smelling, looking, and acting twice as drunk as he’d been when I’d left him in the lounge. Instead of a smirk, his face had something far more predatory.

  “No, it’s not fine.” Rob stepped closer. That he could walk without stumbling indicated that he was drunk so often, he’d managed to perfect it. “But once we’re done here tonight, we’ll be a bit closer to fine.”

  “Eve? What the hell? Who is that?”

  I just barely made out Henry’s voice, but I couldn’t find the strength to hang up the phone. Despite him being half a world away, I felt some semblance of safety having some part of Henry with me—his anxious voice coming through a cell phone included.

  “How did you get up here?” I asked, glaring at Rob.

  “There’re two rooms up here, you know.” Sliding a card key from his pocket, he flashed it in front of me. “When I said I own this town, I meant it, sweetheart.”

  Just as I reached into my purse to pull out the first weapon my fingers curled around, Rob grabbed my wrist and yanked me to him. I almost yelped but held it in. He was a predator, an intimidator, which meant he thrived off of his victims’ submission. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “And when I didn’t say out loud that you’re a brainless, dickless asshole, I meant that too.” I yanked against his hold, but he was strong and determined and drunk—the trifecta every woman learned to steer clear of if she made it through puberty.

  “You women and your mouths. If you’d just figure out that hole was meant for the same purpose the other two were created for, there’d be no need for this.”

  My first thought was to thank god I’d covered the phone’s speaker so Henry didn’t hear that, but that was soon followed by rage. That kind of human being didn’t deserve the oxygen he used.

  “No need for what?” I seethed, stepping into him. By god, I wouldn’t back away from him.

  Shrugging, Rob answered, “For this.” He reached his free arm back and brought it around until his fist connected with my jaw.

  I’d been hit before. A bunch of times growing up with a mouth that had gotten me into trouble on the playground with the other girls, and one time from a piece-of-shit boyfriend in high school. I knew how to take a hit, but that one . . . that hit leveled me.

  The air rushed out of my lungs when I collided with the floor. The phone and my purse flew across the hall. I was aware of Rob standing over me chuckling, and that my ears were buzzing and my jaw was throbbing, but the only thing I focused on was the sound of Henry’s voice through the phone. It had landed close to my head, and he sounded as worried as I should have been. He kept repeating my name like a mantra, and it was calming. Comforting even.

  Once I felt as though my lungs weren’t two deflated balloons, I twisted onto my back so I could pick up where I’d left off in glaring at Rob. The son of a bitch had hit me hard. He was going down. “Is that all you’ve got? So much for being a pinnacle of a man like you think you are.”

  The first thing that should have warned me things weren’t going to end well for me was when he slowly rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. Anyone rolling up their sleeves with that maniacal of a smile was a sure sign no good was to come. The second sign? He undid his belt and pulled it from his pants as though he was preparing to use it as a weapon.

  I scanned the hall for my purse, but it had gone in pretty much the opposite direction my body had. If I could unbuckle a strap and get off one of my heels, I could use that as a weapon. Then I saw the plastic bag sitting beside the door next to me. Where a couple of bottles and a pair of nail clippers sat. Nail clippers with a close-enough-to-a-knife file. If I could get to those, I could do a little damage.

  As soon as I started to crawl toward the bag, I felt the first lash of his belt across my back. I was yelping from the first one when the second came, followed by a third and a fourth and so many more I lost track. Even through the crack of the belt and my howls of pain, I could make out Henry’s voice. He called out for me, and the anxiety in his voice shifted to enraged.

  Instead of crawling for the bag, I almost moved toward the sound of his voice. Then Rob tossed his belt aside and gave his feet a turn. When his first kick landed against my stomach, causing me to wonder if he’d liquefied all my internal organs with one blow, my primal sense of survival resurfaced, and my direction changed back to the plastic bag.

  “This night could have gone so differently. If only you’d been the obedient girl I know you’re dying to become.” Rob’s words were punctuated by his kicks, which were peppered with my cries, which were interrupted by Henry’s shouts.

  “I know what way you had in mind,” I got out, spitting some blood. “Believe me when I tell you this is the better option.”

  Then another fist connected with the other side of my face. “How’s that for better?”

  I tasted blood, and my body throbbed from every part. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, would be left of me when Rob Tucker was done. If anything was left, it wouldn’t rest until I’d taken my revenge on him.

  “Go to hell,” I spit as my fingers closed around the plastic bag.

  “Not until I’m done with you.”

  Another fist smashed onto my cheekbone. As I screamed from that hit, I managed to pull the bag close and fumble around until my fingers grazed cool metal. I worked fast to free the file, and just as Rob wound up for another punch, I flipped over and drove the file into his compacted fist. It went in deeper than I’d anticipated, and the pain almost instantly registered on his face.

  “Go ahead. Hit me again. Or kick me. Or whip me.” Sitting up, I held back my wince and held up my weapon. “I dare you.”

  Rob went from studying his hand as though he wasn’t sure what had happened to glowering at me. From the looks of it, I was the first person who’d stood up to him. He seemed unsure whether to finish the job with me or turn, tuck his tail, and run.

  “Come on, you spineless piece of shit. Hit. Me. Again.” I arched my arm back, ready to drive the file into his eyeball if I needed to. Despite the beating I’d taken, my hand wasn’t wobbling. My voice wasn’t either. If my response to being brought as close to death as I’d been was being strong and not shaking, I could say with absolute certainty that I wasn’t fragile. At least not anymore.

  After a few moments, Rob’s rage dimmed until a tilted smile moved into place. Then, flashing me a wink, he stood so he towered over me. I kept the nail clippers at the ready. At that position, they were heading for his balls if he tried anything.

  “Until next time.” His smile became wider as he studied me sprawled out below him. Bastard. “Be a good girl.” He moved toward the elevator with purpose. He punched the down button, hopped on the moment the doors opened, and gave me one last wink before the doors sealed.

  I sat there at the ready for another minute—my blood running down my face, my right eye swelling shut, my lower lip bulging—just in case he came back. When Henry’s voice broke through my haze again, I let myself exhale before collapsing onto the floor. The adrenaline was siphoning from my veins, and without it, my body was spent. Every hit, every lash, every part of me seemed to scream with pain. It became too much for my brain to process.

  I felt unconsciousness coming on when Henry’s voice called out again. “Eve? Please. Are you there?”

  Reaching for the phone, I managed to crawl an inch toward it before my ener
gy stores were depleted. “Henry . . . help.”

  “I’m here. I’m here with you. Help’s on the way, okay?” His voice wasn’t quite shaking, but it was close.

  “Stay . . . with . . . me,” I whispered, sure he couldn’t have heard it.

  “I’m here,” he replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His voice—his promise—was the last thing I heard before a darkness so deep came over me, I wasn’t sure if I could ever make it to the surface again.

  HOSPITAL SHEETS. THEY had a distinctive feel and smell a person could never forget. I was in them. Just beneath the haze of whatever drug cocktail they were pumping into my veins, I felt the dull throb of pain.

  Where was I? How did I get there? Why did I come there? Those were the questions I wrestled with as I struggled to open my eyes. After blinking a few times to adjust to the light in the room, I scanned my mind for my last memory. When I couldn’t find it, I tried searching for others . . . but there was nothing. I saw them, but I couldn’t decipher them. They meant nothing.

  That wasn’t the ideal way for a person to emerge from a who-knows-how-many-days sleep in a hospital. Some memory, any memory, that meant something would have been nice, but every last one of them was almost weightless, floating and meaning nothing.

  Then the door clicked open and in walked a person who managed to give weight to all of my memories. They all fell back into place as he approached me with a worried expression. And that was when my last memory played out.

  Me, reaching for a phone in a hotel hall, hurt and bloodied . . . and a voice calling my name. His voice, promising he’d stay with me.

  And there he was.

  “Henry.” I tried getting out more, but my throat felt as if it had been stuffed with a tower of cotton rounds.

  “Hi, beautiful.” He put on an unconvincing smile and stopped at the foot of my bed.

  His suit was rumpled, his face unshaven, and the hollows of his eyes were two shades darker than normal. I couldn’t decide who looked worse, Henry or me. I had yet to see myself in a mirror. As Henry carefully inspected me, the line between his brows went deeper and deeper. I guessed I won the worst-looking award. Noticing a container of water on the tray beside me, I propped up on my elbows and took a small drink from the straw. After another, the cotton feeling in my throat was gone.

  “Beautiful? You always were a terrible liar,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  Henry came around the side of my bed and sat beside me. He grabbed my hand with both of his. “That’s not a lie, Eve. After hearing what I did on that phone . . . after hearing you scream and cry and those hits . . .” Henry’s eyes closed as he leaned his head into our connected hands. “Seeing you alive and in one piece is a beautiful thing indeed.”

  Given I was the one in a hospital bed, I should be the one who needed comforting. But the opposite appeared true. From the looks of it, Henry had been through more of a beating than I had. I lifted my free hand and combed it through his messy hair.

  “What happened, Eve? Who did this to you? Why did they do this?”

  The memories were back and meant something, so I searched for that one. It didn’t take long to remember what had happened or who’d done it: assault, hotel hall, threats, unconscious, Rob Tucker.

  Followed promptly by: Errand, Target, wife beater, Mrs. Tucker, freedom, Eve.

  Shit, the Tucker Errand wasn’t the only one I was working. The man warming my hand happened to be my Target too. What the hell was he doing there? In Tampa? He’d been in Seoul when I passed out with him still on the other end.

  Had I managed, in one unfortunate instance, to compromise both Errands? They were both important to me—the Callahan one because of who was involved and the dollar signs tied to it, and the Tucker one because of the devil I was dealing with. If G knew Henry Callahan was sitting beside me in a hospital in Tampa when I looked as if I’d just gone toe-to-toe with a heavyweight boxing champ, she would probably breathe fire.

  G . . . what was I going to tell her? Good thing she was taking a vacation in Mexico and threatened that unless it was a matter of life and death, not to bother her. Since I was still, technically, alive, I used that as my excuse to not call her right that second to let her know what had happened. But I’d have to tell her eventually, and just what was I going to say?

  I had too many questions and no time or mental fortitude to work them out. It might have been the haze of the drugs or the haze of Henry, but something was definitely messing with my ability to think clearly and logically.

  “Eve? Did you hear me?” Henry asked quietly. “Who did this to you?”

  He looked at me, and the darkness that flashed through his eyes was staggering. Henry had always been a think first, hit second kind of person. Given the look on his face, if Rob Tucker were to appear and I pointed at him in answer, I had no doubts Henry would have a moment of hit first, think second. But Rob Tucker wasn’t there—thankfully—and Henry was waiting for my answer.

  “I don’t remember,” I lied, needing to salvage whatever was left of keeping the Errands separate.

  “You don’t remember what?”

  I sighed. Henry was a natural problem solver. That was part of the reason he was the president of a Fortune 100 company, but that also carried over into his non-business life. Which was a pain in my ass given my compromising predicament.

  “Anything, Henry. I don’t remember much of anything right now.”

  “But—”

  I shook my head. “Please, thinking about it is only giving me a headache. I’m sure when my head is less foggy and I have time to work stuff out, it’ll all come back to me.”

  He looked ready to go one more round of rebuttal, but he closed his eyes and exhaled.

  What is he doing here? How did he find me?

  “What are you doing here, Henry? How did you find me?” Of all the questions I had, those were the ones I couldn’t stop repeating to myself.

  “I’m here because you’re in the hospital looking a bruise or two away from being in a coma.” His forehead creased. “And I found you thanks to a Callahan Industries microchip locator.”

  My eyes widened as far as they could given their swollen state. “You had me microchipped?” I would have shrieked that if my vocal chords were up to the task.

  “What? No.” Henry shook his head. “Your phone. Every employee-issued phone is microchipped in the event—”

  “In the event you might want to spy on an ex?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “In the event one of my employees goes missing. I have employees who travel a lot to parts of the world that aren’t exactly friendly to Westerners. The microchip was invented and installed as a life-saving device, not a spying one.” Henry gave me a You satisfied? look.

  “What you call life-saving I call life-spying,” I replied.

  “Whatever you call it, you can’t deny that that microchip did, in fact, save your life.”

  “My life wasn’t in danger.”

  Henry’s eyes ran up and down me again. They narrowed as he took in my face. “And what you call not in danger, I call getting beaten to the point of camping out on death’s doorstep.”

  He was right, of course, but I’d never admit that. Time to change the subject. “So what happened after I blacked out? Do you know?” I found the bed remote and raised the head of it so I was somewhere between sitting up and lying down.

  “Before you blacked out, I’d already located you thanks to my laptop being glued to my hip everywhere I go, including the bathroom—”

  “Eww, you were in the bathroom during all of that?” I curled my nose.

  Henry rolled his eyes. “I’m exaggerating to make a point, Eve. Roll with me, okay?”

  “I’ll roll with you, just so long as it isn’t into the bathroom.”

  He groaned. “Once I’d located you, I had one of my colleagues call the emergency system in the Tampa area to alert them that you needed help, along with where you were.”

  “So the ambu
lance showed up, rushed me to the hospital, and then we all lived happily ever after?” I scanned the room. If that was anything close to what HEA looked like, pass me the hemlock. “How long have I been unconscious?”

  Henry gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “About two days.”

  Knocked unconscious for two days?! Rob Tucker had just made enemies with the single most spiteful person on the continent. I could do revenge like he could swing his fist.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you had a crazy week filled with meetings and negotiations and Korean BBQ.” I knew having Henry beside me should have been the opposite of comforting, but there was nothing else I needed more right then.

  “Some things are business, and some things are important,” he answered.

  “For a man like you, don’t those two things go hand in hand?”

  His eyes locked onto mine. My heart picked up its pace, which I promptly attributed to the drugs. “I’m here with you now, aren’t I? Does that answer your question?” he asked.

  Things were as convoluted as they had ever been between Henry and me. Nice to see some things stay the same—insert sarcasm here.

  “Thanks for being here,” I said, working a smile into place.

  He matched his smile to mine. “Where else could I be?”

  Of course that would be the instant Mrs. Callahan came to mind. Somewhere out there was a woman wearing a wedding ring the man beside me had given her. Somewhere out there was a woman who’d hired me to seduce the man beside me so she could be free of him. Somewhere out there was a woman who wanted to leave Henry Callahan like I’d wanted to.

  I wondered if Mrs. Callahan would be more successful than I had.

  “I’m going to rest, I think. I’m pretty exhausted.” My smile shifted into a fake one as my hand went cold. My heart might still react to Henry, but my brain knew the score. My mind would never forget what he’d done, or the reason I’d been reintroduced into his life, or why revenge should always be on the tip of my tongue when I thought of Henry Callahan.