by Lori Wilde
Hurt and confusion settled over her, dark as a tornado cloud. The blood rushed to her head and her eyesight dimmed. Compelled by a madness she could not explain, she forced herself forward, desperate to hear more of their horrible conversation.
She’d done it again, Elle realized. Trusted too much, loved too quickly, fallen for the wrong man. She’d made love with Dante and the hot chemistry between them had been nothing more than the effects of a sex drug her ex-husband had engineered. None of what she’d felt for Dante was real. It was all an illusion.
What about after the softball game? You weren’t under influence of a drug then. And honestly, hadn’t the sex on Saturday night been better than the drug-induced sex?
It had, but that was beside the point. It was still just sex. Nothing meaningful. No real intimacy. She was a “piece of ass,” as Dante so eloquently put it. The point was she’d been drugged and Dante thought of her as nothing more than an easy conquest.
Her body trembled and the sour taste of bile rose into her mouth. It was all she could do to keep from throwing up. She should have known better. She had known, and yet she’d foolishly allowed herself to fall for him anyway.
She felt like such a fool.
Don’t jump to conclusions. It could just be guy talk.
She wanted so much to believe that he was only boasting for Mark’s sake, but she’d been burned before.
In her mind’s eye she saw Dante as he’d looked that morning, standing in the E.D. work lane, telling her with his eyes what he could not say with his words. That he wanted her, he cared for her, but he didn’t know how to tell her. He’d appeared so earnest then, so vulnerable.
Give him the benefit of the doubt.
What? And hand him the opportunity to hurt her all over again? No thank you. She’d turn around, go back to the hospital and forget all about Dante Nash.
But she could not.
Compelled by a force that she could neither explain nor control, she crept up to the sanctuary.
Go back, get out of here. Leave Dante and Mark to their dark business.
But she did not heed her own advice. Closer and closer she crept until she was standing under one of the boarded-up windows in the front. Standing up on her tiptoes, she tried to peer through a small slit between the boards.
Nose smashed against the plywood, one eye closed as she squinted, Elle’s mind was so absorbed in trying to see what was beyond that tinted glass, she did not hear the footsteps sneaking up behind her until it was too late to run.
THEY WALKED INTO the dark, windowless basement of the sanctuary. Mark flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights as they went. Dante tensed when he saw it—the vented hoods where the drugs were mixed and compounded, the room where they were pressed and molded into oblong tablets. The chemical smell was stronger in here. Seeing the staggering amount of packaged yellow pills laid out in bins ready for distribution sent a chill straight through Dante.
“This is where the magic happens,” Mark said. “Where we take chemicals and turn them into pure sensual pleasure just waiting to be swallowed.”
Stay cool, stay calm, ask him about his distribution channels. Get him to tell you about Gambezi.
“We? You’re not doing this on your own?”
“I have a backer.”
“Will I meet this backer?”
“There’s no need for that.”
“How do you get—” Dante began but got no further.
A clattering outside drew their attention toward the door. Hearing a shuffling noise and then a thud, Dante spun on his heels in time to see Gambezi, that disgusting rodent of a man, dragging a body with him into the underground room.
His heart stopped when he saw the cascade of auburn curls falling over Gambezi’s arm.
Elle.
His horrified gaze fixed on her lifeless body. Was she dead?
Abject panic, raging fury and raw grief assailed him all at once. The last time he’d felt like this was the day he’d learned Leeza had been found murdered.
He didn’t think. He couldn’t think. All the anger and revenge he’d been holding inside for the past three years came spewing out of him like hot molten venom from the very depths of hell.
“You bastard,” he yelled and launched himself at Gambezi. “What have you done to her?”
Before he could reach Gambezi, the man stuck a snub-nose thirty-eight in his face. “Back off, tough guy. You can’t save her with a bullet in your brain.”
“She’s alive?” Dante dropped to his knees where Elle lay unconscious on the floor. His eyes were on her face, assessing her. Her breathing was shallow, her skin cool to the touch, her lips ashen. He saw a wicked-looking knot rising on her temple and from the impact marks, knew Gambezi must have hit her with the thirty-eight.
Don’t let your anger cause you to do something stupid. Elle’s life is at stake. She’s counting on you. Stay in control and think. Think.
“For now,” Gambezi said. “As long as you mind your manners.”
“What’s going on?” Mark asked with a bewildered tone in his voice. “What’s this about? Dante’s the partner I was telling you about. He’s throwing in with us.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on, genius,” Gambezi said with disgust. “The patsy you picked to frame is an undercover FBI agent.”
“What?” Mark’s eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“That’s right. Go ahead and ask him.”
Mark swung his gaze to Dante. Sweat was popping out all over the man’s brow. “Is that true?”
Dante raised his head, clenched his jaw and stared Mark down. “It’s true.”
Mark’s color turned white as cotton.
“He’s a government man,” Gambezi said. “Now you’re going to straighten this mess out.”
“Me?”
“You caused it. He’s your buddy. You’ll have to get your hands dirty, doctor boy.” Gambezi pulled thick zip ties from his back pocket and tossed them at Mark. “Tie them up.”
Dante’s mind whirled as he estimated the distance between himself and Gambezi. He thought of his gun nestled in his ankle holster, but he wouldn’t be able to reach for it before Gambezi squeezed off a shot. And he had no doubt the gangster was very good with a gun. Not that Dante was afraid to die—he’d gladly take a bullet if he could kill the bastard in the process. What he couldn’t do was die and leave Elle to fend for herself.
Mark came toward him with the zip ties.
“Don’t do this, Mark. Gambezi is the one we really want. Turn against him. The D.A.’s office will offer you a sweet plea bargain to nail him.”
Mark didn’t hesitate. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Reluctantly Dante did so.
Mark bent behind him and secured the zip ties tight around his wrists. “I can’t,” he whispered in Dante’s ear. “Gambezi is a psycho. He’ll kill me as quick as he’ll kill you.”
“Right you are, Mark, so stop whispering and get busy. Now the girl.”
“She’s out cold.”
“Do it anyway,” Gambezi said, twirling the thirty-eight like some gunslinger from a spaghetti western.
Mark pulled Elle’s arms around, rested them on her stomach and zip tied them together. When he was finished, he stood up.
Abruptly Gambezi stopped twirling, palmed the gun and shot Mark in the dead center of his chest.
He fell back, staggering with a desperate, gasping, bone-chilling moan. Dante’s gut clenched as he heard the hard, heavy thud of Mark’s body hitting the ground.
But his eyes were fixed on Gambezi like a mongoose’s on a cobra.
“That takes care of the plea bargain,” Gambezi said. “Now, you, get over there in the corner.” He waved the gun at Dante.
Dante got to his feet, bracing himself for the bullet he knew was coming. But once he was in the corner, Gambezi walked away from him, stepped over Elle and avoided the spreading pool of Mark’s blood. He closed and locked the door behind him.
Dante’s head spun dizzily, and it was only then he realized he’d been holding his breath. Why hadn’t Gambezi killed them?
He heard a soft moan, saw Elle move.
Her eyelids fluttered open. “Dante?”
“Elle?” He could hear the joy crack his voice. He went to her immediately. “Are you all right?”
Wincing, she struggled to sit up. “What’s happening?”
“Furio Gambezi knocked you out and dragged you in here.”
“Who’s Furio Gambezi?”
“He’s been distributing the designer street drugs that were responsible for what happened to Travis Russell and Greg Browning and many more. Your ex-husband’s been using this place to manufacture the drug they call Rapture.”
“And you?” she whispered. “Are you his business partner?”
“Elle,” he said. “I’m with the FBI.”
“Really?” Her eyes softened and she sounded relieved. “I overheard you talking, and I thought the most horrible things about you.”
“I know what you thought, but I’m not helping Mark make Rapture. I’m investigating him and Furio Gambezi.”
Her laugh was shaky.
He glanced around the room, looking for some kind of tool he could use to cut through the zip ties and get them out of this.
“Dante,” she said again.
“Uh-huh.”
“Can you hear that?”
“Hear what?” He spied a pill cutter on the counter and headed for it.
“That ticking noise.”
“What ticking noise?” He cocked his head and strained to hear what she was hearing.
“I dunno,” she said, “but it sounds sort of like a bomb to me.”
ELLE’S TEMPLE WAS throbbing and she couldn’t seem to wrap her brain around what was happening. She didn’t remember anything from the time she’d been whacked on the temple to the moment she’d regained consciousness in the sanctuary.
Now she was trying to digest the fact that she and Dante had been locked in this basement where Mark concocted a designer drug for some criminal. Who apparently had also set off a bomb to blow them to smithereens.
But in spite of everything, deep down inside she was feeling ridiculously, inexplicably giddy. Dante wasn’t a drug dealer. He was undercover with the FBI.
“So that’s why he didn’t shoot us,” Dante said. “He intended on destroying the lab and us along with it.”
“There’s blood,” Elle gasped, seeing it for the first time on the floor beside her. “Dante, are you hurt?”
“It’s not my blood,” he said at the exact second she noticed the body.
Her eyes met his. “Who?”
“I’m afraid it’s Mark.”
“Is he…?”
“Gambezi shot him in the chest.”
She gasped as the thought registered completely, but the clock was ticking down to their doom. They had to find a way out of there, and fast.
“Here,” Dante said, crossing the room toward her, hands tied behind his back. “I’ve got a pill cutter. See if you can get these zip ties off me.”
He turned his back to her, sank down on his knees in front of her. It wasn’t easy for her to free him with the zip ties binding her own wrists. Repeatedly she bumped into his bandaged hand, still raw with fresh stitches. He bit back groans of pain. After several clumsy attempts she was finally able to saw through the thick plastic zip ties with the sharp edge of the pill cutter.
Once Dante was free, he cut Elle loose. She wrung her hands, gone aching and white from lack of circulation, to get the blood flowing again. Gently he helped her to her feet.
“Don’t worry about me, get to the bomb,” she said.
Simultaneously they bolted for the closet door from where the ticking sound came. Their hands reached for the knob at the same time, but Dante got there first.
Elle’s hand clamped down over his. “We’re in this together.”
He looked at her. Nodded. They turned the knob at the same time.
It did not budge.
Locked.
Dante cursed. He had no doubt that either Mark or Gambezi had hidden the bomb for such an eventuality as this and that Gambezi had activated it remotely. Surely only a very few minutes would have been programmed on the timer. Just long enough for Gambezi to get clear of Confidential Rejuvenations and provide himself with an alibi before the bomb detonated. Dante figured they had thirty minutes tops.
Desperately he searched for something to use as a battering ram. But there was nothing, and besides, he didn’t know how unstable the detonation device was. Okay, brute force was out, so how about something to pick the lock with?
“Wait,” Elle said. “I’ve got an idea.”
Her calmness surprised him, but it shouldn’t have. She’d always shown grace under pressure and he admired her for it more than he could ever say.
“What is it?”
“Try the top of the door frame. That’s where Mark used to hide the key at our house.”
“Ditto in our college dorm room.”
“Not very original,” Elle said as Dante reached up to run his fingers over the top of the door frame.
“Pay dirt.” He held up the key for her to see. “Thank God for his lack of imagination.”
Dante tried to stick the key into the lock, but his right hand was hurting so badly, he fumbled the key and dropped it.
“Here,” Elle said, picking it up. “Let me.” She inserted the key into the lock and turned it.
Dante pulled the door open.
They saw the bomb sitting on the middle shelf, attached to a timer, counting down with a resounding click.
When Dante saw the red neon numbers, his breath left his body. They had exactly five minutes and twenty-two seconds to defuse the bomb.
“WE’RE GOING TO DIE,” Elle said quietly, simply, as if she’d already made peace with their fate.
“No. No we’re not.”
“I appreciate your optimism, Dante, but there’s no way we can get out of here in five minutes.”
“I’m going to defuse the bomb.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket with his left hand and called Briggins to tell him what had happened.
“I’ll get a team together immediately,” Briggins said. “We’ll get over there right away. You hang on while I patch you through to the bomb squad.”
“Hurry,” Dante shouted. “We’ve only got four minutes left.”
It took thirty seconds to get the bomb squad on the phone to talk him through defusing the bomb.
“What kind of equipment do you have? Wire snips? A knife?” asked the bomb squad guy who said his name was Fred.
“A pill cutter.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“If that’s all you’ve got, then that’s all you’ve got.”
“Wait, I have bandage scissors from when I was trimming your dressing,” Elle said and pulled the scissors from her pocket.
Dante relayed this new info to the bomb squad guy.
“Okay, great, let’s go,” said Fred.
Dante took the bandage scissors from Elle and promptly dropped them.
Elle picked them up. She stood to face him. “I’m going to have to do this. You’re in no shape for this with your hand.”
“No,” he said adamantly.
“You can’t protect me. You might as well let me try. I have a better chance of pulling this off than you do. Let Fred talk you through it and then you can relay the info to me. But we better do something fast because we only have two minutes left!”
She was right. He couldn’t hold the damn scissors in his right hand and his left hand wasn’t adept enough to perform the delicate maneuvers.
“I know you’re used to being in control, Dante, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this.”
Trust.
Something he’d never been able to do.
“Describe the bomb to me,” Fred was saying in his ear.
; Dante swallowed and described the bomb.
“It’s simple. Easy to defuse,” Fred blurted, “but it’s volatile. The slightest jostle could detonate it.”
Dante blew out his breath.
“What he’d say?” Elle asked, bandage scissors posed over the wires.
Her bravery touched something deep inside of him. He wished he could spare her this. Wished he could take the brunt of her burden.
“Elle,” he said.
“Yes?”
Their eyes met, held.
“I trust you.”
Her grin widened. She looked as if he’d just told her she was the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. “Thank you for that,” she said.
“Tell her to snip the green wire,” Fred said.
“Green wire,” Dante relayed to Elle.
Every muscle in his body turned to stone. He felt useless, standing here with the phone pressed to his ear while Elle carefully leaned in over the bomb. The clock ticked louder and louder until it sounded like a jet engine roaring through his ears.
Sixty seconds left.
“He’s sure it’s the green wire?” Elle breathed as she slipped the jaws of the cuticle scissors around the green wire.
“You sure it’s the green wire?” Dante asked Fred.
“Tell me about the configuration again.”
Dante did.
“It’s the green wire.”
“He says it’s the green wire.”
Forty seconds left.
She looked over at Dante. “Here goes,” she said. “If we don’t make it out of here alive, just know this. I love you, Dante Nash.”
And with that, Elle brought the scissors down on the green wire.
THE WIRE DIDN’T break.
Panic seized her. Sweat beaded her brow and her upper lip. Elle pressed down as hard as she could on the bandage scissors.
The wire was too thick!
Twenty seconds left.
Panic took hold of her then. Wildly, she stared at the neon-red glow of the clock timer.
Nineteen seconds.
“Try again,” Dante said calmly. “You can do this.”
Eighteen seconds.
The room seemed to spin. Her temple throbbed with each push of blood through her veins. Regret filled her heart. She couldn’t breathe. They were going to die before they ever really got to know each other.