by Cynthia Eden
Breathe. Breathe. His heart thundered in his chest. “Get Charity back there. She knows what happened.” Or…Roman’s suspicion…
She did something to Harper.
“Working on it,” Antony fired back. “Got Wilde agents who went after her immediately but, um, I think she must’ve had a different car waiting. She…we, they—they found her vehicle abandoned and—”
Roman’s phone beeped. Someone was calling on the other line. He almost ignored the call but—
Unknown Caller. He’d pulled the phone back just enough to see the screen. What were the odds that he’d be getting a random call right then?
“Roman, are you listening to me? Harper is gone. I need you to get down here and help with the search. I’m fucking sorry. I know I was supposed to stay with her, but she was just down the hallway, and we both know she can damn well kick ass and take names. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how this—”
“Someone is calling my line.” The line that only a few had access to. The same line someone had called just days before to say that Harper had been taken. “Hold on,” Roman barked.
He switched to the other caller. “Who the hell is this?”
“I will give you an address. If you care about her at all, you’ll come to the address in an hour. You’ll be alone.”
He nearly shattered the phone. It was the same distorted voice from days before. “I want to talk to Harper.”
“She’s not capable of talking at the moment.”
Harper!
“But I assure you, she’s alive. Whether she stays that way or not, it depends on you. I will text you the address. You’ll tell no one. If you do, if I see anyone else coming—I will kill her. I will put a bullet in her brain instantly.”
“Don’t.”
“Hard, isn’t it? When you actually care? When you have a weakness that someone else can exploit?”
“Don’t hurt her.”
“You’ll come to the location. When you arrive, you can trade yourself for her. Harper can walk away and be safe.”
You won’t let either one of us go. “How do I know you aren’t lying?”
“You don’t.”
The call ended. The phone clicked, and Roman stood there, his whole body tight with fear and fury. The phone automatically switched back to Antony—
“Roman?” Antony snapped. “What in the hell is happening? Roman, talk to me!”
The phone dinged. He’d gotten the text.
“What’s going on?” Antony’s voice rose. “I need to know what’s happening. I can’t help if I don’t know—”
Roman hung up on him.
***
“Sonofabitch.” Antony glared at his phone. His hands were shaking as he hurriedly contacted Dex. His boss/friend/pain-in-the-ass answered after the first ring.
“I hope this is good news,” Dex rumbled.
“Bad news. Very bad. Harper is missing, and I’m about ninety-nine percent sure Roman just got a ransom call on her. He shut me down. Hung up on me. That means he’s probably about to go for an exchange. I’d lay odds the caller said for him to come alone or Harper would die, and since the guy is in love with her, he’ll take any risk and get his fool self killed—”
“Take a breath, Antony.”
He sucked in a breath.
“You low-jacked him?”
“You know I did.” Not something Antony was particularly proud of. “I put a tracer on her phone and his, but I’m holding hers right now, so it’s not going to do me much good.”
“We just need his. Let’s get a lock on him. We’ll stay back until he needs us, but there is no way we’re leaving Roman on his own.” Dex’s voice roughened. “He already thinks I left him alone before. Time to prove to the man that I’ve got his back.”
“You ordered me to low-jack him. I don’t know if that is quite the definition of having someone’s back. It’s more like spying on him—”
“I’m coming to get you, Antony.”
“What?” Antony whirled around. “How do you even know where I am?”
“Because I low-jacked you, too.”
“Hold on, that shit is not—”
“You and I are going after Roman. And we’re making sure that Roman and Harper are safe.”
“Yeah, well, you need to haul ass. Not like we have time to waste. The last I heard, you’d backed off and gone into hiding. That’s why I was sent in, remember?” Though now he got that he’d been set-up. So not cool. Dex had probably stayed close the whole time.
“I’m here,” Dex said, confirming his suspicions. “I’ll be at the museum in five minutes. Lacey will be with me.”
“Wait—Lacey? As in, your wife? Roman’s sister? She’s—”
Dex hung up on him.
“All right, then.” Antony squared his shoulders and checked his weapon. Then he ran for the front of the museum.
Chapter Eighteen
“Sorry I had to tranq you.”
Harper’s eyes slowly opened. Her mouth was cotton dry, and a dull ache pounded behind her eyes.
“For a while there, I was worried I’d used too much. Not like I dose someone with horse tranq every day.”
Had the woman just said horse tranq?
“Got a friend who works for a vet. I slipped her some cash, she slipped me a small dose.” Charity leaned in close toward Harper. “You don’t look so good.” Her eyes narrowed.
“I don’t…feel so good.” She didn’t have to fake the slurring of her voice. That was real. Harper was trying to take stock of her surroundings. She was in some kind of old house. Paint peeled on the nearby wall. She’d been tied to a chair. Her arms were locked tightly with the rope. So were her legs. Her head had free movement, though, and it was bobbing forward.
“I’m sorry,” Charity whispered. She actually sounded sorry. “I didn’t intend for you to get hurt. When I hired the team to take you the first time, I gave them strict instructions not to hurt you. You were a means to an end.”
“That’s lovely to know.” More slurring. More deliberate this time as her head cleared. “Th-thank you?”
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw him. He was the last person I ever expected to see. I mean, he was dead. Everyone said he was dead. And some things were different. The hair. Eyes. But she’d told me so much about him. Sent me so many pictures when he was in different disguises that I still knew. He was walking across that crowded museum, coming straight for you, and I recognized him.”
Harper was doing her damn best to follow along. The part that was obvious? Charity was the one who’d hired those assholes to take Harper.
“He stared at you like he wanted to eat you alive.” Charity curled her hand under Harper’s chin. Tipped her head back. Checked her pulse. “How could he do that?” Anger roughened her voice. “How could he look at you that way when he never would love her?”
“Yeah…” Harper licked her lips. “I have no idea what’s happening here.”
“Heather Madding.”
The name rang an ominous bell.
“Has he ever mentioned her to you?” Charity pushed.
“She’s dead.”
“And?”
“And she’s…dead. She was his bodyguard.” Harper gave a long pause, as if she was struggling to think. She was actually trying to figure out a good plan of attack. “She turned on him. Got killed.”
“She turned on him because he would never love her! He can’t love anyone! He’s a psychotic bastard who only knows how to destroy!”
Says the woman who gave me horse tranq. “I don’t feel good,” Harper said fretfully. “My…my chest hurts.” It didn’t. “Untie me, Ch-Charity. I think s-something is wrong…”
Charity frowned at her. “I’m going to let you go. I am, I promise. The ropes are just for a little while longer. Roman is coming, you see.”
Aw, hell.
“He’s going to offer himself in your place. That’s all I wanted. Justice for Heather. She was my best frien
d, did you know that?”
How the hell would I know that?
“We met in college. Freshman year. Stayed in contact. Helped each other make a whole lot of money over the years. She’d have clients, people who were looking to acquire special pieces, and I’d facilitate those deals for her.”
Harper squinted at her. “Thought…you weren’t a thief.” Harper was just trying to keep the woman talking while she figured out a plan. If her hands were free, that would be something. But the ropes were tight and strong, and not giving at all. She was twisting and sliding her wrists against the hemp, but she was just making her wrists raw.
“I’m not! Tomas stole from the museum—not me! I found out months ago what that asshole was doing.” Her breath huffed out. “Stealing from my house!”
Her house?
“He thought he was so clever. He wasn’t. He and that idiot he was screwing. They were just going to ruin everything for me! I had shipments coming in that were for me alone. My deals. He tried to take one of them. I knew I had to get rid of Tomas then. That’s why I suggested to the board that Wilde be brought in with the ruby exhibit. I figured you’d catch Tomas, and you did!” A sigh. “But I never expected Roman. When I saw him, it wasn’t like I could just walk away and forget, could I? I owed Heather.”
The ropes weren’t going to give. Harper let her head sag forward. Her voice turned soft as she sighed, “This is all about a dead woman.”
“No.” Charity’s voice was flat. “This is about a monster. That’s what Roman is. He’s heartless. He’s cold. He is cruel. You don’t know who his father was, but Heather told me so many stories…Roman is evil. He will turn on everyone close to him.”
“So this guy who is so evil…” Still, her voice was soft. Weak. “You think—what? He’ll sacrifice himself for me? That the big plan? Because…it doesn’t make sense.”
“He—he will. I had my team watching! Those men told me exactly what happened. He rushed into the cabin to save you. He tore the world apart looking for you. I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve tied him to you. He wouldn’t love her, but now he’s coming after you. And he’s going to pay for that. He is going to—”
Harper’s laughter stopped her words.
“What’s so funny?” Charity snapped. “Oh, wait. Is it the tranq? Do you even understand what I’m telling you?” She curled her hand over Harper’s shoulder. “Or, maybe, did you hit your head? I had to dump you in a crate in order to get you out of the museum. That way, no cameras would see you leaving. I might have slammed your head into the bottom of the crate. Sorry about that.”
Seriously? Harper whipped her head up, clipping the woman under the chin and sending Charity stumbling back. Charity let out a guttural scream as she wiped blood from her lip.
Aw, poor baby. Did you bite your lip when I head-butted you? Sorry about that.
But at Charity’s scream, the door flew open. Three men—all wearing black—rushed inside. The men weren’t wearing anything over their faces, though, and it was easy for Harper to see the long, jagged scratches on the tallest of the three men.
“Oh, hi.” She smiled at him. “I remember you.”
His expression hardened. Then he looked over at Charity. “You okay?”
“The bitch hit me with her head!”
“Name calling isn’t necessary,” Harper chided.
Charity glared. “I told you it wasn’t personal! I told you that I was going to let you go once we had Roman. I told you—”
“That Roman is some heartless monster. Newsflash, why would a heartless monster come here when he knows the whole thing is a trap? Why would he rush to save me? He won’t. Sure, I think he’ll probably call my friends at Wilde and send them over…”
The men in black looked uneasily at one another.
“But Roman won’t come. Look, he didn’t love your friend, Heather. And he doesn’t love me.”
“No, no.” Charity was adamant. “I have seen the way he looks at you. I know—”
“I’ve seen the way he looked when I told him that I loved him, and, in return, he told me that his father killed mine.”
The man with the jagged scratch gave a low whistle.
“Roman didn’t rush to say that he loved me. He let me know that his plan—all along—had been to leave me. I don’t exactly see how someone who feels that way will want to sacrifice himself for me.” She shrugged—or shrugged as much as she could with the ropes tying her down. “I think this might be the part where you realize you made a terrible mistake.”
Charity appeared far less certain. “But I have a client I found…I broker deals…the client will pay millions for proof of Roman’s death.”
“Yes, sorry.” Not sorry. “But it’s not going to happen.” Keep them talking. Buy time. “What will happen…Wilde agents will storm in the door of this place any moment. You and your henchmen team will be taken into custody and tossed in jail cells.” Harper held her breath after delivering that line. She could see the uncertainty in Charity’s eyes, and Jagged Scratch looked as if he might turn for the door at any—
A loud bang echoed from another room. It came again. Again. Pounding. Knocking.
Harper swallowed. “Sounds like someone’s at the door. Is it Wilde? Because my money says it is. You’re all going to jail, and I’m going home.”
Charity pulled a phone from her pocket. She stared down at the screen, and a faint smile tilted the corners of her lips. “No, Harper, you have everything wrong. This is the part…” She glanced back up. “Where Roman Valentino dies.”
Harper’s breath froze in her lungs. No. I don’t like this part. “No!”
***
The little house was at the end of a dead-end street. No other homes dotted the road. One way in. One way out. Fairly remote. Isolated.
He saw the security camera perched near the front door, and he waved with one finger to whoever was watching him. A moment later, the front door wrenched open. A man in black—with a rough-looking scratch sliding over his cheek—stood in the doorway.
Roman frowned at him. “I have to ask, just how did you get that mark on your cheek?”
“Did you come alone?”
“Do you see anyone else with me?”
The guy had a gun in his hand. One he shoved right at Roman.
Sighing, Roman lifted his hands up. “Feel free to search me. I don’t have any weapons.” He was hauled inside. Searched. Three men total were there. Big, hulking figures in black.
The assholes who’s taken Harper from her home?
“I knew you’d come.” Charity Hall sauntered toward him. She appeared all smug and satisfied.
But there was no sign of Harper. Where the hell was Harper?
“She told me you wouldn’t come,” Charity continued with a smirk on her face. “But I knew she was wrong. She said you didn’t love her. That Wilde would be coming instead, but I could tell by the way you watched her…”
“I want to see Harper.” She said you didn’t love her.
“Oh, you can see her.” She motioned toward the bedroom. “She’s in there. See her. Tell her good-bye.” She turned on her heel and led the way to the bedroom. “I told Harper I was going to let her go, and I meant what I—”
Bam. Bam.
The gunfire came from behind Roman. He spun and saw the prick with the scratch—he had his weapon up and aimed. He’d just fucking shot Charity.
“Roman!” A scream that came from the bedroom. Harper’s scream.
Roman immediately lunged for her.
“Nope.” It was the jackass who’d fired his weapon. The man who’d shot Charity in the back. “In case you missed it, I’m in charge now.”
What in the fuck is happening here?
***
“Those were gunshots,” Antony whispered. He was about fifty yards away from the house.
Dex nodded grimly.
“What if it was a shot at Harper? Or Roman?” Dammit, he hated not being able to see what was happenin
g in the house. “We need to go in, now.”
“Damn straight, we do,” Lacey—Dex’s wife—said. “Because that’s my brother in there.” She rushed toward the house.
And Dex chased after her.
***
“Roman!” Harper yelled. She could see Charity’s slumped body in the doorway. Who had shot her? What was happening? What was— “Roman!” She jerked hard, and the chair rocked forward with her—
Just as Roman appeared in the doorway.
When she saw him, relief swept through her so hard that her whole body shook. He was all right. Good. But… “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Crazy, isn’t it?” A male voice. Not Roman’s. A voice coming from behind Roman. The voice of the jerk she’d scratched days before. “Crazy that Roman Valentino thought he’d play hero for anyone.”
Then Roman was walking into the little bedroom. Harper saw the gun shoved at his back. Roman’s hands were up, his palms out, and his eyes were on her.
“Are you hurt, Harper?” Roman asked her.
She wet her lips. “I should probably see a doctor.” Her voice sounded weak. That was deliberate. “The woman bleeding out on the floor? She gave me horse tranq. That can’t be good.” Then her gaze darted to the man with the gun. “I’m guessing your original plans have changed now, yes?”
He nodded.
“Hurting me? That option is officially on the table?” Harper pushed.
Another nod.
“That is disappointing to hear, but I figured as much. You know, when you weren’t trying to hide your identity any longer.” Her gaze darted to Charity’s slumped form. “And here she probably thought that she could trust you.”
“Her mistake,” the man with the gun said flatly. He shoved Roman forward. “Were you followed? Did you give Wilde the location?”
“I didn’t tell a soul anything,” Roman snarled. “Harper’s life is on the line. I would never do anything to jeopardize her and I would—”
A shrill alarm cut through his words.
Uh, oh. “What’s that about?” Harper asked.
“Company. Guess he doesn’t give a shit about you, after all. He didn’t follow Charity’s orders. Your life wasn’t worth enough to him.”