by Addison Fox
“She’s valuable to him. He hasn’t gone through all this effort to waste it now.”
Campbell heard the underlying message. Or kill Abby yet.
Damn it, he wasn’t going to go there.
Was. Not. Going. There.
“You know the device is calibrated properly?”
“Of course.”
“You sure?”
Campbell brushed off the skepticism and recognized David’s questions for what they were. An effort to be well prepared so they could get in and get Abby without anyone getting hurt.
David had lost men, too. Good people who’d followed him into battle and Campbell tried to keep that thought in mind as he and the security lead mapped out their next steps.
Campbell walked him through the program he’d written. The final fix had been simple, but the program itself was rather complex, using a mixture of GPS data, individual phone fingerprinting and a little overlay he fondly thought of as his gray hat special.
He might have started his hacking career as a black hat and might now wave the proud flag of the white hat, but he’d learned through the years his very best strategies used a mixture of both phases of his profession.
The little fingerprint he’d put on Lucas was just that.
Right now, he was picking up a signature of each and every device the man went anywhere near.
“See this.” Campbell pointed to a three-dimensional map on David’s workstation.
“Yep.”
“He’s centered at this address which Simon already confirmed is a high-rise apartment.”
“So you can tell what building but not which apartment.”
“My sister’s working through that now, combing ownership records, but right. We don’t have the exact apartment yet.”
“No video surveillance?” Simon probed.
Campbell had to hand it to the man, he’d come online, more than ready to help in the fight to bring Abby back. “Bastard’s worked his way around the video. It magically disappears each and every time he gets near the building.”
“And no one’s noticed? These systems are designed to manage outages and report them as problems.”
“Not when you give the system a happy little program to keep it occupied.” Campbell tapped on the screen once more. “He knows what the hell he’s doing. He’s really, really good.”
“And yet you’ve scented him down like a bloodhound.” David turned to slap him on the back. “We’re going to get her.”
“I know.”
But every minute they were apart Campbell wanted to rip something apart. He just prayed Lucas had enough control to keep her unharmed.
* * *
Abby shifted in her chair, fighting the near-nauseating need to use the bathroom, and considered her options once more.
Lucas’s use of the shaker the previous night—as well as the ready supply of liquor bottles on the sidebar—would make an adequate-enough weapon.
She had to be let loose first.
The lock sounded and she turned as the object of her calculations walked in. “And how was your morning?”
“I’m nearly floating.”
“Hmm?”
“Bathroom, Lucas. Can I use one?”
His gaze was skeptical, but she knew she had him on that one. Mother Nature always won.
She’d nearly congratulated herself when her world went vertical. She felt his hand through the slats at her back as he dragged the chair—and her—down the hall to the bathroom.
He positioned her at the open door, then stood behind her and undid the restraints.
“There’s nothing in that one so just go and keep it quick.”
She stumbled as he tilted the chair, shoving her through the door. Nearly her entire body had fallen asleep and pain rushed through her limbs with all the finesse of nails driving into her skin.
Abby stumbled to the toilet and relieved herself, considering the room. He hadn’t joked—the room was bare. Even the toilet paper sat by itself on the back of the toilet. She briefly considered lifting the toilet tank lid and using it as a weapon but couldn’t remove it. The seat was glued down, too.
Damn.
Frustration rose up to mix with sheer exhaustion.
She had to get out of here.
With a resigned sigh, she prayed Campbell would have some way of knowing where she was and knocked on the door.
She might as well learn as much as she could in the meantime.
Lucas made quick work of retying her, then dragged her back the way they’d come.
Without warning, an unexpected wash of tears hit her. Where she’d have expected them as a result of the exhaustion, she had to admit they came from another source.
Now that she knew why she saw similarities, when she looked at Lucas she saw her father.
The same well-framed jaw. The same sweep of how that jaw descended into his chin. The same arc of his cheekbone.
“Tears, Abby?”
“I see my dad. I’ve never noticed it before, yet I’ve always felt there was something familiar about you, but there it was as you bent over me to drag the chair.
The quiet look she received in return—the sheer emptiness in his gaze—showered ice pellets over her spine.
He might look like her father but there was none of the associated warmth. And there certainly wasn’t any love or affection.
“Lucas. Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’m going to win.”
“Win?” She shook her head, willing there to be something—anything—inside his mind she could appeal to. “What’s there to win?”
“My legacy.”
He resettled her chair in the corner, then took his steps to put the distance between them.
“You can have it. You always could have had it. I’d have been more than willing to share.”
“I want what’s mine.”
The reality of his sickness rose up to choke her, threatening another layer of tears. “What if I just give it to you?”
“Nope. You need to lose everything. That’s the only way my plan will work.”
Plans...back to the plans.
“And what is your plan?”
“Those satellites you’re deploying next month?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to sabotage their launch, indicating the damage you’ve done to them in various cost-cutting measures.”
“No, Lucas.”
“You’ll be nowhere to be found because you’ll be right here, tied up nice and tight. And then I’ll swoop in and buy up the company. You know, with all my experience on the board I’ve got the exact credentials to bring the company back from the brink of financial disaster.” His gaze floated to the window and it was in that moment—why it had even taken her this long, Abby didn’t know—that she accepted he was lost to her.
The brother she’d never known would never be hers.
* * *
“No doorman,” David grumbled as he scanned the ornate lobby. “Who the hell builds an apartment like this and leaves off a doorman?”
Campbell glanced down at his phone, the lights on the face indicating the man he’d tracked was in the building. “A landlord who’s catering to a more average clientele while assuring them, and himself, they’ve got the height of security wired in to keep them safe.”
“Tenants sleep soundly, thinking of the foolproof cameras in their lobby.”
“Yep, and we know different.” Campbell saw Simon through the front door of the building, his gaze pointed up the front of the midsize high rise as he strapped on rappelling equipment. Two other men stood on the roof, ready to drop his rope and pull him up.
Simon shot them a thumbs-up before his body began to ascend.
Kensington had come up with the purchase details and they’d narrowed Lucas’s apartment down to three possibilities. Since all three faced the front of the building, Simon would rappel up the side, out of view from any of the three possibilities and do some external s
pying until he found the right one.
Voices echoed in the matched earpieces Campbell and David wore and he heard Simon confirm he was ready to begin climbing.
Campbell and David took the stairs to the third floor as Simon’s voice echoed in their ear. When they heard him confirm the third floor wasn’t it, they kept going toward six.
The image of getting to Abby filled his mind like a mantra—a prayer—the need to hold her a living, breathing need inside of him.
What if he got there too late?
Again another denial went up which meant they were headed to twelve.
Campbell picked up his steps, taking them two at a time on a renewed burst of speed as David’s heavy booted footsteps clattered behind him.
As he approached the door to the twelfth floor, Campbell heard the scream echo through his earpiece along with the rail of gunfire.
David screamed his name from behind, demanding he halt, but Campbell ignored it as he dragged open the stairwell door and raced for the sounds of battle.
* * *
Abby struggled to duck and knew she had nowhere to go but down. With hard bursts of her feet, she pushed on the chair, desperate to make herself topple over to ensure she was out of the line of fire.
The gun in Lucas’s hand had been a shock, but the sight of Simon outside the windows even more so. She saw him in the briefest moment before Lucas made out the threat and screamed as loudly as she could to alert him to the danger.
She screamed once more as Lucas fired on the man, dangling in a harness, but it must have given Simon enough warning because he pushed himself off the window just before it shattered.
The force of her feet had her own momentum shifting and she fell to the side with a hard thud. It was only when she looked up that she saw the apartment door slam open, Campbell barreling through it, his face a mask of determination.
“Campbell!”
His gaze alighted on hers and in it she saw relief as well as a bone-deep anger that was glacial in its intensity. Then she watched as he turned that stare on Lucas.
And then everything happened at once.
Abby screamed that Lucas had a gun a split second before David lifted his weapon to fire. Simon’s momentum on the swinging harness carried him back through the opening, sending more glass flying into the room and crashing to the floor.
In the midst of it all, Campbell charged forward without stopping, straight into Lucas. The force of his body was enough to propel Lucas off his feet.
Campbell never stopped, just pushed forward until Lucas was scrabbling for purchase on anything, desperate to keep himself upright as Campbell pushed him inexorably toward the window.
On a final push, Campbell’s momentum took the man over and everything went silent as Lucas’s screams faded as he fell.
Abby stared at him—this man that she loved—and saw the mirror image of his warrior ancestors in his stance.
“Abby.” Campbell was by her side, dragging on the chair so she could sit upright. His hands ran over her arms, tugging on the tight knots, his gaze roaming everywhere at once.
“Campbell. It’s all right. I’m all right.”
“I can get them.” David pushed Campbell to the side before he flipped open a switchblade and made quick work of the knots. He’d barely sliced the last knot around her ankle before Campbell was dragging her into his arms.
His hands were everywhere as he scanned her for injuries. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s okay.”
She finally stilled him by taking his face in her hands. “I’m fine. Really. Fine.” She glanced at the window. “Are you okay?”
“You’re safe.”
“I mean it. Are you all right?”
“All I saw was you. Lying there and he had the gun pointed at you.”
The brief moments assaulted her senses and she knew she’d see them for years to come. “It was pointed at you. I was so scared.”
“I had to keep you safe. And the only way to do that was to charge him.”
“My stubborn hardheaded man.”
He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her lips. It was brief but it held a lifetime of promise. When they finally came up for air, he winked at her. “Good to know it’s useful for something.”
She laughed at that as she pulled his head down for one more kiss before stepping back and dropping her hands to her hips. “I’ve had twelve hours to think about this and I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I know and I’m kind of mad at you for it.”
“For being in love with me? Or for me being in love with you?”
The fear of the past several hours vanished at the reality that she would get to tell him. Would hear him tell her he loved her in return, again and again.
“For telling me first and giving me no way to tell you back.”
His smile spread—the one that promised their bright shiny future was theirs for the taking—and he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Tell me now, baby.”
“I’ll tell you every day. I love you, Campbell Steele.”
“I love you, too, Abigail McBane.”
“Forever.” She whispered the promise against his lips and let it unfurl in her heart.
Epilogue
Abby sat in the living room of the Upper East Side brownstone that also acted as the main conference room for House of Steele. Kensington had a bottle of champagne chilling on the sideboard and Abby didn’t miss the anticipatory glances Campbell kept shooting toward the door.
“Have you met our grandfather?” Rowan reached for a square of cheese off the large tray Kensington had placed in the center of the table.
“Yes, but it’s been years and I’m quite sure he won’t remember me.”
“Of course I remember you.” A deep voice, thick with the sounds of Britain, echoed off the wall as Alexander Steele marched into the conference room behind his wife.
“Mr. Steele.” Abby stood and took comfort from Campbell’s hand which sat on her lower back.
“Come here.”
He barked the order with such force she didn’t dare disobey and stepped forward, skirting the edge of the conference table.
“It’s lovely to see you again, Mr. Steele.” She nodded to Campbell’s grandmother, Penelope, who looked resigned to her husband’s antics. “Mrs. Steele.”
“So you’ve snared my grandson.” Alexander Steele’s words were frank as he continued to stare her in the eye, that rheumy blue gaze still as sharp as ever.
“Um, well...” She broke off at the mischievous smile that rode his features. It was a smile she knew well and whatever anxiety she’d felt waiting for the arrival of Campbell’s grandparents fled on swift wings. “Well, yes.”
“Good for you. Smart girl. I always knew it. Always suspected you two would make a fine match.”
Penelope waved her husband off. “Don’t listen to him. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”
“Not true, Penny!” Alexander bellowed. “Not true. I told you about these two years ago. That time Abby came and you dragged her through Harrods for three days. I said it to you then.”
Penelope’s gaze turned speculative before she turned back to her husband. “So you did.”
Campbell leaned forward and kissed his grandmother before turning to shake his grandfather’s hand. “I wasn’t aware fortune-teller was in your job description.”
“I can see what’s in front of my own eyes. That’s not fortune-telling, that’s being observant.”
Truth be told, Abby thought the man had a rather valid point.
“But Abby and I didn’t meet on her visit to London all those years ago.”
“I knew, anyway.”
Campbell winked at her before turning back to his grandfather. “Just like you know everything.”
“Everything worth knowing.”
Campbell helped his grandparents to their seats as Kensington took care of the champagne. Despite Alexander’s formidable pr
esence, Abby observed Campbell’s gentle care of his aging grandparents and felt another tick mark go up in the “reasons she loved him” column.
As if she needed another.
Kensington filled the glasses and Rowan passed them around and it was only when everyone had a flute in hand that Alexander stood up once more.
Lifting his glass he turned to Abby and Campbell. “There’s never been a day since my grandchildren arrived that I haven’t thanked God for them. But I’d be remiss in not saying I’d have always loved to have more.”
Alexander extended his glass toward her and Abby touched her flute lightly to his. “To my new granddaughter. I had to wait a bit longer for you, but I’ve no doubt you’ll be well worth the wait.”
The happy sound of clinking glasses and laughing conversation filled the room as Abby leaned forward to kiss Alexander.
And when he patted her on the back and told her he expected she’d give his grandson hell and make him enjoy each and every minute of it, Abby knew she’d found her family.
For years she’d drifted, alone in the world.
But it was Campbell Steele who had brought her home.
* * * * *
Will House of Steele continue to expand?
Find out in THE LONDON DECEPTION,
where Rowan Steele puts her skills to use,
just as her past returns to haunt her....
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Billionaire’s Redemption by Cindy Dees.
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Chapter 1