She didn’t use the one made available to guests, though. She dashed upstairs, bypassing a few people who’d decided to venture up to the second floor—brave souls, those people. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere in this house she wasn’t given outright permission to. Actually, if she didn’t need to be here, she wouldn’t be.
Apparently Patrick was prepared for all eventualities and the other wings were guarded, including the one where her rooms were.
The ugly arse who stood in the middle of the hall was a man she was all too familiar with. His shoulders seemed big enough to blot out the sun, his dark eyes were set under a prominent brow ridge, and his nose looked like it had been broken a good four or five times.
“Hello, Mr. Morris,” she said brightly, smiling at him.
He didn’t smile back.
In fact, she thought he seemed pissed off. Guess he was still put off that she’d lost him on the run the other day. Well, he could get stuffed for all she cared. “I need to use the loo and I wanted a bit of privacy.”
He just stared at her.
She smiled brighter. “The restroom. There are so many people down there.”
Slowly, still watching her with those sullen, angry eyes, he stepped aside.
She moved past him, and although she tried to avoid contact, her arm brushed his as he shifted.
Flash, flash, flash.
Excitement . . . new girl coming . . . can’t touch . . . fuck, what fun is that . . .
Stupid bitch—
An image of her, with him kneeling over her, his hands around her neck.
Followed by another image. Him, on the ground. Legs broken. Hands and arms broken. And that alligator.
She stumbled a bit, caught herself on one of the lovely antique tables in the hallway, a few feet away from her suite of rooms. Just before he would have touched her . . . deepened that connection. He couldn’t touch her. Not ever. She thought it would drive her insane.
No. No, I won’t let that happen.
She wouldn’t get sick, damn it.
She’d find out who in the hell this new girl was.
Carefully, without looking back, she eased away from the table and carefully walked to her room. Opened the door and slipped inside. Without looking back at Morris, she shut the door.
That wanker.
Both of them. All of them.
As the flash pieced together, bit by bit, Dru set her shoulders.
She was done playing around.
Nobody else.
Nobody. Else.
NINETEEN
"HMM. I guess I should have mentioned it was black-tie.”
Joss gave Patrick a narrow look and then glanced down at the khakis and polo he’d unearthed. He’d thrown a sport coat over it and wasn’t overly surprised when he was checked for weapons at the door. He’d surrendered them, because they hadn’t found most of his weapons. Whitmore’s men weren’t as good as they’d like to be.
Plus, Joss also had a very powerful weapon crammed inside his brain—his hijacked psychic skills.
“Well, I left the tux back in storage,” he drawled, shrugging. “Don’t worry. I can’t stay. Work to do and all of that.”
“But you did so well on this one. You can take the evening off.” Patrick guided him over to the side, an inquisitive look on his face. “Perhaps you have images . . .”
Rage bristled Joss. “I can e-mail some if you want. I took a few.”
“No.”
You prick. Can’t take the bait that easy, huh?
Shrugging, Joss tugged out his phone and pulled up the photo album. “I figured you’d want to see, so I snapped a few on my phone, but I’ll be deleting them soon.”
He displayed one of the pictures he’d taken of Vaughnne in the mall. “I met her at the food court. She’s here on vacation. Was supposed to come with a friend, and the friend had to cancel. Nobody will be looking for her for the next ten days.” He smiled and let some of the dark, ugly anger he felt seep into that smile, knowing the menace would show. “And better yet, she’s in between jobs . . . needs to go for a training thing in a few weeks, but you know how that goes. If she doesn’t show . . .”
“Perfect . . .” Patrick murmured. He swiped a finger across the phone, studying the next picture. “She looks like the girl next door. Family ties?”
“Estranged mother. They maybe talk at Christmas, if she can’t get out of it. No boyfriend. Some friends she sees back home, but it doesn’t sound like there’s anybody who’d raise an alarm for a while when she doesn’t come back.”
Patrick nodded. “Was there a car?”
“Yep.” Joss slid him a sidelong smile. “We took her car. It’s en route to the Everglades. I traded a favor.”
“A favor.” Patrick studied him.
Joss lifted a hand. “Hey, I know my business, trust me. This sort of thing will go smoother if they are looking for her elsewhere. Her car will be there, along with maps and shit. Like she was going on a day hike.”
“And nobody can place you with her?” Patrick continued to watch him, those flat blue eyes icy, dead as a shark’s.
Joss sighed, shaking his head. “Look, do you think I started doing this line of work yesterday?” He deleted the pictures of Vaughnne, tried not to think about how she was doing. The woman had promised she’d reach out to him if she was in imminent danger. He could keep a tenuous link established with her, although keeping up with everything was straining his brain to the breaking point already and he’d just gotten started.
Keeping his face blank, he met Patrick’s stare dead on. “You hired me for a job, right?” Then he smirked and added, “Besides, if I get placed with her, it’s my ass. Not yours, yeah?”
“Hmm. We should really talk about what happened the last time one of my men crossed me.” Patrick smiled. “Not that you would. But you seem interested in being informed.”
“Well, seeing as how my . . . livelihood is at stake, I figure being informed is the wise thing to do, don’t you? Only stupid men and trusting fools operate in the dark.” Joss paused. “I’m neither one.”
“So I see.” Patrick glanced past him, an odd light entering his eyes. “Hmm. Would you care to meet my fiancée, Mr. Sellers?”
Joss swallowed the automatic response that rose to his lips. There was either a bitch dumb enough or greedy enough to marry this shark . . . which was it? He was betting on greedy. Even the brainless had survival instincts and this man was dangerous.
Tucking his phone away, he stepped aside. “I’d be delighted.”
He glanced around, eyeing the thick crowd. It wouldn’t be that hard to lose himself in this mess, he figured. In the next twenty minutes or so, he could break away from Patrick. Work the crowd a little, although—
His spine heated.
His breath hitched without him even realizing it and his heart started to slam against his ribs.
Oh, fuck, no.
She couldn’t be here.
But even as he thought it, he found himself remembering that godawful fear he’d felt coming from her. The way she’d looked at him . . . You can’t help me.
If any group of people spelled bad news, it was the people that Patrick Whitmore ran with. But how had she gotten involved . . .
Patrick was slowing to a stop near a long, leggy brunette. She was facing away from them, but at his touch, she turned.
If Joss hadn’t had years, years upon years, of schooling his every emotion, he would have lost it.
Just plain and simply lost it.
No.
Just . . . no.
I’m spoken for.
The soft sigh in her voice as she said, Damn you, why couldn’t you have come into my life a year ago? Two years ago? Why now? I can’t have you now.
Her eyes widened just a fraction, and he saw her lips part.
“Darling, this is a business associate of mine,” Patrick said, sliding an arm around her waist. “Mike Sellers.”
Something darted through her eyes. He alm
ost heard the words forming in her mind.
Stepping forward, he caught her hand. “I’m charmed,” Joss drawled. “Patrick, your fiancée is absolutely lovely.”
“Isn’t she?” Patrick stroked a hand down her arm, the way he might have stroked a beloved cat.
And all the while, Dru just stared at him, her pale green eyes locked on his face. Like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
* * *
JOSS . . .
Patrick said his name was Mike—
Oh, like that wanker would actually tell the utter truth if he knew it.
But Joss . . .
Swallowing, she extricated her hand from Joss’s, although just then, she was almost desperate for his strength. “Business associates, are you? Have you worked together long then?”
No. Not his strength . . . not his. Not if he was working with Patrick. What had he said? His job. Complicated. The slimy, evil wanker.
“Just starting out, love,” Patrick said. He patted her shoulder. “Nothing you’d be able to follow, though.”
Of course not. I can’t comprehend kidnapping—
Flash, flash, flash.
A delivery . . .
Images of a girl, the light, creamy brown of a woman of mixed heritage. Freckles sprinkled across her nose. A charming smile.
And . . . most gut-wrenching of all, Joss’s voice . . . I met her at the food court. She’s here on vacation. Was supposed to come with a friend and the friend had to cancel. Nobody will be looking for her for the next ten days. When he spoke, there was an ugly, menacing hate in his voice.
She stumbled and slammed a hand down, bracing it by the curving wall of the stairwell at her back as the memory burned itself into her brain, followed by another. And another.
First there was a picture of a girl smiling at the camera. Then another, bound, gagged . . . and glaring at the camera.
The girl next door . . .
Patrick picturing the girl in a formal. Fuck . . . bloody fuck. Dru knew that dress. It was the one he’d selected for her bridesmaids. Of course, she didn’t have any. He’d said he’d see to it . . .
This wasn’t happening.
A cruel hand gripped her arm, so at odds with Patrick’s gentle voice as he inquired, “Ella, are you feeling unwell?”
Swallowing back the bile that churned in her throat, she said softly, “The champagne, Patrick. I think it’s gone to my head. Perhaps I should lie down.”
Moments later, one of the house servants was at her side to escort her up the stairs. Just before she reached the top, she looked back, found herself staring down at Joss.
He was one of them.
Damn him.
The betrayal, the deep, gut-wrenching sense of pain, all but blinded her.
Damn him straight to hell.
* * *
“IT seems your little bimbo doesn’t hold her liquor well,” Joss drawled, reaching over to pluck up the glass Dru had been holding. He grinned sardonically at Patrick, ignoring the fury biting there.
Hell, he should stop pulling the guy’s chain, but he’d never been good at the subservient role anyway, and right now, he was spoiling for a fight.
Dru was here.
Dru was going to marry this fucker.
And she knew.
He saw it in her eyes, felt it in her mind . . . she knew and she was going to marry Whitmore anyway.
Well, no. No, she wasn’t, because Joss damn well wasn’t going to let it happen. He’d turn kidnapper himself and find a way to have her fine ass deported. By the time she got done untangling the red tape he could wrap around her, Whitmore would be in jail and she could kiss whatever money she’d hoped to get from him gone, gone, gone . . .
He glanced up and caught her looking down at him. There was ice in her gaze now, a cool disdain that left him feeling meaner than a snake. And he already felt pretty damn mean.
He smiled and toasted her with his glass.
Then, as Patrick looked up, he watched her face go void and blank, that inner spark in her eyes dying, all the life, the anger . . . it was as if a doll’s face had replaced the woman who’d been looking at him a minute ago.
Hell.
What the fuck did he care?
Amelie . . .
It’s Amelie. Dru.
He couldn’t fool himself, not even out of pride.
“Please watch how you speak of my fiancée, Mr. Sellers. We’ll do business together . . .” Patrick said, pulling Joss’s attention back to him.
As the other man took a step toward him, Joss lowered his shields enough to catch some of those iced-down thoughts. “But if you cross a certain line . . .”
Joss smiled as one of Patrick’s thoughts filled the silence in his head.
I need him for the next few weeks, but if he continues to be such an ass, he’s not going to work out. A pity . . . he’s certainly the fastest I’ve ever worked with. Although it could be luck . . .
Joss winked at him. “I cross plenty of lines, Whitmore. Afraid I can’t help it. But here’s the thing . . . you’ll never work with anybody quite as good at my job as I am.” A waiter circulated by and Joss swiped a canapé, popped it in his mouth, and then glanced around. “I’ll let you go do your host thing. Thanks for the invite . . . boss.”
Revising the plans, Joss lost himself in the crowd, waiting until he found the right moment before he dumped Dru’s champagne and then pocketed the flute. Needed to get more information on her background, seeing as how she went by one name for Whitmore. Told Joss another.
Seeing as how she was engaged to a fucking human trafficker . . . rage boiled in his gut, low, ugly, seething. The walls of his control shivered.
Voices barreled inside his brain.
He’s one of them . . .
He’s one of them . . .
Hot in here.
Uppity bastard, always got to show . . .
How can I tell her I lost my job . . .
I wonder if I can get Saul to leave a few hours earlier on Friday . . .
And under it all, there were tortured, tragic moans. Loud and demanding. Louder than before, and with the moans came a bone-rattling cold.
Help me . . .
Get me out of here . . .
He’s one of them . . .
Lost my job. Twenty-nine years . . .
“Hey . . . don’t I know you?”
Snarling, Joss glanced around, half-desperate, and shoved through a nearby set of doors.
He found himself in a garden, but it was far from dark, far from quiet. Shouldering his way through the crowds, he fought to hold on to the threads of his sanity, to his control, but as rage spiraled tighter, spun even higher, it became harder and harder.
Pain snaked in, grabbed him by the throat. His shields shuddered more, and in his mind’s eye, he could see hairline cracks forming in those solid, stone walls.
Bad. This was bad.
He was almost shaking from the cold now, and the howl of the ghosts was more like a banshee’s wail than anything.
Finally, he broke free of the people.
Finally, he was alone.
He went to the ground, one hand fisting in the grass as he slammed up another stone wall in his mind. Stone. Encased in ice. He had to take a page out of Whitmore’s book, it seemed, and ice it down a few notches. Ice it down, Crawford . . . ice it down.
The voices receded bit by bit as he built up the stone wall in his mind.
But still, the pain that gripped his chest, all but threatening to rip his heart out, that . . . that remained.
Just fucking had it ripped out—
The stone wall cracked.
“Not now . . . not now.” His fingers sank into the dirt and he squeezed his eyes shut. Stone. By stone. Ice encasing each one.
The pain didn’t recede, but the voices eventually did. They faded to a dull murmur by the time he had the wall halfway built. It glittered in his mind’s eye like a cobbled road slicked with black ice.
But the
louder voices remained.
Help me . . . help me . . .
The cold, shivery trail of a ghost’s touch along his spine. He could see her shimmering just ahead of him, too. Almost fully formed, her eyes locked on his but barely aware. “I can’t help you yet,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t.”
Help me . . . please help . . .
As he continued to build the wall in his mind, she faded away, still sobbing, begging for help.
He’s one of them . . .
The whispers faded as he sank the last stone in place, and finally, he was alone in the peace of his own mind.
No ghosts.
No whispers.
Just the ache of a broken heart that somehow managed to keep beating inside his chest.
“How the fuck did this happen?”
* * *
“THIS isn’t happening.”
She’d kicked off the ridiculous four-inch heels she’d been wearing with her equally ridiculous dress as she suffered through that dull party, waiting, just waiting for the moment. It would happen, she knew it. Something would happen.
And then something did.
“This isn’t happening . . .”
Her skin continued to prickle and burn, alternating between hot and cold chills. Her chest ached like somebody had ripped her open and carved her heart out using a rusty old shovel.
And still, all of that adrenaline crashed through her.
It wasn’t over him, though.
Not him . . .
Traitor.
She wanted to scream it at him, at this man she didn’t know, and how utterly absurd was that? She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. He didn’t owe her anything, yet it felt like he’d betrayed her.
Doesn’t betraying mankind and decency and humanity count?
Except she dealt with people who did that sort of thing all the time, and none of it felt like this. Like a raw, personal betrayal.
“Oh, God . . .” Dru sank to the edge of the bed, one hand pressed to her belly, the other covering her mouth and trying to hold back the sob. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be.
There was a knock.
She barely managed to wipe the emotions off her face before the door opened.
“Ella.”
The Reunited Page 20