by Cynthia Eden
Oh, wow. Wasn’t he the gentleman?
“Nod if you’ll be good.”
Be good?
Not even on her best day. Or worst. But Kat nodded.
He hesitated. “Don’t be trying to trick me, Kat, don’t be—”
Her hand flew up. She grabbed his hand, managed to catch his pinky finger, and she snatched it back, breaking it instantly.
“Fuck!” His voice was still low. Still only carrying to her—
“Help!” While her own voice was a roar. Not some scream, but a roar. With his hand gone from her mouth, she roared with all her might, “Help me!” She turned around and drove her fist toward his stomach. But he was already moving, rushing back from her blow and fading into the darkness of the room, just like the damn ghost that he was.
She grabbed for the door. Her fingers flew over the knob, and she wrenched the door open. Kat leapt into the hallway.
Bryan grabbed her shoulders. His eyes were huge. “Kat! What is it?”
“Jimmy…Ghost—he’s in my room!” Where was Rick? “We need to—”
“Get the bastard, that’s what we need to do.” He yanked out his gun and surged into her room. He flipped on the lights.
Kat rushed in behind him.
The bedroom was empty. The tousled covers were still on the bed.
Her breath panted out. “Where is he?”
***
“If I wanted you dead, I could shoot you right now.”
Cole looked at the gun pointed directly at his chest…then at the man holding the gun. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” He cocked his head to the right as he leaned back against the side of his car. “And I really like to know the names of people who want to shoot me.”
“Such a cocky asshole.”
“I try.”
“Why don’t you try thinking harder? Because you know me. Our paths have crossed before.”
Cole squinted, trying to see the fellow better in the darkness.
“Back when you used to offer out your…skill set…to the highest bidder? Before you got a conscience and started working for Wilde. You knew me back then.”
What Cole knew was that he was in trouble. His gaze darted around. Empty road? Check. Goons surrounding him? Check. And the past coming back to bite him in the ass? Triple check.
“Though we never met face-to-face back in those days. Instead, you talked to one of my assistants.”
“Look, we can dick around here all night or you can get to the freaking point. I kinda have places that I need to be,” Cole gritted from between clenched teeth.
“I know exactly where you need to be…with Kathleen O’Shaughnessy.”
Yep, he’d figured this conversation would steer in that direction.
“Kat’s the reason we’re here tonight.” The guy backed up a little bit, and the street lamp fell on his face.
Aw, hell. “You’re Gage Hollow.” He’d seen photos of the guy. A very higher-up fellow in the criminal world. AKA a mob boss. A man who’d been the enemy of Kat’s father. The guy who was suspected of ordering the hit on her dear old dad.
“Guilty.” Gage grinned.
“Of a lot of things,” Cole snapped, right before he made his move. Gage’s mistake had been stepping back and moving his gun away from Cole’s body. Cole leapt up and snatched the gun right out of the SOB’s hand. He flipped it around and aimed it at Gage’s chest. See how you like it, shitwad.
Gage’s thugs immediately yanked out their own weapons and aimed them at Cole.
“I can shoot before they can,” Cole promised. “So tell the attack dogs to stand the hell down.”
“Stand down,” Gage ordered, but his voice wasn’t tense or worried. It was too calm. A bad sign.
“You wannabe tough guys…” Cole shook his head as he took Gage’s measure. “I bet you don’t usually get your hands dirty. You hire out work to others, don’t you? That’s why it was so easy for me to take your weapon—”
“I do often hire out work to resourceful fellows like you, Cole.” Still not worried. Still far too calm.
“I’m not working for you.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t even heard my job offer yet. Why not listen? My offer might be too good for you to pass up.”
“I have a job, thanks, and the last thing I’d ever do is take freaking blood money from someone like you.” Once, yes, dammit, he had. But he was atoning. Getting his life and shit straight. He would never go down that dark path again. “What did you think? You could toss money at me and I’d hurt Kat? Not going to happen. I’m here to keep her safe. That’s my job.”
Gage glanced down at the gun pointed at his chest. “Leave us,” he said, voice finally tense.
His men backed away. Then climbed into the waiting cars. Shut the doors.
Okay. Cole hadn’t expected that order. His eyes narrowed. “What is it you want?”
“I want you to keep doing your job,” Gage said, voice low and only carrying to Cole’s ears. “I want you to protect Kat. Because I’m not the man who put a price on her head. I’m not her enemy.”
***
“He was right here,” Kat said as her gaze jumped around the bedroom. “I swear it.”
Bryan stood in front of her with his gun still out. “I believe you.”
“Maybe he’s in the bathroom. Or hiding in the closet, or—”
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Bryan shouted.
She flinched. “I need to get Rick.” Kat whirled. Why hadn’t Rick come in there with her already? Where—
“No, sorry. He’s busy.” Bryan grabbed her and yanked Kat against his chest.
Kat twisted in his hold. “Bryan! Shit, let go!”
“Kat…shut the fuck up.” He jabbed his gun into her side. “Or I will have to hurt you.”
Shock froze her.
“You hear that, Ghost?” Bryan raised his voice even more. “If you don’t come out, right now, I’ll have to hurt her. I’ll start with a few shots that won’t damage anything too vital. You know, the shots that just make her scream.”
“You are crazy!” Kat heaved in his arms. “Stop it! Let me go!”
“Kat.”
She blinked.
Ghost had just appeared—in one blink, he was standing in the middle of the bedroom.
“Kat, he means what he’s saying,” Ghost told her as he rocked onto the balls of his feet. “I think he killed that kid at the motel. He’ll hurt you, too. So stay calm.”
The hit man was telling her to stay calm?
Bryan laughed. “I knew you weren’t gunning for her. I mean, I read your file. You never miss targets.”
“No, I don’t miss.” Ghost stared straight at Bryan. She couldn’t even think of him as Jimmy anymore. Jimmy had been the smiling, charming boy she knew at seventeen. Ghost was the man with the dead eyes and the cold voice.
“When she kept living after being around you at the farmhouse, I knew the truth. You weren’t there to kill her. You were there to protect her.”
Bryan’s gun still jabbed into her side. “Where’s Rick?” Kat whispered.
Bryan laughed again. “Oh, don’t worry about the big guy. He’s not going to be rushing to interrupt us. He won’t be doing a damn thing.”
Silence. That was all Kat could hear. Thick, enveloping silence. She was pretty sure that Bryan’s mouth was still moving, but she couldn’t hear anything else he said.
He won’t be doing a damn thing.
Bryan had hurt Rick. He might have killed him.
Kat felt something break inside of her. Her father had always told her, he’d warned her…one day, there would be something that made her cross the line. He’d told Kat that she’d see it was easier than she thought to take a life.
Her soul seemed to break away in that moment. To just shatter.
Rick?
Her lips parted. Her throat burned. Kat was pretty sure she was screaming, but she couldn’t even hear that sound. She slammed her elbow back in
to Bryan. Threw up her fist in the same instant and rammed it into his nose. Then she whirled and drove her fingers right at his eyes. They both slipped and tumbled onto the floor. The gun flew out of his hand. She scrambled for it, her fingers reaching out, so close—
Something jabbed into her neck. Sharp. Deep. An icy cold seemed to immediately shoot through her body. “What…?”
She couldn’t get the gun because she couldn’t feel her fingers.
She couldn’t feel anything but the cold.
Bryan hauled her against him, dragging her onto his lap. She saw him put the gun against her forehead, but she couldn’t feel the muzzle. She could barely keep her head up, and her eyes wanted to sag shut. He glared across the bedroom. “Make one move toward me, Ghost, and I’ll put a bullet in her head.”
“No, the fuck you won’t!” Ghost snarled back. “Because you think she knows where the money is. You won’t do a damn thing to her until you find out—”
She couldn’t hear what he said next. Mostly because Kat couldn’t hear a damn thing. She passed out.
Chapter Twenty
He felt like he’d been hit with a sledge hammer. Rick slowly cracked open one eye and found himself staring at the freaking floor. His hands were twisted behind him, and he could feel metal biting into his wrists.
Cuffed. I’m cuffed and on the floor.
He didn’t move, not wanting to alert—
“You’re going to die, you know that, Ghost?”
Rick’s back teeth clenched.
“There is no way you walk out of this penthouse,” Bryan continued. He was close—just a few feet away, so Rick knew he had to play this scene very carefully. “You tell me where the money is…and maybe I won’t hurt you too badly before I send you to hell.”
Ghost laughed. Then there was the sound of a fist hitting flesh. A groan.
“I’ll beat the shit out of you and never break a sweat,” Bryan promised with a savage kind of glee. “I can do this all night. I mean, you deserve it, don’t you? After all those people you killed…”
Rick moved his head the slightest bit. A fast movement would alert Bryan. He didn’t want to tip off the sonofabitch. He could see Bryan’s back. The man had Ghost secured in a chair. Looked like Ghost was cuffed, too, with his hands behind his back. His face was bloody. One eye swollen shut. Blood covered his mouth and dripped onto his shirt.
How long had Bryan been working him over?
How long was I out?
Rick tried to wiggle his fingers. Everything still felt numb, his body too heavy. What had Bryan dosed him with?
Cole…Cole was supposed to be coming over. Shit, his friend would either bust in to save the day…or Cole would walk in to his own execution.
Where is Kat? Rick didn’t hear her. His head angled a little as he tried to see her. When he thought of Kat, terror clawed at his insides. He had to keep the fear at bay. He couldn’t let it take over. But if Bryan had done anything to her. If he’d hurt her…
Rick knew he would lose his freaking mind. His head shifted more to the left. His mouth was bone dry, from the drugs that Bryan had given him and from the fear—the stark terror—that something had happened to Kat.
Then he saw her.
Kat was slumped in a chair near Ghost. Her arms were pulled behind her back, and her thick hair fell over her face. Her neck tipped forward like a broken flower stem, and he wanted to destroy. His teeth clamped together as he willed his body to obey him and fucking move…
Kat moaned. Her breath shuddered out. “S-stop…”
Bryan turned toward her. “Figured you’d be coming around soon. Didn’t give you as much as I gave the bodyguard.” He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back.
You are a dead man. Rick knew he’d be killing the agent. Just a matter of time.
“You’re back with us, but your jackass lover over there…”
Rick knew the guy was going to look his way, so he shut his eyes.
“Gave that sonofabitch enough to knock out a bear. Fitting, don’t you think?”
I think I’m going to make you sorry you were ever born.
“If it makes things easier for you, Kat, when I kill him, he won’t feel a thing. I’ll slit his throat, and he’ll just never wake up. See, I can be kind.”
You can be a sonofabitch.
Kat whimpered. “You’re…hurting me…”
I will destroy you. Rick’s eyes flew open.
Bryan was busy fisting his hand in Kat’s hair and wrenching her head back.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Kat. I wanted your death to be as painless as Rick’s, but you have something I want, and if you don’t tell me where the money is, I will make you scream and scream until you beg for death.”
You’ll be the one screaming. Rick’s fingers flexed. Feeling was coming back into his hands—pinpricks. In his hands and his feet. He sucked in a breath. He needed Kat to hold on for a few more moments. Rick tried to pull his legs up, tried to push down with his knees. Fuck, he couldn’t move them yet….
Hold on, Kat. Just a little longer.
“No one will come to save you, Kat. The agents outside? I sent them away. Told them that another team was taking over. Of course, there is no other team. I just wanted you all to myself. They didn’t question things. I mean, most of them wanted to leave. The Feds don’t particularly love watching a mobster’s daughter, anyway. As for the Wilde agents, I informed them that their services were no longer needed. FBI orders beat private cop wannabes any day of the week.”
You don’t beat anything, dickhead.
“You didn’t even look in the brownie bag I brought you. That was rude. Sure, the brownies were laced with drugs, but you didn’t know that.”
“I don’t have the…the money.” Kat’s voice was groggy. “T-told you…from the beginning…don’t have it…”
“Yes, but you’re a liar, Kat. Just like your father. Twenty million doesn’t simply vanish. You must have it. All stashed away for a rainy day, hmm? Guess what? It’s raining outside. Storming. I want the money. I need it.”
“Dirty Fed…” Ghost spat blood on the floor. “You are so wrong.”
Bryan let go of Kat.
“I have the money,” Ghost snarled at him. Then he laughed. “Had it…all along.”
The hit man had to be lying, of course, but at least his words had gotten Bryan to let go of Kat.
“Her dad hired me,” Ghost told Bryan, sounding almost gleeful. “Twenty million…all mine, if I did just one job for him.” His head turned, and he stared at Kat. “Know what that job is?”
A tear leaked down her cheek. “He wanted me dead. He…he knew I’d go to the authorities eventually. He w-warned me once…if I betrayed him again…” Another tear. “He paid you to kill me?”
“No, Kat,” Ghost’s voice was thick. “He paid me to protect you.”
Bryan burst into laughter. “You’re shitting me!”
“No, I’m not, dammit! He sent instructions to me, had the whole thing set up…in the event of his death, my job was to make sure no one hurt Kat. So I have the money and—”
Bryan bent and jerked out a long, thick rope from a black bag. The Fed didn’t even glance Rick’s way. So sure of yourself, are you, asshole? Bryan turned to Kat, smiled at her—
No, don’t!
Then he wrapped the rope around her neck. “This shit just got so much easier.” More laughter from Bryan. “Your job is to keep her safe, Ghost? Fine. Tell me where the money is. Tell me where you hid it, and I won’t kill her.”
He tightened the rope around her neck. Kat gasped.
“I don’t have it on me, dumbass! It’s in a bank in the Cayman Islands!”
“Either I get the money or she’s dying right now.” He tightened the rope. “So much for protecting her—”
Rick roared as he leapt to his feet. He staggered because the drugs were still coursing through his veins. But no one—no fucking one—was gonna put a rope around Kat’s neck and thre
aten to kill her.
Bryan gaped at him. “You…you should be out cold—”
Rick surged toward the bastard. His arms were still cuffed behind his back, but so what? He didn’t need his hands. He rammed his head into Bryan’s face. Slam. Bryan staggered back at the impact, moving away from Kat. He didn’t go down, though.
He would.
Rick angled his body and rammed his shoulder into Bryan. That’s right, you asswipe. Guess who was all-state back in his football days? He drove into Bryan again, hitting him even harder, ready to rip him apart. Bryan was trapped between the wall and Rick. Hunching his body down, Rick went in for another hit—
Bryan pounded his fisted hands into Rick’s back. A hard blow right on the spine.
Rick snarled and hit harder. He slammed Bryan with his head and his shoulders and he kicked the bastard, over and over and—
“Rick!” Kat’s scream. He realized that she’d been screaming his name, over and over, but a red haze and the frantic beat of his own heart had consumed him.
“Rick!” Her voice, so desperate.
Kat, his Kat. Rick released a shuddering breath.
“Yeah, big guy, he’s not fighting back now,” Ghost called out. “This is the time to uncuff us!”
Rick stumbled back. His whole body was swaying, but Ghost was right. Bryan wasn’t fighting back. And when Rick stopped pounding him, the FBI agent fell to the floor and collapsed.
No threat. For the moment. Rick whirled. “Kat!”
She was twisting and jerking in her chair.
He lunged for her. His legs gave way, and he wound up falling before her. Rick rose onto his knees and Kat surged toward him, bringing her chair tipping forward as her mouth slammed onto his. They were both still cuffed, but the rope had fallen off her. She had tears on her cheeks. He had Bryan’s blood on him.
So the fuck what?
She kissed him.
He feasted on her. Wild, hard, desperate. His Kat. No one hurts you. I will kill anyone who tries. She was his, he was hers, and he’d fight anyone who attempted to take her from him.
Then Kat’s arms were around his neck. Her body pressed hard to his. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered against his lips. “When I first saw you on the floor, you weren’t moving at all, and I thought you were dead. Everything stopped for me. Everything. Until I saw your chest rising and falling.”