Chapter Six
Morning came too quickly.
Of course, the fact that he’d kept her up most of the night could be to blame for his fatigue. Still, once Benedict awoke, he couldn’t go back to sleep. He wormed his way out from under her and settled her down on his pillow.
He stared at her as she grumbled and snuffled and nestled back in. His hands closed into fists to stop him from touching her. That was how strong the urge was within him. But if he touched her once, he wouldn’t stop and they’d be at it again.
How many times had they made love in the shadows of the night? He couldn’t recall. At some point, their wild trysts had all merged together into one. They had merged into one.
She’d drained him. With her mouth, her hand, her body. She’d drained him. But he was pretty sure he could rise to the occasion again, if he needed to.
With a chuckle, he yanked on his pants and turned toward the shelves where they’d stocked the food and pulled out the pancake mix. He hoped she liked pancakes. She needed to eat. Refuel her stores.
He didn’t know how much time they’d have together, but by God, he was taking advantage of every flipping minute. He caught himself grinning as he mixed up the batter. Funny how it didn’t surprise him so much anymore—that smile. Like a new pair of shoes becoming comfortable in the fit.
When he’d first met her, and she’d made him smile, made him laugh, it had thrown him for a loop. He’d never been what one could call a light-hearted man, but in the past years, with the weight he had to carry, he’d become almost…dour.
She did something to him. Lifted the blanket smothering him. Let in the light.
It was a wonderful feeling, and a terrifying one.
Because when a man had something he craved, he had something to lose. He was weakened. He was vulnerable.
If he was smart, he’d cut off these feelings at the knees. Negate them. Repudiate them.
But something within him would not allow that. Something within him required her brightness, her presence.
“What are you making?” Her voice curled around him as she came up behind him.
He smiled down at her. “Pancakes. Do you like them?”
“Right now I could eat shoe leather.”
“I have some of that.” He chuckled.
It was cute the way she smacked him. Hell, she was cute, wrapped in the blanket, and little else, her hair a tousled mess. “How long?”
“You are hungry, aren’t you?”
“Someone gave me a workout last night.” She turned away and dropped the blanket, rubbing her round ass with both hands.
When she shot a taunting glance over her shoulder, he growled at her. “Do you want to eat?”
“Yes.”
“Then quit teasing me or these pancakes will go the way of the Rudolf.”
She glanced at the fireplace, where their skewers still lay, half in and half out of the hearth. The marshmallow treats were nothing but charred remains. She quirked a brow. “Is that a threat?”
“That is a promise. And Michelle?”
“Yes, Ben?”
He shivered at the sound of his name—his real name—on her lips. “That’s something you need to know about me. I always keep my promises.”
Their gazes locked and a message passed between them, something ephemeral and profound.
“So do I,” she whispered.
His cell phone buzzed just then and he had to look away, though he hated looking away. He pulled it out, tapped in his security code and read the text from his boss.
Extraction imminent.
Shit.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Company’s coming.” He didn’t mean for his tone to be so sharp, but she seemed to understand his angst and scuttled to comply. Their time together, alone, was over.
Damn it all. He’d hoped to have her, hold her, love her one more time.
Just one more time.
He flipped the pancakes and let them cook—no doubt the extraction team wouldn’t think to bring them takeout—while he gathered his things, pulled on his shirt and tugged on his flak jacket.
When he was done, he turned the pancakes onto a plate and held it out to her. “Eat.”
She wrinkled her nose and muttered, “Bossy,” but took one of the steaming cakes.
“How is it?” he asked as he took one for himself.
“Okay.”
He frowned. “Just okay?”
“It would be better with blueberries”
He grunted.
“Or bacon.”
He waved at the stockpile on the shelf. “We have jerky.”
He loved the face she made. “Oh, please.”
He opened his mouth to respond, something pithy and clever, something that might make her laugh, but before he could think of something, the door flew open and three men, dressed in black and holding rifles, burst in.
His first thought was that it was the Elite Metal team and he was going to bust their asses for not knocking, but then he realized…
It wasn’t.
It took a second for the awareness of peril to hit him. A second for him to appreciate that his weapon was on the table on the other side of the room, out of reach. A second to comprehend the fullness of his failure.
A second too long.
Two loud pops rocketed through the room. Twin blooms of agony blossomed. Excruciating pain screamed through his chest; the impact sent him flying back. When he slammed against the wall, it dazed him. His vision blurred. His ears rang. He slumped to the side as the concussion rocked him.
Helpless, boneless and broken, he laid there and watched as the men grabbed Michelle and dragged her toward the door, kicking and screaming. Heat howled through him. His heart lunged, his breath burned. He tried to rise up, to follow, but he couldn’t even lift a hand. His muscles wouldn’t work.
His soul howled at the sight of her being taken from him. To see them touching his woman. But there was nothing he could do to help her. Nothing he could do to save her.
Her gaze was locked on him. Panic wreathed her features. Her lips moved as she called his name as they hauled her through the door, but he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear anything.
And then, she was gone.
She was gone.
And he’d let it happen.
Oblivion, when it descended, was a mercy.
“Shut that bitch up,” one of the mercenaries snapped. Probably the driver, the mean-looking one who’d punched her so hard it made her head spin. While she’d been dazed, they’d tied feet together and her hands before her. If she hadn’t been stunned, they’d never have gotten her trussed up.
She struggled against her bonds, but they’d used zip ties. Without a knife, she couldn’t work herself free. She was utterly helpless as the car raced down the curving trail and out onto the road. It frustrated the hell out of her, but that was nothing to the horror clawing in her soul.
Ben was dead.
Shot in the heart.
She’d seen it, watched it. Witnessed it. Two bullets in the chest. They’d hit him with such force he’d flown through the air. Though disbelief had scuttled through her, still swamped her, she had to accept the fact that he was gone.
But she couldn’t.
That mewling sound rising in the sedan as it sped away, away from him, was her grief.
It seemed incomprehensible that she could come to care for him this much so quickly. They’d known each barely a day but somehow he’d stepped into her life, walked into her heart and captured it utterly.
His face, his smile, his scent were burned on her memory forever. She craved him, ached for him, needed him like she needed air.
That he was gone, that the world was bereft of his presence was devastating. Her heart, her soul, her world was shattered. At the thought, a sob escaped. And another.
The man sitting next to her as she lay on the seat leaned over and hissed, “Shut up.” His weight on her was heavy, menacing, but she was thankful for it. It gave her something else to focus on, someone to lash out at.
“Fuck you,” she snarled.
Chuckles rounded the car. “I toldja she was a firecracker.”
Michelle stilled as she recognized that voice. The third man. Ralley’s bodyguard.
Fuck.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, although she had a pretty good idea.
The driver smirked at her over his shoulder. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Ralley’s bodyguard—was his name Jonas?—shook his head. Though he stared straight out the windshield, he spoke to her. “You’d think you’d know better than to betray a man like Ralley Carson. He…doesn’t respond well to disloyalty.”
Rage roiled in her breast. “He was plotting treason. And with a known criminal.”
“We’re all criminals, on some level.”
She snorted. “No. We’re not.”
“Our forefathers were criminals in the eyes of the British, you know. Traitors. Conspirators. Look what that villainy built.”
“This is hardly the same. Ralley is plotting to overthrow the government.”
“A government that is dysfunctional.”
“That doesn’t justify his actions.”
“A man like Ralley doesn’t need to justify his actions. Power is the only justification he needs. And he has it.” Jonas glanced at her again, his features arranged in mock pity. “It’s a shame you didn’t stay loyal. You could have found yourself working for the President of the United States.”
Something cold coiled in her belly at the thought of a man with no moral compass at the helm of the most powerful nation on Earth.
Jonas laughed at her expression. “Such an innocent. Did you not deduce the grand scheme? Not such a brilliant analyst after all, are you?” He turned to the man beside her and nodded, and before she could respond or flinch or protect herself, the brute clouted her on the head and everything went black.
She woke up in a dingy office, lying on a smelly couch. She was still tied. She levered up and peered out through the blinds on the window into a large, empty hangar. One of her captors—the fucker who’d shot Ben and hit her—sat in a chair outside her door, cleaning his fingernails with his knife, but the other two weren’t visible.
She glanced toward the hangar doors and noticed, by the position of the sun, that most of the day had passed. It was early evening. A cloud of smoke wafted by the open doors, so she deduced the other two were outside having a cigarette.
With great effort, she pushed away her welling rage and grief over Ben—she could mourn him later—and plotted her escape. No one was coming to help her. No one even knew where she was. If she was going to be saved, she was the only one who could do it.
Crouching low, she quietly, stealthily, edged to the desk and eased open the top drawer. It was empty. Damn. She slid open the second. Nothing. In the third, she found what she needed. A pair of old scissors wedged in the back.
Keeping one eye on her guard, she snipped the zip ties on her feet and then started working on the ones around her wrists. These were harder, because she couldn’t move her hands. She managed to use one blade of the scissors to saw through the plastic.
She wanted to crow when the bonds fell away, but decided it wouldn’t be wise.
Holding the scissors like a knife, she crept to the door. She popped up and peeped through the window, getting a quick bead on the guard. He was leaning back in his chair now. The knife was back in his belt. How fortuitous that his nails hadn’t been too dirty.
She sucked in a deep breath, eased open the door, and sprang. In one quick move, she rushed him, kicked the legs out from beneath him and buried the scissors in his chest as he fell to the floor. It was a shame he rolled to the right. She missed his heart and hit him in the shoulder.
He howled and launched to his feet, but before he could get his balance, she landed a brutal round kick in his belly. He oofed and flew back. She followed, landing punches and blows on all the pressure points she could. She slammed her palm into his nose and reveled in the satisfying crunch. Blood gushed. Then she chopped him in the throat. He grabbed it and made hacking noises. He staggered back, but she didn’t stop.
All she could think was, he shot Ben. He shot Ben.
Another kick. A kidney punch. A whack to the side of the head.
She’d never been so furious, never so bloodthirsty. Certainly never felt so violent.
But he had done this, this man. He’d turned her from a mild mannered analyst into a savage hulk who wanted to do him damage—all with the squeeze of a trigger.
When he finally fell, in a thundering thud, it was something of an anticlimax.
She wasn’t done.
Her blood was still high.
As she bent over him to retrieve her scissors—she might need them later—a slow clap, echoing through the hangar stilled her.
Slowly, she looked up. Her gut roiled as Jonas strolled into the cavernous structure…with Ralley at his side.
“Impressive, darling,” her erstwhile boss purred. He was exquisitely turned out, as usual, in a pristine and expensive three-piece suit. His hair was elegantly coifed. His expression was smug.
God, she hated him. Hated him with a passion that burned. Her fingers tightened on the scissors. What she wouldn’t give to bury them in him.
Just once.
Ralley wagged his pistol at her. “Please. Drop the…scissors.” He shot a look at Jonas. “Seriously? You gave her scissors?”
Jonas flushed. “She was tied up. Secure.”
“Apparently not. Go on, darling. Drop them.”
She did not.
Ralley sighed. “It would be a shame to have to shoot you.”
“Like you aren’t going to anyway?” She wasn’t stupid. He didn’t have a choice.
She knew his secret. She would not be silent. So he had to silence her.
He tipped his head to the side and tsked. “Not until I get the file you stole, my sweet.”
Michelle drew in a deep, calming breath. Yeah, the fucker was going to kill her. But there was a hint of hope. A tiny sliver of it, but hope nonetheless. If she played her cards right, she might be able to maneuver through these treacherous waters. She might be able to create an opportunity to escape.
And she knew something he did not.
Something that might just save her life.
For the first time since she saw Ben fall, she was filled with a tingle of anticipation, and a wash of relief.
“Lithium.”
The voice came from very far away. And it rang in his head. And the ringing hurt.
No. Wait. It was the shaking that hurt.
Benedict pried open a lid and tried to focus on the shadow looming over him. Fucking shaking him.
Was he dead?
Was this hell?
Was that…Satan?
He blinked and his vision cleared and he winced.
Worse.
It was Sterling.
“Stoooop.” A plea.
“Oh, thank God. You’re awake. Are you hurt?” Rough hands brushed over his scalp and his arms. He winced when they hit his chest.
“Fuck.”
Sterling ignored his howl and continued checking for wounds. Benedict could have told him where they were and what they were, but his mouth was too dry for him to speak.
Finally, he slapped the inquisitive hands away. “Stop,” he croaked. It took a lot of effort, but he forced himself upright. And shit. It hurt. Everything hurt. Mostly his chest.
He popped open his flak jacket—thank God he’d had it on—and yanked up his shirt. Two purple bruises blossomed on his chest. He winced at the sight of them.
“Shit, Lith. That’s gonna leave a mark.”
He glowered at his friend. Although, they were hardly friends. They’d never really seen eye-to-eye…except on one issue. “Why are you here?” he asked.
Sterling blinked. He had long lashes and they fluttered like a girl’s. Benedict had always hated that oh-so-innocent blink. “Um, to save your ass?”
“Little late, aren’t you?”
Sterling frowned. “I got here as fast as I could.” He held out a hand and helped Benedict up. He only teetered a little. “What happened?”
“The bad guys got here first.” He pulled down his shirt and re-snapped his jacket, but only to have something to do. “They got her.”
“Got who?”
“Michelle. The woman. The one I was extracting.” He didn’t like the way Sterling’s gaze snapped to him, the way he stared with those all-seeing eyes. “We need to move. We need to get her back before they hurt her.”
“Um…okay.” Sterling holstered his weapon. “Where’d they take her?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find her.” He rifled in his bag until he found his tracking device. He flicked it on and waited until the screen lit up. A red dot appeared along with an atonal beep. Yes. The tracers sewn into her sweats were working. He shot a dark look at Sterling. “You ready to go?”
“Yup.”
Benedict shouldered his bag and headed for the door. But he stopped short, went to the counter and grabbed a handful of Peeps.
Who knew how far they had to go to find her again.