Aspen felt herself being pulled from her dream. The physicians had come with Ronnie and examined her, pleased with the sight of the wound. Her leg still burned, and she was assured that it would feel better by the next day. The surgeon had ordered a scan to be performed in the morning to ensure there was no internal bleeding since the area was hot to touch.

Since then, she’d floated in and out of sleep. The pain medication made her drowsy, but it took some of the edge off.

Dreams of Declan threatened to pull her back under, but something was off. Her body swayed, and she realized her bed was moving.

Her eyes flew open, and the sight of the ceiling rolled past.

Panic filled her chest, and she glanced up. A man in dark scrubs with a mask covering his face pushed her bed. The cool air brushed her face as he sped up.

“Where are you taking me?” she grumbled, trying to shake the fog from her brain.

Was it morning already? She didn’t think she’d slept that hard or long.

“Shut up,” he snapped.

Well, that certainly wasn’t the way to speak to a patient.

She looked at him and frowned. Fear crept into her chest with the thought of where he was actually taking her.

She may have been a little loopy from the medication but she was no dummy.

He is not hospital personnel.

She frantically took in her surroundings and found herself being pushed down an unfamiliar hallway. From what she could tell, it looked as if they were in the basement of the hospital. Strangely enough, there wasn’t anyone around for her to call out for help.

“They are going to be looking for me,” she warned. She didn’t have much to threaten with. Hell, she didn’t even know if they’d realized she was gone yet. “The feds and the police—”

“I said shut up, bitch,” he snarled. “Or I’ll shut your mouth permanently.”

Her lips snapped shut. The pain in her leg was throbbing, and she needed to push her pain button. She glanced up and saw her IV pole still attached to her bed, but there was no way in hell she was going to take the happy drugs and drift off to her wonderfully drugged sleep at a time like this. She’d just have to grin and bear it.

They turned a corner, and the perfectly esthetic hallway turned into what looked to be a large storage facility. Her gaze landed on large loading dock doorways, and she finally understood where they were.

The underbelly of the hospital.

Late at night, the maintenance employees weren’t around, and deliveries would not be happening at this time.

Her heart skipped a beat as a few men stepped from behind large pillars. One familiar figure stood apart from the goons and captivated her attention.

The one person she’d hoped to never see on this side of a set of prison bars stood not twenty feet from her with a scowl embedded on his face.

“I knew you weren’t dead,” Ray sneered.

“And I just knew you’d be in prison forever,” she remarked. She took in a deep breath and refused to show fear. There was no way she’d let him know how frightened she was.

His dry chuckle met her ears. She glanced around and took in five men with him. Each of them were armed with weapons visible on their bodies. She stared at Ray and saw the man she’d grown up with and thought of as an uncle, but the man whose murderous gaze met hers wasn’t that same person.

“You’re still a smart-ass.” He shook his head. “Come here, Aspen.”

Her eyes widened, thinking of the pain she was in lying down. She didn’t even want to think of the agony she’d be in taking her first step.

“I don’t know if you know, but I just had surgery to remove a bullet your man put in my leg,” she snapped. How the hell was she supposed to walk?

“Well, you’re lucky he only hit your leg. Too bad. He should have been aiming at the middle of your forehead.” Ray nodded to the man who had pushed her down.

The masked man came alongside her bed and snatched the IV line from her arm. She cried out from the sting of the tape and tubing being removed.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” she gasped as the man dragged her to the edge of the bed.

He wasn’t gentle at all. Her vision blurred with tears. The pain in her leg exploded, and she cried out. Her back was sore and ached as if she’d been hit with a bat. She didn’t even want to imagine what it would have felt like if she hadn’t worn the vest.

“But I will. Do you know how much I had to spend to find you? How many agents I had to bribe?”

“How could you do this to us?” she screamed. She batted the masked man’s hands from her. She wasn’t going anywhere with Ray. If they took her, she knew she’d never see Declan again. She’d watched with her own eyes, Ray take a man’s life. What was stopping him from doing the same to her? “You were like an uncle to me. I looked up to you.” Her voice ended on a hitch.

Ray stalked toward her and stopped directly in front of her. “You left me no choice, Aspen,” he snapped. He settled his hands on his hips and waved his thug away. Ray returned his attention to her with a look of disgust on his face.

This was not the man she’d grown up with. No longer was he the man whose pool she’d swum in as a child. No longer was he the proud uncle who had attended her high school and college graduations.

That person was long gone.

Instead, a cold, hard killer stared at her.

Her body trembled from the force of the pain rushing through her. She swayed for a second, her body threatening to fall over. She fought to stay sitting up, not wanting to appear weak.

“You had plenty of choices,” she whispered. Tears slid down her face, and she no longer cared. If he was going to kill her, he might as well do it now. She would fight to the death before she let him take her from the hospital. “My father trusted you.”

“Your father was an idiot. I had big plans, and he just shot them down. I was ready to take our business to the next level.”

“Well, it looks like you have a little more pressing matter at hand. Breaking out of jail won’t help your case—”

“You don’t worry about me, Aspen. I won’t be standing trial,” Ray cut her off. “You think you are the only one who is good at hiding money?”

Her quick intake of breath had a chuckle spilling from his lips. His eyes narrowed on her.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice was just a decibel over a whisper. Her mind raced. She had been careful over the years. What she’d stashed had taken years for her to accumulate. It had always been her rainy day fund. She always believed that one should save money in offshore accounts.

Just in case.

“Oh, don’t try to play dumb, Aspen. I know you are extremely intelligent. It took me a while, but I finally found proof that you have been putting money away—”

“There’s no crime in that,” she snapped. Her leg throbbed, and her breathing rate increased. She was beginning to feel light-headed and knew she was going to be in trouble.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re going to give that money to me.”

“I am not!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “You’re trying to tell me that you have nothing? No money?”

“They stripped everything from me!” he screamed. He paced the floor.

The thugs shifted uncomfortably around the room as they watched him.

“Talk about a system that brags about the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ theory. I haven’t even got to trial yet and they’ve already convicted me. All of my bank accounts have been frozen. Even my offshore accounts can’t be accessed. But yours, they will be mine. Because of you—”

“Me?” she shrieked. The bastard couldn’t believe everything that had happened to him was her fault? “This is all your doing!”

“And I’m going to fix it,” he taunted, pausing before her.

Ray snapped his fingers, and she watched with dread—one of his men approached. He was tall and solid muscle. His dark skin was roughened with scars above his right eye and one on his lower lip. His beard was thick, and his eyes were black as midnight. She swallowed hard as he pulled his gun from his holster.

“This is not a request. You are going to transfer the money to me. I’m leaving this fucking country, and you are going to be my ticket out of here so I can disappear.”

“Why, so then you’ll kill me afterwards?”

“Kill you?” Ray scoffed. “You’re already dead.”

A fear like she’d never known gripped her. She was trapped between a rock and hard place. Either she refused and they killed her now, or she give him what he wanted and she died later. Either way, she didn’t see him allowing her to remain alive much longer.

“Now stand,” Ray ordered.

Her gaze swept the large room, and she sent up a prayer that Declan and his men would swoop in and save her.

Aspen swallowed hard. She blinked a few times before scooting to the edge of the bed. Her bare toes touched the floor while fire shot up her leg. She bit back a whimper, not wanting to show her pain. Ray’s man turned his gun on her, and she had no other choice but to stand. Putting her weight on her good leg didn’t help once she was on her feet.

Her body shook, and a warm substance trailed down her leg. Her body swayed, and the room darkened.

Ray released a curse, and she lost her fight with consciousness and slipped into a dark abyss.