Marie woke with a jerk and sat straight up.
2342 hours.
The sound of a wail—distant yet distinct—echoed out of the vent next to her bed. She frowned, shook of the last of her sleep, and slid from under the covers. She hadn’t bothered changing out of her black clothes from yesterday’s trip. So she slid her black boots on and tied her hair into bun at the back of her head.
With a hand on the doorknob, she hesitated. Guard duty? The dogs? Gregory?
“But you’re marrying the guy,” she said under her breath. “And there’s always the bathroom as an excuse.”
She made her way to the kitchen. The house was huge, but the ventilation system was old enough to allow those awful sounds to drift through the house. Creepy.
Across the kitchen, through another hallway, she came to a halt when the sounds stopped, and Marie looked around. Ahead was an exterior door, utilitarian, steel, with a push bar for opening it. What was she going to do? What would she find?
Marie slipped out, throwing her bathroom excuse out the window, and held the door as it closed behind her. The back of the house looked more like a warehouse with its loading dock and trash bins. She stayed against the wall in the little alcove. A truck sat off to her left, near the end of the cement platform, and two voices drifted in from the drive. A guard doing rounds. She waited, heard a set of footsteps moving in the opposite direction, and then waited a little more as silence filled the cold air.
She moved into the open space and skirted the lit area behind the truck, the one with drugs. What would the FBI do with that bit of information? All along they’d been tracking women. Did the women even exist?
The dark stain on the cement caught her eye. She couldn’t stop the flinch, or the memory that speared through her mind.
And it made her even more determined. Dimitru had to be stopped.
After looking behind her, Marie got to the end of the loading dock and found a door back inside. She tried it, and it slipped open.
The sound of the latch clicking shut at her back sent a shiver down her spine. She was on thin ice and knew it, but something had shifted inside of her when that woman died, when she’d finally been able to look Malcolm in the eye and say, “I love you.”
I think I love you. It was close.
When her eyes had adjusted to the dark corridor, she went down a short flight of stairs to another hallway and three more doors. One had a security keypad on it, like the ones upstairs, only this one was lit, as if in use. Had Dimitru activated his security measures?
Marie stood on tiptoes and peered through the square glass.
Women. Two guards. She ducked when one moved, turning toward the door. The women. Here already? Dimitru had gotten a shipment of women into his house…
His house.
“Holy—”
She had to call Hawk. Had to get her team in here. Fuck FBI timing.
The door clicked and started moving open. Marie quickly stepped into the next doorway down and slowly let her breath out as two men exited.
“There’s a gas station down the road a bit. Grab a bag of chips, too.” One of the guys nudged his partner.
Marie watched their backs as the door slowly began to close. She looked around for something, anything to shove in the way of the door.
“Grab your own damn chips.”
“But you’re going.”
“Give me money this time, then.”
Their voices grew louder as the conversation heated.
“Damn it, Darrell. Don’t be such a jerk.”
The door clicked closed.
The sound of shoving faded and the men disappeared out onto the loading docks.
Marie went back to the door and took another look through the glass. There must be fifteen, twenty women. Dirty, weary, scared.
Marie slipped out and made her way back through the kitchen, grabbing two bottles of water before she made her way up to Uncle Bert’s room. Even though the main security system was down, she saw her guards and heard the dogs’ claws clacking on hard floors.
One stood outside her uncle’s door. She nodded to him as she passed by and slipped through, shutting the door with a thud behind her. She rested her head against the door.
“What is it, niece?”
She shook her head as feelings coursed through her—triumph, fear…mostly fear. “I need the phone,” she said. “I have to call Hawk.”
She handed off a water bottle to her uncle, noting he really did look better tonight. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes were clear. He sat up before he reached for the phone, and it stopped her, made her eyes tingle with tears. She’d thought he was dead, and then seeing him when she arrived, she was sure he wasn’t going to make it.
Now, she thought maybe they’d have a chance if they needed to run—
“Futu-i!”
“Now you sound like Malcolm.”
His eyes were wide when he looked over at her. “It’s gone.”
Her stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”
Marie climbed up on the bed, reached down against the wall, and swept her hand along the floor. Nothing. She got down on her hands and knees and peered into the shadowed crevice of the underside of the bed. “Shit.”
The door opened, and she froze.
His presence was at her back, radiating waves of temper. “You never should have gotten nosy, my dear.”
She rose, unwilling to take anything he gave her on her knees.
Dimitru was surrounded by henchmen, and one of them reached over and flipped the switch. The light struck her pupils, blinding her.
He tossed something to her, and it dropped at her feet.
The phone.
His approach sent fear through every muscle of her body. On his last step, he landed a heel on the phone, crushing it with his heavy boots.
She winced.
“But you were never here to join forces, were you?”
“I want the gold. That’s all.”
He backhanded her, the crack to her cheek jarring her brain and knocking her back into the chair in the corner.
“You lie.” He turned to her uncle.
“What are you doing?” Alarm sent her pulse racing. But anger was also a powerful force, which smothered her fear. “Don’t touch him.”
“I want the armband, now.”
“It’s not enough, is it?” she said. “You can’t kill me because you need to marry me. But you want to… You don’t want to share, do you? Your plans for ultimate power come at a price.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps the old legends have been twisted.”
“Or perhaps you are twisting them now,” she said, the fear turning into something much colder.
He grabbed her face, no gentle touch this time, and his fingers dug into her jaw. “You’ll come with me now and we will go to the armband.” He shoved her toward the doorway.
“What about my uncle?”
“He’s dead.”
“Wha—”
A shot went off.
“No.” Marie turned, only to find Dimitru blocking her way. “Get out of my way.” Anger clawed at her, and she kicked and twisted. He held her tightly, too tightly, and her strength left her.
Dimitru dragged her down the hall. “Walk, scorpie.”
She tried to get her feet under her, but it was as if her legs had stopped listening. She fought, even as she was screaming inside, to form a thought, to find a way out. Grabbing the railing at the top of the steps, she jerked Dimitru to a stop. “I will go back to my uncle.” Her words sounded too demanding, even to herself. Fucking Romanian princess. What was she doing? Poking the beast?
The anger had shoved her over the line of reasonability.
“You don’t make the demands anymore,” he said flatly. “Which is a shame, if you must know. You do make them so well. Makes me want to fuck—”
“Don’t you use that word.” She seethed with hatred, her fists clenched.
She was being ridiculous. She knew it. But the word had become his, Malcolm’s and had become something to look forward to, something that brought a smile or gave comfort. She wouldn’t—
“Feeling prudish all of a sudden?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to kill you myself.”
This time his fist knocked her against the wall, and she crumpled, struggling to stay conscious. He pulled her off the floor with those bruising hands. She’d barely got her feet under her when they were moving.
She shook off the fog as he dragged her back to the front door. “Get the car,” he said to Gregory. To another man who stood back in the shadows, he said, “Call Sorenson to come get the women— No. Don’t call. Drive over there, give him a message.” Dimitru glanced at her. “Your friend is smart, yes? Perhaps he’s got the place bugged.” He looked her up and down. “Yes. I imagine he wouldn’t have let you go as easily as you’ve wanted me to believe. Fool me”—he lifted a perfectly shaped brow—“once.”
He laughed, his eyes lighting up with some kind of messed-up amusement.
He gripped her neck. His fingers found her vulnerable point, like an expert.
The black closed in, almost painlessly.
And then, in the last second, she felt the prick of a syringe plunged into her arm.
Shit, she thought, as the world disappeared.