Chapter 49

Hope strode down the familiar halls with a frosty look of indifference fixed on her features, but it did nothing to soothe her inner turmoil.

Aaron had looked tired this morning, mouth grim with either annoyance or pain. She'd wanted to go to him and ask if he was all right, but as soon as he'd spotted her, he'd turned away and headed downstairs.

What had she expected? Smiles? Laughter? Empathy? The easygoing, respectful conversation they usually enjoyed throughout the day? No. That connection had extinguished. She'd killed it.

And he'd almost died last night.

She couldn't get over that salient fact.

He'd almost died. And she hadn't even known he'd left the house. A stone wedged in her throat, and no matter how many times she tried to swallow it wouldn't budge.

Where'd he gone this morning?

Get used to not knowing.

And that's what she'd wanted. What she needed. Ignorance. So why did she feel as if she was already drowning in worry and frustration?

She stopped dead in the corridor as the knot inside her started to unravel. She was already in deep and even now the pain was almost overwhelming. She didn't want to go through that again. She wouldn't survive. Life was much simpler and easier when she kept to herself and lived life on her own terms. No more friendship. No more foolish optimism. She liked her own company. She liked her job and putting killers and criminals where they belonged. She liked her writing career where she got to enact whatever twisted vengeance she dreamt up. It had to be enough.

Her heart squeezed tight, and suddenly she couldn't breathe.

What she wanted didn't seem to matter because suddenly it wasn't enough. It wasn't what she wanted.

"Hope? Everything okay?" Seth Hopper asked patiently from her shoulder. He and Sebastian Black had accompanied her inside today.

"Yes," she snapped then regretted it as his mouth firmed and eyes went blank.

"God, I'm sorry." She dragged her hand through her hair. So much for finding her inner queen bitch attorney persona. It wasn't Seth's fault she'd gone and fallen in l?—

She shook her head. No. It wasn't that. It couldn't be that. They'd only known each other a few days.

How long did you know Danny before you knew he was the one?

She pushed the irritating inner voice away. She wouldn't put Aaron in danger the way she'd put Danny in danger, no matter what she felt for the man.

"Everything okay, Hope?" Colin asked. Expression concerned.

She forced her brain to remember where they were and why they were here. "I'm concerned to be called in this way on the weekend."She took a deep breath. "You spoke to Ella, right?"

"Not since last night." He blinked at her. "Should I call her?"

He reached for his phone, but it was 10:29 and Hope didn't want to be late.

She shook her head. "We're almost there anyway. Let's see what the judge wants. Call her afterwards to check in."

They arrived at Judge Penton's chambers and were ushered into the outer office by the clerk. When they went to go inside the inner chamber, the clerk put his hand out to prevent her FBI detail following her inside.

"The judge insists security stays outside."

Seth Hopper turned his head as he calmly removed the clerk's hand from his chest. "I'm not security. I'm a federal law enforcement officer enforcing very specific orders from the US Attorney General." His voice was steely. "I intend to search the judge's chambers before I allow Hope inside. If the judge has an issue with that, she can take it up with the AG." It wasn't a request.

He muscled his way inside.

"You can be sure she will." Judge Penton's gaze narrowed, and her lips thinned as she examined the two FBI operators. "Do it quickly, and then get out."

Hope was shocked by the tone, though many judges suffered from a God complex.

It took Seth only a few seconds to complete his search of the rooms and private bathroom. The adjoining door to the courtroom was locked.

He addressed the judge. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Your Honor," the judge corrected him testily.

Hope smiled at him in reassurance. She had no idea what the judge's issue could be, but Seth Hopper didn't deserve to be dodging verbal bullets all morning.

"Your Honor." Seth's expression was unreadable as he nodded to Hope and joined Black outside the door.

Hope stood in front of the judge's desk even though the woman herself didn't sit. In fact, she walked over to the heavy wooden door and turned the lock.

Hope sighed.

Was that a power move? Seemed like it. It would be taking all of the HRT operators' self-control not to beat down the door in the next five minutes. She quickly texted the guys that everything was fine.

The judge sat. "It's come to my attention that that individual threatened to murder Jeff Beasley the afternoon before the man was killed."

"Seth Hopper?" Hope froze. "He was kidding."

"Well, it wasn't very funny, and Jeff Beasley ended up dead in an alley exactly the way as threatened." The judge leaned forward as if imparting a secret. "HRT operators are trained to kill."

Hope opened her mouth to argue. It was ridiculous. "How do you even know about that?" She stared at Colin as red stained his cheeks.

"I only told the bailiff," he confessed. "I never expected…"

"I'm disappointed that you didn't come forward with this information yourself, ADA Harper, and I can only conclude that the pressure of Julius Leech's escape played a part in your poor judgment." The judge raised her chin and looked down her hawklike nose. "I will need to report the threat to the FBI Field Office, and they will have to investigate. In the meantime, Operator Hopper needs to be suspended?—"

"Wait. No! There is no way Operator Hopper killed Jeff Beasley. He was in my house at the time of the murder." Hope couldn't believe they'd been dragged in here like this over this nonsense. "In fact, he was on a treadmill in my downstair neighbor's apartment with several witnesses when I received the call from Jeff after he'd been stabbed. It's impossible for him to have been in two places at once." The words tasted gritty on her tongue. How dare this woman question the integrity of these men?

"I still feel it is necessary to make a formal inquiry?—"

"This is bullshit. He has a solid alibi that includes me. Are you suggesting I'm lying?" Hope drew herself up and raised her chin.

The judge narrowed her gaze. "I'll have you held in contempt if you're not careful, counselor."

"You are questioning my integrity, Your Honor, and that I do not appreciate. Nor do I appreciate you accusing an honorable man who has a solid alibi of such a heinous act."

Colin thrust his cell phone at Hope, and she took it in confusion. He rounded the table, hand in his pocket, and the judge looked at him with startled eyes. He placed his hand over the judge's mouth and then pulled a syringe out of his pocket and jabbed it into her thigh, pushing down the plunger.

"Colin? What the hell are you doing?" Her heart pounded. Had he lost his mind?

He held the judge still as she struggled for a few moments, looked over his shoulder. "Look at the photo on the screen, Hope."

She glanced down at the image on his cell, and her own mouth dropped open in horror.

Ella, gagged and bound to a chair.

Hope stumbled backwards and turned toward the door. Colin stepped in front of her and put his finger to his lips. "Read the caption. He wants you. He says if we don't come alone, he'll kill her. But if we do come, he'll release her."

She read the texts.

Leech. Dammit. It had to be Leech.

"He's lying. He probably already killed her." Anguish curled inside her.

"Don't say that."

"How did he get your number?"

His features twisted. "I don't know. Maybe Ella's phone? He had to know yours are being monitored."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small automatic pistol. She opened her mouth to scream for help, but he offered it to her, grip first.

Confused, she took the weapon, the weight heavy in her hand. The implications were not good. Colin smuggling in a weapon into the courthouse was not good. Colin having a tranquilizer in his pocket and using it was definitely not good.

Was he having some sort of mental health crisis? Had he formed a personal attachment to Ella?

"We'll both be armed. Leech won't be expecting that. We can pretend I forced you to come with me, but then we turn on him and save Ella. He says if anyone else shows up he'll run, and Ella will die."

The thought was abhorrent, but she didn't think Colin was being truthful with her. "Why do you care so much?"

Colin's eyes went wide with outrage. "Well, there's a serial killer on the loose for a start, and Ella is in danger, isn't that enough?"

Hope looked at the judge who was slumped unconscious. None of this made any sense. "You know your law career is over."

Hers would be too if she went along with his crazy plan, which she had no intention of doing.

Aaron would tell her to trust him to do his job. To rescue Ella and catch Leech. And she had. She did.

She met Colin's gaze and saw the moment he realized she wasn't going to go along with this insanity. She opened her mouth to call for help but he slammed his palm over her mouth and held her jaw closed. They struggled and she remembered she held a gun, but she didn't actually want to shoot Colin or herself. She tried to hit him with it, but Colin wrapped his other hand around her and forced her to the floor.

He was a lot stronger than he looked. The pistol was pinned underneath her and she realized with sudden clarity there was no way he'd give her a weapon with real bullets.

The warning Aaron had given her when they'd been practicing self-defense training flashed into her mind. It would be them or you, and she'd already lost the first battle.

"All you had to do was be a good girl and follow some simple instructions, but you always have to be the one giving orders. Such a fucking bitch." Colin's quiet murmur shocked her with its intensity. She'd trusted this guy, and he'd betrayed her.

Use your voice.

She struggled frantically to free her mouth, but he had a firm grip of her jaw, and she felt as if he might rip her head right off her shoulders. He used his weight to pin her before she felt a sharp sting in the side of her ass.

"Don't worry," he whispered against her brow. "I don't plan to hurt you."

She didn't believe him.

"You always say you want to confront Leech. I'm about to give you your wish, ADA Harper. Give you the chance to atone for all the deaths on your hands."

Tears welled up, but they were tears of anger. He fidgeted for a moment but didn't let up his grip on her jaw. She moaned as loudly as she was able to try to get her bodyguards' attention through the thick wooden door, but he smacked her face against the floor. Pain radiated sharply from her cheekbone. He slipped a piece of duct tape over her mouth as nausea swirled in her stomach. She deliberately calmed herself as her heart raced out of control. She was already starting to feel woozy from whatever he'd drugged her with. His weight was gone for a few seconds, and then she heard the rattle of keys. She turned her head and saw him walk back from the judge's desk.

She tried to get to her feet, but he grabbed her and handcuffed her hands together behind her back. Picked up the gun she'd lost during their struggle.

He must have brought all these things with him this morning—and because they were able to skip security they'd never been detected.

Hope was such a fool. Why had she never seen there was more going on with this guy?

Because she hadn't looked. She'd been so focused on her mission to put away the murderers and rapists that she hadn't spotted the danger lurking right beside her every day.

"Come on." He dragged her to her feet, and she stumbled slightly. If she didn't get away soon, she was in serious trouble. "Up you get."

He pushed her toward the door that led into the courtroom, forced her through it and locked it behind him.

She tried to run then, but her feet caught on something as she entered the familiar space. and she crashed hard to the ground, hitting her chin on the parquet flooring.

She tasted blood.

He went over to the exit that the prisoners used which was unmanned on the weekend. He unlocked it as she tried to get to her feet.

"Come on, Hope. We both want the same thing. Leech."

Seriously?

His hand manacled her arm. "Almost forgot." He fished in her coat pocket and pulled out her cell phone. He checked her messages and answered the text that had just come in from Seth with a thumbs up. And "We'll be about 10 min."

"That should hold them for a while." He slid her phone across the courtroom floor and closed the door, locking it and pushing her forward into the dimly lit space.

Her body was feeling more and more disconnected from her mind. She didn't know what the hell was going on, but she didn't have to make this easy for him. She sat down in the middle of the corridor.

He laughed, a tortured, bitter sound. Then he pulled out a second lethal-looking gun. "I don't want to hurt you, but I haven't spent the past seven years working my ass off to fail now."

The realization he'd been planning something all this time pierced the fog in her mind. This was clearly related to Leech. Colin had never been the trusted colleague he'd pretended to be. He'd been waiting all these years to spring a trap on her—like a spider spinning a web. She really hated spiders.

The question was why? Was he working for Leech?

"While it's a lot easier if you walk out under your own steam, I can easily knock you out and carry you. But I won't be very happy about it, and you will regret it later."

The look in his eyes told her to believe him, but she obviously didn't move fast enough.

He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her upright.

Pain screamed through her scalp, blinding her to anything else.

"I promised Leech I'd bring him you. The ten million he's paying me will make up for all the training I've wasted and help me get away."

That Colin was doing this for money burned.

"And I get to kill the man who murdered my father." He spoke mockingly as he shoved her along.

His father? She thought she'd known all the family members of Leech's victims but obviously not. So this wasn't about money. This was about revenge, which she understood much more clearly.

"Julius Leech escaping from prison was like a gift from the heavens."

Not for her, it wasn't.

"What about Ella?" The words were muffled behind the tape. Pain throbbed through her skull from the hair pulling and when he'd smacked her earlier. The drugs weren't cutting through that yet, but she knew they would. He'd obviously given her a much lower dose than the judge who'd been unconscious in seconds.

"Leech doesn't have Ella. I do. And if you behave. If you get into the car I have waiting outside without making a scene, I will make sure she is rescued. Otherwise, she'll die a slow death of starvation—assuming she doesn't freeze to death first."

The cowardly bastard. Hurting a young woman who'd already been abused.

Unfortunately, Hope could barely keep her eyes open, let alone fight him.

Regret filled her. Because the words she'd spoken to Aaron last night had been nothing more than a coward's desperate lie.

She already loved him. She loved him, and she'd go to her death with him thinking that what they'd had together meant nothing more to her than great sex. In reality, he was her second chance. Her gift from the universe. And she'd blown it. Now she was going to die, and he was going to be so mad. Not only had she ruined his perfect record, but she had the horrible feeling she'd broken his heart.