Seventeen

Seventeen

Sean splashed water on his face to wake himself up. He awoke from a dream he couldn't remember, but he knew it had to do with Emma. She had been in some kind of danger, and he remembered running through hallways searching for her. She had been screaming for him. His pulse still hammered in his throat, and it was made worse by the fact that he couldn't get hold of her.

Where was she?

After the panic had dissolved, he knew he wouldn't get back to sleep. So, he'd slipped out of bed and went back to his own room to clean up.

As he dried off his face, he realized there was a reason people had been worried about him. He'd never had an issue with his weight, but he had dropped at least ten pounds. It showed in his face. Damn, he had to get this crap cleared up and get on with his life. Too many times he had put it on hold; but now, he wanted a future. He wasn't sure where the three of them were going. Thinking about it would lead to hoping and, at the moment, Sean just didn't have the energy to do that. Not with what was hanging over his head at the moment. Before he took on two more people in his life, he needed to protect the one who meant more than anyone else at the moment.

He went to his closet as the memories of his first days with Emma washed over him.

"Get in the car," he said, as he glanced from side to side, making sure no one had followed them. Of course, the young woman ignored him and disagreed with him.

"I don't understand why I need to go with you. I was doing fine on my own."

He heard the irritation in her voice, but there was something else.

"You were doing so well that you were kidnapped." Still, she didn't move. "Let me put it this way, sweetheart. Get in the car, or I put you in the car."

She studied him for a long moment, then she did as he ordered. Once they were both situated in the car, he started it up.

"It would save a lot of time, if you would just do as I say," Sean said.

She narrowed her eyes, but he ignored her as he pulled out into traffic. He needed to contact Lassiter and find out just what the hell was going on. Then he needed to find out just who the hell this tiny bundle of energy was to him. There had to be a reason he had been requested for the job.

"Do you even know where you are going?"

He didn't respond. He focused on driving them through the insanity of Bangkok traffic. One wrong move and they would be dead.

"Sean?" she demanded.

"What?"

"Do you know where you are going?"

"The airport. Then we are getting out of here."

She said nothing as he flew through another red light. He didn't know how much time they had before they would go unnoticed.

"Why would I go to the airport with you?"

"I have a feeling the guys who kidnapped you were not doing it to get to know you. I have a private plane I chartered, and we are getting the fuck out of Bangkok."

She opened her mouth to complain again, he was sure, but he stopped her.

"Listen, I am going to get us to safety. Then, from there you can decide if you want to tag along or not. But, I can guarantee you, those men weren't going to continue to play nice, if they had been. Soon, you probably would have been sold off."

"Oh, I doubt that."

"Why would you say that?"

"My mind is worth more on the open market than my body."

Sean shook his head as he stepped into a pair of loose fitting pants. The woman was a handful, but then, she had been worth it. He would put up with all the trouble that had exploded in his life just for her. None it had been her fault and Sean didn't believe in killing the messenger.

He made his way down the hall as quietly as possible. He stopped at the doorway to the guest room and looked in. Randy and Jaime lay in bed, their bodies entwined. It was so hard to force himself to walk away. He wanted to slip beneath the sheets and snuggle up to the two of them. But, he also knew he had unfinished business before he could commit to anything.

He turned away from the temptation they presented and walked to his home office. He'd set the office up when he realized he needed something with higher security than he could get from the average Wi-Fi. Of course, Emma had done all the work securing the lines. The woman was too smart for her own good. But, like most people like her, she couldn't see the forest for the trees. And those trees tended to fall on her before she noticed what was going on.

After turning on his desk light, he decided to check on a few things and try to call Emma again. They hadn't talked in days, and while she had a habit of disappearing from time to time, she always caught up with him a few days later. She knew he would worry.

He settled down in the chair behind the desk and started up his computer. He rolled his shoulders and realized that he was sore in places he didn't know he could be sore in. He had always had an active sex life, but maybe he had been slowing down in the last year. It made sense with what had been going on, but still, he was starting to feel old. Of course, he had never had a threesome before, and both Jaime and Randy had been the two lovers who had challenged him on every level.

He rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Sean didn't know what would happen after this was over, but he knew that he was never going to be the same. There, in the office alone, he could admit that he wanted more, but what? How did he ask the two of them to stay around when his life was such a fucking mess?

Opening his eyes, he leaned forward and keyed in his password. As he waited for everything to load, he realized it had probably been well over thirty-six hours since Jaime and Randy actually slept. He sighed. No wonder they had passed out. It had been hard to force himself to leave the bed, but with both of them sleeping, now was the best time to do some research.

He checked his email and found nothing. Not even one of Lassiter's strange emails from fake names. It was really starting to worry him. Lassiter was one sneaky bastard, but the last few months, he had kept in contact, in his own way. The fact that he was universally absent from everything was really, really bad. He checked a few more emails and realized one of this old buddies from MI-6 had emailed him. He scanned the email and realized things were finally moving forward. It looked like the beginning of the end of the nightmare that had started six months earlier, but he didn't want to get his hopes up.

With that on his mind, he picked up his phone and dialed Emma. Nothing. It just rang and then went to voice mail.

"Emma, this is Sean. The only person who calls you. Things seem to be shifting and we need to discuss strategy."

He hung up and sat back in the chair. His nerves were stretched to the limit, but he couldn't show it. Not to Jaime and not to Randy. Hell, he couldn't really let anyone know what was going on. If Lassiter had been picked up, there was a good chance Sean's moves could definitely tip off his captors. That would put his life in jeopardy.

Shutting down his computer, he decided to grab a shower before he made it back to bed. Maybe it would clear his head and give him a direction for what to do next.

Perhaps, he could possibly figure out what the hell to do about Jaime and Randy.

Royce Lassiter made his way down the street in the seedier side of Paris. It was one of those areas most tour guides would tell you to avoid, but he felt pleasantly at home. He'd grown up in an even tougher part of London, so it wasn't as if he didn't know what to expect. There was a good chance he was going to get mugged, but he would welcome that. Being hunted wasn't something he wanted to ever experience again.

Fuck, he was tired. His head pounded due to his lack of sleep, his back was killing him, and dammit, he smelled as if he had been sleeping in a pile of rubbish that was three days old. Every time he caught his scent he wanted to vomit. He was too old for this shit. This was a game for a younger man. He knew because he had been that younger man at one time. In the years he worked for MI-6, he did things most people would call…questionable. He had lived a life that most people would only dream of, and after a successful career with the government, he had started his own corporation that had made him richer than he had ever dreamed of being.

And it was all in jeopardy.

If this situation wasn't because of Sean, he would have just bailed, but he owed his old friend. Royce knew that part of this was his fault. He had taken chances in the last few years and some of that had to do with making money, and other times it was all ego. But now, he would set it all right, fix things. He needed to make things up to Sean, plus, he had to make sure his daughter was safe and sound.

He came upon a little deli that was getting ready to close. He needed to eat and get a message to Sean. Things had gone to shit in the last thirty-six-hours. Hell, even the connections he could always count on weren't coming through.

As Royce approached the door, he heard something behind him. Knowing he was stuck, he turned to face the threat. He never saw a face. No sound was made, but he felt the burn of the bullet as it passed through his shoulder. He lost his footing and fell back. He hit the sidewalk hard, first with his ass, then his back and finally his head.

He blinked as his vision wavered.

"Come on," someone said, as two men grabbed him. He couldn't really place the accent, but he was sure it was Eastern European. "There is someone very interested in meeting you, Mr. Lassiter."

Before he could ask who it was, he felt something hit the back of his head and then nothing at all.