Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

Cain

I watch the little dots on the screen dance, then stop, dance, then stop. I asked her if she's okay and expected a quick response, probably something snarky like,

Fine, just polishing my guns. You?

All good, haven't found any strange men lying in wait or abductees behind my shower curtain, how bout you?

I'm fine, you can call off the babysitters now.

I sent her a car, but I sent a small team to watch her, too. If she's right about the asshole being after her, I don't want to take any chances.

A minute passes. Two. Three.

No response.

I'm in my bedroom in shorts and a tank after a shower, prepared to do whatever work I can through the night. I've got a team ready to be briefed in the morning and people working around the clock already.

I go to text her, then stop. Then again. Finally, I decide the hell with it, and shoot her another text.

Hey. You were typing and now nothing. Everything alright?

No response.

I pick up my phone and call Henri, the head of the team I sent to her apartment. His phone rings and goes to voicemail.

No response.

I pull on shoes and grab a jacket, slipping it on as I leave my room.

"Everything alright?" Joe asks me when I hit the foyer at a jog. I fill him in.

"You think she's in danger?"

"After today? Not something I wanna risk."

I should've duct taped her to her seat and made her come home with me.

"I'll join you. You taking the Audi?" His eyes gleam, hoping I am.

"Hell yes."

The truck is good for an ambush, for safety, for a potential shoot-out. But when I have to get somewhere fast ? I take the Audi. It goes from zero to sixty in 2.8 seconds and drives up to two hundred seventeen miles per hour. It's swift, takes corners with agility, but is small and sleek enough not to cause too much attention if I'm careful.

Her apartment is twenty-five minutes away according to GPS. We'll get there in ten.

"What are you packing?" Joe asks. We step into the room we affectionately call the armory, where our weapons are securely and discreetly stored.

"Ruger and a blade. You?"

The Ruger EC9 functions as one of the best compact concealed pistols money can buy, small and sleek but lethal.

"EC9. Which blade?"

"MK3." I take it from its sheath and give it a quick look-over. "Are there any others?" The Ontario MK3's a standard Navy SEAL weapon, six inches of hardened steel perfection finished with a solid, ergonomic handle that doesn't slip. It hides as easily as a shadow but cuts hard and deep and fast.

I won't be throwing my blade like Violet.

Goddammit, I never should've let her stay at her own place.

I should've insisted. I should've reasoned better with her. Instead, I let her have her way, and now what?

I call security again but get nothing.

"Swear to God," I mutter under my breath. "If they don't have a good reason not to pick up this phone…"

I don't finish the sentence. Joe blanches and looks out the window as I drive so damn fast, rocks fly behind us, the ground whizzing past in a blur. I call Violet and Henri one at a time, over and over.

My phone buzzes with a text. I look quickly at the screen, but it isn't any of the people I want to hear from.

Armand: Boss, I think I found something of importance.

I don't respond. I don't have time for his bullshit right now. I would've fired him if I hadn't gotten distracted by Skylar's abduction.

"Tomorrow, you fire Armand's ass," I tell Joe.

He freezes but doesn't respond at first. I look over at him, and he seems to snap out of his stupor. "Armand?"

"Yes."

"Yes, sir. Will do."

I fill him in on everything, even why I'm here to check on her.

"Just so we're clear, sir. She was texting you, you asked if she was okay, and she didn't respond."

"Correct."

He seems to be mulling this over.

"Could she… have fallen asleep?"

I curse under my breath and push the gas pedal deeper. The roads whiz by us like they're on speed.

"If she did," I say with measured patience, "we'll leave well enough alone."

Again, he doesn't say anything but the silently raised eyebrows say it for him. He thinks I've lost my fucking mind.

He can think that, as long as he does what I tell him.

We're two minutes out when my phone buzzes again. I growl, glancing at the screen to see another text from Armand.

It's important, I think you should know

Jesus.

"Text Armand, tell him I'm driving, and ask him what the hell is going on that's so urgent."

Joe scowls and mutters a "yessir," already texting. No response at first. I pull up to Violet's house and park at the corner.

"You see anything?"

"No. You?"

I shake my head.

"But you don't know if it's one person or several we're looking for, what they look like…" his voice trails off.

"Correct."

A woman laughs on the other side of an open window, and a few teens sit on the stoop licking ice cream cones. A dog barks in the distance, and someone's lighting off fireworks a few blocks away. It looks just like any typical late summer night.

I walk up to her front door when the dumbass we saw earlier comes out. He's unsteady on his feet. Drunk.

"Ahh, Violet's lover," he says. Joe looks at me sharply.

"I'm her boss." She'd kill me for that, but she'd kill me faster for pretending to be her man. I'm not playing games right now.

"Right, like that matters," the asshole says with a snicker. "Why are you back?"

"I need to get into her apartment." There's no way on God's green earth he's going to make this easy on me. He'll need to be persuaded.

"And?"

"And I need you to let me upstairs."

He smirks at me and leans against the railing. "Can't do that without the pretty lady's say so. How do I know you didn't get into a fight and you're using me to get to her?"

Joe glances at me, ready to spring into action. I shake my head at him.

I want him all to myself.

Every second that passes places her in greater danger than before. The asshole that took those women moves fast, and I'm not fucking around.

In two seconds, I've got him by the collar, and I yank him inside the entryway where no one can see us. My MK3's pushed up to his neck, a bead of blood coloring the blade.

"Hey, man!" he says, panicking like a girl. "Hey!"

"Let me in and do it now. You do not call the cops unless you want a building inspector here by Monday. I've got connections in places you really, really don't want to go and will have this place condemned before you can wipe your ass."

I press the knife harder, drawing more blood.

"Jesus! Go!" he says in a strangled voice, stepping aside and handing me a set of keys. "Her key's the purple one, 208."

I toss him to Joe. "You escort him out of here and make sure he doesn't cause trouble."

Joe's grin is chilling, even to me. "My pleasure."

I take the stairs two at a time, listening. Something crashes inside her apartment. I double-time it.

She's got a deadbolt on the door, and I can't open it. It's reinforced steel, no goddamn way I can knock it down. I grab the key and shove it in the lock, then unfasten the deadbolt. The door falls open. I enter, Ruger in hand, and kick the door shut behind me.

My gaze slashes across her kitchen. Nothing.

Living room. Nothing.

Goddamn it, if I find her asleep in bed after all this?—

I hear a scream and a growl, and I take off at a run down the hall. I try the door to her bedroom and find that locked, too. Too many keys on this goddamn key ring to find the right one, but this door's a basic wooden one.

I come at it full force, my shoulder slamming into it. Once. Twice. On the third hit, I knock it down, and it splinters like kindling. Violet turns to look at me, a pink handprint across her cheek and blood streaming down the side of her face. The hand holding her knife shakes. A curtain on her window flutters in the breeze.

"He got away!"

No.

I'll kill him.

Her voice quakes, her hand's trembling. I fight the need to hold her, to make sure she's okay, that she isn't hurt worse than it looks, but I can't let the fucker get away. I move past her and crane my neck out the window, just in time to see red brake lights on a small Mazda as it peels around the corner.

"Motherfucker. Did you see him?"

She nods, her eyes filling with tears, and she swipes them angrily away. "I did. It's the guy I found tonight in my search, the same goddamn guy they suspect for all those crimes but haven't been able to prove."

Okay, alright. She'll come back to my place, and we'll clean her up and find out what she knows. Who he is. We'll make sure she's okay.

"You're not safe here."

She winces. When she blinks, a tear rolls down her cheek, mingling with the blood. Fuck. "I had him. I fucking had him, " she says.

"Are you hurt?"

"No," she says, vibrating with anger. "I'm furious."

It's anger, then, that makes her cry.

She could be in shock. She could be injured. We've got more evidence now so we can track him down and find him, but first I have to make sure she's okay.

"Sit down."

She looks from me to the window, then back again. With effort, I gentle my voice. "Sit. Please."

It kills me to see those eyes of hers filled with tears. She cries, letting the tears go unchecked, and finally sits down. I don't realize until I kneel in front of her that I'm shaking.

"Oh God, you've got… you came in with a knife and a gun?"

I look down to see my Ruger in one hand and my MK3 in the other. I lay them down.

"Yeah, I have a tendency to overdo shit," I say, just to calm her down. If the motherfucker was in front of me now, I would wish I had more than this on me. "You alright? Do you need immediate medical attention?"

She stretches for a tissue from her bedside table but doesn't quite reach it. I hand her one silently.

"No, I'm okay." She continues to swipe angrily at the tears.

I want to kiss her, blood and sweat and tears and all. I want to haul her up into my arms and carry her away from this shitty apartment, bring her to my place, and treat her to the lap of luxury. I want her body to soften underneath me, to yield to everything and anything I want to do to her. But I can't do that to her. I can't do that for her. She's the type of woman who'd feel belittled if I treated her that way.

We'll get there.

I need to make her feel safe. I need her to trust me.

"Alright, woman." I reach for the box of tissues and place it beside her. "Tell me everything."