IF THE FOUR men who’d taken me into their home were at all offended that I insisted on making my own plate at dinner—acting as if I didn’t want to impose on them any more than I already was—none of them called me on it. I didn’t intend to let any of them touch my food or drink again.
I didn’t know what had made me so tired earlier today. It could have been an aftereffect from the crash. Or it could have been something funny about the hot chocolate Garrison had given me. He might have used its deliciousness to cover up something much more ominous.
I’d only woken up just before dinner, the smell of frying chicken and garlic making my mouth water. It seemed reasonable to eat when I could to get my energy up for my escape. I was increasingly sure that as soon as I pushed the issue, it’d come to a fight. I had to be totally ready for that fight, or I’d end up even worse off than I was now.
When I ducked into my bedroom after dinner, I tucked bills from the rolls of cash into my pants pockets, my bra, and even the waist of my panties—as much as I could carry without my cargo being noticeable through my clothes. I didn’t want the men to have any clue I intended to make a break for it until the last second. The jewelry I’d have to leave behind, but it’d have been a hassle to pawn it anyway. Cash was simple and straightforward, like any good mission should be.
I lingered for a moment over my tote bag. Leaving behind my other change of clothes was no big deal—I could buy or steal more—but a strange sadness prodded my chest when I thought of abandoning the stuffed tiger.
Ridiculous. It wasn’t as if I could stuff that in my bra and have no one notice. A fuzzy toy wasn’t exactly necessary to any of my plans.
I pushed the unexpected ache deep down inside me like the other random emotions that rose up now and then and ambled back into the living area, acting as casual as I could.
Four pairs of eyes tracked my movements the moment I emerged. I wasn’t getting away with much at this exact moment. I’d need to examine the door and the windows more closely and position myself when I asked about leaving so I could spring for my best escape route as soon as they showed their hand.
For the time being, I sat down on the sofa in front of the TV and groped around for the remote. There had to be information about the murders on the news, right? Maybe I’d hear something that would help my mission, like potential suspects or evidence police had uncovered.
I turned the TV on and flipped through the channels, watching for a newscast. I hadn’t actually watched the news often. The broadcasts never showed up on my TV in the household, and whenever I’d been in the middle of an assignment and had access to a TV, channel surfing had felt like an unprofessional distraction.
Even now, as my finger tapped the button, Noelle’s voice echoed in the back of my head. When you’re on a mission, nothing matters but that mission. Keep your eyes on the prize.
The muscles in my hand twitched, and I almost put the remote down. But looking for news was part of my current mission, even if Noelle hadn’t assigned it to me. I wasn’t getting to the prize of destroying the people who’d slaughtered the household until I knew more about them.
Blaze plopped down on the sofa a couple of feet across from me. “Planning to watch anything in particular?”
“I feel like I’ve been out of touch for days,” I said. “I figured I’d check the news and see if I missed anything important.”
“Ah, you want channel 26, then. All news, all the time.” He grinned.
I tapped in the numbers, and the screen immediately flashed to a view of some kind of political press release room. The newscaster’s voice droned over the visual. “The surprising outcome of Bill 401 is sweeping through the nation. Damien Malik, with the tie-breaking vote, sent this historic bill into effect. Now, we as a nation must ask ourselves: What does this mean for us? We can expect—”
We could expect me not to give a shit. I leaned back, waiting for the story to switch.
Over the next half hour, the reporters covered a business merger, an overseas military operation, some storefront vandalism, and a rabid raccoon. Apparently all of those things were more pressing than a dozen people brutally slaughtered in their home. I frowned at the TV. They were going to get to the household eventually, weren’t they?
“If you’re looking for something specific, you could borrow my laptop,” Blaze offered, gesturing to the computer on the coffee table.
I eyed the device and then glanced at the man beside me. I’d rarely had unrestricted access to a private computer, but I knew that one internet search could bring up thousands of results. But should I be suspicious of his motives?
“If you wouldn’t mind,” I said.
He snatched it up before I could reach for it myself and handed it over with one of his wide smiles. “Anything for a pretty lady.”
A prickle ran down my spine at the flirty compliment, but he didn’t move any closer, and his tone was more playful than… than the low, sweet tones in my memory that made my hackles come up. I smiled back mildly, containing my adverse reaction, and opened the laptop.
Sliding over on the sofa, I tucked myself into the corner and surreptitiously angled the screen so none of the men in the room should be able to see it. Then I quickly typed in the city name and the word “massacre.”
Nothing came up except a couple of results about a short story competition years earlier where one of the winners included that word in the title. Was I being too poetic about it? I switched to the more basic “murders.”
That got me a bunch more articles, but none of them were from the past couple of days. Knitting my brow, I found the option to sort by date, but that didn’t help either.
What the hell? How could no one have reported on this yet? Had nobody noticed the carnage after a whole day?
I guessed it was possible. I had no idea how much the people in the household normally interacted with anyone outside, who might have come by in the past twenty-four hours and discovered the bodies. But still…
An apprehensive twang ran through my nerves. It didn’t feel right. And my instincts were honed by years upon years of experience with dangerous situations.
“If you’re having trouble finding something, I’m happy to lend a hand,” Blaze said in the same light tone. “Not to brag, but I can track down just about anything on the internet. And it’d be a pleasure to be of service.” He winked at me.
Another unwelcome shiver shot down my spine. Where was he trying to take this?
“That’s all right,” I said. “I can manage.”
I’d braced for another overture, but he just shrugged, still smiling and got out his phone. He might have liked attempting to flirt, but he didn’t seem to be all that committed. My pulse stopped thumping quite so fast.
It was fine. He wasn’t like—like the one who’d—
I shoved that thought aside before my gut could completely clench up and studied the screen again. Maybe if I modified by region? Tried a different word like “killings” or “slaughter”? I even added “household” to the string, as if the people who’d trained me were likely to use that term with anyone outside our home.
Nothing relevant popped up for any of that. I sucked my lower lip under my teeth, just barely restraining myself from giving in to the urge to nibble at it—a bad habit Noelle had badgered me about for years. I hadn’t hidden my reaction quite well enough, though.
Garrison sauntered over to the sofa, stopping behind Blaze but watching me. “You look awfully bothered by what you’re seeing, Dess.”
He had more snark in his tone than concern. I contemplated him as my fingers moved over the keys through the processes I’d learned to clear my search history. As perfect as his kindness earlier had been, it’d vanished in the time I’d been asleep, so I had to assume he’d been faking that reassuring persona. I couldn’t tell if this was the real him or some other front he was putting on, though.
Well, if he liked to snark, let’s see how he reacted to having it thrown right back at him.
“What, your face?” I retorted, looking him over. “I imagine you get that reaction a lot.”
That couldn’t be less of the truth, and he probably knew it. The sandy blond hair that fell in tousled waves gave him a beachboy vibe, and the rest of him—broad shoulders with an understated strength that wasn’t as spectacular as Julius’s brawn or Talon’s sculpted form but more impressive than the average guy—wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes either.
And when his lips curled with a hint of a smirk, a flicker of adrenaline shot through my system that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
“You’ll be comforted knowing that my face has never been called bothersome before,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows as if in disbelief. “I guess your company hasn’t been very honest with you, then.”
Blaze cut into our conversation, leaning forward and reaching for the laptop. “What are you looking up?”
“Nothing now.” I tossed it back to him and got up, stretching my arms as if I was bored with the conversation but taking the opportunity to meander a little closer to the door.
The second Blaze flipped open the laptop, my gaze darted to him. He aimed one of those bright grins at me as if he was enjoying showing off. “Easy enough to find out for myself.”
Wait. He couldn’t—
But he was tapping away on the keys, his gaze sharpening into an intentness I’d only witnessed briefly before. Cold fingers clamped around my stomach. All at once, I was sure he could dig up my searches no matter how thoroughly I thought I’d erased them.
If he found them, he’d know where I’d really been last night. Or at least that I’d been involved in something much more horrifying than a spat with a cruel boyfriend.
Whether these men knew more about the massacre than they’d let on or not, I was screwed. If they did know about them, I was super screwed.
I backed up a step, my pulse racing twice as fast as before. This wasn’t how I’d meant things to go.
“Here we are,” Blaze said cheerfully, and then his eyebrows drew together. His gaze leapt to me with a look that was unmistakably startled—and far too knowing.
Shit.
Pure instinct, driven by panic and self-preservation, sent me bolting toward the front door. A shout went up behind me. Talon charged after me. He reached me before I made it there, snatching my arm and spinning me around.
Thankfully, he’d grabbed my injured side, leaving my fully functional arm free. My well-honed body leaned into the momentum and jabbed my opposite elbow into his face. He dodged that blow only to step straight into the path of my ramming knee.
I caught him in just the right spot that pain spasmed in his expression and his grip on my arm loosened. Not much, but enough that I could yank free.
Julius had already moved to block my way to the door. With a fresh burst of adrenaline thrumming through my veins, my gaze locked on the nearest window, in the kitchen area. I hurtled toward it, ignoring the throbbing that was already spreading through my bruised ribs at the exertion.
I leapt onto the counter without breaking stride and flipped over to slam both my heels into the glass. It didn’t budge. Come on. I whipped my feet toward it even harder, and with a cracking sound, a line formed down the middle of the pane.
Before I could shatter the glass completely, two pairs of hands clamped on my body and dragged me off the counter.
I flailed out with my good hand, my elbows, my knees, and my feet, all seeking the most vulnerable spots I could strike. The throbbing in my side expanded into a piercing agony that made my breath catch, but I couldn’t afford to stop. In my line of work, stopping usually meant dying.
My knuckles caught Talon in the throat. One of my knees clocked Julius across the cheek so hard he grunted, and his hands shifted. I tried to squirm free, intent on making it back to the window and the small hope of freedom it offered.
But the stomp of my foot into Talon’s calf, hard enough to fracture bone on a good day, landed weaker because of the pain searing through my torso. I had an opening when I could have gotten a stranglehold on Julius and maybe even broken his neck—but on my bad side, where my wrist screamed the second I swung it into action.
I let out a grunt of my own, my focus wavering, and Talon slammed his taut arms around me from behind. He pinned both of my arms to my sides in an iron grip. I pushed and flailed against him, but he managed to hold me so my heels only clipped his legs without doing any real damage while my ribs felt as if they were stabbing right into my lungs.
“Nice try,” he grumbled in my ear, “but you’re not going anywhere.”
He swiveled me to the side just as Garrison shoved a wooden chair with wide arms into place next to us. Talon shoved me into it, using his knee to hold my legs down, bracing my forearms against the arms of the chair. All I could move was my head, and his was too far away for me to butt it, as much as I’d have liked to right now.
He wasn’t just strong. This asshole knew how to fight—really fight. But if I hadn’t been injured…
I met his eyes with a glare, and he gazed back at me with no sign of anger or even irritation. Suddenly I was sure even his supposed frustration with me this morning had been as much an act as Garrison’s kindness. His pale blue irises held nothing but cool indifference, like this was just a job to him rather than a matter of survival like it was for me.
I should have been chilled, but the sight woke up something else inside me. I was abruptly hyperaware of the flexing of his hands against the bare skin of my arms, of all the power emanating from his pose over me. Of how close he was leaning—not close enough for me to launch another attack, no, but enough that his breath grazed my face with each exhale.
He was breathing a little raggedly. As strong as he was, I’d given him a challenge even with my injuries. And he’d given me a hell of a challenge too.
An unexpected heat pooled between my legs, a sensation I’d never felt before except when I touched myself there. The image passed through my mind of him leaning even closer, pressing all of that sculpted power right against me, and I didn’t shy away from it. If anything, my body welcomed the idea.
I’d never wanted a man before. Except maybe that one—for the short time before I’d realized the poison that lay behind his sweet words. Talon wasn’t like that at all. He was pure, brutal strength, on display without excuses or any kind of veneer, and something about that called to the deepest part of me.
As Talon stared down at me, I thought something shifted in his gaze—a flash of what I almost imagined was his own arousal. Then Julius strode into view, holding several plastic ties in his hands, and I jolted back to my horrifying reality. I was a captive here, way more so than I’d been a few minutes ago.
The leader of the group wrapped the ties around my wrists and then my ankles, binding me to the chair. He tugged the plastic strands tight enough that they bit into my skin—or in the case of my wrist in the brace, enough to make the sprain ache. He wasn’t going easy on me, that was for sure.
As soon as the restraints were in place, Talon stepped back—and pulled out a pistol. I hadn’t even been able to tell he was wearing one. He pointed it at me, aimed straight at my forehead, his expression back to its impervious blankness.
No matter what other feelings I might have briefly stirred in him, I had no doubt that he’d put a bullet in my brain without a second’s hesitation.
Garrison stood next to him, his arms folded over his chest. Blaze came up at Talon’s other side, his laptop still open, clutched in his hands, carrying the evidence I’d inadvertently provided him with.
Julius stepped back from the chair, swiping his hand across his cheek. A bruise was already purpling the skin there. I held in a smile of satisfaction. If I was going to go down, at least I’d left a mark on these pricks.
When he spoke, Julius’s voice was hard and unrelenting. “It’s time that you tell us exactly what you were doing last night.”
