The raw vulnerability in her voice reached inside him and twisted so hard he could barely breathe. It made him feel like the biggest asshole in the world.
“Why didn’t you say so?” he forced out. “Why didn’t you tell me it was so important to you? Jesus, I thought you were arguing for the sake of it.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I don’t like people to know. Just in case—” She stopped.
“Just in case what?”
The look in her eyes was stark. “Just in case it gets taken away from me.”
Jesus.
Anger filled him, as raw as the vulnerability he saw in her face, heard in her voice. That fucking useless excuse for a father had made her feel this way, hadn’t he? He’d taken things from her before. Things she’d cared about. Things she loved.
He wanted to smash his fist through something hard just to relieve the rage, but instead he reached out and cupped the side of her face, cradling her jaw. “What did he take from you, Princess?”
She swallowed yet again. “Nothing much. A doll, when I was little and wouldn’t do what I was told. Then time with my friends. Then . . .” she said, her voice thickening. “My mother.”
Fuck. Fuck.
He had no idea what to say to that and no time in which to say it. No time to ask the questions he wanted to ask. So instead, all he said was, “I’ll get the case.”
Dropping his hand from her face, he turned and went back into the house. And he picked up that fucking guitar and brought it back out to the car, sticking it in the trunk along with his guns.
Then he got back behind the wheel and turned the key.
“Thank you,” Callie said quietly.
There were words inside him, things he wanted to tell her. That it was okay, that he’d never take anything from her the way her father had. That what was important to her would now be important to him.
But they were dangerous things to say so he didn’t say any of them.
He simply started the car and pulled away from the house with a screech.
CHAPTER 12
Callie didn’t trust herself to speak. Her emotions didn’t make any sense and she was tired of trying to sort them out.
Her arm where he’d gripped her wasn’t sore, but it tingled all the same, heat lurking beneath her skin as if his touch had burned her. The same heat was lingering in her mouth, where he’d kissed her, and she could still taste him from where she’d bitten him.
She’d been stupid to get into an argument about the guitar, but she’d been angry at him for turning her down and telling her he wasn’t going to sleep with her again. Half of her had hoped that the argument would generate the usual sparks, that he’d forget himself and lose control, take her right in the hallway.
But he hadn’t. And she’d ended up revealing more than she’d ever thought she would. About her music. About her fear it would be taken from her the way everything she enjoyed or loved was taken from her.
Yet something had shifted in her chest again at the anger that had leapt in his green eyes after she’d told him. Because that anger wasn’t directed at her. It was for her father. For what he’d done. A protective anger on her behalf and part of her had glowed in response. The part that loved his protectiveness.
No one had ever been protective of her, never ever.
As the car sped along the freeway into the city, she glanced out the window, not wanting to look at him. Because this feeling inside of her was bad. Very bad. In telling him about her music, she’d opened up a part of her soul, and he hadn’t refused her.
No, he’d simply turned around and gotten her guitar and loaded it into the car without another word.
He hadn’t asked her anything about it though. In fact, he said nothing on the drive in, completely ignoring her. But the tension that gathered around him was almost palpable, and she didn’t know whether it had something to do with her, or whether it was to do with their situation. Or maybe it was both.
Either way it made her feel tense.
“So what’s the plan now?” she asked, wanting to break the heavy silence.
“Too many people know where I live so we’ll go to a hotel, check in under a different name. I want you to stay there while I make contact with my team.”
“Oh? I thought you weren’t going to meet with them?”
“I wasn’t. But I need information on the situation and they have it.” This time he gave her a lightning-fast glance. “You’ll stay in the hotel.”
“Sure,” she said, because what else could she say? She wasn’t exactly going to go out sightseeing, not when she knew what would happen if anyone spotted her. Anyway, she could use the time to herself, think about her next step. And she had her guitar, too.
Jack’s expression was hidden behind his sunglasses again, but she definitely caught suspicion emanating from him.
She raised an eyebrow. “What? You really think I’m going to be running around the city or something? Come on, I’m not that stupid.”
He didn’t speak, merely let his gaze linger a second longer on her before turning his attention back to the road.
Five minutes later, his phone buzzed and he glanced down at it, then cursed.
Callie frowned. “What now?”
For an answer he simply handed her the phone. “Read the text.”
It was from a number she didn’t recognize and all it said was: Thought you should know that the senator has called a press conference regarding the kidnapping of his daughter.
“Oh no,” she murmured, her stomach dropping. “That’s . . . not good.”
“No,” Jack said curtly.
With shaking fingers, Callie quickly opened the web browser on the phone and checked out a few news sites. Her stomach dropped even further. “Looks like it’s made it onto the front page of various papers. Jack . . .”
“It’s okay.” His voice was flat with conviction. “No one can track us if they don’t know where we are, and they don’t know where we are.”
“But he’s got the police involved.”
“I’ll deal with it.” He gave her another brief glance. “Don’t worry. Like I said, we’ll have to keep our heads down, but we were going to do that anyway. Besides, I’ll know more once I’ve spoken to the team.”
Callie tried to feel reassured, but it was difficult as they drove in tense silence into the city center.
A press conference. Accusations she’d been kidnapped.
This was getting worse and worse.
Jack parked the car in a parking building, then made her put on her winter coat, drawing up the collar and instructing her to keep her face down. Then he grabbed a cap from the glove compartment and pulled it low down over his face, collected their bags, then strode out into the city.
The hotel wasn’t far, which was good since Callie suddenly felt very exposed walking on the city streets. But then they were standing in the lobby and Jack was checking them in.
It wasn’t the kind of hotel she was used to—barely three-star, really—the carpet worn, the lingering scent of cigarettes in the air. However, when they got up to the room, despite the dirty-looking curtains and the wallpaper that probably hadn’t been updated since the nineties, there was a window that faced the street so she could at least look out.
There was also a king-size bed.
“I’ll take the couch,” Jack said, frowning at the bed.
Callie stared at it too, the germ of an idea beginning to take shape in her head now that they were safely inside and away from anyone who might spot them. She couldn’t do anything to help her own situation and she didn’t have the power to get her father off her own back. But as she’d already decided in the car to his place, she had a certain kind of power all her own.
She had power over Jack.
Maybe it was time to test it?
He moved past her, going to the window and looking out, before turning his attention to the window frame and the catches. Then he began systematically checking over the
room itself.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, watching him. “No one’s going to come in and get me. Nobody even knows where I am.”
He didn’t answer, nor did he stop what he was doing.
Five minutes later, his check obviously complete, he turned to her, the green of his eyes intense. “I’m going out for no more than an hour. Don’t open that door. Not for anyone. Do you understand?”
Callie sat on the bed, putting her hands on the mattress and leaning back, not missing the way his gaze dropped down the length of her body. Which was very satisfying. “Not even room service? I’m kind of hungry.”
He scowled and turned away, moving to the door. “I’ll get you something before I leave.”
She opened her mouth to ask what, but he’d gone out the door before she could say a word.
* * *
The bar that housed the 11th Hour HQ was virtually empty as Jack strode in. Sabrina was behind the bar again, her long curly brown hair tied up in a ponytail on top of her head, squinting up at the shelves of bottles stacked behind the bar itself.
She glanced at him as he entered, then looked away. Then looked back again, sharply. Without a word, she moved over to the door near the bar itself that led to the back room and pushed it open for Jack.
He went past her without comment, moving through the series of connected corridors that finally led out into the massive space of the gutted building that was the HQ proper.
Isiah was sitting in the leather recliner in the quarter of the massive space that had been given over to the living area. He looked like he was in the middle of an intense conversation with Faith, who was sitting on the couch nearby, a displeased look on her porcelain features. Kellan was lounging in an armchair, observing the conversation with some amusement.
Jack didn’t give a shit.
Ignoring the way Sabrina tried plucking at his sleeve to slow him down, he strode straight over to the sitting area.
Isiah’s hazel gaze flickered to him, then narrowed abruptly.
Everyone else fell silent.
Slowly Isiah leaned back in his chair. “Where’s the girl?”
“Somewhere safe.” Jack held the other man’s stare, giving back as good as he got.
He’d changed his mind about coming in for the debrief on the drive into the city, because after going over various options in his head, he figured that meeting with the team was the best way to get information on how to deal with Hawthorne. Especially since the prick had now called a fucking press conference about his daughter’s supposed “kidnapping.”
He wasn’t going to tell anyone where Callie was though and that was nonnegotiable, especially now. At least not until he could be sure that she was safe.
Isiah’s expression was hard. “Care to explain why you pissed off an extremely valuable client by kidnapping the daughter you were supposed to be guarding? The police are involved now, which means Mr. Night is not happy. And when Mr. Night is not happy, no one is fucking happy, least of all me.”
Ah yes, the mysterious Mr. Night. Whom no one had apparently ever met or even seen.
“I don’t give a shit whether he’s happy or not,” Jack replied flatly. “My job was to protect Callie from danger so I did.”
“You kidnapped her, man,” Kellan pointed out. “She’s a fucking senator’s daughter. And now we have publicity happening, which isn’t good for the team’s reputation.”
Jack straightened, glancing first at Kellan, then Faith, then Isiah. Making sure each one of them was listening to him. “The danger to Callie wasn’t only from the death threats. Her father is an abusive asshole and I wasn’t leaving her there.”
There was a thick, uncomfortable silence.
Isiah and Faith shared a look, then Isiah glanced at Jack again. “You sure about this?”
“I’m sure.”
Isiah grimaced. “Shit, whatever the guy’s done, you can’t just pull the girl out of there like that. There are steps you could have taken initially that would—”
“If they involved the police, then no,” Jack interrupted. “I couldn’t have. The senator’s got the police in his pocket.”
Isiah’s grimace turned into a scowl. “Well, they’re fucking involved now.”
“I’m not apologizing. I had no option other than to kidnap her.”
“To be fair,” Kellan said smoothly, “he did mention to me that he thought the senator was being a sketchy prick with putting cameras in his daughter’s place.”
“That’s beside the point.” Isiah put his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself out of it. “You had a job to do and now there’s a media situation. You’re putting our reputation at risk—like Kellan just said—because you didn’t follow orders.”
Jack folded his arms and stood his ground. Sure, he guessed the bastard was essentially his commanding officer, but this wasn’t the Corps. These weren’t his buddies. These were, in essence, mercenaries, and what mattered most to mercenaries was money.
You’re one of them, don’t deny it.
Yeah, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have principles. He had a line and not leaving someone like Callie to the mercy of a controlling asshole like her father was the fucking definition of that line. And as for the media, they could go to hell.
“There were no orders to cover this particular situation,” he said curtly. “So I did what I thought best at the time. And yeah, that was getting her the hell out of Boston and away from her goddamn father.”
Isiah cursed. “That’s none of our fucking business. Domestic situations haven’t got anything to do with the job.”
“Bullshit. In this particular instance they had everything to do with the job. She wasn’t safe. So I protected her.”
“And now her fucking father is on our back and talking about taking our entire operation down if his daughter isn’t returned, not to mention holding press conferences and getting the police involved.”
Ah. So Hawthorne was threatening the team? Well, he’d always known that taking Callie wasn’t going to endear him to the senator, though to be honest, he hadn’t thought about the effect it would have on the 11th Hour team.
Shit.
Faith, holding her phone to her ear, lifted a hand, giving Jack a cool look. “Mr. Night wants the girl delivered back to her father ASAP. No arguments.”
Jack narrowed his gaze at her phone. Was she talking to Night right now? If so, he wouldn’t mind a word. “Give it to me.” He held out his hand. “I’ll speak to him myself.”
Faith frowned, then turned away, muttering something into the phone.
“Jesus,” Kellan murmured. “When you fuck up, you really fuck up.”
Jack ignored him, staring at Faith instead. He was prepared to fight anyone attempting to take Callie back to Boston. Even at the expense of the team he’d been so desperate to join not a week or so earlier. Because they’d survive it. He wasn’t sure Callie would.
After all, Molly hadn’t. Molly, whose only crime had been to be born to a woman who kept going back time after time to a man who loved his children so much he’d put a pillow over his little girl’s face and suffocated her.
All because she wouldn’t stay in bed. Because she was his. Because he could.
Yeah, Jack wasn’t going to let something like that happen again to another defenseless girl. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t eight like he had been back then, he was thirty-two. And like his own father had since discovered, he wasn’t powerless anymore.
Eventually Faith turned back and extended the phone in Jack’s direction. “You have five minutes,” she said crisply.
He took it from her, lifted it to his ear, and without any preamble at all said, “Callie Hawthorne is not going back.”
There was a silence down the other end of the phone.
Then a very deep, very dark voice replied, “I’m afraid that’s not your call to make, Mr. King. It’s mine. And now that the senator has made the situation even worse, what the senator wants, the s
enator gets.”
Jack turned away from the others, stalking a few steps toward the gym area of the huge space, his fingers gripping tight to the phone. “Over my dead goddam body,” he growled. “The senator is an abusive prick and your precious fucking team isn’t worth her life.”
“Your opinion is noted. But she needs to be back in Boston within the next twenty-four hours.”
Jack gritted his teeth. “So you don’t give a shit that he might kill her? She’s defenseless. She has no support. She’s on her own. Does that not matter at all to you?” Because if it didn’t, this wasn’t a team he wanted to be a part of, that was for fucking sure.
Another silence. Then a long-suffering-sounding sigh. “Miss Hawthorne’s life isn’t the only one under threat and there are greater things at stake, I’m afraid. You have twenty-four hours. If she’s not back within that time, I’ll find her and take her to Boston myself. And believe me, you don’t want that. Things tend to get very messy when I take matters into my own hands.”
Jack opened his mouth to tell the asshole he could fucking well try, but then the phone call disconnected abruptly.
He growled, wanting to throw the offending piece of technology out the nearest window. Greater things at stake? What the fuck was Night talking about? What “greater things”? And why were they more important than one woman’s life?
Well, one thing was clear to him at least; he was on his own. Which was fine. Sure, he’d wanted a purpose, a team of people who had his back, but if that purpose and that team involved leaving a woman without protection, then he didn’t want any part of it.
And as for that twenty-four-hours bullshit . . . He and Callie may as well leave San Diego right the hell now and the mysterious Mr. Night could go suck it. If the police were now involved as well as the press, that would make things difficult, but Jack would make sure they wouldn’t be found, least of all by that prick.
He turned to find Faith standing right behind him. There was a strange look on her usually expressionless face, a crease between her dark brows. But she said nothing, holding out her hand for the phone.
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