Cayden walked past her and caught a glimpse of the papers on his bed. He picked them up, but she rushed up behind him trying to snatch them away. “Give me those,” she said.
He held the papers out of her reach as she hopped up in a poor attempt to grab them, her hands all over his body. He was a good foot taller than she was. “Relax.”
Cayden looked at the papers. She’d done a pencil drawing of him when he was working at his computer. It was incredible. She had a rare talent, and he was intrigued. “They’re not yours,” she huffed.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, getting a better look at her work. “Hey, you drew me without my consent.” The shadowing, the detail, the skill … she was much more than the crime boss’s daughter he’d expected. “You should be proud. It’s really good. I didn’t know you were an artist.”
“I’m not. It’s just a hobby. Well, I usually paint.”
“You should be an artist.”
She smiled at him, and it felt like a punch in his chest. “You really like it?” Sophia sat down beside him, her leg brushing his.
“It’s like a photo. You have talent. I could never pull that shit off.”
“Everyone’s good at something. What are your hobbies?”
Cayden stared off into space, trying to come up with an answer. He came up blank. It was an eye-opening moment for him. “I don’t have any.”
“You must have something you like to do. Besides kidnapping girls, of course.”
He scowled.
“What do you do for fun?” she asked.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Is fighting a hobby? When Frank was alive he coached me in boxing. Before that I just did it for money.”
“Sure, if you enjoyed it.”
Inner reflection wasn’t something he’d ever spent time on. Life was survival.
Eat. Sleep. Kill.
He passed her the drawings, his hand unintentionally coming down to rest on her thigh. Her body jolted, and she looked up at him with those big brown eyes.
“And Sophia likes to paint,” he whispered.
She nodded, the papers falling from her fingers like autumn leaves as she reached for the collar of his shirt. Her lips parted, but she had nothing more to say. She tugged him down, and for the first time in his life he was helpless to resist.
Sophia Morenov was too young, too innocent, too complicated.
He kissed her, if he could even call it a kiss. A light brush of the lips. A soul-deep connection. He barely moved, breathing her in, feeling uniquely vulnerable. God, he wanted to taste her, devour her, know every part of her body.
Cayden slowly pulled back. Her hand still clutched the collar of his shirt.
“Was that acting?” she asked, almost too quiet to hear.
“What do you think?”
She swallowed and moved her hand onto her lap. “It felt real, but I know it couldn’t be real.”
“Are you a good judge of character?”
“Not when it comes to you.”
He took a section of her hair, now an odd caramel color as the dye began to wash away. Soon she’d be the blonde beauty once again, and he’d be a bad memory.
Like the box of cheap hair dye.
“Maybe it’s because there’s nothing inside me, nothing worth salvaging anyway. Be leery of men without hobbies.” He winked and let go of the strand of hair.
“People change. I can teach you how to draw.”
Damn she was fucking adorable. He began to regret kidnapping her in the first place.
“That’s your thing, sweetheart.” Cayden stood up and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Look, I’m not keeping you, okay. Friday morning I’ll drop you off downtown and you can call up your boyfriend to pick you up.”
Maybe in another life he could have had a woman like Sophia. But he’d done too much shit that kept him up at night.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“He’s ready to die for you.”
“Because he’s loyal to my father. Hawk has some twisted sense of duty and feels obligated to protect me. I’m not sure why he cares.”
Because Sophia was a light to their darkness. In only a few days, her appeal was obvious. Hawk must already be infected by her. Cayden needed to cut ties before his sickness was irreversible.
“That’s good. You’ll need a protector with the bounty on your head.”
She dropped backwards, her body briefly jostling until the mattress settled. She draped her forearm over her eyes. “I wish I could go far from here. Far from everywhere. Someplace no one could hurt me. I never asked for this life, but I’m going to pay for my father’s sins until I die. Which is soon, by the sounds of it.”
He wanted to tell her that if she was his, he’d never let anything happen to her. If she was his, he’d have a reason for living.
Cayden kept his mouth shut.
****
“I have her location,” said Hawk. He could hardly speak, his heart still racing from the new revelation.
“Where?” asked Vlad.
“Just outside the city. I’m getting my shit together and heading over.”
Three days had passed.
Three days not knowing if Sophia was alive or dead.
One of his guys found Cayden’s car by hacking a red-light camera, then traced the vehicle location. It was parked in the factory district less than an hour away.
Hawk was busy preparing his cache of weapons, and then he’d do what he did best and get Vasily’s daughter back. He wasn’t a praying man, but he asked God to make sure that bastard hadn’t put a hand on her. Whether he had or not, he still had to die. Cayden had killed Vasily, the only man he’d ever respected. Then he had the balls to take his only daughter.
He must want something if he took her alive rather than leaving a body for Hawk to find back at the hotel. They’d been right under his nose the entire time.
“Give me the address. I’ll meet you there. We can take him down together.”
Hawk shoved a 9mm into his holster. “No, I can’t risk him knowing we’re coming. He could panic and kill her.”
“You shouldn’t go alone,” said Vlad. “We have a lot of men at our disposal.”
The old man had been a fixture in the Morenov home for as long as he could remember. He’d helped Vasily train him. He was all Hawk had left besides Sophia. “As soon as she’s safe, I’ll call you. I promise, I won’t fuck this up.”
He put his cell away and slid the last handgun into the back of his black jeans. It was time to set things straight, to make amends. He’d paint the street with that fucker’s blood.
The drive was quiet at this time of night. It gave him time to think and reflect. With the sun set, the lights of the city were a thin line in his rearview mirror, inky blackness all round him. Some days the darkness swallowed him, not giving him enough air to breathe. Killing helped him feed the beast, sate the evil growing inside him. Vasily raised him to hate, to break, to kill. It was his norm. The only glint of light in his world was Sophia—her innocence, her love of painting, her big, brown eyes. She kept him grounded. Reminded him to be human.
He couldn’t lose her.
Then there was the day everything changed between them. That kiss had become his obsession. Her lips were soft, her little tongue teasing. She was fucking precious to him, the only woman he wanted—but couldn’t have.
His sole job as her protector was to keep her safe, to carry on his duty even though Vasily was gone. Hawk’s loyalty was stronger than death.
He stopped his car several blocks from his target. For the last mile, he drove in darkness. There were no lights on in the factory, but that didn’t mean a thing. Cayden was a professional, so Hawk wasn’t expecting a cake walk. He wasn’t foolish enough to let down his guards until Sophia was safe in his arms. As he moved in closer, he spotted the car that had helped lead him here. He kept close to the building, his back scraping the brick as he moved to the entrance, his gun at his side. There was a video ca
mera near the entrance, so he kept in the shadows. The only way this would work was with the element of surprise. No mistakes.
Hawk dropped his duffel bag, rooting through the contents to find his glass cutter. He moved painstakingly slowly, carving out the closest large panel and removing it with care. He peered inside, mentally plotting his path. There was only one door at the rear of the factory, so that was where he’d head.
He took a breath, leaving his bag outside as he slipped inside. His boots crunched on broken glass and metal shards. “Fuck!” he whispered aloud. Even the floor was booby-trapped. Every step was punctuated, making his journey through the old factory as noisy as a minefield.
He was more than halfway to the basement entrance when a car door slammed shut outside. A flashlight bobbed up and down beyond the dirty glass panels, heading towards the building.
A loud rapping echoed through the empty factory.
Footsteps pounded up the steps from the basement. What the fuck was going on? He rushed to the back of the factory, using the banging as a distraction for his steps. Only seconds later, Cayden appeared. He flicked a switch, a single lightbulb dangling from the vaulting ceiling giving a wash of light to the massive factory.
Sophia had to be downstairs.
He swung around once Cayden was near the main door, keeping his gun drawn as he descended the staircase. He never realized these old factories had basements, or maybe it was a bunker made specifically for hiding out. Everyone in this business was paranoid.
And for good reason.
The lights were brighter in the basement. It was nothing like what he expected. As soon as he reached the bottom, his sights were on her.
Sophia sat cross-legged on a sofa.
Alive.
His adrenaline crash made his vision swim. The relief of finding Sophia Morenov after days of worrying was surreal.
“Sophia.”
She looked up at him, not moving, not speaking. He started to think she’d been drugged and didn’t recognize him, but then she got up and ran over, throwing herself into his arms. He kissed the top of her head, holding her close. Breathing her in.
Hawk closed his eyes, savoring the high of having her back. The past few days he’d been a fucking mess, thinking the absolute worst.
“You found me.”
“Of course, I found you, baby.” He never wanted to let her go, but now they had to get out of the building alive. “Who’s at the door?”
“Pizza.”
He looked around the room. It was completely renovated, out of place in the basement of an abandoned factory. Pizza and takeout containers were piled on the coffee table. There was an elaborate, top of the line computer set up and a bed at the back, the blankets rumpled.
“Did he touch you, Sophia?”
“What? No.”
He took her hand, leading her up the stairs behind him. “I’ll kill him.”
“Hawk, no!” She attempted to tug her hand back. “He didn’t hurt me. I promised him you’d leave him alone.”
“I never made that promise.”
The fucker had brainwashed her. Cayden had killed her father, kidnapped her, and now had her showing him mercy? It didn’t make sense. Not after how torn she’d been about the murders back at the hotel. She was young, impressionable, and not thinking straight.
Shots fired upstairs.
He let go of Sophia and grabbed a second handgun, holding both out straight as he walked up the stairs. Did Cayden kill the fucking delivery boy?
“Stay here, Sophia.”
When he got to the main level, windows broke as more shots rained inside. He fired back blindly. Cayden was crouched down behind a machine, shooting at a different target at the front entrance. A body lay halfway inside the factory, blood pooling. Hawk made his way across the room. Then he saw who Cayden was shooting at—Vlad.
“Vlad, get the fuck out!” He was going to get himself killed. Hawk specifically told him to stay out of this. The bastard must have traced his car.
“Don’t shoot,” Sophia called out. “Don’t hurt him, Hawk!”
He turned his head. She was following him, walking into the damn factory. “Get back, Sophia! Get the fuck back!” More windows shattered. Who had Vlad brought with him? A fucking army?
“Sophia, get down! Go downstairs!” Cayden shouted, then fired again at the entrance. Why did he care if his hostage was shot or not? After hearing Sophia, Hawk kept checking on her between aiming and shooting.
Vlad was behind the brick wall, occasionally firing inside.
A bullet whizzed by Hawk’s head. He refocused, tucking his handguns away and pulling out his Benelli M4 that he had strapped to his back. “Call them off, Vlad!”
His old friend stepped into sight, then aimed in his direction, firing off several shots. Sophia screamed. When he turned his head, she was crouched down hugging herself. There was blood.
Vlad looked him right in the eyes and fired again.
Chapter Nine
Hawk rushed toward Sophia, scooping her up at his side and hauling her to the basement. Once downstairs, he patted her down. A bullet had grazed her arm, but she was fine otherwise.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know yet. I think Vlad’s switched sides.”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible.”
“Baby, anything’s possible in this game. Stay here. I have to deal with this.”
He ran back up the stairs, blasting the windows and entrance once on the main floor. Cayden was gone. Likely dead.
Shadows crept along the outside of the building. Whoever Vlad had brought with him meant business. It pissed him off that they had probably been part of Vasily’s crew. He’d known Vladimir his entire life. He was the last man standing, and Hawk never expected him to sell out. If he needed money, Sophia would have gladly given it to him.
Hawk made his way to one of the back entrances, then rounded the building so he could get them from behind before they got inside. Hawk wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but they weren’t going to get to that basement if he had any part of it.
Sophia had been taken from him once, and it wouldn’t happen again.
As he turned the corner, he practically slammed into Cayden Walsh. Vasily’s murderer. They both backed up and drew their weapons, arms straight, only feet apart.
Neither of them moved.
“You have my cat.”
Hawk shrugged one shoulder. “You have my ward.”
“Maybe you’re not the man for the job considering how easy it was for me to take her.”
He had him there. Hawk had screwed up and was paying the price now.
“You kept her alive. So, why’d you take her?” he asked. “And who hired you to assassinate Vasily Morenov?”
“No one hired me,” said Cayden. “That was all me. Vasily wasn’t the man you thought he was.”
He didn’t have time to give him the third degree. If Sophia wasn’t in danger, he’d enjoy destroying Cayden Walsh nice and slow. Make him feel the same pain he’d inflicted on him by taking Vasily and throwing his life into turmoil. He also had a laundry list of questions he wanted to ask, but now wasn’t the time.
“I’m taking the girl.”
“I know,” said Cayden.
He narrowed his eyes. This wasn’t what he expected from Sophia’s kidnapper. “You won’t get in my way?”
“I planned to return her in the morning. But I’m not so sure anymore. Those are your men in there trying to send her to hell, no?”
“I’d never hurt her.”
“Neither would I,” said Cayden.
There stared at one another. He had to get back to Sophia before Vlad’s men.
“Back the fuck off.”
They both reversed course, each aiming at each other’s heads until on different corners of the building. Once out of sight, Hawk immediately rushed along the wall toward the entrance. Timing was everything. He could see Vlad almost at the basement door t
hrough the broken glass. He fired inside, but that only revealed his location to the firing squad.
Hawk dropped down to his back, reloaded his pistol and kept firing between his legs, hitting two right away. He recognized Jimmy, one of Vasily’s hitmen, and shot him in the chest three times before changing clips. There were too many. He’d never be able to get to Sophia in time.
Panic crept into his heart at the thought of losing her. Failing her. Vlad wouldn’t take her alive, and he damn well knew it.
He got back to his feet to peer inside the factory. Cayden was already back inside from the back entrance. Vlad took cover behind some machinery. As much as it killed him to do it, he had no choice.
Another bullet hit the dirt next to his boot. “Cayden! Take Sophia!”
It didn’t matter if Hawk came out of this alive. She was all that mattered. For some reason, Vasily’s killer had kept Sophia breathing, and right now Hawk didn’t have a friend in the world.
He’d go down a martyr. Sacrifice himself for the family. For Sophia.
He took a few deep breaths, centering himself, then charged to the entrance with his shotgun, unloading the fucker on everyone in his way. A bullet grazed his thigh, almost making his lose footing, and another got him in his side. The darkness shrouded the wild exchange, the deafening noise making his ears ring.
Images flashed in his head—Sophia’s lips, Vasily’s dead body, and a blurry figure of his mother.
All became quiet.
He wasn’t sure how many he’d killed or how much time had passed. Was he even still alive? Hawk brushed himself off, scanning the darkness. He limped forward, the gravel crunching beneath his boots. There were bodies everywhere. Some he recognized, others he didn’t. Gunpowder clouded the air, irritated his senses. He pushed open the main door, and it swung briefly on its last metal hinge before falling inwards, creating a bold echo and cloud of dust.
A bullet pinged off the wall.
Vladimir was on the ground near the basement, clutching his stomach with one hand and haphazardly aiming his handgun with the other.
“Drop it,” said Hawk.
He was in pain, tired, and done with the fucking day. Cayden was gone. Hawk wasn’t in the mood for games or more gunshot wounds.
Witness Protection Page 9
