by Lexi Blake
Then it was his turn. He felt his balls draw up and a tingling at the base of his spine. The world went soft around him and all that mattered was her.
He let go, the orgasm flowing through him until he couldn’t hold himself up a second longer.
He slumped down, letting his head find her breasts.
This was his place. He’d finally found it. Since the moment he’d awakened to that bright light and all the pain McDonald could give him, he’d been looking for this feeling.
“I would put my arms around you, but you tied me up.” Roni sighed, a deeply content sound.
He would have to fix that because he definitely wanted her arms around him. “I’ll see what I can do about that, baby. We have a shower to get to.”
“Good, because I think I have a feather up my butt,” she admitted.
He started to laugh and then groaned because there was a knock on the door. He kissed the tops of her breasts. “This room is occupied. Go away.”
This was what happened when non-professional dungeon monitors took over. He would bet Nina had run the minute the guard had come back without even bothering to mention they were in here.
The door came open and he cursed. “Hey, I said we’re in here.”
Nina shoved her way through anyway. “I know you’re here. The problem is so is MI6. They’re raiding The Garden and they’re looking for you.”
Tucker cursed again. His night in heaven had just gone straight to hell.
Chapter Eight
Five minutes later, Tucker’s heart was still racing as he eased out the door, one hand in Roni’s.
“They can’t see us?” Roni stared at the glass doors.
“No, the glass in the doors are specifically made to look like they filter light, but they don’t,” he explained. “You can’t even see shadows through them. When Damon said he wanted that part of the club to be private, he meant it. But obviously we can’t go out that way. We open the doors and they’ll know we’re here.”
“But we’re trapped.” Roni sounded shaky. She’d been calm but he could sense the panic bubbling under her surface. She was terrified.
He’d brought her here. He was the reason she was scared, but her hand was in his like he could save her.
He had to save her.
“There’s always a way out,” Nina said. “I’ve just got to make sure it’s safe for us to go. Damn it. I forgot there’s someone in room three. I don’t know who it is.” She was about to knock on the door when it came open and Solo walked out, her eyes wide as she realized she wasn’t alone.
“I…I…It’s got a sauna,” Solo said, a tote bag in her hand. “Steam is good for my skin.”
“Is Ezra in there?” He’d always known they were probably doing it.
“No. He’s not,” Solo replied. “No one is in there. I really was using the sauna. Damon said it was okay as long as I didn’t linger in the dungeon area. Ezra isn’t there tonight. He was working with Big Tag on something. They told me I wasn’t invited to their boys’ club, hence the sauna.”
“Well, while you were relaxing, MI6 decided to raid the club. I think we’ve figured out who was sniffing around your place the other night,” Nina pointed out.
Solo’s eyes went even wider. “No. Fuck. If they’re here, they want Tucker. Is there a way out? Can they get in here?”
“I locked the doors when I realized what was happening,” Nina explained. “but I have to make sure we can get out of here. Can you watch these two?”
Solo settled her bag on her shoulder. “Yes, but you need to know that if that’s really MI6, they’ll be able to get in if they want to. Where’s Jax?”
Nina was backing up, moving to the end of the hallway. “Hopefully he’s on the move. I got a code red on my cell a few minutes after I locked us down, so I have to think Tag knows what’s going on. I’ll be back. If it looks like they’re coming in…”
Solo nodded. “I’ll stash them somewhere and create a holy ruckus.”
“I would rather have a gun than hide,” Tucker said. He needed to make sure Roni was protected.
Nina shook her head and pointed to a space next to the guard stand. He knew it well since he’d taken many shifts working that particular station. From here he could see the security monitor. Usually it was focused on the exits and entrances, but Nina had switched it over, probably the minute she realized something was going wrong. “No. It’s best we don’t even look threatening if they catch us. What are you going to do? Shoot up MI6?”
That was the problem. That was precisely why Damon had his hands up. From Tucker’s vantage point, he could see the boss talking to a man in a suit. Damon was calm, but there was no question about how pissed off he was.
Solo moved close to the monitor. “Can we get audio?”
Tucker flipped the switch that allowed them to hear.
“If you would allow my wife and the others to get dressed, we could have this conversation in a civilized fashion,” Damon said. “Or is this how you conduct business since you took over MI6, Rupert?”
Nina put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to check on something and I’ll be right back. Stay with Solo. You can’t go out there. If they take you into custody, they don’t need us anymore. I want you to think about that before you play the hero.”
He nodded tightly and looked back at the monitor.
The man named Rupert was dressed in a tailored suit and despite the late hour, there wasn’t a hair out of place. “I conduct business in an entirely different fashion from my predecessor, and that means I don’t allow anyone to harbor dangerous fugitives under my nose. Nigel might have trusted you, Knight, but I do not. I don’t care what’s going on here. Have all the deviant sex you like, but you won’t do it with criminals in the building.”
Solo looked his way. “That’s the new head of Damon’s old division. Rupert Milbern. They were not friends. I knew they were getting impatient. I never imagined they would try something like this. Damon is going to be so pissed.”
“I was unaware there were criminals here,” Penny said, standing next to her husband. She was wearing a corset that pushed her breasts up and a teeny, tiny thong. “Damon, did you invite criminals to our party?”
Rupert frowned her way. “Now, Mrs. Knight, I was told you used to be an excellent agent. I suppose this is what happens when you consort with the wrong type. I’m talking about the men you call Jax Seaborne and Tucker Jones. Obviously those are aliases, but we can sort all of that out during our interrogations. If you surrender the men to me now, I won’t hand you over to the police for conspiracy.”
The minute his name was mentioned, Roni gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
“It’s okay,” he promised. “We can hear them but they can’t hear us. It’s going to be okay.”
Damon was staring down Rupert. “You won’t hand me over to the police at all. If you do that, you would have to hand over Jax and Tucker, too. Or are you planning on lying to the police? You’re not here to arrest them. You want to study them. You’re tired of waiting. What prompted this? And why is German intelligence here?”
It was Solo’s turn to gasp. “Damn it. I knew they were talking. Beck’s going to kill me. If I get you captured, Beck is literally going to kill me.”
Tucker held a hand up to ask for silence. He wanted to hear what Rupert was going to say.
“Also unlike my predecessor, I find value in allies,” the Brit said. “We’re working with BND because they have some of the same problems we have. They keep getting caught in your bungling. What happened in Munich was unacceptable. Not only did your team give up the intelligence to the Americans, you got a former German agent killed in the process. And that wasn’t the first time you’ve fucked the Germans over. Did you think they would forget what you did in Berlin?”
Roni’s hand squeezed his.
“So this is some form of payback? Raiding my home, coming after my employees?” Damon was obviously trying to buy them all time.
&
nbsp; Roni looked up at him. “What are we going to do? I can’t leave Violet. I should go out there.”
That wasn’t going to happen. “If they get their hands on you, I’ll do anything they ask, so if you go out there, I will, too.”
Tears fell on her cheeks. “You can’t. You don’t know what they’ll do to you.”
They would question him. Likely they would be polite in the beginning, but they could use force if they didn’t get what they wanted. They would test him. They would toss him to the wolves if he wasn’t useful to them. “I don’t know what they’ll do to you either.”
Her eyes had gone wide and she pointed to the screen. “Is that who I think it is?”
A shiver went up his spine as he realized who she was talking about. Arthur Dwyer stood in the background.
“Why would a representative from Kronberg be here?” she asked.
Solo’s eyes had narrowed, a feral look on her face. “German intelligence is working with Kronberg. Bastards. We had a deal. We shared information with those assholes because they promised when the time comes, they’ll help us take down Kronberg.”
“This isn’t just about me. This is about Roni, too. Fuck, they’re here because they’re worried two of their puzzle pieces got together and we’re going to figure it out.” So many things started to fall into place. “The whole time you thought you were hiding, they knew exactly where you were. They kept tabs on you and they kept tabs on me. They’ve kept to the shadows until now. Why? Because now we’re together. They think we know where that list is. I stole it. You went with me to Paris where I was trying to hand it off to someone, maybe the CIA. McDonald convinced them at the time that you didn’t know anything, but they still watched you. Now we’re in the same place and they won’t take the chance that we’ll get the intel and run with it. Roni, if Kronberg is here, they want you every bit as much as they want me.”
“I think he’s right,” Solo said.
“Where’s Mr. Taggart?” Rupert was asking on the monitors.
Damon shrugged. “Probably halfway across the Atlantic. He went home.”
So Tag was on the move. He hadn’t been in the dungeon earlier. He’d been in the offices working and talking to his family on the computer, and according to Solo, plotting with Ezra. He would have been informed quickly if there was a problem.
The discussion continued but he turned to Veronica and put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. No matter what happens, I’m going to get you out of this.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. But, Tucker, I don’t know anything. I haven’t been lying. I didn’t even look at your laptop that day. It was password protected and then Dr. McDonald had Robert take it. I don’t know anything and that means I’ll be useless to them.”
Oh, she wouldn’t be useless. She would be a tool to get him to do whatever they wanted. They needed to get out of the building and regroup.
A woman in a suit stepped into the frame and whispered something in Rupert’s ear that had him turning to Damon again.
“Would you like to tell me where Sandra Croft and her daughter are hiding? My employee found the apartment they’re living in, but sadly we seemed to have missed them.”
Roni breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“Ian got them out.” Violet would have been Big Tag’s priority. Having kids around meant every person in the building had to make those kiddos their first priority. Ian would have made certain Ollie was safe as well.
“Then Beck is likely trying to secure River and Jax,” Solo surmised. She nodded, never taking her eyes off the monitors. “He’ll do whatever he can to save his men. Tucker, tell me you left your phone upstairs.”
He hadn’t been thinking about the fact that someone could potentially track him. He’d left his phone behind because he hadn’t wanted anything to interrupt his moment with Roni. “It’s upstairs, but Solo, we’ve got the clothes on our backs. That’s all.”
“It’ll be fine,” Solo promised. “I assure you Beck’s thought about this. He’s planned for a worst-case scenario. It’s what he does. He’s going to get you out of here. He’ll do whatever it takes.”
Her faith in her ex-husband was a palpable thing.
“They got Vi out?” Roni was crying, but it was obvious she was trying so hard to keep it together.
He hauled her close. “Tag will protect her. He knows that she’s the first priority. You and Vi are everything.”
“Oh, no.” Solo breathed as she watched the monitor. “Oh, no.”
Tucker’s heart threatened to stop as Jax showed up on the screen. His hands were restrained behind his back and he had a defiant look on his face. He was shoved along but managed to stay on his feet.
Jax. They’d caught Jax.
A sob came over the monitor and River ran into the frame, tears streaming down her face. “Please. He didn’t do anything. Please.”
“Oh, there are several governments who would disagree with you,” Rupert said. “Mr. Seaborne, I think it’s time we had a talk. This might go easier on you if we could also interview your friend Tucker Jones.”
“And his girlfriend.” Arthur Dwyer’s voice was tinged with a German accent. His words were soft but they sent a chill through Tucker. “We would like very much to talk to Veronica Croft.”
River was being restrained by another of the operatives, though at least they seemed to have some compassion for her. She was crying, looking to her husband like the world was falling apart.
“Since when is MI6 in the business of acting as mercenaries for corporations?” Damon asked, his voice as cold as ice.
That seemed to trip Rupert up momentarily. His expression went blank as though he’d never considered the possibility that anyone would view his actions in such a way. His expression went stubborn. “I’ll work with anyone who will help me keep a potentially dangerous drug off the streets. Do you understand what could happen if our enemies gain control of McDonald’s research?”
“I know Kronberg would like their research back,” Robert said.
Rupert turned on him. “You should count yourself lucky you have friends in high places, Mr. McClellan, otherwise I would be bringing you in with Seaborne. I don’t believe for a moment it wasn’t you involved in those South American robberies. But I’m not allowed to touch you, and Mr. Shaw was the sad-sack idiot who got caught right before everyone was safe again. So I’m going to ask again, where are Tucker Jones and Veronica Croft?”
“I have to save him.” He couldn’t let them take Jax. This was everything they’d been running from since the moment they’d been rescued. This was the nightmare scenario. “Maybe they’ll take me and let Roni go. She doesn’t know anything.”
“You don’t know anything either,” Roni argued.
Solo stepped in front of him. “I can’t let you go out there. I know you’re scared, but you’re not thinking. We’ve got one way to save Jax and that’s to give them what they want.”
There was only one thing they could want from him. “The intel that I stole from Kronberg.”
“The intel we think you stole,” Solo qualified. “It’s obvious that MI6 has been compromised. I can work this from a diplomatic angle. I can open talks with some people I know on that side. I’ll let them know I’ve got you and I won’t share anything with them unless they prove to me they’re not going to hurt Jax. He’ll be in a holding cell, but I can make sure they don’t do anything to him physically. I will lie and tell them you know where the intel is but you’re holding out on me. It’ll buy us a couple of days.”
A couple of days. They would only have a handful of days to ensure Jax didn’t become someone’s punching bag. Or their medical experiment.
He felt numb. How could everything have gone wrong in the course of mere minutes? His whole world had crumbled because he’d been stubborn. If he hadn’t told Jax to hold off on Roni, Vi, and Sandra’s papers, they would be safe in Dallas now. He and Jax likely would have been moved out of London, and
Jax wouldn’t be in custody. But no, he’d wanted time to convince Veronica he wasn’t the selfish monster he’d been in the past.
Dr. Razor. Who made people bleed. Jax would be the one bleeding this time. His brothers were the ones in the line of fire, and he was in a nice comfortable hidey-hole.
Rob stood in front of Ariel, but she was whispering in his ear, likely giving him her assessment of everything that was going on around them. Owen was beside Robert, Rebecca behind him, both with their eyes on Jax and River.
He should be out there with them.
“Tucker isn’t here, man,” Jax said with a shake of his head. “That asshole left days ago. He took one look at that woman and his brothers didn’t matter anymore. He suddenly had better things to do, you know. He didn’t pay attention at all to our bro code.”
Their code. Jax had been the first of them to get married. The code meant no one was more important than their wives. They had to pick their wives over everything and everyone else.
Jax was giving him permission to go.
“We all told him he should honor the code,” Rob said. “But you know how men can get around a woman.”
“They lose their damn heads,” Owen agreed. “That’s why we have the code in the first place. Real men honor it.”
They were all telling him to go, to protect Veronica.
“That’s not the intelligence I have,” Rupert said with a frown. “The last I heard, he was in a comatose state and unable to be moved. I think he’s still here. Fan out and check again. I want every single person in this building questioned. Please escort Mr. Seaborne to the cars. We’ll question him at headquarters and then see what happens. There are several agencies who would love to speak with him.”
