His Toughest Call

by Joss Wood

  “I need you to be brave for me a little longer, Leah. I can see you and we’re approaching. No, don’t look around, just walk with him.”

  Walk with him? Did Seth know what he was asking? Every muscle in her body tensed as they walked the pathway to the platform and then they stepped onto the wooden planks. A young Japanese couple turned as they approached and their easy smiles turned to fear as Ben pulled the gun from his pocket. With a subdued scream they bolted past Leah, feet flying.

  “You do know they are going to alert security?” Leah asked him, cursing the fact that her voice sounded shaky.

  Ben shrugged and leaned his butt against the wooden and steel railing. He looked unconcerned but his arm around her waist tightened. He also pushed the barrel of the gun deeper into her side.

  “This situation will be over long before they arrive. Besides I suspect that Halcott and his sidekick have informed the authorities of the situation.” Ben looked past Leah and nodded.

  “He’s approaching.”

  He hadn’t directed the words at her and Leah realized that, like she was, Ben was communicating with someone. That someone was probably the person in charge of this perverted party. And the fact that Fake-Ben’s boss wasn’t making a physical appearance scared the crap out of her.

  “Who are you talking to?” she demanded.

  Ben ignored her and she felt him tense. She lifted her head and saw Seth walking towards them, his pistol up and pointed at where she imagined the center of Ben’s forehead to be. Leah flicked a glance to Jett and he wasn’t looking at her either, his focus was on Ben, his gun pointed in the same direction as Seth’s. Leah tried to move to Seth but the barrel of Ben’s gun jabbed her in the kidneys.

  Oh, right, she was his hostage. Shit.

  “You shoot her and I’ll drop you where you stand.” Seth growled.

  “He’s wired,” Leah told them. “He’s talking to someone else.”

  Seth looked at her and his glance left her in no doubt that he expected her to shut the hell up.

  Seth raised his eyebrow at fake-Ben. “Want to explain what this is about?”

  Seth and Jett kept their eyes on Ben, their concentration absolute. But she knew behind their stoic, emotionless faces, they were running scenarios trying to figure out a way out of this mess. There wasn’t one, or not a quick one. They could be here for hours and, frankly, she was over having a gun bruising her skin. But she couldn’t think of anything she could do or say that would circumvent someone from ending up with a hole or two.

  Behind her, Ben’s breathing became raspy and his hot breath blew over her hair. “Your father died in that car accident ten years ago. I am not your father.”

  “Then I don’t have the faintest fucking idea why we are on this mountain pointing guns at each other,” Seth replied, without a trace of emotion in his voice.

  “You are chasing someone, you call him The Recruiter, and he’s tired of looking over his shoulder.”

  Seth’s eyes narrowed and he waited for Ben to continue.

  “Because of your history with cults, you are the driving force behind his capture. You’ve come a bit too close to him once or twice and he wants the freedom to continue operating without constantly looking over his shoulder.”

  “So, meeting Leah and you acting like my father was all a ruse to get me out of the country and away from my support base.”

  “You were supposed to come up here alone. I was going to kill her and The Recruiter was going to kill you.” Fake Ben stated. “He wasn’t expecting you to have backup.”

  “Not sorry we foiled your plan.” Seth sarcastically replied.

  “He might still try.” Ben’s voice took on a desperate quality.

  Leah let out a small cry but that damn gun kept her in place. God, Seth was going to die...

  Jett’s eyes briefly met hers and she saw the reassurance there. “No way,” he said. “There are too many people on this mountain for him to shoot Seth. He’s bullshitting you.”

  “Oh.” Ben said. Leah felt the gun wobble and the arm around her waist loosen. “He still wants Leah dead.” “I’m telling you, The Recruiter isn’t going to shoot her or anybody, not in such a public place. That’s a risk he’d never take,” Seth said, still calm, still steady. God, he was magnificent!

  “No, he won’t because I will shoot her.” Fake Ben replied.

  God! Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!

  Seth didn’t flinch. “Why does he want Leah dead?” Leah glared at Seth. Okay, he said those words just a bit too casually!

  Ben listened for a moment and then passed on the message. “You’ve caused him some trouble, disrupted some operations. He tried to take you out weeks ago. It was supposed to be a random mugging, another violent incident in a country prone to violent incidents.”

  “Tidy.” Seth’s eyes didn’t move from Ben. “And the mannequin in the pool?”

  Ben shrugged. “A creative warning, a way to mess with your head.”

  “I don’t scare easily.” Seth said, bored.

  Leah felt Ben cock his head, listening to the voice in his ear. “But her dying does scare you. He quite likes the idea of punishing you like that. Depending on his mood, he’ll let you have a couple of weeks to suffer before he takes out a hit on you, too.”

  “Not if I get to him first.” Seth retorted.

  Ben’s mouth lifted in a barely there, sardonic smile. “He says that he was five feet from you earlier and you didn’t know him. He’s just another tourist on this mountain, you won’t find him.” Ben pulled in a breath. “He’s told me to end this.”

  “Nobody is going to die today.” Seth said.

  “She is.”

  “She is not.”

  Oh, God, Seth sounded so certain, so in control but tears still rolled down her face. She wanted to believe him but she couldn’t. Not while she had a gun bruising her kidneys.

  “And so am I. Going to die, that is.” Ben shrugged. “By your hand or mine, that’s the deal. My life for my daughter’s. Leah’s life for my daughter’s return.”

  Seth frowned. “Let me get this straight. The Recruiter is holding your daughter and he’s been forcing you to jump through these hoops to get her back?” Seth shook his head. “He lied to you. He has no intention of returning her. Nothing you do or say is going to change that.”

  “It was a chance I had to take, I had to try. I would do anything for her, even this.”

  Despite her fear, Leah heard the agony in his voice and felt his despair. “What’s her name?” she quietly asked.

  “Hope.” Ben’s voice cracked. “Her name is Hope Frame. She was taken from a club called The Gambler in Chicago. He planned this, every step. He looked for someone who looked like your father, like you, and he stumbled across me. My daughter was his leverage.”

  “I’ll look for her.” Seth told him. “If you put down your gun and let Leah go, I’ll look for her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will.”

  Without warning, Ben shoved Leah away from him and she fell to her knees, her hands slamming into the wooden walkway. Leah looked over her shoulder and saw that Ben walking backward, parallel to the railing, the gun still pointed at her back.

  Seth spoke again, his deep voice rolling over them. “We can talk this out. I can help you, help Hope. Let me do that.”

  “No! No! He’s going to kill Hope! He’s going to kill her in the worst way he can think of!”

  Neither Seth nor Jett wavered. They just stood there, weapons raised, cool and in control. “Is he still talking to you?” Seth, lowering his voice.

  “Yeah.”

  Seth lowered his weapon and Leah, her heart in her throat, watched as Seth slowly and oh–so-confidently walked towards Ben. She held her breath, waiting for her world to end but nothing happened. When Seth reached Ben, he twisted Ben’s pistol out of his hand and tucked it into the back of his pants. Then he grabbed his sleeveless vest and flipped it open.

  Seth took a
small microphone off the inside of Ben’s vest and lifted it to his mouth, his eyes darting over many tourists who were being guided towards the cable cars by security guards and plainclothesmen, who Leah presumed were undercover cops or Pytheon agents.

  “Listen to me, you piece of shit. Did you really think you could threaten me, threaten my woman, and I’d let you get away with that? I am going to hunt you down and, when I find you, you’re going to beg me for a bullet. I will not back down. I will not back away. I will chase you as long as I have breath and if something happens to me then Pytheon will chase you until someone puts a bullet between your eyes.” Seth’s voice was as cold as an Arctic snowstorm and as hard as tungsten.

  “Congratulations, asshole, you are now Pytheon enemy number one. You’re a walking dead man.”

  Seth ripped the microphone from Ben’s vest and destroyed the device under the heel of his shoe. He watched as fake-Ben sank to his knees and started to cry, big, desolate tears running down his face. Leah, unable to watch his anguish, wrapped her head in her arms and bent over at the waist. It was finally over and she couldn’t stop shaking.

  Seth dropped to his haunches beside her, his breath on the top of her head.

  “Leah, it’s over.” Seth placed his big hand on her head but she refused to uncurl herself and tears rolled out of her eyes into the crook of her elbow.

  “Babe, you’re safe.” Seth stated, his hand drawing big circles on her back.

  “Are you okay?” she demanded, her voice muffled.

  “I’m good. You?”

  “Just peachy,” Leah muttered as she allowed Seth to help her sit up and she placed her elbows on her bended knees.

  She couldn’t look behind her. She didn’t want to see Ben’s anguish. She could hear his muffled sobs and that was enough.

  “He’s in such pain.” Leah looked into Seth’s eyes and felt the panic recede. “I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

  Seth’s mouth was a flat, grim line in his face. “He shoved a gun into you, he threatened to shoot you!”

  Leah shook her head. “He did it on The Recruiter’s orders, hoping he’d have a change in heart about killing his daughter. He knows his daughter is probably dead, I don’t want him to live with that and have to deal with jail.”

  Seth rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit, Leah.”

  “He did what he could to protect his daughter. I don’t want him punished for that. He could’ve shot me, could’ve shot you, but he didn’t. Please, Seth, help him.”

  Seth muttered an oath but she saw the capitulation in his eyes, knew he’d honor her request. “And will you try and find his daughter?” She pushed.

  “I will.”

  Leah turned her head and kissed the ball of his shoulder. “Do you think he’s still up here, somewhere on the mountain?”

  Seth looked around. “Oh, yeah, he’s here, though we’ll never know who he is and what he looks like.”

  “You need to catch this bastard Seth.”

  Seth helped her up and gathered her to his chest. “That’s the plan, angel.”

  Epilogue

  “Tell me you love me. Just once.”

  “You know damn well that I do.”

  Leah, sitting in a secluded corner on her veranda—out of sight and just able to hear the chaos in her house—remembered Seth’s words and told herself, for the three hundredth and second time in the twenty-four hours since she’d left the mountain, he didn’t mean them, that he’d said them under duress.

  She’d been kidnapped and her life was under threat, of course he’d give her a dying wish. It was just a kind gesture on his part, a couple of words to give her strength, to send her on her way with.

  He didn’t mean them. Seth hadn’t really changed his mind about her, about them and, if she’d managed to have five minutes alone with him, she would’ve asked him to clarify that life changing statement.

  But time alone with him was something in short supply. Since leaving the mountain, her house had been turned into a mini-Pytheon command base, filled with agents and operatives and law enforcement officials. There was so much testosterone wafting about she thought she should check for hair growing on her chest. Computers littered her dining room table, everyone talked in acronyms and code and Seth, apart from bundling her into a shower and into bed, and shoving a sleeping pill down her throat, hadn’t talked to her at all.

  He was so regretting his words on the mountain. Leah had to let him go, had to allow him to go back to New York and continue his search for The Recruiter. Someone had to stop him and it looked like Seth was the man. And catching that smart bastard needed someone equally smart, equally determined. Seth, again. But if he were to succeed then he’d have to be totally focused, totally committed. There would be no space for a woman in his life, no time for a relationship.

  He’d have to withdraw, retreat, be the lone wolf he was so good at being. Catching The Recruiter was important, it was essential, so she’d just have to suck it up. But, God, it hurt.

  Leah felt the broad hand on her head and looked up to see Seth standing next to her lounger. His hair was all over the place and he looked exhausted, utterly played out.

  “Hi.” She moved her legs sideways to make space for him to sit with her on the lounger. She patted the cushion and sighed when Seth’s hip pressed into her legs and his hand rested on her thigh.

  “I was just thinking about you,” Leah softly said.

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” Seth replied, his hand tightening on her thigh. “Are you okay?”

  Leah nodded. “Sure. I have questions though.”

  Seth managed a small smile. “I would be surprised if you didn’t.”

  “Okay...” Leah lifted her chin towards the dining room. “When do I get my house back?”

  “In about five minutes. The last of my guys is clearing out. We’ve done all we can do here. They need to get back to New York.” Seth picked up the glass of red wine on the table next to her and took a sip.

  Translation—he had to get back to New York.

  “Where is fake-Ben now?”

  “In jail,” Seth answered and lifted up his hand to stop her from speaking. “He had to go to jail, Leah, he pulled a gun on you and threatened not only you but a lot of tourists. Stone is negotiating with the police and the prosecutors, advising them of the special circumstances that made him do what he did. Stone will get a deal for him but he will spend some time in jail.”

  Seth continued to speak. “After a lot of questioning, we’re satisfied that fake-Ben does not know The Recruiter and that they never met. All their communications were done via throw-away phones and fake email addresses.”

  Leah looked off into the distance. “And The Recruiter was definitely on the mountain with us?”

  Seth nodded. “The listening device was ineffective from a distance so he had to be up there to communicate. Besides, he has a huge ego. He set up this elaborate plan and he would’ve wanted to see it through. I’m pretty sure he watched everything go down and he was giving instructions as the situation developed.”

  “So The Recruiter is still in the wind,” Leah said, her voice bleak.

  Seth nodded. “Still in the wind.”

  “Am I still in danger?” Leah asked.

  “Jett and I spent forty-five minutes on Skype talking to Sam and Stone about that possibility. We don’t think so, angel. He saw me as a threat but, as I told him, it’s no longer just me; everyone at Pytheon has vowed to take him down. My fight is their fight and you are no more in danger than anyone else. We think he’s retreated back to his swamp and will keep his head down for a while.”

  “But he won’t stop.”

  Seth’s expression hardened. “No.”

  Seth took a deep breath and Leah cocked her head. What now? She didn’t know how much more she could handle. She wasn’t used to being threatened and being used as bait and she was done.

  “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. You handled yourself, stay
ed strong and you didn’t panic. You are definitely your father’s daughter and your brother’s sister.”

  Okay, that what a kick ass compliment!

  “You can handle anything, Leah.” Seth’s steady gaze put starch into her spine and courage into her heart. “So you can, and will, handle this as well. I got word about ten minutes ago that they found Hope’s body, in a ditch just outside of New Orleans. The bastard must have given the order to make her suffer and then kill her. Someone followed his orders to the nth degree.”

  Leah bit her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry.” A tear spilled onto her lashes and Seth wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. “Poor fake-Ben, poor Hope.”

  Seth gripped the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb. “We’re going to get him, angel. I promise you, we will.”

  Leah’s hand drifted over his bent head. “I absolutely believe you will.”

  Leah watched as Seth gave her a long up and down look, as if he were reassuring himself that she was unhurt. “I’m okay, Seth.” she told him.

  Seth hauled in a deep breath. “I know but I need constant reassurance. Every time I remember how close you came to dying—which is every five fucking minutes—I have to look at you, find you, remind myself that you are fine. It’ll be a while before I stop doing that.”

  “You don’t have a while! You have to stop thinking about me and what we went through if you’re going to chase down that psycho. You need to focus and focus damn hard because if you get hurt, I’ll shoot you myself!”

  Seth lifted his head and frowned at her agitation. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re going to hunt The Recruiter and he won’t like being hunted.”

  “No, I’m not, I’m not going anywhere. Stone has agreed to setting up a Pytheon task force, which I’ll oversee. Jett will be chasing down leads, crisscrossing the world to track The Recruiter.”

  “And what will you be doing?” Leah demanded.

  “Going to work every day, coming home to you every night, making love to you every day.” Seth lifted his head to look at her and Leah saw the love he found so difficult to express in his eyes. “I need to get back to New York and I’m really hoping that you’ll come with me.