by Alexa Riley
I hadn’t thought about that. “The deal talked about foreign ammunition. There are so many copies of the portfolio floating around, I can’t keep anything straight,” I admit, feeling a little over my head.
“I’ll make sure it’s pulled. Then we can bring in the team. I don’t want the company left holding the bag on this.”
“Maybe we need to look into some of Mr. Stein’s other projects, as well.” God, this is going to be a mess.
“I agree. Let’s have Jordan do some magic for us. Maybe he can do some digging and see when the documents were time stamped. Who knows what else he’ll find, but I’m sure he’ll find us something.” Miles reaches for his phone but puts it down when his office door flies open, hitting the wall. I jump up from my seat to see a very pissed-off Jordan standing in the doorway.
“Jordan?” Miles asks, but he ignores him.
“There something you want to tell me, Jay?” He steps into the office, and I pale a little.
“I was going to tell you, I promise, I just...” I trail off. What else is there to say? I wring my fingers together.
“What the fuck is going on?” Miles barks.
“She’s been getting threatening emails,” Jordan growls. “To her work email.”
“And I got a box with a dead bird,” I blurt out, wanting to lay it all on the table and get it over with.
Jordan lets out a string of curses that make me cringe.
“Jay.” Miles says my name quietly, and I know I’m in trouble.
“I’m sorry! Things have been crazy, and, well...” Jordan stares at me, his eyes boring into mine. I’ve never seen him this mad before. He’s always sweet and soft. Well, at least to me. Seems there might be another side to him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I hear Miles pick up his phone and start talking. “Justice, I need you to get my wife back here. When she gets in, my floor is on lockdown.”
He’s quiet for a second, and Jordan moves toward me. All that tension that had finally left his body is back. Maybe worse than ever. His fists are clenched at his side.
“Then I need you to meet Paige and Jordan in security. Seems my assistant has been getting threats and I might have an idea who’s behind it. Or at least Jordan can start tracking the emails.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again, stepping closer to Jordan and closing the rest of the distance between us.
He cups my face, and some of the anger slips away. “I know I’m pissed. Real fucking pissed. And don’t get me wrong, about twenty percent of it is your doing, but the real anger is due to someone threatening you. A fucking dead bird, Jay.” His voice is hoarse and pained. He’s the only one who calls me “little bird.”
“I’m going to fix this,” he tells me, and I nod, knowing he will.
“Okay, I want to go over some things I’ve learned with Jordan. All the programs are down in security. Let’s go ahead and get started on what we can find,” Miles says.
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
We leave Miles’s office, but Miles stops at my desk. “You stay here and keep reading over these files. See what you can catch,” Miles says.
“I want her with me,” Jordan fires back.
“Justice and Mallory are on their way up. I’m locking down the floor. She’ll be safer here than moving around the building.”
I can see Jordan wants to fight him on it.
“I’ll be fine.” I try to reassure him.
“You keep your little ass in that chair, Jay,” he growls, and I sit down exactly where he tells me. He shakes his head at me, and Miles steps back, clearly giving us some space.
Jordan leans down, caging me in. “I love you more than anything. Stay here where I can see you.”
I nod. “I love you, too.”
He lays a hard kiss on me before storming off, with Miles following him.
“Well, crap,” I mumble to myself. I turn, picking up the folder and flipping it open. I don’t make it two lines and my cell is going off. I see it’s my sister and clear the call, but it rings again. I don’t have time for this, but I know she’ll just keep calling. Sighing, I answer, thinking maybe it will be a welcome distraction for a moment.
“What’s up?” I say, still looking down at the folder and only half reading it.
“If you want your sister to live, you’ll pick up that folder and walk out of the building.”
“Who is this?” Panic hits me as the distorted voice echoes on the other end. It sounds like something out of a movie.
“Time’s ticking, little bird. You better get off the floor before Justice and Mallory get there and the place goes into lockdown. Or you’ll never see your sister again.” I hear my sister scream my name in the background.
“All we want are the folders. Close it and pick them up.” My hands shake as I do it. “Now use the special little card your boyfriend gave you and get to your apartment.” I grab my purse and walk toward the elevator. “Don’t use this phone again or I’ll know.”
Then the line goes dead.
I slide my card into the elevator, and the doors slide closed. My fingers twitch to hit the floor for security, but I don’t know if whoever called me is watching. If I say something, he might hurt my sister. I just have to give him the folders. I can do that. When the doors slide open, I look up at the camera.
“I love you,” I say before stepping off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jordan
“I don’t understand why she didn’t say anything to you before now,” Miles says over my shoulder.
“I’m sure she didn’t want me to worry,” I respond, tapping my fingers. I’m waiting on the software I ran on Jay’s computer to load and sorting through the mirror program I have that shows me all of her emails.
“You were able to get all this information just now?”
I look at Miles and then shake my head. “No. I copied her computer a long time ago.” I shrug because I’m not the least bit sorry.
“Damn. I wish I had known this sooner. Remind me to talk to you about doing this for me later.”
I smile, knowing a fool in love when I see one. Mostly because I see one every morning in the mirror. Tossing that thought to the side, I click on the Bluebird folder on my desktop and search the name Lannister.
“I’ve got all the correspondence saved on this file you were telling me about. I should be able to cross-check the data and see if anything matches. It’s all too similar for it to be a coincidence,” I say as I wait for the program to run.
“What’s going on? Why are we on lockdown?” I look up as I see Mallory talking to Miles. Ryan, Paige and Skyler are with her. “We were shopping and then all of a sudden we had to come back. Is everything okay?”
“Why aren’t you on the top floor, Mallory? I specifically asked you to stay there, where I know you’re safe,” Miles says, looking over at Ryan.
“The key cards didn’t work. We thought we didn’t make it back before you shut it down, so we came here,” Paige says.
“Wait, what did you say?” I ask, cutting in. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. “We didn’t issue it yet.”
I click on the screen of my computer and bring up the feed for Jay’s desk. She’s not there.
“Fuck!” someone mutters behind me, and then I hear Paige shout for the building to go into code red.
The alarm sounds, and everyone is in motion. Everyone but me. My hand is shaky as I push back the footage and find the image of when she was last sitting there. I’m praying she just got up to go to the bathroom.
My stomach turns sour as I watch her pick up her phone and her face goes white. She walks out on shaky legs and gets into the elevator. I move the footage to when she gets off, and I can see her look up and mouth the words I love you.
“Oh God, no, baby. No.” My h
eart feels like it’s beating out of my chest. What the fuck is she doing?
The footage shows her exiting the building and getting in a cab. I can’t see anything past the perimeter, and I stand up so quickly my chair falls to the floor behind me.
Someone gasps, and I’m shaking with rage. I grip the edge of my desk, not knowing what to do. My first thought is to run out of this room and chase after her, but where do I go? I want to kick the desk over and break every piece of equipment in here, but that won’t do me any good either.
“Chen,” Paige barks, and I snap out of my downward spiral and look over to her. “You’re the only one who can track her down. Find out where she went.”
She’s right. I can do this.
Pulling up the data on the nearest satellite, I hack into the cell tower and get her phone records. I remind myself to clone her goddamn phone just as soon as she’s back in my arms.
It takes minutes for all of it to come up, and every second of that is pure agony. Finally, the last number that called her pops up. Her apartment.
“Her sister,” I say, feeling another rock in the pit of my stomach. “I need to go to Jay’s apartment.” I stand up and start to push past the group of people behind me, but a short redhead is standing in my way.
“Jordan, let us go. You’re the only one who knows how to do this shit,” Paige says, waving at my computer. “If you go looking for her, what happens if she isn’t there? Then what? You come back here and start again, losing precious time.”
I want to protest, but I know she’s right. I open my mouth, but she slaps something into my hand.
“You’ll be with me the whole time. Captain?” she says, turning around to Ryan. “Get your gear. We’re out in two.”
They walk over to McCoy and Grant, and the four of them talk in low whispers. I feel like my hands are tied, but I know there’s more I can be doing.
I get on my computer and pull up every trace I know. Everything is going to be okay.
If I say it enough, it has to be true. Right?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jay
When I open my eyes, I feel the side of my head throbbing. The sound of my pulse is in my ears, and I’m disoriented. It’s like that time I went on the Scrambler at the fair and couldn’t walk straight afterwards. Only I can’t even stand up now.
I look around and see light coming in from above. It’s late in the day, and it looks like the sun is setting. Damn it, how long have I been unconscious? Hours have passed since this morning, when I was with Jordan and he was kissing me.
The thought of his name sends a bolt of lightning to my heart, and I sit up way too fast.
Leaning over on my hands, I feel like I’m going to vomit. I dry-heave and then cough, fighting the urge. “What happened?” I whisper to myself.
“Jay?” I hear a croaky voice and finally look around the room.
A sob bursts from me when I see my sister lying on the ground only a few feet from me. I crawl over, unsure if my legs will work yet or not.
“Summer? Oh God, are you okay? What happened? Where are we?”
She moans and covers her face with her hands. “They took us.”
Suddenly images flash through my mind as the memories come back.
I went straight to my apartment and ran up the stairs as fast as I could. Just before I got to the door, I felt something hit me on the back of my head. Then I remember being dragged into the apartment, where there were two men, but I didn’t recognize them.
Part of it is still foggy, but I remember being put in the back of a van, and at some point, I fought. I remembered some of the things Paige had taught me from our self-defense classes, but I was too disoriented to do them right. After that, I remember a pinprick in my ass, and then I passed out.
The thought makes me want to throw up again.
“Are you okay, Summer? Did they hurt you?” I reach out and hold her hands in mine, trying to will us to be okay.
“Yeah, I’m okay. One of them hit me a few times.” She lifts her head, and I see a black eye already starting to form. “I’m so sorry, Jay. I didn’t know what to do. They came to the apartment saying you had something they wanted. They tore the place apart, but I had no clue what they were looking for.” Big tears roll down her cheeks, and she begins to shake. Panic is setting in.
“Shh. It’s okay. You did the right thing,” I say, pulling her into my arms and holding her while she cries. I feel my own tears run down my face as I try to comfort her.
One of us has to be strong, and I’ve been the one doing it my whole life. I can do it a little longer.
Looking around the room, I try to look for a way to get out. The space is about the size of my apartment, with no walls dividing it up. The only sources of light are the skylight in the roof and a bare bulb hanging down in the corner. There’s a cot over on the other side of the room, and it looks filthy. I see a door, but it’s hard to even call it that, because there’s no handle on this side of it. There’s a small window on it, but that’s covered with a board, so we can’t see out. For a moment I think about going over to it and trying to talk to whoever took us, but I’m not ready for that yet.
I can still feel my legs shaking, and I’m not sure I can walk on them.
“Who did this?” Summer asks, and I shake my head.
“I think I know, but I don’t understand why. They got what they wanted.”
“If you know who it is, it means you know their face. You could identify them.” She shivers harder than before, and I can see where her train of thought has gone.
“Hey. Don’t think like that. We’ll get out of here,” I say, and I hope that I’m not a liar. “I just need a few more minutes for whatever they gave me to wear off.”
I hold Summer close to me, letting my body heat help with her shock. It’s all I can do right now, but it’s something. I keep scanning the room, looking for weaknesses.
There’s a latch on the skylight, and I wonder how heavy it would be to push open. The ceiling isn’t super tall, and I look at the bed, judging the distance from the skylight to the frame if I stood it on its side. I’m no MacGyver, but desperate times means looking at all your options.
What would Jordan do? Oh God, just the thought of him is like a punch to the gut. How could I walk out of the building like that? Will he understand that I had no choice? That I had to save my sister?
I wasn’t prepared for what happened, but how could I have been? I just wanted to give them what they asked for and make sure she was safe. But saving her may have cost me the love of my life.
Will he forgive me for what I had to do? Will I make it back into his arms?
More tears leak down my cheek, and I’m trying to be strong. I’m trying my best to hold it together. For Summer. For Jordan. For myself.
I pull all the strength I have left in me and focus on Jordan. He will find me. He would walk through hell and back to get me. He’ll come for me, and when he does, I’ll be ready. I won’t curl up in the corner and cry. I’ll fight to stay alive.
“Just hang on a little longer,” I say to Summer. I kiss the top of her head and hold her close. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Maybe if I say it enough, it will be true.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jay
I snuggle deeper into Jordan, my head resting on his shoulder. My hand is on his bare chest, our fingers twined together. One of my legs is thrown over his hip, and I soak up all his warmth.
“I love waking up like this,” he says.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve never slept better than I do with him. Each night my mind would race with things I needed to get done. Sometimes I’d even wake up in the middle of the night and do the thing I was so worried about. But not when he’s in bed with me. He’s all I can think about, and now when I wake up in the middle of the
night, it’s because he’s making love to me.
“Me too.” My voice is still full of sleep.
“Maybe we should paint this room lavender.”
I open one eye at his words and look around a little. “You want to paint your room purple?” I laugh.
“Our room,” he corrects, making me smile. “I want this to feel like your home, too. Your living room was lavender. I want you to love it here.”
“I don’t care where I live, as long as I live with you. And as long as you keep waking me up like you did this morning.” I wiggle, rubbing my naked body against him.
“I’d do anything to keep you here, so you’ve got yourself a deal.” He strokes my ring finger gently, making my heartbeat pick up. Then he rolls us over, positioning himself on top of me.
“I want you again,” he says against my mouth, already sliding into me.
I moan against his lips, wanting him too. I always want him. I will forever.
“Food!” I hear a shout, and it jolts me awake. My eyes fly open, and I look around, shocked. The sight that greets me makes me remember where I am. Not at home in the arms of the man I love, a place I may never be again. I blink a few times, trying to clear my eyes to see better in the darkness. I hear the door to our cell clang shut, and the lock clicks into place.
“I don’t want to eat it,” Summer mumbles, her head still in my lap. I have my back in the corner of the room, and I’m sitting cross-legged. I no longer feel groggy, but the concrete wall is doing a number on my back. At least my head isn’t throbbing anymore.
“Scared it’s not vegan?” I try to tease her. I don’t want her to start crying again. As much as she can drive me crazy, I never want to see her cry.
“Ha ha,” she says, rolling over to her other side, pulling her legs back into her chest and making herself into a ball. It’s a little chilly in here, and she doesn’t have much on but a tank and a pair of shorts. I rub my hand up and down her arm, trying to make sure she stays somewhat warm.
