His momentary distraction gave the guard an opening. He attacked, his thick, meaty hands clawing up Stefan’s clothing and locking around his neck. Stefan flung himself back onto the console and braced himself against it, but he couldn’t get enough purchase to dislodge the ox. The man dragged him over the controls and then Stefan saw it—a separate panel with newer buttons and levers. The doors were new too—that’s where the correct buttons would be.
He didn’t waste any more time. He caught the man in a round house punch that knocked him off balance long enough to allow Stefan to flip around. In rapid succession he hit the buttons on the top and bottom level, everything he could find, then risked a glance out at Nicki again. She’d dashed off the table, yes, but she wasn’t alone.
The cages had all sprung open as well.
Oh…shit.
After screaming songs from Broadway show tunes for all of fifteen seconds, Nicki saw Stefan burst into the overseers cubby—and then had seen the guard attack back, which certainly had not been part of the plan.
She’d stopped shouting but stared hard as she watched Stefan and the guard go at each other, jolting out of her reverie only when a thick rod of some sort crashed through the window and came hurtling to the concrete floor, along with all the glass. It landed with a loud clang that reverberated off the concrete walls.
The men went nuts in their cages, even more so than when they’d seen her appear, a dervish in their midst. Her gaze jumped from them to the guard and Stefan fighting above her, then a metallic roar started and she whirled, turning with delight as she heard the immense garage doors lift up.
But that wasn’t the only sound of popping and scraping to accompany the screams and howls of the caged men.
She turned back long enough to see the men’s cages burst open like toy jack-in-the-boxes. Half the men surged out immediately, the other half lumbering more slowly. All of them were aiming for her.
“Shit!” She turned and sprang forward, scrambling off the table as the men surged across the concrete. They were all impaired to some degree, their movements slow and jerky, and she thanked God for whatever inhumane treatment they were receiving that had turned them into shambling zombies. But even shambling zombies were dangerous, and she’d given them a target. She dashed across the floor, the warehouse suddenly lit up with whatever lights Stefan had hit, but her feet betrayed her, catching against another pile of chains. She sprawled to the floor a few feet shy of the open garage door, momentarily dazed.
The first man reached her. He scowled down, his face ravaged by tattoos and scars as he leered at her. His arms swung forward but before he could touch her another man shoved him away, hard. It was the man from cage number three, who’d watched her in the shadows when the others had still been unaware of her. He yanked her to her feet and she stumbled to the side.
By then the rest of the men were on them, and Nicki turned in the crush of them, dwarfed by the mass of humanity that rushed at her, either trying to stampede over her or grab her hair, her arms, her clothes.
One man swung at her and connected, and she crunched again to the pavement. As she struggled to get up, a surge of dizziness swamped her. She gasped, trying to focus, to fight—but her eyesight dimmed and her throat closed up.
She went down a third time.
Stefan saw the men surge toward Nicki and rage exploded inside him, so thick and hot he thought he’d choke on it. He surged up toward the guard and cracked his head into the man’s forehead, forcing him back. The man tripped and Stefan followed him down to the floor, pummeling him into a ball as the man hunched beneath him.
The outer gate wouldn’t have opened—it had been padlocked before, padlocked! Which meant that even if Nicki had gotten free of the warehouse, she’d remain trapped between the gate and the men. She’d know the way out, but that was a long way to travel around the large building with a dozen men on her heels. Had she reached the gate in time to climb over? Had the men abandoned her and tried the ascent themselves?
Some would, he was sure, but others—
Another burst of rage crackled through him and he knocked the guard senseless with a final strike, then grabbed the ring of keys at the man’s belt and wrenched it free.
Then he was out of the room, jumping over the catwalk to the floor below. He landed in a crouch and launched forward again, running fast.
Stefan burst through the garage doors moments later and saw a grizzly display in front of him. Three of the men leaned against the fence, moaning pitiably, another two were trying and failing to climb it. But the remaining seven were engaged in a fight over Nicki’s fallen body—well..six of the men were fighting to reach her, and one was keeping them at bay.
Stefan raced into the fray, plowing into the men from behind. In their impaired states, he shook them off quickly and those who wanted to fight were easily dissuaded with a few roundhouse punches. Nicki moaned and moved slightly at his feet so he took the precious extra seconds to leave her side and unlock the gate with the guard’s keys, banking on the fact that the men would choose escape over the fallen woman at their feet.
He was right for most of them.
And those that weren’t—he swung around and faced off against three men, all of them reeking. One had picked up a length of pipe from the drive and lunged at him, swinging hard. Stefan neatly sidestepped the attack but not before the man who’d been defending Nicki lunged forward as well, blocking the pipe with his arm and stumbling back, shaking his head. Their attacker lunged again and Stefan decked him, hard, dropping him to the ground. Then Stefan picked up the pipe and swung it against the second and third men, who suddenly no longer seemed as interested in Nicki. Instead they turned on their heels and ran from him, as he turned back to Nicki.
Only she still wasn’t alone.
The heavily bearded man leaned over her, pawing at her body, speaking to her in raw, guttural gasps. Stefan’s gaze turned white with rage. He rushed forward, knocking the man back off Nicki.
“Hurt—!” the man said in English, though his accent was thick with a Middle Eastern inflection. “She’s—hurt!”
The garbled voice suddenly became clearer, and Stefan stayed the fist that had been poised to smash into the man’s face.
He blinked and stared, too stunned at what he was seeing to process it.
But his fog was cleared away as the man reached forward, grabbing his arm to pull him forward.
“Hurt!” Prince Aristotle Andris cried again, his voice barely a rasp as he pointed to the crumpled Nicki. “She passed out I think.”
Stefan spun to Nicki. While he’d been sure she’d been moving before, now she lay silent on the ground, her face slack. He pulled her up into his lap and growled to Ari. “Help me!”
Chapter Twenty
Nicki jerked awake so violently her entire body convulsed. Her eyes snapped open as she took a swing at the man hovering over her. “Get away from me!”
“Nicki!” Stefan’s voice was intense, focused and calmed her immediately, though she couldn’t understand the events going on around her. “We have to get out of sight,” Stefan continued. “I’m carrying you. Allow me to pick you up. Allow me. Stay awake.” She sensed Stefan picking her up but she couldn’t control her arms or legs. He lifted her and there was another man beside him, both of them running as he clasped her to him, and she filled her lungs with deep, blessed air. Then Stefan was jogging hard right and she felt cool stone beneath her legs as he laid her down again.
“No! I need to sit up—to sit up! To breathe!”
That last part seemed to shake him, and Stefan crouched in front of her, allowing her to sit up while he whipped his phone out of his suit and held it to his ear. He spoke rapid Garronois and she blinked around, trying to make sense of where they were. It looked like a park and she frowned. “We’re still on the hill? Near the warehouse?”
Her gaze wandered to the man standing beside them, watching them both with a puzzled frown. “Is that—”
Stefa
n’s sharp glance quieted her voice in her throat. “Tamas is coming. We’re heading back to the boat.” As she nodded he took in the shaggy man beside them. “This is Ryker Stavros. He was a prisoner in that warehouse, but he is Garronois. We’re bringing him home.”
“Ryker…” Nicki blinked as the man turned to her, an abashed smile on his face. He looked like a vagrant, but she could tell Stefan knew him, though apparently that recognition only went one way. “You helped me, back there. Defended me.”
“Those men—they are not bad men.” The man she assumed was Ari spoke, but his voice sounded rusty with disuse. “They were penned up like animals, the only relief the work we did with the dirt and the trucks. It was not hard work, but it was constant, and they—some of them—had families. They could never work off their debt. It always climbed higher. Some were sick, but they couldn’t get better in here. And some were merely unlucky.” His smile turned self-deprecating. “I was that.”
“You…” she fished for some connection points. “You two know each other?”
“I know the Stavros family,” Stefan said, as Ryker glanced at him. “When he told me his name, I made the connection.” He gave Stavros an encouraging nod. “Garronia is not so big that we do not recall when our countrymen go missing, my friend. You were missed. You have a family.”
“A family.” The idea appeared foreign to Ari, and he stared at Stefan with an earnest confusion. “You’re not my family? Yet you came here?”
Stefan straightened under the direct question but kept his manner easy. “I’d be honored if you thought of me that way, at least until I can get you safely home. You’ve endured a lot. There are many people who will be happy to have you back.”
“There was…” the man hesitated. “There was a crash. I was in a crash. A plane crash. That’s all I know. The rest—” he waved his hand in front of his face. “The rest is a blur. I try to remember and there’s only pain.” He pointed at Nicki. “Then you show up singing songs I didn’t realize I knew, and you…” He swung to Stefan. “You come with your fists and keys and—” he spread his hands. “Now we are here.”
“The men were sedated every night,” Stefan said, and Nicki realized he was working her hands as if she’d suffered frostbite. She tried to pull them free but when he clamped his hold down, she relented, allowing him simply to speak. “Some had been on other meds which they had no access to, others were picked up as drunks or vagrants.”
That was exactly the story the squatters had told them, and Nicki nodded, trying to keep her voice steady, natural.
“And now we’re going back to Garronia,” she said. “Where your family is.”
“Yes,” Ryker said uncertainly. “That…” he turned as a car’s lights swept up the road, and Nicki gradually became aware of sirens. Her eyes widened.
“The warehouse,” she breathed.
“I didn’t have time to shut down the lights,” Stefan said. “The men have fled. The neighborhood up here is predominantly industrial, but someone was bound to notice all the lights on, the gates open.”
The car slowed in front of them and his hands firmed on hers. “How are you feeling?”
The sudden realization of what had happened hit her with a rush. “I blacked out, didn’t I,” she blurted. “I momentarily got dizzy—I think I might have fallen and cracked my head. My pants are pretty wrecked anyway.” She scowled down at her tights, the knees practically ripped out of them and a long snag down one side. “There were all those men.”
Stefan bit out a tight curse. “I’m aware. When I hit the console for the garage door lift, I didn’t realize it was next to the controls for the men’s cages. I should’ve realized—both units were new to the building. But I didn’t. I put you in danger.”
“I was fine—I must have gotten light headed, then you were there to help me up. You both were,” she shook her head, but Stefan didn’t appear any less pained. “I was fine. I am fine. Really.”
“Ambassador.” Tamas stood at the door to the limo, and Stefan helped Nicki up, treating her too carefully. She did feel woozy, though, so she didn’t argue, allowing him to fold her into the car without protest.
Ari followed, awkwardly getting into the limo and taking the opposite seat. “I—I’m not exactly fit company for a car such as this,” he said, peering around the enclosed space.
Nicki snorted. “Tell me about it.”
Stefan remained outside a few moments more, speaking in rapid Garronois. Then Tamas closed the doors after Stefan joined them, and within moments the car headed out deeper up the ridge.
“We’ve charted a circuitous course to the yacht. I’ve taken the liberty of having us checked out of the hotel,” Stefan said. He turned to Ari. “There’s no one locally you’ll need to notify?”
“What? No,” Ryker seemed to be having a hard time in his seat. He’d begun to tremble. “No one knows I’m here. I don’t remember—” he frowned, staring out the window. “I don’t enjoy being in enclosed spaces, I’m afraid.”
Stefan hit a button and all the windows of the limo smoothly sank into their slots, the car filling with the redolent air of Alaçati’s lush vegetation. That calmed Ari, and he nodded with appreciation.
“There is a spare change of clothes in the bag next to you,” Stefan said, and Ari blinked down at the crisp cloth bag. “We guessed on the fit, but if you’d like to change, you can.”
“I’ll close my eyes,” Nicki supplied, and immediately snapped her lids closed.
As she heard Ari open the bag, Nicki relaxed too, leaning against the cushions. Man, that was close. She’d almost fainted, almost…
Wait. She had fainted.
She blinked open her eyes only to find Stefan staring at her.
“Just how sick are you?” he asked.
Stefan sat back in his seat as Nicki blinked rapidly, but the evidence was on her face, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already figured it out anyway. Something was wrong with Nicki that had her spooked far more than the momentary terror he was sure she’d faced with those men. He’d guessed just now on her being sick…
But he knew he was right.
Nicki squirmed under his scrutiny. Opposite them, Ari peered out the window, offering them the illusion of privacy. Try as he might, Stefan could not call the prince by the name Ryker. Not in his own mind, anyway. It was too jarring to see him so disheveled as it was.
But for the moment, his focus was on Nicki—an American, in his care, whom he had completely failed. Why had he not researched her health more thoroughly? Why had he not looked deeper, searched harder? The dossier on her had not included a full medical workup—it hadn’t needed to. She wasn’t the consort of the prince, as Emmaline had been. She merely was the friend, one of a trio of supporting figures in the drama that had swept up the royal family when the Americans had come to the shores of the seaside kingdom less than a month ago. When that drama had begun, he’d barely registered Nicki’s presence.
But she’d lied to him. And, worse—he hadn’t caught her out in that lie. He didn’t know which angered him more.
He narrowed his gaze on her now. She stayed uncharacteristically quiet, and he knew she was buying time. Whether to come up with a suitable answer or to hope he moved off the topic of her, he didn’t know. He suspected the latter, however. He suspected that she’d managed her life quite well with that approach, and that most of her friends and associates had allowed her to get away with it. She was always, simply, Nicki—up for anything, ready for action, the first to volunteer and the last to give up.
Eventually, however, she broke under the weight of his glare. With the rumpled Ari doing his best to be invisible she spoke softly, almost dully.
“It’s called a bunch of different things,” she said. “Familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, inherited cardiomyopathy, genetic—but it all means the same condition. Essentially, my heart muscle has the predisposition to…well, to weaken and die. My dad has it, my brother too. I was checked out once, when I was e
ighteen, and I was fine. Really, I was.” Her words picked up speed as she seemed to force them all into the open. “But I’m supposed to get checked every six months or something crazy, and it started consuming my whole life. When I got to college, I stopped getting checked. So I honestly don’t know how healthy I am. And, well—I worry, of course. But at least I keep living, too.” Her eyes flashed toward him. “I feel fine though. I do. I mean, I passed out, but I’m fine.”
“You do that a lot? Pass out?” Stefan kept his words short and to the point, if only to keep a handle on his fury. At himself, at her, at the world for allowing someone so vivacious, so full of life to suffer such an insidious threat.
“No!” she shook her head firmly. “Seriously, no. I—I got dehydrated today, and I couldn’t seem to catch back up.”
“And you dropped your water bottle.” Stefan passed his hand over his eyes. “I should have given you mine.” Anger and a need for answers swamped him, but the car was already slowing, the lights, smells and sounds of the marina filling the limo as they cruised toward the yacht. He’d have time to grill Nicki later. And then make sure she got checked out the first moment possible.
He understood the idea of not wanting to live with constant fear. But fear could be managed. The unknown couldn’t.
Stefan glanced at Ari and tried again to gently jostle a memory. “You’re comfortable traveling with us, Mr. Stavros? You don’t need to contact anyone?”
Now Ari’s expression turned a bit wan. “I’m afraid there was no one here to miss me,” he said. A look of stark terror crossed his face as a sudden realization dawned. “I don’t have a wife or anything, do I? Or a girlfriend—children?”
His anguish was so immediate that Stefan’s heart twisted, and Nicki’s face softened with understanding and shared pain. To forget everything...
“No,” Stefan said quietly. “You were not married, and to my knowledge had no steady girlfriend. Your work kept you busy. You had no children either.”
Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 Page 18
