by Amelia Autin
A billionaire on the hunt for justice meets his match in Amelia Autin’s latest Man on a Mission romance
When she’s bound, gagged and kidnapped, Alana Richardson is terrified...until a masked avenging angel saves her. There’s something unforgettable about the mysterious man. But when she uncovers her hero’s identity—drop-dead-gorgeous alpha male Jason Moore—Alana is irresistibly drawn into his dangerous world...
A CEO by day and a vigilante by night, Jason lives and breathes danger. Yet, for the first time, he may have found a woman who understands his commitment to justice at all costs. His hunger for right to prevail could put Alana in harm’s way—but one night and one secret will change everything.
The memory of her own abduction swamped her...especially those moments of near-despair on the bed in that horrible apartment, and she sank to her knees, hugging herself for warmth.
“Oh, God,” she whispered to herself. “Oh, God.”
Jason had his back to her, but when she glanced up, she could see he was talking into his cell phone. Then he turned around, saw her and disconnected almost immediately. He was at her side in an instant.
“Alana?” She knew he meant Are you hurt? by the way his face contracted with concern, the way his hands touched her so gently yet with implacable purpose.
“I’m fine,” she managed, trying desperately to catch her breath.
He drew her to her feet and pressed her head against his chest, then his arms closed around her. “It’s okay,” he soothed as if he realized exactly what she needed to hear. “Just breathe. That’s right. Just breathe.”
His body heat transferred itself to her, dispelling the chill. But it was his embrace that truly gave her what she needed. Safe, her frantic mind reassured her, just as it had during her dramatic rescue three weeks earlier. Jason’s rescue. You’re safe.
* * *
Be sure to check out the previous volumes in
the Man on a Mission miniseries!
Man on a Mission: These heroes, working at home
and overseas, will do anything for justice, honor...
and love
* * *
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Dear Reader,
When I began writing A Father’s Desperate Rescue, part of my Man on a Mission miniseries, I had no idea my heroine’s older brother, Jason Moore, even existed. I was halfway through that book before he made his first appearance, along with his highly secret and totally illegal covert-operations organization, Right Makes Might (RMM).
Once Jason took the stage, however, it was one of those “aha” moments for me, and I fell in love with him (as I do with all my future heroes).
But while I knew my hero—a man shaped by two cultures and one life-altering tragedy, a true knight in shining armor (in the heroine’s own words, sans peur et sans reproche)—I had no idea who my heroine might be. This is a common problem—my heroes always appear first.
Then suddenly she appeared—Alana Richardson, cousin to the heroine of King’s Ransom. Alana has traveled halfway around the world to escape the privileged life she was born to lead...and runs headlong into trouble. Who else but Jason can rescue her...from her abductors and her uneventful past? And who else but Alana can accept that the man she loves could die or end his days in prison...all in the name of protecting the innocent?
I hope you enjoy reading Rescued by the Billionaire CEO as much as I enjoyed writing it. And I hope you agree Jason and Alana are a perfect match.
I love hearing from my readers. Please email me at [email protected] and let me know what you think.
Amelia Autin
RESCUED BY THE
BILLIONAIRE CEO
Amelia Autin
Award-winning author Amelia Autin is an inveterate reader who can’t bear to put a good book down...or part with it. She’s a longtime member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and served three years as its treasurer. Amelia resides with her PhD engineer husband in quiet Vail, Arizona, where they can see the stars at night and have a “million-dollar view” of the Rincon Mountains from their backyard.
Books by Amelia Autin
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Man on a Mission
Cody Walker’s Woman
McKinnon’s Royal Mission
King’s Ransom
Alec’s Royal Assignment
Liam’s Witness Protection
A Father’s Desperate Rescue
Killer Countdown
The Bodyguard’s Bride-to-Be
Rescued by the Billionaire CEO
The Coltons of Texas
Her Colton P.I.
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Gideon’s Bride
Reilly’s Return
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
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For Susan Naomi Horton, who as Naomi Horton wrote In Safekeeping, the very first romantic suspense book I ever read...and still on my keeper shelf after 25+ years. Thank you, Susan, for opening up new worlds for me as a reader and an author. And for Vincent...always.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Excerpt from Fatal Threat by Marie Force
Chapter 1
Gagged and blindfolded, her hands bound cruelly behind her back, Alana Richardson huddled on the cot in the tiny bedroom where her kidnappers had left her, trying desperately not to cry. It wouldn’t do any good anyway, and would only make her feel worse, especially since she wouldn’t be able to blow her nose once she got to the blubbering stage.
Since crying was out, that meant she couldn’t let herself fall into despair. Which meant she couldn’t allow even a trace of self-pity to linger in her mind, either...even though her head throbbed where she’d been struck, she felt more than a little queasy from whatever it was they’d made her breathe in—chloroform, she’d bet—and her fingers were going numb from futilely trying to wriggle free from her bonds.
Fierce anger shook her, and a determination that she wasn’t going to give up. She wasn’t going to be a meek victim. She concentrated on remembering as much as she could about every minute detail related to her abduction...and her abductors. Committing what little she knew of them to memory, including those few moments at the beginning when she’d fought them. The men had been masked, but still...she’d drawn blood. She’d hurt one of them. Marked him.
DNA, she thought, her mind racing. Blood and skin under my fingernails?
She needed to remember that, along with everything else. So if—when—she escaped, she might be able to a
ssist in bringing the men to justice. It was a long shot, but it was better than dwelling on the negative. It was better than imagining the worst...which she could all too easily imagine if she let herself.
Alana also had no idea what the men intended to do with her, although she could hazard a guess. She hadn’t been raped, though. Not yet. She would know, even though she’d been unconscious for some unknown amount of time. But she’d come to as she was being carried here...wherever here was. She’d been swathed in something before they’d removed her from the van. A blanket? A rug? Something that had made breathing difficult. But then her captors had dumped her on this cot and unwrapped her.
She hadn’t had an opportunity to make a run for it, though, because almost immediately rough hands had grabbed her, and she’d been gagged so she couldn’t scream for help, tied up so she couldn’t escape, and blindfolded. She wondered about the blindfold. All three men had been masked, so it wasn’t to conceal their identities. Could there be something here they didn’t want seen? Or just that they didn’t want her to know where she was?
But speculating about motives was fruitless at this stage, and a waste of time. Just as there was absolutely no point in second-guessing her decision to travel halfway around the world to Hong Kong for a job her parents had advised against taking...although she couldn’t quite help it.
“Richardsons don’t have to work for a living, darling.” How many times had her mother said that to her? She’d said it again last month as Alana was packing, adding, “But if you insist on working, what was wrong with your job at your father’s company? At least you had a title there. It’s ridiculous for you to work at such a menial job...for an actor, of all people. I don’t care if he is a good friend of Juliana’s.”
And her father had chimed in. “Yes, yes, I know your cousin Juliana vouches for him. But remember, she was an actress...just like her mother.” The supercilious way he’d said just like her mother had rubbed Alana the wrong way. Her aunt had been a renowned Shakespearean actress, and she hated her father talking about Juliana’s mother that way. Implying she hadn’t been good enough to marry into the Richardson family.
Then he’d added, “At least your cousin had the good sense to quit acting when she married the King of Zakhar.” As if Juliana hadn’t risen to the top of her profession by dedication, talent and incredibly hard work. As if she’d just been waiting for her Prince Charming to come along and take her away from all of that. As if Juliana’s marriage to one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men was the only thing she’d managed to accomplish that was worth anything in her father’s eyes—completely ignoring all the professional accolades Juliana had won, including two Academy Awards and a handful of Golden Globes.
“And why Hong Kong of all places?” her mother had thrown in. “With all those people.”
Alana had struggled with herself, then said as levelly as she could, “If you mean the Chinese, Mom, it’s their country.”
“Well I didn’t mean that,” her mother had huffed...but Alana had known she really had. Both her parents, in fact.
She wondered about that now, her mind veering off on a tangent. Her parents had tried to inculcate their values, their beliefs, in her. But she wasn’t—couldn’t be—like them. Maybe her uncle Julian had something to do with it, since she’d spent so much time with him after he retired. Maybe his influence had made the difference in shaping the woman she was. Juliana’s father was a Richardson, too, had been raised to believe Richardsons were a cut above, just like Alana’s own father. But maybe serving as a foreign ambassador for all those years had taught her uncle things about the world and its people her father had never learned.
Or maybe she should stop making excuses for why her parents were insular, narrow-minded and...and prejudiced. Maybe she should just accept it. Just as she had to accept she could fight the rope cutting cruelly into her wrists until they were bruised and bloody...but she wasn’t going to escape.
* * *
Jason Moore double-checked the harness strapped around him, making sure it was securely fastened. He lightly buckled the second one around his waist to keep his hands free and glanced at the two men opposite. Like him, they were dressed in black from head to toe, including paper-thin black latex gloves and soft leather boots. Their faces were smeared with camouflage face paint, just as his was, so as not to stand out in the dark night. And, of course, to disguise their identities. Right Makes Might didn’t want any witnesses able to describe them, even when they weren’t breaking the law.
He tapped his earpiece. “Yat, yee, saam,” he said, speaking Cantonese, and getting affirmation he could be clearly heard through their earpieces by the thumbs-up signal from his men on the roof. Then he switched to English. “Testing, one, two, three.”
“Roger that,” said a voice in his ear from one of the men on the ground.
Jason flashed a smile at the men standing guard over the equipment the three of them had just set up. Slid into place his prohibitively expensive night-vision goggles that had started life as equipment for a US Navy SEAL team. Nodded once. Then stepped backward off the roof of this high-rise apartment building in a seedy neighborhood.
The passive arrestor system on the zip line kicked in immediately. So instead of plummeting to his death, Jason slid slowly down the side of the building. He mentally suppressed the totally-to-be-expected unreasoning fear of falling that sent a dart of adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream. Then he used his feet to lever himself away from the building so he didn’t scrape against the concrete, counting floors as he went. Right before he reached his destination, he depressed a button on the radio signal control mechanism strapped to his wrist, and he came to a complete halt.
“Three feet to the left,” Jason said quietly. Within seconds, the zip line moved until he could grasp the metal railing around the tiny balcony that was his destination, and lightly vault over it. His feet made no sound as they landed, because his soft-soled boots had been designed for that purpose. And besides, he’d trained for this until he could practically do it in his sleep.
Jason smiled grimly as he grasped the handle on the poorly fitted sliding glass door, and with a sharp jerk popped it right out of its tracks. He and his men had already discussed how lucky they were their victim was imprisoned in this older apartment building, which had been constructed back in the sixties. Newer high-rises had been built to stricter construction codes, but not older buildings like this one. They were a lot easier to break in to.
He silently lifted the door to one side. “Slack,” he uttered in a monotone, and after a few seconds the tension sagged on the wire to which he was connected. He could have unbuckled the harness before entering the room, but then he would waste precious seconds getting back into it. Seconds he might not have on the back end.
The room was shrouded in darkness, but with his night-vision goggles he could clearly see the slight form huddled on a cot in the corner, a few feet away. He headed straight for it.
* * *
Alana hadn’t thought she could possibly sleep, but she must have. Because she woke to a gloved hand over her gagged mouth and a deep male voice with an upper-class British accent whispering in her ear. “Shh. Not a sound, Miss Richardson. I’ll get you out of here, but you must do exactly what I say without question. Nod your head if you can do that.”
Alana nodded. She didn’t know who this was, but she immediately knew he was here to rescue her. His deep voice held even more reassurance than the words themselves, so whatever he told her to do, she would do. Without question.
He moved slightly, and there was an odd sound she couldn’t place—like metal rubbing against leather. Then the gag melted away. The blindfold followed, and now she could see the flash of a knife in the darkness before the binding around her wrists was carefully cut loose. She bit her lip to hold back the moan that wanted to escape when her arms were finally free
and she tried to move them. Tears sprang to her eyes as agonizing pain shot through her muscles, but she was proud she managed not to make a sound.
The knife flashed again as he sheathed it. Almost immediately strong hands were massaging her arms, fingers digging into her muscles until she squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. Tears seeped onto her cheeks, but the sob that might have escaped her lips under normal circumstances...didn’t. Then her rescuer was lifting her effortlessly and carrying her to what she now saw was the doorless opening onto a balcony.
He stood her on her feet and quickly unbuckled something from his waist, which he then proceeded to fit around her—a harness of some kind, she realized. A harness that was attached to a slack wire. A slack wire that grew suddenly taut when he said, “Ready.”
Alana could see her rescuer in the faint moonlight. A lithe figure dressed all in black, with some kind of camouflage paint on his face, as well. And high-tech goggles that somehow made him look superhuman. He towered over her, which wasn’t a surprise—she wasn’t much taller than her famous cousin Juliana, who stood only as high as her husband’s heart. Alana didn’t know what made her think of that out of the blue, but then the thought was wiped from her mind when he lifted her up onto the balcony railing and balanced her there. “Hang on.”
She didn’t have time to be afraid before he was on the outside of the railing, maneuvering himself and her as if they weren’t perched precariously high above the street below. “Legs around my hips,” he ordered, and when she did so, he pressed something on his wrist before wrapping his arms around her in a bear hug. “Hold on tight.” Then he pushed away from the balcony.
They swung in the air for a dizzying moment, and Alana could only pray she wouldn’t be sick. But she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t know why, but the strength in the arms that held her so securely made her trust her rescuer implicitly. She felt as safe with him dangling from a wire as she would have been with both feet on the ground.
The cable pulled taut and they descended with a hissing sound of metal on metal. “You okay?” he asked, his lips pressed against her ear, and all Alana could do was nod. Endless seconds later they touched down on solid earth. He didn’t let her go for a moment, and she stared at his face, memorizing what she could see of it. Wishing with all her heart she could see his eyes behind the concealing goggles. Wishing she dared ask him any of the half-dozen questions that suddenly teemed in her brain.
