Tempted Into Danger

by Melissa Cutler

  “What?” she breathed.

  Good job, Slick. Real soothing. Maybe he ought to heed Dreyer’s advice and keep his mouth shut. Scowling, he pulled out his knife to free her wrists.

  She gasped and pedaled her feet backward, scared, like maybe Diego was going to carve her up with the knife. Like he hadn’t just saved her life. “Calm down. If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t need this knife to do it.”

  She gasped and scooted farther away.

  Not sure if he was more irritated with her for her lack of trust or himself for saying the wrong thing again, he swore under his breath and grabbed her hands. “Stop squirming. We need to get out of here.”

  She complied. Thank God for small favors.

  One slice and her wrists were free. He replaced the knife and grabbed the flak vest from the seat. Jerking the straps open, he held it out to her.

  She stuck her arms through the holes. “Who are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m only the chauffeur.” He pulled the straps tight and secured the vest around her. She started to ask something else, but he missed it as he slammed the door closed and dropped into the driver’s seat. From the center console, he found the spare radio he’d stowed. “Phoenix, you copy?”

  “Copy, Devil.”

  He turned the engine over. “Pulling away. You and Eight Ball ready to roll?”

  “Right behind you, boss.”

  He twisted to look over his shoulder at Vanessa. She was acting scared again—breathing shallow, eyes wide, jaw tight. He hated that it had to be like this for her. He wished as badly as she probably did that her life could’ve stayed the way it’d been up until that afternoon. Peaceful and average. Without the taint of corruption and the evil of men.

  Wouldn’t do either of them any good for him to say that, though. Knowing him, it would come out all wrong anyway.

  Best he could do for her was keep her unharmed until he delivered her to Dreyer and Montgomery, then hope they cared as deeply about her safety as he did.

  Chapter 3

  Chauffeur wasn’t the word Vanessa would use to describe the man driving her God knew where—the man who’d saved her life.

  He wore a black T-shirt that did little to mask the muscles that had wrapped around her like a shield when he’d thrown himself on her before the explosion. The gun he held like an extension of his arm while he drove was black and massive, and she’d seen two more like it strapped to his body.

  He’d shot at least one man with that gun in order to save her. Probably more, judging by the gunfire she’d heard. Actions that weren’t in the typical chauffeur playbook.

  From her position on the floor, her only view was of the sky and the gray-brown edges of building roofs. Time and silence stretched on until the buildings disappeared from sight, leaving only trees and dark clouds as an afternoon rainstorm rolled through. As fast as they were moving, it wouldn’t be long until they disappeared into the thicket of jungle that surrounded the city.

  Her fear and lack of control made it tough to breathe. Her body was sore from being tossed around and her head hurt from the initial blow she’d endured in her bathroom. She tried to think up a number to focus on, something big with a decimal point, but she couldn’t even conjure pi past five digits.

  Worse, it was impossible to know who she could trust.

  Except that her instincts told her she could depend on the chauffeur—Devil, the woman on the radio called him. She had no idea how the nickname got started, but from what she could tell, he was the least likely devil she’d ever met. More like a guardian angel, if today’s events were any indication.

  He’d taken down the men threatening her, guarded her from the blast that destroyed her apartment and given her a bulletproof vest. More telling was his genuine annoyance when he derided her for being afraid of him and the honest admiration in his compliment about her elbow jab. He wasn’t some smooth operator with slick words and fake sincerity aimed at lulling her into compliance. She’d been around enough of that kind of man that her radar was finely tuned. Without any better options, she decided to go with her instinct and trust him.

  God help her if she was wrong.

  She studied the wound on his neck below the neat cut of his dark brown hair, a bloody cocktail of glass shards, asphalt and black flecks she suspected were shrapnel—not that she’d ever seen shrapnel before.

  “You’re hurt,” she blurted.

  “Huh?”

  “On your neck.”

  He touched his fingers to the wound. “I thought it felt itchy. What is that, glass?” He picked out a piece and examined it, then dropped it out the window.

  Itchy? How about excruciatingly painful? Or maybe this guy didn’t feel pain like a normal person. Wouldn’t surprise her given the other superhero-like stunts he’d pulled off already. “Do you have a first aid kit in the car?”

  He snorted, like he found her suggestion amusing. “It’s nothing. Doesn’t hurt at all. I’ll deal with it later.”

  “Did the bank send you to get me?”

  His head twitched in her direction, but he kept his eyes on the road. “No. U.S. government. Uncle Sam would like a word with you.”

  Though his olive complexion and dark eyes spoke to Latino roots, she’d known he was American before he’d said a single word in that New Jersey accent she’d become so familiar with during college. It was evident in the way he held himself, the cocksure set of his shoulders and the way his lips moved when he scowled. Even the crooked angle of his nose, most likely the result of a bad break, looked American somehow.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  He chortled. “Well, a bunch of not-so-friendly thugs were waiting to ambush you and blow up your apartment. If that doesn’t qualify as trouble, I don’t know what does.”

  She ignored his words so she wouldn’t freak out by thinking about what’d happened to her. “No, I meant in trouble with the law. This is about the account information I stole today, isn’t it? People found out. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t mean any harm. You have to believe me.”

  “Hell of a poker face you’ve crafted there, Vanessa. How about, from now on, you play your cards a little closer to the vest, if you catch my drift.”

  That he would coach her like that reaffirmed her decision to trust him. “I take it you’re not arresting me?”

  “Like I said, I’m just the chauffeur.”

  She studied what she could see of him from where she crouched on the floor. Beneath the wound that had gnarled his flesh, he had muscles that started in his neck and extended through his shoulders as thick and strong as the roots of a tree. The biceps of the arm on the steering wheel, the arm that had carried her effortlessly, strained against the fabric of his shirt.

  Unexpected attraction pulsed through her. She could practically smell the testosterone rolling off his body. His massive bruiser of a physique took up all the air in the car, pressing into her awareness, calling forth an ancient, wholly feminine part of her that hadn’t surfaced since she used to steal glances at her father’s football players after practice, sweaty and brutish as they lumbered to the locker room.

  This man was no athlete. His skills, guns and tough Jersey accent told a different story. He said he worked for the government, so there was only one possible explanation.

  She poked her head higher to look at the side of his face. “It’s been a while since I’ve lived stateside, but when did they start calling American soldiers chauffeurs? That some kind of new code word?”

  He glanced at her through the rearview
mirror. Though all she could see were his eyes and the side of his cheek, she knew he was smiling. “That’s just me playing it close to the vest, like I’m trying to teach you.”

  “You’re going with stick with the chauffeur story? You must be super top secret. Wait—are you part of SEAL Team Six?”

  He strummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You know how you can tell I’m not part of SEAL Team Six? Because you’ve heard of SEAL Team Six. What I am, you don’t need to worry about.”

  She opened her mouth to question him about which branch of the military he worked for, when he released an exasperated sigh. Somewhere nearby, gunshots rang out. The engine roared in protest as she felt their speed increase.

  “Stay down,” he said as he exchanged his handgun on the passenger seat for a radio. “Phoenix, Eight Ball, you copy?”

  Vanessa ducked lower, hugging herself and trying to breathe through her fear. She didn’t understand why the chauffeur sounded so calm about the new round of gunfire. If she hadn’t heard the shots, she wouldn’t have had any inkling there was trouble.

  “Copy, Devil. We’re returning fire on two cars.” It was the woman’s voice, as even-keeled as the chauffeur’s.

  He transferred the radio to his steering hand and reached across the seat, bringing a massive black, Rambo-like rifle across his lap. “Everything under control?”

  “Affirmative,” said a man’s deep baritone over the radio. “The bridge we rigged is less than four clicks from here. A Boom and Block ought to throw them off your tail.”

  More gunfire sounded in the distance.

  “Roger that,” the chauffeur said. He fiddled with the rifle, flipping levers and checking the chamber, then tipped the muzzle out the open driver window.

  Curiosity got the better of Vanessa. She popped her head up to look through the rearview mirror. They were ripping along a road, walled on both sides by curtains of thick, lush foliage. Two nondescript sedans drove side by side several car lengths behind them. Behind those were two more.

  “What are you doing? Get your head back down.”

  She ducked. “Are those cars the ones firing at us?”

  “Not the closer two. That’s my crew. They’ve been trailing us this whole time, but there’s two more cars behind them giving us some trouble. You know those wire transfer numbers you thought might be a bulk cash laundering operation? Looks like you were dead-on about that. And now the men responsible want to shut you up in a bad way.”

  The moment the men in her bathroom had grabbed her, she’d known it was related to the algorithm she wrote, but it finally hit home hearing it said aloud. She’d thrust herself in the middle of an international war in which no side ever won. She couldn’t die now, and not because of some stupid number patterns she’d spotted at the bank. Her stomach lurched. Every gunshot she heard kicked her heart rate up another notch.

  It was unendurable, feeling this vulnerable. “You’re not going to let that happen, right?”

  He scowled. “What kind of question is that?”

  Before she could respond, he brought the radio to his lips again. “We’re at the bridge. You need any help from me on the B&B?”

  “You take care of the asset. We’ve got this covered.”

  Devil—or the chauffeur or whoever he was—looked into the rearview mirror. “Roger that. See you at the safe house.”

  Risking his wrath again, she scooted her butt onto the seat and sat up as the car thumped onto a wooden bridge over a river. “What’s going on? What’s a B&B?”

  “Now’s not the best time for questions. Brace yourself, there’s gonna be a blast.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a tremendous quake of force and noise pushed on the back of the car. She got up on her knees and looked behind them. The bridge they’d crossed was engulfed in flames. None of the cars that had been following them were in sight.

  Vanessa’s heart pounded in her throat. “That was the B&B?” she choked out, mesmerized by the flames and smoke licking up toward the clouds.

  “Affirmative. We wired the bridge with explosives this morning in case we were followed. In a B&B, the crew goes off-road before the downed bridge and circles back, trapping the hostiles against the roadblock and neutralizing them with heavy artillery.”

  His tone remained flat and distracted, as if what he was describing didn’t put people’s lives in mortal danger. Soldiers she’d never met who were risking everything because of her. Neutralizing people because of her. She braced a hand on her chest and tried not to think of the bloodshed, wishing she could make it all stop. “I couldn’t live with it if someone on your team got hurt protecting me.”

  He took a sharp left turn at a breakneck speed, plunging them onto a twisty, single-lane road made dark with tree cover. “Hate to sound like a jackass, but it’s not about you. We’re just doing the job Uncle Sam pays us to.”

  In other words, he only cared about her life because it was in his job description. And whoever he was delivering her to would feel the same way. The minute the bulk cash smugglers and U.S. government had gotten wind of her discovery, her life-worth had become finite, limited to the algorithm she’d created. She was expendable and she’d do well to remember that.

  A sharp pang of loneliness rippled through her, as intense as her fear, leaving a sickening trail of emptiness in its wake. No one was going to care about what happened to her, other than her dad and Jordan. And wasn’t that the story of her life? When they learned of the blast that destroyed her apartment, they’d each be devastated, thinking Vanessa dead or kidnapped. But, then, if Vanessa was being truly honest with herself, even her dad hadn’t cared about her enough to—

  No. She wasn’t going to go to that dark place in her heart again. Wallowing didn’t serve any purpose that could help her now. At least the chauffeur was still with her, and although he was only doing his job, he was better than not having anyone in her corner at all.

  She brought her feet up to the seat and hugged her knees, willing the fear and loneliness away as she watched the trees pass in a blur.

  A deep sigh from the front seat had her shifting her gaze around, nervous. The last time he sighed like that, the kidnappers were on their trail.

  “I’m not... I didn’t mean to... Damn it...” Wringing the steering wheel, he shook his head, clearly frustrated, though she had no idea why. “How did you come up with the idea to jab that guy in the gut? I don’t know many chicks who would think to do that while they had a gun to their throat.”

  It took a bunch of blinks before she caught up to his topic change, and when she did, his praise evoked a warm glow of pride inside her. “Um, thanks. My dad suggested I take a self-defense class before I moved to Panama, and I liked it so much that I take one every few years as a refresher. I was aiming for his junk, but I couldn’t scoot over far enough to make it work, so I improvised.”

  He snorted. “Aiming for a man’s junk is definitely an effective technique, and you did fine. Gave me the window I needed to strike.”

  All warmth vanished as the image flashed in her mind of the bullet hole in her kidnapper’s neck, his gasping inhale and exhale, the spatter of blood. She touched her cheek, wondering if his dried blood remained on her skin. It was the first time she’d seen someone die, and she was having trouble wrapping her brain around any kind of coherent feelings about it.

  She was relieved and sickened at the same time, having no doubt in her mind that the events of the last hour boiled down to
a kill-or-be-killed situation. But though she would be forever grateful that the chauffeur hadn’t hesitated to do what was necessary, she regretted that it had been. She would never forget the look of absolute focus on his face when he’d chased down the kidnapper carrying her—the agility in his steps, the singular power of his movement, the lethal grace.

  Her gaze slid up the thick muscles of his arm, imagining her hand doing the same, imagining what it would feel like to explore a body of such raw, masculine energy. No doubt about it, he was a man built for battle. Yet she could see in his sharp, dark eyes, and in the glimpses of humor and caring he’d let slip, that there was so much more to him than the fight.

  How many men had he killed? How did he make peace with that part of his job? How old was he the first time? Did the dead haunt him as she imagined they would her? She wanted desperately to ask but couldn’t figure out a way to phrase the questions without sounding judgmental, and the last thing she needed was to get on his bad side.

  She allowed several silent minutes to pass before she asked a different question. “Once you deliver me to the safe house, is your job done?”

  Her insides twisted. Why did it bother her, thinking she may never see him again after today? Fear of being left unprotected, of course, but more than that. Deeper—a frustrated hollowness, as if they had unfinished business. There was so much more about him she wanted to know.

  She watched the mirror, waiting for him to look at her through the glass, but he kept his eyes straight ahead.

  “Not sure.” His jaw was tight, his words clipped. “I was supposed to escort you home, too, but that’s obviously not going to happen.”

  “Whose job is it to decide my fate?”

  “You’ll meet them soon enough.”

  The vagueness of his answer incensed her. She wanted to climb into the front seat, take that iron jaw in hand and force him to look at her. To level with her about the future and steady her nerves with the promise that he’d keep on protecting her. If I can’t be in charge of my own fate, then you be the one, she wanted to demand. Not some unknown government official, but you.