Seduced by Sin (Unlikely Hero)

by Kris Rafferty

  “No.” Scrivener couldn’t hide his excitement. “I win. I’ve been patient for ten years, Smith. Ten years of repairing damage you and your friend Marnie did to my organization. The work, the relationships with my clients, the lost revenue your sticky fingers cost me.” He shook his head, no longer smiling. “You changed your identity so many times, I’d given up on finding you. But I was patient. And now, look at you, the all-powerful Caleb Smith…kneeling.” He cackled, wrinkling from temple to jowl. “I know you’re a Fed…” Francesca gasped. “And your people are out there, but the official story will be you were shot in a break in. I have enough IOUs to assure that narrative is accepted.”

  Francesca covered her mouth with her hand, catching Caleb’s attention. He wondered if she would have hesitated to betray him if she’d known he was a good guy.

  Hamilton took his daughter’s elbow and pulled her off to the side, to the left of Scrivener. Francesca complied reluctantly, stepping into the shadows as Scrivener handed her father a leather-bound ledger. He tucked it under his arm.

  “We’re square now, Scrivener,” Hamilton said.

  Caleb couldn’t see Francesca’s face. It was in shadow, but he could see her fists at her side. He was getting the impression most of what was happening was news to her, and yet…she was here. That made her culpable.

  Scrivener glanced at Francesca, narrowing his eyes, before turning back to Caleb. “The ledger was held in lieu of a long ago debt Hamilton found himself unwilling to pay.” It had to be a big debt to warrant leveraging a financial empire.

  Hamilton pushed Francesca behind him, and Caleb saw his panic. Panic. “We made a new deal. Smith for the ledger.”

  Caleb’s stomach curdled as the last piece fell into place. The abductor told Caleb that Scrivener ordered Francesca’s kidnapping. So…it was true. Hamilton wouldn’t give her up, so Scrivener tried to take what he thought was owed him.

  Caleb shook his head. “Scrivener, you always were a greedy man.”

  Scrivener narrowed his eyes, glancing at Francesca in the shadows. He didn’t hide his lecherous thoughts. “I’ve waited a long time for you, Smith. What makes you think I don’t have the patience for her?”

  Caleb chuckled, and his bruised ribs protested. “The irony is I was always a phone call away. Do you really think I wouldn’t have come? You’re alive now because the Feds recruited me before I got you.”

  Hamilton smiled. “Damn, I do like you, Smith. You would have been the perfect successor.”

  Scrivener’s men were clicking their suppressors onto the muzzles of their guns, and Caleb tensed, no longer finding comfort at the FBI presence outside. He needed them here, now. But if Caleb said as much, used the threat of the Feds to save himself, he had no doubt it would trigger a massacre in the room…and Francesca was in the room. She took two steps toward Caleb, walking into the light, and for a second, he feared she’d get involved. He saw her slip her hand over a paperweight on Scrivener’s desk, and he thought, holy shit, she’s arming up. But for what purpose? Even he knew fighting now would only bring a quicker death.

  Hamilton thankfully noticed his daughter’s insanity, grabbed her elbow, and tugged her back into the shadows, forcing her to abandon the paperweight. Francesca struggled against his restraint, stepped toward Caleb again, as if she wanted to say something to him.

  Caleb scowled, furious that she could believe there was anything to say. “Step back into the shadows, sweetheart. Your outfit might stain.” He glanced about the room, indicating the guns. If she’d wanted to save him, she should have thought of that before she’d flipped the con. Scrivener’s goons were about to play with their food, and only Caleb was on the menu.

  Scrivener waved his guards toward Caleb. They gripped his biceps, indicating he should rise. Then he was led to the front of the desk. This close, Caleb could see the veins in Scrivener’s cheeks, the near transparency of his skin. Caleb outweighed him by sixty pounds easily, yet Scrivener still had the power to curdle his blood.

  Scrivener’s eyes narrowed. “No one steals from me and gets away with it.”

  “I did.” He smiled until Scrivener glanced at Caleb’s feet, and then his smile dropped. He heard a roaring in his ears and a strange calmness fell over him. They’d led him onto plastic sheeting. Rounds were chambered, and guns were aimed at him. “Francesca.” He turned toward her, wanting her to be the last thing he saw before he died.

  “Caleb?” Marnie’s obvious terror nudged his shock. “Hold on! We’re coming!”

  “No!” Francesca’s eyes widened, her mouth opened in horror. She lunged for Caleb, arms extended. Harris Tate stepped from the shadows and wrapping an arm around her waist. Struggling, in anguish, she held Caleb’s gaze.

  “Look away,” Caleb said.

  Hamilton aimed his gun. “Nothing personal, Smith.”

  “Father! Please, no!” Struggling like a wild woman, she fought Tate, who lifted his gun and aimed it at Jonathan Hamilton.

  “Dane, now!” Marnie screamed.

  Francesca arched, clawing at Tate’s face. The lights winked out. Two guns discharged as Caleb tucked and rolled to the ground, unsheathed his hidden boot knife and cut his zip-tied wrists.

  “Francesca!” he shouted, blind in the dark, not knowing in which direction he’d find her.

  More gunshots. The flooring splintered at his feet, hitting him with flying particles. Caleb hugged the wall, knife at the ready. A phone’s light flickered on, revealing Scrivener reclined in his chair, a bullet between the eyes, and Hamilton lying in a pool of blood on the plastic sheeting.

  He was about to call out her name again when a guard unwittingly stepped in front of Caleb, showing his back. Without hesitation, Caleb cracked him on the head with his knife’s hilt. The guard dropped to the floor, unconscious. Caleb stole his gun, so when a phone light aimed at him again, he shot it, returning the room to darkness. He low-crawled toward the door…the door burst open, and lights and gunfire flashed inside the room. Pop, pop, poppoppop!

  “Smith!” MacLain stepped into the room, and lay down suppressing fire, buying Caleb time to search the shadows. No Francesca. She’d disappeared…as had Tate. Hustling out, down the hall and stairs, he searched the floors, and when they escaped the house, he searched the street. Nothing.

  MacLain caught up with him on the porch. Sullivan had arrived, aiming his assault rifle at the door. Feds streamed out of surrounding yards, aiming weapons. Scrivener’s and Hamilton’s guards bottlenecked the exit, were caught by surprise, and instantly dumped their weapons as they stepped onto the porch. They put their hands behind their heads without even being asked. A black van screeched to the curb. A moment later, Marnie was opening the side door, waving them in. “Hurry up!” Then she disappeared inside the van again.

  Caleb couldn’t leave until he knew Francesca was safe. “Scrivener and Hamilton are dead. Any sign of Francesca or Tate? They can’t be far.”

  “We’ll talk in the van,” MacLain said. When he saw Caleb’s reluctance, he set his jaw. “Now, Smith. I want Marnie out of here.”

  Caleb didn’t argue. He jumped inside, and climbed to the van’s back window, continuing to search the crowd for a woman in a white suit and heels.

  Marnie hit the gas as MacLain slammed the door shut behind them.

  “Did anyone see her?” If she was with Tate, she wasn’t safe, and here he was driving off…not knowing.

  An explosion lit the sky. The brownstone was in flames.

  Marnie slammed on the brakes and turned in her seat, watching with the rest of them. “Scrivener’s vault. Something triggered the fail-safe.”

  Caleb threw open the van’s back doors, jumped out, and looked on in horror as the brownstone burned. Then he was running toward the fire, fearing she was still in there. “Francesca!”

  “Caleb!” Marnie screaming his name barely registered.

  He ignored everything, needing to reach the building. Feds were corralling neighbors who ran from their homes, po
inting, aiming garden hoses in an effort to contain the fire. Frantic, Caleb paced in front of the brownstone, feeling caged and thwarted. He couldn’t see a way inside.

  “Caleb, please!” Marnie had run to his side, out of breath and frantic. She tugged at his arm. “You can’t be here! You’ll be seen!”

  Caleb tore his arm from her grip and glared at MacLain. “Get her out of here!”

  “Smith, dammit!” Sullivan shouted. “Back in the van!”

  Caleb remembered the two sedated guards in the backyard, and the rappelling wires. There may yet be a way back into the house. He ran to the neighbor’s yard, went as far back as he could, and peered over the picket fence, intending to save them. They were gone. But the rappelling wire still hung from the roof. A crackle of fire caught his attention, and then he saw the house’s propane tank, flush against the quarry stone foundation…threatened by encroaching flames.

  Caleb sprinted to safety, and four heartbeats later, the tank exploded. The concussion slammed into his back, landing him face-first in the neighbor’s lawn, spitting dirt. MacLain and Sullivan grabbed him by the biceps, dragging him across the sidewalk into the van that idled at the curb.

  Sirens grew louder as first responders converged on site, jeopardizing Caleb’s undercover status. He couldn’t be here. Sullivan slammed the side door closed, and glanced at him, looking worried.

  Hunched against the van’s interior wall, Caleb buried his face in his hands and tried not to think, because thinking was leading to madness.

  “Marnie, drive!” MacLain said.

  If Francesca was in the building, she was dead. If Francesca was dead, he wanted to die.

  “Smith.” MacLain lifted a book, showing him Hamilton’s ledger. “I found it next to Hamilton’s body.”

  The operation was a success. Caleb blinked, but other than that was incapable of moving, or thinking; in fact, he was expending so much energy suppressing thought and emotion, he didn’t have it in him to respond.

  Sullivan scowled at him. “Francesca Hamilton betrayed you, Smith. Good riddance.”

  Caleb slapped the van’s interior wall. “Pull over.”

  Marnie pulled to the curb, now blocks away from the burning building. “What’s happening?”

  Caleb opened the side door and walked into the night.

  …

  When Harris Tate grabbed Francesca from Scrivener’s office, he threw her kicking and screaming over his shoulder, into a back room. She thought he was going to rape her, kill her, but he did neither. Tate stuffed her in a dumbwaiter, kissed her with brutal intent, and said, “This means you owe me…and now I’m the only thing keeping you alive. There’s a silver sedan parked on the corner of I Street and East Broadway. I have to go back for the ledger, but you meet me there if you want to live.” Then he closed the dumbwaiter and sent it down. Harris’s implications were clear; he’d earned her, and her father’s business. Yet he’d killed her father. And Caleb? She didn’t know.

  In that moving dumbwaiter, Harris’s wet kiss still fresh on her lips, Francesca hated him…even as he saved her life, because when the dumbwaiter arrived at the first floor, an explosion rocked the building, and she felt herself falling again. Debris pummeled the metal enclosure for a seemingly endless time. When it finally ended, she slid the door up with difficulty, and then found she’d fallen past the first floor to the brownstone’s basement. And it was on fire.

  The windows were blown, so she scrambled to the nearest one and crawled out of the building, running away from the flames, against the tide of concerned neighbors running toward them. Soon, a heel broke, and she was forced to go shoeless. A glance behind her revealed the brownstone still in flames. Then the second blast hit. She ran for Harris’s car.

  It wasn’t far, and the keys were where he’d said they’d be. She didn’t feel one ounce of guilt for driving off without him. He was either dead or up to no good, and Francesca wanted nothing to do with that man. So she drove, with no destination in mind, just away from where Harris might find her. Before long, she’d found that she’d driven in a circle. She was a few blocks from the brownstone, and had unconsciously been searching for Caleb. She was desperate to know if he was safe.

  Her hands shook, and sobs racked her body, and still she drove, and searched the periphery of the area, but when her eyes blurred so much it was hard to see, she pulled over to the curb and rested her forehead on the back on her hands still clutching the steering wheel.

  Her father was murdered. He’d intended to kill Caleb. She was in trouble, and the man she loved might be dead…the man who had systematically targeted her to use against her father. She sobbed so hard, her throat was raw, and when the knock hit the passenger side window, she didn’t even have the energy to startle. She had nothing left. She ducked her head to see who it was…a man. She recognized that belt buckle.

  Francesca reached across the seat and unlocked the door. When Caleb slid in, he pulled the door closed behind him, locked it, and then he tugged her onto his lap. He squeezed her so tightly it was hard to breathe, as he buried his face in her hair. “I pinged your iPhone. I told you people could track you with it.”

  She touched her pocket, felt the phone, and for some reason, his words set off another round of sobs. She soaked them with tears. Pulled at him, unable to get close enough. She pressed her face to his warm neck, wanting to climb inside his pocket and never come out again.

  A long while later, when her sobs quieted and she was draped across his chest, Caleb kissed her forehead. “You’re gonna be okay,” he said. She shook her head weakly. Nothing would ever be okay again.

  “My father—”

  “Did all this for you,” he said. She tilted her head back, not understanding. “Scrivener was an evil bastard, Francesca. He leveraged your father’s business secrets to acquire you.” She shuddered, burrowing deeper into his arms. “For whatever reason—I can’t say love, because I’m not sure your father was capable of it—but he couldn’t give in to Scrivener’s demands and made an alternate deal Scrivener couldn’t resist.”

  “You.”

  Caleb nodded. “He’s wanted me dead for business and personal reasons for a very long time. Your father found a way to deliver me to him.”

  Francesca’s chin quivered. “Me.”

  “I think he initially thought his business would do it, but he soon realized it was you. It was you I couldn’t resist. It was you that kept me at the mansion as your father negotiated with Scrivener.” Caleb dropped his forehead to hers. “Your father had time for one shot, sweetheart, and he chose to shoot Scrivener instead of me…to protect you, and because—” Caleb swallowed hard. “Francesca, I think he didn’t kill me because you love me.”

  And she did, even knowing what she knew. “Harris killed my father.” Saying it aloud made her relive the moment, and suddenly she was doubled over, sobbing again.

  Caleb held her, rocking her in his arms, pressing his cheek to her wet one. “It’s over. You’ll be okay.”

  It hurt too much to believe him. “Harris—”

  “My contacts on the ground say they found him among the rubble. He’s dead, too. You’re free.”

  She didn’t feel free. She wanted to die.

  Caleb gave her a squeeze, pressed a long kiss on her temple, and then climbed behind the wheel, making sure she was buckled in on the passenger side before shifting into gear. Then he drove. Going where? Francesca didn’t have the energy to care.

  Caleb was alive, and so was she. It was a low bar, but it’s what they got.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Francesca tightened her ponytail and adjusted her backpack over her shoulder. Fall had rolled into Cambridge, Massachusetts, with crisp temperatures, lush lawns, and colorful foliage. Harvard University’s campus never seemed so picturesque as energetic students rushed to class, using a webwork of pathways connecting the stately, hallowed brick halls. Francesca found her home. New place, new faces. Academia, where approbation was given when due, a
nd intelligence and rules mattered.

  Caleb dropped her off the night of the fire, two weeks ago. Faculty housing was ready for her, but classes had yet to start. Thankfully. In the days that followed, she waited for Caleb to come for her, but he’d shut her out, leaving her to grieve alone.

  Well, he didn’t completely shut her out. He’d been stalking her ever since. She caught glimpses of him a block away, through restaurant windows, in the shelter parking lots after sessions with patients, on campus, and off campus, and most recently, when she did a home visit with Stephanie and her mother. Pati broke it off with her boyfriend, so Stephanie was less reactive, and seemed to be shedding her oppositional behavior. Francesca wished she could talk about it with Caleb, but he’d be there and then gone so quickly it was easy to convince herself he’d never been there at all, that she was suffering from wishful thinking. But then she’d glimpse him again. She reasoned if he wanted to talk to her, he would. Yet Caleb never did. He remained a wraith, hovering out of reach.

  Francesca still hadn’t forgiven him.

  The morning after he’d dropped her off, the FBI visited and debriefed her for hours. Apparently, it was Marnie’s hacking into the building’s security that triggered the fail-safe. The secrets in Scrivener’s vault remained protected. But the Feds wanted to know if Francesca knew anything about it. They soon came to realize she was exactly what she appeared to be. A fool. Out of the loop and angry.

  After that debriefing, Marnie Somerville MacLain met up with her on campus. She brought coffee, doughnuts, and apologies, doing her best to fill in all the blanks, but most of what Francesca had lived through was considered confidential, so off the table to discuss. When she was done answering Francesca’s questions, Marnie set a document in front of her. A deal from the FBI. They’d leave her trust fund alone, because it was from her mother…if she didn’t contest their seizure of all Jonathan Hamilton assets.

  Francesca could have litigated it, but she signed without comment, because it was her ticket to freedom. She told herself she was excited to start again, to open herself up to the world and seek healthy relationships as she pursued a career in her field. With her scrawled signature on the dotted line, she lost value as bait or leverage, and she was just a girl. Sure, with a trust fund, but at Harvard, that was a dime a dozen. Now she was Francesca Hamilton, college student, teacher, child clinical psychologist, all ties to her father and Caleb severed.