by Asha King
“I need my stuff,” she said at last. “If you’re going to kidnap me. My clothes are back at the—”
He tilted his head to indicate the backseat. “Already picked it up.”
She twisted in her seat to see the beat up duffel bag sitting there, then slumped back with a sigh.
Mike supressed a smile. Of course she’d been planning to use that as an excuse to run as soon as they stopped. She’d push a few more times, test for weak spots, but as long as he stayed ahead of her, she’d eventually relent and let him do his job. He was confident of this.
He spared a glance at her—just a brief one, taking her in. Her glossy curls were damp from the melted snow, framing her face, and she stared out the windshield. She was pretty when she wasn’t scowling at him—well, she was pretty regardless, but it was easier to see in the moment just before she remembered he was technically kidnapping her and she hated him for it. She met his eyes and the scowl returned, scrunching up her face.
He parked not far from the front door of the hotel, retrieved her bag from between the seats before climbing out, then went around the SUV to open her door and wait for her to exit.
Liliana glowered up at him, her lips trembling like she wanted to snap out a comment or two, but she held her tongue and stepped out of the SUV.
She could go ahead and complain all she wanted—if she was going to act like a child who couldn’t be trusted, he’d treat her that way.
Once she was standing next to him, he shut the car door, hefted the bag in his left hand and took her elbow with his right. She stiffened and initially resisted, but he simply pulled her along at an even clip until she started walking fast enough to keep up with him. Snow had built up in front of the hotel despite a recent shoveling, clinging to their shoes and lower pants, and when they stepped inside, the chill from outside seemed to follow.
Mike marched her up to the front desk, withdrew his wallet and ID to claim the room, and accepted the two keys to it. He pocketed them both and once again led Liliana to the elevator.
“I’m hungry,” she said stubbornly when they stepped inside. “I didn’t get dinner.”
“That’s why there’s room service. I recommend not jumping out the bathroom window this time before it arrives.”
The elevator dinged on the third floor and he dutifully led her to their room. Two double beds, a table and pair of chairs, television. Clean, serviceable. He would’ve preferred at least a four star if not five—not for personal taste, but in terms of security measures he’d have available to him—but two to three star were safest for his purposes on this job. A shitty one star would be the first place someone would look for a girl on the run. High class, expensive places would be the first place they’d look if they somehow heard she had help hiding from wealthy clients.
He left her bag sitting by the bed closest to the window—and therefore farthest from the door—then slipped his scarf, coat, and gloves off before retrieving his phone to text Benji at the office with instructions to have his overnight bag waiting for him at the hotel in the morning. Thirty seconds later, confirmation came that it would be done. Next he texted Jann to say he’d acquired Liliana and would otherwise be going dark—all contact was to go through his office as it was better if no one else knew where they were.
His messages done, he turned back to face the rest of the room again.
Liliana had stripped off her jacket and tossed it on one of the chairs but left her boots that looked like she’d haphazardly stuffed her feet into before fleeing earlier and never fixed them—the laces were crooked and her form-fitting jeans, damp from the snow, were partially rucked up, the top of one of her socks sticking out. A loose red sweater with a wide neck hung from her narrow shoulders and she had her arms crossed at her stomach, hugging herself while she stared past the parted floral curtains at the snowy parking lot below.
She looked...sad. Like the guards she had up had fallen, the fight was gone, and the girl remaining knew she was in over her head.
He disliked being abrupt with her—she’d been through something traumatic, after all. And the trauma was potentially just beginning as evidence to charge Hartley would mean a trial and Liliana reliving all of it again. Her life had been thrown upside down from all this.
But his sympathy didn’t let him forget he had a job to do. It would make life easier for both of them if she simply trusted him, but barring that, maybe she could be scared into listening to him.
****
This guy wasn’t stupid. She’d give him that.
There was no way she’d be jumping out that window. He’d known her thought process when picking the room, definitely—there was a glass door to a small balcony, but below that just the parking lot and a handful of cars. No matter how fluffy and welcoming the rising snow looked, she wouldn’t be leaping into it. That left the hotel room door and getting past Mr. Bodyguard. She still had the thirty dollars in her pocket.
Despite what he said, she wasn’t stupid either. The problem was that of all these people, all these “experts”, not one of them knew what Jimmy was like. Or, more specifically, his mother. She had absolutely no doubt Elise Hartley would track her down and break her neck herself. Everyone knew Jimmy was trouble, caused trouble, lived and breathed trouble, but there was never a consequence for it. There wouldn’t be this time.
If Liliana was stupid, it was for trying to go to the police in the first place.
“What would you like to eat?”
She spun around, meeting O’Hara’s dark eyes.
At least he wasn’t bad to look at. A strong jaw, shaved smooth. Thirtyish, maybe. His auburn hair was short, likely more for economy of care rather than style, and he had the smooth pale skin of Irish or Scottish descent. Under his coat he wore a suit but no tie, the dress shirt open a few buttons at the throat, and beneath the clothes she suspected he cut a nice figure as well. He moved with strength and care, each step deliberate. Everything about him seemed deliberate, actually—even his face could’ve been carved intentionally, nothing left to chance. And now he stared at her like he saw everything—not just the room around them, not just her standing there, but right into her brain. He knew what she was thinking, how she thought, and had probably planned for everything.
It was not going to be easy to slip past this guy.
Liliana realized he’d asked a question and was likely waiting for an answer. “Not hungry,” she said stiffly, averted her gaze, and sat on the end of the bed. She jerked off her boots, then her wet socks, and left them in a heap. The room was warm but her jeans were still wet and irritating her skin. She couldn’t remember what was in her duffel bag beyond toiletries and some spare panties, and even then what was clean. She’d been escorted to do laundry a week ago. She’d need to do another load soon but O’Hara would probably chain her to a washer and dryer to get it done.
That or make me scrub stuff in the bathtub where he can watch me.
Her gaze narrowed on the bag at last. “That’s not mine.”
“Yes it is.”
“I remember my bag from the room.” She pulled it over and jerked down the zipper. “And it’s not...oh.” It was her bag, just stuffed in a different, slightly larger one. One that was newer, still smelled like it had come off a store shelf.
“You’d asked one of the officers to pick up your purse from your apartment,” he said just as her gaze fell on said purse. “Everything’s in there.”
He was right—there was her bag, a cheap coach purse. Some knockoff Jimmy had bought her years ago that she still carried because unlike most of his gifts, she liked it.
“I presume your cell phone’s in there.”
She looked sharply up at him. “I wasn’t gonna make any calls.”
O’Hara watched her critically, like he saw right through her.
Liliana’s cheeks heated with embarrassment. “Well, I wasn’t. Wouldn’t hurt to check my messages, though.” She pulled out the phone under his watchful eye, made a show of turning it
on and looking. The battery was almost dead anyway.
Five texts, all from Jimmy. Once voicemail.
There must’ve been something in her expression, some look of worry, that told him what she’d found, as O’Hara was immediately standing over her the second she frowned.
“What does it say?”
She sighed. “‘call me Lil. Need 2 talk 2 u. Waiting. Fine bitch i’ll call u. answer lil.’ He’s really eloquent.”
“What’s the voice message say?”
It felt a little violating, that he was standing there while she put on speakerphone a message from her ex, despite the fact that he was a killer. But then she had very little dignity left after this whole ordeal with people asking her intimate questions and mostly ignoring her privacy.
She played the message.
“Lil,” Jimmy’s smooth voice came on the other line. “C’mon, hun. We just need to talk a bit. Just you and me. We can work it out. Miss you, Lil. Give me a call so I can fix this.”
He hung up. Of course he didn’t reveal anything useful—made it sound like a simple lovers’ quarrel, not like she’d seen him kill someone.
O’Hara took the phone from her and popped the battery out, returned the empty phone to her and kept the battery himself.
“He’s making it look like we’re still dating and that I was just jealous,” she said quickly. “That’s what they told me. I left Jimmy ages ago. I don’t care if he was screwing Polly or whoever else, not my business. I cared that he killed her. That’s why I went to the cops, not ’cause I was jealous.”
“I know the story—you don’t have to convince me.”
She scowled at him. She hadn’t been trying to convince him, had she? Just explaining. Never mind that some of the guys babysitting her had made snide comments when they thought she wasn’t listening, suggesting she’d maybe made it up for revenge as a jilted lover.
“I guess you get paid whether I’m making it up or not,” she snapped.
“I read the files in detail, Miss White. I know you’re not making it up.”
“Oh.”
He called up room service despite her declining food, like he could hear her stomach rumbling across the room, and ordered some bagels, cheeses, and a fruit platter. He slipped off his shoes, sat on the other bed with his back against the headboard, and flipped on the television.
The tension in the air was thick. The more silent he was, the more irritated she grew—she actually preferred it when he was being an asshole calling her stupid, because at least then she had a target to fight back against. The way he sat there patiently, not trying to be friendly or engage her in conversation...it drove her nuts, made her fidget, until she was ready to burst.
“So this is really it?” she erupted at last. “Just...the next however long, we’re just going to sit here and watch TV?”
“Would you prefer I have someone deliver some books?”
“I’d prefer you have someone deliver champagne and male strippers.”
A knock came at the door then and O’Hara rose to answer it.
Irritated by her still damp jeans, Liliana pulled up her old duffel bag onto the bed next to her and yanked down the zipper to check the contents. She pulled out an oversized T-shirt then stood, unbuttoning her jeans. She was wiggling the tight material down over her hips when the hotel room door closed again and soft steps sounded on the plush carpet.
The steps behind her hitched. Just for a millisecond, so quick she barely noticed it, but enough to tell her he hadn’t expected her to be stripping when he returned to the room. She’d tried that the first week with the cops watching her. Got them all to leave the room flustered, which was enough time for her to make her first escape.
“Since you don’t want me leaving your sight,” she called innocently over her shoulder as she bent over and pulled her jeans off the rest of the way.
But O’Hara didn’t go scurrying away like the others. He continued right past her to set the tray of food on the wide veneer nightstand between their two beds, then sat again and resumed his browsing of the television stations available to them.
Well, Liliana had little modesty anyway, so even if it didn’t result in him getting flustered, at least she was out of her annoying jeans. She draped them over the back of a chair to dry, wandering around in just lacy boycut panties and her sweater, then took care of stretching her socks out so they could dry as well. She stripped off her sweater in favor of the large, stretched out white T-shirt that used to belong to an ex-boyfriend, but left her bra on because she wasn’t giving Mr. Bodyguard that much of a show.
Liliana slumped down at the head of the other bed, stuffing pillows against her back so she was comfortable, and plucked one of the bagels from the tray to pick at. She stared at the TV screen without paying attention.
“So who’s paying you to babysit me?” she asked at last.
O’Hara said nothing.
“It’s a secret?”
“Confidential,” he corrected. “If you haven’t been told already, then clearly they want their identity withheld.”
He had nothing to do with the police, that was for sure. They didn’t have the resources to hire someone privately like this and he would have no reason to withhold their identity.
“Seriously, how long is this supposed to go on for?”
“As long as it takes,” was his reply, voice steady and even like he was discussing the weather and not her forcible confinement.
As long as it takes...for the Hartleys to find me. And they would. Jimmy would find her. The last thing she’d see in this world was his eyes while he wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed. Just like Polly.
Liliana supressed a shiver. When that time came, O’Hara would either abandon her to save his own neck—which she expected, really, because no amount of money was worth dying to save her—or he’d try to protect her. If it was the latter, he’d get a bullet in his head. And she’d be next.
She stretched out her bare legs and crossed her ankles, tried to get comfortable, and continued picking at her bagel. Might as well eat and rest while she could.
Because O’Hara would just be delaying the inevitable and she couldn’t put her life in his hands. Liliana was getting away from him one way or another.
As soon as possible.
Chapter Three
Mike had perfected sleeping over the years. He’d trained his brain to take sleep wherever it could be found—a twenty minute nap between long trips that needed to keep him going for another full day, for example, and in any position, any place. Once a room was secure, he could drop into a deep sleep and then wake abruptly if the curtains were so much as disturbed by a slight breeze.
Even then, sleep that night wasn’t as smooth as he was used to. Liliana White had him on edge even in his dreams, it seemed, as every time he closed his eyes he expected her to make a run for it.
But when he did finally rest, the only time he woke in the night was when she’d headed to the bathroom, and then he lay there fully awake until she returned again. The light in the half-hall by the hotel room door remained on through the night, which seemed to discourage her from doing anything secretive. She hit the washroom, returned minutes later, and when she went back to sleep, so did Mike.
Minutes before eight in the morning, Mike woke again. Precisely two seconds later he knew why—a knock came at the door, and somewhere his unconscious mind must’ve heard the steps approaching.
Mike had slept in his clothes, on top of the sheets, and was out of bed and to the door in moments. Shirt and pants were a little wrinkled and his hair likely stuck up in odd ways, but he was alert and prepared.
A member of the hotel staff waited at the door with their continental breakfast as well as Mike’s overnight bag, thank God. A hot shower and a change of clothes was exactly what he needed.
He accepted the food and bag, and the door auto-locked when it shut behind him. He turned back toward the room to find Liliana still sleeping.
He’d gone right for the door, knowing only that she remained in his peripheral vision and therefore not requiring more attention as she was present, safe, and not a threat to be dealt with.
Now, however, he paused to take her in.
She’d not slept soundly, tossing and turning at some point so the sheets were left tangled about her long, shapely legs now as she rested on her side. T-shirt ridden up to expose her ass and hip, and his gaze absently traced her sleeping form. Want stirred in him unbidden, desire flashing before he could stuff it down again, kicking his heartrate up and stiffening his cock.
Mike looked away, crossing the room to set the breakfast tray on the table in the corner and his overnight bag on the dresser.
The whisper of shifting sheets sounded and he glanced up at the mirror over the dresser to see Liliana waking, rolling onto her back and stretching her arms with a yawn. Her T-shirt road up higher, the nipples of her full breasts poking at the fabric in a way that unfortunately drew his eyes even as he tried not to look. Swiftly he glanced up again to her face. She blinked sleepily and met his eyes in the mirror.
“Breakfast.” He indicated the table then returned his attention to his overnight bag. Everything was as he left it packed. Three pairs of pants—two slacks, one jeans—two T-shirts, three dress shirts, and a black sweatshirt. Five pairs of boxer-briefs. Socks. Deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste, razor and shaving cream, shampoo. Also fifteen hundred in cash locked in a hidden pocket with two extra credit cards and multiple forms of forged ID with his name—very difficult to find unless you knew where to look, and Liliana would miss it.
He withdrew the toiletries, T-shirt and jeans, and zipped up the rest of the bag. “Have something to eat. I’m taking a shower.”
Her gaze tracked him as he moved. She didn’t speak—she was likely plotting.
