This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Danielle Bourdon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503952058
ISBN-10: 1503952053
Cover design by Jason Blackburn
Thank you to my entire extended family—the Bourdons, the Sleighs, the Ways. Your love and support mean the world to me.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Madalina Maitland did not believe in portents. She did not believe that the sinister whistle of wind that arrived exactly at midnight, pushing under the door of her clothing boutique Uptown Couture, was anything more than the blustery beginning of a storm front. It certainly wasn’t an omen that her already trying day was about to take a turn for the worse.
The high, sharp whistle, which almost sounded like something a human would make, did startle her. She rose from her crouch, inventory clipboard in hand, forgetting about the shelf of purses she’d been in the middle of counting.
She surveyed the entrance to the store with a critical eye and a chill down her spine. Tall windows refracted the interior light, making it all but impossible for her to see anything in the darkness beyond. It was as if the night had swallowed the outside world, leaving nothing but a black void behind.
If anyone stood on the broad walkway in front of the store, they would be able to see her standing there like a deer in the headlights, but she couldn’t see a thing except the reflection of the clothing racks that surrounded her. As if anyone would be standing there anyway. The boutique, located in a mediocre strip mall, had closed its doors to the public two hours ago. The other businesses were also closed, their employees long gone for the evening.
Madalina chided herself for being startled by nothing more frightening than a breeze. Unexpected noises sometimes made her jumpy.
She realized as she scanned the floor-to-ceiling windows that her new sales assistant hadn’t flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED before leaving.
“I wonder if she forgot to lock the doors, too,” Madalina murmured to herself. One of the hard, steadfast rules of the boutique was that no employee should be alone after dark. And if someone had to be there alone—such as doing inventories that could not wait—then the doors had to be locked at all times.
As another howl of wind tore across the front of the shop, sounding less like a man’s whistle and more like the mournful cry of a wolf, Madalina set down her clipboard and fished her keys from a pocket. She always dressed at the height of fashion during her shifts, which meant skirts and pantsuits and sometimes cocktail dresses. Today it was a dove-gray pantsuit with matching embroidery on the lapels and cuffs. She threaded her way around racks of elegant clothing, heels clicking on the shiny linoleum floor.
The door opened a crack when Madalina gave it a push. Muttering under her breath, she locked the door and flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED. Had anyone wanted to rob the store, the burglar would have had easy access straight through the front entrance.
Ten minutes later, as she was finishing up inventory on the final shelf of purses, Madalina’s cell phone rang. She knew without checking the caller ID who it would be.
“Hi, baby,” she answered, anxious to hear Cole’s voice. Her boyfriend was probably pacing the house by now, wondering why she wasn’t home. “I’m almost done.”
“You’re really late. You want me to come up there?” he asked. The sound of keys rattling in the background made her think Cole had the key chain in hand, like he couldn’t decide whether to stay put or walk out the door.
“No, no. All I have to do is log the final numbers. It shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes, twenty tops.” Madalina tucked the clipboard beneath her arm and headed through the racks of clothes, shoes, and accessories toward the counter at the back.
“You sure? You thought you’d be home around ten forty-five,” he said.
Madalina knew Cole was still overprotective from recent events regarding Chinese artifacts she’d inherited in her grandfather’s will. The stone dragons, sought after by hard-core collectors and agents who wanted the remaining dragons returned to the original collection, had resulted in abductions, car chases, and home invasions. All of it had left him more cautious than before, even though it appeared the situation had come to a close. Though appearances, as she and Cole had learned the hard way, could be deceiving. Appearances were not reassurances. The agents or another collector could pop up anytime. Until the final two dragons were found—and Madalina had no idea where they were—the collection remained incomplete. And that meant that she and Cole needed to be vigilant until more time had passed without incident. Until they truly knew the threat was gone. This was the cause of Cole’s current fidgety restlessness.
He wouldn’t be happy at all to hear that her assistant had gone home early.
“Well, I would have been. Except my new sales assistant had to leave. That meant I had to do her inventory list, too.” Setting the clipboard on the counter, she brought the computer to life and sat down in the seat. Holding the phone between her ear and shoulder, she put her fingers on the keys.
“So you’re there alone.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. But I’m almost done. Hey, is there a storm brewing or something? The wind has been brutal here. I’d like to know if I’m going to be driving home in the rain.” Madalina attempted to distract Cole before he simply left the house and drove to the shop. It wasn’t far, but by the time he got here, she would be nearly finished and ready to depart, and she’d still be driving her own car home anyway.
“The radar says you’ve got about ten minutes before it hits. So write faster,” he said, sounding unconvinced that he shouldn’t drive to meet her.
“Type faster,” she corrected. Her fingers flew over the keys while her eyes followed the numbers in a column on the clipboard.
“I still think I should come up there.”
“If I get off the phone now, I’ll be done quicker. We’ll wind up passing each other on the road.” Not quite, but close.
He grunted.
“Love you, Cole,” she said, and ended the call. Setting the phone down, she settled in to type. Three minutes later, well before she finished her work, lightning flicker-flashed out the front windows. Booming thunder followed the
bright strobe.
The storm had arrived sooner than the radar had predicted.
She hesitated only a second before closing the laptop and unplugging the cord. Entering the numbers into the system would just have to wait until morning. Such was the life of the self-employed. Despite the inconvenience, Madalina wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Gathering her purse and phone, she glanced out over the racks of secondhand, upscale clothes and snapped off all but one small light behind the counter. Now she could see out the windows to the sidewalk and the parking lot beyond.
The rain hadn’t yet begun to fall.
Entering a short hall just past the counter, she pushed through a set of double swinging doors into the back. Shelves full of unpriced, untagged clothes lined the walls of the moderate space. Stacks of shoes in boxes took up an entire ten-by-ten-foot area adjacent to a niche that served as a break room. A tiny table and two chairs, along with a coffeepot, minifridge, and microwave, was the extent of the break area.
The original plan between her and Lianne had been to make a success of the boutique at this location and then move the store to a more exclusive neighborhood. Of late, Madalina’s interest in the boutique had waned a little (or a lot, depending which day you asked). For months she’d been wildly distracted with Cole’s job. As an employee of his father’s secretive security firm, Cole’s exact job title was as clandestine as the missions the firm sent him out on. Now and then she gleaned snippets of information from overheard conversations and Cole’s willingness to tell her what he could, when he could. If it was a simple matter of fact-finding or personnel locating, he didn’t mind filling her in. Other times, he gave her only a steadfast glance and no explanations. Those were the days when she knew his life was in the most danger. She alternated between wanting to know more and not wanting to know anything at all. Solving puzzles and figuring out mysteries was right up her alley; shootouts and abductions were not.
Consumed with thoughts of secret missions and her future, Madalina let herself out the back door and locked it behind her. Parking at the back of the strip mall was designated for delivery trucks and shop employees only. Uptown Couture’s slots were fifteen feet from the door, all empty except for her cherry-red Cadillac sedan, which sat directly beneath a circle of light cast down from a streetlamp.
A gust of wind ruffled the dark layers of her hair as she crossed the parking lot to her car. She used the remote to turn off the alarm, and glanced up as a streak of lightning ripped through the sky. Rain was imminent; she could smell it in the air.
Opening the car door, Madalina slid the straps of her purse down her arm to her fingers, intending on slinging the bag across to the passenger seat. In that moment when she gripped the straps tight, an overwhelming sense of danger hit with the force of a sledgehammer. Perhaps it was the feel of another body behind her, or the faint crunch of gravel beneath someone’s shoe. Maybe it was the scent of a stranger, tangy and salty and coarse, or even the whispery rush of air that had nothing to do with the wind. Whatever the case, she knew she was under attack.
Swinging her purse backward like a weapon, she struck the shoulder of a man who stood at least a foot taller than she was. The purse ripped away from her hand at the impact and fell to the pavement, the contents scattering in all directions. Her phone clattered to the ground a few feet from the purse. Even then the man was wrapping his arms around her, shoving her backward against the car. Madalina couldn’t see anything past the black face mask except a pair of determined brown eyes—eyes she glimpsed for only a second as the battle began in earnest.
Grappling with the assailant, she kicked his shin and maneuvered a key between her fingers. Once she had a firm grip, she stabbed the pointy end at his side. The key did not penetrate the flesh thanks to the layers of dark clothing, but it did force a grunt of pain from the man and a temporary loosening of his grip. She kneed him, missing the groin and hitting his thigh instead. The keys fell from her fingers, landing with a jarring clank on the ground.
Without warning, a hand appeared and covered her mouth. Struggling, she slammed her elbow backward and twisted her torso, a futile effort to remove the second man at her back.
She kicked, trying to scream, the sound muffled against the attacker’s palm.
Lightning streaked overhead, followed shortly by thunder.
Rain fell. First just a few fat drops, then a deluge.
Dragged across the parking lot, Madalina felt consciousness slipping away. The edges of her vision darkened, and her limbs grew weak. She fought harder, desperate to remove the suffocating hand from her mouth.
The last thing she saw was the open door to a car that was not her own—not a car, a van—and a third masked face watching. Waiting. Waiting to help her abductors lift her into the strange vehicle and angle her across the seat.
She knew no more.
Cole paced the interior of the Tudor-style house with his phone in hand, waiting impatiently for Madalina to get home. He saw little of the elegant décor, the plush leather sofas, or the Persian carpets spaced out over pretty Italian tile. The sounds of the storm increased with each new minute that passed; rain pounded the roof, thunder shook the heavens, and lightning flashed through the windows. Southern California didn’t typically see raging storms of this magnitude. In the months he’d lived here with Madalina, the most dramatic weather he’d witnessed were the hot days of summer and a few sprinkles in fall. He considered mist to be what other Californians called rain. Now it was mid-October, and it sounded a lot like the end of the world might be happening outside his front door.
He paused by a window that gave him a good view of the driveway.
No headlights, no cherry-red sedan.
Don’t call again. Every time you call, you just distract her. Glancing at the grandfather clock, he took note that it had been fifteen minutes since they’d spoken. Still early. She’d said fifteen to twenty, plus driving time.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he strode away from the window. He could feel his muscles begin to tighten from the strain of waiting. If she hadn’t been abducted before, if they hadn’t been through so much with the dragons, he wouldn’t be this tense and worried. All had been quiet since the last incident a couple of months ago; he and Madalina had been left to live without disruption or interference. Cole couldn’t be positive that the surveillance had stopped completely, but the lack of action and interruption encouraged him to believe that he and Madalina might be well on their way to putting the agents and the dragons in the past.
He checked his phone. Nothing. No message. I should have told her to text me right before she walked out the door.
Arriving back at the same mullioned window, he stared at the dark street. It wasn’t a typical residential street where any number of cars might drive by. They resided in a gated community, which meant the vehicular traffic was limited to residents and the occasional visitor. Strangers could not use their streets as shortcuts, nor would the gate guards allow just anyone to get inside.
Cole had chosen such safety measures for a reason.
Rain fell in sheets, adding a silvery sheen to the night. Rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscles, he tilted his chin left and right, stretching the creeping stiffness from his neck. He knew he wouldn’t feel better until he saw her car pull into the driveway.
The eruption of a rock song from his phone cut through the stillness. He raised the phone to his ear. “Brandon.”
“Hey, hey, brother. What’s shakin’?” Brandon said in his cheery voice.
“Nothing. What’s up?” Cole asked.
“Whoa. You sound angry or agitated. Did you and Mad have a fight?”
“It’s Madalina, and no, we didn’t have a fight.” In the back of his mind, Cole marked the minutes, keeping track of time.
“She doesn’t care that I call her Mad,” Brandon pointed out.
“I care.”
“You don’t usually care—what’s wrong, Cole?” Brandon’s jovial tone to
ok a turn at the end toward seriousness. As if he could tell that something was bothering his brother.
Cole ground his molars together. He didn’t want to admit that he was impatient for Madalina to get home. It would sound . . . paranoid. Despite the fact that he had good reason to be paranoid, he disliked appearing too controlling or desperate to his siblings. Once more he rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Just waiting for Madalina to get home from work, that’s all. We’ve got bad weather here for a change, and she’s driving in it.”
Brandon clucked his tongue in a way that suggested he was reading between the lines. After a moment he said, “Yeah, who knew it could rain this hard in California?”
“Wait. You’re here?” Cole checked the street again; no sign of Madalina yet.
“It was supposed to be a surprise, but you know me. I got impatient,” Brandon said.
In the background someone else said, “Impatience runs in the family.”
Cole recognized his brother Damon’s voice. “What brings you both out here? You didn’t mention you were coming when I talked to you yesterday.”
“Madalina’s birthday is tomorrow, so we thought we’d pop out and give her our present in person. Sam and Thaddeus are dealing with work and couldn’t make it,” Damon said.
“Did you two bozos ever consider that I might be taking Madalina away for her birthday? That maybe I had plans?” Cole wasn’t angry; he was glad that his brothers got along well with his girlfriend. And she with them.
Damon chuckled; Brandon guffawed.
“If you were taking her to some exotic locale, you would have mentioned it to us before now,” Brandon countered. “So don’t try to pretend that we’re an inconvenience. Here’s what I think you’re going to do. You’ll take her to some swank restaurant with a great view, wine and dine her, and then take her home after giving her a gift. What’d you get her . . . a bracelet? Earrings? Boring.”
A Dangerous Tryst (The Inheritance Book 3) Page 1
