by Elisa Adams
Chapter Eight
Faith leaned against the open barn door, her gaze following Sam as he searched the grounds for trespassers. Shirtless, the pale blue moonlight glistening off his muscular back, he made her stomach flip and her knees knock together like a schoolgirl with a crush. She bit back a sigh. At any given moment, death was just a heartbeat away, yet she couldn’t stop wanting him. She’d tried to distance herself, would probably keep trying, but it wouldn’t make a difference. As long as he was around, she’d keep going back for more.
In another time, another place, things would have been different. Sam was exactly the type of man she would have been attracted to in her former life, the life before she married Paul and moved up about a hundred notches in social stature. But back then, when she’d been working in the club, she hadn’t had the best taste in men.
Bile rose in her throat at the thought. For so long she’d tried to forget what her life had been like, what she’d had to stoop to in order to survive. No matter how much time passed, something always reminded her of what she’d been before she’d met Paul. Bad taste in men…what a joke. It went well past that. Back then, she hadn’t had a choice. Giving her body to Sam in return for his protection wasn’t any different. If he knew some of her secrets, he’d drop her off at the nearest bus stop and wish her luck eluding the creatures who wanted to hunt her down and kill her.
Sam made his way back to the barn, stopped in front of her with one hand shoved in the pocket of his jeans. His stance would have looked casual, had it not been for the gun gripped in his other hand.
She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, plucked out bits of hay. “Is that going to stop these…things that are after us?”
“No, but it’ll slow them down. And I thought I might need it to take care of any curious humans wandering around. Luckily, the area is clear.”
She stiffened, bit back a gasp. “You wouldn’t really shoot an innocent person, would you?”
“What do you think?” He stepped past her into of the barn, set the gun down on a shelf, and grabbed his shirt off the floor where he’d tossed it earlier. His back to her, he tugged it over his head.
“I don’t know.”
He came back to her and lifted her chin with his thumb. His gaze snagged hers, his eyes dark, angry. “I wouldn’t use it to shoot anyone, but I wouldn’t hesitate to scare them off with it. Come on, Faith. Don’t you know by now that I wouldn’t hurt an innocent person?”
“Don’t you get your kicks from killing humans?” The words slipped out before she had a chance to pull them back. She grimaced.
Sam’s gaze darkened even more. It chilled her to the bone. He dropped his hand to his side. “If I did, you’d be dead by now.”
He shook his head, walked over to the shelf and picked up his gun, stuffed it into his waistband. “Get ready. We need to get out of here.”
Without even giving her a glance, he strode to his car and opened the door.
She grabbed her things and raced after him, caught him just before he slid behind the wheel. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? Walk away when I really want to scream at you?” His gaze slid toward the barn, back to her. “I want to shake some sense into you right now. But something tells me even that isn’t going to make you believe me. If you still can’t trust me, even after all this, we have some serious problems. Get in the car.”
“It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Sam, it really isn’t. There’s so much going on. I don’t know who’s my friend and who isn’t.”
He slid her a scathing glance. “Get in the goddamned car, Faith.”
She ignored his command. “Sam, hold on. I’m not finished. We still need to talk—”
“Shut up for a second. Just shut up.” He lifted her by her arms, walked her around to the passenger side door and dropped her on her feet. He yanked the door open and crossed his arms over his chest. “Get in the fucking car.”
The low, harsh whispered tone sent a shock through her. She jumped into the seat and slammed the door closed. Her heart pounding, she fastened her seat belt and rubbed her hands up and down her sore arms.
After a few minutes, Sam slid behind the wheel, cleared his throat. “Faith?”
“What?” She stared straight ahead as he started the car and pulled it away from the barn, back onto the dirt drive.
“I’m sorry.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, took in his contrite expression and worried gaze. She swallowed hard. When had she last heard those words from a man’s lips? She couldn’t think of a time. The two simple words melted some of her fear and anger. She’d asked a lot of him, and he hadn’t let her down yet. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Shouldn’t have grabbed you.” He let out a rough sigh, ran a big hand through his hair. “I just don’t like to have my integrity called into question.”
“Yeah, I kinda noticed.” She put her hand on his arm. “Look, I’ve had a hard life. Trust doesn’t come easily to me, especially trust in men I barely know.”
“You know me better than most women do.” He shook his head, shrugged off her touch. “And I’m sure being married to Paul Richardson, living in that big, expensive house was a real hardship.”
Her stomach twisted into a painful knot. “You don’t know anything about my life, Sam. Nothing at all. You have no idea the hell I had to live through, what I went through before I met Paul.”
He barked a laugh, turned his car onto the rural road that would take them away from the barn—and safety. “Sure you did. Hell, huh? Did you grow up in a house that only had four bedrooms and no big screen TV?”
She clenched her hands into fists in her lap. Her pulse kicked up a notch. Tears formed in the corners of her eye, the images of her childhood flashed through her mind. A house big enough to hold even two bedrooms would have seemed like a mansion. “I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in a crappy building that was falling down around us. The neighbor on the left sold drugs and the one on the right beat his wife every single night after he downed a six-pack or two. My mother was sick. Really sick. She had cancer. We had no insurance and couldn’t pay for medical care, and she couldn’t work to pay the rent and buy groceries, so I did what I had to do to make money.”
The tears left her eyes, streamed down her face in red-hot rivulets. All she’d tried to bury came racing back, the stench of sweat and garbage and decay, the peeling paint, the broken light fixtures, the walls so paper-thin they seemed to amplify noises rather than disguise them.
The acrid scent of beer, whiskey on their breath. Their sweating, roaming hands. The rundown room above the club with the bare mattress and worn rug.
She’d been barely nineteen, working long hours at a local club just to pay the rent, buy food, and pay for her mother’s doctor appointments.
“What did you do?” He spoke so softly she barely heard him. His hand hovered over her leg, but he pulled it back before he made contact.
She stifled a sob. “I did what I could. What I had to do. I waited tables at a seedy little strip club, a place close to the house so that if my mom needed me I could be there in a few minutes. The money wasn’t great, and when my boss offered me a much better opportunity, I took it.”
She slid a glance to him. His grip tightened on the wheel, his knuckles white. His hard gaze focused on the road. “What did he offer you?”
The harsh tone of his voice made her hesitate, but when she looked at him again she caught a glimpse of anger in his eyes. He knew what she would tell him, and he didn’t like it. She pressed on with her story, a small part of her glad to finally get the truth out in the open. If he decided he didn’t want her after that, she would find a way to deal with it.
“I stripped, Sam. I took off my clothes in front of men every night, just to make a buck.” A small laugh escaped her throat. “But you know, I didn’t mind the stripping. I made decent money, even
though the club was small, and it was just my body. None of them could touch, at least not there.”
He sucked in a breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The money was good, but after a while it wasn’t enough. My dad had walked out not too long before my mom got sick, left us with a lot of gambling debts that had to be paid back somehow. I didn’t want anything to happen to me or my mother, and I didn’t want to end up on the street, so I found a way to make more money. This time, tax-free.”
Sam jerked the wheel to the right. The tires squealed as he pulled the car over to the side of the road and slammed it into park. He smacked his palms down on the wheel, his face red, his gaze still focused on some point ahead of them. He said nothing, but tension radiated off him in droves.
“What’s the matter? Don’t have anything to say to that?”
He turned to her, his eyes nearly glowing with anger. “I want to kill them all. Any man who put his filthy hands on you.”
“It was just my body, Sam.” He wanted the truth? Well, he’d get it all. Every last sordid detail. And then she’d see, once and for all, where they stood. “Did you really think I was some innocent little rich girl who’d never been touched until she married? Not even close. Paul was the only one who didn’t use me. And the only one who didn’t lay a hand on my body.”
“Not even once?”
“No. I told you before that Paul and I didn’t have that kind of a relationship. He wasn’t all that interested in women, especially women half his age. But when we met, he was at the club with some business partners and he saw me dance. To make a long story short, he offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse. We married, and he took care of me and my mom until she died last year. I’d saved up some money to live on my own and had planned to file for divorce. But now…”
She sniffed. Though she’d never had romantic feelings for him, Paul had been a good friend. She missed the friendship now more than ever, when she was running for her life, alone and scared.
No. She wasn’t alone. She had Sam.
She stole a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. Where Paul had been fair, jovial and caring, Sam was dark and dangerous. Mysterious. Terrifying. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up hurt. But she trusted him. With her life. Not with her heart. She’d never given her heart to any man, and she wouldn’t start with a demon that had no use for her past a warm body to fill his bed.
“No comments, Sam?”
“No. No comments. We have a lot to do. We need to get you to safety.” He pulled the car back onto the road.
They rode for a while in silence, what seemed like an eternity, before Sam finally spoke. “I’m sorry I misjudged you.”
“What’s this? Another apology? Two in a day. In an hour, no less. That has to be some kind of record for the male species.”
“Ha, ha. I have a deal to make with you.” He glanced at her. Humor danced in his eyes, lightened her heart.
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? And what kind of deal would that be?”
“How about I stop judging you, if you stop thinking I’m some kind of monster who’s going to turn on you at the first opportunity?”
She smiled. “I think we can work that out.”
* * * * *
Faith lay silent in the seat next to him, soft snores escaping her parted lips. Her angelic beauty struck Sam through the heart. He laughed softly. When she woke, she wouldn’t seem nearly so innocent.
Her confessions had stunned him, sent a ball of rage through his gut. He never would have let her live like that, in poverty, giving her body to a different man every night just to keep her and her mother fed and with a roof over their heads. Even though he hadn’t known her then, still he felt like he’d failed her in some way. She hadn’t deserved it, any of it, and he hadn’t been there to protect her.
It would never happen again.
He lifted his phone from the clip, flipped it open and dialed Eric’s number.
Eric answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“Find anything yet?”
He let out a long, frustrated breath. “Yeah, I think so. How is she doing?”
“She’s fine. Sleeping. What did you find?”
“First, I think you should know something.” Eric paused, continued in a softer tone. “The police are after you.”
“What?”
“Don’t they get the news in those hotel rooms you’ve been staying in?”
Sam pushed a hand through his hair, glanced in the rearview mirror. “We didn’t stay in a hotel today. Tell me what’s going on, Eric. Why are the police involved?”
“I don’t know where they got their information, but they think the person who murdered Paul kidnapped Faith.”
He shot her a glance. “I didn’t kidnap her.”
“Yeah, I know. But they don’t.” Eric paused. “There’s more.”
A hard knot of dread formed in Sam’s stomach. “What else?”
“It took a little bit of digging, but I found the owner of Marganis Pharmaceuticals.”
“Well, then. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I traced the company back to Thom Nicholas. Sound familiar?”
“Tomaz.” The knot of dread turned into a two-ton weight, twisting and turning until he thought he’d double over from the pain. Why had he not seen this before? He’d known Richardson had been involved in some bad dealings, but this new information took it to another level. He’d been involved with a ruthless demon that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. In this case, he wanted the formula Richardson had created. A formula with very sinister implications.
“Where are you headed?” Eric asked, his tone soft.
“We’re in New Jersey right now. These guys don’t give up.”
“And they aren’t going to. They think she has the formula, and they want it. Sam, you’d be better off turning around and coming back. We could help you.”
“No.” He tightened his grip on the wheel, pressed down a little harder on the gas pedal. The scenery flew by. “Where is he, Eric?”
“Going after him yourself isn’t a good idea.”
“Save the righteousness for someone who cares. Tell me where he is, or I’ll rip your throat out the next time I see you.”
Used to Sam’s threats, Eric laughed. “I wouldn’t want you to have to deal with Ellie’s wrath if you did something that stupid and impulsive. Trust me. Right now is not a good time to piss her off. Stay somewhere out of the way. I’ll come down and help you. We’ll take care of this together.”
“No. Tell me where he is.” Aggravation, anger welled inside him, driving him to the breaking point. Destroying Tomaz, after all these years, was something he needed to do on his own. He wouldn’t put Eric’s life at risk.
Eric let out a resigned sigh. “Georgia. In a little town in the mountains near a place called Clayton. If you give me another couple hours, I can get you directions.”
“Yeah. Fine. Let me know when you have an exact location.”
He disconnected the call before Eric could again make his offer of unwanted assistance. Sam wouldn’t involve anyone else in this mess. If he got himself killed, so be it. But he wouldn’t allow anything to happen to a man he considered family as much as friend.
He turned to the right, steered the car onto another quiet back road. For the rest of the journey they would have to avoid the main roads, lessening their chances of running into the police. With no back window, his car would arouse speculation—which would lead to all kinds of problems. Better to drive an extra hour or two than to risk Faith’s life, and maybe his own.
Tomaz.
The name sent a chill through him. The demon who had once tried to destroy him—who had succeeded in destroying everything that meant anything to him all those years ago.
He drew a deep breath, let the soft floral scent of the woman next to him ease his nerves and strengthen his resolve. He’d failed his son so long ago. He wouldn’t fail his woman now.
>
* * * * *
“Shit.” Eric pushed away from the desk and stood up, stalked to the window across the room. Had Sam known what he was getting himself into from the start?
Most likely. The man didn’t do anything without a reason. And now he was heading south toward something that would break him, pull him apart. Probably kill him.
“What’s wrong, Eric?”
He glanced over his shoulder to find his mate standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrows raised. “What are you doing awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep. You talked to Sam?”
He nodded. Ellie walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Where is he?”
“On his way to Georgia.”
Her lips brushed his back. “And I’m assuming you tried to stop him.”
“Of course I tried, but you know as well as I do my words meant nothing to him. Not when he’s already set in his purpose. All he cares about is killing Tomaz. Everything else has to take a backseat to that.”
“No. He cares about her, too.”
“Faith?”
“Yes.” She kissed between his shoulder blades, moved toward the desk and sank into his chair. “He wouldn’t take her with him if he didn’t.”
“I don’t know. He said she was in danger. It’s a bad situation all around. He’s going to get them both killed.”
Ellie shook her head, her silky dark hair fanning over her shoulders. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m going to Georgia, whether he wants me there or not.”
Ellie sighed, settled back in the chair. “I figured as much. I’ll call Merida. You go and pack.”
* * * * *
Faith woke just as Sam shut off the car. She covered her mouth, yawned and stretched. The sun had yet to rise, the world around them still dark and gloomy as it had been when she’d fallen asleep. She glanced around at an empty expanse of parking lot surrounded by trees. A single, dark building sat at the edge of the lot. Just past the hunkering building, she caught sight of houses cast in the golden glow of streetlights. A neighborhood. “Where are we?”
