by Lori Ryan
Lyra hated the shaking in her voice when she answered. “I don’t know.” She told Tracy everything that had happened in the last hour and listened to Tracy’s short rant about Luke being a rat-fink bastard.
Lyra closed her eyes. She wasn’t thinking about that part of the whole thing yet. She was choosing to focus on Billy, because focusing on Luke would hurt too damned much. Acknowledging the betrayal would make it too real, and she simply wasn’t ready to face that yet. She had stupidly let herself feel something for the man, even though she didn’t truly know him yet. That had been foolish, but she’d deal with that later.
“I’ll call Mitch right now. I’m going to get Savvy to come there to be with you.” Tracy and Savannah lived in neighboring apartments. Lyra knew Tracy would take the monitor from Savannah’s and sit in the hallway to listen for either of their kids. She’d sit awake as long as Savvy needed to be with Lyra, even if it meant they all went to work exhausted the following day. They were family. It’s what they did.
Lyra nodded even though Tracy couldn’t see it. “Thank you.” She whispered the words.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Luke shut everything out as he and Billy walked to his car. When he’d gotten in, Luke placed a call to his brother.
“Yo.” Zach didn’t sound like he’d been sleeping at all.
“I need a safe house. You have something I can use?”
It wasn’t unusual for officers or agents from other jurisdictions to use a safe house, or even a jail cell overnight, when they were passing through cities or towns. But Luke wasn’t in a position to call the local PD and ask for help in this scenario. He needed someplace he could stick Billy and someone he trusted to watch him. That meant Zach. As much as he hated to put his brother in the position he was about to stick him in, it had to be done.
Zach was quiet for a minute before answering. “Not anything off the books. Come to my place.”
“Is Shauna there?” It was bad enough he was putting Zach in this position. He wouldn’t put his brother’s girlfriend’s job in jeopardy, too. Shauna was a detective for the state of Connecticut, clearing cold cases in a specialized unit.
“No. She had to run to New York to chase a lead. Won’t be home until sometime tomorrow,” Zach answered.
“Can you take off for a few days? I need extra eyes right now.”
“You’re working without backup?”
“Without backup, without a net, without a damned thing. And there are . . . complications.” Most notably, his feelings for a gorgeous woman and her incredible girls. He couldn’t let Lyra get hurt in all this. “See you in five.”
Luke hung up and started the car, glancing at Billy. Sure, Luke could take him to the commander. But right now, Luke’s priority was to clear Lyra. He would close down the auction, too, but he planned to protect Lyra and the girls first. The Commander would consider Lyra expendable and worry about whether she was innocent or guilty later. To hell with the consequences to her girls or her life in the meantime.
It’s what Luke would have done at one time, too. Collateral damage couldn’t always be helped when you were up against the kind of shit they fought against. But, apparently, sometime in the past eight years—or, hell, maybe in the past two months—his priorities had shifted.
Billy was looking a little bug-eyed and Luke knew the kid had to be freaking. He’d played a dangerous game, and he’d lost. To his credit, he was standing up and doing what needed to be done now. It wasn’t much but it was something.
When they arrived at Zach’s place, his brother opened the door as they approached and glanced outside when they entered. Luke pulled him aside and gave him a three-minute rundown of the case he’d been working under the radar. His brother’s eyebrows met the sky, but he didn’t comment. Luke had a feeling he’d be hearing some shit later, but that could—and would—wait.
Zach leaned against the doorjamb, taking in everything even as he looked for all the world like he was simply standing casually. One shoulder held the wall up, but Luke knew his brother was ready to move the instant it became necessary. It shouldn’t. Billy was too motivated to protect Lyra at this point to try something stupid.
“Let’s start with whose dumb ass idea this was and who’s involved,” Luke said, putting a recorder out on the table between he and Billy. He wasn’t detaining Billy. The kid was free to go if he wanted to, so there wasn’t any need right now to worry about rights or lawyers or shit like that.
“It was my idea, but this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.” Billy’s eyes pleaded, but Luke just waited for him, neither absolving nor judging, for now. “It was supposed to be a way to get other people to hack shit for us. Me and Damon aren’t hackers, but we were able to get all these people to tell us backdoors and secret weaknesses of their companies.”
“Tell me who else was involved. Who set up Lyra?” Luke saw Zach’s gaze flick to his, then back to Billy’s.
“Damon. Damon Taylor.”
Luke saw Zach take out his phone and begin to text. “Off the record, Zach,” he shot to his brother who answered with a nod, not looking up. Luke looked back to Billy and nodded for him to continue.
“Damon and me went to school together. He’s wicked smart, but no one realizes how smart he is. I guess I didn’t either. I never thought he’d fuck with my sister like this.”
“Was Joel involved?”
“No. He didn’t know anything about it. We knew he wouldn’t have the stomach for it. Or he’d blab about it to Lyra and she would have flipped.” Billy glanced away. Maybe he should start using whether Lyra would flip or not as his criteria for what to do in life, Luke reflected.
“When did Damon start setting up the auction?” Luke knew the answer to this but wanted to see how much Billy knew.
“I don’t know, man.” He raised his hands, palms out, to stress his innocence. “Honest to God, first I found out about it was the train thing. As soon as I saw that, I knew. I just knew. I recognized it from the groups.”
Luke shifted in his seat and avoided looking at his brother. He would never get past the role he played in that. It had been necessary. That he knew. But it would stay with him.
“Soon as I saw that,” Billy went on, “I called Damon. That’s when he told me he wasn’t taking the information to the companies like he’d planned.”
“And Damon locked you out of things?” Luke asked.
Billy’s nod was miserable. “Yeah. I can’t get into anything. Joel tried, too, but he couldn’t get in either. Joel owns a company that works with computers and programming and all that shit, but he doesn’t know all that much as far as that shit goes. His dad just funded the company. I think his dad even told him what to do, said computers would treat him right, or some shit. Turns out, the business was actually making a go of it.”
“So how did Damon succeed in setting up Lyra?” Luke picked up the papers Billy had printed out and looked through them again. They weren’t good.
“He used the computers at Joel’s office to remotely log in to Lyra’s computer.” He gave a nod to the papers. “I’m hoping we can prove she was someplace with witnesses when these things happened. Maybe I can clear her that way.”
Luke nodded. “So, Damon has enough computer knowledge to do that? To set things up in Lyra’s name and to get into Joel’s computer?” Luke asked. Something wasn’t adding up about that.
Billy shrugged. “He said he was handling it. He must have because I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t set her up. We both had identities in the room so we could talk to the people and milk them for shit. Get them to talk. Damon was the one that killed it at that, though. He’s good at fucking with people’s minds. He made them feel like what they were doing was safe. He’d tell me what to do most of the time, like if I should act like I was giving up info or whatever with one of my fake identities so one of the people in the room would get more comfortable and start to open up. Once they saw someone else doing it, it became easier for them to spill their sec
rets. Or sometimes he’d tell me to taunt someone a little or something while he played the supportive card, or whatever. Damon knew all that. I guess I didn’t want to see it, but the more I think about it, the more I realize if he’s fucking with peoples’ heads, he’s happy.”
Luke looked to Zach. “Any chance we can get someone to help us with the computer side of things?” He lowered his voice. “Maybe Sam can help?”
Zach nodded and stepped into the kitchen. If his brother could get ahold of Samantha Stone and enlist her help and the help of her husband, Luke would feel a hell of a lot better about this. Samantha worked for a local company, but she was also one of the top hackers in the nation, if not the world. She often did freelance jobs for federal agencies, and had clearances to match. Her husband, Logan, was a former SEAL. He and Luke hadn’t known each other on the teams, but they’d met several times since retirement, and Luke would trust Logan with his life. As backup went, the two would be hard to beat.
“How do you think Damon got into Joel’s computer?” Luke looked back at Billy, knowing there was something they were missing here.
Billy shrugged. “That part was easy. Joel was never very careful with anything. Damon and I both have the alarm code to the building his offices are in and his computer passwords. We have for years. It would have been easy for Damon to use Joel’s computer to access Lyra’s home network.” He lowered his head. “I never thought he’d try to put this on Lyra. Never.”
“And you’re sure Joel didn’t help him?”
“No. He was shocked. He’s pretty afraid his business is going to be implicated and he’ll take the fall for some of this, but he had no idea. When I showed up there earlier, he was clueless.”
Luke chewed on that. Was it possible Damon had pulled Joel in without telling Billy? Would Joel have wanted something to hold over Lyra’s head? Maybe he thought he could come in and save her at the last minute, and win her heart that way? Maybe he didn’t bet on Damon using the information before he did and things got out of control? Or maybe he planned to use the information to exert pressure of his own on her. The thought stoked the fire raging through Luke. He’d tear the asshole apart.
Billy’s phone chimed an alert on the coffee table and Luke leaned in to pick it up before Billy could. What he saw when he swiped his finger across the screen took him a minute to process. It seemed like his head was fighting it, wanting it to be wrong so badly, it threw up roadblocks against the information. But there was no fighting it. His gut clenched and his heart seemed to stutter before locking up in his chest.
A picture had been sent to Billy. A picture of Lyra and the girls. And what Luke saw in the picture sent him over the edge. He was on Billy in a heartbeat, a growl building from deep inside him as he erupted.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lyra smiled for the girls and told them she’d get them out of there and get them back home. Things had gone past the point where she could tell them it was all a game. The marks on her face were enough to scare the hell out of them and she knew this was something they wouldn’t get over lightly, even if she got them out of it. Their own faces were tear-streaked and part of her wanted to launch herself at Damon and claw his eyes out for doing this to her girls.
Not if. When. When she got them out of this. She would get them out of this. Her thoughts flew to Luke and she prayed like hell he would be looking for them, but she wasn’t one to sit and wait for a knight in shining armor to save her. Life had taught her that knights were often too busy riding their horses to do the real heavy lifting.
She had given herself ten minutes to curse herself for opening the door without checking to see who it was at such a late hour. Truthfully, she couldn’t really beat herself up over that. When she’d seen it was Mrs. Lawson’s nephew, Murphy, at her door, she’d been surprised to see him, but she hadn’t thought anything was wrong. She’d been expecting to see either Neil or Savvy on her doorstep. She’d talked to Neil by phone and he was trying to find out where Luke would have taken Billy and if he could get in to see him. The if part of that had thrown her. Surely, they’d let his lawyer in to see him? To represent him?
Apparently, when you engaged in acts that were arguably terrorism, things played out a little differently. Not to mention, she had no idea what agency Luke was even linked with. It struck her she wasn’t even sure if that was his real name and she hated the fact that despite that, she was still hoping he would rescue them.
It had taken Lyra several seconds to react to the weapon in Murphy’s hand, to process the fact he was holding a gun on her. He had pushed her into her apartment and shut the door before she could move. She’d tried to fight him when he’d made a move toward the hallway where Alyssa and Prentiss slept. They’d wrestled and she had clawed at his face, scratching him hard and drawing blood. It was only then that he’d struck her with the butt of the gun across the side of her head.
He’d looked almost sick at what he’d done. He even apologized. It hadn’t kept him from rounding up her and the girls and threatening to shoot them if she didn’t follow orders. If she didn’t do exactly as he said and leave the apartment complex quietly with him.
Lyra shook off the memory and pulled the girls into her lap as she looked around them. The room was small and there was nothing more than the bed they sat on in it. She hesitated to describe it as a bedroom with its lack of windows and furnishings. She’d tried the door already. It was locked from the outside. There was nothing besides the bed frame in the room.
“They’re fighting, Mama.” Prentiss’s voice was small and shaky and Lyra knew the muffled voices outside the door were scaring her. They were scaring Lyra, and she was an adult.
Lyra pressed her mouth close to Prentiss’s ear. “It’s all right, baby. Try not to listen to them.” She glanced at the door and back down at the bed they were sitting on. The frame was a plain metal frame, the kind you could add to a mattress purchase for forty-nine-ninety-nine. If any of the bolts were loose, she might be able to get a leg or one of the bars that braced the mattress on the underside of the bed off. A hard enough crack in the head with it might take a man down.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of arguing. She knew the voices. One was Murphy and the other was Damon. She never would have dreamed Damon would hurt her or the girls, but she was absolutely sure it was him. Worse, he seemed to be in charge. At least, that’s the way it sounded, given he was now telling Murphy to shut up and do what he was told. His voice was cold and hard, sending a shiver of dread through her.
She gestured with one finger over her mouth to the girls and then moved them down onto the floor. As quietly as possible, she slid beneath the bed and looked at the bottom side of the frame. Just as she’d hoped. On the frame she’d had like this in college, there had been an extra bar down the center that was connected on one side. It was made to swing into place if the user extended the bed to accommodate a queen-sized mattress.
Lyra worked her fingers over the bolt holding the one side to the frame, loosening it until it came off all the way. She slid the metal down onto the floor. Sliding out to sit next to the girls again, she wiped the small bit of oil that covered her fingers on the inside of her shirt before pulling the metal piece over close to her. It was still under the bed where the men wouldn’t see it if they entered but she could grasp it if she needed it.
She played through scenarios in her head. The metal was long, about six feet. It wasn’t too heavy. She’d be able to swing it, but it would do some damage if she could get the metal to connect with someone’s head. Her best bet would be if some of the men left. If she was left with only one person to guard them at any point, she might be able to lure whoever it was into the room and strike.
Her eyes went to her girls again and she cringed at the idea of luring one of the men into the room where her girls were. It was one thing to take risks if it was just herself at stake. But what choice did she have? She could either sit here and hope someone rescued them, or maybe that the men
let them go after they got whatever it was they wanted from Billy—or she could be ready to take advantage of any opportunity they had to get out of here alive.
She choked on the sob that threatened to make its way up her throat at the thought. No way would she let the girls see her cry. No way in hell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Where, Billy? Where?” Luke ground the words out through clenched teeth.
Zach grabbed Luke from behind and hauled him off Billy. “If you kill him, he can’t tell us anything.”
Billy sat staring wide-eyed at Luke as he gasped for air. Luke didn’t give a shit if the kid could breathe at the moment. He wasn’t doing a very good job of breathing at the moment himself. He felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his chest.
Luke turned the phone to Billy again, showing him the picture of Lyra and the girls. The girls were crying. Lyra was bleeding.
Bleeding from a cut on her cheekbone around which an angry bruise was already forming. Luke recognized the injury. It would have come from someone striking Lyra. Striking her hard, maybe with the back of a hand, or a fist. Hard enough to cut open the flesh and have the side of her face swelling.
Billy looked sick at the sight and began to shake his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Luke tipped back his head and swore. He had to figure out where they would take her.
“The text says he’d let them go,” Billy said. “If I let them run the auction, they’ll let them go and everything will be okay.”
Luke shook his head at the kid. He might be an adult in years, but Luke had never looked at Billy and thought of him as anything other than a kid. His naïveté now was proving the point. No way Damon was going to just let her go once this was over. That shit simply didn’t happen in real life.
“I’m going to see what Sam can do.” Zach left the room. Luke knew his brother would need to call this in soon. He was a detective. He couldn’t have evidence of an abduction and not let his superiors know about it. Not call in backup at all. With any luck, Luke could convince Zach to give him a head start before calling this shit storm in.
