The Velvet Ribbon

by Christie Adams

  “Not yet, love,” he replied, “although it’s going to take a very special woman—someone as special as you are to me—to pin him down and make him commit to her.”

  ~~*~~

  The next morning, Beth found herself on her own in the office, trying to concentrate on her writing. With the thought at the back of her mind that Alex and Cam were preparing to defend them in a life-or-death situation, Beth was finding it difficult to sort out the jumble of words. Even now, the two men were out there patrolling the grounds, armed with Alex’s shotguns. Beth found it more than a little irksome that she’d been forbidden from taking a more active part in those defensive measures, for all that she could understand why the two men had taken that stance.

  She could do with some fresh air and a long walk in the woods to take the edge off her frustration—the house, for all its luxury, was starting to feel like a prison, and she didn’t want to risk incurring Alex’s wrath by suggesting again that she’d like to take a walk to the village. Once was more than enough.

  Clad in her winter coat and boots, she made her way to the kitchen and the door that led to the courtyard at the back of the house. When she opened it she found herself face-to-face with a stranger, a man whom she’d never seen before, but who appeared to boiling with a barely controlled anger directed straight at her. Fear paralysed her voice in her throat as she stared at the wild-eyed, unkempt stranger…and the lethal-looking automatic handgun he was pointing at her.

  “Lombard’s whore!” he spat at her. “Where’s the bastard coward hiding?”

  Terrified, Beth stepped backwards, her mind willing suddenly leaden feet to move faster. She had to get away, warn Alex and Cam that the threat was real and right here, right now. Irrational instinct overruled the common sense that would have told her not to risk being shot by trying to get away. She ran, only to be brought down not by a bullet but by a vicious tackle that sent her crashing headfirst into the wall.

  With the last vestiges of consciousness slipping away and unable to defend herself, she felt rough hands ripping open her coat, removing her boots and tearing off her jeans.

  16

  It was all he could do not to charge in and tear the fucking sonofabitch limb from limb.

  Alex came to an abrupt halt outside the family room, rage blazing through him like an all-consuming forest fire at what he saw in front of him as he took cover against the wall. His hand tightened on the thick haft of the lethal combat knife. In that split second, he was ready to slit Ewan Underwood’s throat. Somehow the bastard had managed to get into the house and take Beth hostage. Alex’s worst fear was now a terrifying reality.

  His woman was on her knees in the centre of the room, clearly set there as bait in a trap for him. Duct tape covered her mouth, while more bound her hands together, only her right thumb left free to press down on the top of the slender cylindrical device enclosed by her clasped hands.

  Alex identified it at once—it was a dead man’s trigger, the only thing keeping her alive, keeping her from being destroyed by the military-grade explosives packed into the suicide vest that held her torso in its deadly embrace. How the hell had Underwood got his hands on that? In Alex’s estimation, there was enough to send them to kingdom come ten times over.

  She didn’t yet know he was there, Alex realised grimly. At first he thought her gaze, fixed unwaveringly on the switch, was like that of a petrified animal—almost as if by force of will she thought she could maintain her hold on the button. However, as he looked more closely, what he saw in her eyes wasn’t just fear—there was steely resolve there as well. Pride flared through his nervous system. She was scared—who wouldn’t be?—but she wasn’t letting it get the better of her. If only she’d look up—then she’d see him and he could give her the reassurance she needed for both of them to survive this.

  Alex didn’t know what had made him suddenly decide to return to the house, leaving Cam to check the outbuildings and stables, but whatever it was, he wished to God it had happened earlier. Then he could have intercepted Underwood before the other man could make Beth an innocent victim of his grotesque desire for revenge.

  As soon as he’d approached the house, Alex had felt the familiar prickling sensation, a portent that something was very wrong. Exercising extreme caution, he’d entered the kitchen. Signs of a struggle had sent cold fear through him. Hoping against hope, he’d checked the secure room first, desperate to believe that Beth might have made it there, that somehow she’d had sufficient warning to take refuge, but the emptiness of it had been a mockery of all his plans and promises to keep Beth out of harm’s way. The ensuing silent search had led him to the family room, where he’d finally found the woman who was his life.

  Hysteria won’t help. Stay focused. Alex will find you. He’ll come for you. He’ll protect you. He promised. Alex always keeps his promises.

  Beth repeated the words like a mantra, over and over again, but they couldn’t control the tremors that had her visibly quaking or fight the cold terror that was washing through her body. Her head was still swimming from hitting it on the wall while trying to escape from her assailant, the man she now knew to be Ewan Underwood.

  She must have lost consciousness with that initial assault, because the next thing she remembered was pain exploding in her jaw and a man’s voice growling obscenity after obscenity at her. Another slap, and she’d registered the sensation of being dragged into a kneeling position while she struggled to tune back into reality.

  While unconscious she’d been stripped of most of her clothes, though she was thankfully still decent enough; her ankles were bound together, probably with the same tape her assailant had used on her hands and mouth, and her feet were well on the way to losing all sensation and feeling. Her legs weren’t feeling too good either.

  She tasted the lingering metallic tang of blood. A covert examination of the inside of her mouth with the tip of her tongue revealed the spot where one of the blows she’d received had cut the inside of her lip. The stinging sensation reminded her again of what had happened after Underwood brought her round with another slap to the face.

  “Shut up, bitch!” he’d snarled as he pressed the tape over her mouth with rough hands, her punishment for attempting to reason with him. Then he’d forced something into her hands, grabbed her thumb and pressed it to the end of the tubular object. He’d held it there while he wound more of the tape around her wrists and hands. “This is a dead man’s switch; it’s connected to your new designer outfit. Have a look.” He’d pointed at her chest.

  She’d known it was there, felt the bulk of it wrapped around her body but hadn’t dared look until that moment. What she saw terrified her: a vest, with wires and blinking lights, and cylindrical blocks of what looked like clay. She didn’t have to be an expert to reach the conclusion pretty quickly that PE4 was some sort of explosive.

  “When I flip this switch,” he’d held up a little black box, “your nice new jacket goes live, and so long as you don’t let go of this,” a shake of her wrists, “you won’t go boom. Got it, bitch?”

  Shaking with terror, Beth had barely been able to nod. Now, struggling to combat the threat of panic, all she could do was stare at the switch clasped in her hands, her thumb applying so much pressure that the knuckle was already white. The way her hands were restrained meant that she couldn’t even find some relief by changing thumbs.

  Alex was her anchor. She knew he’d come and get her, he would, and panicking wouldn’t help either of them. She couldn’t let fear get the better of her. If Alex knew what was happening, he’d be relying on her not to release the trigger. That was her job—he needed her to do her job until he could get there and take on the man who threatened all of them.

  Beth was only distantly aware of Underwood’s movements as he took cover behind the open door to the family room, gun in hand, leaving her kneeling in full view of whoever might be out in the hallway…and in no doubt whatsoever that she was intended to lure t
he man she loved to his death.

  Alex knew he should wait for Cam to join him, it was the only sensible thing to do, but every primitive impulse in him was clamouring to charge in, rescue his woman and get her to safety. Before he could do that, however, he needed her to know he was there, so that he didn’t scare her into letting go of the switch that was keeping her alive.

  He needed a miracle.

  Beth.

  He couldn’t have said whether he spoke her name or just thought it, but in that sweet moment she looked up and her eyes connected with his. While the fear twisted a knife through his heart yet again, he focused on the determination that, even as he watched, blossomed into a look that rewrote the book on love and complete trust.

  Yet, even as he smiled and nodded to reassure her, the look in her eyes changed again, became intense and focused in a way that grabbed him by the balls and gave him hope that they might yet get out of this alive. In that instant they became a team. And she was talking to him—talking with her eyes, telling him that Underwood was hiding behind the family room door.

  He nodded—she blinked.

  He mouthed the words I love you, and she blinked again.

  And still more blinking, except now there was a frantic urgency about it. She was trying to tell him something—but what? It was a wild stab in the dark, but he mimicked firing a gun…the single blink was slow and controlled, and told him what he needed to know.

  Yes.

  So he was facing a mad man armed with a gun, and he had nothing more than a combat knife. Christ, why had he thought it was a good idea to ask Cam to take the firearms back to the gun room?

  Focus, Lombard. You’ve faced worse. Beth needs you to get her out of this.

  Years of training and battlefield experience told him that the odds weren’t good; on the plus side, combat and conflict had been his life, while Underwood was clearly deranged. That had to give him the upper hand, in spite of the disparity in their weapons.

  In a fraction of a second, Alex called on all his military expertise, the knowledge that had made him such a cool strategist under fire, to weigh up the best option for tackling the intruder. He couldn’t wait for Cam to arrive; he had to do something now. If he’d had his friend’s skill with the knife, he might have waited until Underwood came into view and taken the bastard down from a distance, but with Beth in such a precarious situation, Alex wasn’t prepared to take the chance—there was no way she was going to be collateral damage.

  Besides, he had no way of knowing how long she’d been forced to hold the trigger. If he waited for backup, Beth might well reach a point where she could no longer maintain the required pressure. No, he was going to get in there, neutralise Underwood, and then free her hands so that he could take over the switch until Cam arrived.

  A shadow of movement in the tiny gap between the door and jamb caught his eye—it was enough.

  “Underwood!”

  On a surge of adrenaline that had him roaring the man’s name, Alex charged through the doorway, forcing the door beyond the limit of the hinges and sending Underwood flying across the room. Alex lunged at his opponent, his eyes fixed on the other man’s gun, knowing in that split second that if he and Beth were to survive this, there could only be one outcome.

  Cam went through the house, looking for Alex and Beth. He’d found nothing around the outbuildings to indicate any trouble, but as soon as he’d entered through the kitchen he’d sensed the unnerving quiet—until the sound of all hell breaking loose, culminating in a single gunshot, had led him to bypass the secure room and go straight to the family room, his gut wrenching when he took in the scene that awaited him.

  Ewan Underwood was dead, his neck broken. A cursory check was all Cam needed—he’d seen that method used too many times in war not to be certain that the unnatural angle of the neck indicated a fatal injury.

  Holy shit.

  Close by, Alex was unconscious and bleeding like a stuck pig—under normal circumstances, Cam would have examined him fully first, but jury-rigged explosives had a way of altering a man’s priorities.

  “Easy, Beth,” he said softly as he knelt down in front of her, putting himself between her and Alex, and very carefully peeled the length of tape away from her mouth. “Everything’s okay, it’s all over.

  “Alex…Help him…please…”

  Her voice was a hoarse whisper, the pleading tone enough to send a bolt of pain through Cam. He thanked God that she didn’t have a clear view of what had happened. “I will, angel, but I just need to check this first.”

  Acutely aware of how much blood Alex had already lost, Cam made a quick examination of the tape binding Beth’s hands. With a heavy heart, he enclosed her hands in his. “I can’t take the tape off just yet, I’m sorry. I need you to hold on a little while longer, just a few more minutes. If I take the tape off now, you might not have the strength to do what I need you to do. Can you hold on for me? For Alex?”

  “Just help him. Please. I’m all right.”

  She had a death grip on the switch in front of her, and much though Cam hated leaving her like that, he needed to stop the flow of blood from Alex’s wound. He tore off his jacket and sweater, wadded up the latter garment and wedged it against Alex’s side, in an attempt to slow the flow of blood from his wound.

  “Sorry, old friend,” he muttered under his breath, hoping that the makeshift compress would buy Alex enough time while he dealt with Beth and the suicide vest.

  “How bad is he?”

  “Don’t worry about him, Beth; he’s tougher than you think. Now, I need to get us some help, but I can’t use my mobile phone around this,” he nodded at the explosives. “I have to use the phone in the office. I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise.”

  She nodded stiffly. “Hurry, Cam. Please,” she whispered. “He’s lost so much blood. I can’t lose him.”

  Jesus. Cam swore under his breath. She had to be in agony, yet all she could think about was Alex.

  “Beth, don’t worry.” He shot a glance back at his friend, doing the very thing he’d just told her not to do; blood was soaking into the improvised dressing at an alarming rate. “Try to stay still—help will be here soon.”

  ~~*~~

  Cam could rewrite the book on frustration. After calling the emergency services, he’d gone back into the family room to tend to Alex’s wound and reassure Beth, although he still hadn’t dared risk unwrapping her hands. He’d been banished when the paramedics arrived to take over care of his friend, while the RLC Explosive Ordnance Disposal operators dealt with the suicide vest, with the fire brigade on standby.

  The police were hovering around too, wanting to ask him questions he really didn’t want to have to deal with right now—not when a quick phone call to the right office in Whitehall, just as soon as he could make it, would get them off his back.

  That sense of frustration mounted while he kicked his heels alongside the second team of paramedics who were waiting to take care of Beth once she was free of the hellish device that had been forced on her. The guys from the Royal Logistic Corps had already advised both him and the paramedics—quite forcefully—to get as far away from the house as possible, because if something went wrong it was highly likely that most of the house would go up. The paramedics had relocated, but not as far as the officer in charge of the bomb disposal squad would have preferred.

  As for Cam, there was no way he was running like some craven coward. Not when Beth was in the middle of it all and had no choice. If they’d let him, he’d have been in there with her, reassuring her and encouraging her, the way her Master would have done, had he been able.

  The paramedics tending Alex had stabilised his condition and taken him to hospital quite some time ago. Cam wanted to phone the hospital to find out what was going on, but he couldn’t get in to use the landline in the house. Using his mobile phone was out of the question, in case an errant signal interfered with the circuits governing the detonation of
the explosives packed into the vest. It was unlikely, but Cam wasn’t taking any chances.

  If ever there was a time he needed to be able to split himself in two, this was it. His only comfort came from knowing that, while he could do nothing practical for either Alex or Beth, Alex was being taken care of by the health professionals he needed, so he, Cam, could be here when Beth was free and no doubt would need a shoulder to lean on, no matter how strong she was. He could ensure that she was taken to hospital for the care she would need, and he would follow.

  The all-clear, shouted by the EOD operator emerging from Alex’s house, broke into Cam’s reverie. That was the cue for the medics to enter. Cam followed them through the front door, unsure of what would greet him.

  Beth was still in a kneeling position. Cam’s heart broke at the sound of the gulping sobs that escaped her as she tried to stand with the assistance of one of the paramedics. Even after all she’d been through, she was still trying to be brave and not cry. Cam flexed his fingers, gritting his teeth and trying to prevent his hands forming into fists. If Underwood hadn’t already been dispatched, he’d have been quite happy to finish off the job.

  “Angel, let me help.”

  She looked up at him; he could see the question forming in her mind.

  “Alex is on his way to hospital. They’re taking good care of him, I promise, and I know he’d want me to take care of you until he can do it himself.”

  Ignoring the paramedics, Cam gently lifted Beth into his arms, letting her legs straighten out gradually, wincing as what must have been a ferocious attack of pins-and-needles savaged her circulation-starved limbs. She sniffled softly, burrowing her face into his neck, holding onto him for dear life. He looked at the senior paramedic, who nodded in answer to the unspoken question.