by Lili Valente
But her swift metabolism and propensity to adjust to foreign substances quickly were also why she began to wake sooner than her captor expected.
Before they had learned to trust each other again, Clay had injected her with a sedative twice, and clearly, her body remembered what to do with those particular chemicals. It burned away the last of the haze in time for Harley to see the man who’d taken her making up a rusted twin bed in the corner of a dimly lit room.
A quick scan of her body revealed that she was slumped in a chair—a wheelchair maybe, since there were footrests beneath her feet and the soft give of leather beneath her sit bones—but that her hands and legs were unbound. Eli hadn’t tied her up. Maybe he intended to tie her to the bed he was preparing? Or maybe he didn’t anticipate needing to bind her since he was bigger and stronger and had already taken her far enough from the resort that no one would hear her scream?
She didn’t know, but she was going to make damned sure that whatever he was scheming didn’t go off as planned.
Being careful not to move anything but her eyes, she scanned the space in which she now found herself.
The room was circular, with a heavy coating of dust on the floor and a few rotted furnishings leaning crookedly against the walls. There was a solid, rusted metal door next to the bed Eli was preparing that looked like it would take some serious strength to open and stairs leading up to a second floor that was shrouded in darkness. To her right were two mattresses lying limp on the floor—the source of the dirty hair and dried piss smell mixing with the general mustiness of the room, no doubt—and an almost artistic pyramid of beer bottles arranged in between them.
Beer bottles. Possible weapon.
Her mind registered the information, then estimated how long it would take her to reach the bottles, smash one into the concrete to create a jagged edge, and turn to meet her attacker.
Thirty seconds. Maybe less, but Eli was fast, he’d already proven that. He might reach her before she could prepare herself and then the element of surprise would be wasted. Even if she was ready for him, there was a chance he would be able to overpower her. He wasn’t a big man, but she was still sluggish from whatever drug had been in his needle and not in the best physical condition.
She made a mental vow to hire a personal trainer as soon as they got back to the States, one as mean as Dom had been last summer, who would whip her back into fighting shape. The next time she was in a situation like this, she wanted to know that her body was a loaded weapon, ready to fire.
And there would be a next time. She wasn’t naïve enough to think all the darkness in her past was going to disappear if she escaped Eli and she wasn’t going to die here tonight. She had babies at home who needed her and a husband who would be destroyed by a visit to a Samoan morgue to identify her body.
There won’t be a visit to the morgue. Listen. Hear the waves?
What better place to dump an unwanted body?
With the tide going out until morning, you’ll be swept so far out to sea your body will never be found.
Harley’s tongue swept out to dampen her bone dry lips. She did hear the waves, but she wasn’t going to sleep with the fishes tonight. Ignoring the voice of doom droning in her head, she let the sound of the waves crashing somewhere outside this building give her hope. She must not be too far from the resort, which meant help was close.
The old lighthouse! The one visible from the honeymoon suite. That had to be where he’d taken her. There wasn’t another circular structure on the property and she sensed she hadn’t been out long enough for Eli to drive her anywhere.
She glanced back at the heavy door. Eli had finished with the bed and was lighting candles. Time was running out.
She had to make a decision. Run? Or Fight?
If she ran, she had two choices—either make a break down the beach toward the honeymoon suite and hope Clay was there waiting for her, or run down the path leading through the dunes to the resort and pray someone was close enough to hear her scream before Eli caught up with her.
She wiggled her toes inside her high-heeled sandals. After years of art gallery openings and high-profile partying in her twenties, she was speedier in heels than most, but she would be faster barefoot.
Waiting until Eli bent to light another in a long line of candles, she reached down and tugged the ankle strap on one shoe and then the other, quietly slipping the leather through the buckle and sliding her feet free. Pulse pounding in her throat, she curled her fingers around the armrests of the chair and shifted her weight forward.
She would bolt in three, two…
Before she could reach one, the chair let out a soft squeak and Eli’s head swiveled her way, his eyes opening wide when he saw that she was awake.
Shifting from flight to fight mode in an instant, she lunged to her right, grabbing two beer bottles from the top of the pile as Eli’s footsteps slapped the floor behind her. As she spun to face him she lifted the bottles high, letting out a roar of outrage as she brought them down on his forehead with all the strength in her body, sending her attacker falling to his knees.
The crash as glass shattered against bone sent a painful vibration ricocheting up her arms all the way to her teeth, but she didn’t let go of the bottle tops. She held tight, ready to ram the now jagged ends of the bottles into Eli’s face when he came for her again.
But Eli didn’t get up off of his knees. Instead, he teetered there for a moment, his head lolling loosely on his shoulders, before falling onto his side in a heap.
Breath rushing out, Harley leaned over to see that his eyes were closed. That was all the confirmation she needed that it was time to run. Clinging tight to one bottle—just in case—she hurled the second to the ground, grabbed her heels in her free hand, and leapt over Eli’s prone body. A soft voice in her head whispered that she should find Eli’s gun and take it with her for protection, but she ignored it.
The man was out cold and she didn’t want to risk getting close enough for him to grab her again. Even if he only stayed unconscious for a minute or two that would give her all the head start she needed to make it back to the resort. Back to Clay, who would know who to call to have a drug lord’s lackey shipped to a jail in the States, even though the island nation of Samoa was one of the few countries without an extradition treaty with the U.S.
She hurried to the door, thinking of nothing but how much she needed Clay—needed to see that he was all right, to feel his arms around her and to hear his voice assuring her that they were stronger than the people who wanted to hurt them. But the last thing she expected to see as she hauled open the heavy metal door amidst a squeak of rusty hinges, was Clay waiting for her on the other side, not ten feet from the entrance to the lighthouse.
Chapter Twelve
Clay
Clay stumbled to a halt. The shock of seeing Harley burst out of the lighthouse in her bare feet, clutching a broken beer bottle, threw him for a second. The next second he shouted—
“Run, Harley! Go! Now! Call the police!”
He had no idea what she was doing here, but she had to go get help. If Stewart knew a witness was on her way to tell the authorities what she’d seen by the lighthouse, he might decide the risks of this plan suddenly outweighed the rewards.
Harley started to cut across the sand toward the hotel but lurched to a stop when she saw the man who stood behind him.
“Dad? Will?” Harley’s shoes and the bottle in her other hand fell to the ground as her fingers fluttered to her throat. Even in the moonlight illuminating the dunes, turning everything beneath to alabaster and stone, he could see her skin go a shade paler. “Oh my God, Dad. What is this? What have you done? Give me my baby. Right now.”
“It’s not Will,” Clay said, grunting as Stewart stepped closer, shoving the barrel of the gun into his back.
“Quiet, Hart, or I put a bullet through your spine,” Stewart said before turning his attention back to Harley. “Of course this isn’t Will, sweetheart. I
would never put my grandchild’s life in danger. But I do need you stay with me. No calling the police until we have a talk or I might have to hurt this sweet little girl.”
“No. Don’t even try that shit with me, Dad,” Harley said, tears rising in her eyes as she shook her head. “Put the gun down. Whatever you were planning to do, it stops now. Let Clay go and give me the baby.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” Stewart said with an uncharacteristically nervous laugh. “I’ve lost everything. Everything I’ve worked and sacrificed for is crumbling into the sea and this is the only way to get it back.”
“That’s ridiculous. Put the gun down and talk to me for God’s sake.” Harley’s eyes met Clay’s, silently asking him if this was what she should be doing. He nodded almost imperceptibly, but it was clear she got the message loud and clear.
She refocused her attention on her father, dropping her voice as she took a small step forward, “Please, Dad. Talk to me. We can fix whatever’s broken without anyone getting hurt. I know things have been ugly between us the past year, but they don’t have to stay that way.”
“No, they don’t,” Stewart agreed. “I should have let you have Mallory. I see that now.”
Clay’s brow furrowed.
Mallory? Who the fuck was Mallory? And why didn’t Harley seem surprised to hear the name?
“She doesn’t matter anymore,” Stewart continued. “Ian is dead and there is no evidence to tie me to what happened to the girl. She is nothing, less than nothing. But I let her ruin things between us before you were even discharged from the hospital last summer. I regret that, and I don’t regret much.”
“You don’t like to let go. I know this about you.” Harley sighed. “But it’s not too late. Dom is in Georgia, near the cabin where Mallory was being held a few days ago. The man who has her can’t have gotten far. Just tell me where they went and I can get Dom to—”
“I’m sorry,” Stewart said, “but I can’t tell you anything.”
“Dad, please,” Harley begged. “Have a little mercy for once in your life. The poor girl has been through enough.”
Clay’s jaw clenched. Clearly his wife had been keeping some secrets of her own. He just prayed they made it through this so he could find out what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into this time.
“I would like to.” Stewart’s hard tone made it clear mercy was still a foreign concept. “But I don’t know where Aaron took Mallory. All I know is that I’m ruined. Forever. No going back.”
“Maybe that’s a little melodramatic, Dad.” Harley shifted another half step to her right. “Kind of like stealing someone’s baby just to make a point in a family fight?”
“There’s nothing overstated about this. Your husband and the criminal your sister married have destroyed an empire that took generations to build. There won’t be a penny left after the crows finish picking at the carcass.” Stewart pressed the gun into Clay’s back until he winced at the pressure of metal against bone. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself, Hart. Thanks to you, your sons will grow up paupers too ashamed to show their face in society.”
Clay grunted in response, silently willing Stewart to hand the baby over to Harley. If the child was out of the way, Clay could disarm the older man in thirty seconds or less.
“I’m sorry, Dad, but that sounds crazy. What could Clay and Jackson have done to you?” Harley glanced over her shoulder at the door to the lighthouse, using the movement to edge farther to her right before she turned back to them with a frown. “Clay’s retired and Jackson’s been working as a bodyguard on an island in the middle of nowhere. They aren’t exactly players in your kinds of games.”
“Oh, they’re players,” Stewart said. “Players, schemers, liars, and thieves.”
Clay had to literally bite his tongue to keep from responding. Harley was getting closer. Soon she’d be close enough to go for the baby if he went for the gun. And he instinctively knew that she would. As long as she was within arm’s length, Harley wouldn’t let that child hit the ground.
“They found the one thread that hadn’t been tied,” Stewart continued, his voice wavering. “It was years ago, not long after your mother left. I never drank before she left. But that night, I let my anger and pain get the better of me. I had half a bottle of scotch and got behind the wheel.” He swallowed audibly. “I was driving too fast and the woman came out of nowhere. The roads were slick, but even if they hadn’t been, there wasn’t time to brake. I didn’t even have time to try.”
“Oh God, Dad,” Harley muttered, glancing back at the lighthouse door again, making Clay wonder if there was a reason for it aside from using the tactic to get closer to her father.
Was there someone in there? Someone who was the reason Harley had burst through the door with a broken off bottle clutched in her hand?
“She was one of the people who camped out by the river year round, living in those rusted out trailers. She didn’t have a tooth left in her head,” Stewart continued as if that excused killing a woman while driving under the influence. “She would have been dead in a few years of malnutrition or drugs, anyway. She wasn’t worth losing everything. The sheriff understood. He took half a million and made it all go away. Until your husband and Jackson Hawke dug it all up again.”
Harley’s gaze shifted from her father to Clay. “Is that true, Clay?”
“Answer her, Hart,” Stewart said. “Tell your wife what you’ve done.”
“It’s true.” Clay held Harley’s gaze, silently willing her to get closer to Stewart. “Jackson and I wanted to put your father away so he wouldn’t be a danger to our families. We’ve been looking for something we could use to get a felony conviction for the past six months.”
“You did that without telling me?” Harley’s tone was outraged, but the step she took toward her father was calm, calculated. “Behind my back? Without even asking how I felt about my father going to jail for the rest of his life?”
“I did what I had to do. The kids are never going to be safe as long as he’s free.”
“Well, not now,” Harley said, her volume rising. “Of course not now. You’ve pushed Dad into a corner.”
“Jesus, Harley.” Clay allowed his own volume to rise, silently celebrating when the baby began to snuffle behind him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
Harley stepped closer. “Well, how would you like it if someone made it their business to pull all your dirty laundry from the past few decades out into the light? I’m sure some of that wouldn’t be very pretty, Clay.”
“You can’t possibly be on his side,” Clay shouted, eyes darting hard to his left. They needed to make a move soon before Stewart realized they were playing him. “Are you listening to yourself?”
“Yes, I’m fucking listening,” she said, eyes flying wide. “Now!”
Clay lifted his arm and Harley lunged under it as he spun, bringing the side of his palm down on Stewart’s forearm, knocking the gun from his hand and tackling the older man to the ground. Before Clay’s first blow connected, Harley was already rolling to the sand, the baby safe in her arms.
“You have the right to remain silent.” Clay wedged his knee in the middle of Stewart’s back as he checked the rest of his pockets for weapons. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“Damn you to hell,” Stewart said, thrashing beneath him. “This isn’t over. This isn’t close to over.”
“Clay,” Harley said, moving to stand next to him, patting the back of the now wailing baby. “Clay, we need to talk.”
He held up a finger. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you.”
“Clay, seriously,” Harley said.
“Do you understand these rights as they have been presented to you,” Clay pushed on, determined to Mirandize the canny old bastard underneath him before he arranged for one-way transport back to the United States. Samoa might not have an extraditi
on treaty, but as long as Clay handed Stewart off directly to the CIA, without the Samoan authorities getting involved, the entire diplomatic nightmare could be avoided and Stewart would still end up behind bars where he belonged.
Clay was so focused on making sure Mason was read his rights and then restraining him using his belt as makeshift handcuffs, he didn’t realize the door to the lighthouse had opened until Harley cursed and reached down to snatch Stewart’s gun from the sand.
“Put the gun down, Eli.” Harley angled her body, shielding the crying baby with her shoulders as she aimed the gun at the man who had just burst through the door, blood dripping down his face. “Don’t give me an excuse to shoot you, because I will. It’s been that kind of night.”
Clay surged to his feet, planting a foot on Stewart to keep him down on the sand, fighting the urge to rush the man weaving back and forth on the path, a revolver clutched in the hand hanging by his side. He recognized that weasel face. This was one of the men who had taken Harley from their tent last year, who had intended to take turns raping her for his own amusement. Clay wanted to punch the bastard’s face until he was bloodier than he was already, but he couldn’t risk Eli getting off a shot before he took the other man down.
“I’ve got a gun, too.” Eli sounded congested, no doubt from the dried blood filling his nose.
“You do,” Harley said calmly. “But I’ve already got my gun aimed right at the center of your forehead and I’m a phenomenal shot. Aren’t I, honey?”
“She is,” Clay confirmed in an equally calm voice. “She really is. You’re screwed, man. Might as well put the gun down and live to plead insanity.”
“I’m not crazy.” The man’s dark eyes flicked from Harley to Clay and back again. “I’m trying to keep my promises, to finish what I started for Marlowe.”
Clay shrugged one shoulder. “Can you keep promises to a dead man? What do you think, babe?”
