And the smart man he was, he knew what she was thinking and feeling. She’d withdrawn into a shell, struggling to make sense of it.
It didn’t make sense that making love with Braden should feel the way it had. It didn’t make sense that he should matter that much. She felt like running away.
With any luck, they’d find Tatum and Courtney alive and they could all go back to their lives.
When she realized her instinct carried her toward separating with Braden, she lifted her thumb to begin chewing again. Is that what she wanted? Continuing this tied her stomach in a knot. She couldn’t bear to go through another loss. And this thing with Braden felt stronger than what she’d had with Trevor. What she’d had with Trevor had been real and all encompassing. She didn’t think it was possible to love anyone more than that. While she couldn’t call what she felt for Braden love, not yet, their connection was a fireball. Already. That’s what didn’t make sense.
How could she be afraid of love that hadn’t even manifested yet?
Maybe because she was certain it would grow into that. That certainty is what troubled her. She’d been this certain with Trevor. The beauty of it had taken longer, but it was the same. More intense physically, but the same in her heart.
Yes, that frightened her.
Turning from the window, she bumped into Braden. Looking up at him, it was much the same as when she’d first met him. Only now his eyes brooded.
Lifting his hand, he cupped her head and kissed her. Caught off guard, Arizona let him have his way. His other hand glided around her hip to her rear. He pressed her pelvis against him and she felt his growing hardness. The fire lit and roared. She met the fervor of his mouth.
Then just as quickly, he eased off, kissing her softly, almost reluctantly, and then withdrawing, lifting his head.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he said.
Nothing more needed to be said. All their uncertainties remained between them.
“You haven’t let him go. You’re still afraid.” He released her and stepped back.
She lowered her head because he was right. He’d been right all along. Then what were they doing? What was this all about?
Moving into the living room, she stopped near the three couches on the dark blue rug. She was so confused.
“You were the one who climbed on top of me,” she reminded him.
He came to stand in front of her. “Yes, and I proved my point. You can’t handle the fact that it was my name you were calling while I was inside you.”
Despair pierced her. He’d reduce it to that? To protect himself. And she was ready to let him. Withdrawing felt safer.
He registered her reaction, or lack thereof, and resolve flowed into his eyes, shutting out any possibility that this could go further. No more emotion came from him. He was a hardened man who’d come to save his sister.
Unable to endure the confusion tugging her in opposing directions, she left him standing on the blue rug and went back to the window.
The sound of a door banging open made her pivot.
Four men in gray uniforms ran into the kitchen a second later. Arizona froze. Then frantically searched for her gun. It was on a table, fifteen feet from where she now stood. Two more uniformed men emerged from the hall.
Julian’s guards.
Braden had kept his gun on him and now fired at the men in the kitchen. Two went down. The other two took cover behind the kitchen island, but the two who’d appeared from the hallway fired in retaliation. Braden had to crouch behind one of the couches.
When he did that, the men came for her. One had a big hook nose and narrowly spaced eyes. The other was taller and bald and wore John Lennon glasses that looked too small on his big, round face. She’d have to cross their paths to reach her gun. She ran for it, having her hand around its handle when one of the men chopped her wrist. Pain shot up her arm. She held her wrist while the second man wrapped his arms around her, binding her. The other held a pistol to her head.
Braden remained crouched behind the couch, only his head visible, and the tip of his gun. When the two men behind the kitchen island popped their heads up, he fired.
“Go. Now!” the man with the gun at her head shouted to the one holding her. “Follow and she’s dead,” he said to Braden.
The man holding her jerked her around, shackling both her arms. Braden took a step toward her, only to be forced to crouch again when the two behind the kitchen island shot at him.
Oh, no! Would they kill Braden?
As she was propelled out of the living room and through the kitchen toward the door where the men must have come, she fought the whole way. Only when the doorway grew too close did she begin to panic. Where were they taking her and what would happen to Braden? As good as he was, he may not be a match for four professionals.
She wrenched and twisted, checked herself briefly as the man with the gun reminded her he still was there. He shoved her through the garage door, making her bump against the man who held her. The big door was open and a white sedan was backed in the driveway, the trunk open. The Hyundai Terracan she and Braden had parked in the garage had its tires slashed.
The hook-nosed man forced her through the garage, toward the gaping opening of the trunk. They were going to put her in there!
“No!” She imagined Trevor facing something similar.
She was being kidnapped. Just like him.
Fear and something much bigger fueled her determination. She tried tripping her captor with her foot, entwining hers at his ankles. He easily lifted her and jerked her toward the car. He was much stronger, but she was no quitter.
She dropped her weight. Let him carry her. She was no hundred-pound weakling!
Grunting in surprise, he swore. “Stand up, damn it!”
His grip on her right arm loosened. Just as her spirits lifted, his bald friend appeared in her sight. He’d followed until now.
“You fool!” He grabbed Arizona, jerking her from the other man.
Arizona stomped on his shin. He growled in pain and nearly lost his hold.
“Bitch!”
“She’s a feisty one,” the other said.
The bald man pushed her back and slapped her.
Dazed, she stumbled and had her hands on the opening of the trunk when she was lifted and dropped inside.
“No!”
From inside the house, she heard gunshots.
“Braden!” She raised her hands to stop the trunk from closing, but all she got was pain.
Ignoring her stinging palms, she beat the trunk, refusing to give in to panic. “Let me out of here!”
The car jerked into motion.
Braden...
“Braden!” she screamed. Were those other men killing him? Or would he kill them? Could he hold them off until the ICE agents arrived? What if they were too late?
The ride to Julian’s villa wasn’t long. Minutes. But it felt like hours. She was sick with worry for Braden.
The sedan stopped and the engine stopped. Car doors slammed and the trunk latch released.
She kicked it with her foot and rose up. But two more guards were waiting. They each took one of her arms and dragged her out of the trunk. They dragged her feet over the cement driveway as she struggled for balance. The guards continued to drag her into a four-car garage she and Braden couldn’t see from the other house. Her arms hurt. She got one foot on the cement floor of the garage and then the other. Finally she had her footing.
But then she was lifted and shoved inside the villa. She fell onto the tile floor of an entryway. As she scrambled to get to her feet, one of the guards opened a door off the entry, while the other lifted her by her arm and then bent it painfully behind her.
“Get your hands off me!” Arizona planted her foot against th
e wall as he tried to force her through the doorway. She pushed hard.
He staggered back and bumped into the other two who’d put her into the trunk.
“It’ll take a lot to tame this one,” the hook-nosed man said. He was grinning, no doubt looking forward to the taming.
Arizona wished she could barf all over him.
And it was insulting that none of them felt they had to use their guns to make her go down the stairs. Four against one was enough, she supposed. Is this how Trevor had been taken? Had he been outnumbered?
The guard steered her with her bent arm, lifting whenever she resisted, and shoving her to move down the stairs. When she reached the bottom she saw the hall leading to the commercial kitchen where she and Braden had entered through the servant’s door.
She was forced toward the wall of bookshelves and the painting of the sailboat. Beneath the painting and beside a modern, blocky chair with a metal table beside it, one of the guards pressed the wall. A square panel about the size of a light switch cover sprang open to reveal a coded lock.
He entered the number and a door opened inward. Only then did she see the break in the wall that outlined the door frame, concealed further by hip-high wood paneling painted white.
This was where Julian kept his women.
Inside, she took in the sight of a long, wide lounge with a bar at the far end. There were round tables over a polished-wood floor, two pool tables and a poker table. Along each side were closed doors. Six of them. Bile rose up into her throat.
Julian held parties down here, where his guests—all of them male—could drink and gamble and have sex with unwilling women.
The guard wrenched her arm again, shoving her to keep moving.
She was really getting sick of him. Ramming her head back, she made contact with his nose. He yelped and let go.
She whirled around and jabbed his eyes with her fingers. He stumbled back, falling into the man with small round glasses and his friend, hook-nose. The fourth guard whacked her with the handle of his gun. It wasn’t enough to knock her out, but it did disorient her long enough for the bald man with round glasses to take hold of her next.
He pushed her into a table. Her thigh stung with the impact and she fell. The bald man kicked her in the stomach.
She curled up and groaned as he bent to lift her, slinging her over his shoulder and holding her legs.
The hook-nosed man opened the middle of three doors on the right side of the room. What would they do? Would she be raped by these animals?
Stepping through the door with her, the bald man pulled her off his shoulder and let her drop to the floor.
As he left and the door clanked shut, it dawned on her that she wasn’t alone.
* * *
Damn it! Braden ducked into a hall that ran to the garage and another entry to the kitchen. In the block between this and the kitchen was a bathroom that opened to the hall. At the open garage door, he saw the rental still there and the tires slashed. There were no other vehicles in the driveway. Darkness was descending.
Turning, he spotted movement at the end of the hall. One of the men had moved there. Braden put his back to the wall of the entry to the kitchen just as bullets sprayed the door and pinged the hood and bumper of the Hyundai.
Apparently, Julian wanted Arizona alive and him dead.
Hearing breathing around the corner in the kitchen, Braden knew one of the men was there, waiting to ambush him. He moved, reaching around the corner and grabbing the man’s gun hand. The man tried to wrestle free. Braden yanked on his hand and rammed heads with him. The man staggered back and Braden fired. The man fell with a hole in his head, sprawled on the kitchen floor along with the other two he’d shot earlier.
The fourth appeared at the end of the wall in the living room. Braden fired at him, but he moved back behind the wall.
Jumping over the bodies, he went to the kitchen island and ducked as the other man fired from the living room. He was a big blond man with a boxy face and dark blue eyes.
When the gunfire eased, he peered around the island. No sight of the man. Gun ready, Braden moved out from the kitchen, putting his back to the wall and then darting out to face his opponent. No one was there. He moved to the hall leading to the garage. Not there. As he turned, the man was behind him with a chair in his arms, raised high.
As it came crashing down on him, Braden lost his gun. It clattered to the floor. The blond man had put his weapon in his hip holster. Braden reached for it, having hold of it as the man whacked his wrist. The gun fell.
Braden went down for it, but the blond man stopped him with a punch. Swinging his feet, Braden knocked the man down. The man fumbled for the gun. Braden kicked it.
The man rolled and leaped to his feet. Sidling toward the table, wary of Braden as he followed, the blond man lifted another chair.
What was his deal with chairs?
The big man lifted the chair and threw it in Braden’s direction. He easily dodged it and maneuvered so he was close to the hall again.
The blond man lifted a third chair and hurled it at him. Again, Braden avoided it. Next the man picked up a standing lamp and charged, swinging the base at Braden’s head. Braden ducked and grabbed the cord, wrapping it once and then yanking. The blond man lost his grip and Braden took control of the lamp, pivoting and driving the metal point at the top of the shade into the man’s face. He yelled and Braden swung the lamp around the other way, hitting him again with the base. He went down with a thud that vibrated the floor.
Retrieving his gun, Braden ran through the open garage, and stopped short when he heard vehicles approaching and a helicopter above. The helicopter circled and then disappeared over the horizon of the tree covered foothill.
Who was coming up the hill?
Two white Jeeps stopped in the driveway. Braden was about to take cover when one of the men jumped out with a badge.
“Calem O’Brien. Are you Braden McCrae?”
Braden nearly slumped in relief. “Yes.” He approached the man, who was tall and hard muscled, a man who trained regularly so he could be fit when he ran down criminals.
His steel-blue eyes were focused and his dark hair trimmed close to his head. He had on tactical gear. What made a man work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement? The acronym?
Five other men climbed out of the Jeeps and Calem introduced them. ICE was a different kind of enforcement agency. They went after gun smugglers and terrorists. Homeland Security’s investigative arm, and one of the biggest agencies in the country, thanks to 9/11.
There was no time to talk about that. Braden told them Arizona had been taken.
Another car drove up the driveway. A dark blue Cadillac. Detective Crawford.
Busy night to be out.
Two of the ICE agents in bulletproof vests and thigh straps pointed mean-looking automatic rifles at Crawford’s startled face.
Braden stepped forward. “That’s Detective Crawford.” What was he doing here?
“I saw the Jeeps head this way and followed.”
“We saw him,” Calem said.
The detective moved toward Braden. When he was close enough, he extended a file. “These are the floor plans for Julian’s villa. There’s a section of the basement that’s closed off. The only way in is through a secret door. It’s marked on the plan.”
Braden regarded him a moment. “Why the change of mind?”
“My mind has never changed. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to take Julian down for a long time. But you couple a small island police force with a dangerous arms dealer and an unstable stepson, and the pace slows down.”
Braden nodded, still thinking the detective was weak.
“I had to make them believe I was staying out of their way,” he continued. “When you showed up and started sti
rring things up, I kept my cheering to myself.” He grinned. “Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t doubt you’d find out about those murdered women, and that you’d do your own digging. You managed to do what I couldn’t. You got the maid to come forward and the hotel clerk to talk. With everyone believing I was taking money from Julian, it was impossible to gain trust. But it was either that or risk being killed.”
Braden nodded. Maybe he had needed help. He was one man against a giant.
“Thanks,” Braden said, shaking his hand, the blueprints rolled up in the other.
“Let’s move,” Calem said.
* * *
Arizona sat up to discover it wasn’t just one other woman in the cell with her. There were two, and the cell was more of a suite. There were two beds, each covered in red satiny comforters. A sitting area was filled with antiques, the butter-yellow settee adorned with red-patterned pillows.
She stared up at a dark-haired beauty with eyes greener than Braden’s. “You must be Tatum.”
The woman’s hyper alertness at the appearance of another woman in the cell changed to curiosity. “How do you know?”
“I’m with Braden. He came here looking for you.” She lowered her head when she remembered the last she saw of him, shooting two men and facing off with remaining two other men.
“Where is he? Was he captured, too?” Then she gasped. “Was he killed?”
“No. At least I...” She couldn’t finish the thought. “He was fighting some guards off when I was taken.”
Tatum relaxed. “Not many could overpower him.”
Arizona noticed the other woman again. She sat on a chair next to the settee, watching with a sort of haunted detachment.
“That’s Courtney Andrews,” Tatum said. “She was brought here before me.” Tatum met Arizona’s eyes. “I don’t think she’s had an easy time. They’ve left me alone for the most part. But her...”
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