I got Elliot free. “Use the chair!”
But it was too late, The Reaper kicked the door open before we could have jammed it with the chair.
I held the paring knife out.
Ric stood there, fists clenched, glowering at us.
“This is tragic,” The Reaper said. “You could have gotten away, Grace, and I would have enjoyed the chase. Yet, I’m furious that you’d waste your life saving this low-life scum.”
Dammit, I didn’t want Elliot to know yet that I knew his dirty games. But that was exactly what Ric was doing here. He was dividing us.
Before I could move to the side to keep Elliot within my sight, a chair was thrown at The Reaper and my hand holding the knife was twisted up under my chin. I was dragged against Elliot. He was not beaten enough apparently, because he was strong enough to subdue me.
Ric managed to duck the chair, but when he straightened, his face became doubly alert, his eyes contemplating our every move.
“You already knew something, didn’t you?” My boss hissed into my ear.
“You idiot! Don’t you see he’s playing us?” I growled, hoping to salvage this. “We can get out of this.”
Elliot laughed. “Oh, you’ll get me out of this alright.” He tightened his hold around me and addressed Ric. “I’ll slit her throat if you don’t let me go.”
I couldn’t believe this. “You jerk! I was getting you out!”
“What? So you can see me prosecuted along with Hector Vargas?” I could hear the contempt in Elliot’s voice. It was like seeing a mask peel off
“He made a deal with Esteban Moreno,” Ric told me. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” The Reaper held up the flash drive. Oh shit, I had forgotten that I had it in my pajama pocket and it must have fallen out when he carried me. “He also agreed to turn a blind eye about us bringing the heroin in.”
“She didn’t know that, damn you! That was between us!” Elliot shouted at Ric, backing away with me and letting the knife nick me.
I saw Ric stiffen. Why did he care? He almost strangled me to death, unless he wanted to kill me himself.
“Did you know about the bombing, Elliot?” I whispered. Somehow, I needed to know that my boss wasn’t complicit in the death of more than forty people.
“No,” Elliot said.
“He’s lying,” Ric growled.
“I knew about the heroin and that they were going to get rid of Vargas’s old cronies, but I didn’t know they going to blow up the Atlanta airport.”
“Deal with the devil, Elliot?” I said bitterly. “I hope your conscience burns you for an eternity.”
“So dramatic,” Elliot drawled not sounding remorseful at all. “How does it feel now, Ric? If I’d known how obsessed you were with Grace, I would have offered her to you sooner.”
“He’s obsessed with killing me,” I retorted. “In fact, he tried to strangle me.”
Ric’s eyes flashed at my statement, but he didn’t say anything.
“Shall we try out your theory?” Elliot goaded, enjoying the sudden shift of power. “Ric, should I slit her throat or would you kick those car keys over?” The Reaper didn’t hesitate and punted the set of keys a foot from where Elliot and I were standing.
“Don’t put another mark on her or I swear I’ll tear you apart, limb from fucking limb,” he growled.
“I guess you’re wrong, Gracie, the man is obsessed with you,” Elliot said. “Now, be a good girl and pick up the keys and put them in my pocket. Don’t try anything stupid or I might just stab your kidney this time.”
What an asshole! I couldn’t believe I had contemplated saving his life.
I bent down to retrieve said car keys when I heard a whistling whoosh above my head. That was followed by an awful gurgling sound, then blood sprayed all over me.
Ric lunged at me, snatching me up, and spinning me around so my wrists were crossed in front of me. In this position, I was forced to face the grisly scene unfolding before me.
“Ah, cara mia, look what you made me do,” Ric said silkily with a hint of euphoria.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I stared at Elliot in horror.
My boss had fallen to his knees, his eyes registering shock. Ric’s switchblade was impaled in his throat and blood gushed down in an endless stream, pooling around him.
I felt lightheaded and, if it hadn’t been for Ric holding me up, I might have fallen.
“You’re a monster.” I squeezed my eyes shut. A multitude of emotions ripped through me—anger, sorrow, desolation, terror, and more anger.
So much death. How many more people have to die because of him?
“Ah, Grace, but I’m your monster.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Matt
It had been sixteen hours since Grace had been taken.
Matt watched the digital face of his watch turn three o’clock. They’d gone door-to-door, fanning out from Kyra’s house and questioned her neighbors, showing them Kyra’s picture. It didn’t help that being a Monday, most people were at work. He rubbed the band of his watch, wanting to rip it off, and hurl it against a tree. He wished he could turn back time so he could do things differently, and Grace would never have left his side.
He watched Cassie and Kate thank an old woman across the street. His twin gave a slight negative shake of her head and his heart sunk.
Christ, gypsy. Where are you?
He walked toward the next house, his shoes trudging along like lead. He wasn’t going to survive losing Grace. This would destroy him. And if he lost her, he’d lose the life growing in her as well. His family.
Unable to contain the anguish rising inside him, he threw back his head and roared.
Kate’s voice echoed vaguely in his ears calling his name, but he’d already punched a tree with his fist. He welcomed the sting; the pain was a balm. He needed something to hurt more than the hole in his heart.
“Matt, you need to pull yourself together,” Kate ordered. “We can’t have you falling apart like this. You’re going to be useless to Grace.”
That set him off and he pounced on Kate, dragging her to his face by her sweater. “Fuck you, Kate,” he snarled. “You’re one to talk about falling apart when all you do is run away from your problems.”
“That’s enough!” Cassie shouted. He let go of his twin who returned his glare.
But Matt was only getting started. “What did you do when Piper died, huh? You ran away. Stuck your head in the sand, disappeared, and left me to handle the aftermath.”
He should shut up or he’d be driving her away again, but he was losing his mind not knowing where Grace was. “So, are you going to stay now? Or at the first sign of trouble, you’re gonna leave us high and dry again.”
“You’re an asshole,” Kate’s face was ashen. It didn’t take a genius to tell that Matt had struck deep.
“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” Matt sighed, his anger losing steam. “Just … just don’t ever question my dedication in finding Grace again, okay?”
His sister exhaled in irritation. “Okay, I apologize about that. Can we keep moving?”
“Yeah,” Matt smiled briefly. That was how he and Kate rolled. They fought frequently, but they were quick to forgive. His outburst actually released some of the tension coiled so fucking tight inside him. “Sorry for yelling at you. Don’t leave again, okay?”
Kate smiled feebly. “I won’t.”
Just then, they saw Axe and Millie hurrying down the street. There was something in their faces that gave Matt hope.
“We have a lead … a house down this block. The neighbor said he has seen Kyra around that property. There’d also been a blue Toyota sedan and a black Lexus SUV parked there.”
“We’re gonna need the weight of the Sheriff’s Department to get to those property or rental records,” Matt said. “Millie …”
“I already called Briggs on it,” the diner owner said.
“When is Trent arriving?” Matt turned to Cassie.<
br />
“They’re ten minutes away,” she replied. “I’ll text him to meet us at the diner.”
Matt could feel the adrenalin surging through his veins. “We’ll need Lucas to work his magic.”
“I’ll give him a heads up.”
Once the team got together, everything started falling into place. Trent sent his deputies to search the house for evidence, while Lucas tracked down the rental agreement on the property. The lease was signed by one Riccardo Rossi, assuredly an alias, but still a lead. There was also a copy of the driver’s license and a passport. The Reaper had created an entirely new persona for this particular op. He paid in cash, though, and there were no credit cards linked to the particular Riccardo Rossi that matched the person on the ID.
“He didn’t want to leave a paper trail,” Millie commented.
“Lucas, can you turn up any archived satellite images on that property?”
“I’ve been running a search for the past hour and a half, querying several web mapping service databases. The most popular one’s recorded image was three years ago. I’ve hit one that was recorded two weeks ago, but no cars were parked outside.”
“Aren’t most vehicle’s license plate numbers blocked out?” Millie asked.
“We can request the original image with appropriate paperwork,” Lucas said. “Trent’s already on it.”
Lucas had also run a facial recognition search on the picture of the driver’s license. So far it had turned up two hits at an eighty-five percent match. Riccardo Rossi was a chameleon and changed his physical appearance to suit his target. In one, he had long hair and a beard. In another, he was clean shaven with glasses. Eighty-five percent match was usually not close enough, so those they had discovered may not even be a persona of The Reaper.
Another two hours passed.
Different identities potentially belonging to The Reaper continued to surface. Different citizenships, different countries, but the team was fairly certain that the cartel’s assassin had started out as an Italian hitman.
A beep from one of Lucas’s laptop turned up a photo.
Matt’s brother did a fist pump, a look of disbelief on his face. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What do you have, Lucas?” he asked impatiently.
“Digital pictures contain location information called geotagging,” Lucas said. “There was a parade down that street on St. Patrick’s Day so I narrowed it down to that date and searched a popular picture-sharing app. We have two hits; both have two vehicles parked out front.”
Lucas rubbed his palms together in glee before he set his hands on the keyboard and his fingers went flying.
It could have been a few seconds, but, for Matt, it was an eternity. Finally, his brother clucked his tongue and said, “Bingo.”
“Vehicles are from two different rental companies in Atlanta,” Lucas said. “The Lexus has a vehicle locator service.”
“What are you doing?” Millie asked when Lucas brought up the Lexus website and another screen in hexadecimal format. “Are you hacking the website?”
“Just ‘accessing.’ Shit,” Lucas muttered. “The Reaper has disabled the vehicle locator.”
“Shit. Can you get it back on line?” Matt asked, his body rigid with tension.
“Yeah, just a sec.”
The seconds turned into minutes. Long minutes.
“Lucas, we don’t have much time,” he gritted through his teeth, fighting the urge not to yell at his brother. “If you can’t get it back on line, we’ll have to call someone who can.”
His brother cast him an irritated look. “Let me guess? AGS? You’re willing to ask Viktor for a favor?”
“If I have to,” Matt muttered. He’d beg on his knees if it meant getting Grace back.
“Well, lucky for you, you get to keep your pride,” Lucas said slyly. “Got it.”
Excitement rose in the diner as everyone gathered around Lucas, eyes focused on the pulsing dot on the screen.
“That’s about forty-five minutes from here,” Millie said when the map finished rendering to reveal the street detail.
“Axe, Kate, you’re with me,” Matt told his mechanic and twin. “Lucas, you’re on surveillance. Try to get satellite lock. Colt is getting the gear ready at the ranch. We’ll send a drone up when we’re close.”
“Wait a minute, Matt,” Cassie said, gripping his arm. “You need to let Trent and his men take the lead.”
“She’s right,” Millie concurred. “We’re not a law unto ourselves, Matthew. Anything outside Misty Grove has to be handled by local law enforcement.”
“My wife has been taken,” Matt growled. “I don’t trust anyone else to get her back.”
Cassie’s eyes flared. “Well you better start trusting someone else fast. Do you want Grace to be visiting you in federal prison for the next twenty years because you killed her kidnapper in a fit of rage? Do this. By. The. Book.”
He locked eyes with his younger sister and even if he had a strong urge to lead the charge to get Grace back, he knew Cassie was right. Habits were hard to break, especially when the life at stake was the person who’d become the center of his universe.
“All right. Lucas,” he turned to his brother continuing, “give Trent a heads up. We’ll let the Sheriff’s Department take the lead. They don’t have the technology that we have, that’ll give us some leverage to get involved.”
He looked at Axe and Kate. “Let’s go get my wife back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Grace
Fingers clamped around my throat and The Reaper’s eyes seared into mine. He was moving inside me, tearing me apart, and ripping whatever was left of my soul. His weight crushed me as he forced his vile self on my unwilling flesh. And as if this horror wasn’t enough, his hand left my throat only to be replaced by the sharp edge of a knife. And then he slashed …
I woke up screaming in the darkness. Arms wrapped around me in comfort, and I buried myself in the warmth of a chest.
“Matt?”
The body beside me stiffened. The body beside me felt all wrong. Then I remembered, the body beside me was responsible for my living nightmare.
Gentle fingers dragged through my hair and a kiss was planted on my forehead. “I’m sorry, cara, but you will never see your husband again.” He sounded sympathetic, but there was a hard edge to Ric’s voice. “Did you have a bad dream?”
My silence was answer enough.
“Did you dream of Elliot?” he pressed.
“No,” I whispered. “I dreamt that you slashed my throat.” While you raped me, I didn’t add.
The bastard chuckled. “I didn’t mean to terrorize you so soon.”
Asshole.
Thankfully, he unwrapped himself from me and got off the bed with a grunt. I smiled grimly in the dark. Ric hadn’t escaped unscathed. This was revealed when he turned on the light. It was a different lamp than the one I had smashed over his head. He had several butterfly tapes attached to his temple and there was discoloration there, but what was telling was the spot of blood on the side of his torso. He also looked a tad pale.
His eyes followed the direction of my gaze. “You’re a handful, my love,” he said wryly, seemingly unfazed by my attempt to kill him. “I’m going to enjoy bending you to my will.”
“Why me?” I didn’t get his obsession with me. I knew I had unusual green eyes, and a mouth that men seemed to annoyingly fixate on.
He studied me with intent cocoa eyes, letting his gaze slide over me. His mouth curled. “I’ve never had a mark as beautiful as you, and I’m not just talking about physically.” He walked over and sat beside me on the bed. “There’s some purity about you, you represent something good. Something I lost inside me a long time ago. I’ve never had to justify any of my kills. Until you,” he exhaled heavily. “It made me curious about this feeling you’ve raised in me.”
“And what feeling is that?” I prompted when he was silent for a while.
He regarded me thro
ugh narrowed eyes. “Do not mistake that I am in love with you and you can manipulate me.”
“Didn’t you just say I was pure? How can I be pure and manipulative?”
He laughed and it brightened his face. Somehow, I could tell he hadn’t laughed this uninhibitedly in a long time, and I felt sorry for him. I had to remind myself that this man was a cold-blooded killer.
He tucked a curl behind my ear and I tried my best not to shy away, keeping my expression neutral.
“Ah, but you’re only trying to survive,” he said. “I can hardly blame you for that.”
“Who put a hit on me?” I asked, changing the subject because I didn’t want to get sucked into his sob story and feel sympathy for my kidnapper. Avoiding Stockholm Syndrome 101.
“Take a guess.”
“Hector Vargas?”
He nodded. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. After his own cartel turned against him and tried to destroy us, I decided to disappear. Contrary to what rumors say, I’m not blindingly loyal to him. I’ll go back to Europe and build another reputation.” He watched me carefully. “I’m taking you with me.”
“But … but …” I tried to work through the scramble in my brain.
“The flash drive will assure that Hector Vargas will remain in federal prison for a very, very long time. We’ll be safe from him.”
I had never felt loss so deep, and my chest cracked wide open with physical pain. I wanted to lash out at my captor that I was pregnant, that my baby deserved his real father. I wanted to scream that I was in love with Matt. But after what happened the last time I threw my love for my husband in his face, I opted for self-preservation. Still, I couldn’t help the tears that burned my eyes.
A shaky sob escaped me as I lowered my gaze, but The Reaper wanted all of my emotions. He caught my chin and forced me to look up at him. “As I said, I do not need you to love me, but I will own you.” His fingers skimmed my throat and cupped the side of my breast as he rubbed his thumb on my nipple, causing an involuntary shudder. “Your body pleases me,” he said huskily, lowering his head and nipping my bottom lip briefly. “When I washed that bastard’s blood off you in the shower, I would have fucked you right then and there, but my knife wound needed tending.”
Saving Grace (Misty Grove Book 2) Page 23
