Die for Me

by Nichole Severn

  Three bodies. Three people Taigen hadn’t been able to save because he’d taken his mind off the mission at hand. Guilt stabbed him in the back like a bullet ripping through his spine for the second time. His breath caught in his throat. The chances of getting to New York before another murder were slim. Adelaide had escalated again.

  “How?”

  “What?” Taigen ripped his gaze from the small television.

  “How am I going to help you?” Eyes brimming with tears, the manager sat up a bit straighter in the chair.

  “Tell them you have information.” Time for Taigen to use his leverage.

  He went back to the room with a renewed sense of purpose, mentally distancing himself along the way. He’d made a mistake with Torrhent. He’d known a future with her didn’t exist, yet like the selfish bastard he was, let himself fall prey to her.

  Torrhent shoved the last two clean shirts she had into her pack as he entered and zipped it closed. They’d planned to move on to the next city, but now they had to wait.

  “Torrhent, about last night—”

  A car door slammed just outside.

  Taigen stepped closer to the door, waving her back as she started to follow. He peeked around the thick curtain next to the door.

  Two men climbed out of an older SUV.

  “We’ve got company.” His expression hardened as he studied the pair of knives down one man’s leg; both held semiautomatics. “I hate knives.”

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “Stay here.” Taigen let the curtain fall back into place. He slid the chain from the top of the door, his hand on the doorknob.

  She sank behind one of the beds. “Just come back in one piece.”

  With a curt nod, he stepped outside.

  “I didn’t think you’d get my message so fast.” Taigen closed the door behind him as the two men approached from the SUV. He surveyed the area, taking in the easiest routes of escape and scanning every car in the lot he hadn’t seen already. “Must have been close.”

  Neither of them answered. The full autos they sported were exactly like the ones he’d taken off the two men back at the apartment, leading him to believe he’d found the right people. The men stopped a few feet away, far enough he wouldn’t be able to reach them before they put a bullet in his head. The dry air burned his throat as he inhaled. The gun at his back dug into his muscles, reminding him of its presence. “I know who you work for and I know why Rutler sent you here. You want the girl and I’m willing to hand her over.”

  Still no answer.

  “Don’t you want to know the price?”

  The paler of the two, the one in the cowboy hat and goatee, chuckled as he draped his gun across his left forearm. “We weren’t sent to negotiate.”

  Taigen squinted into the sun with a close-lipped smile on his face. “It isn’t a negotiation.”

  He kicked a heavy amount of dirt at them, but didn’t have time to wonder if it’d reached his target. Pulling the gun from the back of his pants, he dodged the bullet aimed at his head as he dove toward the man in the cowboy hat and grabbed the semiautomatic. The Asian man was at the other end of his gun when Taigen straightened with the cowboy in a chokehold. “Move and I shoot. How’s that for negotiations?”

  He kicked the cowboy’s feet out from under him, sending him to his knees, but kept his gun aimed at the Asian man. Slinging the big gun they’d brought to the party over his shoulder, Taigen looked down into the man’s face. “There’s a bar not too far from here. You know it?” He waited for the cowboy to nod. “Good. I want Rutler there at seven o’clock tomorrow night with Adelaide Banvard in tow. We’re going to make a trade.”

  Taigen lowered the guns. “If I see you anywhere near the girl before that, I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill her.”

  * * *

  She sat on the bed, motionless, and waited for Taigen to come back inside. She wasn’t angry. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to hand her over. His sister meant more to him than she did.

  The motel room door opened inward, spilling sunlight into the room and emphasizing Taigen’s mass from behind.

  He shut the door, wiping dust from his face.

  Torrhent didn’t know how to approach the subject carefully. She just wanted the truth. “You made a deal with them.”

  Taigen’s body stiffened, his expression careful, as if the man she’d known intimately the night before never existed. “How’d you know?”

  “They’re not dead.”

  He chuckled, sinking onto the bed. “Good point. I arranged a meeting.”

  “Do you really believe they’ll trade me for your sister? Isaac will see everyone dead before he gives up something he wants.”

  “No. They won’t bring her.”

  “Then why ask for the meeting?” She held his gaze, keeping her breathing even. She was surprised by how calm she seemed when, inside, she screamed for release. Rejection took a lot of forms, and Torrhent felt its sting in the center of her chest.

  “To draw Rutler out.” He stood and turned his back on her. Dirt caked itself to his T-shirt, jeans and work boots. “It’s the only way to ensure Adelaide won’t kill more people.”

  “And you’re going to use me as bait.”

  “If it gets him in front of me, yes.”

  Torrhent nodded absently, a chuckle escaping. “So this is why you slept with me. To convince me to go along with your plan?”

  Her mind went in circles as she tried to convince herself Taigen would never hurt her, that he cared for her after everything they’d been through, after everything they’d done last night. She’d seen the agony in his expression when he told her of what he’d done, but this didn’t fit the profile. Something had changed.

  “I told you I wasn’t doing this for you.”

  “What happened earlier? I woke up and you were gone. Where’d you go?” Everything depended on Taigen coming back to New York with her. If he handed her over to Isaac’s cronies here in the middle of nowhere, there were no guarantees she’d make it back alive. No, she wanted to see the job done, needed it. For her mother. “What happened?”

  “She’s killing people, Torrhent!” He shouted the words as he turned to confront her. Absolute devastation shrouded his features and Torrhent had to look away. “Three more people are dead because I didn’t get to her in time. By forcing Isaac here, we’ll get more time.”

  Taigen’s labored breathing filled the uncomfortable silence.

  Torrhent didn’t know how this crap worked. It wasn’t her line of expertise. It was his.

  Rubbing his hands over his face, Taigen exhaled loudly. “Airports, bus stations and train stations are out of the question with our photos all over the television, but if we bring the enemy to us, I can stop her from killing more people.”

  “I think you just pulled that out of your ass.” She closed her eyes, breathing deeply to think clearly. She only had to be rational with him, turn this back around in her favor. Taigen didn’t want more people to die. With his decision to hand her over, he’d practically signed her death warrant. “You know what they’ll do to me if you hand me over.”

  When she opened her eyes again, she found Taigen studying her. Nothing in his expression gave her any indication of what was going through his mind. “I won’t.”

  “And if they get me anyway? Does that bother you?” The words slipped from her mouth before she had a chance to catch them. “You promised to protect me as long as I helped you get to Isaac. So let me keep my side of the deal. I’ll get you to Isaac. We don’t have to do it your way.”

  “Are you asking me to choose you over my sister? She’s killed hundreds of people in her life, cut them up into little pieces. She’s a monster, Torrhent. This is how I planned for you to keep your side of the deal. I might have to sacrifice you for the lives of her future victims.”

  She was shocked by his bluntness, but appreciated it even more. Truth. Something she hadn’t been able to decipher in a long time
.

  “You just wanted me to be a casualty of your little war.”

  “I have to use you as leverage, but you’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Trust goes both ways.”

  “I trust you to make the right decision here. Come with me to the meet. Help me draw Isaac out so I can stop her.”

  Torrhent considered his plea. Whether Isaac met his end in New York or the middle of goddamn nowhere, it didn’t matter. Her mother would have justice. “When is the meet?”

  “Tomorrow at seven o’clock.”

  She nodded again, inhaling deeply. “I’ll agree to go on one condition.”

  In the end, there was only one way to find out how much Taigen Banvard would bleed for her, and if things went Torrhent’s way, he’d learn just how useful he was to her. “I want to be there when you put a bullet is Isaac’s head.”

  His shoulders rocked on a deep inhale. “Deal.”

  Chapter 12

  The motel wasn’t safe. The stopping point for the night would have to be an abandoned market a half mile from the bar. The buildings hadn’t been used in years as far as Taigen could tell, but provided perfect shelter for a campfire. The night was calm, nothing out of the ordinary, no assassins and no sign of police.

  “What if Isaac doesn’t show?” Torrhent shoved the last of their supplies into the duffle bag. “It could just be a trap.”

  What had begun as an inventory of their supplies had turned into an argument.

  “If he wants to find you as much as I think he does, he’ll already have men there.”

  “Why?” Her eyes lit up with the possibility, her attention focused on him entirely.

  “Because any smart man scouts the place before showing up.”

  “Then why haven’t you scouted it?”

  “We will.”

  “I think we’ll be lucky if he shows up at all.” Torrhent sat next to him, crossing her legs beneath her. Pillows of dust floated into the air. “But you really think handing me over to him will get you what you want?”

  Taigen made sure his next words were clear. “Revenge can make a person blind. It affects decision-making skills. Even the smallest slip-up can screw up the most carefully conceived plan. This plan will only work if you stick by it and can keep your head on straight.”

  “You think because I’m angry I’ll slip up?” Her words were even, careful and calm. She’d been trying hard not to show her emotions and Taigen was impressed, but he’d slowly unraveled her control. “That man took away my life,” Torrhent said. “So yes, I’m angry.” She leaned closer to him, her elbows resting against her knees. “But like you said, this is about stopping a mons—your sister. I think I can rise above my petty wish for justice.”

  He leaned back, supporting his weight with his upper body. “Tell me what kind of man he is. What are his bad habits, hobbies, anything we can use against him.”

  “Nothing about him when I was growing up said ‘sociopath,’ if that’s what you mean. He was a good guy until two years ago.”

  Two years ago. Charlie Rutler’s mugging gone wrong. “Your mother’s murder.”

  A sharp inhale signaled her surprise. “How did you know that?”

  “I did my research.”

  Torrhent exhaled slowly, her hands shaking as she wrapped them around her stomach. “They told me it was a mugging,” she said quietly.

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “Her money was still there. The only thing missing was her wedding ring.” Her eyes stared into the dirt beneath them. “I found out later they’d cut off her finger. Isaac said I didn’t deserve to remember her like that.” She wiped a stray tear from her face and sniffed. “He changed after that.”

  “How so?”

  Shadows formed across her face from the campfire and Torrhent looked away, as if one of those shadows would suddenly reveal a hidden figure looking to get the drop on them. “Small things at first. He’d sit in his study, stare at her picture for a couple hours every day. Then he wouldn’t come home. He ordered me not to leave the house, and if I did, I had to take Nicholas with me.” She leaned back, copying his position. “It was like he thought I was going to get mugged, too.”

  Taigen studied her forced smile. “He must have really loved her.”

  She nodded, biting her bottom lip. “In a big way.”

  “We can use that.”

  Torrhent sat up, resting her elbows on her now-crossed legs. “You want to use my mom’s death against him?”

  He wouldn’t lie to her. Not after they’d finally agreed to work together. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Taigen thought about it for a moment, coming up empty. “I’m not sure yet, but there has to be a way.”

  “We’re already using me as bait to get him here.” Doubt tainted her voice. “How about we cross that bridge when we get to it?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Her fingers pulled at the ends of her hair.

  “Your hair was longer on TV. And red. I liked it better.”

  “Me, too.” Torrhent chuckled. “Guess he took away more than I thought.”

  “You want to kill him?”

  She didn’t answer for the space of two breaths, but dropped her hand and held her chin high. “I want him dead. I’m not stupid enough to believe Isaac Rutler let my mom go into the city alone. He’d have sent Nicholas with her at the least. I think he got into something bad and someone didn’t like the way he did things, so they killed her. It’s his fault she’s dead. I know it.”

  The campfire cracked and popped, filling the awkward silence.

  “What are you going to do after this?” he asked.

  Her stare sent a shiver down his spine. “I haven’t really thought about it. If I don’t wind up dead, I’m probably going back to prison.”

  The hard truth.

  No matter what happened, she’d still be punished for a crime she hadn’t committed and thrown behind bars for escaping. Sure, she’d accidently killed a guard, but not the man she’d been sent to prison for. Isaac Rutler had gone to extreme lengths to pin it on her.

  “You never thought about just running away?”

  She looked as if she might laugh. “I was on my way to get fake papers and then disappear when I met you. Suffice it to say I haven’t given it much thought since then.”

  “Right.” He nodded.

  She leaned her head to the side, studying him. “Aaron was supposed to be making me a new identity. If I hadn’t gotten it from him, I’d have paid someone else.”

  “Imagine how that would have worked out if he hadn’t blown his cover.” He vaguely wondered what her new name might have been, where she would have lived.

  He stood, brushing the dust and weeds from his jeans. “So what was your plan when you broke out of prison? You’d get your revenge, then you and Aaron would run away together? Live happily ever after?”

  Taigen tried to ignore the spike in his heart rate at imagining her with another man. He stared out over the barren landscape to take his mind off the memories of last night. The past couple weeks had been the first time in two years he’d felt useful. Protecting Torrhent wasn’t just a job. It was a duty. Just like stopping his sister. He faced her.

  She stared at him for a moment, a smile pulling at her lips. “To be honest, last week was the first time I’d met him in person. He promised he could get me papers without problems.” Torrhent laughed, her eyes crinkling at the edges. “I guess he’s not very good at keeping promises.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger innocently enough, but Taigen knew it as her tell.

  “How’d you hear about him?”

  “You think that’s important right now?”

  “A man then. Someone you cared about?” It was just an assumption, but from the expression on Torrhent’s face he’d hit a sore spot. For a moment, a pang of jealousy ripped a hole in his chest. He shouldn’t give a shit about the men she’d been with, but there it was, slowly making its way from
his chest into his stomach. “Were you close?”

  She nodded. “We were, then I went to prison for a murder I caught my stepdad committing.”

  “He abandoned you.”

  “It wasn’t just him. Everyone I knew turned their backs on me. My friends all thought I really had it in me to do that to a person.” Her eyes were distant. “But it was for the best. I learned I can’t depend on anybody but myself. So you see?” She smiled, electrifying the pain in Taigen’s chest. “There’s an upside to this whole thing.”

  He wished he had her optimism, but the truth was, she couldn’t fight this battle on her own. “You were in for what? A year?”

  “More or less.” Torrhent reached for the tips of her hair again. “Took them four months to convict me.”

  Taigen nodded. He’d only spent a couple nights in county, never a maximum-security prison. “What was it like?”

  She supported her weight on her hands as she leaned back and looked up into the stars. “I can’t say it was horrible. There’s always a few women who bully the others, but they never really bothered me.” She met his gaze, a smile spreading across her face. “Being convicted of murder saved my life on the inside. Nobody wanted to come near me.”

  She straightened, brushing the dust from her hands. “But it also meant nobody would talk to me either.”

  “Except the guard.”

  It was her turn to nod, but Torrhent didn’t answer for the space of a few heartbeats. “You know, I didn’t even know who the dead guy was.”

  She laughed, her shoulders shaking with her outburst. “Just came home one night, went to tell Isaac I was there, and found a body on the floor. Next thing I knew, I was in cuffs and the FBI had me in an interrogation room.”

  Taigen imagined exactly how it went down. Authorities demanding answers. Torrhent unable to give them. “They had to have evidence.”

  She smiled again, but he got the feeling it was forced. “They had iron-clad proof.”

  “What was it?”

  “My fingerprints were on the knife that slit his throat.”

  “Could have been taken from anywhere,” he said, envisioning how many different ways Rutler or his damned bodyguard could have framed Torrhent for murder. Coffee mug. Fingerprints taken recently for any kind of legal proceeding or document. Slipping the knife into her hand as she slept. Risky, but not impossible.