Protecting His Heart

by Dana Volney

  His goofy smile stayed in place until she was within a few feet of him and didn’t stop. She kneed him in the groin before he could react. As he bent over with a squeal, she used the butt of her gun to hit him on the base of his head to knock him out.

  She pivoted to her right as Erfan was closing in on her, gun drawn. The thing about a gun is that it shoots from a distance, so why people felt the need to get closer and closer to their target was beyond her—all that did was allow her to take the gun away.

  Parsa had yet to do anything, as he was blocked into the room and she hadn’t clocked a weapon on him all day.

  She switched her gun to her left hand then swept her right arm across her front to hit Erfan’s wrist supporting his gun. His grip was tight enough that the gun didn’t go flying, but she used the opportunity to punch him in the face—aiming her cut upward to break his nose. Blood was quick to run down his face. She snatched his gun, tucking it in the back of her waist and ordered him on the ground by his passed-out counterpart. He dove for her legs, but he wasn’t fast enough. She hit him over the head with the butt of her gun and he fell to the floor, unconscious. In another country, she might’ve been able to kill them or leave them for the dogs to find, but the United States wasn’t exactly lenient on murder. Although she’d decide how much laws meant to her once she had Parsa to herself. She was fighting for her life, and anyone associated with Darek was bad news for more than just her. These men killed innocent men, women, and children all the time in the name of greed and power.

  “Stay right there, Parsa.” She pointed her gun at his face. “Sit down.”

  He sat hard in a plain hotel chair, his face wrinkled with worry, and his hands a little shaky. For a man who’d been running around town all day conducting high-powered, super-secret meetings with equally sketchy looking people in black suits, he didn’t put up a fight.

  She used plastic cuffs to tie Erfan and Javed together, taking Javed’s gun and assorted other objects they had on them. Then she tore a tablecloth into a couple of strips and used it to tie gags around the two men’s mouths. The best-case scenario was Felix would find them in the morning. Too bad that wasn’t going to happen. By chance or on purpose, Felix would know what was happening long before daylight broke.

  She took their cell phones and slid them into her handy leg pockets. “Let’s go.” She waved her gun toward Parsa to get him up and moving. They had to get out of the room in case someone reported all the commotion.

  The end of her gun stuck into his ribs. “Nothing fancy, or I kill you.”

  “You must be a crazy lady.” He adjusted his gray tie and buttoned his black suit jacket as he stood.

  “You’re about to find out.” She pushed him forward and hung the “do not disturb” sign on the door handle to buy herself some time. “You and I are going to have a little chat about who you work for. It can be as friendly or not as you’d prefer.”

  She twisted his arm and shoved him into the elevator, pushing the button for parking with the hand that wasn’t holding a gun trained on his kidney.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Shut up.” Arabella used the butt of her gun to whip Parsa on the neck. He fell forward unconscious on the pavement in the underground garage. One quick sweep of the floor told her no one would be calling 911 on her anytime soon. It was also mighty convenient of him to stay at the same hotel she was in. She’d remember to thank him later.

  So glad I switched to a car this morning. Normally, Felix knowing what she drove would be the most boring detail ever—tonight it meant she could lose his tail. There was no question in her mind he was staking out the entrance of the garage waiting to follow her. Learning from mistakes was a strong suit of hers—she wouldn’t be making last night’s rookie one again.

  She hefted her prisoner off the ground and, slinging one of his arms over her shoulder, managed to stuff him in the backseat. She took plastic cuffs from one of her cargo pockets and cuffed him just in case he didn’t stay asleep for the entire trip.

  She’d been mentally testing this plan all day—ever since she’d found out whom they were protecting. It wasn’t by chance he was staying in her hotel. She was sure of it. Parsa wasn’t one of Darek’s hit men, but he was one of the main finance men to the family. As a side to money, he also negotiated deals. Deals like hit men and teams to recover stolen secrets. If she could take care of all of this before Felix returned home, she wouldn’t have to involve him—and he wouldn’t find out the truth after all.

  The one possible, and basically inevitable, snag in her plan was where she was going to take her captive. But weak or not, it’s all she had. She drove through Seattle into a small subdivision and turned down the familiar street.

  Her new car mate groaned from the backseat, and she stepped on the gas pedal. Answers were in her grasp now. Darek had sent goons to retrieve what she’d stolen from him, and nothing was going to stop her from discovering their location. If she played her cards right, she might even be able to go on the offensive—something she hadn’t been able to do in four months. A smile tugged at the ends of her lips. She preferred to be in control.

  • • •

  Felix waited for Arabella’s Jeep to appear from the parking garage—there was only one way in and out. He checked his watch again. One hour. What in the hell had she been doing for an hour? She’d told him she was headed out to vet the locations for tomorrow. Her Jeep hadn’t left. No one with her swagger had walked out either.

  You lazy sonuvabitch. She’d been caught last night because he’d followed her. There was no way she’d think he was going to leave her alone tonight. Yep. Dammit. She’d switched vehicles or found another ride out to get to wherever she really wanted to go. He wasn’t dealing with a criminal who fell back on easy plans. He was dealing with fucking Arabella, who on a bad day could outsmart him. This whole crazy thing she had going on was probably taking her game to a whole new level. One where he could only pray she’d make some mistakes

  He hoofed it to the main hotel entrance. Bahman and his men were probably upstairs in their suite, but something nagged at him to check their downstairs meeting area. If the conference room was empty, he’d call up just to make sure all was clear, then head home. Bahman had scheduled them for an early day tomorrow—that didn’t leave her too much time to do damage tonight.

  Arabella had been awfully non-combative today. He’d taken it as introspection about her future in normal-people work, but she could’ve been hatching a new plan. Fuckity fuck. I’ve been out of this game for too long. At the top of his career, he’d noticed shit like that on the spot and known what it meant. He hadn’t had to wait in a fucking, cold vehicle for an hour to finally get the message. Maybe he was getting too damn old to go back under. Thirty-five—when a person was past his prime in most sports and military merk shit.

  A white tag hung from the door, but he opened it anyway—hand on his holstered gun. The room was dark; he flipped on the light and was assaulted with the sight of two grown men tied together and thrashing about in a poor attempt to break the little plastic ties that bound them. Naturally, they started yelling at him to untie them He almost turned the light off and closed the door behind him, leaving them to fend for themselves. He had bigger problems.

  “What the hell happened?” He pulled his knife from his ankle sheath.

  “Your bitch, that’s what.” The pretty boy who’d been checking out that bitch all day wasn’t so enamored anymore.

  Felix wanted to deck the asshole, but for now he had to get more answers than it was Arabella. He already fucking knew that.

  “Did you get any information?” He easily cut through their cuffs.

  “Your boss will hear about this.” Javed’s terse words were redundant as the two hustled out of the room.

  Their boss would be hearing about the incident as well. Bahman wasn’t the type of man who was heading up his own operation—that much was clear from interactions today. Whoever was messing with Arabella wa
s in tight with Bahman—or at least she thought so.

  He dialed Winter.

  “Hey, Felix,” she answered on the first ring.

  “Arabella took Parsa Bahman.”

  Winter was going to find out sooner or later—better to be sooner for all their sakes. God, he felt like throwing up. He probably should’ve kept the bodyguards locked up for a tad bit longer.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know where.” The conference room held nothing of value, and Arabella sure as shit wasn’t going to leave a note telling him where she’d gone, so he took the next elevator up to her room. It would be stupid and crazy to keep a hostage in a hotel room—especially one with your name on it—but he was going to check while he was here. Who knew where the fuck her mind was at. This was a new one for her—as far as he was aware, she’d never kidnapped someone before. “She’s not that familiar with Seattle. We only came here once together to introduce her to …” Fuck, he was getting off topic. “But there’s a number of places she could be.”

  “Why the hell did she take the guy you two were assigned to protect today?” Alarm was clear in Winter’s voice, and he could hear noises in the background like she was fumbling for something.

  “Are you at the office?”

  “No. Silly me, I took off early tonight.”

  “Go there, see if she came through the gate. It will be a lot of containers to check, but we can do it.” The shipping yard would be a perfect place to interrogate someone who wasn’t going to blink at the thought of pain. Bahman may be a suit kind of guy, but that didn’t mean he was a sissy.

  “I’m on it. I’ll have Eddie check the cameras. Was he taken from the hotel?”

  “Yah, but don’t bother. She switched vehicles. Call me when you know more.”

  There was no noise coming from Arabella’s room, and he conned his way in through a maid delivering towels. Clean. Not even a suitcase.

  There was only one other place he knew she’d visited in her short stay in Seattle—his apartment. And wouldn’t it just figure. The woman was making a damn mess of his life. With the way the last day had played out, he’d bet his thumbs she was there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  He unlocked the front door to his apartment slowly. The blinds were still closed from this morning—a habit he was breaking after tonight. Drawing his gun, he tipped the door open gently. Amber filled his lungs. At some point he should tell her that her perfume was becoming her biggest tell.

  “Arabella,” he called out, making his way into the kitchen area.

  “Felix,” she sang from the hallway. “This really isn’t a good time.”

  The nose of her gun appeared out of the shadows of his hallway.

  “Then you should’ve brought your kidnappee to someone else’s place.”

  “Point taken.” She took one step farther into the living room so she was only half hidden by the shadow of the dark hallway.

  The kitchen island was firmly between them. There was no way to charge her to take her gun away before she got a shot off. Judging from the firm set to her face and the two-handed grip on her gun, she meant business.

  “What’s up, babe?” He dropped his gaze to her long legs and back up to the serious glint in her eye. Her knuckles were a bit red, but there were no other signs of injury—that was a check mark in the good news column. “Want to put your gun down so we can talk?”

  She didn’t move a muscle. Not one.

  “Not yet.” Her words were clipped.

  The door to his bedroom was closed, and he couldn’t see the office from his vantage point. “Where is he?”

  His heartbeat was fast but steady, and he damn near expected her to say “dead” and jump out his window while shooting. That’s what his day had come to.

  “In your office. I did a little redecorating.”

  With blood?

  She started to loosen up—he could see it in her fingers, legs, and relaxing set to her jaw. He wasn’t the enemy. He never had been.

  He stepped to the side of the island, creating a direct path to her. Nothing but them and the guns they had pointed at each other. “Arabella.”

  “There isn’t much broken.” She shrugged, and he blinked. Joking was a good sign. At least he hoped she was kidding—he had his framed autographed picture of Ken Griffey Jr. in that room.

  His gun was pointed at her as a gesture more than an actual threat. And to stop her from trying to detain him. But he wasn’t going to shoot her—not even if she shot at him. He slowly released his grip, deliberately setting the black metal on the counter, and raised his palms toward her.

  “Why all the hassle?” He took a step forward.

  “He has information I needed to persuade him to part with.”

  “So you have what you need?”

  “Not entirely, which is why I have a gun in my hand and not a champagne bottle.”

  “I think this is the longest you’ve ever held a gun on me.” If she held the deadly end at him much longer, he’d have to grab the gun from her, or at least try. She’d been one hell of a sparring partner once upon a time.

  She stood up straight, aiming the barrel away from his broad chest.

  “I can’t let you take him back.” She tucked her gun into the pants at the small of her back. “Not yet.”

  He breathed out in relief, which was swiftly followed by the anger he’d been holding in since he’d found dumb and dumber handcuffed together. “Why in the fuck did you abduct him in the first place? Do you know how bad this makes me and Wyn Security look?” He rubbed the back of his neck and scraped his scalp before putting both of his hands on his hips. “I mean, for fuck’s sake here, Arabella, was your end goal to show up and ruin my life? You better have one damn good reason, or I’m hauling away more than Bahman tonight.”

  “Darek has a team after me. They’ve been chasing me for four months, and they’re getting closer with each step.”

  There it was. His worst fear confirmed. He’d rather have been the one they were after. It was mighty inconvenient to treat his wife like a client, not that he’d been protecting her … yet.

  “What went wrong?” He needed to set up counter surveillance of their every move to see if she was being watched. Fuck. Would there ever be a time when they wouldn’t deal with the stress of her life in danger?

  Hit teams were never sent for no reason. And to chase her into the United States was desperate—third world countries were much easier to get in and out of, and corrupt governments often took bribes.

  “What didn’t go wrong—that would be an easier question to answer.”

  He carefully removed his phone from his jeans and texted Winter that he knew where Bahman was and to stand by for the outcome. They weren’t going to be able to turn the clock back to a time before Arabella kidnapped him. They needed a plan that didn’t involve her getting arrested.

  “Start from the beginning.” With all the information, he’d definitely be able to help her with the staying alive part. He quickly glanced at his closed office door. He wasn’t so sure about jail time though.

  • • •

  Relief was creeping into Arabella’s lungs, and she could finally breathe without the looming threat on her life weighing down her shoulders, chest, and gut. There was no more lying to or deceiving Felix, and together they would come up with a plan. They’d always been a great team.

  “Four months ago, the powers that be wanted me to infiltrate the sheikh to check on his activity, because there were rumors of him stockpiling weapons and more uranium again.”

  “They didn’t have better measures in place?” Felix’s face hardened; he looked like he was holding in a string of curse words. “It’s not like my mission went so well the last time.”

  “Well, knowing what I did about your experience …” She paused to find the right wording. Felix seemed onboard, and she didn’t want him going off on another tangent and electing not to help. “I decided my best chance was the oldest son, Daichi.”r />
  “And Darek is chasing you across international borders because you, what, hurt his son’s feelings?” Shit, Felix’s patience was running out.

  “I was in, everything was going as planned. Until it wasn’t. I found the one place, a laptop, where Darek lists all of his transactions, business partners, who supplied what and to whom.” She closed her eyes for a second. “And who was being paid off.” That was the kicker and the ultimate reason she’d had to go on the run.

  “That’s not a problem; it’s a career goal. That should’ve taken Darek out for good. And many others.”

  “His guards caught me, and I had to make a break for it. I barely got out, but I managed to take the laptop with me.”

  “Why didn’t you take it to your handler? Maki, was it?”

  “Because I think Maki is dirty.” Felix’s jaw muscle jumped at his understanding. “I wasn’t sure Darek knew what I’d taken from him.” She shook her head. It was hard to believe these were the circumstances of her life. “I made contact with Maki and a friend in intelligence to turn over the information. Darek found out, and it turned into a firefight in downtown Istanbul. I don’t know which one turned me over to him.”

  She didn’t even know if she was in possession of Darek’s complete payroll list, once again barely making it out alive. She was out in the cold, and it was a bitch.

  Felix paced a short path in his living room.

  “I’ve been on the run from Darek ever since.”

  Her entire career had been based on blending in or getting noticed—she’d been failing at the former. Felix was her last hope to get out of the situation without dying—only she wasn’t sure how to do that.

  I don’t know who to trust anymore.

  “If I give the laptop back, Darek can freely kill me as a warning and for their troubles. If I don’t hand it over, he’ll never stop looking for me. And, if I turn it over to the wrong agency or people in the United States, I’m dead too.” She took a deep breath to soothe the panic that always crept up after she contemplated her state of affairs for too long. A tremble in her voice was the last thing she needed Felix to detect.