by L. P. Dover
“Why?”
“He’s not as nice as me. Now let’s eat.” Back in the gardens, there was a whole spread on a table—from roasted chicken and potatoes to a strawberry salad. There were even chocolate covered bananas.
“Who cooked the food? I must give my compliments. They fixed some of my favorites.”
He pulled out my chair and I sat down. “Her name is Ingrid. I told her what you liked and she fixed it,” he added, taking the seat across from me.
I ate all my food, along with a couple of extra bananas I really didn’t need. I watched Connor eat and he deliberately avoided my stare. “When are you going to stop feeding me bullshit, Connor?”
His head jerked up. “What are you talking about?”
I guzzled down the glass of wine and chuckled. “You know what I’m talking about. I’m fine and I’m ready to go home. I don’t want to be here, in some backwoods paradise. Shades said it wasn’t a prison, but it sure as hell feels like one.”
Sighing, he poured me another glass of wine. “It’s not a prison, Hadley. Whatever you want, we can give you. There aren’t any bars covering your windows are there?”
I glanced up at the house and snorted. “Probably because there’s a security system.”
By the look on his face, I was right. “You’re more than welcome to move about freely. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. There’s even a library here.” Grabbing my wine, I got to my feet and almost lost my footing, but Connor caught me. “What the hell? You only drank one glass.” He took my glass and set it down on the table.
“I feel . . . strange. My whole body tingles,” I slurred. The feeling was familiar, like how’d I’d felt the night of the accident.
“Fuck me,” he growled, picking me up in his arms. He carried me inside and up the stairs.
“You drugged me,” I hissed angrily. “Why?”
Everything sounded so far away, yet I heard voices all around me. I wanted to scream, to demand to know what was going on. Connor laid me down and the feel of soft satin sheets wrapped around me. My eyes closed and I couldn’t feel my body.
“Why the fuck did you drug her?” Connor growled.
“She was asking too many questions.” The sound of the voice was oddly familiar, but the accent threw me off.
“Of course, she’s going to ask questions. You’ve known Hadley for how long now? She’ll be pissed when she finds out.”
The other guy snorted. “She can blame that on her father. Besides, once we get to Ireland and she see’s everything I can give her, she’ll be all mine.”
I was in a dream. There was no way what I was hearing was real. The fogginess started to close in and I could feel myself slipping away. I struggled to stay lucid enough to hear more.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Connor spat. “That was never part of the deal. She doesn’t belong to you.”
“Nor you, my friend. You’re getting too close to her and I don’t like it. When we get back home, I want you to stay away from her.”
Connor growled low in his chest. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I will do whatever the fuck I want. She’ll hate you after she finds out what you did.”
“Nonsense. Once she finds out her lover is dead, she’ll be ready to leave the country. I’ll be there to fill the void, and anything else that needs filling.” He chuckled.
“But he’s not dead.”
“Yet.”
“What did you do?”
“Let’s just say, I have Dillon taking care of it. It’ll be a shame when loverboy doesn’t make it out alive.”
I wanted to scream and cry, but I was a prisoner in my own body. Blake needed my help, and there was no way I could help him. The only thing I knew was, when I woke up in the morning, he could be gone.
Blake
“Fuck me,” I growled. By the time the tracker linked up to George’s phone, he was on the move and heading south to New York.
“Where do you think he was?” Nick asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, somewhere north of here. Maybe Canada? I’m checking his credit cards to see if he purchased anything in the past two hours.” I searched and couldn’t find a fucking thing. He was probably paying in cash. Smart bastard.
Logan was running a background on Connor MacCabe and so was I. His files were hard to find, immediately causing red flags to go up. The only people who had secret lives were people in the government, or people with enough power to hide what they do. Those were the ones you didn’t want to fuck with, but I’d take down anyone who stood between me and Hadley.
Nick pulled up a chair. “Any luck?”
“I’m getting there. Just a few more clicks and I think I’ll have it.” Searching through the government database was tricky. There were all sorts of codes you had to enter to access everything. They made it that way so others couldn’t hack in and get the information. Only one more code and I’d be in. “Okay, here we go.”
His file came up, but before I could read anything, my phone rang. It was across the room, connected to the charger.
“Keep reading, I’ll get it,” Nick offered. Rushing over, he grabbed my phone and froze, mouth gaping.
“What the hell are you doing? Give me the phone.” I stood up and made my way across the room.
“It—it’s Hadley,” he stuttered, quickly handing me the phone.
Heart racing, I swiped my finger across the screen. “Hello?” I wanted to hear Hadley’s voice, but that wasn’t what I got.
“Be ready. They’re coming for you,” the caller replied.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Why do you have Hadley’s phone? Where is she?”
“No time to explain. If you’re still alive tomorrow, I’ll let you know more.” He hung up and that was it.
Nick lifted his hands in the air. “Who was it? What was that about?”
I set the phone down and rushed over to my bag. “Looks like we’re gonna have some company. Hope you’re ready.” In my bag, I had my gun and several magazine clips. The second I pulled it out, Nick’s eyes went wide.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Who’s coming for us?”
“I’m about to find out. Kill the lights.” He turned off the lights and I hurried over to my laptop. Connor’s file popped up and I searched through it as fast as I could. “Dammit to hell,” I groaned.
“What? What do you see?” Nick demanded, hissing low.
I turned the laptop toward him. “Connor’s part of the Irish mafia. Everything just got fifty thousand times more difficult.”
“I don’t understand. Why would George hire one of them to be Hadley’s bodyguard?”
“I don’t know, but if George pissed them off in any way, they’ll use her to get back at him. I know what those guys are capable of.” I’d seen some of the people they’d killed over the years. Their tactics were brutal. If they so much as hurt Hadley, I’d spend the rest of my days hunting them all down.
Nick peeked out the window. “And they’re coming to kill us? How did they know we were here?”
“They’re good at what they do, that’s why.”
“What are we going to do? Do you have a plan?”
I glanced at the bed and smiled. “I do, but we have to hurry.”
“Why did the light go out?” Nick whispered from his location in the closet.
“They’re here.” After we’d made the bed look like a body was in it, we took up our posts and waited for over two hours.
Now the time had come. I peeked through the curtains, and luckily, there was only one guy cloaked in darkness. He had his gun out and was attaching a silencer to it.
“How many are there?” Nick whispered through the closet door.
“Just one. He’s coming now.” I flattened myself up against the wall. Gun in hand, I took a deep breath. As soon as I heard the little click inside the door, it was time.
The door steadily moved open and there was no sound at all. The guy was good. He pointed the
gun toward the bed and before he could shoot, I kicked his knees in and heard them crack as he fell to the floor with a grunt.
When he dropped the gun, Nick bolted out of the closet and lunged for it. “Got it,” he said, pointing it at the intruder.
I’d half expected him to cower in the closet, but he proved me wrong. “Keep it pointed at him. If he moves, shoot him.” The guy’s legs were splayed at an odd angle. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
I grabbed his feet and he hissed as I tied him up. When I turned him over, I recognized him immediately from the video. He was the one who helped Connor stage the accident. He was a big guy with long brown hair and a scar under his right eye. There was nothing but death in those eyes.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m not telling you a fucking thing,” he snarled. I could barely tell what he said because of his thick, Irish accent.
“Didn’t think so.” I reared back and punched him hard across the cheek. Blood spurt out of his mouth, along with a tooth. I knew he wouldn’t speak and I was banking on that. He was going to suffer.
“Damn,” Nick exclaimed. “That shit was hard core.”
“I’m just getting started.” Resting my boot on one of Scar’s broken legs, he winced when I pressed down. “Still no answer?” I goaded.
He didn’t give me as much as a groan. The fucker wasn’t going to ever walk again, once I got done with him.
As hard as I could, I jumped on his legs with all my weight. He screamed in pain, but I didn’t stop. My knuckles hurt from punching him. I could barely recognize him once I was done. There was blood everywhere, but I wasn’t ready to quit. If they were going to fuck with me, I wanted them to see I could fight back. Grabbing him by the neck, I squeezed and listened to him choke.
“Blake, stop! You don’t want to kill him,” Nick shouted.
“Why not? He was going to kill us. I think it’s only fair.”
“Uh, I think you’ve done worse than kill him. The fucker’s not going to be able to walk probably ever. His bones are shattered.”
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and let him go. His head fell to the floor with a loud thump. His body had to be in shock from all the pain. “I need to call in backup. We have to get out of here.” I washed up quickly and then dialed Mason’s number. He had contacts everywhere.
“Evans, what’s up?” he answered.
“If I had the time to tell you, you’d probably shit a brick.”
“That bad, huh? I heard about Hadley. I’m sorry, brother.”
Rushing over to the computer, I pulled Connor’s file back up. “That’s just it. She’s alive, Mason. And I need your help.”
“Alive? Her funeral is tomorrow. It’s all the media can talk about.”
“I know you think I’m crazy, but I’ve been working with Logan on getting some footage, and I saw the accident. It was staged. Hadley’s out there somewhere and I’m going to find her. She’s being held by the Irish mafia.”
He choked and barked out a cough. “Are you fucking kidding me? How did she get involved with them?”
“I think her father has something to do with it. But right now, I’m in Burnsville with a half-dead body in my motel room. They sent one of their goons to kill me. I need you to contact some of your people and get them here as soon as you can.”
“All right, I’m on it. I know some guys who can probably be out there within the hour.”
“Good. And do me a favor, don’t tell anyone Hadley’s still alive. Someone wants us to think she’s dead and we need to keep it that way. I’m trying to find out where she is and I think I might be close. Her bodyguard is with her. His name is Connor MacCabe.”
Mason blew out a sigh. “I’ll give my people a call and search for this MacCabe. Good work, Evans.”
We hung up and I concentrated on the screen. Nick sat on the bed, sneaking side glances at me. “Something you need to say?” I inquired.
“Not really. I’m just sitting here like it’s normal to be around a dead body.”
“He’s not dead yet, but I’m sure he wishes he was. You get used to seeing shit like this in my line of work. Sometimes it’s much worse.” There were things I’d seen that still gave me nightmares.
Looking at Connor’s file, I found his address in Canada and wrote it down. He’d been in North America for only two years. What made him come here from Ireland? There were several profiles attached to his and it was all people he was connected to, including the ass fuck on the floor—Flynn Dillon. He moved his head and groaned.
“I hope it was worth it, cocksucker. All you had to do was tell me your name. Looks like I had it all along,” I spat.
“Who is he?” Nick asked.
“Flynn Dillon. Apparently, he lives in Canada too. I’m seeing a trend here. I guess we know where we need to go.”
Nick pulled out his phone. “My best friend lives just across the border. I can call him and see if we can crash there while we figure everything out.”
I held up my hand. “Give me a second to figure out where this Connor lives before doing that. Canada’s a pretty huge place.” Once I had his address typed in, I waited for the map to come up; his house was five hours away. “All right, it takes a few hours to get there. He lives in Kingston. If we leave now we can get there late morning.”
“Really? That’s where my friend lives too.”
“He your best friend?”
Nodding, he scrolled through his phone until he found some pictures of Hadley with both of them. “He and Hadley were good friends. He wouldn’t tell anyone what we were doing,” Nick said, showing me the pictures.
“What’s his last name?” I asked.
His brows furrowed. “Doherty, why?”
“How long have you known him?”
He closed his eyes, pursing his lips. “About two years.”
I skimmed through Connor’s file again and clicked on the others associated with him. There were about twenty men. MacCarthy, no. Carroll, no. Shit, where did I see it? Then I found it.
“Give me your phone,” I ordered. I held the picture up beside the photo on file. They looked exactly alike, only one was much older than the other.
Stunned, Nick gasped. “Holy shit.”
Hadley
My head pounded. At least there wasn’t any light coming through the window to make it worse. I cracked an eye open and groaned; it was dark outside. For a moment, I almost forgot where I was, but then one name was all it took to drag me back.
“Blake,” I whispered frantically. Jumping out of my bed, I scrambled into the closet and pulled a handful of clothes down. I took off my shirt and shorts and pulled new ones on. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Rushing to the window, I lifted it up and felt the cool breeze brush across my skin. I half expected an alarm to go off, but luckily, it didn’t.
Taking a deep breath¸ I lifted one leg over and straddled the sill. The drop down could easily break bones if I landed wrong. “Here I go.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice called. Hands grabbed me and pulled me in. I fell to the floor and Connor towered over me, shutting the window. “Now what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
I jumped to my feet and pushed against his chest. “Where’s Blake? If you so much as touched him, I’ll kill you myself.” I pushed him again. “Where is he?”
Grabbing me around the waist, he pulled me into his body and slammed a hand over my mouth. I tried to fight him off, but we fell onto the bed, him pinning me with his weight. “Stop fighting me, Hadley. Blake is fine. I called and warned him about the attack hours ago.”
Eyes burning, I sagged in his arms. He was alive. “Why are you doing this?” I said into his hand.
“I’m not the one doing anything. I want to help you, but you have to work with me. I’ll let you go now, if you promise not to fight me. Deal?” I nodded and he slowly uncovered my mouth. “Good. I’m getting off you now.” Once he moved away, I scrambled to the other
side of the bed and onto the floor.
“Why am I here?” It was still dark, but I could see him move across the room to the sitting chair.
He sat down and sighed. “You’re not going to like my answer.”
“I don’t care. Anything is better than not knowing.”
He ran his hands over his face and then clasped them in his lap. “You’re here because everyone back home thinks you’re dead.”
“Excuse me? Wait, you’re kidding, right?” It had to be a joke. Maybe I was a victim of one of those prank TV shows that like to mess with celebrities.
From across the darkened room, I could see his serious gaze. There would be no TV crews busting in to say it was a joke. In that moment, all of my hopes and dreams shattered. “Oh my God, you’re not.”
He shook his head. “We orchestrated your death to make it look like an accident. For the past couple of years, your father had been getting threats on your life. I guess you can say he got tired of it and wanted to take matters into his own hands. That’s why he asked us to do this for him.”
I felt sick and betrayed. How could my father take my life away like that? “Who is us?” I demanded. “Are you with the government?”
“No. I’m involved in something much worse.”
Swallowing hard, I stepped back. “Like what, the mafia?” When all he did was stare at me, I had my answer. “How did my father get involved with you?”
“He was looking for someone qualified to be your bodyguard.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and snorted. “Of course, you’re qualified. I bet you kill people for a living.”A small smile splayed across his lips and it infuriated me. “It’s not funny,” I snapped.
“Hadley, you have no clue what I do.”
“That might be a good thing. I’d hate to end up at the bottom of the lake with cement boots.”
Chuckling, he checked his watch and stood. “That’s just bullshit you see on TV.” He started for the door, but I stepped in his way.
“Who was the other guy you were talking to last night?”
His smile faded. “You’ll find out tomorrow. If I tell you now, it’ll ruin my plan.”
