Kidnapped by the Billionaire

by Jackie Ashenden

  Now he wasn’t either of those things. He wasn’t anything.

  How did Elijah Hunt know? And did he have something to do with it? Was he even telling the truth?

  Okay. So. First things first. Pull yourself the fuck together.

  “What the hell are you doing with me?” she forced out, her voice thin and tight. “If you’re going to rape me then just get it over and done with, you prick, because the suspense is killing me.” All bravado of course, but it was better than whimpering like a child.

  He made a sound of disgust at that and suddenly she was free as he shoved her forward. She stumbled, going down on her hands and knees to the hard wood floorboards beneath her feet. Shaking, she turned over, raising her arms to fight.

  But he didn’t come any closer. He only pushed himself away from the door and pointed the muzzle of that nasty-looking gun in her direction.

  The fear turned over in her chest, making her want to cower on the floor.

  Elijah had always been a frightening man, right from the moment her father had first taken him on as his new bodyguard five years earlier. Her father never went anywhere without him, and Violet had hated the way the man seemed to hang around all the freaking time, like a gargoyle, all scarred face and cold black eyes. He never smiled. Never seemed to have any expression other than “don’t fuck with me.”

  She didn’t like him. And yet for some reason she couldn’t ever quite put her finger on, she found him vaguely fascinating too. He was like a blade she wanted to test the edge of, just to make sure he really was as lethally sharp as she’d thought. Or a tiger she wanted to poke a stick at to see if he was as dangerous as he seemed.

  But those urges had fled now. Because yes, he really was as sharp and as dangerous as he seemed, and if she wasn’t careful she was going to get herself either cut or killed and eaten.

  “That was a pretty fucking stupid move.” His voice was so cold, like the rest of him, yet with an oddly rough, sensual edge that sounded like he’d spent one too many nights drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes. Except of course she’d never seen him do either. His idea of a fun night out was probably polishing his knives and checking over his guns.

  “I had to do something.” She sat up slowly, rubbing her trembling hands together, her palms stinging. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  He shifted, the fabric of the overcoat he wore parting and giving her a glimpse of bronze skin.

  How odd. What the hell happened to his shirt?

  “A girl could get herself killed if she’s not careful.” He gestured with the gun. “Get up.”

  “So, no rape then?” She had no idea why she was talking like this. She was clearly being stupid.

  Something flickered over his impassive features. Yeah, definitely disgust. “I’m a cold, hard bastard and I’ll kill you if you try that little stunt again, but no, I’m not going to rape you. That’s not why you’re here.”

  Perhaps it was the ice in his voice that eased the sharpest edges of her fear. Ridiculous when there was a gun pointed right at her and he was threatening to kill her. As if death was better than rape.

  Slowly, she got to her feet, her heart thumping around inside her chest like a bird throwing itself against the unyielding glass of a windowpane. “Then why am I here? And what did you mean about Dad being dead? Why would you say that?”

  “All in good time, princess. Right now I need you to do something for me.”

  “Why the fuck would I do anything for you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll put a bullet through you.” He reached over to the door frame and hit a button on the control panel next to it. Some lights on the panel flickered. Then he lowered the gun and smiled, a terrifying, cold smile that only seemed to make the black holes that were his eyes even darker. “Now, before we get to anything else, you have to understand that there is no way out of this apartment. You can only open this door with the code and only I have the code. The windows are bulletproof, so there’s no way you can smash them. Are we clear?”

  The brief thoughts she’d had of somehow rendering him unconscious, grabbing his gun, and smashing her way out of the apartment died stillborn.

  Not that she would have gotten far anyway. Apart from those self-defense classes, she had no fighting skills to speak of and she’d never even touched a gun let alone fired one. She’d probably end up shooting herself rather than him. Not to mention the fact that he was a trained bodyguard who probably knew how to kill people with his bare hands.

  A bodyguard with an apparently deep bank account.

  She didn’t take her eyes off him, but she’d caught a glimpse of the apartment as he’d shoved her inside all the same. Lots of exposed brick and wood floors, a high ceiling crossed with heavy, dark beams. A West Village loft this size had to be horrendously expensive, which was surely well above his pay grade. Then again, who knew? Her father was a man of many secrets and maybe he paid Elijah shitloads of cash.

  “We’re clear.” She tightened her jaw against an incipient wave of panic. “Am I going to get any explanations then?”

  “Not yet. You’re going to do that little task I mentioned first.” He inclined his head. “Behind you. Head through the door and into the bathroom.”

  “Why? What do you want me to do?” She was being an idiot continuing to push him. What the hell was she thinking?

  Maybe that you don’t have anything to lose?

  But no, that was stupid. She had plenty to lose. Her life being the main thing, but also the first lead she’d had on Theo since she’d gotten back to New York two months earlier.

  Sixteen years ago her brother had disappeared, ostensibly a suicide into the Hudson, his body never found. A verdict she’d never accepted, no matter what the coroner said.

  And then fifteen years later, while she’d been living in Paris, she’d gotten the first sign that maybe she’d been right all this time. That Theo hadn’t died. That he was alive. She’d scoured Paris trying to find information—any information—as to his whereabouts, and yet had come up with nothing.

  So she’d come back to New York to see if she could turn up anything there. And today, just before she’d gotten on that wretched subway, she’d finally found the lead she was looking for.

  The high-security storage facility where Theo had stored some of his belongings before his supposed death had gotten in touch with her, informing her that someone had accessed his storage locker. She’d left instructions and a hefty bribe with them years before, when she’d tried to access it herself and been refused, that should anyone come and try to get in, they were to let her know.

  And now they had. And there could be only person who’d accessed it.

  Theo himself.

  At least that was the only person who’d had authorized access according to them. Only the owner of the locker was allowed in, not even family members.

  She didn’t know what was in that locker or why he’d taken out storage in such a high-security facility—especially when all the rest of his stuff had been stored elsewhere by their mother—but she was sure only she knew about it. And some instinct had told her not to tell anyone else. So she hadn’t.

  But someone had accessed that locker, and it had to be Theo. Which meant he was alive and she wasn’t going to rest until she’d found him. She just had to get away from Mr. Elijah Hunt first.

  “You’ll find out,” Elijah said. “Come on. I haven’t got time to piss around arguing with you.”

  Swallowing, Violet pushed down the fear and the grief, and turned around.

  Ahead of her was a walled-off part of the echoing apartment with a door in the middle of it. The bathroom space clearly.

  She walked over to it and pushed the door open. There was a hallway beyond, painted stark white, and then another door.

  “Through there,” he ordered.

  Obediently she went through the second door into a stainless-steel and white-tiled bathroom. A massive freestanding tub faced one of the huge windows,
a glass walled shower area that could have fit in a whole baseball team off to the right of it.

  There was a vanity unit near the door, as minimalist and bare as the rest of the space, white porcelain and stainless steel, an unframed mirror hanging above it.

  Elijah went past her and reached into a cupboard under the unit, bringing out a big white plastic box. Setting it on top of the vanity, he took the top off and began to pull out what looked like some first-aid stuff, all the while keeping the gun trained on her.

  Briefly she debated seeing if she could take him by surprise and try to knock him out somehow, then discarded the idea. She’d probably only get herself hurt. If she was going to get out of this, she’d have to think of another way.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice echoed weirdly off the hard surfaces in the room.

  He didn’t reply, shrugging out of the overcoat he still wore.

  Violet swallowed again.

  She’d been right about the glimpse of bare skin she’d seen earlier. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Or at least the remains of a dark gray business shirt that had been torn up and used as a bandage were still wrapped around one massively muscled left shoulder. Blood streaked the sharply cut and defined lines of his chest and abdomen, staining the waistband of the business trousers that sat low on his lean hips. The blood also partially obscured the tattoo inked into his skin just above his heart. A rose with a thorny stem, red ink drops of blood mingling with his real blood.

  It seemed a strange image for a man so cold. Did it mean anything? Was it for anyone?

  What the fuck are you thinking about his tattoo for?

  He was now unwinding the remains of the shirt from around his shoulder, revealing the source of the blood. Holy shit. He’d been shot.

  The cold bite of fear returned as she glanced from the bloody wound to his face, suddenly becoming aware of what she’d only half taken in before. That his face was bruised. He had the beginnings of a black eye and there was a raw gash in his lip, more bruises along his jaw.

  He looked like he’d been in one hell of a fight and hadn’t come out the winner.

  Your father is dead.

  Elijah Hunt was his bodyguard.

  Oh fuck. What the hell had happened?

  He looked up, his black gaze catching hers. “Come here.”

  “Why?” The fear was rising in her chest, making her feel sick. “What do you want me to do?”

  In one hand he held the pistol, still steadily pointed at her. “As you can see, I have a gunshot wound.” He reached for a pair of what looked like forceps with his free hand, then held them up. “And you’re going to remove the bullet.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  She felt even sicker. She’d never taken a bullet out of anyone in her entire life and she really didn’t want to start now. “But I’m not—”

  “I don’t care what you’re not. Get over here and get this bullet out.”

  “And if I don’t, you’ll shoot me?”

  The muzzle of the gun didn’t waver and neither did the hard certainty in his eyes. “Yes.”

  “But if you shoot me, you’ll have no one to get the bullet out for you.”

  He lifted his uninjured shoulder. “Then I’ll get it out myself.”

  “So why don’t you do that now?”

  “Stop fucking arguing with me and get over here.”

  Yeah. Stop fucking arguing and do what the man says. What the hell is wrong with you?

  She didn’t know. She wasn’t usually this brave—or this stupid, the jury was still out on which. Yet still she held her ground. “Tell me what’s going on,” she said hoarsely. “Tell me why I’m here and what you want with me.”

  The look on his face was absolutely expressionless.

  She didn’t see the movement of his finger. There was only an explosion of sound and something hot whizzing by her ear. Behind her the window cracked, a hole punched clean through it.

  He’d shot at her. The bastard had actually shot at her.

  “Like I said.” His voice was hard and flat. “Get over here, otherwise next time I won’t miss.”

  She wanted to say something snarky, like how apparently not all of the windows in the apartment were bulletproof, but her sense of self-preservation must have finally kicked into gear because she managed to stop herself, moving toward the vanity instead, her knees weak, her heart thumping, her ears still ringing from the gunshot.

  Really, she should have been on the floor in a puddle of terrified tears and yet she wasn’t. Perhaps knowing Theo was alive had uncovered a determination she never realized she had. Or perhaps it was simply sixteen years of living with the niggling feeling that there was something not right about her brother’s death. Something no one else seemed to understand. Not her mother. Not her father. No one.

  That there was something not right about her entire family. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on but was there nonetheless.

  It was a terrifying, isolating feeling. Pretty much the way she felt right now in fact.

  Violet didn’t want to get too close to him, especially not while he was holding that gun and especially not with that horrible, emotionless look on his face. As if he felt nothing. As if he was dead inside.

  It terrified her. And fascinated her for reasons she couldn’t even begin to fathom.

  That’s really why you don’t want to get close.

  She carefully pushed that thought away.

  “Here.” Elijah handed her the forceps. “I don’t think the bullet’s that deep. Shouldn’t be too difficult to get out.”

  Reluctantly she looked at the hole in his shoulder. It was crusty with congealed blood, a nasty-looking wound. “I-I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Just stick the forceps in the wound, find the bullet, pull it out.”

  Her jaw tightened. “If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?”

  “I could if I had to, but the angle’s wrong.”

  She let out a breath. “It’ll … hurt.”

  He smiled that empty, cold smile. “Does it look like I give a shit?”

  “I just don’t want you to shoot me.”

  The muzzle of the gun remained steady. “Don’t ram those things through my chest and I won’t have to.”

  Jesus. “Alrighty then,” she muttered under her breath and glanced back down at the wound.

  Her hands shook slightly as she lifted the forceps, biting her lip as she pushed the metal tips inside the torn flesh. He didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch.

  She glanced up, unable to help herself, meeting his gaze.

  There was no sign of pain on his face, no anguish twisting his features. His expression was blank, like a robot’s. Except … deep in his eyes something blazed. A fierce, ebony flame. Dense as a black hole, sucking in light and heat, and crushing them flat.

  Rage. It was rage.

  An icy wave of shock swept over her and she looked hurriedly away, trying to still her shaking hands. The ever-present fear twisted in her gut, tightened a noose around her throat.

  This man wasn’t just dangerous. He was lethal. And she was his prisoner.

  No, don’t think about it. Pretend. That’s what you’re best at.

  Yeah, that was what she had to do. Pretend the way she always pretended with just about everyone she knew. That she was this rebellious, live-in-the-moment hippie chick. The one who made her mother so furious and yet had no effect at all on her father.

  The girl who didn’t care what was happening as long as it felt good and she was having fun. A girl at ease with herself and her sexuality, who went wherever the wind took her.

  A girl she wasn’t and never had been.

  “That’s got to hurt,” she said as she probed the wound, feeling around for the bullet, her bracelets chiming with the movement.

  “It’s sweet that you care, princess.” His voice was steady, betraying nothing, and the gun in his hand didn’t waver.

  “‘Princess,’�
� she echoed. “I thought you were only supposed to call me Miss Fitzgerald.” At least, that’s what he’d always called her as her father’s bodyguard.

  “Not anymore.”

  She resisted the urge to look at him, not wanting to glance into that terrifying, fathomless black gaze again. “I’d prefer you called me—”

  “Stop talking.”

  Violet shut her mouth with a snap. Her palms were sweaty, her fingers trembling, and she couldn’t seem to slow the frightened beat of her heart.

  Blood slid slowly down over his dark olive skin that looked like the legacy of some Mediterranean ancestor, obscuring the strange rose tattoo. This close she could smell the heavy, metallic scent of blood, and something else. A darker, earthier scent, like a forest covered in snow.

  He didn’t speak, his breathing slow and even. The gun never wavering.

  The silence in the room was so thick it felt like her ears were stopped with cotton balls.

  And then just when she thought she was either going to burst into tears with fear or scream from the pressure, she felt the metal tips of the forceps close around something hard. Muttering a prayer in her head, she tugged and slowly drew the bullet out.

  The only sound from Elijah was a short, barely audible intake of breath, and then he was taking the forceps from her suddenly nerveless fingers, dropping them with a clatter into the sink, and reaching for a bottle he’d gotten out earlier.

  Putting the gun down, he opened the bottle and poured it directly onto the wound. Then he reached for a thick white pad as more blood began to slide down his chest.

  Violet stood back, watching him, trying to still the tremble in her limbs. Now would be the time, of course, to see if she could grab that gun. Or maybe hit him over the head with something.

  Yet she made no move. Even with a wound like that he’d probably be light-years faster than she was, not to mention about a thousand times stronger. And she really didn’t want to test whether or not he’d actually shoot her.

  Better to wait for another opportunity or think of a plan that didn’t involve a physical fight.