Kidnapped by the Billionaire

by Jackie Ashenden

  But before she could get the words out, the sound of his phone ringing came from out in the lounge.

  Abruptly, he pushed her away and got to his feet, striding out of the bathroom without a word.

  Violet just stood there, staring down at the white porcelain of the bath where he’d been sitting only seconds before. Broad shouldered and massive, all that bare tanned skin smooth and hot to the touch.

  He’d had a wife. A wife her father had killed.

  She had no doubt he was telling her the truth—he had no reason to lie.

  Her vision wavered, tears filling her eyes. Which was stupid and wrong, because what right had she to cry for a woman she didn’t even know? And why did she feel so responsible? She hadn’t been the one to kill her after all.

  Nevertheless, she felt the weight of it rest on her chest like a boulder, heavy and inescapable.

  Now she knew why he wanted to use her. Why he looked at her with such fury.

  He must see his wife’s killer every time he looked at her.

  We’re all monsters, Violet. Even you …

  Violet wiped the back of her hand over her face, scrubbing away the ridiculous tears, a cold hard splinter of ice settling deep into her soul. No, that wasn’t right. It was her father who’d done it, not her. But maybe what had happened to her was a kind of karma. Perhaps she shouldn’t fight him, let him use her however he wanted, make up for what her father had taken from him. Because how else could she make it better?

  Why do you want to? After what he’s done to you?

  So he was a killer, a criminal. But he was also … grieving. She’d sensed the pain of his loss even though she hadn’t quite known it for what it was or why. She knew now though. He was a man with a wound that went deeper than the one on his shoulder. A wound that still ached and bled and hurt. He had a hole inside him, just as she did. Except the hole inside Elijah could never be filled, because the woman he needed to fill it with was dead.

  At least she had evidence that Theo was still alive, that she still had someone.

  She turned, moving out of the bathroom and going down the hallway.

  “About fucking time.” Elijah’s voice drifted from the lounge area. “What can you give me?”

  She paused in the hall doorway, leaning against the frame.

  He was standing with his back to her, half naked, his wide, powerful shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, the shorts sitting low on his hips. She itched to touch him again, to run her fingers across those powerful muscles, feel them bunch and flex under her hands. To hear his breath catch and his deep, harsh voice whisper her name.

  She wanted him. Wanted to take him in her arms and soothe him, heal him. Wanted to take that bleak, cold look away from his black eyes and give him something warm to hold onto instead.

  Can anyone say Stockholm Syndrome?

  Oh yeah, and she had all the symptoms loud and clear. But she didn’t give a shit. Her father had taken something from him and it was now her job to give it back.

  He turned all of a sudden, as if he’d sensed her standing there, his gaze sweeping over her, now absolutely expressionless. Making her feel vulnerable for some reason, aware of her nakedness in a way she hadn’t been before. Then, still talking to whoever was on the phone, he turned back again, walking away from her toward the kitchen area and disappearing through the doorway.

  Clearly he wanted privacy. Did that mean he was talking about her? To Jericho? Were they arranging a meeting right now?

  I’m going to put a bullet in his brain.

  Well, at least that made sense now too. Why he took her, why he wanted to kill Jericho. Why he was so set on it.

  Revenge.

  Violet swallowed. She could understand it. When someone you loved was taken from you, after the shock and the grief, anger was the next emotion to hit and for some people it hit hard. In fact, some people never got past it. Looked like Elijah was one of those people.

  She went over to the punching bag where her clothes were lying strewn on the floor and picked them up, starting to dress. Staying naked made her feel too exposed, and she was feeling exposed enough as it was.

  When she’d finished she looked toward the kitchen area. Elijah still hadn’t come out, but she could hear the low rumble of his voice, the words indistinct.

  Deciding her fate maybe?

  A little uprush of panic went through her and she had to turn and pace to the windows and back to get rid of it.

  No, panicking was not helpful and after all she’d been through already, it seemed ridiculous to start now. What she needed to do was think of her next move. Initially it had been to help him lure out Jericho, but now? She wasn’t sure.

  Elijah knew more about Jericho than she did obviously, but she was betting the man was possibly even more dangerous than Elijah himself was. Killing him would certainly be an in-your-face kind of move. Surely Elijah would be aware that there would be reprisals for that kind of thing?

  Violet stared sightlessly at the sky beyond the high windows.

  Oh yeah, he was aware. The bleakness behind his eyes, the emptiness … He wasn’t expecting to survive his revenge.

  The thought made her heart squeeze tight and hard inside her chest.

  She didn’t want him to die. Sure, he was cold and he’d been rough with her. He hadn’t been kind to her in any way, shape, or form, and really, losing his wife wasn’t an excuse. And yet … There had been glimpses behind that emptiness in his eyes, glimpses of a man who wasn’t all black ice. Who was passionate and demanding, certainly. But not only that.

  He hadn’t hurt her. He’d given her antinausea pills for Christ’s sake. He’d lifted her out of that bathtub full of bloody water and wrapped her in a blanket. Bound the cuts. Given her painkillers.

  Yes, he needed to keep her alive for Jericho, but he hadn’t needed to do any of those things for her. Things that were aimed precisely at making her comfortable. At easing her pain.

  We are all monsters, Violet.

  He might be on the outside, but inside, somewhere under all that hard, cold ice he surrounded himself with, there was also a man.

  A man she wanted to know more about. A man she wanted to heal.

  Are you crazy? You’ve only known him two fucking days.

  Yeah, well, in that case she was crazy. And she didn’t care how long she’d known him. After a couple of years studying psychology she knew her own feelings well enough.

  What about what Theo said? Always question.

  She had questioned. She’d been constantly questioning herself since Elijah had brought her here and right now, she was fucking sick of it.

  Turning away from the window, she paced over to the sofa, glancing toward the kitchen again. Still no sign of him. She turned back, went over to the bookcase and stood in front of it, searching through the spines of the books as if they could tell her the truths about him she so desperately wanted to know.

  An older book in among all the paperbacks caught her eye and she reached out, pulling it off the shelf. It was a hardback, with an early sixties–looking cover. A first edition of Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Vintage sci-fi and probably worth a bit of money by now.

  Were these his books?

  She opened the cover and leafed through the first few pages until she caught sight of the scrolling, cursive writing on the title page, boldly ignoring the fact that writing on a first edition would lower its value.

  Kane, I told you I’d get you paper. Happy anniversary, darling husband. I love you. Marie.

  Violet frowned. Who the hell was Kane?

  “Get the fuck away from there.” Elijah’s voice was flat and hard with command.

  Violet turned, still holding the book, meeting his gaze and seeing nothing at all in his black eyes. Nothing but darkness. As if his earlier confession hadn’t happened.

  As if he hadn’t just told her that her father had killed his wife. He killed Marie …

  Oh God. He was Kane.

>   She blinked, realization spearing her like a blade as she took in the rest of the apartment. At the strange little lounge setting in front of her that had seemed so out of place when she’d first come here. The bright rag-rolled rug. The sofa. The coffee table. The romance in the shelves behind her …

  They were furniture from another time and another place. A time when he’d been married. When he hadn’t been Elijah Hunt, but another man.

  “Tell me about Marie, Elijah.” she said abruptly, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. “Tell me about Kane.”

  The darkness in his eyes was suddenly full of flames, fierce, hot. Burning high. And she braced herself for whatever was going to come next.

  But then his head snapped around, that fierce gaze locking onto the front door of the apartment. And for a second she couldn’t work out what the hell had drawn his attention.

  Then she saw that the steadily blinking lights of the security pad by the front door had gone dark.

  He was already moving toward the door when it was kicked in, banging open so hard it bounced off its hinges, admitting three figures all with their arms outstretched, weapons in their hands.

  Shock froze Violet where she stood and for a second she could only stand there, watching as the violence unfurled in front of her.

  Elijah hadn’t stopped moving, in fact, he’d accelerated, running toward one of the figures while someone else shouted. A gun went off, the sound exploding through the apartment followed by the shatter of glass.

  And Violet found that she was moving too, but not away from what was happening. She was running toward it, her heart thumping loud in her ears, fear gripping her. Fear for him.

  Elijah was grappling with another man, while a second man, tall, lean and black-haired, familiar-looking, trained a gun on them. The third figure, a woman with long blonde hair and dressed in a black suit, who looked as lethal as the gun she held, also trained a gun on the pair on the ground.

  These people, they were going to kill Elijah. And she couldn’t let that happen.

  “Stop!” She screamed the word, launching herself at the man who’d just aimed a vicious punch at the bandage on Elijah’s shoulder. As the blow landed, Elijah went white, stumbling a couple steps, his lips pulling back in a grimace of pain. Red bloomed against the new bandages she’d only just bound around him.

  “Stop it, you prick!” Violet shouted again, and before she could think twice about what she was doing, she stepped between the man and Elijah.

  He was familiar. Wide shouldered and tall, built along the same massive lines as Elijah. Dark eyes, blonde hair. Brutally handsome features. It was Gabriel Woolf.

  Which means this is a rescue.

  Violet shoved the thought aside. She didn’t care what it was right now, not when all that mattered was that they stopped hitting Elijah.

  Gabriel’s dark eyes settled on her, an expression she didn’t quite understand in his gaze. “Are you okay?” he asked harshly. “Did he hurt you?”

  There was movement behind Gabriel and the black-haired man, who Violet could now see was Alex St. James, Honor’s long-lost brother, said in a low, dangerous voice to Elijah, “Don’t you fucking move, asshole.”

  “Violet.” Elijah completely ignored him. “Step away.”

  “No.” She didn’t bother looking behind her, keeping her gaze trained on Gabriel. “Not until I get a promise that they won’t hurt you.”

  Gabriel’s dark brows drew down. “What the fuck? You know we’re here to rescue you, right?”

  “Princess,” Elijah’s voice was softer this time. “Get the hell out of the way.”

  She was shaking for some reason—probably shock—and she had the most ridiculous urge to burst into tears. Either that or to turn around and walk straight into Elijah’s arms.

  You fucking idiot. They came for you. Someone actually came for you.

  She should be thrilled. She should be running toward the door, getting out and never looking back.

  But all she could do was stand there, staring at the three people training guns on the man behind her, murder in their eyes.

  “I’m not moving,” she said thickly, focusing on Gabriel. “Promise me. Promise me, he won’t get hurt.”

  “Any particular reason you’re defending him, Violet?” This from Alex, whose blue eyes never left Elijah.

  She didn’t know Honor’s brother. Had never met him. But Honor had told her all about their reconciliation after she’d gotten together with Gabriel. Her friend was happy, but that hadn’t changed Violet’s opinion of Alex. Which was poor.

  Violet opened her mouth to reply when Gabriel took a sudden step forward and reached out to take her bandaged wrist in his hand. “What the fuck is this?” he demanded. “Did he do this to you?”

  She jerked her hand out of his grip. “It’s not what it looks like, okay?”

  “Touch her and I’ll kill you, prick.” Elijah’s voice came from behind her, cold as ice.

  Gabriel’s attention flicked to him. “Oh no, I’ve had enough of this bullshit. Come with me, Violet, we’re—”

  At that moment Elijah’s hands were around her waist, pulling her back against the heat of his body and holding her there. “We are going nowhere,” he said flatly. “You and your friends can fuck off out of my apartment.”

  The guns trained on Elijah had now moved. To her.

  Violet swallowed. She was okay with being his shield, especially with him half naked and his bare skin pressed up against her back, a reassurance rather than anything more sinister. It made her feel weirdly powerful.

  She relaxed against him, hoping he’d understand it meant she trusted him.

  Gabriel looked furious, while Alex’s blue eyes glittered coldly. The blonde woman hadn’t moved, but there was a frown on her face, her green gaze looking from Violet to Elijah then back again.

  Then she said, her accent clipped and Russian sounding, “Why are we doing this? We are all on the same side.” She lowered her gun, her attention focusing on Elijah. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Hunt.”

  Elijah slid an arm around Violet’s waist, heavy as an iron bar. “‘Nice’ is a relative term, Ms. Ivanova,” he said coldly. “Why is it you people are always involving yourselves in other people’s fucking business?”

  “We involve ourselves when you take something that’s ours.” Somehow there was a gun in Gabriel’s hand and he was pointing it straight at Violet.

  “I’m not going to kill her,” Elijah said. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “And yet you’re quite happy to use her as a human shield.” Alex’s voice was full of disgust. “Fucking coward.”

  Violet felt Elijah’s muscles tense, the arm around her waist tightening. And it was instinct to lay her hands gently over his forearm, using touch to soothe him like she would a wounded animal.

  She felt his breath across the back of her neck, a soft, inaudible exhale, and the hard, bunched muscles underneath her fingers gradually eased.

  “He’s not using me,” she said firmly. “I’m protecting him.”

  All three sets of eyes focused on her once more.

  She lifted her chin and met them each in turn.

  “You heard what the lady said.” Elijah pulled her closer. “Now make like the good soldiers you are and fuck off.”

  “Why?” Gabriel demanded, looking at Violet and ignoring Elijah. “We know he kidnapped you at fucking gunpoint, we have the security camera footage to prove it.”

  So they had been looking for her. That must have been Honor’s doing.

  “She doesn’t have to explain herself to you,” Elijah said icily. “Now, I’m not going to—”

  “We know about your wife.” It was Alex who cut in, keeping his gun exactly where it was. “And we know what you want.”

  Behind Violet, Elijah had gone very still.

  “You want revenge,” Alex continued. “And you would have had it, if Eva hadn’t pulled that trigger.”

  Violet
didn’t dare take a breath, knowing something was happening but not sure what or even what Alex was talking about. It was important though, that much she was certain of.

  “Yes,” Elijah agreed, a harsh edge to his voice. “I would. I told you to keep out of it. I told you to stay the fuck away. But you didn’t listen, did you? You just had to keep searching.”

  “We had our goddamn reasons.” Alex’s tone was hard. “And if you know who I am, then you’ll know what those reasons are.”

  Elijah had begun to back away slowly, imperceptibly, taking her with him. And she went, not even understanding why, only knowing she had to go with him because if she didn’t, something terrible was going to happen. “Oh, I know your reasons,” Elijah was saying. “I know who the Seven Devils are. I already destroyed two of them.”

  The other three looked at one another, glances Violet couldn’t interpret.

  Who the hell were the Seven Devils? And what did he mean by destroying them?

  Gabriel’s expression was like iron. “Fuck this bullshit,” he said coldly. “This ends now.”

  Violet didn’t understand quite how it happened, because neither Gabriel or Alex moved. But somewhere a gun went off and she was suddenly thrown violently to the side. Biting off a scream, she threw her arms over her head as she crashed to the floor.

  The wood beneath her vibrated with a heavy impact, the sounds of shouting filling the room.

  Wild with inexplicable fear, she was already on her feet again, turning around in time to see Gabriel lift a hand, a wicked-looking gun held tightly in his fist.

  Only to bring it down hard across Elijah’s face.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Elijah came to, his vision blurry, his cheekbone hurting like fuck and his shoulder wound feeling like someone had kicked the shit out of it with steel-capped boots.

  Jesus, what the hell had happened? Last thing he remembered, he’d finally gotten the phone call he’d been hoping for, the one from one Jericho’s flunkies naming a time and place for a meeting. Then after he’d ended the call, he’d come out of the kitchen area to find Violet standing there with the Heinlein Marie had given him for their first wedding anniversary.