Kidnapped by the Billionaire

by Jackie Ashenden

  And she’d asked him … what? Something important. Something that had hollowed him out like she’d reached inside him with a melon-baller and scooped out his heart.

  After that … Shit, that’s right. The front door of his apartment had flown open—God knew how, since his security system was state of the art and no one should have been able to get past it—and Gabriel Woolf and his merry band of assholes had burst in.

  Mother fuck … What had he missed? What had he done that had given his position away?

  He blinked hard, trying to get his eyesight working, taking a scan around at where he was.

  Bare room. Concrete floor and gray brick walls. No windows. Lit with a harsh, white fluorescent light. Your standard torture room in other words.

  He was sitting in a chair, unbound, which was a mercy. But not, apparently, unguarded.

  In front of him stood four people. Woolf. Rutherford. King. And Alex St. James. They were all looking at him, their expressions ranging from completely blank to ice cold to furious. None of them had guns but he felt the prickle at the back of his neck that told him someone somewhere had a weapon trained on him.

  A slight turn of his head and he spotted a fifth person. The bodyguard, Ivanova. She was the one with the weapon and it was pointed directly at his head.

  Okay then.

  He said nothing, shifting slightly in the chair, staring back at them expressionlessly because he’d be fucked if he gave them anything. Their insistence on sticking their noses where they didn’t belong had ended up destroying years of planning. They were no friends of his.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Hunt.” Rutherford was the one who broke the silence, his cut-glass British accent sharp. “I have to commend your ingenuity. You’ve proven to be a bit of a bastard to track down.”

  Elijah shrugged, fighting down the urge to wince as the movement aggravated his shoulder wound. “I’m hardly likely to make it easy for you.”

  Rutherford’s amber gaze dropped to Elijah’s shoulder. He was still bare-chested and wearing the shorts he’d put on to take out his rage on the punching bag. Felt like years ago. The bandages were bloody again and he had a sudden flashback, of Violet’s hands on him, wrapping the gauze around his shoulder, her fingers gentle …

  “Is your wound troubling you?” Rutherford murmured. “I apologize. It’s not like me to miss.”

  Elijah ignored the dig. “Mind hurrying this Q&A session, or whatever the fuck this is, along? I have things I need to do.”

  “Things such as using Fitzgerald’s daughter for some kind of glorified revenge plan?”

  The words were mild enough, but it prompted another rush of memory about the confrontation in his apartment. St. James telling him they knew about what had happened to Marie. That they knew what he wanted. At least they thought they knew what he wanted.

  “Yeah,” he said flatly. “That.”

  Woolf’s expression hardened, the glitter in his dark eyes furious. “Over my dead fucking body.”

  Elijah met the other man’s gaze. “That can be arranged.”

  “Fuck’s sake,” Eva King said disgustedly. “Can we stop it with the dick measurements? I’m kind of over it.” She stepped forward, a small, delicate woman in black jeans, heavy boots, and an AC/DC T-shirt, her long white-blonde hair in a ponytail down her back. “I’ve got some questions that are actually relevant.”

  This was the woman who’d taken Elijah’s revenge from him and all because he’d made one stupid fucking mistake. Yeah, she was brave, he’d give her that. He’d been impressed with her fighting spirit when he’d brought her to Fitzgerald, but that didn’t mean he’d forgiven what she’d done.

  Elijah glowered at her, unable to stop the uprush of sudden anger that twisted in his veins. “What makes you think I’m going to tell you anything?”

  He noticed Rutherford had taken a small step so he was right behind her, his posture tense. Clearly he didn’t like his little girl being threatened.

  Another memory flashed behind Elijah’s eyes, of Violet pressed against him. Of his arm around her, holding her close. Of the strange feeling of wanting to take her and hide her away. Protect her from all those guns trained on her.

  They thought he’d been using her as a shield to protect himself. Hell, that’s exactly what he’d told himself he was doing, because there was no way they were going to take him. No way they were going to take her either. He needed her, after all. Yet that hadn’t explained the fury that roared through him when St. James had pointed it out. Or why he’d felt himself relaxing when her fingers had rested on his arm. Or even the inexplicable need he had to turn them both around so that his back was facing all those guns.

  But he hadn’t done that. He’d seen the almost imperceptible move that Alex’s beautiful bodyguard had made, a shift in posture that told him she was going to fire, and he’d shoved Violet aside to get her out of the way instead.

  He didn’t know why he’d done that since it was obvious Woolf and his friends wouldn’t hurt Violet. That it wasn’t her they were aiming at, but himself. And yet all he’d thought about was making sure Violet was well out of the line of fire.

  Because you want her alive and whole for Jericho. Right?

  Yes. Of course. That was it.

  And yet all the same, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the expression on Rutherford’s face. A glittering, dangerous look that promised death to anyone who touched what was his.

  Fuck. Pull yourself together.

  Eva thrust her hands into her pockets, her head tilting, giving him a steady, sharp look. “I get it, you’re pissed with me ’cause I shot that prick. But if you think I’m going to apologize for it, you’re shit out of luck.” It was true. She didn’t look in the least apologetic. “Anyway, if you wanted his head so badly, why did you let me go?”

  Up in Fitzgerald’s office, Elijah had stood there with his gun held to Eva’s head, a hostage for Rutherford’s good behavior. Doing his good soldier act. It had taken him at least five years to get it right, but by the time Fitzgerald finally made him his right-hand man, he’d perfected it.

  No one, least of all Fitzgerald, had ever suspected him of any ulterior motive, any secret plan.

  He’d become one of Fitzgerald’s men so thoroughly that sometimes he’d forget that there had ever been another way to be.

  He’d almost forgotten up in that office.

  “Because it looked like that guard dog behind you was going to shoot him,” he said at last, because really, there wasn’t any reason not to tell her. “And I wanted that honor for myself.” He paused, giving her back a cold stare. “Except then you picked up the fucking gun and did it instead.”

  Eva was silent a moment. “You want to know why?”

  “No.”

  “Because what happened to your wife nearly happened to me.” The words were hard and cold, falling into the room like bits of ice.

  Ah, so that was the answer. Another small piece of the puzzle falling into place.

  He’d never asked his boss why Fitzgerald had wanted him to get Eva, since asking questions was never a prudent move. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t tried to find out. Over the years he’d built up a pretty good network of contacts who fed him all sorts of information about Fitzgerald’s operations, and yet that particular piece of information had eluded him.

  “What?” she said, correctly interpreting the look on his face. “You didn’t know?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Please. You can’t tell me you were his favorite pet, following his orders so faithfully, and yet you didn’t know why he wanted me so badly?”

  Elijah gave her a silent scan that had Rutherford behind her tensing even more. Yes, she was just the sort of woman Fitzgerald liked. Small and delicate, beautiful and strong. So he could break them.

  Like Marie.

  He forced the thought of Marie away. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for this woman, for any of them. Sympathy was just another emotion that got in t
he way of what he needed to do.

  Ignoring the reference to his wife, he said, “I’ve only been his ‘favorite pet,’ as you put it, for five years. If he’d had you in that time, I would have known about it.”

  Eva stared at him. “It was seven years ago.”

  “Then that’s why I didn’t know.”

  Her brows twitched. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with that? With him keeping me like an animal in a cage?”

  A silence fell, as if this was a very important question and the answer mattered. Of course they’d think that. What they failed to understand was that it didn’t. His opinions, his feelings, made no difference, only what he did.

  That’s a fucking lie and you know it.

  No, it wasn’t. It was a necessary truth. A truth he had to believe, because if he didn’t, if he thought feelings actually made any difference at all, he was fucked. They were a weakness, and he couldn’t be weak. Not again.

  “What I think is irrelevant,” he said coldly. “The facts are that you fucking killed him and destroyed seven years of planning.”

  She frowned at him. “What planning? I hate to say it, but seven years seems pretty fucking long to plan for killing that asshole. Only took me two seconds to pull that trigger.”

  Elijah sat back in the chair, flicking a glance at the others. They were all silent, all watching him.

  Well, why not give them the truth? He certainly wasn’t going to be getting out of here without a fight and he needed to. He had a meeting with Jericho scheduled, a meeting that required Violet. Perhaps telling the truth would move things along.

  “You think I only ever wanted Fitzgerald’s head?” he said. “Yes, I wanted to kill him, but that’s not all. I wanted to take down his whole fucking empire too.”

  Eva’s brows twitched again, while Woolf’s dark eyes narrowed. St. James’s expression was completely enigmatic, while the massive man standing behind Eva stared at Elijah as if he was waiting for someone to give the word to launch an all-out attack.

  The gun trained on him didn’t move an inch.

  “For your wife?”

  Eva’s voice was flat, and despite the leash he had on himself, Elijah felt his anger twist, pulling at it. “This has got nothing to do with her.” He tried to make it sound icy, but for some reason it didn’t. It sounded angry. Furious.

  “Marie,” St. James said, as if he was tasting the name. “Her name was Marie. I remember her. I remember you too, Kane.”

  Anger burst in his brain, a bright, white explosion.

  Those nights he’d tagged along with Marie to the Second Circle, hating the place but going anyway because she always got such a kick out of being a member of such an exclusive club. Where they’d met some people who’d then introduced then to Fitzgerald. Even then he hadn’t liked the guy, some instinct telling him there was something ‘off’ about him. An instinct he’d ignored because Marie had liked him, had thought he’d be useful to them and their respective businesses.

  Fuck, he’d been a fool. Weak minded with love, never realizing the wolf his sheep of a wife was lying down with. He’d ignored the warning signs, and now Marie was dead.

  Kane Archer should have been put down before he’d ever allowed her to set foot in that place.

  Elijah stared into Alex St. James’s blue eyes. “You do not say her name, not now, not ever. And as for Kane … He’s dead and has been for seven years.”

  Alex said nothing, only continued to stare expressionlessly at him, but Elijah didn’t make the mistake of thinking the guy had nothing to say. There was something sharp and frighteningly perceptive behind that blue gaze.

  “Okay, well, I for one don’t give a shit who you were or why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Woolf said suddenly, sounding impatient. “All I want to know is who you’ve got in your sights now that Fitzgerald’s dead and why you needed Violet.”

  “As I said,” a light, accented voice off to the side added, “I think you want the same thing we do.”

  The bodyguard.

  Slowly Elijah turned. She’d shot at him in the apartment and missed, possibly deliberately. Her eyes were very green and very cool, and not at all uncertain.

  “If you want the same thing I do,” he said, “then why the fuck do you keep getting in my way?”

  “Because you involved my goddamn sister,” Woolf growled.

  Elijah turned back to the other man, who’d stepped forward, his hands loose at his sides, no doubt ready to deal out more damage if he didn’t get the right answer.

  More pain didn’t bother Elijah, but unwillingly a small thread of respect wound through him. At least Woolf knew the right questions to ask. Knew what didn’t matter and what did.

  “I involved your fucking sister because Ms. King here shot the man I’ve been trying to take down and I needed a backup plan. She was it.”

  “Why? What do you need her for?”

  They didn’t know. They didn’t know about Jericho. Then again, why would they? He was a shadowy figure, his identity a closely guarded secret. No one had met him, no one knew who he really was, not even Fitzgerald. And the only reason Elijah even knew was because Fitzgerald had been wanting in on the guy’s territory and needed all his men behind him.

  You should tell them.

  Ah, but why? This was his battle, his war. He didn’t want anyone else fighting it for him, taking away the victory that was rightfully his, because shit, they’d already done it once before. Telling them now would only make them involve themselves again, and that was the last thing he wanted.

  So he said nothing.

  Woolf’s lip curled. “Hate to break it to you, but Fitzgerald’s fucking little empire is still going strong. Which means you’ve done sweet fuck all to take it down.”

  “Not quite fuck all. If you know Fitzgerald then you know about the Seven Devils. And if you know about the Seven Devils, you’ll know that three of them, other than South and Fitzgerald, are dead.” The Devils had been part of Fitzgerald’s group of college friends, young men who’d been hungry for more money and power than they already had, and been drawn to get it illegally under Fitzgerald’s influence.

  “You killed them?” St. James asked sharply.

  “Not personally, but I engineered their deaths.” He’d worked hard at that too, to make sure they went down and yet to hide his own involvement. Fitzgerald had never guessed. “As for the other two who are still alive … it would have been only a matter of time.”

  “There’s someone else.” Rutherford spoke unexpectedly. His amber eyes hadn’t moved from Elijah, not once. “You’re going after someone else.”

  Elijah gave him back a cold smile. “Is that right?”

  Rutherford’s gaze intensified. “Someone who wants Violet.”

  Fuck.

  Oh come on. Did you really think they wouldn’t guess at some point?

  Well, he’d hoped. They’d been so interested in other facts, they hadn’t seemed interested in working anything else out. Turned out he was wrong.

  He leaned back in the chair, letting his hands rest loosely on the arms of it. “Congratulations. You’ve worked out something very simple.”

  “Who?” Rutherford’s voice virtually cracked with command, hard as a whip snapping. “Who wants her?”

  The authority in his voice had no effect on Elijah whatsoever. He stared at Rutherford instead, turning something over in his head.

  Maybe he should tell them, or at least use the information as a way of getting Violet and getting out of here.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said slowly. “On one condition.”

  “Fuck no,” Woolf spat. “You’re not making any fucking conditions.”

  But Rutherford ignored the other man. “What condition?”

  “Zac.” Woolf’s voice was a growl. “We can find this shit out ourselves, we don’t need this prick. Hell, maybe he told Violet? She’ll tell us.”

  Of course they could get a name out of Violet. But what they cou
ldn’t get was Jericho’s contact details. Only he had that.

  “No.” It was Eva who spoke, her silver eyes glittering. “That’ll take time, and I’m sick of this cagey bullshit. I want it to be over. Like now.”

  “You heard the woman,” Rutherford murmured. “What’s your condition?”

  Woolf muttered something vicious, but the others ignored him.

  A dumb move. Especially because they sure as shit weren’t going to like that condition.

  “It’s not difficult. You let me go unharmed.”

  There was a silence.

  “But that’s not all. Is it?” This from St. James, his blue gaze narrowing.

  Elijah allowed himself another smile. “Of course not. I want Violet too.”

  * * *

  Violet sat on the massive black leather couch in Gabriel Woolf’s Tribeca apartment with her hands clasped together, feeling a little dazed and oddly disconnected from things.

  Maybe it was shock. At least, that’s what Honor kept calling it. Because surely what she should be feeling was enormous relief at finally being out of Elijah’s apartment. And gladness that her friend had come through and that she’d been rescued.

  But she didn’t. Instead, along with the weird disconnectedness she felt … worried. Unsure. Bizarrely she kept glancing around for Elijah and being disappointed that he wasn’t here.

  After she’d seen Gabriel deliver that knockout blow, he and Alex and the blonde bodyguard had bundled her up into a large black truck. They’d thrown an unconscious Elijah in the back and then they’d taken her here. Elijah they’d taken … somewhere else. To Zac’s place apparently, according to Honor.

  Violet did not find that in the least bit reassuring. And then reflected on the fuckedupedness of worrying about her captor and being concerned for his welfare.

  Jesus Christ. Two days she’d been in that apartment—hardly enough time to get to know someone let alone feel what she felt for Elijah. Which meant she really was screwed up beyond all recognition.

  Honor came back out of the kitchen with a mug of extremely hot, strong coffee, putting it on the low table near the couch. Then she sat down beside Violet, a concerned look on her face.