Rhys

by Adrienne Bell

  “We’re about fifteen minutes out,” Mason said.

  Rhys saw the muscle on the side of Mason’s jaw tick. So, he wasn’t the only one who thought the worst.

  “What’s happened?” Rhys repeated Mason’s question.

  There was a pause on the other end and a sick, burning feeling rose up in Rhys’ throat.

  “There’s been an incident at Charlie’s apartment,” Carter said.

  “An incident?” Mason asked.

  “What happened?” Rhys demanded.

  He didn’t know why he was shouting. He already knew the answer. The despair in Carter’s voice told him everything.

  “Jake and Charlie have been wounded,” Carter said. “They’re both on their way to SF General.”

  “Wounded how?” Mason asked through gritted teeth.

  “Gunshot wounds to the chest.”

  All the blood rushed from Rhys’ face.

  Dylan.

  It had to be.

  Damn it. He’d had his chance to kill the son of a bitch, and he hadn’t taken the shot.

  “What’s their condition?” Mason asked.

  “Critical, both of them,” Carter answered.

  Silence fell over the car.

  Mason’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, gripping it so tight that his knuckles turned white, but somehow he managed to keep the car steady on the road.

  “And Tessa?” Rhys asked.

  Another pause. This one even heavier than the last.

  “What about Tessa?” he demanded.

  “The paramedics didn’t find anyone else in the apartment,” Carter said. “Charlie and Jake were in no condition to talk when they were found, but it sounds like Tessa dialed 911 on her phone and left it behind to lead the paramedics there. The operator believes she heard someone abduct Tessa.”

  Rhys’ blood turned to ice. Cold rage exploded inside him.

  Boyd had Tessa. Dylan had shot his friends.

  And Rhys was going to kill them both.

  Before anything could happen to Tessa.

  Before she could do anything to herself.

  It was just like she’d explained last night. She was the last remaining link to her work. The last piece that needed to be destroyed.

  There was no way in hell he was going to let that happen.

  “I need you both to come into the office, right away,” Carter said.

  Rhys stared down at the phone in his hand. He knew what Carter would want to do. He’d want to come up with a plan—a good, detailed plan. One that would cover every contingency. One that would take time.

  Time that Tessa didn’t have.

  Rhys’ jaw tightened as he readied himself to tell his boss to go to hell.

  But it turned out he shouldn’t have worried.

  “I’m sorry, Carter,” Mason said. “But you’re cutting out.”

  “Don’t do thi—” Carter started to say before Mason hit the end button on the phone.

  In the next instant, Mason swung the car toward the nearest exit, and stopped the car at the end of the off ramp. He turned toward Rhys.

  “So, how do we get her back?” he asked.

  ***

  “Get your damned hands off me,” Tessa screamed as Dylan dragged her over the concrete floor of the dockside warehouse.

  Dylan shot her a violent stare, but Tessa ignored it.

  What was he going to do? Kill her? She could only wish.

  And as long as he wasn’t going to give her what she wanted, Tessa didn’t see any reason to make Dylan’s life any easier.

  It wasn’t like she’d be able to rile Boyd to the point of murdering her. There was no temper in him. Just cold calculation.

  Not that she wanted to die. The cruelest part of this was that Dylan had come for her just when she had found a reason to fight for her life.

  And God help her, she wanted to live for Rhys. She wanted to live for those little moments in the morning when she was just waking up, when the world was still quiet enough that she could hear the beating of his heart in his chest. She wanted to live for the thrill of one of his unexpected smiles, the heat of his touch, that spark in his eye that told her that, even in a crowded room, she was the only one who truly mattered.

  Those were the things that made her want to fight for her life, even if it was selfish. Even if she wasn’t sure that she could hold her tongue against the cut of Dylan’s knife this time.

  Dylan pulled her into a small room along the back wall and tossed her on the floor. She skidded on her knees before coming to a stop in front of Anders Boyd. Tessa flicked back her hair as she glared up at him.

  “Nice place you got here,” Tessa said, arching her brows as she looked around the dimly lit metal office. “Guess I’ve worn out my welcome at the mansion.”

  Boyd sneered down at her. “Well, you were a terrible guest.”

  “You, on the other hand, were a hell of a host,” she shot back.

  Boyd’s brows shot up in surprise. “It seems you’ve grown a backbone in your time away from us. A gift from your new friends I take it.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Maybe they did teach me a thing or two.”

  A slow, evil smile spread across Boyd’s face. “And how did that end up for them?”

  Tessa felt a stab of pain right in the middle of her heart. The memory of Jake and Charlie collapsed in bloody heaps rose up in her mind.

  “You’ll never get away with what you did to them,” she said.

  “I think we both know that I already have,” Boyd said, leaning in close enough to whisper in her ear. “And that I could do it again and again if I wanted to.”

  Tessa’s brows pulled together. “What are you talking about?”

  Boyd clasped his hands behind his back as he stood up. “You have a lot of friends don’t you, Dr. Rosenthal. Family too. I’ve even heard a rumor that you’ve recently grown very close to Rhys Vaughn.”

  Tessa glared up at him. “I won’t let you touch any of them. I’ll kill myself first.”

  “No, you won’t,” Boyd said, shaking his head. “Because if you do, I will personally shoot Rhys Vaughn through the heart myself.”

  “You’re a monster,” she said.

  “No. I’m a businessman,” he said calmly. “Which makes things so much simpler. See, I only want one thing—the working prototype that you promised me.”

  “You mean, the weapon you sold to the highest bidder with no thought of the consequences.”

  “You want to talk about consequences?” Boyd asked, his glare sharpening. “How about this? If you don’t do what I tell you, I will kill everyone that you love one by one and tack up their murder scene photos on the walls of your new lab until you give me the one thing I want.”

  Tessa ground her back teeth as her heart clenched painfully. “And what happens if I consent to make the prototype?”

  “Simple. Dylan will execute you with a single, painless round to the back of the head, and everyone you care about will be spared.” Boyd clapped his hands, wringing them together as he looked down at her. “So what do you say? Do we have a deal?”

  Tessa narrowed her eyes as she looked up at Boyd. They didn’t. But she couldn’t let him know that.

  “You’re not leaving me much of a choice are you?” Tessa said.

  He shook his head slowly. “No, I’m not.”

  Tessa turned her face down and stared at the barren floor beneath her. There was no way in hell that she was going to make a weapon that was capable of wiping out entire swaths of humanity. Especially not when she knew that Boyd had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain.

  Knowing him, he would probably test the effectiveness of Project Exodus out on her loved ones first.

  Her only hope was to get away from Boyd long enough to warn them of the danger they were in. Tessa glanced around at the heavily armed, stern-faced guards surrounding her.

  Something told her that this time it was going to be a lot harder to escape tha
n the last.

  Hell, she didn’t even know what city he’d brought her to. Dylan blindfolded her on the drive over. Tessa had done her best to keep her bearings, but after five minutes of twists and turns, she’d been hopelessly lost.

  All she knew was that she was somewhere close to the water. It was a good start, but she could use a little more information.

  “Is this going to be my new lab?” Tessa asked.

  “Not hardly,” Boyd answered with a laugh. “It’s close.”

  “Where exactly?” she tried.

  Boyd’s brows pulled together, and Tessa knew instantly that she’d pushed too hard.

  “What does that matter?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t,” she said, shaking her head a little too fast. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”

  Boyd stilled before reaching down and grabbing her arm. His gray eyes went hard as he hauled her up to her feet.

  “I made the mistake last time you were my guest of forcing Dylan to go easy on you,” he snarled in her ear. “I let my admiration of both you and your work cloud my judgment. It’s a mistake I don’t plan on repeating.”

  Tessa swallowed down past the lump that was quickly growing in her throat. He categorized what Dylan had done to her as easy?

  “So, this time let me make myself perfectly clear,” Boyd continued, wrenching her head around so that she faced Dylan. “If I believe, for even a second, that you are trying to play me, I will give Dylan free rein to do his worst. He might not be able to kill you, Dr. Rosenthal, but I’m sure he knows all kinds of tricks to make you wish that you were dead. And after the ways that you’ve humiliated him lately, I’m sure he’s more than eager to try them out on you. Aren’t you, Dylan?”

  Tessa recoiled at the unrestrained look of violent glee in his eyes. “I’d be happy to, sir,” he said.

  “I believe him, Dr. Rosenthal,” Boyd whispered in her ear. “Don’t you?”

  Tessa gave a shaky nod.

  “Good,” Boyd said. Tessa stumbled as he immediately released her. Boyd brushed his hands down the front of his suit, instantly slipping back into his calm, unflappable CEO persona. “Then, if our negotiations are complete, there is nothing left but for us to shove off.”

  Tessa put her hands out in front of her as two guards stepped forward to seize her again.

  “Shove off?” Tessa repeated. “You have to take me to my new lab by boat?”

  Boyd’s laugh echoed off the tin walls of the office.

  “You know for someone so smart, you can be amazingly dense on occasion,” Boyd said.

  Tessa tried to drag in a breath but her lungs refused to work. Boyd wasn’t taking her to her new lab on a boat.

  “My new lab is a boat,” she said, her mouth falling open.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again,” Boyd said, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Even you can’t escape from the middle of the ocean.”

  All the blood drained from Tessa’s face.

  No, she couldn’t.

  “Come on princess,” Dylan said, giving her a hard shove in the center of her back. “I’m going to take you to a place where Rhys will never find you. Though, don’t think I wouldn’t like to see him try.”

  ***

  Rhys balled his hands into fists as he stared at the dirty facade of the dockside warehouse in front of Mason’s parked car.

  Besides the numbers stenciled in faded paint on the sides, there was nothing markedly different about this rundown building and any of its neighbors. They all had the same corrugated metal construction, the same dirty and broken windows, the same piles of trash outside their roll up doors.

  “This is it,” Mason said at his side. “Charlie and I dug through every shell company that SciGen had this week. This is the only nearby defunct property that would suit Boyd’s needs. He didn’t have time to take her far, so if she’s still in the Bay Area, she’s in there.”

  Rhys didn’t need Mason to tell him that. He already knew that Tessa was inside.

  He felt it all the way down to the marrow of his bones.

  Rhys swung open the car door, but Mason put his hand on his shoulder before he could step outside.

  “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  Rhys raised his brows. “Go in there, get Tessa out alive, and shoot any son of a bitch that tries to stop me.”

  “It’s not a bad plan,” he said. “Though we don’t have any idea how many men Boyd has in there. We could probably use some backup.”

  Rhys stared down at Mason’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Then call the cops if you want,” he said. “But I’m not going to sit around waiting for them.”

  There was too much on the line. Too little time.

  “Never thought that you would,” Mason said. He started to pull his phone out of his pocket. “But I think I’ll let Carter take care of calling in the cavalry. We’ve got our hands full enough here. I should let him know where we ended up anyway.”

  Rhys pulled away, and stepped out onto the gravel.

  The entire ride to this address, Rhys kept hearing Tessa’s words from the night before repeating in his head. She’d never let Boyd take her alive again. She’d die to keep her secrets safe. It was a price she was willing to pay.

  Well, he wasn’t.

  He’d finally found something worth fighting for, and he wasn’t about to lose her now. He didn’t care the cost. He was going to knock down this door and eliminate anyone who got in his way.

  Mason got out of the car a moment later, slipping his phone back into his pocket as he stepped over to Rhys’ side. Without breaking stride, Mason screwed a silencer into the muzzle of his pistol and took a single shot at the camera at the front of the warehouse. Glass and plastic rained down on the pavement below.

  “Well,” Mason said, with a tilt of his head. “Lead on.”

  Rhys nodded. “It looks like there are second floor side entries on either side of the building. I’ll take the right. You go left. We’ll meet inside.”

  “Got it,” Mason said and took off.

  Rhys rounded the corner of the building, and headed for the staircase that zigzagged up the side of the warehouse. His feet moved quickly and quietly over the rusty metal stairs. He twisted the doorknob at the top, but it was locked. A shot to the handle took care of that problem.

  Unfortunately, it also alerted the guard just inside, who swung the door open to investigate. The long barrel of his rifle poked out from the building long before he did.

  Rhys wrapped his hand around the muzzle and jerked it forward. There was a muffled grunt as the guard’s head connected with the doorjamb. Before the man could recover, Rhys brought the butt of his pistol down hard on the back of his head and watched him crumple to the ground.

  Rhys slung the man’s rifle over his chest before pulling a zip tie from his back pocket and cuffing his hands. He looked across the cavernous space to see that Mason had beaten him inside.

  Of course he had. The man had always been a show off.

  Rhys stepped over the side of the catwalk and looked down. He didn’t see Tessa, but he did see why they’d had such an easy time coming in through the side doors. The bulk of Boyd’s men were stationed right up against the front entrance.

  There had to be a good two dozen men down there—a small army.

  And a damned good sign that his gut feeling was right. Boyd had brought Tessa here. And he was afraid that Rhys was going to come after her. Why else would he have assembled so many armed men?

  So, where was she?

  Rhys scanned the wide-open floor, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  The knot in his belly started to twist, but he forced himself to breathe. She had to be here.

  Maybe Boyd had her hidden somewhere.

  He strained to listen but all he could make out was the constant rush of blood pounding in his ears.

  Damn it. Even if he couldn’t see her, he should at least be able to hear her struggling,
screaming, lashing out. But there was nothing but silence.

  Which meant one of three things: either she wasn’t here, she wasn’t capable of fighting, or she was dead.

  Each one of those options only made his heart sink deeper.

  Rhys looked over at Mason. Even with the distance between them, Rhys could make out the concerned expression on his friend’s face.

  What the hell were they going to do if Tessa wasn’t here?

  The answer frightened Rhys more than he was willing to admit.

  There was only one option. They had to fall back. They needed to return to the office and do this Carter’s way. Meticulously go through every resource that Boyd had access to until they found her.

  But deep down Rhys knew it would already be too late. By then Tessa would have found a way to take care of the problem of Project Exodus herself.

  Time had been his only ally…and it had run out.

  His heart twisted in his chest, refusing to give up. He would never stop looking. He’d never give up hope. Never.

  Just then, a door slammed at the far end of the warehouse. Rhys’ head snapped toward the sound.

  Another group of men was coming out of what looked like a small office.

  “Come on, move,” he heard a familiar voice snarl.

  Dylan.

  Rhys’ blood turned to ice. He lifted the rifle and curled his finger around the trigger.

  All he needed was for the bastard to take a couple more steps, and he’d have a clear shot.

  He lowered the weapon a second later, when he saw Dylan push Tessa out in front of him. She was on her feet—thank God—and moving under her own power, but her head hung low. Rhys didn’t see a speck of blood on her, but she moved slowly, her feet barely shuffling underneath her. She looked utterly defeated.

  What had they done to her?

  Rhys’ finger tightened for a moment, ready to squeeze off the shot, but he quickly let the rifle slip from his grasp.

  It was too dangerous. There were too many people around Tessa. She could get caught in the crossfire.

  If he had any chance of getting her out of here alive, he needed to separate her from the rest of the guards.