Her hand was shaking as she lifted her finger and pressed the button on the intercom. “Yes?”
The cop was wearing mirrored aviator shades and she couldn’t see his eyes as he stared up at the camera. “Afternoon, ma’am. Are you a relative of Mr. Lucas Tate?”
Oh God …
Fear slid icy fingers around her heart. “Why? What’s wrong? Has something happened to him?”
“If you could just open the door, ma’am.”
“Tell me what’s happened first. Is he okay?”
“Open the door please, ma’am.”
The fear squeezed tighter, making her go cold all over. “Has something happened to him? Is he hurt?”
“Please open the door, ma’am.”
Her heartbeat was thudding, her breath getting shorter. “Do you have some ID?”
The cop reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet, flipping it open and lifting it to the camera so she could see. It was enough for her. She lifted a shaking finger to the button that would unlock the door.
Then, so fast she barely had time to react, a shadow appeared behind the cop and a hand came down on his head in a hard, brutal blow. As the cop slumped, a powerful arm caught him around the waist, holding him upright, then another face appeared on the screen. Lucas.
Relief flooded through her, instinctive and strong, making her knees feel weak for a second. Then her brain kicked into gear. Did he just knock a cop out?
Lucas was staring at the camera, his beautiful face absolutely hard, reaching for the intercom button with the heel of his free hand, his long fingers wrapped around that lethal-looking gun of his. Then his cold, deep voice flooded through the apartment. “Open the fucking door, Grace.”
She didn’t bother questioning him, hitting the button that unlocked the door, then backing away from the elevator, her heartbeat going like a rocket in her chest.
A minute or so later, the elevator doors opened and Lucas stepped out, the unconscious cop in his arms.
Without a word he hauled the man over to the white couch, then dumped him on it without any ceremony at all. Then he lifted his head and looked at her. Lucas’s face was a frozen mask, a thunderstorm in the air around him, gathering tight and dense and threatening. Making her want to back away from him.
“You were going to open the door, weren’t you?” If his voice had been a razor it would have cut her to pieces where she stood. “What did I tell you about not opening the door to anyone?”
“He’s a cop. I thought—”
“He’s not a cop.”
Grace tried to calm herself down and failed. “What? But he showed me some ID.”
Lucas pulled something out of the pocket of his jeans and tossed it onto the couch beside the man’s unconscious body. It was the cop’s wallet. “The ID is fake.”
“But how—”
“I saw this guy pull in a couple of yards up the street.” Lucas’s gaze glittered very blue. “He wasn’t driving a cop car. So I followed him to be sure, and he came straight here. Then he asked about me by name and I knew he wasn’t a cop. No one knows I live here. No one.”
Reaction was beginning to set in, making her feel shaky. Jesus, she thought he’d been a real police officer. She’d been going to let him in.
Lucas’s attention dipped to her hands and then he moved toward her, coming fast, leaving her no time to back away or avoid him. He took her fingers in his hands, looking down at them. “Are you okay? What’s this on your fingers?”
The usual electricity sparked as soon as his skin touched hers, jangling her over-stressed nerves and making her jerk away from his touch. “It’s nothing, only paint.”
He didn’t move away. Instead his eyes narrowed and, to her shock, he reached up and cupped her face between his hands, tilting her head back, his blue gaze roaming over her. “You’ve been crying. What’s wrong?”
His palms were so warm against her cheeks, making her breath catch and her frantically racing heartbeat race even faster. “I haven’t been crying.”
He frowned. “Yes, you have. Your eyes are red.”
Oh great. Just fucking wonderful. He would have to notice. “It’s just grief, okay?” And it wasn’t a lie. She’d been mourning Griffin and the marriage they should have had.
Lucas was silent a moment, his blond brows drawn down. Then he said quietly, “You’ve got paint on your cheek.” His thumb moved, a light brush along her cheekbone, sending tiny sparks chasing over her skin.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe. The heat of his hands and the sudden deep blue of his eyes held her motionless. Her awareness began to narrow, zeroing in on him, the rest of the world fading away. He was so tall, his body all hard, lean strength and lethal power, and for a second, standing so close to him, all she felt was safe. Protected. As if nothing could ever touch her as long as he was here.
Then the expression in his eyes changed and his hands dropped. He stepped away, putting some distance between them. “You stay here,” he said curtly. “I need to deal with this asshole.”
Her throat had gone tight and she could feel the imprint of Lucas’s hands lingering on her skin, the warmth of his touch glowing there like a ray of sunshine. “Okay.” The word sounded thick and husky. “What are you going to do with him?”
“Ask him a few questions.” Lucas had gone back over to where the fake cop was laid out on the couch, still unconscious, and as Grace watched he bent and hauled the man up and over his shoulder in a stunning display of strength. “I’ve got a place in the basement I’m going to put him until he wakes up.” Lucas went over to the elevator, moving as if he weren’t carrying an unconscious man over one shoulder, and hit the button. As the doors opened, he gave her one brief intense glance. “Whatever you do, don’t open the door to anyone else, understand?”
Then he stepped into the elevator and was gone.
* * *
Lucas was not happy.
He’d been out all day, leaving the apartment before Grace had woken up, because even though he was perfectly in control of himself, after that kiss the day before he’d thought it would be better if they both had some time apart.
After meeting with the Tate contact who’d been trying to track down the pricks after Grace and finding precisely nothing, he’d made his way back to the apartment, only to spot the fake cop heading in the same direction.
His military instinct had kicked in right then, telling him something wasn’t right about the guy, and when the cop had gone straight to the front of the apartment building Lucas had known there was something not right about him. Especially when he’d then asked about Lucas by name.
Lucas hadn’t thought twice. He’d acted. Simply stepping up behind the guy, knocking him out, and hauling him inside.
As the elevator made its way down to the basement, an emotion Lucas hadn’t allowed himself to feel for years stirred inside him, heavy and slow, like an animal waking up from a long hibernation.
Fury.
Clever to dress up like a cop. Grace had been all ready to let this fucker in, no matter what Lucas had told her about strange people coming to the door. Though it wasn’t entirely fair to be angry at her, not when she wouldn’t have known the prick was a fake.
Christ, if he hadn’t been here and she’d let that asshole in they would have found her. They would have taken her. They would have hurt her.
Fury turned over and over inside him, twisting and tangling like a cut snake.
In fact, seeing red all over her fingers, he’d initially thought she’d been hurt somehow, and even though he’d told himself he was going to stay away from her, he hadn’t been able to stop from going over to her and taking those long, slender fingers in his, wanting to check there was nothing wrong for himself. But it was fine, only paint like she’d said. Then he’d noticed her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying, and he’d stupidly taken her face between his palms, a tightness in his chest he couldn’t get rid of. There had been fear in her eyes, he could see the lingering traces
of it, and shock too, and she’d been a little pale, her freckles like tiny stars on her skin. A red stripe of paint stained one cheekbone and he hadn’t been able to keep from stroking along it, wondering what she’d been painting and whether it was that last canvas she’d been so anxious about.
Fuck, everything about that moment had been wrong, especially given the situation and the fact that their cover looked like it had been blown. The very last thing he should have been concerned about was what she’d been painting or the fact that she looked like she’d been crying.
He’d had to force himself to let her go, to bring his attention back to the problem at hand. Which was the fact that these bastards had somehow tracked them to his apartment and had been trying to get in.
Lock it down, dick. You can’t afford to lose control now.
Lucas gritted his teeth as the elevator chimed. Yeah, fuck, there was no reason to be this furious. Okay, so they’d somehow found his bolt-hole, but Grace was fine. Nothing had happened to her. And nothing would, because he was going to find out all he could from this asshole, then he’d keep him prisoner so it wouldn’t get back to whoever had sent him here.
The doors opened and Lucas stepped out into the short hallway that led to his private shooting range. It was the perfect place to put assholes who should have known better than to come directly to his home and start trying to talk their way inside, because it was heavily soundproofed, not to mention that its locks were electronic and industrial-strength, so no one was going to get either in or out, not if he didn’t want them to.
Lucas unlocked the door and stepped inside, hitting the lights. Then he dumped the fake cop onto the concrete floor before going into the small room off to the side that contained his personal armory, plus any other equipment a SEAL might need to keep himself in top condition. Finding some cable ties, he took them back over to where he’d left the fake cop and rolled him onto his stomach, securing his hands behind his back and tying his ankles together. Then he rolled the guy onto his back again and straightened, looking down at him.
Lucas had thought the prick’s face was vaguely familiar and now he knew where he’d seen him before; he’d been one of the lookouts Lucas had spotted watching Tate Oil. So whoever was after Grace had managed to find Lucas’s apartment and had obviously sent this asshole to check it out, which was a bit of a fucking worry, because no one had been more careful than Lucas about his movements to and from the apartment.
Did they know Grace was here for certain or were they still trying to find that out? And how the hell had they found the apartment in the first place? He’d been very, very certain he hadn’t been tailed, so how had they known to come here?
Perhaps it was time to find out.
He reached for the gun he kept in a holster in the small of his back, pulling it out. Then he stuck the toe of his boot in the man’s side. Hard.
The man groaned and his eyes opened, squinting at the harsh fluorescents.
“Who are you?” Lucas kept his voice clear and very, very cold. “And what the fuck are you doing here?”
The man blinked, focusing on Lucas. Then he let out a breath. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Lucas casually extended his arm and aimed his SIG Sauer at the guy’s arm. Then he fired.
The fake cop jerked, then bellowed, the sound of pain echoing off the concrete walls around them.
“Calm down,” Lucas ordered flatly. “It was a clean shot through your upper arm. I even missed the muscle.”
“You crazy fucker.” The guy’s teeth were bared, pain glittering in his eyes. “You think shooting me up is going to make me tell you anything?”
“I don’t know, will it?” Lucas shifted the muzzle of his SIG down, to the man’s left kneecap. “You know who I am. You know what I do. You probably even know my confirmed kill count. Which means you know that I’ll shoot your kneecap off without a second’s hesitation if you don’t tell me what I want to hear. So, let’s try this again. What the fuck are you doing here?”
The man panted, his gaze settling on the muzzle of the gun pointed at him. “They’ll kill me if I tell you anything.”
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t. After I’ve shot your kneecap off.”
Fake Cop’s features twisted. “Do it then. Better than what they’ll do to me.”
Fuck, this was the last thing he needed. A man with nothing to lose, who didn’t give a shit about pain.
Lucas thought for a second, then he said, “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll organize for the police to ready a nice safe jail cell for you. Or, I guess, you could try and take your chances on the run. I wonder how you’d do?” He tilted his head, holding the other man’s gaze. “With your employers on your tail for fucking up and without a kneecap.” He shifted the muzzle of the SIG to the man’s other leg. “Or maybe without two.”
Fake Cop grimaced but said nothing. Blood was starting to pool under his arm, which was a nuisance. Especially if it made a mess and stained the concrete.
“By the way, you have ten seconds to answer,” Lucas added, his patience running uncharacteristically low.
“Asshole,” the man spat.
Lucas ignored him, keeping his gun aimed at the man’s knee. “Seven seconds. Six, five, four, three—”
“Fuck, okay.” Fake Cop heaved in a breath. “This address was given to me as a place to check out to see if the woman was here.”
“Who gave you the address?” Lucas asked sharply. “How did they find it?”
“I don’t fucking know how they found it. You think they tell me shit like that?” The man twisted onto his side, groaning slightly in pain. “The guy who gave it to me was Oliveira. That’s the only name I know.”
The name meant nothing to Lucas, but he filed it away for future reference. “Why are they looking for me?”
“Because you were seen with the woman.” The man spat on the floor. “They know you were a friend of Riley’s and they know you’re protecting her.”
“She’s got nothing to do with that deal of Riley’s.”
The man lifted a shoulder. “They don’t give a shit. They just want their money back.”
“She doesn’t have the money.”
“Like I said. They don’t care. If she doesn’t have it then they’ll use her to get it from someone who does.”
Briefly Lucas debated whether putting a bullet through the man’s leg would help matters, then decided that was his fury talking. Besides, he was starting to have an inkling of an idea about how he could finish this once and for all.
At that moment, his phone began buzzing. Keeping his attention on his prisoner, Lucas grabbed it out of his pocket, then glanced down at the screen. It was Van. Shit. The timing was extremely crappy, but given what was going down with his brother right now, he couldn’t afford to ignore the call.
Lucas hit the answer button. “What is it?”
Ten minutes later, the conversation with his brother having kicked him fully into military mode, Lucas did a brisk field dressing on his prisoner’s arm, made sure he was safely tied up, then left him locked in the shooting range before heading to the elevator.
Lucas’s idea and what he was going to do with the asshole would have to wait, since there was a crisis unfolding right now that concerned his adoptive sister, Chloe. All of the Tates—Chloe included—had always thought she was the blood daughter of Noah Tate. But it had turned out she was actually the daughter of their father’s enemy, Cesare de Santis. And now he’d kidnapped her and Van, who was supposed to be protecting her, needed help with planning a rescue.
The revelation of Chloe’s true parentage, not to mention that the de Santis bastard was also involved with all this shit that was happening with Griffin, did not help Lucas’s mood. That guy needed taking down, which was clearly something Van and Wolf and he were going to have to address once this current crisis was out of the way.
Upstairs, he found Grace in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter with a cup of coffee
held between her narrow paint-stained fingers. She straightened and put the cup down the instant he came in, the anxiety in her amber gaze fading, to be replaced by what looked like relief. Which was strange, since why the hell she’d be worried about him, especially after yesterday, he had no idea.
“What’s happening?” She interlaced her fingers and clasped her hands to her chest, bracelets chiming. “What did that man say?”
She wore a white, paint-stained T-shirt and dark blue leggings with holes in them today, her hair in a knot on the top of her head and held there with what looked suspiciously like a paintbrush. There was nothing special about what she wore, nothing that should have made his heartbeat speed up. Nothing that should have made his breath get short and his muscles tighten.
But somehow the paint-smeared simplicity of the clothes only drew attention to her vivid face. To the way her skin seemed to glow in the fading light coming through the kitchen windows. To the white cotton stretched across her small, perfect tits and to the length of her legs in those ridiculous leggings.
There was paint on her cheek and on her fingers and for one intense, crazy moment, he wanted it on himself too. Wanted her to paint color all over his skin just to see what it would feel like. To have all her bright, vibrant energy touching him.
But even if he’d been able to have that there was no time now. And he wasn’t able to have that in any case.
“I’ll have to tell you later.” His voice sounded stiff and harsh even to his own ears. “Right now I have to leave.”
Her eyes widened, real fear chasing through them. “But what about that guy? What if anyone else shows up here?”
“He won’t hurt you. He’s locked up downstairs and there’s no way he can get out.” Lucas held her gaze. “Believe me, I wouldn’t leave if I thought there was even the slightest risk to you. But my brother needs me and I have to go.”
She blinked, then nodded, her throat moving as she swallowed. “Okay, but what about if anyone else comes?”
“They won’t. They don’t know you’re here. That guy was sent as a reconnaissance, and since he’s staying right where I put him, your location is not going to get back to them.”
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 14
