“Luke,” she answered. It wasn’t a complete lie.
“Liar.”
How did he know? Heat flooded up from her neck, into her cheeks, and she was grateful for the poor lighting in the back of the van. Various colors from traffic signals and street lamps strobed across them from the cab windshield, hiding her ridiculous blush.
Except he was so observant and he’d known her all her life. He’d been around in those moments when she got flustered because her mother gushed over her prizewinning artwork or her brother teased her about something going on at school. Thinking back, she recalled the way he’d crack a joke with his brother or stir up a diversion that she’d use to escape the unwanted attention. Was it possible he’d done it on purpose?
“I was thinking of Luke,” she protested a little too late. “His jaw is heavier than yours on the right. He could hide it if he wore a beard.”
“He’d look silly with a beard,” Mark joked. “His dimple’s on the other side too.”
“True.” Despite the dire circumstances, she grinned. “No one remembers that detail.”
“It’s shocking,” he agreed. “If I’d been thinking, I would’ve told them I was Luke.”
“Shut up!” The waiter pulled a small revolver from a holster at his ankle.
The tremors Mark had soothed returned with a vengeance. She’d been around guns all her life, mostly at firing ranges. Target practice wasn’t as calming for her as a nice long hike, but she enjoyed shooting. The first lesson her father had taught her was never to point a firearm at another person. Until tonight, she’d never been on the business end of a loaded gun.
Every instinct said to hide, but there was no escape back here. Her heart pounded and the chain linking her handcuffs rattled across the bar as fear took hold.
“Quit scaring her, you jerk.” Mark blocked her with his body as much as his handcuffs allowed.
The snub-nosed barrel of the gun was now aimed squarely at Mark’s chest. No surprise that only terrified her more. In the confined space, the odds of the bullet missing were nil. At this man’s whim or a bump in the road, either of them could wind up seriously wounded or worse.
“You’re slow, aren’t you, buddy?” The waiter spoke with obnoxious deliberation. “I’m in charge. You behave.” He stood up and yanked her away from Mark’s shelter, pressing the cold barrel of the gun to her skin, just under her collarbone. “Are we clear?”
Mark changed before her eyes. Gone was the carefree, good-natured guy she knew from their family vacations. His jaw set into a hard line and his warm brown eyes went flat. Cold. She was almost glad he was out of reach, afraid that any touch would set all that coiled strength into action.
The entertainment industry loved portraying Navy SEALs as invincible. She knew they were trained to believe they were invincible. As much as she wanted to embrace the myth and believe Mark could overcome any obstacle, how could he take down three armed men while handcuffed to the van?
From the moment these men appeared in the alley, he hadn’t shown an ounce of fear. In fact, if the guard had any sense of self-preservation, he’d stop goading Mark right now. Belatedly, she realized she was the only reason he was holding back. Whatever was going on, she refused to be a pawn they used against him.
“Back off,” she demanded. The pressure of the gun against her skin eased abruptly as the man compensated for the driver’s acceleration. “What’s your name?”
“John Doe.” Standing over her, the waiter’s gaze dropped to leer at the low neckline of her dress. “You ever paint nudes?”
She’d heard the same sleazy question all through college. Every guy thought they were the first to ask. “Did you see any nudes on display in the gallery?”
“I wasn’t really looking,” he said.
“Of course you weren’t.”
Mark bumped her knee with his foot. “Don’t let him get under your skin.”
“We have what we came for.” He lowered the gun and twirled a finger through a loose curl of Charlotte’s hair.
Bile rose up into her throat.
“That makes you a bonus.” The man licked his lips. “Maybe he’ll let us share you like we’re gonna share the ransom money.”
Her stomach clenched and she struggled to hold his gaze against a new wave of fear. But the waiter smiled, and she hated herself for being so transparent.
“That will not happen.” The tone, low and lethal, wasn’t one she’d ever heard out of Mark.
Abruptly, the man was down, his feet kicking the air and the gun he held clattering on the metal floor of the van. Thankfully no bullets erupted. Beside her, Mark simply shifted in his seat, compensating for the next turn as the leader swiveled around in the passenger’s seat.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
“Your guy lost his balance,” Mark said with laughable innocence. To Charlotte he added in a whisper, “The hammer wasn’t cocked.”
She dipped her chin in acknowledgment, not trusting her voice. He’d taken down an armed man with his hands cuffed. She hadn’t even seen him twitch, just a slight movement of his leg.
“I never would’ve taken the risk otherwise,” he added earnestly.
She believed him, she did. Unfortunately the awareness did nothing to slow her thundering pulse or erase the tears rolling down her cheeks. She didn’t want to have this meltdown, not when he needed her to be strong.
At their feet, the waiter groaned as he came around. Reclaiming his revolver and shoving it back into the ankle holster, he retreated to the opposite side of the van, embarrassment and fury rolling off him in waves. Blood dripped from a wound on his chin, staining his white uniform shirt.
“You might need stitches,” she observed.
Mark made a weird snorting noise that she assumed was suppressed laughter. The waiter didn’t even acknowledge her. That was fine by her. More than fine. It would be a long time before she forgot the feel of that cold gun barrel digging into her skin.
As the driver took the next turn, she grabbed the chain of her cuffs to keep from sliding into Mark’s side again.
“Don’t worry about hurting me,” Mark said. “Just stay tough. I’ll figure this out.”
Fear surged anew and all she could do was ride it out as the van approached a nondescript warehouse. As the driver inched forward, a black metal door rolled up to grant them access. The warehouse interior was shrouded in darkness and shadow. Charlotte caught a whiff of the ocean under more abrasive notes of grease and metal and…
“Tires,” Mark said, as if he could read her mind.
Yes, that was it.
He leaned forward, trying to get a better look or blocking her view, she wasn’t sure.
The waiter, on his feet again, shoved him back. “You’re awful eager to meet your maker.”
“It’ll be a pleasure to take you with me,” Mark snarled.
The van doors parted and she winced under the assault of a bright light. As her eyes adjusted and lights came on in the warehouse, she took stock of the man holding the flashlight on them. He was average height, almost skinny, with unremarkable short brown hair going gray at the temples. His eyes were also brown, but his cold-blooded gaze left her shivering as he looked her over, head to toe.
He turned his back on them. “What the hell is this? I sent you for Riley.”
She stared at the blood on the floor of the van. The tread of the waiter’s shoe had tracked through the mess, creating an abstract. As a kid, she’d searched for shapes in the clouds; tonight, she searched for shapes in the blood smears to keep her mind away from the terror of dying.
She’d expected to have more time. There were a thousand things she might never get to do. She wanted to travel to Africa, take an Alaskan cruise and build a retreat for artists. She’d never fallen madly in love. Crushing on Mark didn’t count. At least her artwo
rk would increase in value after this. How often did an artist get kidnapped from her first solo showing?
“Your men can’t tell the difference between a famous artist and a SEAL?” Mark tsked. “Good help is so hard to find.”
“We had to bring her along or she would’ve blown our escape,” said the leader, who’d done all the talking in the alley.
Damn right she would have.
“An artist?” The man in charge studied her for several long moments before speaking to Mark. “How is she related to you?”
“She isn’t.” Mark dismissed her as easily as swatting away a buzzing gnat. “I was trying to get lucky when your brilliant team grabbed both of us.”
Was she supposed to play along? She had no idea how to help him so she kept quiet. The man in charge eyed her again and she started to sweat. She swallowed an automatic, pitiful plea for mercy, certain that anything she said to this man would be twisted and used against her.
“Come on. Let her go,” Mark said. “You’ve scared the poor woman enough for a lifetime.”
The man held up a cell phone, snapped a picture of Charlotte and slammed the doors. A small amount of light filtered through the windshield. She heard footsteps fading and then the lights went out, plunging them into darkness.
All she could hear was Mark’s slow, even breathing. All she could feel was the hard seat beneath her, the cool metal circling her wrists. Though Mark was at the other end of the bench, he seemed a hundred miles away.
Tears threatened again, but this time she kept them at bay. Mark was here. He’d get them out of this mess. There was a scraping sound of metal on metal, followed by a loud bang and the van shook.
Mark cursed, a colorful combination she could almost visualize on a canvas as a stream of angry red and muddy purples flowing into a black horizon, as he pounded his fists against the side panel. It took her a minute to make sense of his ranting.
“You know who that was?” she asked.
“Yes.” Another slam of some hard body part against the unyielding van. “That was John Eaton.” He swore again. “Now that you’ve seen his face, it’ll be harder than ever to get you out of here tonight.”
That was the name he’d mentioned in the alley. “What does he want with you?”
“He’s the man out to destroy Dad, one kid at a time.”
She told herself he couldn’t mean that, hoped he was exaggerating, yet here they were, prisoners in a van. Whoever Eaton was, he had resources and manpower. They had…a Navy SEAL. She curled her bare toes into the ridges of the van floor. Mark would come up with an escape plan. Her fingers gripped the chain the cuffs were linked to and she pressed her knees together, trying to quell the tremors so he wouldn’t feel her fear. “What do we do?”
She had to believe in him, had to stay positive. Every problem had a solution. Every single one. Mark would get them out of this; she had absolute faith in him.
Mark subsided. “We bide our time,” he said, his voice flat. “And then we leave.”
She bit her lip, not liking step one so far. She patiently waited for him to explain the rest of his plan, her unease growing with every beat of silence that followed.
CHAPTER 3
Mark didn’t need good lighting or an outright admission to know Charlotte was terrified. And who could blame her? It was common sense of course, but he could also hear the fear in her shallow breaths, the slight rattle of the handcuffs.
In a matter of minutes, she’d gone from lovely artist in the spotlight to threatened prisoner in the dark, thanks to him. It would’ve been bad enough if she’d been a stranger, a woman he only wanted to flirt with or possibly hook up with, but she wasn’t. Charlotte was special. Not just to their families, but to him.
When they were kids, the uniquely quiet way she soaked up the world, as if she could bring everything she wanted closer to her, had fascinated him. She was a direct counterpoint to his tendency to charge into the fray, be it a friendly game of tag football or a counterterrorism mission. Having her in harm’s way went against everything he believed, against all of his training.
Yes, logically, Eaton was to blame. He’d come after Mark, and Charlotte had just been in the wrong place. But Mark had let down his guard in the alley, been distracted, and now she could pay the price. He should have pushed her through the gallery door, not just told her to go, before any of the action started. He should have forced her out of the way.
He slammed his good shoulder into the rail. Where was a loose bolt when he needed one?
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Charlotte warned. “Please. You said we had to bide our time.”
He admired her effort to hide her fear. “I’ve said a lot of things,” he muttered. “Every restraint has a weakness,” he said. “If there’s a way to get out, I’ll find it.”
“Then what?”
“One step at a time.” If he was free when that van door opened again, surprise would be on his side. “Do you have a hair pin or something I could use to pick the cuffs?”
“I don’t. Sorry,” she replied. “Marisol wanted my hair all loose and crazy tonight. She rambled on about Bohemian chic or something along those lines.”
He twisted around on the bench, leaning back as far as the cuffs would allow. “She made the right call on the hair and the dress,” he said. “Everyone was falling in love with you.”
Finding the point where the bar was bolted to the side panel, he kicked and stomped and nothing budged. Whoever made dress shoes for James Bond deserved a medal. His shoes were completely useless. He swore again. “Sorry.”
“For the salty language?” she asked.
He heard the smile, wished he could see it. “Yes.” He was apologizing for the language, along with everything else he’d done wrong, though he’d rather not itemize his every failing of the evening.
“Please. I heard worse on our family vacations.”
He shushed her quickly. “Someone might be listening. I don’t want Eaton to know you’re connected to the family.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
“Please, don’t be afraid.” He scooted close to her now, keeping his voice low. “With a little luck, I can convince him to let you go. I think you’d be an excellent ransom-delivery messenger.”
“Every artist needs a fallback.”
He appreciated the attempt at levity. “That’s the spirit.”
Mark stood and tested the full limits of the cuffs. The sound of the chain sliding back and forth across the bar made him feel like a restless ghost in the dark. “Would it help to know this isn’t the worst predicament I’ve been in?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“If my fast talking doesn’t work, be ready to follow my lead when an opportunity presents itself. This isn’t over until we’re safe.” Or at least until she was safe.
“I believe in you.”
Her declaration of faith nearly did him in. It was exactly the reply he’d hoped for, yet the pressure mounted like never before. His career demanded the best of the best at every position. He’d been in tight spots before, in situations that felt insurmountable at the time. In those cases, his team had been in his ear on the comm link, watching his back, talking him around or through any glitches.
This was different, so far removed from the controlled chaos of those operations that his confidence kept flickering like a light bulb about to blow. He knew how far he could push himself. He didn’t know how far he could push Charlotte.
“When you seize an opportunity, don’t expect me to go alone,” she said. “We get out of here together or not at all.”
“That’s the ultimate goal,” he replied. He refused to open a debate with her by explaining why she might have to leave without him.
“I mean it, Mark.”
“Understood.” The sound of approaching footsteps cut off any further discussion.
The lights in the warehouse brightened, filtering through the windshield. “Be ready,” he whispered.
They heard a key slide into a lock and then the doors were flung wide. Eaton smiled, and a man at his side aimed an assault rifle at Mark’s chest.
“Mark Riley,” Eaton said. “Your service record is impressive. You are here because you’re a son of General Riley, US Army–retired. I give you credit for bucking the old man and going into the navy, but that doesn’t exempt you from my plans.”
Mark stared at his enemy, unflinching. It took tremendous willpower to remain equally unmoved as Eaton’s calculating gaze shifted to Charlotte.
“And you are Charlotte Hanover.”
Inwardly Mark winced.
“An acclaimed artist and dear, dear friend to the Rileys,” Eaton continued. “He didn’t mention you when I served with him, but a quick perusal of your background and recent publicity makes me believe he’ll be very distressed that you’ve gone missing.” His lips curled into a cruel smile. “I am going to enjoy getting to know you better.”
“Let her go,” Mark said. “This isn’t about her.”
“Isn’t it?” Eaton asked, studying Charlotte. “She means something to your family.” He reached out and caught a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Beware, young lady, the Rileys will always let you down.”
Mark’s pulse thundered. He would rip Eaton apart for touching her, for scaring her, for interfering with her big night. Only the threat of the gun kept him still. He couldn’t help Charlotte if he were dead.
Eaton leaned closer to her. “General Riley, your honorary uncle, took everything from me. Everything.” He put a razor-sharp edge on each syllable. “Now his children will do penance for his betrayal. So far two have been tested and passed. I let them live because I am the better man.”
Was Eaton implying he’d shown restraint? “No,” Mark argued. “They outwitted your traps and survived.” He had to draw Eaton away from Charlotte. He wouldn’t let this bastard’s ugly words tarnish her opinion of his father. “And I will too, no matter what you’ve cooked up this time.”
Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set Page 75
