Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The moment Seth saw the man point a gun at Autumn, he started a plan to kill him. He tamped down on the rage now rolling through his blood. No man was allowed to threaten her, but Seth knew that he had to keep his emotions in check.
“What the actual fuck?” Autumn said, stepping away from him.
Seth grabbed her and pushed her behind him.
“Seth.”
The warning in her voice should scare him.
He didn’t care. It hit him at dinner that Autumn’s reaction to things reminded him of Jin, Adam’s wife.
Early in her pregnancy, she had been barfing up everywhere.
If Autumn—a woman with a cast-iron stomach—got a sickly look at the mention of food, something was going on.
So, he was going to do everything he could to protect her.
Before he could react, the man stepped onto the lift, his gun still trained on them. The doors shut behind him.
“What do you want?” Seth demanded.
“Nothing with you. You are not important to us.”
He frowned at the wording. Us. Dammit, he was starting to realize what this might be about.
“Hey, jerk face,” Autumn said from behind him. “You do know you’re being recorded, right?”
His mouth twitched. “I’m not.”
“All of these elevators have cameras.”
“They’ll discover the glitch in the next few minutes, but for the moment, they’re watching a loop.”
He heard Autumn muttering behind him, but at least she wasn’t antagonizing the man anymore.
Seth took in their adversary. He was in his early twenties, with short dark hair and brown eyes, and he had very little muscle.
Taking him down would be a piece of cake, but not in the elevator with a loaded weapon.
Normally, he wouldn’t think twice, but two things were holding him back from that.
One was the fact that he was worried Autumn was pregnant.
It was starting to dawn on him that this was what this trip was about.
Secondly, the jerk with the gun wasn’t accustomed to holding a weapon on people.
His hand was shaking. Give him someone with experience over someone like this idiot.
Inexperienced people were often trigger-happy.
“So, Nolan, what do you want from us?”
The man’s eyes widened. “How did you know my name?”
Was he serious? “You used your real name to get a job here?”
He said nothing.
“You have a name tag on, asshole,” Autumn said. Thankfully, she was still behind him.
The man glanced down at his name tag, and Seth knew that this was probably the only chance he would get. Stepping forward, he grabbed the man’s hand that held the gun, putting pressure on his wrist.
Nolan let out a high-pitched scream and dropped the gun. With barely any effort, he turned him, twisting the other man’s arm.
Autumn stepped forward to pick up the gun. After she checked out the chamber, she shook her head.
“What the hell were you thinking of stepping onto the elevator and threatening two trained operatives with an unloaded weapon?”
He looked back at her. “You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. Jesus. He looked back at Nolan.
“Why?”
The man said nothing, so he put pressure on his arm.
“Why?” Seth repeated.
“We couldn’t let Summer marry you.”
Things started falling into place. Autumn’s name had been Summer when she had been in the cult. This was one of the Joyous Wave members. They called themselves Believers.
“You have no right to tell her what to do. She’s her own woman.”
“Damn straight,” Autumn said.
“We’ve been engaged for months. Why now?”
“Her purchases. They told us that you would get married soon, and we couldn’t let that happen.”
“What do you mean?”
Before the man could answer, the doors opened to their floor.
“Let’s go to our room and call security,” Autumn said, stepping off the lift. “And while we wait, we will question Nolan.”
He couldn’t see her face, but there was something in her voice that worried Seth. It almost sounded like she was close to tears. It struck a nerve, but he tamped down on all the emotions churning in his gut.
Autumn stomped into the suite, irritated with Nolan. She had made an excellent plan. Seth had no idea about the wedding plans. That she was sure of. But once again, one of Joseph’s followers had popped up to fuck everything up.
If the former cult leader wasn’t already dead, she would probably hunt him down to kill him.
Seth shoved Nolan into one of the dining room chairs. The idiot tried to jump up, but Seth stopped him with just one phrase.
“Give me a reason to fuck you up.”
Nolan’s eyes widened as he dropped back into the chair. She got on the phone to call security.
“Now, explain yourself,” Seth demanded the moment she hung up. They only had a few minutes before someone would show up.
Nolan looked at her. “We couldn’t let it happen, Summer.”
“My name is Autumn, not Summer.”
“You are Summer Joy.”
God, she hated that name. It was one of the first things she had decided to do when she escaped. Summer had been Joseph’s choice. And yes, she had picked her mother’s favorite season.
“And we could not let you marry this man.”
“You’ve been watching her purchases?” Seth asked.
Nolan kept his gaze trained on her as he nodded. It was always creepy the way they looked at her. It never failed to creep her out the way these assholes looked at her. Every time she ran into another believer, they made her skin crawl.
“And what made you freak out?”
Panic rose up. She didn’t want him to know any of this. She wanted to surprise her entire family at once. “That isn’t important.”
Seth glanced at her. “It is.”
She frowned as he turned around, then stepped in front of her so Nolan couldn’t see her. “Tell me.”
“The dress.”
“What’s wrong with her dress?”
Seth still wasn’t getting it. Maybe he wouldn’t work it out before security got to them.
“Not that dress. The one she ordered for the wedding.”
There was a long beat of silence, then Seth looked at her. “Autumn?”
Before she could answer, someone was pounding on the door.
With a huff, she stomped to the door. Wasn’t it just like some jerk from Joyous Wave to pop up and ruin her brilliant surprise?
Those assholes were getting on her last nerve.
After looking through the peephole to make sure it was indeed the security, she was even more irritated to see her brother standing there flipping her off. Just what she didn’t need.
She opened the door. “You’re not security.”
His smile faded. Being half-siblings, there wasn’t much to connect them in the way of looks. She looked like her mother, and he looked like their father.
“Why would you need security?” he demanded in that stupid British accent that she would always covet.
“Someone showed up from the cult to ‘save me’.”
He rolled his eyes. “Again?”
This had become a theme over the last couple of months.
The pathetic Believers thought she was supposed to take over for Joseph as his heir.
What they didn’t seem to understand was that she wasn’t his heir.
She had never been so happy to discover she was an illegitimate child born from an affair between her father and mother.
“Yeah. And Nolan ruined everything.”
“Who the fuck is Nolan?”
She felt a wave of emotion hit her, but she pushed it back. She would not cry in front of her brother. And definitely not in front of the Believer in her hotel room.
“Autumn?”
Her brother sounded worried.
“Come on.” She turned and led him to where they were keeping the Believer. “The idiot tried to take us out with an unloaded weapon.”
“Damn.” He looked at Nolan. “You thought to take out a former SEAL and a former DEA agent who are now elite operatives on Task Force Hawaii with an unloaded weapon?”
Nolan scowled. “We do not condone violence.”
She snorted. “Tell me you didn’t grow up in that cult without telling me you didn’t grow up in the cult.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She had had enough. These people had been causing her irritation forever, and now, with the ruin of her fabulously planned surprise. She stomped closer to the man who had the nerve to frown at her.
“I mean that Joseph, the man whom you all look up to, was nothing more than a drug-dealing conman.”
“Not true.”
“Why? Because you joined some dumbass group online? As someone who was born and raised in that hell, let me tell you what it was like. We worked. All day long. All. Day. There were no breaks, little water, and less food. Of course, Joseph lived high on the hog, throwing parties for his friends and living the good life. Then, when drugs got to be too hard, you know what his next idea had been?”
Nolan shook his head, his eyes wide. Usually, she used a soft touch with these people, but she just couldn’t deal with this today. She wanted one normal weekend, and even though she knew Jacob was cold in his grave, he was still screwing up her life.
“Selling little girls. Girls! He was marrying them off at the age of thirteen or fourteen. Want to know why my mother got me out of the cult? Because he wanted me to marry one of his gross friends. I was a girl. Sixteen, and he wanted me to marry a man over twice my age because the man had paid for me. So, you need to think long and hard before you idolize someone you have never met.”
“Ian, can you keep an eye on Nolan?”
“No problem. I’d like to talk to the man who dared to abduct my sister.”
“Don’t do anything to him. I mean it, Ian. No MI-6 tactics.”
Nolan swallowed.
“Fine.” Ian didn’t sound happy about it.
Seth said nothing else. He grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the room, down to the bedroom. After stepping into the room, he shut the door and crowded her up against it.
“I need you to stop crying, love.”
“I’m not crying,” she said, which ended on a sob.
His arms slipped around her as he pulled her against his chest. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. I worked on this for weeks. It was supposed to be a big surprise, and now it’s all ruined.”
He slid his hands up to cup her face. “Nothing is ruined. Not when the love of my life planned to surprise me with a wedding.”
Using his thumbs, he wiped away tears.
“I wanted to tell you. I wanted to surprise you.” She huffed. “I should go kick him for that.”
“I’ll hold him while you do it.”
“You told Ian not to do any MI-6 stuff on him. Why do I get to kick him?”
He smiled, his face softening. “I’ll always help you kick ass. I love you.”
“Thank you.”
“And while I like your brother, I don’t love him. He only gets to verbally threaten Nolan.”
“So, you’re not mad?”
“About Nolan? Yes, I want to kick his ass, but he’s kind of sad like all the others.”
“No. I mean about the wedding.”
He leaned in and brushed his mouth over hers. The kiss was sweet, soft, and not enough. But when it came to Seth, she would never get enough of him.
“I told you, I would marry you anywhere, anytime. I should have known you would do this. You never do the expected.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not like other women.”
“It’s one of the things I love most about you. Keeps me on my toes.”
There was banging on the door. He kissed her nose. “Now that’s probably security. Let’s take care of this so we can get married.” Then he paused and looked at her. “There wasn’t anything else you needed to tell me?”
She blinked. “No. Promise.”
He studied her for a moment, then his mouth curved. “Good to know. Now, let’s get this idiot taken care of, and we can start the rest of our lives together.”