Chapter 3
M ila stared at the ox of a man in black boxer briefs. His dark, close-cropped hair matched the thick stubble covering his jaw. Onyx-gray eyes bore into her with so much loathing she’d have burned to a crisp if she gave a shit.
The muscles in his abdomen rippled as he fixed the gun on her. His shoulders were wide and bulging, his arms thick and his legs stacked. No wonder she hadn’t overpowered him.
But she would. She had to.
The musty basement air was cool on her skin. She’d already assessed every inch of the space, as she’d been trained to do. In the rapid seconds that had passed while he flicked on the light, made her undress, and shoved her in a chair, she’d learned the layout of the level.
In the square room there was a tool bench next to her, a water heater in the far corner to her left, and a furnace beside it.
The floor gently sloped toward the center of the room, where a drain was fitted into the concrete.
Pushed up against the far wall directly across from her was a washer-dryer combo with a narrow window above it.
Her way out.
The window was old, which meant the glass would shatter into shards. The unmoving laundry in the dryer would serve as a cover to protect her from getting cut. The window was maybe eighteen inches high by three feet wide. But she’d fit.
In the other corner, there was a door beneath the highest point of the stairs, and she could see a thin towel rack inside. A bathroom.
Unfortunately, this man’s death would have to be messy since there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d get a second attempt with the syringe.
His finger moved on the trigger. “Whoever you’re protecting would kill you in a heartbeat if they knew you’d failed at taking me out.”
“I won’t fail.”
“Name.” He spat the command as though he issued them for a living.
She glowered at him. “What, did your large body get all the brain cells? I. Don’t. Know.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Hard way it is.”
He went to the tool bench and placed the gun down, then grabbed two more zip ties and knelt in front of her. His grip rough on her calves, he had her ankles strapped to the chair legs in ten seconds.
He stood, his thighs vibrating and his fists clenched. “You’d better think long and hard about who you’re protecting, ’cause it ain’t yourself.”
Mila fought the urge to spit at him. Bastard. She watched his wide back as he stormed up the stairs. Instinctively, she jerked her ankles to measure the slack—none. Leaning forward, she turned her leg to the side.
Shit. He’d pulled the tie so tight she’d have a hard time even slipping a knife between the plastic and her skin. First, she had to get her hands free.
Then she had to decide if she wanted to escape or kill the asshole. If she chose escape, her career was finished. Five years ago, she’d prepared for the event that might make her leave this industry one day. But closing that door wouldn’t be easy or wise.
It’d been so long since she knew anything other than targets and training.
He’d seen her face. She knew absolutely nothing about the guy, so she couldn’t say if he’d go to the cops or not. Often times, these types of targets came with a high price for a reason.
Given the way he moved and barked out orders, and the scars on his back, she’d bet military. She was the best. Her plan shouldn’t have failed. In the bedroom, he’d snagged her arm as if he’d been awake the whole time.
Get it together, Mila.
She needed to get out of here. Then she’d worry about whether or not she’d finish the assignment.
She snapped her gaze to the tool bench approximately six feet away.
Planting her feet on the smooth concrete, she squatted forward and lifted the chair.
Her muscles burned as she hopped toward the bench.
She scanned the top, but the smooth metal surface was immaculate. Besides the scattered zip ties he’d pulled from a drawer in a hurry, not a single object sat on top. Definitely military.
Three drawers ran beneath the tabletop. Surely there were tools in them, but without the use of her hands, she couldn’t pull them open.
She muttered a curse and dropped the chair down. Sweat moistened her skin. Impatient huffs blew from her lips. The tool bench was a bust. She needed another way to free her hands.
Strapped to the chair, she was limited. She couldn’t even adjust her height to get her wrists against something sharp. Her shoulders ached.
Footsteps sounded overhead. She lifted her gaze. Dust fluttered down from the ceiling. Each irritatingly determined footfall told her he wouldn’t be long.
She might be screwed.
***
Ghost, now dressed, tossed his phone charger and his computer into the go-bag on his bed. His phone pressed to his ear, he waited for Rami, his boss and military comrade, to answer.
“Hello?” Rami answered, his voice groggy as shit.
“It’s me. Need a favor.”
His old friend let out a yawn, and the ruffling of covers sounded in the background followed by a concerned female voice. Rami muttered an apology to Ivy, his fiancée, then told her to go back to sleep.
“I hope this is important,” Rami snarled moments later, likely out of earshot of Ivy.
“Someone just tried to take me out in my sleep.” As he spoke, he went to his desktop and fired up his surveillance footage. Before he fled, he needed to know how the hell she’d gotten in.
Where the weak link was.
Rami exhaled. “What the hell happened?”
“No time to go into that. I need to leave town until I find out who’s behind the hit.” Ghost worked freelance for Backcountry Protection Services, Rami and his partner Toth’s business. He needed the guys to know that for the next while, he’d be unreachable. And possibly in need of assistance.
Ghost watched the camera footage from the hour before he’d gone to bed. No sign of entry. He’d been at the gym for a late workout, so she’d probably slipped in then. He rewound the footage to 7:14p.m., when he’d left after dinner.
“Yeah, man. I’m assuming you took out the fucker. We’ll take care of cleanup. Just get yourself—”
“There’s no cleanup required.”
Ghost could practically hear Rami’s brain short-circuit. “He got away?” Indignation and disbelief saturated his boss’s voice.
“Not he. She. Until she tells me who hired her, she’s not fucking going anywhere.”
Rami let out a low hiss. “You got any idea who it could be?”
Ghost grunted. Even though they were good friends, Rami didn’t know much about Ghost’s history.
For good reason. You couldn’t be invisible when people knew about your past. “You’re the only person who knows where I’ll be,” he said, evading the question.
“I need you to find out everything you can on the woman. I’ll send you her picture. ”
“Copy that.”
He hung up and stared at the video footage of the three cameras stationed around his property. One pointed over the attached garage toward the road, one at the front door, and one faced his backyard. No movement on any of them. It was unlikely, but the footage could’ve been hacked.
Urgency made his spine itch. Time to move.
He sent the entire four-hour clip, including when he left for the gym up until now, to Rami in a secure email asking him to analyze the footage for tampering or signs of entry.
He included the clips from inside his house as well, but those angles were limited to the main areas.
Rami would sort it out and get what he needed.
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he went to the kitchen. He had enough provisions in his bag for seventy-two hours. But since he didn’t need to leave this exact second, he could afford to pack a little more.
He’d need extra to keep the bitch alive long enough to talk.
His cabin was fully stocked, how he always left it, but they’d need food and gas for the ride because he didn’t intend to stop. His tank was full, so he’d just bring his jerrican and— Fuck.
With the woman as prisoner, he couldn’t take his truck. He wasn’t above tying her up in the covered bed, but the vinyl soft-top wasn’t secure enough. If she screamed or got free, he was fucked.
No, he’d have to take his Charger.
Goddammit. At least he had a second truck at the cabin—a must for mountain roads.
Making his way to the garage, he grabbed his keys from the ring by the door and then tossed his bag into the back seat.
He’d already put the woman’s clothes and the syringe in his bag.
He wasn’t about to leave shit behind. Whoever she was working for might come looking.
Back inside the house, he went to the basement door. Anger flashed through him as he grabbed the doorknob.
He’d started to get comfortable in this place. A stupid move, but one he’d fallen into nonetheless. Now he had to uproot or take out the people after him. Only one of those options was appealing.
After stomping down the steps, he headed for the chair and immediately noticed its slightly different position. She’d tried to escape.
Didn’t matter. She wasn’t fucking going anywhere under his watch. He withdrew a switchblade from his pocket. The knife whistled as it snapped to attention.
He cut her right ankle free without slicing her skin, not sure why he was being careful. He reached for her left. The second the thin plastic hit the ground, her right knee slammed into the bottom of his chin.
His teeth clanked together. He caught her ankle, but she let out a battle cry and sent her other knee for his nose. Dodging, he jerked her from the chair. She landed on her stomach on the cement with a smack .
In a scramble of movement, she twisted to her back. One long leg swept over the back of his neck, pulling him on top of her, while the other knee came around to attempt a triangle choke.
Too bad for her she didn’t have the use of her hands. He did. Grabbing the inside of her right knee, he freed himself from her grasp and slammed his other hand around her throat.
His fingers twitched on her smooth, delicate skin. Part of him wanted to withdraw his hand, to make sure he hadn’t hurt her, but that part of his brain was dumb as shit. She wasn’t an innocent woman. She was a cold-blooded killer.
No better than him.
Still, the wiring in his brain fired one way: men were targets, women were to be protected.
Clearly not the fucking case, but his stupid head hadn’t received the message yet.
This woman was trained, lethal—and dead, once he got what he wanted from her.
The taste of blood filled his mouth. “Try that again and I’ll bind you like a fucking pig.”
She didn’t blink.
Jesus. If he weren’t feeling her hot sex against his thigh right now, he’d be certain he was faced with a robot.
“You won’t get the answers you want.” Her vocal cords vibrated against his palm. Her voice, sweet and feminine, forced his fingers to ease the pressure. “You might as well kill me now.”
He leaned close, baring his teeth. “I promise, I’ll kill you. You fucked up. I know how trained you are, and if you think for one minute I couldn’t spar with you and have you crying like a little bitch in five seconds, you’re dead wrong.”
The corners of her lips moved. A smirk. A challenge. Ripping his gaze from her tortuous blues, he let go of her throat and stood.
His fingers biting her bicep, he lifted her to her feet. She twisted free and sent a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. His teeth rattled from the impact.
Goddammit.
If the bitch wanted to fight, he’d fucking fight.
He had enough rage in him to level her. When she went for another kick, he caught her ankle and pulled.
Like a single domino, she pitched face-first toward the concrete.
Jutting out his hand, he caught her chest inches before her nose connected with the cement.
He let her hang there for two breaths while he gathered himself, and then he pulled her up slowly so her face met his.
The fact she’d made that move with her hands tied behind her back revealed just how skilled she was.
Her eyes glittered. The first sign of emotion he’d witnessed. “That was just for fun.”
She pursed her lips and spat.
It hit his cheek, warm and wet. A new level of fury invaded his cells. He swiped his hand over his face, spun her around, and propelled her toward the stairs.
He should’ve received a goddamn award for not throwing her across the room. Turned out he had a lot more self-control than he ever could have believed.
The woman had a death wish. She wanted to push him over the edge. She saw his temper as weakness, and he wouldn’t let it slip again.
After hauling her ass onto the main level, he guided her into the garage. He grabbed a roll of duct tape from a shelf and shoved her abdomen against the side of the car. With his elbow pressed between her shoulder blades so she couldn’t pull any more tricks, he found the end of the tape.
Bending, he hooked the roll around her ankles and bound her. Next he went to her hands, wrapped her wrists together, then cut the stupid plastic zip tie that would eat at her circulation during the long drive.
He refused to acknowledge his hesitation to inflict pain on her. He had seven hours to sort through his thoughts and accept what needed to be done.
After flipping her around so her back connected with his car, he pulled a bottle of water from his bag in the back seat, tore off the lid, and held it to her lips.
Her brow furrowed in genuine confusion. Huh. Make that two emotions he’d elicited from her. Maybe not a robot after all.
“Drink.”
“What, do you carry around water bottles of poison?”
“No. I need you alive and talking when we stop.”
She didn’t open her mouth.
“Once we get in the car, I won’t pull over to see if you’re breathing.”
Reluctantly, she opened her mouth. He gave her a couple of sips, and damn if his dick didn’t get hard at the way her plump lips circled the water bottle and her cheeks hollowed out.
He tore the bottle away before she was done, screwed the lid on tighter than his own head, and tossed the bottle into the back seat.
Next, he fished his burner phone from his pocket, grasped her chin in his free hand, and snapped a picture of her face.
She gaped. “What the—”
As she jerked her head out of his hold so sharply she’d probably kinked her neck, he sent the image to Rami.
Fire sparked in her blue embers. “You’re a dead man.”
“You keep sayin’ that.”
Popping the trunk, he caught her elbow. Her body went rigid. Part of him—there was that fucked-up side of his brain again—wanted to reassure her. Tell her she’d only be in the trunk for seven hours. He did none of that.
He caught her knees, and she spilled into his arms. He dropped her inside the trunk, ripped off another piece of duct tape, and slapped it over her mouth.
Without another word, he shut the lid with a clank.