Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ELVIS STARED AT THE empty chair, ropes dangling from the arms. They weren’t cut and they hadn’t been untied.
It was more like someone had… stretched them, like someone had slipped their arms out of them after wiggling in them for so long.
She had been there; he was sure of it. Had managed to get herself loose by the looks of it. But where the hell was she now?
He glanced up and noticed the window open, the curtains flapping beside it with the cool wind coming in off the water.
He crossed the room in a rush, leaning out and glancing around to make sure no one was nearby.
The entire backyard was swallowed with the darkness of night, the lawn stretching on toward the river, which was barely visible in the ambient light.
Then he saw her, racing toward the water, head down like someone who was barreling toward freedom. He opened his mouth to call out to her, to tell her to wait, but the room behind him erupted into chaos before he could get her name past his lips.
Dane and Grim shot into the room, dodging gunfire in the hallway.
“All right, this place is no longer quiet,” Grim growled as he turned to face the doorway, gun held in front of him.
The next thirty seconds were a percussive chaos that left little room for anything other than reactions.
It was dodge and shoot, duck and swing as men made it into the room.
There were no orders given simply because there was no time to give them.
It didn’t matter because they had trained for this their entire careers.
They knew what to do to stay alive and get the hell out of there, which was all Elvis wanted to do.
He had to stop Delaney before she got too far away from them.
Grim and Dane moved to stand behind the wall, one on each side of the door, while Elvis moved closer to the window.
One man eased into the room, his gaze fixed on Elvis, gun in front of him.
He didn’t get his arm halfway through the open doorway before Grim grabbed him and yanked him to the side.
Dane jumped in front of the open doorway and fired, taking two men down before ducking back inside the room.
Elvis turned back to the window, his gaze going straight to Delaney, who was now ten feet from the water’s edge. Eight feet. Five. Right behind her one of Matteo’s guards was about to grab her, his legs longer than hers, his training better.
“Go!” Dane called out, and Elvis shot through the window, the four-foot drop doing nothing to slow him down as he took it in a roll and came up sprinting. The grass flew under his boots as he raced for the water, already knowing Matteo’s man would reach her first.
“Delaney!”
And then the guard grabbed her.
“Delaney!”
A shot sliced the night air from the northern tree line, and the guard dropped forward with the momentum he no longer controlled.
He hit Delaney in the back, tumbling forward, his legs no longer working.
The mass of the falling body collapsed onto the woman already at the edge of her balance, and both went into the river.
Elvis kept running, calling out her name once more.
One minute Delaney was there, and the next, she wasn’t as the river swallowed her from sight.
The St. Marys did what rivers do, wrapping her in its current and dragging her along with it.
The darkness ate the distance between them faster than he could cross it, and he struggled to keep her in sight.
He called out her name once more as he hit the bank, screaming out his frustration as the current whisked her away from him.
He could see her in fragments as the water pulled her down and then pushed her up again, the river yanking at her as she struggled against it.
He knew the current had to be strong in the middle, and she’d have a hard time swimming against it.
The coldness of the water combined with the fact that she had just been running didn’t help her odds.
His earpiece crackled just before Gage’s voice filled his ear. “Shit! I hoped that wouldn’t happen. It’s the only angle I had on the guy. I had hoped he’d spin to the side.”
“We’ll get her,” Elvis said as he snatched his phone out of his pocket and punched Blaze’s name. “Delaney’s in the water,” he said before Blaze could utter a word. “I need you to get downstream so we can get her out of there. I think I see an access road along the river. Hurry!”
“On it!”
And then he heard the screaming of tires on the road.
Grim came around the side of the building just as Elvis took off following the bank, keeping her in sight and Blaze on the line.
At least she was still visible. The river curved to the south, the current carrying her further away from him.
The ground was uneven beneath his boots, but he didn’t slow down, being careful to avoid the root systems and soft river mud, avoiding the ground that looked solid but more than likely wasn’t.
From behind him, he heard Dane’s authoritative voice shouting orders as the sound of sirens screamed in the distance, still far away, but getting closer. Finally, Cochran’s men had arrived. Not too late at all. No, right on time. He growled as he kept running.
He knew Dane would handle it. He always did.
The bank curved left as the tree line thickened. Elvis pushed through the outer branches of a stand of cypress at the water’s edge, coming out on a narrow spit of bank that reached about ten feet into the river on the curve. It at least gave him a sightline downstream that the straight bank hadn’t.
He stopped, straining to see into the darkness as the river flowed, its surface broken by the churning current and the wind coming off the tree line. Panic gripped him as he couldn’t see her at first, and it seemed like the longest few seconds of his life.
Then he saw her again, roughly forty yards downstream, swimming toward the bank with strokes that seemed slower each time she did them. He knew she had to be cold and tired, reacting out of instinct more than anything else.
Grim finally caught up with him as he blew out a breath of relief. He had found her. Now he simply had to get her out of the water.
The SUV’s headlights cut across the darkness through the tree line on his right, Blaze having found the access road that ran along the southern boundary of the estate property. He turned and moved parallel to the river as the lights cut through the cypress in broken fragments.
As Grim reached his side, Elvis hit his earpiece. “Blaze, she’s about forty yards downstream from my position, swimming toward the bank. Turn around and come back toward me.”
“Got it.”
The headlights swung around as Blaze cut a tight u-turn and headed back toward him.
After driving a few yards, he turned the lights toward the water and came to a stop.
A second later, he slid out of the SUV, a medical go-bag in his hand as he moved to the water’s edge.
Elvis and Grim raced to join him, Elvis calling out her name so she wouldn’t be afraid to come out of the water.
He didn’t need her thinking they were Matteo’s men.
She was close enough now that Elvis could hear her struggle as she fought against the icy current with a focused stubbornness he had noticed her doing with everything. She was close, but not close enough for him.
Before the others could say anything, he tossed his phone and gun to the ground and dove into the St. Marys without thinking it through, just like he had when he jumped out the window. Nothing mattered except reaching her and getting her to safety.
The cold hit him immediately, his muscles screaming at the iciness as he moved through it.
He felt the current pushing and pulling at him from the left and angled into it, cutting across the water rather than fighting it.
He closed the distance between himself and the dark shape of her in the water just ahead of him.
She was still moving, still swimming, even though each movement seemed to get slower.
He was close enough to hear her breathing, the way she struggled with it as if depleting her last reserves of energy.
She had been in the water a lot longer than him, and he knew the temperature of the river was doing its own damage on her muscles.
“Delaney.”
Her head came up at the sound of his voice, searching the water’s surface until she saw him.
He reached her in four more strokes, reaching out for her beneath the surface.
She grabbed him with everything she had left inside her, sheer determination seeming to keep her head above water until she could rest it on his shoulder.
That was his girl, never giving up, not knowing the word surrender.
She’d fight with every last ounce of strength she had.
He pulled her against him and got his footing on the river bottom, the mud soft and pulling at his boots, which he wished he had taken off. There just hadn’t been time. With his arm around her waist, he turned them toward the bank and made his way to the others.
She said nothing as he carried her through the water. There was no need.
He could feel her shaking, a deep, involuntary tremor of a body that had been in the icy water for too long.
He kept his arm around her and kept moving, the bank coming up ahead of them.
He could see the spit of land where Grim and Blaze stood outlined against the dark tree line, Grim already holding a blanket out.
Elvis helped her out of the water, keeping his grip tight around her waist. Grim rushed over to them, blanket held out.
Elvis brought her up the bank, the ground becoming solid under them, and then she turned into him without being asked as Grim placed the blanket around her shoulders.
She pressed her face against Elvis’s chest, her body soaking and shaking.
He wrapped both arms around her and held on with everything he had.
She made a sound against his chest that wasn’t quite a word and not quite a sob but lived somewhere between the two. He pressed his mouth to the top of her wet hair, letting his lips linger for a moment.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
“You’re all right,” Elvis finally whispered against her hair. It wasn’t a question as he ran his hands up and down her back, hoping to rub some warmth into her.
“I’m freezing,” she said into his chest.
“I know. It’s all right.”
“No, it’s absolutely not all right. I can’t stop shaking.”
He chuckled as he kissed the top of her head again. “I’ll get you warmed up. Don’t worry.”
He leaned back just enough to look at her face, the river water dripping from her skin, her hair plastered flat against her head.
She had a cut on her forearm, and he could feel the cold fury of what could’ve happened to her move through him once more.
It was another thing he would take out on Matteo when they got back to the estate.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“All right. Then let’s get you in the SUV and head back to the estate. We need to check on Dane.”
She turned around, but Elvis kept his arms wrapped around her for the moment. “I’m glad to see you’re all right,” she said to Grim. “I was worried when I saw you slide down the wall back at the hospital.”
A sheepish look covered Grim’s face as he took a step back. “I’m just glad you’re all right. I was worried when they brought me back around and learned they had taken you. I’m sorry I let that happen. Really sorry.”
She reached out, placing a hand on his arm. “You did nothing wrong. I should’ve known better. I was just too worried about Deke.” Then her eyes went wide as she spun to face Elvis. “Donovan. Is he all right?”
Elvis wished he could tell her, but he didn’t know. “We’ll call the hospital as soon as we get back to Dane.”
He saw the panic on her face, and it tore at him. “Come on. Let’s get back to the estate.”