Chapter 16
Savannah’s butt ached from sitting on the cold marble floor, but she didn’t dare move. The barrel of an assault rifle rested on the shoulder of a terrified diplomat beside her. Any twitch, any glance, might be interpreted as defiance.
The leader, pacing the center of the room, had a voice like gravel. Cold and calculating. “Thirty minutes,” he repeated into a satellite phone. “Deliver the Senator. Or we begin shooting. Maybe we’ll start with the girl,” he taunted.
Savannah couldn’t control the queasiness that suddenly struck. Somehow, she always knew the Senator would be the death of her. She just didn’t think it would end like this.
She felt the heat of eyes shift toward her. The “girl” wasn’t some random hostage. She was the target. Her fingers trembled in her lap. She curled them tightly into the folds of her gown.
Beside her, Daphne was shaking uncontrollably, eyes wide, breaths short and shallow.
Kandy sat on her other side, deathly quiet.
Her usual self-assured composure drained away, lips pressed together like she might vomit.
Henry was bleeding from a gash near his temple but remained upright, his hand on Kandy’s shoulder in a quiet show of solidarity.
Savannah’s ears rang with the echo of the word “girl.”
Not pianist. Not diplomat. Not guest of honor.
Just a bargaining chip.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to summon the image of Sawyer, steady and sharp-eyed, working somewhere outside this nightmare. He’d come for her. She knew that for a fact. He had to.
Because the truth settled in her chest like ice.
The Senator would never come. Not for her. Not for any of them.
The hostage-taker knew it, too. His gaze locked on hers. “He sent you around the world to cover his sins,” he said, his accented English coming through loud and clear. “To play pretty songs while people burned. While our families disappeared.”
Savannah’s mouth went dry. Her voice, when it came, was little more than a whisper. “I didn’t know. Neither did any of the people in this room.”
“If you think that, then you are a fool.” His eyes moved over the crowd until they settled on the group of Azerbaijani diplomats huddling together in the corner.
“We watched you smile for cameras, take bows for presidents, shake hands with murderers. You are not innocent. The blood that covered their hands now stain yours.”
A bead of sweat traced the line of her spine. “I’m a pianist,” she said. “Not a politician.”
“But you are his,” the man replied coldly. “And that is enough.”
Around them, the gunmen prowled like caged animals, barking in a language she didn’t understand, rifles slung loose but ready.
A cloying wave of fear hung heavy in the air, thick with the acrid bite of sweat, the cold tang of gunpowder, and the surprisingly pungent coppery reek of blood all assaulting her nostrils.
Her stomach churned violently, and with a grimace, she suppressed the bitter bile rising in her throat.
Across the room, her eyes met Brian’s. He sat against the far wall, dusty and pale like the rest of them.
His arms were wrapped tightly around his knees, shoulders hunched like he was trying to disappear into himself, but his gaze held steady.
Unflinching. For a heartbeat, maybe two, something flickered across his face.
Not panic. Not desperation. Something else. Something closer to . . . satisfaction?
She blinked.
No, that couldn’t be right.
But the way his eyes lingered on hers, the faint curl at the corner of his mouth didn’t look like fear. It looked like eagerness. Like he was grateful they were stuck here together. That in this nightmare, he might achieve something he’d anticipated for a long time.
A fresh wave of nausea rolled over Savannah, her stomach churned, making her swallow hard, the lump in her throat thick and unpleasant.
She tore her eyes away. It had to be the stress. Her nerves were shot, her brain misfiring. Brian was a friend. A kind, quiet presence on the tour. That look had meant nothing. It had to mean nothing. The chill that crawled down her spine refused to leave was just the situation as a whole.
A jittery younger man, his balaclava still in place, ran up and muttered something in their native tongue.
The leader’s expression darkened. “Ten minutes,” he called to the room.
“Ten minutes, and we make another example out of one of you. Who will it be?” he taunted.
He now held an assault rifle, his handgun holstered at his side.
He swept the business end of the rifle across the crowd.
Dozens of elaborately dressed people whimpered, cried, and tried to make themselves invisible.
To protect herself from the fear that threatened to make her keel over, she thought about the previous night. More importantly, the kiss and subsequent orgasm she’d shared with Sawyer.
Around her, the masked men moved with the quiet, practiced menace of wolves circling prey. The click of rifle straps and the sharp bark of commands in a language she didn’t understand had replaced the chamber music that had previously played in the opulent ballroom.
Fear should’ve consumed her. Or surly terror. But all she could think about, absurdly, was Sawyer.
Sawyer and last night.
The way his mouth had claimed hers with a hunger that left her shaking.
The way his thigh had pressed between hers as they stood tangled in each other’s arms in her hotel suite, her body grinding helplessly, breath catching as release tore through her like lightning, her nails digging into his shoulders to keep from falling apart completely.
God. She had come against his leg like some fevered, desperate version of herself. And he hadn’t stopped her. He’d held her through it, breathing against her mouth like he was the one unraveling.
She hadn’t known kissing Sawyer could feel like that. She hadn’t known anything could. And now, the fear she felt was from the thought that she might never have the chance to do it again. The thought clenched like a fist in her gut.
Something had started with Sawyer. Something real. Something dangerous in a completely different way. And she wasn’t ready to lose it. Not now. Not before it even had a chance to become more.
She closed her eyes and silently prayed. She knew that he was out there, fighting his way back to her.
But if she had to die tonight, she wanted it to be after one more kiss.
Not before.
“Five more minutes,” the leader said with a laugh. Savannah’s stomach churned, a sickening twist as the heavy thud of his boots grew nearer, each step a hammer blow against her heart.
Her eyes scanned the ballroom, hunting for anything, anyone, that might offer hope. But all she saw were bowed heads and tear-streaked faces. Diplomats. Performers. Staff. Every one of them reduced to bargaining chips in a political reckoning they hadn’t signed up for.
She swallowed her panic. Sawyer would come. She knew that for a fact. He always had.
Even when they were kids, when her mother started dating the Senator and the slow erosion of her sense of safety had begun, Sawyer had protected her.
Hidden with her in the treehouse. Snuck books through her window.
Stolen her away from suffocating silence, followed by the Senator’s caustic words with laughter and stargazing.
He’d find her again. She just had to last five more minutes.
Her hands balled into fists as she breathed in slowly, once, twice, centering herself.
Please, she thought, not sure if she was begging Sawyer, or fate.
Please hurry.