Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Rhett slammed his hand into the glass door that was the entrance to his team’s rented office. “You motherfucker!”
Three desks took up most of the space. Mandy jerked her gaze away from her computer and got to her feet. “You’re shot!” She bustled around her desk.
He didn’t want to acknowledge the searing pain of the bullet that had hit below his clavicle.
Thank god for adrenaline, otherwise the pain would have slowed him considerably.
On top of that, his lungs still ached from holding his breath underwater and dragging his ass out of the marina.
Thank god someone had heard the commotion and helped pull him out of the water.
He’d lain on the cement and coughed fishy water out of his windpipe until his throat went raw.
Then he’d gotten himself to his car—ignoring the man who’d helped him, who kept yelling at him to stop—and headed straight to the office to confront the only sonofabitch in reach who might know where Peyton had been taken.
He couldn’t be wrong about Eric. Peyton’s life depended on it.
With her cell phone in his car and no tracking device on her, or Moretti, there was no other way to find her in time.
Rhett held out his hand to stop Mandy’s advance. “Thanks for the observation. Where is he?”
Her green eyes turned huge. “W-Who?”
Ignoring her question, he stormed toward the room divider that separated the desks from their brainstorming area, but Eric came around the corner before he could get that far.
“Dude, you’re soaking wet—and shot. What the—”
Rhett bared his teeth and launched himself forward. Grabbing Eric by his shirt, he flung him against the wall. “I know you’re involved in this, you fucking snake,” he said, crushing his forearm against Eric’s windpipe. “Peyton’s gone. Beanie has her. Don’t make me beat the information out of you.”
Eric’s hands hovered near his ears, and his body shook like a leaf in the wind. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice broke.
“Bullshit. You were at Max’s apartment right after Vicky was murdered. Why’d you go there so quickly?”
“Vicky was connected to our case. You’d just asked me to get Max’s information, so I had it fresh in my mind. When I heard about what happened at his building, I knew it was related.”
A seed of doubt planted itself in Rhett’s gut.
Peyton’s terror-filled face loomed in his mind’s eye.
Beanie had smashed his gun into her skull, nearly knocking her out, seconds before Beanie’s man had shot him.
The wound above his heart throbbed threatening to sap his strength, but he wouldn’t let it.
Not until Peyton was safe. But fuck, the pain was setting in.
He searched the pasty-white skin around Eric’s eyes.
The agent’s shirt collar was damp, and the fecal scent of fear wafted to Rhett’s nostrils.
The chambers of his brain clicked into place. “Bullshit. How’d Moretti know to send Beanie to Stone’s boat? Someone on the inside told him.”
“I’m telling the truth. Maybe your girlfriend’s playing you, dude.”
Rhett’s temper boiled over. “You fucking cocksucker!” He jabbed Eric in the nose. Pain ricocheted through his injured shoulder and he shook his wrist to draw the zinging energy away.
“Ah, shit!” Eric coughed, and blood squirted down the front of his shirt.
“Rhett!”
He turned to see Mandy behind him, looking nearly hysterical. “That’s enough. Let’s talk about this reasonably. Tell us what you know and we can figure this out.”
Rhett opened and closed his fist, fighting the burning sensation on his knuckles, which craved another satisfying blow. “After what happened to Vicky, I’m not taking any chances. Eric knows something.”
“Fuck you!”
Something snapped inside Rhett. All logicality went out the window. He was done fucking around. “You’ve got ten seconds”—he reached behind his back, grabbed his waterlogged weapon, and pressed it into Eric’s throat—“before I make a fucking art display of your brain on the wall. Now talk.”
“Drop your weapon, Callahan.” Mandy’s deadly tone sent chills up his spine.
He loosened his death grip on his gun but didn’t move it from its position. He swiveled his head over his shoulder.
Mandy stood ten feet behind him, her Glock trained on his forehead. “Back away and put the weapon down.”
The bottom of his stomach dropped out, and he turned to face his teammate.
He chortled and hiked up his hands, still gripping the gun.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” He shook his head at his own stupidity.
Mandy was the last person he’d expect to play double agent.
Shit in this field just kept surprising him.
“Drop it, dammit!” Her green eyes were ferocious emeralds.
He swore a blue streak, bent down, and placed the weapon on the floor. Eric pushed away from the wall, grabbed a handful of paper towels off the roll, and pressed the material to his nose.
“You,” Rhett said, snarling the word at the woman he’d had a shitload of respect for. “You are the last person I’d expect this from.”
She cocked her head and lowered her weapon so it was aimed at his knees, which in no way calmed his nerves. She nodded to a chair behind a desk. “Sit the fuck down.”
Rage spurted behind his eyelids, but he beat back the impulse to lunge at her and shoot them both. Instead, he dropped heavily into the cheap plastic chair.
“Hands on the desk where I can see them.”
Rhett rolled his eyes to the ceiling but obeyed.
At the next desk, Eric whimpered pathetically as he mopped his face. “You busted my nose.”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear a word from either of you.” Mandy sat on the desk in front of him, still holding the gun loosely in her fingers.
She’d slip up, and as soon as she did, they’d both be in prison—or dead. Preferably the former, but he’d do whatever it took to get Peyton back. If he didn’t hurry and get information out of them, Peyton would be fucked.
His gut twisted, and hopelessness gnawed through the steel nerves holding him upright. He had to pull it together and outsmart Mandy.
“We don’t have much time.” Mandy’s no-nonsense voice dominated the room. Her mouth, which usually had a friendly smile for him, was a terse, spent line. “Rather, Peyton doesn’t, I should say. So cut the bullshit and listen to me.”
“Move!” Len shoved the center of her back, propelling her forward.
Peyton stumbled over the floor and ducked her head to avoid hitting the ceiling.
An acidic stench clung to the moist basement, reminding her of rotting oranges.
Only no such fruit was in sight. Then the meaty odor of blood assaulted her as she was pushed into a dark room.
Chills overtook her body and her knees knocked together. A small rectangle of yellow light ate up a chunk of the otherwise black room. Bare feet hung limply against the legs of a chair. A scream pushed through the back of her throat, and she pressed her knuckles into her mouth to muffle the sound.
Rivulets of blood rolled down exposed calves.
“Nap time’s over.” Len hit a switch behind her head, and a single bulb dangling from the ceiling burst on.
She blinked until her eyes could make out the figure restrained in the chair.
Her pulse sped like a speedboat, and she ran forward.
“Max!” Dropping to her knees she searched his face.
Purple bruises surrounded his eyes, which were swollen into slits, and black ooze coated his grayish lips.
She grabbed his listless hand tied to the arm of the chair.
His cold, clammy skin shocked fear into her heart.
“What did you do to him?” Her shriek bounced off the walls. She leaped to her feet and charged Len, but he caught her fist as she threw it at his face and shoved her backward.
“Watch yourself,” he said on a low growl.
Her chest tightened with each breath. The concrete floor’s hard, damp surface froze her bones. She cast another look at Max. His eyes fluttered open and landed on her as if the effort had taken the last of his strength. She swallowed and pleaded with her eyes for him to hang on.
She’d get him out of this. One way or another.
Footsteps pounded on the rickety stairs. Her blood pressure galloped over the rhythm of the stomps, driving out all intelligible thoughts from her head. Beanie. He’d get his revenge now. She stared at the burn marks on Max’s forearms and the unnatural angle of the bones in one of his fingers.
Her fate would be worse.
Beanie stepped into the room, and his laser-focused gaze singed her.
Thick, raised skin surrounded the split in his forehead.
Crimson coated the front of his T-shirt, and his hand was balled around the material he’d used to staunch the wound.
The uneven ridges of his teeth showed through his slightly open mouth.
He took a step forward. Her body screamed at her to run, to fight, to do something other than stand there like a whimpering idiot.
The adrenaline bursting from her heart turned to solid matter in her veins. She couldn’t leave Max. Couldn’t attack two armed men with her bare hands. And couldn’t beg for mercy where it wouldn’t be shown.
The cracks in her quickly drying lips craved moisture, but she didn’t dare make even the smallest movement.
Fury flared from Beanie’s stare. Then he shifted his gaze to Max’s crumpled form and took a step closer to her friend.
He cupped the top of Max’s head, the only part of him not battered, and turned it to get a better look at his face.
“Yikes. We sure did a number on him, didn’t we? Think you want to talk now?”
Alertness flickered in Max’s blue eyes and then waned.
“Huh. That so?” Beanie dropped his head and zeroed in on her. “Max let us down, Peyton. If you hadn’t gotten caught on Moretti’s ship, we wouldn’t be here.”
She opened her mouth, but he held up his hand. Confusion sizzled through her brain. She glanced between Beanie and Max and reality sunk into her core. If Max had let Beanie down, it was because Beanie had hired him . . . and her.
“B-But . . .” She shook her head.
Beanie dropped his head in annoyance. “C’mon, you’re just figuring this shit out? You think I’ve been after you just because Moretti wanted Jenny’s location?”
She unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth and fit the pieces of the puzzle together. It still didn’t make sense. None of it did. “If you wanted Jenny’s address, why didn’t you just take it for yourself? Why hire Max and get me to do it?”
He turned to Len and made a gesture of confusion. “Can you believe this shit?” He whipped his hand out and struck Max in the cheekbone. Max howled and jerked up his head. “You said this bitch was smart.”
Guilt overrode self-control. She stomped forward and wedged herself between Max and Beanie. “Leave him alone.” The snarl trembled from her lips, but she’d be damned if she let them hurt Max further. He needed medical attention, and quickly.
Beanie snapped out his hand and caught her neck.
A squeak erupted from her lips and her shoulder gave out under the pressure of his grip.
He towed her toward him, drawing her body against his front.
“You fucked this up. You’re the reason Max is here in the first place.
All you had to do was get a piece of paper and get off the ship. ”
She jerked away from the heat of his body, but his hold remained. Her knees shook.
“I hired you so I could keep my fucking hands clean. If Moretti had any clue I was the one who killed that slut, he’d have me in jail and Andre acquitted with the snap of his fingers.”
Strength suddenly flooded her weakening muscles. “You killed Raquel?” she whispered.
Beanie’s eyes narrowed into two gleaming lines.
“Yeah. Looks like you’ll be next.” He snickered and let go of her neck with a shove.
She tumbled backward and landed on her butt at Max’s feet.
Beanie slithered his gaze over her bare knees to her cut-off shorts and white tank top, and his eyes blazed with desire.
She inched backward and drew her knees to her chest. She had to keep him talking until she could figure a way out.
“But Andre was there when it happened. He must be involved.”
Beanie snorted and threw back his head. “That douchebag was so fucked up. He wasn’t even in the room when it happened. Doesn’t even remember me dropping by for a smoke and banging his hooker. He called me crying after I left saying he killed her.”
Len’s laughter roared through the room. “Andre’s such a pussy.”
“Why’d you kill her?” She pushed the words through her quickly closing throat. Her skin crawled over her bones. If she didn’t get out of this mess, Beanie would be free to hurt more people and Moretti would kill Jenny Carter.
Beanie’s mouth hitched up. “She didn’t realize how rough she liked it.
She tried to bite my cock and I choked her out a little too long, but that’s what happens when you’re coming.
” He shrugged and turned to Len. “Get her up. We’ve got twenty minutes to get the address from her pretty fucking lips, and I want to enjoy every second. ”