He leaned forward on the table, his large hands splayed out in front of him. “Do you know how many people have tried to make deals with me, offered me millions of dollars just to set them free?”

I shrunk back in my chair. “No.”

    “Twenty-eight.”

    “Okay.”

    “Do you know how many of those deals I have taken?”

    His voice was getting progressively louder which only caused me to shrink back further. “No.”

    “One.”

    “Oh.”

    “So when I tell you to talk, I bloody well mean it!”

    I shuddered at his shouting commands, but I was on a weird high from my family’s release and I just nodded, unfazed by the loud noise. “Sure, no problem. Do you have a script or something?”

He brought his elbows up and rested his head on his hands for an instant before jumping to his feet. He came around the desk so fast I gasped in shock. He stood over me and I covered my face in fear.

    “Carys,” he said, his voice so calm and close that I had to look up.

    He knelt in front of me, his face parallel with mine, and it appeared that he had regained some composure.

    “You’re not telling me that you made a deal just to save your family, are you?”

    I stared. “You don’t actually think I’m guilty do you?” I nearly squeaked I was so nervous.

    His face fell. “You asked me not to hurt you because you knew this would happen.”

    I shook my head frantically. “I’ll confess to anything, I swear! Just tell me what to say!”

    He stood back and stared down at me. “Why did you do this?”

    I rose on shaky legs. “I had to! My father and my brother, they need doctors, Ian’s wife…the baby… I thought you knew I was doing this for them!”

    He ran his hands through his hair then… a gesture of his I had yet to see, and he looked at me helplessly. I knew I had done something wrong, but what else was I supposed to do? I thought he realized why I had done it. I couldn’t believe he thought I was actually guilty. I grabbed his hand and pulled.

    “Kade, I thought you knew. I thought you were going to tell me what to say,” I couldn’t hide the panic from my voice. I was sure with one phone call, my family would be back here with me, and there was no way they would let them out again. I couldn’t let that happen.

    “Just tell me what to say,” I begged. “Please, they’ll never know.”

    “Goddamn it Carys,” he gritted, his jaw muscles clenching tightly. “I thought you were actually guilty of something. I was counting on it!”

    “I can be… just give me a script and I’ll memorize it.”

    “I need you to be guilty Carys.”

    I shook my head, pulling on him. “I am, I am.”

    “You can’t be innocent.”

    “I’m not,” I pulled on him again.

    I watched the scene from a bird’s-eye view as we carried on like this. His back was against the wall, and I pulled on his hands, pleading for mercy. At first he didn’t move much. But as he begged me to be guilty and I begged him to pretend I was, there was a strange tug-of-war happening and our bodies rocked back and forth as we struggled for control. I would pull, and he would give for a nanosecond before pulling back.

    “I sell guns to the Japanese with the Reardon family,” I urged. I looked into his worried eyes, begging him with my own.

    He shook his head, pulling his hands back. “Chinese.”

    My hand slid up his arm and I pulled him which only succeeded in bringing my chest flush against his.

“That’s what I meant,” I pleaded.

    He yanked his hands out of my grasp and exhaled a sharp breath. I could see the muscles in his jaw working, the pulse in his neck thumping fast and the tension in the room crackled like static electricity. His anger towards my innocence was unexplainable, and I couldn’t understand why he was looking at me like that.

    My world was spinning out of control, and the lives of my family depended on what Kade decided to do. Again. He ran his hand through his hair, his lips white with anger, and our breaths came in and out in erratic patterns.

    His chest expanded with a deep breath and he threw his hands down. “Goddammit Carys.”

    That’s when he slammed his mouth over mine, and my whole bloody world turned upside down.

    The air escape my lungs in an erotic sound that I didn’t recognize. His hands cupped my face and his fingers found the back of my head, curling into my hair, pulling at the roots. He slanted my head to the side, sealing his lips over mine own, grinding them so fiercely that I opened my mouth for more. My stomach somersaulted as his tongue touched my own, and my fingernails dug into the skin of his forearms pulling him closer.

    My brain told me to stop, told me how foolish this was, but my body wouldn’t listen. His lips bruised, his tongue and teeth nipped and teased, and the sound of our heavy breaths filled the room. My eyes were sealed shut and I imagined we weren’t in this room, I imagined we were in an alleyway outside a club far away from here. I imagined that we saw each other inside, gave each other that look that held so much promise and met outside in the alley, not being able to take our hand off each other until we made it to one of our beds.

    He slammed me against the wall, and took my gasp into his mouth. I heard the faintest growl in the back of his throat as he pressed his body against mine. Something hard pressed into my belly and I pushed against it, feeling his kiss intensify by my boldness.

    My eyes fluttered open – I don’t even remember why – and when I saw that we weren’t alone I gasped and pushed him off me. He spun around and I could feel the tension radiate off him like waves of heat as Darcy stepped further into the room.

    He looked pleased, like a parent watching their children get along. I didn’t think anyone so nice to look at could be so disturbed. I could tell even before he attacked me that he was deeply troubled. But it didn’t make me pity him, it made me hate him even more.

 Book 2

“Ellie, listen to me. Yer going about this the wrong way. Ye can’t just go around those kinds of places expecting to find evidence lying out in the open. These are bad fuckin’ people, and anyone caught snooping, well… If they took Jeremy, he’s far from here lass, I can promise ye that. Why don’t ye just let the police do their jobs? I’ll even give you yer money back.”
I stiffened. “You really don’t believe I can do this, do you?”
He sighed and leaned back against the bench. “Honestly, no.”     “Is this so you can go back to your other job?” I asked.
“It’s… part of it.”
“Fine,” I said, pulling out my wallet. “I’ll just have to do this on my own.”
He groaned as I threw some cash on the table and left without another word. He didn’t even try to stop me, that non-chivalrous ass.
When I stepped out onto the sidewalk I took a few deep breaths and turned in the direction of the motel. After two steps I snarled in frustration, turned around and walked right back into the diner.
“I need to borrow your car,” I said, holding my hand out.
He sat up and gave me a patient look before dropping some money on the table and walking right out of the restaurant. We were probably giving the other customers whiplash, but I followed him out, hot on his tail. I walked beside him, assuming he was going back to the motel, and barely noticed the lovely day we were having.
“Ellie,” he finally said, as we entered the motel parking lot, “have you or Jeremy ever done anything to any Russian person in the past who may have taken offense? Anything at all?”
I frowned. “Not that I can think of.”
“The name Piotrovski doesn’t ring a bell?”
“No.” I shrugged.
“And this business with his da’. Why would the FBI want to cover up his death? What’s his father do?”
“He was a stock market guy. He and Jeremy’s mom divorced when he was a kid and I barely knew him. He was important though. Worked on Wall Street. Why do you ask?”
He frowned and I followed him into his room. I wasn’t ready to leave just yet, but I wanted his keys before he changed his mind. His room was the same size as mine, but a mirror image, and I couldn’t help but notice that his bed was ruffled, the indent mark of his head still in the pillow. An uninvited image of him sleeping in that bed crawled into my head and I couldn’t manage to get it out. For some reason, seeing his bed like this was too intimate.
“You alright?”
I snapped out of it and nodded. “Yep, uh huh. So, why all the questions?”
He shuffled through some clothes, throwing them in a pile on the disheveled bed. “It only occurred to me to ask just now. Sorry.”
I shrugged. “You’re not a detective… are you?”
He grunted a “no” as he continued looking through his clothes. The muscles in his back rippled beneath his black polo and his biceps flexed menacingly as he searched the bed.
“Keys?” I asked, blinking away my thoughts.
“Aye.”
“Where did you put them last?”
“On the desk.”
I helped him look without touching his things too much. He either didn’t care that I was moving around his clothing, or he didn’t notice, for he seemed perfectly ensconced in his own search.
“Maybe you left them in my room?”
“I’ve not set foot in there.”
I shrugged and opened the adjoining door, remembering with a grimace that it did open from his side. When I saw my crisply made bed I did a double-take and frowned. Taking a step backwards I looked back out to the open main door of Troy’s room and back to his bed.
“Did you… did you put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door before you left?”
He dropped what was in his hand and turned to me in confusion. “What?”
A silence swept the room and I stood perfectly still.
I could see the wheels spinning in Troy’s head and his demeanor change into something strong and indestructible. He held his finger up to his lips, telling me to be quiet, and waved his hand to the floor. I shrunk down next to the dresser in the corner, adrenaline coursing through my blood.
He pulled out a gun from his back waistline and slowly slid over to the main door. Before closing it quietly, he took a quick peak outside and then flattened his back against it. I started to shake uncontrollably but tried to remain calm. So far there was nothing here except a scatterbrained chambermaid, nothing too egregious.
He motioned that he was going into my room, and I shook my head, about to tell him not to leave me alone, but he held his finger up to his mouth and gave me the international sign of “calm down.” But I couldn’t promise anything.
With his back ramrod straight, and his gun held expertly in his grasp—yes, a freaking gun—he rounded into the adjoining room, effectively leaving me all on my own. I watched the empty doorway, and the only sound I could hear was my breath as I waited for him to return.
Just then, the adjoining door began to close and I sat up in confusion, finding no reason for that to happen. When someone emerged from the bathroom I started to scream, but it was too late. The masked man ran straight at the door and locked it, keeping Troy out. Above all my terrified thoughts, my sharp panicked breaths and the thundering heartbeat in my ears, I could hear things breaking and crashing next door in my room.
“Troy!” I screeched.
The tall, black-clad bandit walked with deliberate, stable movements as he came over to my side of the bed, staring down at me from only a few feet away. I shrunk back against the wall and tried to see through the little eyeholes of his balaclava, but all I saw was black nothingness.
“Please,” I whimpered, “I’ll give you anything you want.”
His head tilted to the right and I felt a chill go down my spine. It was the type of head movement you’d expect to see in a horror film, a stone-cold mask cocking slightly to the side, as if the creature beneath couldn’t understand what it was seeing. I pressed back into the corner, my hands grasping at everything around me, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. There was nothing there but the side table and phone, and I couldn’t exactly launch that at him while it was still connected.
I wasn’t expecting him to rush me like he did, but one moment I was there on the floor, and the next I was slung over his shoulder. I screeched and squirmed, pounding my fists on his back and flailing my legs around wildly, but he didn’t seem to notice as he ran to the door and yanked it open. Stories and statistics flooded my brain, and I knew my chances of survival were frighteningly slim if he managed to take me wherever it was he wanted me to go. I swung and kicked and punched with all my might. We were in the parking lot now, and if someone would just hear me they might be able to help. I screamed and wriggled wildly, and when my knee finally landed on his chest, he stopped dead in his tracks. I wasn’t expecting him to throw me down into a trunk.
I spun around, sitting up so he couldn’t close it, but I came face to face with the barrel of a gun. I froze and stared at the dark aperture, my heart in my throat. After all my careful planning, this day had taken an unexpectedly frightful turn.
“Please,” I whispered, my eyes stinging with tears. “Whatever they’re paying you… I’ll double it.”