Kidnapped by the Billionaire(35)

At least she had evidence that Theo was still alive, that she still had someone.

She turned, moving out of the bathroom and going down the hallway.

"About fucking time." Elijah's voice drifted from the lounge area. "What can you give me?"

She paused in the hall doorway, leaning against the frame.

He was standing with his back to her, half naked, his wide, powerful  shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, the shorts sitting low on his  hips. She itched to touch him again, to run her fingers across those  powerful muscles, feel them bunch and flex under her hands. To hear his  breath catch and his deep, harsh voice whisper her name.

She wanted him. Wanted to take him in her arms and soothe him, heal him.  Wanted to take that bleak, cold look away from his black eyes and give  him something warm to hold onto instead.

Can anyone say Stockholm Syndrome?

Oh yeah, and she had all the symptoms loud and clear. But she didn't  give a shit. Her father had taken something from him and it was now her  job to give it back.

He turned all of a sudden, as if he'd sensed her standing there, his  gaze sweeping over her, now absolutely expressionless. Making her feel  vulnerable for some reason, aware of her nakedness in a way she hadn't  been before. Then, still talking to whoever was on the phone, he turned  back again, walking away from her toward the kitchen area and  disappearing through the doorway.         

     



 

Clearly he wanted privacy. Did that mean he was talking about her? To Jericho? Were they arranging a meeting right now?

I'm going to put a bullet in his brain.

Well, at least that made sense now too. Why he took her, why he wanted to kill Jericho. Why he was so set on it.

Revenge.

Violet swallowed. She could understand it. When someone you loved was  taken from you, after the shock and the grief, anger was the next  emotion to hit and for some people it hit hard. In fact, some people  never got past it. Looked like Elijah was one of those people.

She went over to the punching bag where her clothes were lying strewn on  the floor and picked them up, starting to dress. Staying naked made her  feel too exposed, and she was feeling exposed enough as it was.

When she'd finished she looked toward the kitchen area. Elijah still  hadn't come out, but she could hear the low rumble of his voice, the  words indistinct.

Deciding her fate maybe?

A little uprush of panic went through her and she had to turn and pace to the windows and back to get rid of it.

No, panicking was not helpful and after all she'd been through already,  it seemed ridiculous to start now. What she needed to do was think of  her next move. Initially it had been to help him lure out Jericho, but  now? She wasn't sure.

Elijah knew more about Jericho than she did obviously, but she was  betting the man was possibly even more dangerous than Elijah himself  was. Killing him would certainly be an in-your-face kind of move. Surely  Elijah would be aware that there would be reprisals for that kind of  thing?

Violet stared sightlessly at the sky beyond the high windows.

Oh yeah, he was aware. The bleakness behind his eyes, the emptiness  …  He wasn't expecting to survive his revenge.

The thought made her heart squeeze tight and hard inside her chest.

She didn't want him to die. Sure, he was cold and he'd been rough with  her. He hadn't been kind to her in any way, shape, or form, and really,  losing his wife wasn't an excuse. And yet  …  There had been glimpses  behind that emptiness in his eyes, glimpses of a man who wasn't all  black ice. Who was passionate and demanding, certainly. But not only  that.

He hadn't hurt her. He'd given her antinausea pills for Christ's sake.  He'd lifted her out of that bathtub full of bloody water and wrapped her  in a blanket. Bound the cuts. Given her painkillers.

Yes, he needed to keep her alive for Jericho, but he hadn't needed to do  any of those things for her. Things that were aimed precisely at making  her comfortable. At easing her pain.

We are all monsters, Violet.

He might be on the outside, but inside, somewhere under all that hard,  cold ice he surrounded himself with, there was also a man.

A man she wanted to know more about. A man she wanted to heal.

Are you crazy? You've only known him two fucking days.

Yeah, well, in that case she was crazy. And she didn't care how long  she'd known him. After a couple of years studying psychology she knew  her own feelings well enough.

What about what Theo said? Always question.

She had questioned. She'd been constantly questioning herself since  Elijah had brought her here and right now, she was fucking sick of it.

Turning away from the window, she paced over to the sofa, glancing  toward the kitchen again. Still no sign of him. She turned back, went  over to the bookcase and stood in front of it, searching through the  spines of the books as if they could tell her the truths about him she  so desperately wanted to know.

An older book in among all the paperbacks caught her eye and she reached  out, pulling it off the shelf. It was a hardback, with an early  sixties – looking cover. A first edition of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a  Strange Land. Vintage sci-fi and probably worth a bit of money by now.

Were these his books?

She opened the cover and leafed through the first few pages until she  caught sight of the scrolling, cursive writing on the title page, boldly  ignoring the fact that writing on a first edition would lower its  value.

Kane, I told you I'd get you paper. Happy anniversary, darling husband. I love you. Marie.

Violet frowned. Who the hell was Kane?

"Get the fuck away from there." Elijah's voice was flat and hard with command.

Violet turned, still holding the book, meeting his gaze and seeing  nothing at all in his black eyes. Nothing but darkness. As if his  earlier confession hadn't happened.

As if he hadn't just told her that her father had killed his wife. He killed Marie  …

Oh God. He was Kane.

She blinked, realization spearing her like a blade as she took in the  rest of the apartment. At the strange little lounge setting in front of  her that had seemed so out of place when she'd first come here. The  bright rag-rolled rug. The sofa. The coffee table. The romance in the  shelves behind her  …          

     



 

They were furniture from another time and another place. A time when  he'd been married. When he hadn't been Elijah Hunt, but another man.

"Tell me about Marie, Elijah." she said abruptly, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. "Tell me about Kane."

The darkness in his eyes was suddenly full of flames, fierce, hot.  Burning high. And she braced herself for whatever was going to come  next.

But then his head snapped around, that fierce gaze locking onto the  front door of the apartment. And for a second she couldn't work out what  the hell had drawn his attention.

Then she saw that the steadily blinking lights of the security pad by the front door had gone dark.

He was already moving toward the door when it was kicked in, banging  open so hard it bounced off its hinges, admitting three figures all with  their arms outstretched, weapons in their hands.

Shock froze Violet where she stood and for a second she could only stand  there, watching as the violence unfurled in front of her.

Elijah hadn't stopped moving, in fact, he'd accelerated, running toward  one of the figures while someone else shouted. A gun went off, the sound  exploding through the apartment followed by the shatter of glass.

And Violet found that she was moving too, but not away from what was  happening. She was running toward it, her heart thumping loud in her  ears, fear gripping her. Fear for him.

Elijah was grappling with another man, while a second man, tall, lean  and black-haired, familiar-looking, trained a gun on them. The third  figure, a woman with long blonde hair and dressed in a black suit, who  looked as lethal as the gun she held, also trained a gun on the pair on  the ground.

These people, they were going to kill Elijah. And she couldn't let that happen.

"Stop!" She screamed the word, launching herself at the man who'd just  aimed a vicious punch at the bandage on Elijah's shoulder. As the blow  landed, Elijah went white, stumbling a couple steps, his lips pulling  back in a grimace of pain. Red bloomed against the new bandages she'd  only just bound around him.

"Stop it, you prick!" Violet shouted again, and before she could think  twice about what she was doing, she stepped between the man and Elijah.

He was familiar. Wide shouldered and tall, built along the same massive  lines as Elijah. Dark eyes, blonde hair. Brutally handsome features. It  was Gabriel Woolf.

Which means this is a rescue.

Violet shoved the thought aside. She didn't care what it was right now,  not when all that mattered was that they stopped hitting Elijah.

Gabriel's dark eyes settled on her, an expression she didn't quite  understand in his gaze. "Are you okay?" he asked harshly. "Did he hurt  you?"

There was movement behind Gabriel and the black-haired man, who Violet  could now see was Alex St. James, Honor's long-lost brother, said in a  low, dangerous voice to Elijah, "Don't you fucking move, asshole."