The sound of the crowds moving around them had dulled, as if he'd gone deaf, every sense he had narrowing down on the small woman standing behind the Russian. His heartbeat thumped, fast and insistent.
"Where is she now?" The question came out as a demand, but by then he was past caring.
Eva frowned. "You don't know? Didn't you just have the meeting with-"
"See that crowd over there?" He nodded his head sharply in the direction of the park bench where he'd left Jericho. "I shot that motherfucker. They're probably working on him now, but they won't save him. If he's not dead already then he soon will be."
"But if he took Violet," Katya began.
Elijah cut her off again. "No one took Violet." He met her impassive green gaze. "In fact, I had no intention of giving Violet to that asshole, I just wanted to kill him, and I did. Now tell me where the fuck Violet has gone."
Eva gave him a considering look, and he was on the point of moving against Katya, of shoving her pissy little gun away and going over and forcing the information out of Eva himself, when she abruptly pulled her phone out of her leather jacket. Then she looked down at the screen. "Violet's moving up toward Midtown," she said. "Fast too. In a car probably."
"Give me the phone," Elijah grated, only barely keeping hold of his temper.
Again a quick, cool glance from those quicksilver eyes, measuring him. "Why? Are you worried about your investment?"
"If you don't give me that phone now, I will take you and your friend here apart with my bare hands and screw the fucking crowds."
There was no fear in Eva's eyes. Only that measuring look, a kind of understanding even, which he just didn't get at all considering he'd just threatened to kill her.
"You'll have to survive my bullet first," Katya murmured. "And considering I have you at point-blank range, that might be a little difficult to do."
But Eva said quietly, "It's okay, Katya." And taking a step forward, she held out her hand with the phone in it.
Elijah didn't bother to even glance at the Russian woman, grabbing the proffered phone and staring down at the tiny, fast-moving dot on the screen. Violet. Being taken … somewhere by fuck knows who.
The rage boiled up inside him again and he almost crushed the phone in his hand. Then he realized Eva was speaking.
"Gabriel, Alex, and Zac are on their way to get her," she was saying. "And since Katya and I were down this end of Manhattan, we were stuck with getting you."
Those pricks were already on their way to get her? While he was stuck here? Fuck that.
Gripping Eva's phone and completely ignoring Katya, he began to move off the Esplanade toward the streets where he could flag down a taxi and follow that rapidly moving dot.
"Wait," Eva ordered sharply.
He ignored her.
"You're going after her?" Eva was now following him, walking quickly to catch up, Katya behind her.
He didn't want to waste time talking to her or to her friend. There was only one thing that seemed important-getting to Violet. Christ, he didn't even know if she was alive. With that tracking device in her sweater, she could be dead and he could be following her body.
Beneath his rage, fear threaded like a cold current through a hot spring.
You could lose her.
No. He wasn't going to lose her. He wasn't going to lose her like he lost Marie.
"We have a car, Mr. Hunt," Katya said unexpectedly.
He didn't bother turning around. "Then fucking take me to it."
"Zac and the others will get her." Eva's voice was slightly breathless. "They're already on their way. Why don't you-"
He stopped and turned around, so suddenly that she was forced to backtrack to prevent from bumping into him. But he didn't care. He stared at her, allowing the rage to finally fill him up so that there was no cold anywhere. No fear. Nothing that could make him weak because right now he couldn't afford to be weak. "I will get her," he said forcefully, savagely. "Not them. Me." He stared at Eva then at Katya, letting them see the burning rage inside him. "She's mine. And I will kill anyone who gets in my way, do you understand?"
Violet came slowly to consciousness feeling like she had the world's worst hangover. Her head ached and her mouth was dry, and she felt vaguely dizzy. And when she opened her eyes, her vision was blurry, and she had to blink hard to clear it.
She was sitting in a ratty old armchair in a tidy but very low-rent apartment. Threadbare carpet and dingy wallpaper, a chintzy couch that had clearly seen better days, and a battered wooden coffee table covered in white rings from a thousand different cups.
Where the hell was this? And what the hell had happened to her?
Last thing she remembered was that crowd gathering around Jericho and then backing away, only to have someone's hand cover her mouth and nose, and then … nothing.
She looked down, expecting to see bonds of some kind, but her arms and legs were free. She also seemed to be alone in the room.
Weird. What kind of kidnapping was this?
Putting her hands on the arms of the chair, she began to push herself out of it. She froze as a man walked through the doorway that led off to another part of the apartment.
A tall man. He had blond hair, deep tawny at the roots, then fading to gilt at the tips. Much like her own. But his eyes weren't the same color as hers. His were as green and gold as fall leaves.
He was impossibly, stunningly handsome.
But then he always had been.
Halfway out of the chair, Violet's arms refused to work and she collapsed back into it, a curious roaring in her ears. She couldn't stop staring. Was she going to faint? Certainly it felt like it, which would just be ridiculous considering what she'd endured over the last few days and all without passing out like a Victorian virgin.
Then again, it wasn't every day that you saw a dead man.
He didn't speak, coming over to her chair and standing in front of it. His clothing was simple, dark charcoal trousers and a deep-green business shirt open at the neck, no tie. He had his hands in his pockets, the look on his face impossible to read.
Her voice wouldn't work, and she had to try at least three times before she could even make a sound. "Th-Th-Theo?"
There was a long moment where he didn't speak, just looked at her. And then slowly, he smiled, the heartbreaking, breathtaking smile she remembered from years ago, the adored older brother who helped her with her homework on his visits back home from college, who'd taught her how to play poker and how to ride a bike. Who'd vanished without a trace sixteen years earlier.
"Hey Peanut," he said quietly.
Tears filled her eyes and she had to grip the chair arms tightly to stop from bursting into sobs.
You were right. All this time you were right.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but something inside her held her back, as if she was afraid that touching him would break the spell. That he would vanish in a puff of smoke as soon as she put her arms around him, the way he had so often in her dreams.
In a fluid movement, Theo sank down on his haunches in front of her chair, his hands now clasped loosely between his knees. He was watching her carefully and she simply stared back, her gaze roving over his handsome face, cataloging the changes the years had wrought.
When he'd been twenty-one, he'd been fresh-faced, a golden boy with his angel face and his stunning smile. The privileged son from a high-society family, Ivy League and blue blood all the way through. Nothing could touch him, nothing could tarnish him.
Sixteen years had passed, and he still had those looks, but time and experience had definitely tarnished them. There were lines around his eyes and mouth, walls thicker than a bank vault behind those green-gold eyes, and the easy, friendly warmth he used to project was gone. That beautiful smile was still there and yet there was an undercurrent of danger to it, of menace. Like a sleeping tiger, beautiful to look at, but liable to take your hand off if you touched it.
He'd looked like an angel once. Now this angel had clearly fallen far from grace.
What had happened to him? Where had he been? And why the hell was he here now?
"You have questions," he said, his voice was gentle and deep, the Theo she remembered.
Violet had to clear her throat. "Oh, only a couple of thousand."
His smile softened, but for some reason it didn't reach his eyes. "I can imagine."
"What happened, Theo?" She leaned forward, nearly trembling. Now that her voice was working, she couldn't seem to shut up. "Where did you go? What happened to you? Why did you let us believe for so long that you were dead?"
"Curious, Peanut? You haven't changed." The smile curving his mouth didn't waver. "Did you get the memory stick?"
The change of subject was so sudden, she at first couldn't process the question. "Memory stick? What-" And then she stopped, remembering what was in her pocket. "Yes. I did. But I haven't had a chance to see what's on it."