Protect & Serve(38)

“What do I tell him?”

“You tell him you quit.”

I nodded. It was a sound plan. That was what I’d originally come here to do, after all. “When do we get started?” I asked, steeling myself against the tide of my emotions.

“Pick up your badge. Take your gun. We get started right now, Detective,” Captain Pierce replied.





12





I stood quietly in front of the huge oaken doors at the front of Nathan’s mansion, but I knew something was wrong even before he opened them. His private security team, usually quiet and more or less invisible, was out in force. They seemed to be scouring the exterior of the building, although after a quick glance in my direction, they completely ignored my presence.

Relax. Innocent before proven guilty. Don’t just let yourself fly off the handle, I told myself, trying to calm my nerves.

It didn’t make sense. Wallace was in jail. O’Rourke was dead. Any Paddie left would be too busy stuffing their pockets with the leftovers to bother with retaliation. Nathan didn’t need this kind of security presence, unless there was another, more sinister reason they were here.

One of the men walked past, sweeping a long antenna through the air, the business-end attached to a strange little electronic box. He barely even acknowledged my presence.

When Nathan finally opened the door, he looked different. On the courthouse steps he had seemed a happy man, a braggart and a lover. Now, he carried a look that was anything but calm. I’d watched him stand up and allow himself to be shot. The last thing I’d expected to ever see on his face was fear.

Was it possible to be sexy and scared? Nathan pulled it off. Sort of.

“Get inside,” he whispered, pulling me through the door and shutting it behind us. I could hear a mechanical whirring and a high-pitched electronic whine, and I glanced back to see expensive looking locks sliding into place behind me. They looked better suited for a bank vault than a front door.

“What’s going on, Nathan? You’re scaring me,” I said, my hand instinctively moving toward my purse and the piece of death-dealing metal within. Before I could go any further, Nathan had grabbed my arm and dragged me through the living room, past the kitchen, and around near a staircase. Hitting a piece of the wall paneling, I watched in silence as it slid away, revealing a heavy metal door. It swung open, and I could see the three enormous metal bolts that had retracted from the wall.

“Get inside,” Nathan said fiercely. I complied, despite every instinct in my body telling me to get the hell out of here. A moment later, the man I had come to both love and fear in such a short amount of time was standing before me, the huge metal bolts closing off any hope of escape.

“What are you doing, Sandra?” Nathan asked, staring down at the gun I’d pulled out into the open. “Put that thing away.”

“You just locked me in a dark room and you look like something has you scared to death, Nathan. You tell me what the hell is going on right now and I’ll think about putting this away,” I replied, my hand shaking ever so slightly.

What the hell was he doing? I stepped backward as he moved toward me, one step, then another, until I was flush against the cold metal wall of our makeshift prison.

“Stop. I’m warning you, Nathan!” I shouted, holding the gun up. He stepped closer, reaching out. Every part of me wanted to pull the trigger. Here he was, the man I thought I could trust, ready to show me how foolish I’d been… But I couldn’t do it. His hand wrapped the barrel of the gun and pushed it aside as he swept me up into his arms.

“Oh, God. I thought I might not see you again,” he whispered, tears streaming down his face. I didn’t even have a chance to protest as he forced his lips down onto mine. What the hell was going on? He ran his hands over my body, my gun clattering to the floor. I pushed him back as hard as I could, separating us.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, looking around the small space. Shelves lined the walls, and a phone was wired into one of them. Next to me, a small cot was pushed up against the side of the space and a laptop sat atop a little table, open to what looked like a stock market ticker.

“It’s a safe room, Sandra. Three-foot-thick walls, enough food, water, and air for a month. I had it built a few months after I moved into this place, as a precaution…”

“Why the hell am I in here?” I asked indignantly, staring into his crystalline eyes. Despite its name, this room made me feel anything but safe. I felt claustrophobic, like the walls and Nathan were all closing in around me. I felt like a cornered animal, like a victim waiting to happen.