Seduction Game

  Holly was just starting to come around, semi-conscious and moaning from what Nick was certain was a rotten headache and nausea.

  He grabbed his SIG P229 and flashlight, climbed out of the vehicle, and glanced around, the only sound her soft whimpers and the whispering of the wind through the tops of the trees. He cleared the cabin, carried her inside, trying not to notice how helpless she felt in his arms. He laid her on the bed in the back room, cuffing her to the iron bedframe by an ankle. Then he unloaded his gear—go-bag, firearms and ammo, medic kit—leaving the surveillance gear, computers, and whiteboard locked in the vehicle. He couldn’t allow her to see any of that. Besides, the cabin had no electricity, so it would be impossible to continue running the decryption programs—for now.

  He found an old camping lantern, a bit of fuel left inside. He lit it, set it on the table, then drew a chair up against the wall and allowed himself to doze.

  He knew she was awake when he heard the clinking of the cuffs followed by a hard thud as she fell to the rough wooden floor. He picked up the lantern, carried it to the bedroom, and hung it from a small hook in the ceiling that must have been put there for that purpose. He found her lying on her side, her bathrobe open to reveal a slender shoulder, her gaze fixed on him, her eyes wide.

  Some part of him couldn’t believe what he was about to do to her, but seeing his face on that piece of paper had changed everything. She’d received an encrypted message about him. There was no room in this for compassion or chivalry.

  Holly Bradshaw was the enemy. He needed to know what she knew.

  “What are you going to do with me?” There was fear in her eyes, her lower lip swollen, the bruise on her forehead looking almost black in the semi-darkness.

  He knelt down so that she could see his face. “I’m going to ask you questions, and you are going to answer them. We’re far away from CIS and your cop friends, somewhere no one can hear you scream. I’m the only person who can help you now.”

  She shook her head as if in disbelief. “You must be crazy.”

  “Don’t waste my time with denials, Ms. Bradshaw.” He picked her up, tossed her onto her back on the bed, her bathrobe falling open, revealing her body from her breasts to the tips of her toes, bruises and dirt on her creamy skin.

  A few hours ago, he’d been inside that body, holding her, kissing her.

  It didn’t mean anything. Forget about it.

  She quickly covered herself, crossing her arms protectively over her chest.

  He laid out what he knew, as much to harden his own resolve as to show her how serious her situation was. “I know you were in Dudaev’s hotel room the night he died. I know you downloaded stolen government files from a USB drive you found in his hotel safe. I’ve listened to the surveillance. I saw the time index. You were the only one with him at the time. You took those files, and you passed them on to some unknown entity.”

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out the folded sheets with the image of himself and the encoded message, then unfolded them in the lantern light so she could see them clearly. “I also know you received these tonight.”

  She glanced at them, not a flicker of emotion on her face.

  “You have until dawn to answer three questions: Who pulls your strings? What do you know about me? What does this message say?”

  “What happens at dawn?”

  “Your life becomes a lot more . . . uncomfortable.”

  She closed her eyes, turned her head away from him, said nothing.

  * * *

  Holly tried to sleep, knowing she needed to be as rested and clear-headed as she could be, no matter what lay ahead. It wasn’t easy. She was terribly thirsty. Her ribs ached where his knee had bruised them. Her head throbbed.

  Plus, there was that whole thing about being held prisoner and facing torture at dawn—or whatever he had in mind.

  For the first time in her career, Holly felt truly afraid.

  The Bastard—formerly known as her neighbor Nick, aka Mr. Creeper—slept in a nearby chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. He had a loaded SIG P229 in a belt holster. She wasn’t sure how willing he was to use it on her, but he’d made a point of chambering a round in front of her.

  Something inside Holly seemed to shatter, the sharp edges cutting at her heart as the full weight of Nick’s betrayal hit her.

  How could she have been so blind?

  He’d showed up on her doorstep, the embodiment of everything she wanted in a man—a sense of humor, brains, skill in bed, a genuine interest in her thoughts and feelings, good looks—and some part of her had been so lonely, so desperate for a man who cared just for her, that she’d let herself believe he was real.

  Pathetic, Bradshaw!

  He’d known what he was going to do with her, but still he’d kissed her, slept with her, had sex with her. Now he wanted more. When the sun came up, he would do God only knew what to her body so that he could get into her mind and steal secrets she’d vowed to keep.

  Well, to hell with that.

  She wouldn’t let him. She couldn’t let him.

  How had he managed this? How had he kidnapped her right under the noses of Javier’s men? Would he tell her if she asked?

  She ran his three questions through her mind. He knew she’d been with Dudaev. He’d seen her there. But he didn’t know she worked for the same organization as he. He seemed to think she was an operative for some foreign interest. Or maybe he didn’t believe that at all and that was just his way of trying to force her to say she worked for the Agency, too. If she admitted that, would he be relieved, or would he kill her? How would he react if she told him she knew he’d killed Dudaev without authorization and was now a fugitive?

  She needed to stall him with half-truths, partial truths, pieces of the truth, give him enough so that he wouldn’t hurt her, but not enough that she compromised herself or the Agency in any way.

  What will he do to you when he doesn’t get what he wants?

  Would he kill her?

  That’s what she needed to know.

  Outside the window, the sun was beginning to rise.

  Butterflies filled Holly’s stomach, the fear she’d spent the night trying to ignore creeping up on her again.

  She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told him she didn’t like pain. Her idea of suffering was being forced to sleep on cheap, low-thread-count sheets. Never had she faced a situation that involved prolonged pain and suffering. She’d undergone R2I and SERE training, and although she’d passed, she’d hated it. Now that training, together with her advanced HUMINT experience, was all she had to keep her alive.

  No matter how afraid she was, no matter what he did to her, she would have to keep her head. She would have to make herself vulnerable, test how far he was willing to go to get what he wanted from her. And if it became clear that he was willing to kill her?

  She’d rather die with her secrets intact than die after giving them up.

  That decision made, she felt some of her fear leave her.

  At least today won’t be boring.

  She closed her eyes, dozed.

  “Wake up.” He kicked the bed.

  She jolted awake, drew back from him, wincing at the pain in her ribs.

  He bent down and unlocked the cuffs, then cut the duct tape from her ankles and wrists and stepped back, the SIG P229 appearing in his right hand. “There’s an outhouse about twenty yards south of here. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She drew her robe around her, sat up slowly, then carefully got to her feet, clutching an arm to her left side. She looked up at him. “You broke my ribs.”

  It wasn’t true, but The Bastard didn’t know that.

  She gauged his reaction.

  A slight furrowing of his brows, a tightening of his jaw.

  “All is fair in love and war, honey. You nearly broke my balls, and you don’t hear me whining. By the way, go for my nuts again, and I’ll drop you. Move.”


  She walked outside to find that they were surrounded by forest, not even the distant murmur of traffic to announce the presence of a nearby highway. Treading gingerly over the pine needles and moss that covered the forest floor—this was going to destroy her pedicure—she made her way back to the outhouse, opened the slatted wooden door, and shrank back.

  Spider webs—big ones with equally big spiders.

  She shook her head. “I’d rather go in the bushes.”

  “Suit yourself. If you try to run, you’ll spend all night locked in the outhouse. Understand?”

  Five minutes later, she was back in the cabin. Morning light revealed how filthy the place truly was—rodent droppings on the floor, spider webs, dead flies and wasps on the windowsills. But what held her gaze was the iron bar that ran from one side of the back room to the other. Set into the wooden walls just below the ceiling, it didn’t look like it had been put there for architectural support.

  A chill ran through her.

  Who owned this awful place? How had Nick—The Bastard—known about it?

  He entered the bedroom, tossed something into her lap.

  Clothes. Her clothes.

  “Get dressed.”

  She waited, but he didn’t turn his back.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  She stood, let her bathrobe fall to the bed, then slipped into the panties and jeans, wincing as she bent down to put her feet through the legs. She let every bit of discomfort she felt show and then some, stopping when she went to fasten the bra around her bruised ribcage. “I can’t. It hurts too much.”

  Again his brow furrowed, that telltale muscle tensing in his jaw.

  She dropped the bra onto the bed, picked up the tank top, got her head and right arm into it, then stopped again, whimpering in exaggerated pain.

  He swore under his breath, closed the distance between them, and helped her get her arm through the sleeve, his touch gentle, his gaze dropping to the purple bruise his knee had made. “I never wanted to hurt you, Holly. You left me no choice.”

  And Holly knew she had a powerful weapon against him.

  Her pain bothered him. It hurt him to see her suffer.

  Whatever else he might have done, he still had a conscience.

  If she were smart, if she were careful, she could use that to bend him, to break him—and find a way out of this.

  * * *

  “What are you going to do now—waterboard me?”

  “Do you want me to waterboard you?” Nick carried the cuffs to the iron restraining bar and draped them over, making his intent clear. “This is where you’re going to spend every moment of the day and night until I find out what I need to know. You’ll be on your feet, no food, no water, no sleep. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want you to suffer. But you’ve made choices that have put you outside the law and—”

  “That’s not true!”

  “And it’s my job to get answers. Make it easy on both of us, and start talking.”

  He watched as she backed away from him, keeping her distance, her gaze flitting to the bottled water.

  “You must be thirsty. Tell me what I need to know, answer even one question, and I’ll let you drink your fill. Answer two questions fully and truthfully, and you can eat and maybe even wash. This place is filthy. Your skin must feel grimy.”

  “If I answer three, do I get to go home—or is that when you kill me?” She glared defiantly up at him, but there were tearstains on her cheeks and dark circles beneath her eyes—proof she hadn’t really slept.

  He stepped closer, looked straight into her eyes. “Tell me what I need to know, and I promise I won’t touch you.”

  She sat on the bed, scooted back against the wall. “I know you murdered Dudaev. I figured that out for myself. You drugged both of us, and you shot him.”

  He sat in the chair across from her. “Keep going.”

  “You said I could have water if I answered a question. I just told you what I know about you.”

  That wasn’t all she knew about him—he’d bet his life on it.

  “That was a partial answer. Until you tell me everything you know about me, you haven’t fully answered the question.”

  “I know you’re an ass. I know you lied to me. I know that all of your questions, all your affection, all of that . . . was just a ploy to get me to open up.”

  He shrugged. “Isn’t that what you do for a living, Holly? You set men up, seduce them, steal secrets. How many men have you fucked?”

  “How many have you murdered?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I thought we were talking about you.”

  “All right, Ms. Smartass.” He grabbed her right wrist and dragged her onto her feet and toward the restraining bar.

  “No!” She tried to pull away, then all but collapsed when the strain hit her ribcage, sagging against him, teeth biting her swollen bottom lip, her left arm clutched against her side, her right hand fisted in his shirt.

  He fought the impulse to help her and slipped her wrist through the handcuff, tightening it with a series of clicks.

  “No, please don’t!” She regained her balance, turned her left side away from him.

  He reached out, took her left wrist, the rage he felt at being forced to cause her pain making his voice rough. “Tell me what you know about me. Have you been tasked with terminating me?”

  “You really are crazy. I’ve never killed anyone. That’s your job.”

  Slowly, he stretched her left arm over her head, and, ignoring her pain, closed the cuff around her wrist.

  He stepped back, far enough away that he couldn’t smell the scent of her skin, his gut knotting at the sight of fresh tears on her cheeks. “I’m not playing games.”

  “Really?” She glared at him. “Because this has to be a joke.”

  He tried to see nothing but the enemy when he looked at her, but he was familiar with that body. He’d kissed and sucked the nipples that stood out like pebbles beneath her T-shirt, held those breasts in his hands. He’d felt those slender arms encircling him, holding him when he’d been inside her. He’d kissed those lips, the ones that were swollen and bruised. She looked delicate, helpless, fragile.

  She’s dangerous, Andris.

  “I’m the best friend you have right now, Holly.”

  “I think it’s time I started seeing other people.” She glared at him, fury on her face. “Did you plan to kidnap and torture me all along? What was last night—just another chance to get off before you broke out the guns and chains? Were you thinking of this when you came? Does hurting women turn you on?”

  Her words hit home and hit hard, fueling his own rage.

  “I can help you, or I can end you. What happens next is entirely up to you. Spare yourself a lot of needless suffering and answer the questions.”

  “You repulse me.” She spat the words at him, loathing on her face.

  Nick sat in the chair, steeled himself against her distress, against her tears. “What do you know about me? What did that message say? Who sent you to get those files?”

  * * *

  Zach stepped through the front door of Holly’s condo and made his way over to Corbray, who stood in her living room looking ten years older than he had the last time Zach had seen him. “How the hell could this have happened?”

  “We don’t know. Her escort arrived to pick her up and take her to work, but she wasn’t here. They knocked on the neighbor’s door, thinking maybe the guys had missed her heading over to spend the night with him, but no one answered. Her neighbor hasn’t come home yet. He’s our number one suspect, but we can’t be sure it was him. DPD is waiting for a search warrant for his place.”

  This was DPD’s crime scene, of course, and neither Zach nor Corbray nor Darcangelo nor Hunter, whose cars Zach had seen out front, had any real right to be here. Zach was a deputy US marshal. Corbray was a private contractor. Darcangelo and Hunter worked for the DPD, but on vice and SWAT, not crime scene
investigations. But Holly was one of theirs, and they couldn’t sit by and do nothing. If Chief Irving wanted them to leave, he’d have to throw them out.

  “What do we know?”

  “We know that she didn’t leave voluntarily.” Corbray motioned for Zach to follow him. “The forensic team found blood on the floor in the hallway outside Holly’s bedroom. One of the rugs near the bed was out of place and crumpled. Her cell phone was found on the floor near the bed.”

  “She struggled with him.” Zach took it in—the chalk marks on the floor that circled a small amount of dried blood, the rumpled rug. “She couldn’t weigh more than one-ten, one-fifteen. She wouldn’t present much of a challenge to an adult male.”

  “Especially if the bastard drugged her first.” Darcangelo, who was wearing forensic overalls, walked out of the kitchen and held up an evidence bag containing a rumpled piece of cloth. “Ether.”

  “Puñeta,” Corbray muttered under his breath.

  Son of a bitch.

  He opened the bag, took a quick whiff, closed it.

  Zach did his best to lock down his rage. He wouldn’t be any good to Holly if he didn’t focus on the job. “So the bastard—whoever he is—surprises her near her bedroom with an ether-soaked rag. She struggles with him, and one of them trips over the rug and falls. Do we know whose blood that is?”

  Corbray shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “How the hell could anyone get her out of here without being seen?”

  “I wish I knew, man.” Corbray looked down at a notepad. “The neighbor guy—Andrews—came over shortly after six. The two had dinner and a little al fresco action on the deck, then came inside. FedEx delivered a package at twenty-one-hundred hours. She was home then, and Andrews, her neighbor, was still here at that time. The neighbor guy walked out of Holly’s front door and into his own condo at twenty-two-oh-seven, then pulled out of his garage five minutes later and drove off down the street. He hasn’t been seen since. No one else approached the condo, and Holly was never seen leaving.”

  “What about the back yard?”