Bastian''s Storm

  Someone had surprised her. She’d dropped everything she was holding. Now she was gone. She had been taken.

  Arden.

  Oh fuck, fuck, fuck! Is she dead? Did he fucking kill her?

  “RAINE!” I screamed her name as I found the ability to move again. I knew she was gone, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking every little place in the condo, even the closets. Every time I put my hand on a door, I was sure I’d find her curled up in a ball with a bullet in her head.

  I wasn’t here… I wasn’t here for her… When she fucking needed me, I wasn’t here…

  I had promised to keep her safe. “I’ve got you,” I had told her. Now someone else had her, and I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. The possible scene unfolded in my head as I came back to the living room and looked at her scattered items, and my gut summersaulted. She had to have been so fucking scared, and I wasn’t here for her.

  I’d failed her.

  I didn’t even put my shoes on as I ran at full speed down the stairs to the parking garage. I jumped on the bike and topped one-twenty on the short trek to Landon’s hotel. Not giving a shit what happened to it, I dropped the bike on its side, keys still in the ignition, and ran inside to pound on the elevator button until it arrived.

  The button to the fourteenth floor glowed passively at me as I mentally noted Landon was really only thirteen stories up. I rocked back and forth on my feet as adrenaline pumped through me, and as soon as the doors opened, I was running down the hall to his room.

  The door was propped open by a little metal bar attached to the frame, and I didn’t think about what it might mean as I burst into the room where Landon sat at the round table just inside, sipping from a glass.

  “They fucking took Raine!”

  Landon just stared at me, his eyes filled with disappointment. I was expecting a bigger reaction out of him, considering fucking around like this was definitely something that could affect the outcome of the games.

  Then I realized why he wasn’t surprised.

  I also saw the gun in his hand.

  It wasn’t pointed at me, but he was gripping it lightly in his right hand as he sipped from his glass with his left. He was so calm; my words had not surprised him in the least.

  If Evan Arden or anyone in any of the organizations had taken Raine, he would have been pissed off. It fucked with the odds of the game when tournament players screwed with each other prior to the match, which influenced the odds of which player would win. It was the death match equivalent to counting cards and simply not tolerated. If Landon knew and wasn’t upset about it, then he also knew she wasn’t abducted by one of the other families.

  There was only one other answer.

  “You have her,” I said quietly.

  He nodded, and I felt a trickle of cold sweat run down the back of my neck. I glanced toward the closed door to the bedroom of the suite.

  “Is she here?”

  “No.”

  I looked back to him. His finger still rested on the trigger of the Glock in his hand, but he didn’t raise it. It was nothing more than an insurance policy in case I decided to be unreasonable.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You pissed him off,” Landon said with a shrug. “You embarrassed him by not being able to control yourself in an official meeting.”

  He leaned forward and pointed one of his fingers at me.

  “Do you know how much he wanted you dead?” Landon asked.

  “The other day or from the beginning?”

  “Not in the beginning,” Landon said as he shook his head. “He loved you back then. You made him a shitload of money and never got yourself into too much trouble outside the tournaments. That bullshit with Jillian was the start, and then you turned on him in the worst possible way. Now he’s decided to give you another chance, and you fuck it up.”

  Franks has Raine.

  It occurred to me that in his hands, she might actually be worse off than in Arden’s.

  Holy shit.

  “I’ll apologize,” I said, barely able to form words in my tightened throat.

  “I don’t think he’s interested in your apologies,” Landon said simply. “He wants your mind on the game. He wants to make sure you’re going to win and not let other shit get in your way.

  “She’s not in the way.”

  “She’s not now.” He continued to stare at me. It was a challenge and a warning. He wasn’t going to hesitate to shoot me if he needed to, but he also knew at this point that I wouldn’t make a move on him. Not when I didn’t even know where she was.

  “I want to see her.” My words came out with a low growl.

  “No.” Landon sat back in his chair and waited.

  This was it. This was the impasse I couldn’t overcome. I could feel my heart pumping in my chest, and the start of the anger and fear inside of me threatened to block all my sensibilities. I took a step forward as I curled my hands into fists.

  “If you touch me, you know what will happen.”

  To emphasize his point, he laid the gun on the table and picked up his drink with his right hand. That action alone was enough for me to realize how fucking helpless I was when it came to him, Franks, and their conniving.

  I’ll have to kill them both but not now.

  “She’s alive?” I asked. I knew she was; I just needed to hear him say it.

  “Very much so,” Landon said with a nod. “Sit down a minute, and let me tell you how things have changed.”

  In the interest of keeping my head free of holes, I dropped my ass to the plush chair several feet away in the room. I lowered my head to my hands and attempted to breathe normally.

  “Trying to keep tabs on her is a distraction,” he said. “I can’t let you have any distractions, so I removed that one from the equation. Franks’ ordering it just made it happen a little sooner than I had planned. Regardless, she’s perfectly safe—safer than she would be under your care—and actually providing a bit of a service to Franks himself.”

  Service?

  All the worst possibilities threatened to send me into a blinding rage.

  “He…he’d better not...”

  “No, no,” Landon said quickly as he realized how I had taken his words, “nothing like that. She’s doing a little babysitting, actually.”

  Babysitting?

  “Alex?”

  “Naturally.” Landon polished off his drink and dropped the glass to the table. “She appears to be getting along with your son quite well, actually. She’s an interesting woman—very calm in a crisis. I can see why you are so attracted to her.”

  The image of Raine and a child—my child—emerged in my head and calmed me. They had a reason to keep her safe for now, not just because I’d fucking quit on them if they hurt her, but also because Franks didn’t want to have to deal with a kid while he ran his games. His selfishness would be her salvation.

  Holding them both captive was also another reason I had to win.

  Strangely enough, I started to see Landon’s point. With Raine secured somewhere away from the tournament, I wouldn’t have to worry about her safety until after the fighting was over. I wouldn’t have to think about Arden going after her. I wouldn’t have to wonder what was happening to my kid because I knew she would take care of him just as if he were her own.

  “I want to see her,” I said again. “I want to see both of them.”

  “Eventually,” Landon said. “Right now, we’re going to head to the airport.”

  He stood up, crossed the room, and reached into the briefcase sitting on the desk. He walked over to the chair and handed me a boarding pass.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I looked it over. The boarding pass clearly stated the flight was headed for New York, but I doubted that was our final destination. Traveling with Landon always involved connecting flights to make it harder to track his movements.

  “Connecting flight to Thompson, a city in Manitoba,” Landon said. “We can get you properly a
ttired there.”

  He looked down at my bare feet.

  “I suppose we need to at least acquire you some shoes before we leave.”

  I glanced down at myself. Lack of footwear aside, I was dressed in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I certainly wasn’t prepared for cold weather, and there weren’t any parka shops anywhere around Miami. Landon didn’t want to waste any more time but allowed me to pick up my bike. There was a big scratch on the body where I had dropped it, but at least it hadn’t been stolen or towed.

  I took the motorcycle back to the condo and then went inside to grab my shoes. I tried not to think about Landon coming in here unannounced and dragging Raine off, because if I thought about it too much, I was going to go back down there and kill him in the parking lot. I doubted he’d given her any time to pack anything, so I tossed a few essential items for both of us in a small carry-on bag and dragged it out with me.

  Landon was waiting for me at the back entrance, and without a word, we headed to the airport in Ft Lauderdale. I followed blindly as Landon led the way through security. I was a little stunned at how quickly everything was happening and was having trouble just keeping my thoughts from going too crazy. Before I knew it, we were sitting in our first class seats on the plane, and one of the flight attendants was offering me a drink.

  Yes, I want a fucking drink. Several, in fact.

  “No, thanks,” I said quietly as I shook my head.

  Landon ordered one, the bastard. I could see in his eyes he was doing it just to fuck with me. He probably thought it was good for me to have to exercise self-control when I was around the stuff. As soon as the flight attendant moved away, he started giving me more information about where we were headed.

  “We’ll be training near Thompson for the next three weeks so you can get acclimated to fighting in the colder climate. After training, we’ll take several small planes to reach Resolute, way up in the northern territories. It’s near the island where the games will be played.”

  “Where’s Franks?” I asked.

  “He’ll join us in Thompson,” Landon said.

  “And Raine?” I’d been pressing him for more information since we’d left the hotel earlier that day, but he hadn’t given me much.

  “She’ll be there eventually,” he said.

  “You have to let me see her,” I said, trying to urge him to comply, “or just talk to her. I need to know she’s okay.”

  More than anything, I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right and that she didn’t have to be scared. I’d promised to protect her, and I was already failing in that respect.

  “Eventually,” he said for the millionth time.

  “Landon…” I growled in warning.

  He just chuckled under his breath.

  “You were always so impatient,” he said quietly. “You still need to get some control over that. She’s safe; I told you that much. It’s enough for now.”

  It wasn’t. It wasn’t anywhere near enough. I needed to be able to tell her myself that she would be all right because she wasn’t going to believe anyone else.

  She might not believe you either, asshole.

  “Just give me two minutes on the phone with her,” I said.

  Landon tossed into my lap the in-flight magazine full of great shopping deals I could get without having to pay duty. I scowled at him.

  “Get your mind on something else,” he instructed. “Don’t dwell on the things you can’t control.”

  “Asshole,” I muttered. He obviously wasn’t going to budge at this point. I opened the magazine and stared at some strange contraption that was guaranteed to teach cats to shit in the toilet.

  The plane began to taxi. At least for now, I would take Landon’s advice.

  “When are you going to let me talk to her?” I asked.

  It was freaking freezing, and we’d been hard at training for three days straight outside a tiny, nearly deserted old mining town called Leaf Rapids. Landon had said it was near Thompson, but that was a load of shit. It had taken us more than three hours to get here. It was just about as uninhabitable a place I had ever seen, and the location of the tournament was supposed to be far more remote.

  Landon let out a sigh. I grabbed a canteen of nearly frozen water and tried to recover from my latest jaunt across the icy land. I dropped my ass down on a tree stump near the lake and pulled a cigarette out of my pocket. It was slightly crushed, but serviceable. I had to take my hand out of my glove to light it, though.

  I’d asked the same question at least a dozen times since we began training. I’d been met with silence or some comment about patience being a fucking virtue.

  Landon looked up at me, glared at the cigarette, and then looked toward the setting sun.

  “You make that your last cigarette today,” he said, “and you can call her tonight.”

  I felt like a kid at fucking Christmas time. A kid with a real family and real parents who gave a shit and made sure there were presents wrapped up in red and green paper and a plate of cookies and milk for the elf dude. It was the kind of thing I’d never experienced, but I wanted to make sure I knew what it was supposed to be like so I could give all that to Alex.

  I wanted to give him everything.

  Knowing Raine was with him, even if it was against her will, made me feel like there was some actual hope for the future. It made me believe when this was all over, we could make it work.

  That night, as I shoveled logs into a wood burning stove, Landon came up behind me and handed me his cell phone.

  “Five minutes,” he said.

  I took the phone from his hand and placed it up to my ear.

  “Raine?”

  “Bastian? Oh my God, Bastian!”

  “It’s me, baby,” I said. I could hear her crying. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” she sniffed.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Somewhere in Canada.”

  “Thompson?”

  “That might be it.”

  I looked to Landon, and he nodded once.

  “I’m just a few hours away from there,” I told her. “Everything is okay, baby.”

  “That man,” Raine said with a shushed voice, “that Landon man—he came to the condo. He grabbed me and…and…”

  “I know, Raine,” I said as I glared up at him. “I know what he did. I didn’t know he was going to do it, but he did it to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” Raine practically yelled. “He hauled me out of the building with a gun in my back!”

  I placed my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

  “You took her at gunpoint?” I hissed.

  “I couldn’t haul her out kicking and screaming, could I?” Landon said with a shrug.

  I growled and went back to Raine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, though I didn’t know what the fuck made me apologize for him. “He never should have done that. Maybe if he had just talked to me”—I raised my voice and looked over at him pointedly—“we could have worked it out a little better.”

  Landon rolled his eyes. I knew he hated it when I used logic against him.

  “You’re safe now,” I told Raine. “No one there is going to hurt you, I promise. They’re just making sure you’re not in the line of fire or anything like that.”

  “Like you are,” she said quietly.

  “I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I’m just freezing my ass off while training. I’m going to make sure Landon takes me to see you soon.”

  “You’re with him?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Well, tell him I said he was a fucking bastard.”

  If I had been drinking, I would have spewed whatever it was all over myself.

  “I’ll relay the message,” I replied through my grin.

  “You do that!” she spat back.

  Landon made a little motion across his neck to let me know my time was up.

  “I have to go,
” I told her. “I just wanted you to know it was all okay. Alex is with you, right?”

  “He is,” Raine said, “but it’s not all okay, Bastian.”

  “It will be, baby,” I said. “I promise.”

  As Landon reclaimed the phone, I wondered if my promises still meant anything to her.

  Snow, ice, and training; trying to scale rocks with my fingers so cold, they could barely move, let alone grip a thin ledge through the gloves; running mile upon mile with the frozen air coating my lungs and my legs so tired I couldn’t even feel them anymore. This was apparently Landon’s idea of fun.

  “You should have been with me when I was training in the Navy,” he said. “We’d go from areas like this to the Caribbean in the same week. I thought I was going to die from the change in temperature.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m pretty sure you aren’t right in the head,” I mumbled.

  “That’s why I like you,” he responded. “We’re the same. Let’s go over it again, shall we?”

  I took in a breath of frigid air and nodded. I followed Landon down the gravel road away from the trees and lake to where his Jeep was parked. There were a couple of downed tree trunks off the side of the road where he had parked, and we sat on one of them.

  “Buckingham Island is far above the tree line,” Landon said, “so don’t plan on finding any trees for cover. There isn’t much in the way of vegetation or animal life at all, just a few lichens and mosses, but don’t eat the lichens—they won’t do you any good.”

  “I figured,” I said with a nod. “This is going to have to be fast. I should be able to carry everything with me.”

  “You’ll have to,” Landon agreed. “You’re also going to have to stop and eat frequently. In twenty-four hours, you’ll burn seven or eight thousand calories easily just trying to stay warm.”

  That would explain why I had been so ravenously hungry every day we had been here.

  “Temperature this time of year is right about negative five,” Landon continued. He pulled a roughly drawn map from his pocket and laid it out on the gravel in front of us. “It could get as low as negative ten to fifteen with wind-chill. The only landform is Mount Windsor, which is pretty much the entire island. It’s a volcanic formation with deep vertical ridges going from the top down to the ice floes. Those are going to be your best friends when it comes to securing yourself from the sniper.”