“Muñoz is coming over tonight,” he puffs up a little, “he deals mostly with me, he and my father don’t get along.”
No surprise, that.
“We’ll decide how to handle the MacTavish’s and once that’s done, you and I can be together.”
I refrain from telling him that we kicked Muñoz’s arse last night and that likely most of his men are dead. “All right,” I say in a small voice, “if it’s all right, I’m just going to sleep for a moment, and try to get this stuff out of my system.”
“Of course!” Gideon’s eyes dart to the teacup. Fecker. He’s that afraid of being able to handle me if I’m conscious. He swoops down to leave a lingering kiss on the back of my hand. Forcing back my sincere desire to re-break his nose, I smile at him sleepily.
Once the door’s shut and locked, I’m out of bed and examining the door. Is this just a standard lock and key? I don’t remember him turning a deadbolt as well, so just the doorknob. Unfortunately, this is a good quality, heavy door so I’m not hearing much from the hallway.
Checking the bathroom for a hairpin, I find a pair of tweezers. Taking the water glass by the sink, I put it against the door. This feels ridiculous. I’m used to the best tech available to get in and out of a job. “Work with what you have,” I mumble.
A set of soft footsteps goes by, light, more like a maid than a heavily-armed guard. I wait for a painful five minutes or so, then get to work.
Wow. Gideon really has no idea of what I do for my family’s clan, does he? It takes seconds to unlock the door and slip out, closing it behind me. Left or right? I go left, thinking it’s toward the back of the house.
My heart nearly comes out of my throat once when a maid passes by close enough to touch her. I slip into the recess of a doorway and she continues down the hall.
There’s a suspicious lack of guards in the house. If he’s working with Muñoz and he’s holding me captive, this place should be bristling with bodyguards. Was my kidnapping an unauthorized activity? The house is beautifully decorated in that grand Rish Arsehole way; expensive tapestries and art, a row of oil paintings of Wallace’s’ past, and nice, thick oriental carpets that mask the sound of my footsteps.
The fifth door down the main hall is the one I want. I’ve passed the great room and the library; this door is locked and must surely be his office. Even so, the lock is still stupidly easy to pick.
Gideon’s - or his father’s - desk is huge, and meant to be the most imposing thing in the room. If this family runs a large banking system, there should be thousands of layers of encryption between simple computer access and the most sensitive financial files. However, another secret about Rich Arseholes? They like to look at their money. They want to be near it.
Clicking a button and lighting up the monitor, I can see someone’s just logged off. I could get on, but it can take a while. This must be Gideon’s father’s desk because there’s a phone on the corner of the desk. A landline. Perfection.
Dialing Dougal’s number is the moment when everything starts counting down for me. If Gideon catches me, Muñoz will demand that he kill me.
My husband doesn’t pick up. Groaning silently, I dial him again. This time, he does.
“Who the feck is this?”
“It’s me! I don’t have much time, please listen. Is Ian with you? I need him.”
He barks an order and I hear someone calling for Ian. “My love, I know where you are,” he says urgently. “We’re twenty minutes away. You need to find a place to hide.”
“How do you know?” I gasp, “My phone?”
“You have a tracker in your wedding ring.”
“You weasel,” I whisper with admiration, “I never noticed.”
“Where are you now?” he says urgently.
“I’m in their office. They have a landline, can you imagine? I need Ian to help me get into the computer system here. The Wallace family was blackmailed into laundering money for the Muñoz Cartel after Luis killed Gideon’s father’s mistress. This is invaluable information.”
“Your safety is first,” he argues, “here’s Ian. You set this up and get out of there, do you hear me?”
“I love you,” I blurt, “give me Ian.”
With a low groan, he says, “I love you too, wife. Hurry. We’ll make as much of a clamor as we can to keep ‘em busy.”
Ian’s on the line. “Tell me.”
“I have a landline that I can connect to the hard drive,” I whisper, “can you download a keystroke virus?”
“I have something better,” he says. I can almost hear him rubbing his hands. He tells me exactly what to do. After connecting everything, there’s nothing to do but wait and pray Gideon doesn’t check on me.
