“Riley, move!” Evan shouted from across the room, but I wasn’t nearly fast enough.
The cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against my temple and Catherine’s cloying, floral perfume invaded my nose like poisoned gas.
“I ought to thank you,” my despicable birth mother hissed into my ear, “without you distracting these sociopathic pricks, none of this would have been possible.”
I let out a bitter laugh, even as my stomach twisted with knots of guilt. Iwasa distraction, I knew that. “You’re not making it out of this room alive, Catherine. Do yourself a favor and turn that gun around. It’ll be a hell of a lot quicker than Beck will make your death.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she snickered, then raised her voice. “Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot my stupid daughter in the kneecap.”
I almost laughed at her ridiculous request, until I saw my guys—what was left of them—raise their weapons in surrender.
“What? Don’t listen to her!” I yelled. “She’s not going to shoot me. She clearly needs me alive.”
“Alive, not unharmed,” my bio-mom sneered. “Drop the guns, kick them away.” This was a directive for Dylan and Evan. For Beck.
I shook my head, pleading with my eyes but Beck just stared back at me, totally impassive as he did what Catherine ordered.
His gaze didn’t break from mine for a second. Not when Graeme Huntley stepped into the room flanked by a dozen more armed mercenaries. Not when someone grabbed me by the arms, wrenching my gun away and zip-tying my arms together. Not when Catherine and Graham started to drag me away, and all I could do was shout and fight to get back to my guys. I’d never seen Beck’s face like that, completely without emotion, as he kept me locked in his gaze.
I struggled hard, but with my arms bound, they had the advantage. Catherine slapped me a few times, but that was the least of my problems. Just before I was completely clear of the room, I heard Beck growl my name, and I cried out when one of the black clad goons picked up a Browning Hi Power and started spraying bullets across my guys.
The last sight before I was wrenched into the stairwell, was the heirs falling, and then they were gone from me.
The only thing to comfort me now was my own screams.
29
It was all a blur after that. After I watched the man I loved be shot not fifteen feet away from me ... something inside me just sort of snapped.
Soon the horrible screaming died off, my voice totally gone, and I slipped into a numb state of despair. They were dead. All of them. How?Howhad this happened? They were supposed to be the best of the best, totally unkillable. Weren’t they?
Except, they were only human. And not even the most highly trained human really stood a chance when so severely outnumbered… and a loved one held at gunpoint.
It was my fault. Their deaths were on my hands, and I couldn’t even escape the cold, endless pain of it all. Because Catherine needed mealive.
“We should have just killed her with the rest of them,” Catherine had snarled as they shoved me into the back of a van and the driver peeled out of the parking lot. “Fuck the bylaws. Who’s going to challenge me when they’re all dead?” Her voice was cold enough to freeze lava, and despite my numb state, I shivered.
“Rome Beckett isn’t dead yet,” Graeme reminded her, “and neither is yourhusband.” He spat that word like it was made of dog shit. “Your brilliant plan to wipe out the Delta council failed so youneedyour heir until the rules can be changed.”
Catherine snorted an ugly sound as we bumped around a corner, and I almost toppled out of my seat. No one had bothered to strap me in, and my arms were bound so I just had to roll with it when I bumped into Catherine and she shoved me away again.
"I’ve taken out the elders in co-ordinated attacks,” she said, “so now we just need to send someone to take care of Rome." Her face was creased in anger. “I should have known that bastard wouldn’t show up for the meeting.”Graeme huffed an annoyed sound. “And Richard? Why has no onetaken careof him yet?”
“He’s harmless,” she bit back. “Nothing more than a senile, grieving old man. He wouldn’t speak up against my new structure in the wake of his friends’ tragic deaths. Hecouldn’t. That man is barely capable of tying his own shoelaces, let alone challenging a hostile takeover.”
Surprise zapped through me, almost enough to shake me free from the overwhelming agony of what I’d just seen happen. Catherine really didn’t know Richard was faking? The van pulled up in front of what looked like a half-finished residential tower, and one of the armed, masked men who accompanied Graeme dragged me out onto the street, keeping his fingers banded around my upper arm.
“Take her up to the penthouse,” Graeme ordered my jailer. “No one comes in until we get back.”
Without even giving me a second glance, he and Catherine jumped into a sleek, silver Jaguar parked across the street and disappeared into the night. Presumably to turn up at the Jefferson Delta office and feign shock and horror at the tragic deaths of their “friends.”
“Come on, kid,” my guard ordered, sounding tired as shit when I resisted a moment. “I’m really not in the mood to knock you out and carry you.”
Nor was I in the mood tobeknocked out and carried. Wordlessly, I let him guide me into the open-sided building and into a cage that zipped us up the side. I lost track of what happened next because my eyes were covered. Probably so I wouldn’t know how to access his “secret lair”. The next thing I saw was the front door, which the masked guard unlocked and held it open for me to enter. Before I went more than two steps, he stopped me with a hand on my arm. From his pocket, he produced a switchblade and flicked it open.
For a moment, I thought... maybe he had other orders? Maybe he was going to slit my throat right here and leave my body for Graeme to find when he returned?
But instead he cut the cable ties restraining my hands, and I rubbed my wrists on reflex.
