“You’re not going anywhere.” Since he still held her arm in a hard grip, it was easy for him to spin her around. With a not-so-gentle nudge, he herded her back through the entryway.
She considered making a break for it. Maybe if she darted around him, she could get out the door. But then what? Wait patiently in the hall while the elevator arrived?
Sure. That’ll work out wonderfully well.
Her other option was the emergency stairwell. But as soon as she ran, Surry wouldknowshe was up to something and he would immediately give chase. She harbored no fantasies that she could outmaneuver Surry—who looked like an NFL running back—down twenty flights of stairs.
Nope. Better to retain my cover and wait to see what’s happening.
She didn’t have long to wait. “We’ve had a security breach, and you’re staying with me until I determine whether or not you’re involved,” he grumbled.
Security breach…
Those two words made her gulp again. Surry pulled her to a stop, pinning her with a stony-eyed stare.
Okay, so now she was starting to come around to Dagan’s way of thinking. She reallywasn’tcut out for this shit. The fact that she was giving herself away left, right, and center was proof positive.
She had just enough time to reach into the pocket of her blazer and press the volume-up button on her cell for a three-second count before Surry grabbed her hand and extracted her phone. He looked down at the black screen. “What are you up to with this, huh?”
“Nothing,” she lied, her heart pinwheeling inside her chest. The stupid organ banged into her stomach, making her nauseous. “I was just putting my hands in my pockets.”
And hoping I held down that button long enough to activate the distress call.
Ozzie, BKI’s techno-geek extraordinaire, had programmed all of their cell phones with an emergency feature. If they held down the volume-up button for a one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi count, their phones would automatically text a Mayday to the rest of the group. Then the cell would send out its GPS location. Pretty brilliant. Chelsea only hoped she’d used it correctly.
“We’ll see about that.” Surry pocketed her phone before grabbing her arms and tugging her wrists behind her back.
“Hey! What the heckfire do you think you’re doing?” She hoped to cover her terror with bravado, and she was insanely grateful that she’d learned early on in her CIA training to wipe the call and message log on her phone after every call or text, and to make sure to keep her contacts encrypted. “Take your damned hands off me!”
“Please,” Surry scoffed. “After a month with Morrison, no doubt you’re accustomed to a bit of manhandling. I’ll apologize for any ill treatment later. Once I know you’re innocent.”
She’d be waiting the rest of her life for that apology.
Oh, holy friggin’ crap. She should have bolted when she had the chance. Maybe, just maybe, she could have beaten Surry on those stairs. A smart operator might have taken the chance. Abraveone certainly would have. But here she was, marching past the kitchen and toward the scene of the crime, all without lifting so much as a pinkie to fight her way free.
She reallywasn’tcut out for this. She hated proving Dagan right.
Dagan…
Just the thought of him gave her hope. Because if anyone could get her out of this mess, it was him.
Chapter 3
Dagan had lived in fear of the day Chelsea found herself in an ungodly mess. And now that day had come. Good thing he was just the man to get her out of it.
“We going in or what?” Ace asked from his hiding spot in the alley next to a stack of crates. “I mean, I can continue to do my best impression of the Little Match Girl, but my feet are going numb.”
“Wait for it,” Dagan whispered. He was crouched beside a dumpster behind Morrison’s condominium building. The air was ripe with the smells of garbage and damp concrete. Little puddles left by the recent rain shower reflected their strained faces and the steel-gray sky overhead.
No joke. March in London was dreary as hell. Even if the day was unseasonably warm at a little over sixty degrees Fahrenheit, Dagan couldn’t wait to grab Chelsea and hop the first plane home. Not that Chicago in late March was anything to cheer about. Far from it. Winter tended to hang on until well into April. And the ice and snow—to mention nothing of the damned wind—were enough to slice a man to his bones. But at least there the sun peeked out occasionally.
“Wait for what, pray tell?” Christian hissed from beside him. “Why are we messing about here? Every second counts, yeah?”
Dagan gusted out a martyr’s sigh. “For fuck’s sake.Yes.” Every second that had passed since they received Chelsea’s Mayday had felt like an eternity. “But going in half-cocked could screw our chances of pulling this off without a hitch. Considering it’s Chelsea’s neck on the line”—her smooth, decidedly lickable neck—“I’d like to avoid hitches at all costs.”
Ace grinned over at him. “You reallydohave a soft spot for her, don’t you?”
No. What he had for Chelsea was a heart-on. It was like a hard-on but with feelings and shit. “Believe me, when I think about Chels,nothingis soft.” He figured he might as well admit it. After this morning’s ass-chewing from Emily, it wasn’t like there was any use denying it.
