His heart hurt. He knew how he would feel if Skye had done that to him.
The Goat was a neighborhood bar only a few blocks from the office, which was only a few blocks from Skye’s apartment. He tried her cell again, got voice mail, started jogging, then broke into a run. What if something had happened?
Or maybe she’d decided he wasn’t worth the trouble and was out with someone else.
He burst into the lobby of her apartment building, waved to the guard, who knew him by now, hurried into the elevator, and hit the button for the eighth floor.
Please be home, he thought.Please forgive me for screwing up. Please love me.
The elevator doors parted. Edge hurried down the hall and started pounding on Skye’s door. When she didn’t answer, he really started to worry. She was an investigator. She had enemies.
“Skye! It’s Edge! Are you in there?” And some of Daniel Henson’s goons were still on the loose. “Skye!” He hurried back down the corridor, dialing her cell again, getting no answer, cursing the elevator when it stopped on the sixth floor to pick up a passenger.
Finally, he reached the lobby and hurried over to the guard at the front desk. “I need to check on Skye Delaney. Apartment 815. I need to get in, make sure she’s okay. She’s had trouble before.”
The guard rose from behind his desk, a gray-haired guy with a paunch over his belt. “Yeah, I heard.” He ambled toward the elevator, punched the button, and whisked them back upstairs.
The guard let him into the apartment, but a hurried search told Edge she wasn’t there, and there was no sign of trouble.
Where the hell was she?
The Nighthawk office was his next stop. It wouldn’t be unusual for her to work late. Anxiety welled in his chest. Or maybe she just didn’t want to see him. Going to the party would force them together. Maybe she had decided he wasn’t worth the trouble.
Either way, he had to know. Edge picked up his pace.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
SKYE SAT ON THE FLOOR OF THE OFFICE, HER BACK BRACED AGAINSTher oak desk, her legs curled beneath her, her bad leg aching. Duct tape cut into her wrists, which were bound behind her back. Her lip was cut and bleeding, a painful bruise forming on her cheek.
Klaus Mahler loomed over her, his arms and shoulders bulging with muscle. The Viking. The guy Daniel Henson had picked for Callie to marry.
Klaus’s big hand flew out and slapped her hard enough to make her ears ring. “I’m not going to ask you again. Where is she?”
Skye didn’t answer. She glanced at the other man in the office. Klaus called him Webb. Webb Rankin hadn’t been found after he’d fled the Children of the Sun compound, but there was an arrest warrant out on him for armed robbery. He was also a person of interest in the death of Sarah Simmons.
But Klaus had been arrested. How had he gotten out of jail?
Seconds ticked past. So far, Skye had refused to answer. No way was she letting this animal get his hands on her sister again.
Klaus’s wide palm connected with her cheek, knocking her into the side of the desk, and pain shot into her shoulder. “You’re pushing your luck, lady.”
“Go to hell, Klaus.”
The two men had broken into the office through a window in the employee lounge. Skye had been distracted, thinking of Edge, sick at the thought he had been in town for days and hadn’t bothered to call her.
By the time she’d realized she was no longer alone in the building, they had been on top of her. She had tried to fight them, but it was too late.
Webb moved closer. He was dark and menacing, with tats over every inch of his thick neck. “Let me have her, Klaus.” He grabbed his crotch. “I know how to handle a woman like her. Give me five minutes, I’ll have her begging to tell you anything you want to know.”
An icy chill raced along her spine. Webb had been one of the men who had beaten Sarah to death. He was a stone-cold killer. Klaus was just as bad.
The blond giant shook his head. “No way. You aren’t getting laid before I do.” Klaus wrapped a big hand around Skye’s throat and started to squeeze. “Where’s my woman?”
Skye couldn’t breathe. The last breath she’d taken was wedged in her throat. She gagged, fought to suck in air. Her chest constricted. She tried to break free of Klaus’s crushing grip, but he was too strong, and blackness hovered at the edges of her mind.
Klaus was going to kill her. She struggled to twist away, but his hold only tightened. Her lungs were starving for air. If she passed out, it was all over.
She started nodding, a last-ditch effort to stay alive. “All . . . right,” she managed to croak out.
