Someone To Steal Page 8

  “You’re welcome.” Shorty responded, seeming surprised. “Do you want chocolate? I am told that women all like chocolate, so I bought some.”

  “Yes, thank you. I’d like that,” she said, equally startled.

  Shorty Bear opened a bag of Hershey’s bars and handed her one.

  “Could you unwrap it for me? One hand, you know.” She gestured to her bonds.

  Carefully, the guard opened the chocolate bar and handed it to her. She took a bite, decided it tasted strange, and resolved to eat as little of it as possible. If they were going to drug something, she reasoned, it would be a food they expected her to gobble down thoughtlessly…like a treat. She took a nibble and chewed it methodically for a long time, making a show of swallowing and setting it on the table beside her to take a drink.

  “Wow, I’m really full. Will you wrap it up so I can have it later?” she asked winningly.

  The men whispered and crowded around a phone, evidently reading instructions. After a brief argument, the Mama Bear approached Riley.

  “You may use the restroom if you wish,” he said.

  “That would be great. Where is it? Do I have to drag the chair behind me? Because that’ll be awkward.”

  “No. I’ll bind your hands in front and escort,” he said with a burdened air.

  With her wrists zip tied in front of her, Riley followed the guard into a small and dirty bathroom with only a toilet and a rusty sink. She fumbled with her pants until she wriggled them down, stifling the exclamation of horror when she realized that the thug wasn’t going to let her pee alone. Sighing and rolling her eyes, she pushed her panties down and sat on the toilet. When she was through, she affected a blush and looked down.

  “Will you help me? Please? I can’t—get my underwear up with my hands bound. Will you just pull it up for me?” she stammered bashfully.

  The guard tucked his gun in the back of his pants and leaned over to grab her waistband. She brought her bound hands up hard, balled into a fist, and slammed him in the face. She heard the satisfying crunch as his nose shattered, and the growl of swearing in a foreign language.

  He doubled over and she kneed him in the face, his cry muffled by his hands, which he’d cupped protectively over his bleeding nose. Once he was down, she kicked him in the head hard enough to knock him out. She extended her arms, raising them and pulling outward to snap the bonds. She wrenched the gun out of his pants and came out of the bathroom slowly.

  Riley got two rounds off, missing once and then wounding the Liam Neeson lookalike in the thigh before Shorty Bear took her down. With his arm across her windpipe, she couldn’t decide whether to throw up or pass out. She struggled beneath his bulk.

  The tallest thug muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “shoot her” but Shorty just manhandled her back to the chair and zip-tied her ankles and wrists tightly. He dialed his phone and stood over her, glaring. After an animated discussion in what she assumed was Russian, he hung up.

  “You are going to sleep now,” he said.

  “Thanks, but I’m not tired. Being kidnapped seems to have invigorated me.”

  Shorty opened a briefcase and selected a loaded syringe from a row of choices. Her eyes popped in horror. She hadn’t counted on being shot up. She could resist suspicious chocolate, but she was tied up, and the guy had a needle. He tapped the air out of it and showed it to her.

  “It’s Valium. Should calm you and make you easier to handle, little sleepy,” he said in a tone she supposed was meant to be reassuring.

  Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be looking at her lasciviously, just as if he were slightly annoyed. He jabbed her with the needle, pushed the plunger down and dropped the syringe into the trash. She felt light and foggy, but she tried to fight the drug. She didn’t want to be out of commission, unaware. They could do anything to her. The dose was strong and she kept drifting, unable to struggle against it. Before she dropped off to sleep, she saw him applying pressure to TBT’s bullet wound.

  Oo00oO

  “I have it, and ahead of schedule. Where is the girl?” Cain said, passing a leather bag to the Ukrainian at the coffee bar.

  “Very good.” He peeked in the bag and nodded approval. “Now there is the matter of recompense. She has injured several of my men. Belligerent girl.” He shook his head in dismay. “I’ve had my eye on a da Vinci for some time. It’s owned by Il Furetto.” He snarled, referencing a rival Italian Mafioso.

  “No. No da Vinci. Nothing. You gave your word that the artifact would buy me back the girl. Produce her, unharmed,” Cain said, white hot rage surging through his blood.

  It was all he could do not to overturn the table, grip the man’s insolent throat, and dig his thumbs in until the Ukrainian’s oxygen was cut off permanently. He might have known he’d be double-crossed, but he tried to comply, to play it the boss’s way. Now all deals were null and void, he decided.

  “There is the matter of a few more items. She’s quite comfortable, I assure you. A week or so will make no difference to you or to her.”

  “Fine,” he growled. “Where is the da Vinci located?”

  Cain affected an attentive expression and even took a few notes, as though he intended to fulfill the mission instead of breaking her out and killing the Ukrainian. He flicked the pen between his fingers impatiently, pushing away thoughts of Riley bound, confined, afraid. He would get her out. As long as she stayed alive, he could manage the rest, and the Ukrainian needed her for leverage too much to kill her yet.

  “I’ll need proof of life. When do I speak with her?”

  “Tonight. She will place a call to you,” The Ukrainian said smoothly, knowing he’d won. With the barest nod, Cain took his leave.

  He called his pilot to prepare the plane, not for Venice, but for Vienna. He had a gut feeling she was being kept in one of the Ukrainian’s safe houses there. He quickly activated an app on his phone to track the origin of incoming calls so he could pinpoint the city she was in. When the call came, he was already in flight.

  “Cain?” Her bravado was only slightly cracked when she spoke into the phone.

  “Hey, kid. How’s the accommodations?”

  “Not four star,” she said. “I’m okay. You’re taking good care of my good luck charm, aren’t you? Haven’t dropped it in the river?” she inquired, trying to indicate to him that she knew there was a waterway nearby where she was being kept. She couldn’t risk calling it the Danube, though she had heard enough from her captors to realize she was in Austria.

  “No. It’s right here with me, up in the air,” he replied.

  “You owe me flowers.” She blurted, her voice catching.

  “I have more work to do for the boss,” he told her. “He’s not ready to let you go, so hang in there.”

  “You’re cooperating?”

  “Of course I am.” The connection was cut off, but he was satisfied that she was holding her own. The data from the app confirmed her location was Vienna. The call hadn’t been long enough to pinpoint an exact origin for the call, or even a region of the city, but it was the lead he needed.

  Cain resumed calling his contacts: friends who were independent agents, a former KGB officer, a few buddies in the military. Within an hour, he had secured the cooperation of a demolitions expert, an IT manager, and the hacker who happened to be both the head of security at the bank in the Ukraine where Riley had been caught, as well as the stepdaughter of the Ukrainian himself.

  Sasha had plenty of reasons to hate her stepfather, and the ability to be a valuable ally, even as she lay in wait for the time for a takeover to be ripe. A diversion was guaranteed, one that would make his rescue easier to pull off. Satisfied with his plan, he made himself sleep for a few hours to keep his mind sharp. He checked into a hotel, ate an omelet and had a shower. Every minute, he got e-mail updates on the plan in motion.

  It came together quickly. He sipped caffeine to stay awake and sharp, even as he planned and coordinated his forces. Adrenaline burned t
hrough his veins, making the time rush by. By ten in the morning local time, he was in position, ready for a grease fire to rage out of control in the building next door to the safe house.

  Cain packed his emergency kit in the pockets of his flak jacket and loaded a fresh clip in his semi-automatic. He had never discharged a weapon in anger before this day, but he was ready. Riley wouldn’t be another Caryn.

  He got the text that the fire had started. He waited to the count of two hundred for the alarm to be raised. Puzzled by the persistent silence, he was rocked backward, taken down to the ground with the impact of the blast. The building with the grease fire detonated and crumpled like a sack of flour breaking open on the floor. People poured from the surrounding businesses into the street to investigate. Staggering to his feet, he charged into the safe house and whipped out his Taser.

  It was a blur of motion, primal force. He charged through the building like he owned it, his burning need to get to Riley overcoming all other feelings. He stun-gunned nine men before he reached the room. Riley had awakened from her latest dose of Valium and was making silly faces at Shorty Bear, laughing riotously during the aftereffects of the drug. The guard rose to his feet at Cain’s intrusion, but he went down without much of a fight. Cain hauled her to her feet and slit the zip ties off her arms. She rubbed her wrists and scowled at him.

  “What took you so long?”

  “Traffic,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “No way. I have some thugs to punish. I’m putting the hurt on that snotty little creep who hit me, and the one who felt me up. They’re both here today, although the one I bit keeps his distance now.”

  “Move. We have to go. I tased them, I didn’t tie them up. We don’t have time for the wrath of Riley right now.”

  “There’s always time for wrath.”

  “No, that’s there’s always room for Jell-o. You’re confused.”

  “It’s the Valium, Cain. They keep shooting me up with that crap to keep me quiet.”

  “Does it work?” He deadpanned.

  She stuck her tongue out at him. The fear and murkiness in her eyes disappeared for a moment as she giggled. “Fine, let’s go. But you are officially no fun. I can’t even shoot them…a simple flesh wound that hurts like hell? I know you have extra bullets. You’re a complete fucking Boy Scout that way,” she groused as he led her out of the room.

  They stepped over Mama Bear, and Riley bent down and took his watch. The one she had bitten was next. She stomped on his hand, grinding her foot into it vengefully before taking the watch off his opposite wrist.

  “Did you have to blow up the fucking world to get me out?”

  “It was supposed to be a containable grease fire to set off the alarm, but one of my associates evidently got overzealous. So we made an impression.”

  The rest was chaos, and the building had mostly cleared out. A few elbows to faces were enough to see them out—the Ukranian’s men were loyal, but not loyal enough to burn to death, it seemed.

  By the time he had her out on the street, in the chaos of emergency services and bystanders filming with their phones, she had eight souvenir watches. He propelled her forward, leading and pushing her. Her breathing was ragged, and her grip on his hand so tight it threatened his circulation and future use of his fingers. They ran, keeping pace through the thick falling ashes and out of the noise into quieter streets.

  Back at his hotel, he set her down on the bed, wrapped the comforter around her shoulders in an awkward attempt to treat her like a trauma victim. He started to speak, but stopped himself twice. Cain took both her hands in his and kissed them.

  “Forgive me,” he said, holding her disbelieving gaze steadily.

  “For what?”

  “I got you into this. I let them take you.”

  “I climbed into this mess myself. I suspect you weren’t in charge of the thugs who grabbed me in the vault. Stop blaming yourself.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Let me guess. You were all ‘dark night of the soul’ and thinking how this was just like Caryn and you couldn’t protect either of us, am I right?”

  “I suppose you could put it that way.”

  “Quit auditioning for Macbeth, then. I’m not that fragile. I gave you major points for believing in my ability to take care of myself in London when I went for a run. You’re losing points now for being a sexist. It’s not your job to protect me or keep me out of trouble, and even if it were, I could give you a run for your money. You were brooding around, thinking up worst-case scenarios, while I was tormenting my Three Little Thugs with a constant stream of requests. You have to keep your sense of humor or you’ll go crazy, Cain.”

  “I don’t like you letting me off easy, Riley. You may make light of it, but I know it was an ordeal. Don’t act like it was nothing.” He still held her hands.

  Her wide, dilated eyes cased out the room, and she smiled. Her grin was far too wide, a little crazy. “I’m fine. I swear. I want a shower and a stiff drink and maybe some undrugged chocolate.”

  “It’s Vienna, not Belgium. The chocolate isn’t superlative.”

  “I’ll learn to cope with inferior confectionary. I handled being held hostage and even got them to find me a decent Diet Coke in this godforsaken city…”

  “You made your captors get you Diet Coke? Don’t you know not to antagonize the men with the guns?” He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Haven’t you ever read a magazine? Those cooperative women who climb in a car trunk at gunpoint, thinking if they’re passive and don’t make a fuss their kidnappers won’t get mad—yeah, they always get killed. You’re better off running away in a zigzag pattern.”

  “What in the hell does that have to do with being a demanding pain-in-the-ass captive?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe if I was annoying, they might let me go.”

  “Or shoot you in the head. God, Riley, you could’ve got yourself killed,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “They drugged you to shut you up. Do you think they did anything to you while you were out?”

  “No. I always woke up in the chair, arms still zip-tied. I don’t think they would’ve risked waking me, truthfully. They didn’t like me very much, and the feeling was mutual. I thought Shorty was okay until he came at me with that syringe.” She shuddered. “I want a shower.”

  “Come here first.”

  Cain sat on the bed opposite hers and held out his arms for her. She shrugged off the comforter and went into his embrace, letting him engulf her in strong arms and the steady thump of his heart. Instead of sitting beside him, she’d straddled his lap, wrapping her arms and legs around him, like a hunted animal.

  He stroked her hair and took deep breaths slowly until her breathing synced up with his. She clutched at his shoulders, stricken by a sudden disbelief that she was safe, that she was back where she belonged. Riley felt that he was trying to pull her into his chest, to keep her safe and reassure himself she was whole and returned to him. The stillness settled in around them. She eased her grip on his shoulders. He seemed reluctant to let her go so she held on a little longer.

  “I’m going to take the longest shower in history now,” Riley announced, climbing off of him.

  “Okay, shower, then plane,” Cain agreed.

  “No, shower, then drink, then plane. Where are we going now?”

  “Well, someplace where the hit that’s out on both of us isn’t as persuasive. Far East, I think,” he supplied.

  Chapter 9

  The hot shower was restorative, and so was the brandy. Feeling replenished by both, she boarded his jet and fell promptly into a deep sleep. She woke up in Mumbai. He jostled her until she followed him to a train station and ate some coconut rice. With his arm around her and her head cushioned on his broad shoulder, Riley slept again.

  It was night when he roused her to get off the train. A guy with an old truck was waiting for them and drove them a few hours outside the town. They were evidently sta
ying at his house, a modest affair with a tin roof and some goats outside in a pen. Riley trailed after Cain, eyes wide, as they settled onto sleeping bags in a dark room with cinderblock walls.

  “Who is this guy?”

  “This is Emir. We did a hitch in the Israeli army together a long time ago. We can hide out here for a while. Until the furor dies down, at least.”

  “Why’d you take my phone?”

  “Traceable. I can’t risk you giving away our whereabouts while you’re checking on Tico. Besides, I got you a new phone.”

  “I had pictures on that phone.”

  “I saved your SIM card; relax. And I threw away my phone, too. Now I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “I’ve been sleeping all day. I’m bored.”

  “Don’t steal anything.”

  “What am I supposed to do here?”

  “Be grateful you’re alive and you’re not a mob captive any longer,” he said, stretching out on a musty sleeping bag.

  “I am grateful. I’m glad you came and got me. I just—”

  “Don’t know what to do with yourself when you’re out of the action? I understand. I still need to get some sleep. You can wake me in three hours if you don’t nod off.”

  “Can I, um, lay beside you?”

  “Yes. Come here,” he said, holding out an arm and pulling her against his side. She sighed contentedly and tucked hands that were still shaking under her arms.

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.”

  “Of course I was coming for you. I’ve been told I owe you flowers. I’ll have to do something about that. Didn’t you trust me?”

  “I have vivid memories of your assurance that the Ukrainian wouldn’t bother with me because I couldn’t be used to control you.”

  “Clearly, I was mistaken. I had a great deal of time to think on the journey while you were snoring on my sleeve. My plan is, once it’s safe for us to fly transatlantic again, I want to go to Belize.”

  “Isn’t the phrase, ‘stop me if you’ve heard this one’? Because you’ve only said that sixteen thousand times since I’ve known you.”