A to Zane (13 page)

Zane pulled out a chair for Abby to sit, but she ignored it, choosing instead to sit in the empty chair between Karina and Laney.

He gritted his teeth and sat in the seat.

“My brother and sister are here. You okay with them coming in?” Zane asked Heath. Having one tiger in wolf territory was asking a lot. Having three was unheard of, and having them in your territory twice in one day was usually a declaration of war.

“I don’t have a lot of choice,” Heath muttered.

Zane looked over his shoulder at his siblings as Ziggy and Ziva strolled into the room. Ziggy pulled out an empty chair and dropped into it. Ziva stood by the door, a position of defense where she could see the room and the door. It was then Zane realized his back was to the door, and he hadn’t even thought about defense. Abby was so far under his skin, he’d forgotten his basic training. He turned a glare on the bane of his life. She was whispering to Karina, making sure her friend was okay.

“That stunning example of why I’m glad I’m not a full human doesn’t know anything,” Ziggy said to him.

“I told you that,” Abby snapped at him.

“No, pretty lady, you
thought
he didn’t know. Me and my sister, we made sure he didn’t know. It’s a skill we have.” Ziggy gave her a wink, and for the first time, Zane wanted to rip his own brother’s head off.

“Oh, because I’m so stupid I don’t know when I’m being lied to?”

“You drugged my brother. Your judgment is limited at best.” Ziva dismissed Abby.

“Who the hell are you anyway?” Abby demanded.

“Oh sorry, my manners are terrible. I’m Ziggy, and that adorable little flower is my twin sister Ziva.”

“Twins.” Zane heard Heath sigh. Zane saw him exchange looks with Wall, and both shuddered.

“But I was right, wasn’t I? Eric didn’t know a thing. So how’s my judgment now?” Abby challenged his sister.

Zane watched as Ziva pulled out her switchblade and started to clean the already immaculate steel.

Abby gave Ziva a cold smile and turned her back on his sister, dismissing her as a threat. Zane kept Ziva in place with a look. He’d trained them from when they were young and was grateful for that now. Ziva could’ve killed her before Abby knew what had happened.

A small movement caught his attention. Laney was putting away her own blade. Well perhaps Ziva wouldn’t have gotten that close right away.

Duke stormed into the room with a bag in his hands. He threw it at Karina’s feet.

“Here’s your shit. Now get the hell out of this house and away from my family,” he ordered her.

A stunned silence fell over the room a second before both Abby and Laney came out of their chairs and went for Duke.

“I’m sorry, when did you become owner of this house, big brother?” Laney asked.

“And at what point did you think you’d be able to tell my employee what to do?” Abby asked.

“She’s a threat to this family, and I won’t have her here,” Duke argued.

Zane couldn’t disagree. In the short time he’d known her, wherever Karina went people did tend to end up unconscious.

“Three things wrong with that statement, brother. One, she’s welcome here for as long as she wants. Not only is she here to look out for Abby, but she’s Clara’s best friend. Two, just because Rina let you stay over, you have no right to go into her room and pack her stuff. That’s just rude. Three, and this is the important one…” Laney began.

“We don’t care what you want. Rina stays, and if you don’t like it, you can bite us,” Abby finished for her.

Duke snarled and turned away. Zane figured the man knew when he wasn’t going to win an argument.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll leave. I have work to do anyway. Someone needs to be looking for the person trying to get to Abby.” Karina picked up her bag.

“Karina, you don’t have to,” Laney said.

“No, it’s fine, really.”

Zane could see the controlled anger in the vixen’s eyes.

“You should go too.” Abby spoke, catching Zane’s attention.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m much better now, so you don’t need to stay. I’m sure your business needs you back, so you can leave anytime you want.”

Zane was convinced he hadn’t heard her right. She couldn’t have just dismissed him like that.

“You want me to go back to your folks’ house and wait for you?” he asked, knowing full well that’s not what she meant.

“No, I want you to leave the town. You’re not needed anymore. Thank you for taking care of me while I was hurt, but your job is done.”

Zane was sure his jaw actually hit the floor at her words. She was seriously sending him away, as if there wasn’t a major threat to her life just five miles away.

“After all, you no doubt have a life to get back to. Your girlfriend will have missed you. Do you have a girlfriend? I don’t really know anything about you. Funny, huh?”

“Abby?” Laney frowned at her cousin.

Abby looked at him, and each of her words were like a knife cut to his gut.

“No, I may not have liked how Duke asked Karina to go, but he had the right idea. This is family business; strangers aren’t needed.” Her eyes were cold when she said it.

“Stranger?”

“I don’t know you.”

“I’m the man whose arms you’ve been sleeping in for the last week.”

“I was unconscious for most of that.” She gave a small shake of the head, and Zane’s temper rose.

“Abby!” Laney gasped.

“Were you unconscious yesterday?”

She blushed. Zane felt a small triumph. She was being a bitch, and he could see in her eyes she knew it. But he wasn’t going to put up with that crap.

“You knew me well enough when you were sucking my cock in the car,” he snapped.

Her own eyes narrowed in anger.
Good
, he was pissed off, so why shouldn’t she be the same?

Abby leaned over the table toward him, and they glared at each other, the others in the room forgotten.

“Yesterday I was an idiot, but today my eyes are open.”

“Opened your eyes? What the hell are you talking about?” He was confused. In the space of twenty-four hours, she’d gone from a sexy little kitten to this cold-hearted bitch.

“How did you know where to find me that day?”

“What?”

“How did you know to come to my rescue last week? How did you know I’d be there? No one knew that was happening, yet there you were, just at the right time.”

“What are you accusing me of, Abby?”

“Only twelve people knew that was going down. Me and my team who I trust daily with my life, the police officer who asked me to solve the problem, Eric, and the man who set me up.” She said the last with such venom, she all but spat the accusation at him.

And just like that, it became clear. She didn’t just want him out of the house because she was pissed they’d argued earlier. No, she wanted him gone because she thought
he
was responsible for the attack on her. She was suggesting he was the one who hired Eric to send a serial rapist after her, so he could jump in and save the day, winning her trust.

If that had been his plan, it’d failed magnificently.

Zane couldn’t say anything. She’d stolen his words. Zane stood and walked out the door. He smelled Ziggy and Ziva close behind.

“Zane—” Ziggy started, but Zane cut him off with a raised hand. He couldn’t talk to anyone. He held a hand out, and Ziva handed over her keys.

He needed to be away from here, from
her
. If that was what she thought of him, he’d been wrong. Abby Short wasn’t for him.

The motorbike started with an angry growl that matched his mood. He didn’t wait for his family. He turned the throttle and sped off.

The man who set me up.

Abby’s accusation rang over and over in his head. How could she think that? He’d treated her like a princess from the second they met. Granted like a princess he wanted naked and under him, but a princess nonetheless.

They’d talked a lot over the last few days. She should know the kind of business he ran and the contacts he had. She should know better than to accuse him of this.

He'd done everything for her, protected her when those she trusted most weren’t there, stayed by her side night and day to make sure she was safe, and he'd let his guard down, something he’d never done before. How could she not trust him? Zane made a promise to himself. He’d find out who was threatening Abby, and then she was on her own. He didn’t need this. He was a tiger; they roamed. He’d already been too long in one place. It was time for him to move on.

A stopped car up ahead caught his attention. The mood he was in, he didn’t want to stop, but if someone needed help, he couldn’t ignore it.

Zane pulled the bike over. The driver got out and smiled at him. She was a cute little thing, short and slim. She looked as if she’d break if he got a little too rough with her, not like Abby who could handle him no matter how rough he got.

“Thanks so much for stopping.”

“No problem. Car trouble?”

“Yes, it just died.” She smiled up at him. Her top was low cut, showing off her amble chest. But he felt nothing. Just a few weeks ago, he’d have been giving her his best lines. Not now. He compared her to Abby, and this woman came up lacking.

“Pop the hood, and I’ll take a look.”

“Oh, thank you.” The blonde reached into the car and pulled the release lever.

Zane walked around the front of the car, lifted the hood, and leaned over to get a closer look at the engine. He was still looking when she came to stand next to him.

“I didn’t believe for a second you’d fall for the oldest trick in the book. I guess my man was right.”

“What?” Zane turned his head, but he wasn’t quick enough. The Taser pressed against his neck. The electricity shot through his body, tensing all his muscles for a second, preventing him from moving. Something heavy hit him on the back of the head, and then the darkness claimed him.

His head buzzed, and it felt as if his whole body was vibrating. He tried to raise his hand to rub at the burn he could feel on his neck, but it wouldn’t move. The attack came back to him in a rush. Zane kept his eyes closed and breathed deep, trying to scent anything or anyone in the room. The attack must have fried his senses because he couldn’t smell anything. He slowly forced his eyes open and looked around the room.

It wasn’t the stark room he was expecting. Instead the room was plush with dark woods and soft, silken-looking furniture. On one side was a large bed with four posts.

The chair he was tied to was well cushioned and placed in the middle of the room. His hands were tied to the chair arms tightly with rope. His legs were similarly fastened, making sure he wasn’t about to get loose.

Where the hell am I? The state suite in the Hilton?

“Awake at last, my little prince charming?”

The female voice caught his attention. He turned his head to see the lady with car trouble standing there.

“Who are you?”

“She’s the bait.” The voice this time was male, but Zane knew it. It was a voice he didn’t think he’d ever hear again.

“Stevenson Ally.”

“Miss me?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Yeah well, I’m not. I’m alive and kicking.”

“For now.”

“Don’t threaten me when you’re the one tied to the chair, Anderson.” Stevenson snarled showing his fangs.

Once they’d been teammates in the service; now they were on opposite sides of the desk.

Stevenson found he preferred the money he could get from selling his talents to any warlord who offered enough cash, rather than standing to protect the people of his country.

The lion shifter was simply greedy. Nothing more, nothing less.

“So you’ve come to kill me? All this is a little elaborate even for you, isn’t it?”

Stevenson sat on the edge of the bed looking at him. The lion’s blond hair was grayer than the last time they’d seen each other. But the white vest he wore showed Zane that although he might have aged, he wasn’t out of shape.

“Look at you, little kitten. Do you really think this is all about you? Oh no, you should have seen how happy I was when I watched you come running to her rescue. It was like all my Christmases coming at once. I’ll deal with you later, but right now you’re just the distraction. When that bitch realizes you’re missing, she’s going to come looking for you and then, bam! She’s going to be mine.”

Stevenson leaned back on his hands, lounging on the bed.

“Once I have her, I might make you watch as I show her what it’s like to have a real cat between her legs, and then I’m going to take her and teach her not to mess with my business.”

“You put your hands on her, I’ll gut you.”

“Ho, ho, big talk for a man tied to a chair.”

Stevenson leaned forward, bringing them closer.

“Is she a screamer, Anderson? Does she scream real loud? Because when I get her, she’ll scream, but I don’t know how much will be the fun kind. Well, not for her anyway.” Stevenson gave Zane a wink.

Zane’s beast tried to break free, but the ropes holding him were steel core nylon. If he shifted, the ropes would do more damage than he’d survive.

Stevenson held up Zane’s phone, so he could see the number on it. Zane snarled as he hit the call button and waited for an answer. As the call went through, Stevenson hit the speaker button.

“Zane?” Abby asked when the call connected.

Abby stood on the porch after the Andersons drove off. What kind of idiot was she? Of course Zane had nothing to do with the attack or with Eric. What was wrong with her to even consider that?

The look on Laney’s face had said it all. Even she thought Abby was an idiot. She’d just been too polite to say it, which was new.

It was a shame Heath didn’t feel the same way.

“What the hell? That man could’ve died protecting you. He hasn’t been away from you for a day since the attack, and as much as it makes my fur crawl, he’s been in your bed every night. If he wanted to do you harm, don’t you think he could’ve done it while you were sleeping?”

Abby ran her hands down her face. She’d been so sure someone like Zane could have only been with her because there was a plan, a trick, something to distract her.