Sleeping With My Boss: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (A Dirty Office Romance) (74 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

Echo

I
sat at the back table working on the program for another half hour before Cece
blew through the door wearing a huge smile and an enormous backpack.

"Hey, chica,
where's the SEAL boy?" she called as she quickly walked toward me. She
dropped her voice and said, "We need to get this out of here pronto."

"Gotcha,"
I said as I closed the laptop and followed her to the front door. "Ryan
said to meet him upstairs as soon as you got back. He wants to go over the
timeline for the plan."

Cece and I quickly
climbed the stairs to my apartment, but halfway up and swore under my breath as
I realized I'd left my bag under the table.

"I have to go
back and grab my bag," I said as I handed her the laptop and ran back down
the stairs. I was ten steps from the entrance to Nemo's when two huge men
grabbed my arms and hauled me toward a van at the curb.

"HEL—!"
I started to scream as I began kicking and trying to pull my arms out of their
vice like grips. One of the men wrapped a hand around my neck and shut off my
air supply as the other one wrapped an arm around my waist and hustled me
toward the waiting van.

There weren't many
people on the street, and the few who were walking by took one look and then
looked away. I silently cursed the number of times I'd done the same thing
knowing that it was a New Yorker thing; an inability to believe that something
terrible was happening as you were watching it happen.

Everything
happened so rapidly, that I barely had time to get my wits together, but once I
did, I knew I had to do something.

I turned my head
to try and get a look at them as I opened my mouth to scream again. One of the
men backhanded me across the face while the other grabbed a fist full of my
hair and yanked my head backwards as the other one hissed in my ear.

"Shut the
fuck up, you stupid bitch," one of the men said as he pushed something
hard and metal against my ribs. "I've been ordered to bring you back
alive, but I'm not opposed to shooting you in the kneecap if it shuts you
up."

"You don't
have to do this," I said trying to think about how I could signal to Ryan
and Cece. "You don't have to kidnap me. I'll get my friends to give you
the money you want."

"You think we
want money?" one of the men laughed. "Honey, we've got money. We want
favors, and bringing you in will get us some major favors."

I knew that if
they got me into the van, I was a goner. So, I decided to take my chances, but
as I opened my mouth to scream one more blood-curdling scream everything went
black.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

Ryan

Cece
came bounding into the apartment carrying a backpack and Echo's laptop.

"Where's
Echo?" I asked as she set the laptop down.

"She had to
go back into Nemo's to get her bag," she explained as she brought the
backpack over to me on the couch and carefully set it down next to me. "My
guy got everything you wanted."

I unzipped the bag
and looked inside, then looked back up at Cece and smiled before I began
unpacking it. There were two pistols with two extra magazines and underneath
them were two blocks of military grade c-4 wrapped in the familiar green
packaging, fuse and blast caps.
 

"Great job,
Cece," I said as I examined the pistols and checked to make sure they were
unloaded. "Have you ever fired a pistol?"

"Are you
kidding me?" she said as she propped one hand on her hip and frowned.

"No, I'm
serious," I said as I laid the first pistol down on the coffee table and
picked up the second.

"Dude, I grew
up in a family of men who love their guns," she said impatiently.
"Yes, I have fired a pistol. And a rifle. And some other things that I'd
rather not talk about."

"Why
not?" I asked as I set the second pistol down and pulled out the
explosives.

"Because it's
none of your damn business," she shot back as she looked at the door and
asked, "Shouldn't she be here by now?"
 

"Maybe she's
catching up with Mando," I said dryly. "He's probably worried about
his girls going out on a midnight mission."

"Yeah, he
probably is," Cece said rolling her eyes. "He has a tendency to be
over protective."

"Well, men
get that way sometimes," I muttered as I set the bricks down and examined
the blast caps.

"Yeah, and
it's suffocating for us," she said sounding irritated. "You know,
sometimes I wish he'd just let go and stop worrying. I can take care of myself
and so can Echo."

"A little
defensive?" I asked as I avoided looking at her. "So, we're not
allowed to feel protective or be concerned anymore? Sheesh."

"Oh, don't
get your alpha male hackles up," Cece said as she shot me a supremely
irritated look. "It's just that we're not helpless little flowers, and
when guys like you and Mando treat us like we are, it's unbelievably
irritating. It's like we have to fight you, too."

"So what are
we supposed to do?" I shot back equally irritated. "Just sit back and
wait for you to call for help?"

"Yes,"
she said quietly. "Sometimes that's the best solution because often times
we'll surprise you with how well we can do on our own. That's what you're
afraid of, isn't it?"

"I'm not
afraid of shit," I said as I wound up the fuse line and secured it with a
rubber band I'd found in Echo's kitchen.

"No, of
course you're not," she said crossing her arms over her chest. "I'll
make sure to pass that message on to Echo when she gets here."

"Don't tell
her anything," I growled before I looked up and asked, "Where is
she?"

"No
idea," she shrugged. "She should be up here by now."

"Then run
down and see what's keeping her," I said. "You probably need to
extract her from some good deed."

"Smart
ass," she laughed as she headed out the door.

Two minutes later
I heard her shouting from the street, "RYAN! GET DOWN HERE!"

I flew off the
couch and down the stairs to the street where I found Cece gathering items that
had spilled across the sidewalk when Echo had dropped her bag.

"What the
hell happened?" I shouted as I turned and looked up and down the street.

"I don't
know, but this is wrong," Cece said as she yelled for Mando who came
rushing out seconds later.

"What the
hell is going on out here?" he demanded.

"Echo's
gone," Cece said as she looked at him accusingly. "Did you see what
happened?"

"No, if I'd
seen what had happened, I would have stopped it, Cee," he said in a
brittle voice. "You think I'd have let something happen to Echo?"

"Well, you
didn't see what happened, did you?" she yelled.

"Hey, hey
guys, knock it off," I said stepping between them. "This isn't going
to help. We don't know what happened, yet. Mando, go inside and see if anyone
saw anything. Cece, come with me."

I turned and
headed back up to the apartment where I flipped open the laptop and clicked on
Echo's email account. There was one new message in the Inbox, so I opened it
and found a message from an unknown sender that contained the message:
We have her. Instructions to follow. Do not
fuck this up, SEAL.

"Fuck!"
I shouted as I slammed my fist on the counter.

"What's going
on?" Cece asked.

"They have
her," I said running a hand through my hair.

"Who has
her?"

"That son of
a bitch," I said as I rubbed my eyes and tried to decide whether it really
was Julian who'd taken Echo and if so, how he'd linked me to her. I spilled
Echo's theory and then quickly told Cece about my meeting with Baines at the
club. "Why did he take her? Why not me?"

"Because
she's more valuable," Cece said slowly, and then muttered,
"Shit."

"What?"

"I bet they
caught us on camera," she said as she paced the apartment thinking out
loud. "I didn't think about it when we went in because I was focused on
how to get us out of there after I'd pulled the alarm and the fire department
had cleared out."

"How could
you two have missed that?" I shouted. "She knew there were security
cameras all over the place!"

"Yeah, yeah,
yeah," Cece waved me off as she continued speaking. "We were so hell
bent on how to get in and get that new program installed, we just forgot about
the cameras."

"That was a
half-assed way of planning!" I shouted angrily.

"Look, SEAL,
step down," she said as she stopped and stared at me. "We made a
mistake, and I'm worried, too, but you yelling at me is not going to fix this
or help us find Echo."

I sunk down on the
couch and bent forward to take my head in my hands as I tried to calm myself. I
was pissed as hell at Cece for not thinking about the cameras, and I would have
been equally pissed at Echo had I not been so worried about what was happening
to her.

"Ryan, she's
going to be okay," Cece said quietly after a few minutes had passed.
"She's smart and strong, and if we can't get to her, she'll figure out a
way to free herself. I have no doubt about that, okay?"

I nodded even
though I didn't believe a word of what she said. Echo was not fine. She had no
idea who she was dealing with, and as I thought about it, neither did I. I was
certain that Julian was behind this, though. He wanted something Echo had—or
could get—and now it was clear that he would get it by any means necessary.

"We have to
get into that lab before he does," I said as I sat up and looked at Cece.
"Whatever it is that they want from Echo is in that lab."

"All right, then
let's get to work, SEAL," Cece said with a determined look. "We've a
job to do."

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Echo

I
didn't know how long I'd been out or where I was when I started to come around.
I felt a dull aching sensation in the back of my head. As I raised my arm to
assess the damage caused by the blow I'd received, I found that I was
 
strapped to the surface I was laying on.

As I slowly opened
my eyes, I began trying to assess my surroundings. The room was dark, but not
pitch black. It was more like a movie theater with the lights dimmed during the
previews. There was the glow of something green, or was it blue, coming from
the corner behind me. I tried to sit up and turn around to get my bearings, but
quickly realized that in addition to the one that ran around my mid section and
held my arms down, there were straps around my shoulders, chest and legs
securing me to the surface.

"Oh
crap," I muttered as I turned my head to try and get a sense of where I
was. I winced as the spot that had been hit rolled across the hard surface of
what I realized was some sort of stainless steel as I caught a glimpse of the
shiny metal in my peripheral vision.

I lay back on the
table and looked up at the ceiling wondering who had abducted me and cursing
myself for not staying with Cece, then cursing myself for not having any idea
that someone would want to kidnap me.

"What the hell
is going on?" I said out loud to test my voice.

"Shut the
hell up," came the gruff reply. "If I want to hear from you, I'll ask
a question. Otherwise, keep your lips zipped, got it?"

"Huh?" I
said startled by the response. I looked around trying to figure out where the
voice was coming from as I asked, "Who are you? Where am I? Why are you
holding me?"

"Like I said,
sweetheart," the voice warned. "Shut the hell up or I'll put you out
again. I'm here to keep an eye on you, but I don't want to have to listen to
you yammer."

I carefully
weighed my options and decided that another blow to my head probably wasn't a
good idea, so I went silent as I began to take in the details and commit them
to memory. If he wasn't going to let me up, then at some point either someone
was going to find me or I was going to figure out how to escape. I wasn't
counting on the former, so I began plotting a way to create an opportunity for
the latter.

I turned my head
to the left and noticed that the far wall was lined with cabinets that were
covered with glass. It looked like some kind of medical set up. The shelves
were filled with some type of supplies, but I couldn't tell what they were from
this angle in the low light. However, as I stared at the cabinet directly to my
left, I realized that if I tilted my head a little, I could see the entire room
reflected in the glass. It wasn't easy, but I slowly scanned the length of the
cabinet trying to get a sense of where I was being held.

The room was long.
How long, I couldn't tell because I couldn't lift my head to see how far the
cabinets stretched down the wall. I tried to count the ceiling tiles, but
couldn't lift my head high enough off the counter to follow them past my feet.
I tilted my head up and realized that the glow that was coming from behind me
was most likely a computer screen. I saw a shadowy figure sitting in front of
it, but the light obscured the man's face and body making it impossible to
identify him.

I felt my cell
phone vibrating in the front pocket of my shorts, and sent up a quick prayer of
thanks to whoever might be listening that I'd forgotten to take it out of
silent mode and one of hope that the vibration wouldn't be noticed. After a few
seconds, it stopped and I was simultaneously happy and dismayed. I hoped that
whoever had called me would be concerned enough to start looking for me soon,
and that when they did, they'd figure out how to find me.