THE FIRST SIN (25 page)

Despite those cuffs, Donovan was doing a damned good job fighting every man who came near him as he tried to get to me. He used his elbows, his head, his shoulders, his steeltoed shitkickers.

Cabot probably hadn’t killed Donovan—yet—because he wanted information.

But then a shot rang out and Donovan shouted. Through the blood dripping down my face into my eyes, I could make out the growing wet spot on Donovan’s thigh, and knew he’d been shot Cabot jerked me by my hair again, so that I was looking up at him, my backside still on the floor. “If you tell me who you work for.” he said, “I won’t kill your partner.” “Don’t tell him a goddamned thing,” Donovan shouted in a furious, if pained, growl.

Before I had a chance to catch another breath or register the pain, Cabot jammed his foot into my chest with incredible force.

A rib cracked.

A long groan escaped from me as I rolled onto my side and felt the sick grinding sensation of bone against bone in my chest.

If I lived through this, Cabot would die.

By my hands.

Despite everything, I tried to fight against the men holding me down.

“Whoever you work for—right now I don’t give a damn. They’ll never find you.” Cabot crouched in front of me, wearing a furious, hideous smile; “You’re going to be auctioned once you’re fit. I’ll make a nice deal on that pretty ass of yours. Won’t be enough to cover what you cost me, but I think you’ll bring a decent amount.”

He looked up at one of his men. “Remove the bitch. Use the tunnel.” Cabot glared at me with such fury I thought he might kill me now. “Unfortunately she’s damaged, so we’ll have to let her heal before she’s put on the block.”

Donovan still fought against the men who held him down, and I might have smiled if my face wasn’t frozen with pain. You had to admire a man who’d try to go up against nearly a dozen men to help his partner, even wounded and cuffed. “Oh, and one more thing to remember today by, bitch.”

Cabot slammed his shoe against my forearm. Bone snapped. I screamed and threw up all over the carpet. The acidic stench of vomit mixed with the coppery scent of my blood and the smell of carpet freshener.

“Do it!” Cabot shouted. “Get her out of here.” One of the men grabbed me by my other arm and yanked so hard he dislocated my shoulder. Impossibly more pain screamed through my shoulder, and then he jerked me by my hair.

It seemed like forever since I’d started fighting Cabot, before his men held me. Probably all of ten minutes and I was done in. Broken. Beaten.

In the background I heard the sounds of the remaining men taking Donovan down.

I cradled my broken arm to my chest and clenched my teeth against the pain in my shoulder and ray ribs. Pure agony tore through me as the man Cabot had called Danny dragged me by my hair through a door and into a dark tunnel. Vaguely I heard Cabot’s voice behind as he followed us while giving one of his men instructions. In the growing distance I was sure I heard shouts of “Police!”

My thoughts swam. Thank God. RED had made it. I’d used the collar right.

But the door slammed shut, followed by the grating sound of metal doors and more metal, and the clunks and scraping of giant locks.

RED wouldn’t be able to get to me through that door in time. They wouldn’t be able to save me.

Now the only sounds were footsteps and whimpering as I was dragged by my hair.

Then I heard and saw nothing as I started to fade. The whimpers echoing in the darkness were my own

---black it stood as night,

Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seem’d his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand.

John Milton (1608-74)

Paradise Lost, Book ii

April 13

Saturday late night

So much rage filled Nick that he barely felt the bullet in his thigh or the fists of the men slamming into him as he fought to get across the room to the door Lexi had been taken through.

Nick’s head connected with one man’s jaw. He rammed his boot into a third man’s gut. Blood throbbed in Nick’s head so hard he barely heard Cabot’s men’s shouts or screams when he managed to land a blow. One of Cabot’s men punched Nick in the kidneys and stars sparked behind his eyes. He nearly doubled over from the pain.

Another jammed his foot against the bullet wound in Nick’s thigh. The fucking pain was so great he dropped to one knee.

All he had to do was remind himself that Lexi had already gone through far worse than he was going through right now.

The images racing through his mind gave him the strength to fight harder even with his hands cuffed. Cabot. Beating Lexi while two men held her.

Her crumpled, broken body.

Men dragging her through a door and out of his sight. Nick let out a bellow of fury and lunged to his feet despite the men trying to hold him down.

RED agents had better get here soon because he had to get to Lexi. The moment he’d come into the room, he’d pressed the special catch on one leather cuff to notify RED that the operation had gone FUBAR. Lexi might not have had the chance to trip her own call and they wouldn’t be able to find her.

Over ten minutes and counting. Any second. Pain exploded in Nick’s head like a spray of white liquid as one of the bastards hit him upside the head with the butt of his gun.

Nick collapsed to his knees. Tried to get back up. But the men full-body tackled him. Smells of blood and male sweat filled his nostrils.

“Police!”

New shouts erupted in the room and Nick went slack with momentary relief before coming up swinging. He shoved his way out of the pile of men who had him down but were now scrambling to face the RED agents.

Shots echoed in the foyer. Nick knocked himself into one of the men before he could move and rolled them both behind the desk out of the line of fire.

The man growled and tried to get to his feet. Nick balanced on the knee of his leg that wasn’t shot up and elbowed the Glock away from the man. Then he slammed his forehead against the other man’s, knocking the guy out cold.

Nick remained on his knees, keeping out of sight behind the desk. He leaned around the desk and saw RED agents taking down every man.

Now only a couple of men remained between Nick and RED’s agents. Looked like the agents now had everything under control. Pain forced Nick to rest on his ass a few seconds. his hands on his bent knees, but he still held onto the Glock. When the shooting stopped, Nick shouted, “On the job,” for the benefit of any agent who might not recognize him. Damned if he wanted to get shot again. “Special Agent Donovan.”

“Weapons down,” came the familiar voice of Takamoto.

“Donovan’s our inside man.”

Takamoto appeared around the corner of the desk and looked at Nick before shouting over his shoulder. “Clear.”

He looked back at Nick. “Where’s Agent Steele?” ‘Took you fucking long enough to get here.” Nick pushed himself up, vaguely aware of the pain in his thigh, his body, and the blood dripping from his face “Uncuff me,” he yelled at Takamonto. The moment he was uncuffed, Nick was already hurrying toward the door Lexi had disappeared through. Nick called over his shoulder as he tried not to limp.

“Cabot’s men took her and we need to go after the sonsofbitches.” In the background he heard agents raiding the place as they rushed down the stairs outside Cabot’s office. But Nick was sure Cabot had been expecting them and no doubt everyone had cleared out the moment they caught Lexi downloading the info.

Nick reached the door and grasped the handle. Locked. He stepped back and had put six bullets into the doorjamb before he could get it to open.

He rushed into the tunnel but came to a complete halt when a sound like thunder rolled over him and dust started falling from the ceiling. The entire entrance to the tunnel started to shake and rock, tossing Nick against one wall. The whole tunnel seemed to shudder and shake as if Boston was having an earthquake. Rocks and pieces of concrete showered from the ceiling. A good-sized chunk slammed into Nick’s shoulder and he stumbled to the side again. Someone grabbed his shirt from behind and jerked him backward and out of the tunnel just in time to avoid being pounded by a bowling ball-sized hunk of cement. Nick stared at the tunnel as more and more debris crashed down. “What the hell?”

“Booby-trapped, best guess,” Takamoto said over the crashing of rock as the tunnel ceiling came down. Dust billowed through the doorway. Takamoto released the back of Nick’s shirt. “Bet it’ll take a while to clear the tunnel and get to wherever it leads to. Cabot and most of the other pricks are probably already on their way out of Boston.”

“They’ve got Steele.” Nick raised his fist and damn near slammed it into the marble wall of the foyer. Wouldn’t do any good to try to find Lexi or Kristin with a broken hand, so instead he wiped some of the blood from his face onto his jeans. “Steele was kicking Cabot’s ass before he had two men hold her down. He hurt her bad.” Nick rubbed his temples as his gut clenched at the thought. “I think Cabot broke her arm and did a hell of a lot more damage than that.” “Holy shit.” Smithe wiped his hand over his mouth. “Steele would have killed the bastard if he’d had the balls to fight her himself.”

It was getting harder and harder for Nick to keep himself from hitting something. “She was doing a damned good job of it until Cabot’s men got a hold of her.” “We need a medic to take a look at you, Donovan.”

Takamoto looked Nick over like he was assessing the damage. “Screw the medics,” Nick growled as he used the back of his hand to wipe more blood off his face. “You’ll have to wait for that until your leg is taken care of,” Smithe said. “Then you can do whatever you want. I think the blond in narcotics and weapons trafficking has a thing for you.”

Nick clenched his fists. “Fuck you.”

“I’m taken,” Smithe said with a grin this time. Nick glared at the shithead.

Smithe would make a good punching bag and he could use one right now. He winced when Smithe slapped him on the shoulder where the chunk of concrete had hit him. But Smithe’s expression was serious. “We’ll find Steele.

We’ll get her back.” Memories of how badly Lexi had been injured slammed into Nick. He leaned back against a wall and repeated, “He hurt her bad.

Real bad.”

“Hey.” Smithe stood in front of Nick and met his gaze. “If Cabot wanted to kill her she’d be dead and he never would have taken her down that tunnel.

We’ll find her.” The physical rush from the fight was leaving Nick’s body.

“I hope to God we find her in one piece.”

Paramedics were already being guided into the room. Nick barely saw their faces—his mind continued to roll through what had happened and to consider the possibilities of where she could be now.

He had no goddamned idea where to start. A pair of paramedics forced him to sit, took his vitals and wrapped his wounded leg and the blood-drenched pants around the hole where hed been shot. He grew a little lightheaded and had the sense to realize he’d lost some blood. As much as he wanted to go on a rampage the loss of blood was getting to him.

Nick refused to go out on a stretcher, instead limping his way out through the now empty club. The soundproof round foyer had cut off any possible noises from sirens or patrons being “escorted” from the club. But as he hobbled out the glare of lights and sound just reminded him of how badly he and Lexi had fucked up.

Nick

April l4

Sunday early morning

After a debriefing with a senior RED agent, Nick found himself alone sitting upright on the couch in Kristin’s home. No Kristin. No Lexi.

Dixie stalked past, her tail in the air.

Nick glared at the calico.

Then Dixie did something she’d never done before. She padded up to him and rubbed herself against his legs—like she was comforting him. She didn’t purr, just rubbed past one way, turned around and rubbed his legs coming from the other side. Then she left the room, her tail still high. Nick shook his head and dragged his hand down his face. He’d had a pair of jogging shorts in his SUV that he had in a suitcase he kept under the seat in case he needed the clothing for one reason or another. Not wearing jeans kept the pressure off his thigh for now.

Screw painkillers. Nick needed to keep his mind sharp to figure out where Lexi and Kristin were. Now not only was the image of his younger sister in his mind, but the vivid memory of Lexi being dragged away. What Cabot had done to her.

Nick pushed himself up from Kristin’s couch and looked for something to hit.

If he was at his own home in Arizona, he could go out in the desert and shoot something. Here—he couldn’t trash his sister’s house.

But a fucking pillow—that he could replace. He took one of her couch pillows, braced his knee on her couch, ignoring the pain in his thigh. He proceeded to beat the holy living shit out of the pillow, picturing Cabot’s face. With each punch Nick shouted every curse that came to him. Stuffing shot out of a ripped seam and the pillow grew flatter and flatter. When nothing was left but fuzz on the couch and the floor, Nick snatched another pillow. This time he saw the wavy, gray image of a man—whatever man had “purchased”

Kristin. Nick shouted and punched the second pillow over and over and over again until it died, too. The rage burning inside him blinded him to everything but the burn in his muscles as punched. And punched. And punched.

When there were no more pillows left in Kristin’s living room to kill, Nick stood in the middle of all of the stuffing and wiped sweat from his face with his palm. Dixie was at the end of the couch batting at a piece of stuffing and pouncing on it.

Nick rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

If he wouldn’t lose so much blood that he’d probably pass out, he’d go for a jog right now and wouldn’t stop until he’d calmed down enough to figure out where to start looking for Kristin and Lexi. That would have been a good fifteen miles at the least, thirty round-trip.

Nick avoided kicking Kristin’s furniture and kicked a pile of fluff instead which sure as hell wasn’t satisfying. He glanced down at his thigh and the bandage was soaked through, pretty much solid red.