Wild Cat (7 page)

She grabbed the car keys, didn't bother with lights, hit the door opener and backed out, using the road that led to the back side of the property. Once she was off the estate, she drove fast, putting the hill country behind her so that she could hit the city early. She wanted to be there first thing in the morning when Jake Bannaconni got to his office. If he did. Her heart tripped double time. He
had
to go into work. She knew he had a helicopter pad on top of his building and used that to get to and from work. If he wasn't there, she planned to have his secretary call him. She couldn't
imagine that he wouldn't know her name. Her grandfather's winery was very famous.

She parked her car in the underground garage of Jake's building, hoping that Paolo didn't find the car right away if he was tracking her. She hoped he wouldn't realize she was gone for another few hours. Surely he would wait to let her sleep in after such a terrible trauma. She waited through dawn, to working hours, watching out for anyone coming after her. Finally, she was able to go into the building. Using the ladies' room on the lower floor to touch up her makeup and hopefully cover up most of the bruising, she stared at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized herself.

She'd been innocent when she'd gone to Elijah's house. A woman with her master's and several other degrees and a good background in her chosen field, but still, she'd been innocent. In one night, everything had been ripped from her. Every single thing, including her self-esteem. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Because I don't know anymore.”

She lifted her chin and went to the security desk. “I don't have an appointment with Mr. Bannaconni, but please call up to his office and tell him Siena Arnotto is here and it's an emergency. I really, really need to see him. Immediately.”

That was the best she could do. The security guard at the desk looked at his consoles, into each screen as though she might be a terrorist bent on Bannaconni's destruction, then at her, the door, and lifted the phone, speaking into it briefly. When he put it down, she honestly couldn't tell if she'd been granted an audience or not. The one thing she did know was that Jake Bannaconni was in his office.

Her leopard suddenly reacted, going on alert. She turned her head and saw two men in dark suits closing in on her. She waited.

“Come with us.” One of the men motioned her toward the elevator.

She went with them, taking shallow breaths. Every single step seemed to jar her injured ribs. Her ribs really, really
needed attention. She had bruises and knew they were still visible in spite of her makeup, because both men scrutinized her face carefully and she could see the look they exchanged. These men were not happy, and they would never believe the boxing story.

In spite of the fact that she couldn't hide the beating she'd taken, she had dressed carefully for the occasion, her best dove gray suit, the one that made her look all business in spite of her age. Short jacket with a series of ruffles from waist to the middle of her bottom, flowing over her matching skirt with her soft pink shell. She loved that shell because she could match it to her favorite high heels, the ones that made her legs look long when they really weren't. She had put her hair up in a thick intricate braid that wound in a figure eight at the back of her head. She had armor, and right now she really needed it.

Bannaconni's secretary looked up as the security guards walked her through the enormous outer office with its artwork and comfortable furniture. She waved her hand and reached for the phone, presumably to inform her boss she'd arrived. The man who had spoken opened the door for her, stepped back and indicated she go in alone. Siena didn't hesitate. She lifted her chin and walked in. The door closed with a soft snick and she found herself in a large corner office with glass for two walls, overlooking the city.

The suite was so large she couldn't see into every corner, but her leopard went wild, suddenly edgy, as if she might be in danger.

“Miss Arnotto,” Jake said, standing as she entered. He indicated a chair. “Please sit down.” His eyes jumped to her face and narrowed, his darkened gaze studying her carefully. “Do you need medical attention?”

He was observant, and she knew, in spite of the fact that she tried to hide that she could only breathe shallowly, he noticed.

She shook her head. “I don't want to waste your time, Mr. Bannaconni. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I'm grateful.”

He walked around his desk and leaned one hip against the granite top, his eyes on her face. Seeing the bruises in spite of her makeup.

She ignored his frown. “I know that you are friends with a man named Drake Donovan, a man who runs a security company. I once heard my grandfather say he was incorruptible and if he or his men were involved in something, that everyone else should walk away. My grandfather was very admiring, and he didn't admire many people. I need to find Donovan.” She didn't feel she had conveyed the urgency of the matter fully. He didn't look in the least as if he was going to help her. His expression hadn't changed. She leaned forward, her fingers twisting together until her knuckles turned white. “Immediately.”

Bannaconni studied her face. He didn't blink. The edgy restlessness began to hurt, to burn. Her temperature soared. She tried breathing the feeling away, but her ribs prevented that from working very well.

“You'll have to do better than that, Miss Arnotto.”

“My grandfather was killed last night. Murdered. I'm not safe . . .” She broke off as her leopard leapt, surging forward. She turned her head toward the shadows.

Elijah Lospostos walked out. He looked as gorgeous as ever. Not at all like she looked. Not as if one single thing had been ripped from his life. He walked like a jungle cat, and he stared at her bruised face with the same unblinking focus as Jake Bannaconni had.

She was up, out of the chair and across the room instantly, shaking hand on the door. “I'm sorry. I made a terrible mistake in coming here.”

Jake Bannaconni was associates with Elijah Lospostos. That meant he was part of the underworld her grandfather had alluded to. She could barely breathe. Worse, with her cat raging at her, and the way their eyes had changed, she feared they were also part of the shifter world.

“Siena.” Elijah said her name and her stomach lurched.
She couldn't face him. She wouldn't. Not after what she'd done with him. Not after the things he'd said to her. Not after knowing that he was right and she'd been whoring herself out for her grandfather as a distraction for his hit man.

She yanked the door open and hurried out, rushing past the secretary to the elevator. Fortunately the doors to the elevator were open, allowing her to step in and go down fast. She was terrified one of them would issue an order to stop her so she all but ran out of the building, tears swimming in her eyes, blinding her. She had nowhere to go. No one to run to. She had no idea what she was going to do.

She wasn't looking where she was going and she ran straight into a solid body, a man standing right outside the double glass doors. He caught her arms in a viselike grip and dragged her to him. To her horror, she knew instantly who had her, without even looking. She knew his scent. She knew that fury.

Struggling, she tried to escape as he manhandled her into a waiting vehicle. When she tried to throw herself out, he shoved hard on her belly, and then slapped her, knocking her into the vehicle and climbing in after her. The door slammed closed and the car sped away with her in it.

E
LIJAH
took two steps after Siena to follow her. The sight of her bruised face both infuriated and sickened him.

“She's leopard, Elijah,” Jake said. “And she's terrified. There is no way that woman was whoring herself out for her grandfather.”

“You think I didn't figure that out?” Elijah snapped. “Hell. I was so fucking pissed and my leopard was so insane I couldn't think straight. I was all over her, took her on the damn floor like an animal. When I shot Marco, I was so angry, thinking she was involved. Too angry. I should have known what was happening; I'd figured out, after Don Miguel was murdered, that Arnotto was making a move on territories, but I didn't know how he was getting away with it, making everyone drop their guard. When she showed up with the wine, I knew then.”

“But she didn't know,” Jake persisted.

“I got that after I threw her out and called her every
disgusting name I could think of. After she was gone, I could see blood on the floor where we'd been and on me. She was a fucking virgin, and the things I said and did . . .” He shook his head and raked his fingers through his disheveled hair. “I don't have a clue what to say to her, how to fix this, but she's mine. There's no going back from this. I know she's mine. If she's really in danger, I have to help her.”

“Do you think her grandfather beat her?” Jake asked. “You knew him. Would he do that to his own granddaughter for failing in her mission?”

“No way. Antonio was many things, but he loved that girl.”

“I'll get the police report and see what happened last night,” Jake offered. The phone buzzed and he picked it up to listen for a moment. At once his face darkened as he slammed down the phone, cursing. “Elijah, front desk just reported a man pulled Siena Arnotto into a car. She fought him and he shoved and slapped her before getting into the car after her.”

Elijah swore in his native Spanish. “Did they get the license plate?”

“They said it was one of Arnotto's men. A leopard. That has to be either Paolo Riso or Alonzo Massi, since Marco is dead.” Jake was on the move as well. “Where will they take her?”

“My guess, back to the Arnotto estate. It's large. A lot of acreage to cover. He won't take her anywhere near the house. That has to be crawling with cops, possibly even Feds. He's going to take her somewhere private, somewhere no one will hear her.”

“I'll get a bird in the air,” Jake said, and fished out his cell phone as they raced through the building to the garage where both kept vehicles.

Elijah drove and he drove fast, weaving in and out of traffic, fear pushing at him hard. He wasn't a man who was fearful. He'd faced death on several occasions and he had come out on top, but this wasn't him in the fire. This was Siena.

He had spotted Siena when she was a teen. He'd been drawn to her then. She was beautiful, but it was more than that, something he couldn't put his finger on, but he found himself dreaming about her, which, because of her age, made him very uncomfortable. The few times he saw her over the years, as she'd grown, hadn't changed the way he felt about her. The intrigue. The mystery of her. The fantasy of her.

Elijah had always been a generous lover, wild, rough, but always generous. He hadn't been generous with her. Partly anger at her for showing up with the wine. Partly his leopard going crazy. But he couldn't blame his behavior all on his anger. He'd been lost in passion, consumed by it, and that had never happened to him before.

It had been easy, at first, to say he was furious that her grandfather had sent her to seduce him. More than furious. Disappointed in her. But that wasn't the entire truth, and he just didn't like admitting it to himself. He didn't like that he had lost control with her, because a man like him could never lose control.

Elijah had deliberately kept away from her over the last couple of years, feeling like a pervert for even thinking about her, although the chemistry between them, from the very first time he'd laid eyes on her, had been the strongest he'd ever felt and it just grew stronger each time he did see her—even from a distance.

He had solved the mystery of how Arnotto had lulled his friends into a false sense of security the moment he heard Siena's voice on the intercom. Anyone wouldn't think twice about letting her get close. She'd said she was delivering wine. A birthday present. It wasn't his birthday. It wasn't even close to his birthday, but he'd let her in, intrigued to see how far the charade would go, when the hit man would actually show up and what she'd say.

And then he saw her. Sitting in her car. Eyes hot. Face so beautiful and sensual. Her lush body. He could see the naked
hunger in her eyes, and there was no way he could stop himself. He was so caught up in his own hunger and lust he hadn't realized his leopard was raging at him, driving him, savage in its need to claim its mate. He hadn't realized she was close to the Han Vol Dan, the moment when a female leopard was ready to emerge and accept her mate.

Siena Arnotto belonged to him. He felt it when he touched her. Knew it when he kissed her. She was branded in his very bones the moment she ignited for him, a wildfire burning out of control right along with him. He hadn't even noticed she was innocent. He nearly groaned aloud right there in the car thinking about it as he drove like a madman through traffic, heading to the hill country. He'd taken her innocence roughly. Without thought for her. He'd been so far gone that it had barely registered until afterward.

After he had shoved her out the door, furious at her, at himself, after he'd closed the door and locked it, leaning against it, breathing deeply to control the killing fury welling up in him, he became aware of his own body and saw the smears of her blood, evidence of her innocence.

Another surge of anger hit him, this time at himself. He should have known. She was so tight he hadn't been certain he could get inside her when he'd first pushed into her. Had he not been savage and crazy with lust, insane with his own need, like a madman, driving into her, desperate to feel her surround him with her heat and fire, he might have noticed that he was her first.

He realized, far too late, his leopard had been welcoming. Leaping toward the surface, pushing to cement the relationship. Every trait of the leopard was mixed up with his own insane emotions, and he'd treated his own woman in a disgusting, vile way. The things he'd said to her reverberated in his head. The accusations. His temper. Everyone knew his temper was lethal. That made him angry all over again.

She hadn't said anything at all to him. She looked at him with shock in her eyes. Shock at what he said. Shock at what
he did. Shock that she recognized Marco. Shock at the realization that her grandfather wasn't the innocent man she thought him.

He swore under his breath. She'd been beaten. Both Alonzo and Paolo were leopard. They would have smelled his scent all over her. They would have known what had happened between them. He stiffened. Her leopard had been so close to emerging. It had to have emerged or would any time now, and if she was with another male, he would claim her. Fight to keep her.

A cold fury settled deep in his bones, poured into every cell of his body. Whoever had beaten her was as good as dead. If they harmed her again, in any way, he would hunt them to the ends of the earth.

“Trey's spotted them. The car is heading into the hills, straight for wine country,” Jake reported.

Elijah wound in and out of traffic. Fortunately, one of the advantages to being leopard was amazing eyesight and hand-eye coordination. Still, it took too long, whoever had taken her had too much of a head start. Enough that a leopard could kill or do a tremendous amount of damage in a short time.

Time had never passed so slowly. Fear had never choked him like this. He tasted it in his mouth, became intimately acquainted with it on the long drive. He knew, because the helicopter pilot, Joshua Tregre, reported it, that the car had stopped in heavy brush on the Arnotto estate, and two leopards had tumbled out, rolling, fighting. The car had been driven away, the driver leaving Siena to her fate.

Joshua and Trey reported they lost sight of the two cats in the trees when the smaller, female leopard tried to escape in the denser woods. Jake cursed steadily, but Elijah remained silent, his heart pounding, trying to keep his mind blank. If he thought about what her assailant was doing to her he knew he'd go crazy and never be able to hold back his leopard. More, if her leopard had already come out, the male may have claimed her.

Elijah barely managed to turn off the engine before both men were out and running toward the sounds of screams—human screams, not those of a female leopard. The cries were those of a woman in agony, and the sound chilled him to the bone. He burst through the brush, dodged around trees, leapt over fallen trunks, moving without thought but to get to her. He knew Jake was shedding clothes and that Joshua had found a place to put the helicopter down, which meant Trey was rushing to join them, but Elijah just ran toward those terrible, haunting,
chilling
cries. Without warning the cries stopped abruptly, and his heart stopped right along with the sound. He rounded two more trees and saw them.

A large male leopard tore at Siena's naked body, ripping deep furrows in her back, while his teeth held her in place. She wasn't moving. Her body looked like it might be a doll, a rag doll covered in blood. The cat dropped her on the ground and turned toward Elijah, eyes malevolent, targeting him. Jake slammed into the male from the side, knocking him away from Siena and toward Elijah.

Elijah drew his gun and fired, hitting the leopard in the left shoulder as it spun around. The leopard roared and turned, desperate to escape. Elijah reached Siena and crouched beside her, keeping his body between her and the wounded leopard. Before Jake could hit it again, the male had rushed into the brush. Jake started after it.

“I need the helicopter and your doctor,” Elijah shouted, calling Jake back. “Leave him. We'll get him later.”

There was blood everywhere.
Everywhere.
Soaking into the ground, coating her body, thick in her hair. He didn't know where to touch her without hurting her. She had four deep rake marks down her back; the claws had cut through muscle and tissue. Two puncture wounds at her shoulder. One terrible rake from the top of her hip all the way to her knee, and it was deep. The leopard had ripped her open.

Elijah was afraid of turning her over, afraid of what he would see. He didn't even realize he was silently praying,
his fingers gentle in her hair, pulling it back away from her face. Blood coated his fingers, her hair sticky with it. His heart sank. Fear was metallic. “Baby,” he said softly. “I'm right here. He's gone. I'm right here.”

He couldn't see her chest moving up and down. She didn't look as if she was breathing, and he had to feel her pulse. He had to know she was alive. He circled her throat with his palm and was still. Listening. Feeling. There it was.

“I've got to pick you up, Siena. It's going to hurt, baby, but I'll be as gentle as I can. We have a helicopter and we'll get you to a hospital.” He wasn't certain she could hear him, but he wanted to reassure her. He needed to reassure himself.

Very, very gently he rolled her partially over, careful not to let any of the rake marks touch the rotting vegetation. The breath left his lungs. His stomach dropped. The leopard had ripped her face open from her temple to the top of her cheek and it was a deep gash. She must have rolled immediately into the fetal position because that was the only laceration on her front that he could see.

“We've got to get moving,” Jake hissed. He had pulled on his jeans and was tugging his shirt in place. “I've called for Doc to meet us at the pad on the roof. He knows the injuries are severe and that she's one of us. He's the best, Elijah. You know he'll take care of her. Trey can take the car back.”

Elijah didn't know if anyone could take care of her. She'd lost blood. A lot of it. He'd never seen anyone so torn up. As gently as possible, he lifted her into his arms, the worst laceration on her hip facing away from him, but that meant her ripped face was against his chest and his arm was a band across the furrows on her back. He could see swelling on her face and on both hands. She'd fought her attacker. She'd fought him hard.

“I want that bastard,” Elijah snapped, looking down into her face as he ran with her through the trees toward the clearing where the helicopter had landed. “I want ten minutes with him before he dies.”

Jake was silent, keeping pace. They'd left the keys in the car, and he'd barked an order into his radio so Trey had made his way through the trees to get to the vehicle.

“Too much blood,” Elijah said.

“Don't think, let's just get her there.”

Elijah tried to keep his mind blank. He didn't slow down when he reached the helicopter, he just ducked and ran, leaping at the last moment with Siena in his arms to get inside. Jake was right behind him. Both threw themselves into seats and Joshua took the bird into the air.