You Are Mine (41 page)

“Hey, I always knew my father was going to be a prick. Knowing he's an even bigger prick than I first thought isn't too much of a stretch.” He caressed the long, elegant arch of her spine. “If he's the one who ordered your father killed and threatened you though, I might be forced to take action.”

She looked up at him and a ghost of a smile turned her mouth. “Little boy, you might just have to get in line.”

At that moment, Gabriel's phone went off. A text.

Keeping a firm arm around Honor, he hauled it out of his pocket and glanced down at the screen. It was from Eva and consisted of two words.

It's him.

*   *   *

Eva finished sending her text then dropped her phone back down on the bed and went over to the only other piece of furniture in the room—her chest of drawers. Pulling out some jeans, she rummaged around in her T-shirt drawer trying to find something she wanted to wear but ending up feeling vaguely disgruntled.

Black. That's all there was. Black T-shirt after black T-shirt. It had never bothered her before because she'd never consciously thought about her clothing, but now …

You want to wear something nice for him.

Eva grimaced. Jesus, if she was getting into primping and preening over Zac, she was a lost cause. Not to mention an idiot. Especially when she'd woken up that morning, extremely late, to find the bed empty and Zac gone.

She'd been angry about that. And hurt, no denying it. He'd left her a note telling her he had a few things to do at his office in the Meatpacking District and asking her to organize a Circles meeting as quickly as she could. They needed to formulate a plan on what to do about Fitzgerald ASAP.

There was no mention of what would happen between them now or about what the night before had meant. She assumed nothing. He'd told her it was one night and one night only, so there was no reason to expect anything else.

She'd made her way back to her apartment alone, trying to ignore the pain in her chest and the sense that she'd made a mistake somewhere along the line. She couldn't figure out what that mistake might be though.

Last night she'd given him everything she could. Without reservation. Let him do whatever he wanted, over and over again. They hadn't talked again and Zac hadn't let her sleep until the early hours of the morning.

So now she was tired and hurt and furious, none of which was going to be very helpful when it came to dealing with Fitzgerald.

Pulling out her favorite black Ramones T-shirt, she began to dress.

Time to stop thinking about Zac and the mess they'd created between them anyway. There were more important things to deal with.

As she was putting her hair into a ponytail, her phone rang. Crossing back to the mattress on the floor that was her bed, she bent to pick it up.

Alex.

“I've talked to Gabe,” he said without preamble the moment she answered. “We'll meet at the club in half an hour.”

“I'll be there.”

There was a slight pause. “You okay?”

Eva stared out the window at the day beyond. For once it was beautiful, the sun shining, glinting off metal and glass and the puddles in the street below.

She knew what Alex meant, that he was thinking of her confronting Fitzgerald the night before. It felt like a lifetime ago. An age.

“Yes,” she said and then, for reasons she couldn't have explained even to herself, she added, “Remember that girl you rescued from Conrad's casino? Who you sent back here to Zac?”

“What about her?”

Eva paused. “Well, what happened to her, happened to me.”

Alex said nothing for what seemed a very long time. “Fitzgerald is your Conrad, isn't he?”

“Yeah.” She held the phone very tightly.

There was another long silence.

It was time the others knew. Alex had been right, she couldn't run from what had happened to her forever.

“We will take him down,” Alex said at last. “I promise you this, Eva. He will pay for what he did.”

“As long as he doesn't hurt another girl, I don't care what happens to him.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She frowned, staring out at the blue sky above the rooftops, trying to sort through the emotions that roiled around inside her. Yes, she was angry. And yes, she was afraid. But both those feelings had strangely nothing to do with Fitzgerald.

It was like he'd receded in her mind, becoming an insubstantial figure. A ghost from the past who'd ceased to haunt her because another man had taken his place. A man who wasn't a ghost, who wasn't insubstantial in the slightest. A man who was real and vital and whose touch still burned on her skin from the night before.

Zac. He was the only thing that mattered to her. He was the only thing that counted.

She didn't give a shit what happened to Fitzgerald. As long as Zac was there, that's all that mattered.

“Yes,” she said, her voice steady. “You guys can take him down if you want. I only want to make sure any trafficking rings he's got going are taken apart. And if there are any other operations like the Lucky Seven and Conrad's casino, they need to be burned to the ground.”

“Hey, I'll hand you the match myself.” There was nothing but approval in Alex's voice. “We'll make plans. See you in half an hour.”

After Alex had disconnected the call, Eva punched in a text to Zac, telling him they'd be meeting at the Second Circle in thirty minutes.

There was no response.

Her anger clenched tight. Shit, don't say he was giving her the silent treatment again, the bastard. Then again, surely he wouldn't let what was happening between them affect what was going down with Fitzgerald. That wouldn't be like Zac at all.

She gave him five minutes, bending to grab her leather jacket and beanie as she made her way out of her bedroom and into the lounge. When he still hadn't responded, she dialed his number. It went straight to voicemail.

Distinctly pissed now, Eva left him a curt message then ended the call.

Perhaps he was busy, though she'd thought that after what they'd discovered last night, he'd make himself unbusy.

Perhaps he's avoiding you?

Yeah, but avoidance wasn't Zac's style. At least it wasn't usually.

She grimaced as she put the phone in her pocket and went downstairs to the front door. Now wasn't the time for Zac to be playing games, that was for sure.

Stepping outside, Eva barely thought about the wide-open space around her as she headed toward the car. Her head was too full of Zac.

Temple waited on the sidewalk, holding the car door out for her. “Good morning, Ms. King.”

“Hey, Temple. We're going to the Second Circle. And make it quick, okay?”

“Certainly.”

Eva got in, the door shutting behind her. She checked her phone again to see if Zac had somehow miraculously gotten back to her in the course of the minute it had taken to get from her front door and into the car.

He hadn't.

Then she noticed something weird. Her phone didn't have a signal. Strange.

She fiddled with it for a couple of moments, turning it off and on, trying various other tricks she knew of, but the “no service” message stayed stubbornly at the top of her screen.

The car began to pull away from the curb, sliding into the midmorning traffic.

Frustrated, Eva leaned forward, reaching for the intercom button and pressing it. “Are you able to get a signal on your phone, Temple?”

There was no response.

Puzzled, Eva pushed the button again. “Temple?”

Again, no answer.

What the fuck was going on?

She reached for the button that slid the partition down between the backseat and the front, but that didn't work either. As if it was locked.

Little threads of unease began to wind through her. She pressed the button a couple more times and again there was no response.

Shit.

She looked around the car's interior, and the unease began to solidify into pure ice.

The doors were locked. And they were never locked. To be sure, she reached out and tested the handle. The door remained closed.

Eva took a breath, trying to calm her suddenly racing heartbeat. Then she tried to unlock the doors.

Nothing happened.

Now she was cold. She was ice all the way through.

Eva stared out through the glass partition, to where Temple sat in the driver's seat, her attention apparently on the road.

They weren't going to the Second Circle either.

They were heading in the opposite direction.

*   *   *

Zac stood on the Park Avenue sidewalk, ignoring the stream of people passing by him and the heavy traffic in the street ahead of him. All that mattered was the building across the street. An elegant, white limestone building that housed some of Manhattan's exclusive apartments. And was owned by one Evelyn Fitzgerald.

Zac checked his watch. Another five minutes.

Ever since he'd gotten Fitzgerald's name from the pathetic bodyguard the week before, he'd begun putting together a plan of action. One he hadn't told anyone else since it wasn't anyone else's business. Calling in favors from various people and going over the information his security staff had managed to glean, he'd figured out what he was going to do if Eva positively identified the bastard.

Now that she had, all that remained was to put the plan into motion.

He knew this wouldn't be what she wanted and that the others would no doubt be extremely pissed off with him too, but that didn't matter.

There was only one thing of paramount importance to him and that was Eva's safety.

Sure it is. Keeping telling yourself it's about that.

Zac waited, motionless, as cars and buses lumbered past.

Of course it was about Eva. Who else? He'd failed Theresa, and whether he'd done too much or too little in the end didn't matter. What mattered was that she was dead and some part of him had always felt responsible.

He wasn't going to let that happen with Eva.

Naturally there was also a certain amount of pleasure to be had in the thought of putting a bullet through Fitzgerald's brain. A simple action that would solve many of the problems they were having now. After, of course, Zac had gotten a few pieces of relevant information, such as how big his trafficking operation was, who else was involved, etcetera.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn't look at it. He knew already that it would be Eva, no doubt trying to get hold of him. They'd be meeting at the Second Circle, armed with Eva's confirmation, pretty soon.

Well, that wouldn't matter either. By the time they'd sorted out what they were going to do, Fitzgerald would already be dead. Zac was going to make sure of it.

The phone vibrated again so he reached into his pocket and turned it off.

There could be no more distractions, not now.

Another couple of minutes passed.

Outside Fitzgerald's apartment a woman paused to adjust the beanie she was wearing, revealing a flash of blonde hair.

Zac's entire being froze. But it wasn't her. No, he'd left Eva in the early hours of the morning, making sure she was still asleep and curled up in his bed like a pearl in a seashell. She was safe. With Fitzgerald out of the way, soon she would be safer still.

After that … Well, he'd had his night with her. That's all it would be.

You could keep her. She could be yours.

An ache filled him. A familiar yearning for what he shouldn't want, for what he couldn't let himself have. But he ignored it the way he'd been ignoring it for seven years.

He couldn't keep Eva. Even though he could give her everything she'd been missing in her life, he couldn't give her the one thing she needed most. Love.

Couldn't give her? Unwilling to give her, you mean.

Couldn't. Wouldn't. They amounted to the same thing: love was something he wanted no part of. But Eva deserved it and she should be free to have it, find it with someone else who could return it, unlike him.

The hungry possessive part of him howled at the thought of her with another man, but he ignored that.

Only you, Zac …

He ignored that too.

Zac glanced down at his watch. It was time.

Right on cue, the front door to the building opened, the doorman letting out a small woman wrapped up in a fur. Fitzgerald's wife, Hilary. She'd be on her way to meet with the charity following the no-doubt successful function the night before. A familiar figure followed her. The mercenary, Elijah. Both of them got into the limo that waited at the curb.

Good. According to the intel he'd received, Fitzgerald didn't like too much personal security when he was at home and only had at most two security staff on deck at any one time. Which was going to make it easy for Zac. Two men were nothing.

Once the limo containing Fitzgerald's wife had pulled away, Zac crossed the avenue and approached the building. Through the big glass doors he saw the doorman's eyes narrow briefly as he strode closer. Obviously the man had been warned to look out for him.

It wasn't anything Zac hadn't expected, but he'd need to move fast.

The man's hand went into the pocket of his jacket. Metal gleamed as he began to withdraw it.

Zac pulled open the door, bringing out his silenced Glock at the same time, aiming and firing in one smooth movement before the other man could even get his weapon out. Then almost in the same movement, Zac turned his gun on the concierge who'd risen from his desk and was in the process of pointing his own gun in Zac's direction.

Zac fired and the concierge fell without a sound.

Silence reigned.

Looking quickly around to make sure there was no one else in the lobby, Zac then dragged the fallen doorman around behind the desk to join the concierge. After making sure both bodies were out of sight, he retrieved a couple of the keys he knew would be behind the concierge's desk, then glanced up at the lobby security camera. There were no red lights blinking, which meant the camera was off.