Checkmate

Checkmate

Annmarie McKenna

Dedication

I’ve got to send this one out to my sister, my editor, whom I love and should probably add her name to the front cover, and to everyone who asked for Eli’s story and felt I’d done him wrong in
Seeing Eye Mate
. Thanks!

Chapter One

“Well what have we got here?”

Nicole Raine Taylor hesitated a split second and whipped her gaze toward the leering voice coming from her right. Her heart thumped once, twice, before settling into a more normal rhythm. The group of three young men hanging out by the open sliding door of a ratty van couldn’t be talking to her.

Keep walking. Don’t stop. No sense in giving them a reason to talk to her.

From the corner of her eye she saw the one who’d been leaning against the car next to the van stand straighter. She twisted her keys in her hand until they poked out between the clenched fingers of her fist.

Picking up the pace, Nikki hurried to the cherry red Jeep Wrangler she’d bought six months earlier. It was parked not more than fifteen or sixteen spots away. No problem.

“Where you goin’, pretty girl?”

Problem. Heavy footsteps sounded behind her along with a whistled catcall. Damn it. If only she’d thought to grab her cell phone out of her bag before leaving the Maxwell’s Department Store end of Scenic Rivers Mall.

Stupid
. Too damn stupid to live.

Shit. Not a good thought to have under the circumstances. She swallowed back the fear threatening to choke her and walked faster. With her free hand, Nikki reached into the bag swung over her shoulder and across her chest. Thunder vibrated the air, rumbling off in the distance. Prophetic.

“Lookin’ for yer phone, little girl?” asked another raspy-voiced male. Someone else cackled.

“That is one mighty sweet ass.”

“Hell yeah. I wish I had me some ass like that.”

Fuck. How many more spots? Twelve? Fifteen? Short of breaking into a run and urging on their little game, what could she do?

Scream bloody murder.

She jerked her gaze around the parking lot. No one. How could there be no one in this parking lot right now? And why the hell had she talked Derek out of those karate lessons? Obviously her brother knew better than her.

It wasn’t even completely dark yet. What did they think they were going to get away with?

“I asked you a question.”

Nikki startled at the low growl directly behind her and broke into a sprint, her shrill scream echoing across the lot. Not two feet from her destination, one of the men lunged at her, slamming her into the Jeep and crushing her into the crevice between the spare tire and the rear door. Her keys stabbed into her ribs just below her left breast. A huge hand smashed her face into the glass that made up part of the black removable hardtop. Pain radiated through her cheek.

Filthy, garlicky, garbage breath washed over her mouth and nose from between the massive fingers covering the half of her face not squished against glass.

“You thought you was gonna get away, didn’t you, sweet thing?”

His tongue traced her ear and bile rose in her esophagus.

She whimpered in disgust. The hand with her only weapon, her keys, was still trapped. The sharp metal gouged into the delicate skin between her fingers. Tears sprung beneath her eyelids.

“You give us what we want, we won’t hurt you. You hear me, little girl?”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She readied herself to scream again. Her chest welled with the intake of breath needed.

His fingers grasped her mouth in a crushing pinch, yanking her head farther to the side than its normal turning capacity.

“I said, did you hear me?” he hissed and shook her face.

As if he didn’t already have her attention. Nikki attempted to nod. The man released her chin and patted her cheek.

“Good girl.”

Christ what could she do? A sharp twinge zinged across her ribs, bringing her focus back to the keys in her hand.

Not your only weapon.
You have feet, knees, a brain.
Use them!

The rasp of a zipper sounded behind her. The dirty, foul-smelling hand returned to cover her face. His fingertips pressed into her eyelids while his palm prevented her from yelling out again.

“Wouldn’t want you to see us, now would we?”

You dumb sonofabitch, I already have.

Where the hell was everybody?

“Push her between the cars, Marco.”
The excited voice practically danced in her ears.

Marco, Marco, Marco. Nikki committed the name to memory. If she came out of this alive at least she had a name to go with the faces they foolishly thought she hadn’t seen.

No. No! Nikki scrambled through her brain. This would not happen. Jesus, how would she ever face Eli again? She needed him. For once in her life she needed him more than wanted him,
and he’d gone away on an extended business trip last week. He’d never gone on an extended business trip like this one before.

She tried to think about his arms wrapped around her in a hug, comforting her, telling her everything would be all right, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. If only he were in the country. If only she’d gotten the chance to try and convince the man how she really felt about him. And it for damn certain wasn’t as the little sister to his best friend.

Another set of hands grabbed her hips, pulling and tearing at her shorts. She felt the button pop and heard it drop to the ground in her heightened state of awareness.

An inhuman snarl erupted from Nikki’s throat and with strength she didn’t know she possessed, she shoved backward and jabbed her free elbow into her assailant’s soft belly. He grunted in surprise, and she turned, facing them.

“Bitch,” a second man hissed, backhanding her with a brutal swing of his arm.

Nikki stumbled, electric pain flaring across her mouth. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Beyond enraged, she raised her key-spiked hand and brought it down in a savage arc, raking it across the man’s face. He howled in pain and jerked back a step, covering his face with both hands. The third man stood shocked beside his two degenerate friends.

She took the millisecond advantage and moved into flight mode.

Somehow Nikki managed to unlock her door and jump in before the three assholes knew what happened. One of them came to life and shouldered into the driver’s door. The car shook as she punched down the lock with a fist.

Terror swept through her, lending to the adrenaline rush. Her hands were shaking hard and it took her three tries to get the key in the ignition.

Stupid!

Nikki laid on the horn as the engine roared to life. She twisted in her seat, looking back and forth for the men. Her breath heaved in and out, in sync with the wild hammer of her heart. She shifted into reverse and squealed out of the spot. Another quick check in the rearview mirror revealed nothing. The men had disappeared amidst the cars. They were still out there somewhere though, and they had to be angry.

Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating black clouds billowing on the horizon.

God, what should she do? Find a security guard in the mall, go to the station, call 9-1-1? Her hands shook uncontrollably as she tried to pull the phone out of the bag still draped around her shoulders. Finally she managed to dig it out. The antenna knob got stuck on something inside the bag.

“Damn it,” she yelled, tears spilling down her cheeks, her nose running. She jerked and managed to extract it only to inadvertently throw it across the passenger seat. It clattered to the floor between the seat and the door.

A wild sob tore from her throat. She had to report this. Now, before they got away. She’d have to find a guard.

“No,” she cried, wildly searching for the van again.

She would not get out of this Jeep to go in and look for a security guard. Fuck that. Wasn’t about to happen. She could call them from home. All she wanted to do right now was take a shower and wash away the filth she felt crawling on her skin, seeping beneath until it mingled in her bloodstream, contaminating her to the very core.

Nikki took the turn onto the outer road almost on two wheels, narrowly missing an oncoming car.

“Where the hell were you a minute ago?” she screamed. Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the coppery blood at the corner of her lip. Her ponytail had come loose in the altercation. She swept an unsteady hand through the long dark mess and tucked it behind her ear. Instinctively, she grappled with the seat belt, barely getting it clicked in place.

The shakes took over from the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet. She shouldn’t be driving. At this rate she was likely to cause an accident. Nikki pressed harder on the accelerator. Putting distance between her and the mall was her number one priority.

Fifteen minutes later, she took the exit toward home. Except for the nervous glances in all of the mirrors every few seconds, she didn’t remember driving the busy highway. Everything blurred in her mind.

The storm had picked up intensity, blowing leaves and trash in a whirlwind pattern across the two-lane highway she turned onto. Darkness had descended completely, lit up sporadically by the lightning. No matter. She could drive this stretch of lonely highway by rote, she’d done it so many thousands of times since turning sixteen. Not many people knew these back curving highways with hills to one side and short drop-offs to the other like she did.

She pursed her lips and moaned when the action pulled at the wound in the corner of her mouth. How in the hell would she explain her face to Derek when she got to their shared home? He’d be beyond livid.

Not to mention she had to somehow keep it from getting to Eli. The mere thought made her lightheaded. The man would flip, probably bunker down in protection mode and never let her out of the house again.

Like any big brother would.

Except Eli wasn’t her big brother. Derek handled that particular role. In spades. He would flip too. And probably go on a murderous rampage with Eli in tow. No, Eli would be in the lead. If he were in the friggin’ country, anyway.

“There. I won’t have to tell him. He’s not here.” A sob burst from her pursed lips. She needed Eli. Needed to feel his fantastic arms around her, telling her, no, promising her, this would be all right. She was ready for him to comfort her as a woman and not a kid sister, and he was in some godforsaken country babysitting some kind of dignitary.

Who was she kidding? He’d never look at her or touch her again after this. She’d forever be the poor little almost raped victim. No. She wouldn’t think that way. This was Eli, her brother’s best friend,
her
friend. The more likely scenario would be for him to hunt them down and kill them with his overprotective macho demeanor.

Damn, just thinking Eli might look at her differently choked her.

Bright lights bounced off the rearview mirror, blinding and disorienting her. She groped for the tab on the mirror to adjust it.

The dark ribbon of highway with intermittent private drives and woods swallowed her car as it ate up the miles. Miles she gladly put between her and the mall she would never shop at again. Derek would have to call and tell the security there what happened, because she didn’t even want to think about it anymore. She shivered. The sounds and smells returned with a vengeance. Just the thought of the garlic on that asshole’s breath made her queasy. Another thing she’d do without for a long time.

The Jeep lurched forward with a bone-grinding crunch to the rear bumper, wrenching her neck. Nikki gripped the steering wheel and clenched her jaw, a thousand things running through her mind.

“What the hell?”

She searched the side mirror but saw nothing. What happened to the car behind her? Had it spun off the road after hitting her? A shadow emerged with another lightning strike, outlining a car so close she couldn’t see the front end and either the headlights had gotten smashed or the driver had turned them off.