Ultimate Surrender (12 page)

“
T
his is all a really
big misunderstanding,” Lucian said.

The state patrol officer mustered enough energy to give him a smile that said he’d never heard that one before, and then he went back to writing in his notebook.

Lucian had been in the backseat of a police car before, but never in this situation, and definitely not when the need to see Cassandra burned into his brain like a fire, not when he was so fucking concerned for her he thought he might come out of his skin.

Not that the officer noticed or cared.

He
had
probably heard that excuse, or some variation of it, a thousand times before, but Lucian knew that wasn’t the sum of it. Lucian had been speeding, the conversation with Adam having made his normally heavy foot even heavier, but nothing so bad as to warrant such an over-the-top reaction. A leftover of Damien’s notoriety, and by extension, Silver Industries’.

“Lots of paperwork on this one. Your lucky day, I guess,” Lucian said.

“And not yours, apparently,” the trooper replied. Then he went back to scribbling.

Lucian stewed as he sat in the back of the car. His brazen incompetence warred with anxiety during the seemingly interminable ride to trooper headquarters and the long walk to the holding cell.

The urge to rip the bars off the door, or try to, to get to Cassandra was so strong he could barely hold it in. But he couldn’t do anything that would delay him longer. Adam had heard some of the call, had probably guessed there was trouble, and Lucian trusted that he knew what to do.

Either way, he’d be out of here soon enough. In the meantime, he’d have to wait.

And try to stay sane.

Cass stared at the gaping hole where the doorknob had been, oddly fascinated with it.

The integrity of the door remained. The door was splintered where the knob had been but the splinters got smaller and smaller as they fanned out to a smooth surface.

One that could almost make her believe that everything was as it had been just moments ago.

If she tilted her head just right, she wouldn’t even see the hole, just Lucian’s door.

That wasn’t possible when the door was thrown open and a man stepped inside.

She didn’t want to look at him, but much like the hole that he had shot into the door, she was unable to look away.

He stared back at her, watching her curiously, and never had Cassandra felt more like a frog on the dissection table.

Her blood ran cold at that thought, and she quickly looked up to meet his eyes. Flat blue, not menacing, not warm. Empty, completely unfeeling.

Cassandra’s heart began to pound, her armpits suddenly becoming damp with the new rush of terror.

“A friend of Tammy’s?” she asked, her voice trembling when she finally managed to find one.

“‘Tammy’? I didn’t realize you two knew each other,” he said.

“I didn’t either, at least not until recently,” Cass replied, deciding that directness was probably her best approach. This guy was nuts; there was no other way to explain him risking coming to Lucian’s apartment. But, though he was crazy, he seemed more wound together than the last insane person Cassandra had encountered, and his degree of calm made Cassandra think he could handle the truth much better than Tammy had.

He lifted one corner of his mouth, though the expression was one she wouldn’t dare call a smile.

“That doesn’t surprise me. Tammy could get…intense,” he said, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. “You ever figure out what it was about you that she liked so much?”

Cassandra risked meeting his eyes again and then quickly shook her head.

He shrugged. “Me neither, but I guess that’s beside the point now,” he said.

“I guess. So…”

The man lifted his brows, the shaggy brown giving his expression an almost friendly tilt, except for the dead coldness that seemed to shoot from his eyes like lasers of ice.

“So…so what?”

“So is there something I can help you with?” she asked, hoping he’d have a simple request, one that would allow her to be free of this entire sad experience forever.

He frowned. “Maybe I’m here for revenge. Tammy was as crazy as a shithouse rat, but she was my sister,” he said.

Cass said nothing, not certain of what she would, not certain that anything she did say would make the slightest bit of difference.

And yet he watched her, his expression not changing.

Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth turned up, then his cheeks lifted, transforming his entire face, giving him that mimic of friendliness.

“Just kidding. Shame about Tammy, but I told her to leave you alone,” he said.

Cassandra couldn’t stop her exhale of surprise.

He shrugged again.

“I did. I warned her. But she might have been smarter than I gave her credit for.”

And just like that, his features were again flat, eyes empty, and that feeling of being the frog being prepped for dissection returned triple force.

“Do I even want to know?” Cassandra asked, her voice coming out weak, shaky. She didn’t want to know, but he would tell her anyway.

“Probably not.”

“But you’re going to tell me anyway,” Cassandra said, her voice again trembling.

“Yes. I am,” he said, lifting his face in a blood-chilling smile. “Tammy’s been breathing over your pictures for years, but I never paid it any mind. At least, I didn’t until I happened to see that you are in the employ of some very interesting people,” he said.

Cassandra’s heart seized. If Silver Industries was of interest, this situation had gone to an entirely different level.

“What’s your name?” Cassandra asked.

“Elton. My mother’s pick,” he said. Then he narrowed his eyes on her. “Where were we?”

Cassandra’s first impulse was to stay silent but the expression on his face told her he would not be amused by that.

“You were telling me I came to your attention,” Cassandra said.

He snapped his fingers. “Yeah. Tammy happened to take a picture of none other than Lucian Silver. At your house. With you.”

“I work for him,” Cassandra said slowly, carefully.

“Cassandra”—he paused—“do you mind if I call you Cassandra?” She nodded and he continued. “I might have believed you.
Might
have. But you know what else I found?”

He narrowed his eyes on her again, his expression one that said he demanded an answer.

She shook her head, her throat unwilling to relax enough to let her voice out.

“Another picture. One of you and Damien Silver. One brother I can overlook. Two not so much. And since you’re still around after all that…unpleasantness, I couldn’t help but think old Tammy had stumbled onto someone important,” he said.

She risked glancing up at Elton, hoping he wasn’t insinuating what she thought he was. One look at him proved her wrong. “I’m not, Elton, and I don’t have anything of value,” she replied, finding her voice from somewhere.

His eyes flashed and he smiled quickly. “Don’t be so modest, Cassandra. You are important, and I believe you do have something important,” he said.

“No, I don’t. My role at Silver Industries is very limited, I don’t have any higher-level clearances. A man of your caliber wouldn’t find anything I might know of value.”

“Even if what you say is true, it doesn’t matter much. You might not have the information, but Silver does, and I wonder what he’d be willing to give up to get you back,” he said.

Cassandra’s knees threatened to buckle, her chest pulled tight with worry, but she stood strong.

“Elton, you can walk right out of here. Leave and end this before it gets started,” she said.

He snorted. “I think I’ll stay. Please have a seat, Cassandra.” He looked toward her cold eggs and toast. Cassandra was glad she hadn’t taken a bite, certain she wouldn’t have been able to keep anything down. He turned back to her.

“Do you mind if I have some breakfast?”

L
ucian stared
at the metal bars and the small Plexiglas window, trying to figure out how best to break the glass and then shrink himself to get out of the window. He’d been here for forty-five minutes already. It felt like forty-five hours, forty-five days, and the seconds were only getting longer, his fear for Cassandra having morphed to a level he had never experienced, not even in the desert or the jungle.

Here, on his turf, in his home, he was powerless to help the woman he now realized he loved.

He tried to tell himself he was overreacting, remind himself that he had no evidence that Tammy’s brother was alive, or even that he had any interest in Cassandra.

Tried and failed.

Because the rationalizations, the theories, none of them calmed the raging concern in his mind and nothing would until he saw her.

Which seemed less likely as each moment passed. He hadn’t even gotten his promised phone call, and who knew when that would happen?

The frustration alone was enough to give him the strength to rip the bars apart, but Lucian held himself back. His guys would come through.

“Never thought I’d get to bail out my boss.”

At the sound of Seth’s voice, Lucian stopped pacing and hurried to the cell door. One glimpse at his friend, and Lucian’s worst fears were confirmed. Though he’d joked, Lucian didn’t miss the tightness around Seth’s eyes, the tension in his shoulders that was present even though he held his body loose. He also didn’t miss the way he watched the trooper who held the key, eyes glued on his every move, urging him nearly as much as Lucian did.

“You owe me, Seth,” the trooper said as he slid the key into the lock.

“I saved your ass, Bobby. This is nothing,” Seth replied.

The trooper nodded. “That you did, which is the only reason I’m doing this. You’re paying for the lawyer if I get arrested.”

“No, but he will,” Seth said, looking in Lucian’s direction.

Lucian didn’t argue. He’d buy the entire Supreme Court if this guy hurried the fuck up. But he didn’t say that and instead held the slippery threads of calm as tightly as he could as the trooper finally unlocked the door and then led them out of the station.

There were a few raised eyebrows, but no one tried to stop them. Still, it wasn’t until Seth had slid behind the wheel, Lucian on the passenger side, and they had driven off, leaving the station far away in the distance, that Lucian allowed himself to breathe.

It was a short breath, not at all calming, but it allowed him to speak.

“Where are we?” he said, the words coming out short, clipped, but he managed to maintain something of his professional tone, for which he was grateful. He’d fall into the role of commander, try to distance himself from this, if only because he knew that was the only way he’d stay sane.

“Adam’s on scene. Cruz is in a fallback position. Cassandra is still in your apartment with a lone male presumed to be Elton Miller.”

Having the truth of what he’d suspected confirmed did nothing to help Lucian, but he didn’t freak out either.

“Is she…?”

“Adam was headed there before you got arrested. Miller got there first. But he has eyes on her. She’s fine.”

“For now,” Lucian said, giving voice to what he and Seth and probably Cassandra knew to be true. This situation might appear calm now, might stay that way for a while longer, but Cassandra was in the gravest danger of her life.

Seth cast one sidelong glance at him and then slammed his foot on the gas pedal.

“
Y
ou should relax
, Cassandra. We might be here a while,” Elton said.

She didn’t even bother to look over at him, knowing that if she did, she would face a difficult choice: give in to the rage that made her want to stab him in the neck with a dull knife or give in to the fear that she would never leave here. Neither option was viable, so she kept her gaze centered out over the Seattle skyline and ignored him.

Elton clucked, the sound halfway between disappointment and annoyance, but from the corner of her eye, Cassandra saw him shrug. “Your choice. You can be as uncomfortable as you like, but you’re not leaving here until I get what I came for.”

A protest burned on the tip of her tongue, but Cassandra still said nothing. They’d had this conversation before, more than once, and she didn’t seem to be getting through to him, so she wouldn’t waste her breath.

Besides, there was nothing that would convince Elton she wasn’t a gold mine of information, or that Lucian, that the men of Silver Industries, wouldn’t do whatever it took, give him whatever he asked to see her returned safely.

She swallowed at that thought, then immediately pushed it away. Her fate was in question. She couldn’t ignore that. But what she could do, what she would do, was keep her wits about her and not make it any harder on Lucian and the others as they tried to bring this to a close.

Because clearly, Elton was beyond reason. If she had access to sensitive information he sought, there was no way she would give it to him. If Lucian did, and Cassandra didn’t doubt that he did, she knew he wouldn’t put the lives of countless others at risk, soldiers, innocent people, all to appease Elton and save her.

So they’d get her out of there some other way.

And when the time came, she’d be ready.

“Whose genius idea was it for me to move into the fucking heart of downtown?” Lucian said, voice grating out of his throat.

“I believe it was your idea, boss,” Seth said.

Lucian glanced over at him, then saw the slight uptick of the side of his mouth, certain his words had been employed to distract Lucian from the traffic that seemed to be at a standstill. And it worked, at least for a moment. An instant later, though, Lucian was again looking straight ahead, the sea of cars in front of him, unmoving, each a frustrating obstacle that kept him away from Cassandra for longer and longer.

He’d talked to Adam, knew that Elton Miller was in fact in his condo, that Cassandra was with him. What he didn’t know yet was what Elton was waiting for, but Lucian knew, deep in his bones, he was waiting for something, and that he would leverage Cassandra in whatever way he could.

He clamped down the shudder that threatened to emerge at the thought of her being used as leverage, the thought of her having to share space with someone like Miller, someone who had absolutely no care for her well-being.

Instead he focused on the cars in front of them, could see his building, sleek, tall, standing out just a bit above the rest, so tantalizingly close but so far away.

“Change of plans,” he said as he reached for the door handle.

Before he could open the door, Seth had put the SUV in Park and was getting out of the driver side.

“Excellent plan,” he said and together they took off at a desperate pace, dodging the people who strolled along the sidewalks and ignoring the blaring horns and curses that followed them as people tried to maneuver around the parked SUV. A shitty thing to do, but Lucian couldn’t possibly care less and knew that nothing, nothing at all, was more important than getting to Cassandra.

He reached his building and grabbed the front door, moving automatically, but Seth’s staying hand on his arm stopped him.

“Adam set up across the street. Gives us a better vantage point.”

“What are you talking about? I’m going up there and—”

“No,” Seth said, shaking his head. “You don’t know what he’s up to, and we need to be smart about this. We just can’t barge in, guns blazing.”

Seth was right, but Lucian still held the door tight in his hand. Held it for a second longer, the urge, almost irresistible, to go to Cassandra spurring him on, making him want to cast aside all reason.

Finally, after several more long moments, he relented.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Seth nodded and a moment later they began weaving their way through the four lanes of traffic that separated his home from an office building across the way.

It was new construction, and Lucian had even considered relocating some of Silver’s operations here. He hadn’t pulled the trigger on the deal yet, but he knew the top two floors were empty. Without confirming it with Seth, he made his way to the elevator, reluctantly acknowledging it would take him up the forty-five flights of stairs faster than he could run, and waited, the floors passing him by one after another, the urgency increasing.

When the doors finally opened, Lucian stepped out onto the top floor and immediately headed to Adam, who had set up a makeshift base in the unfinished penthouse.

“What we got?” he said.

Adam was hunched over, busily looking through his binoculars, and spoke to Lucian without looking up.

“One hostile. Elton Miller. One friendly. Cassandra Portersen.”

Neither Adam nor Seth was treating this with anything less than complete seriousness, which only convinced Lucian his concerns that Cassandra was in grave danger were correct.

“Weapons? Backup?”

“Haven’t seen anything to indicate either, but I know he has something,” Adam said.

“What do you mean?” Seth asked.

“Guys like that don’t work without something on hand. I don’t see any firearms, though they could be concealed. But he has something,” Adam said with certainty.

He lowered his binoculars and turned to look at Lucian, extending them as he did.

Lucian took the offered binoculars and pulled them up to his eyes, focusing five stories below to his fortieth-floor unit.

The privacy shades were completely open, and he knew that Cassandra was the reason. He sometimes liked to enjoy the view, but for the most part didn’t like being as exposed as he was when the shades were open. But Lucian was grateful Cass had opened the blinds this morning after he’d left because they gave him a perfect view of the living room.

A perfect view of Cassandra as she sat, seeming to try to melt into one corner of his sofa.

Outwardly she looked fine, her expression neutral, not suggesting she was in any particular danger.

But Lucian knew her now, and as he looked closer he noticed the way her shoulders were hunched up practically to her ears, the way she kept one hand gripped tight across her knee, the narrowing of her eyes, which were usually so open, so direct.

She was afraid, as afraid as he’d ever seen her, and again, the horror of seeing that on her face grabbed him so he was leaning forward almost as if he could get to her.

But he couldn’t, so after a deep breath, he looked away and found the target. Miller moved around behind Cassandra, wandering aimlessly but not anxiously, his movements more suggestive of hyperactivity, someone who could never quite be still more than a second, making him very dangerous. But Lucian wouldn’t be swayed by appearance.

He looked closer, didn’t see any weight in his steps that suggested he had a weapon at his ankle, looked up and didn’t see anything indicative of a holster or other concealed weapon in his waistband or undershirt.

So Adam’s assessment that he didn’t have a firearm, at least not on him, had been correct. But Lucian wasn’t a fool.

That he was calm enough to infiltrate Lucian’s home and to do so without a handgun only spoke to his training and his commitment.

And if he’d had no hesitation about coming there, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Cassandra.

“You got a phone?”

“We set something up,” Seth supplied.

Lucian nodded. “Give it to me. I’m going to make contact.”