You Are Mine (42 page)

Excellent. The guy he'd called in a favor from had obviously done his job and made sure the cameras would be down.

Zac wouldn't have long though. The guards upstairs would soon spot the camera fail and start to investigate.

He headed for the elevator, using one of the keys from the desk to operate it, punching in the button for the penthouse floor, his Glock held at his side.

They'd probably be waiting for him by the time he got to the top, and sure enough, as the doors opened, he spotted a flash of movement. He didn't hesitate, firing immediately. The movement stopped. As the elevator chimed and the doors opened fully, one of the guards lay face down on the floor of the hall right in front of him.

Zac stepped over the body, checking the hall.

It was empty. Silent.

The hallway was white. White walls, white carpet, a white console table with a spray of white orchids sitting perfectly in the center. Expensive. Tasteful. Yet also lifeless. Passionless.

Perhaps like Fitzgerald himself?

Zac moved noiselessly down to the end of the hall, where a corridor branched in two directions. He knew, because he'd studied the plans to the apartment, that one way led to the lounge area. The other to Fitzgerald's private office.

Another flash of movement coming from the lounge.

Zac ducked back behind the corner of the hall, waited a beat, then stepped out and fired. The other guard who'd been coming for him dropped to the floor.

Zac kept still, listening.

No sound from anywhere else.

Two guards down which, if his intel was good, meant Fitzgerald was here by himself.

Zac turned and headed down the hall toward Fitzgerald office. The door was closed.

He kicked it open.

The room beyond was white, like the hall, a huge picture window framing the tops of the Manhattan skyscrapers and the beautiful blue day that was shining outside. Sunlight fell on the big white desk that sat in front of the windows, gleaming on the sleek silver computer screen that was pretty much the only thing on it.

Illuminating the man sitting behind it.

“Good morning, Mr. Rutherford,” Fitzgerald said, smiling. “I wondered when you'd get here.”

Zac raised his Glock. He hadn't planned on killing Fitzgerald right away since there was a good deal of information he wanted first. But a little in the way of an inducement wouldn't hurt. At least it wouldn't hurt him. It might hurt Fitzgerald quite a bit.

“I'd wait before pulling that trigger if I were you,” Fitzgerald said calmly. He didn't look the slightest bit worried, though he must have known Zac had just killed four of his henchmen.

It was his calm that made Zac check his desire to pull that trigger. “Give me one good reason.”

Fitzgerald leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk, clasping his hands together. “You're very clever, Mr. Rutherford. But don't say I didn't warn you. If you pull that trigger, kill me or harm me in any way, the person you care about most in the world will suffer the same fate.”

Zac went still as the other man's calm words began to penetrate.

Because there was only one person in the world he cared about.

Eva.

*   *   *

“Where the fuck are they?” Alex checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. “It's not like them to be this late. Especially not Zac.” Worry sat in his gut like a stone.

Katya was sitting on the couch, and he could see the same worry reflected in her green eyes. Honor stood near him by the empty fireplace, her arms folded. She was looking anxious too.

“Twenty minutes,” Gabriel said from his place behind one of the armchairs, his elbows on the back of it. “How long are we going to wait?”

“Something is wrong,” Katya said softly. “I can feel it.”

Alex glanced over at her, the worry becoming heavier and heavier. He trusted his bodyguard's instinct implicitly and if she felt something was wrong, then it definitely was.

Fuck.

He stopped pacing and thrust his hands in his pockets. “I hope to Christ you're wrong, Katya mine, but I don't think you are. I mean, they're never this late. I spoke to Eva an hour ago and she told me she'd be here.”

A heavy silence fell.

Gabriel abruptly pushed himself away from the armchair. “Fuck this. I'm not sitting around here wringing my hands. We need to go find out where they've got to.”

“How?” Alex demanded. “I've called Eva but it just goes straight through to voicemail. Zac's the same. Either their phones are out of juice or they've turned them off.”

“Both at the same time?” Honor looked from him to Gabriel, then flicked a glance at Katya. “Maybe there's a more innocuous explanation.”

Alex knew what his sister was getting at. Sex. But then, she didn't know either Eva or Zac as well as she knew Alex or Gabriel, and she wasn't aware of what Eva had revealed to him over the phone earlier that day. Sex was probably the last thing Eva wanted, especially with a guy like Zac. And most especially after what she'd been through.

“No,” he said flatly. “They're not sleeping together.”

Honor raised a brow. “How do you know?”

It wasn't his secret to tell, it was Eva's. But if something was wrong, the rest of them needed to hear it, especially if it had something to do with Fitzgerald. “Let's just say that Eva has personal experience with the kind of trafficking Fitzgerald could be associated with.”

Another silence fell.

“How the fuck did you find that out?” Gabriel's voice was harsh, a black kind of anger in his dark eyes.

Honor moved suddenly, crossing the space to where her lover stood, laying her fingers on his shoulder while covering his hand where it rested on the back of the armchair with her own. Gabriel glanced down at her, the two of them sharing one loaded, intimate look.

What the hell was going on there?

“She told me this morning,” Alex said, staring at them. “You guys need to share anything?”

Gabriel let out a short breath, meeting Alex's gaze. “Honor found papers in Tremain's overcoat when she was collecting his things from the hospital. The overcoat he wore when he was shot. It was a paternity test.”

“Fuck,” Alex breathed. “Not—”

“Fitzgerald is my father.”

The flat, uninflected words fell into the room like boulders.

Alex blinked, studying his friend's blunt features. “Shit, Gabe…” He stopped, not knowing what to say.

Gabriel lifted a shoulder, but his hand turned over, his fingers wrapping around Honor's. “It doesn't matter. I always knew my father was a prick. That he's turned out to be a fucking major prick isn't much of a surprise.”

“Why was Tremain carrying a paternity test?” Katya asked coolly.

Gabriel glanced over at her. “He was coming to meet me to tell me who my father was. But he was shot before he could. I guess that was proof. There were actually two tests. One proving he wasn't my father, and one proving Fitzgerald was.”

“Tremain must have had access to your DNA somehow,” Alex muttered, thinking it over. “I suppose getting Fitzgerald's was easy enough, considering they were buddies once.”

“‘I had to take the fall if anyone asked…'” Honor's voice was soft. “‘You can't say no. No one can say no.'”

Alex frowned at her. “What?”

“Tremain was forced into covering up for Fitzgerald,” Gabriel said. “That's what he told us the night I met him outside the Lucky Seven. He wrote the check that was supposed to pay my mother off.”

Honor's blue gaze turned from Gabriel and met Alex's. “Guy told us ‘they' also forced Dad into running the casino. That ‘they' were furious at him for running up debts.”

Ice water slid down Alex's spine as he stared at his sister. “Shit. ‘They' being Fitzgerald.” It made sense. It made a fuck load of sense. And it also meant that in all likelihood, Evelyn Fitzgerald had been the one to order his father's death.

“He's behind all of this.” Gabriel's dark voice promised retribution. “And I bet you anything you like that when Eva turned up at that fucking party, he decided to do something about it once and for all.”

“Elijah,” Katya said from the couch.

They all turned to look at her.

“The mercenary from Monte Carlo who warned us off,” she explained. “He must be working for Fitzgerald. I mean, why else would he want to destroy the evidence on Conrad's computer? He didn't want us to find anything that would link Conrad with Fitzgerald, that would identify Fitzgerald as being the ringleader. But Eva recognized the guard on the tape.”

Alex moved over toward her. “So what are you saying? We need to find this guy somehow?”

She stared up at him. “He warned us off. Told us that Eva and Zac's investigations had been discovered. Do you think that was his warning or Fitzgerald's?”

“You think he's on our side you mean?” Honor asked.

“Nothing is certain. But … he could be. And if he's working for Fitzgerald, then maybe he knows if Zac and Eva are in trouble.”

“Good enough for me,” Gabriel growled. “I say we track this prick down. Now.”

*   *   *

Zac kept himself very still. Did not lower his gun one inch. “I think,” he said carefully, “that you had better explain.”

Irritation crossed Fitzgerald's features and he sighed. “And here I was thinking you were intelligent. Explaining is clumsy, much better if I just show you instead.” His attention went to the screen of his computer. “Everything ready, Elijah?”

“Yes.” A cold, familiar voice sounded through the speakers. “We've just arrived.”

“Good.” Fitzgerald put a hand to the screen and turned it around to face Zac. “Say hello, Miss King.”

There was a window on the screen open, showing the interior of a car. Zac knew that car. It was Eva's limo. The camera was focused on a man sitting in one of the seats. Scarred face, emotionless black eyes. Zac met those eyes for one long second before the camera turned around to show the other person sitting in the car.

Eva. She was sitting there with her arms folded around herself, her expression tight, her mouth in a hard line. Yet as the camera turned and she saw him, her chin lifted, a small, determined tilt. “Hey asshole,” she said in what sounded like her normal voice. “Thanks for not answering your phone.”

But of course, it wasn't her normal voice. He could hear the fear in it. Could see terror in the depths of her gray eyes.

A clawed and taloned hand squeezed around his heart.

He opened his mouth to tell her it was going to be okay, but Fitzgerald turned the screen around before he could speak.

“Thank you, Elijah,” the older man said. “I think I've illustrated my point nicely.” He hit a button on the keyboard, then leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped on the desktop. In his beautifully tailored, dark blue Hart Brothers suit, he looked like a wealthy and prosperous banker, not what in actual fact he was. A murderer. A rapist. A human trafficker.

“The gun, Mr. Rutherford,” he reminded mildly. “I'm sure you won't want anything to happen to your lovely girl should it go off accidentally.”

Inside Zac, his rage howled. It beat at the walls of its cage, wanting to get out. Pull the trigger. Spray the bastard's brains all over his spotless window.

Instead Zac lowered the gun. He could, of course, have pretended that Eva meant nothing to him, but he didn't think Fitzgerald would believe him. The man was too cold and calculating to leave anything like that to chance. “You don't mind if I keep it?” Zac made sure he betrayed no sign of the fury that burned as hot as lava. “It has sentimental value.”

Fitzgerald, supremely arrogant, lifted a shoulder. “Be my guest. Just don't point it at me.”

Zac put his gun away in his overcoat pocket.

Christ. They'd got to Eva. He hadn't had her as well protected as he'd thought. How the fuck had Fitzgerald managed to do that?

Fear had joined the anger, a current of cold running through the heat, but Zac shoved the emotion away.

As if the man knew exactly what he was thinking, Fitzgerald gave a slight smile. It didn't reach his eyes, which remained chips of blue ice. “You should be more careful with your employees in the future. In case you were wondering.”

His employees … The hand in his pocket still close to his gun clenched. Eva had been in her own limo. Which could only mean one thing. “Temple.”

Fitzgerald inclined his head. “Indeed. Everyone has a price, as you should know.”

Zac had vetted Eva's driver thoroughly. Had hired her himself based on a number of excellent references. So how had Fitzgerald gotten to her? What had he promised?

With an effort, Zac unclenched his fingers. Made himself relax. He couldn't afford any distracting emotions, not now. Not if he wanted to get them both out of this alive.

“Well,” he said flatly. “Now we've got the drama out of the way, I suppose we're at the point of the proceedings where I ask you what the fuck you want?”

Fitzgerald gave another slight smile, his brow creasing. “You know, I haven't quite decided yet.” He paused. “I have to admit, I was moderately annoyed with you and your little group of friends. Poking your noses in where they weren't wanted, interfering with my business. In fact, I've had to close down a number of lucrative operations because of you. The Lucky Seven, my friend Conrad's casino in Monte Carlo. Both of them good businesses.” Fitzgerald let out a breath. “I don't like people messing with businesses, Mr. Rutherford. I don't like it at all. It makes me very angry.”

Zac said nothing, watching him as he rose slowly out of his chair and came around the desk to lean back against it, his arms folded.

“I also had to order the deaths of several good friends because of you and your interference,” Fitzgerald went on conversationally. “That also makes me angry.”