Claiming Her (Keeping Her Series) (24 page)

“When the fuck were you
planning on giving me this message?”

Rickarts’ mouth snapped
shut and his face blanched, the answer written clearly there for all of them to
see.  He was never planning to give anyone that message.

Lucas snarled.  “Where
is the phone number?”

He started scrambling back;
looking at his face Miley wanted to curse like the rest of the men were.  He didn’t
keep the number. 

Since it was clear
Lucas was planning to rip Rickarts’ head off and not a soul was going to stop
him, it was with some surprise that Miley blinked when, at that second, there
was a whoosh of sound as the Enforcer was stepping back and Rickarts’ head hit
the dirt.  The body tumbled to stillness a second later.

Everyone turned to look
at the Enforcer, who besides giving a tight-lipped angry face, merely said, “He
was done,” with no further explanation.  Though the severed head was pretty
self-explanatory in its way. 

No one was willing to
dwell on it.  Lionsgate trooped out leaving behind a headless corpse, a shocked
Council Rep still staring at the body in disbelief, and the Enforcer.  What
Welsby would put in his report was questionable.  The Enforcer looked unworried
and he did give Lucas a card and a sentence in that arctic voice as they were
leaving.  He said, “If you need any help to get your girl.”  Then he was gone,
and so were they.

If Miley had not been
out of her mind with worry about both Cleo and Lucas, she might have dwelled on
these events, but the only thing she was contemplating was the cold feel of
Lucas’ hand around hers as he dragged her behind him. His face in a deep freeze
the likes of which she had never seen, and hoped never to see again.

***

Cleo woke up, her head fuzzy
and her hands clanking with the handcuffs securing her.  It took her a minute
to clear her thoughts.  Her head was pounding and her thoughts hazy, but she
was waking up fast.  Especially when she looked around and saw she was in a
giant cage that took up most of the room around her.  A room she had never seen
before in her life. 

“Son of a bitch,” she
muttered, letting her head fall back to the bed with a hard bounce, which was a
really bad idea. 
Ouch.
  Plus the sound was annoying against her
aggrieved head.  She could hear the springs rubbing with each movement on the
thin mattress.  But then she had bigger problems.  “Not again,” she groaned,
listening to her cuffs clink as she tried to rub her eyes.  “Dad’s going to
freakin’ kill me.”

She remembered locking
down the plane in the Lionsgate hangar.  One of the techs had been there. 
Leon,
Leonard?   Something with an L.
  She had closed and secured the door, and
stowed her gear.  The last thing she remembered was walking between the last
two SUVs that were stored at the hangar.  There had been the overwhelming smell
of gas and she had made a note to find where the spill happened before she left
the hangar.  Then she had come around the end of the bay and . . . Pain, then,
nothing. 

Cleo felt the back of
her head where the ache was pulsing.  There was a large bump the size of a
baseball and it hurt like hell when she gingerly examined it by touch.  Someone
had gotten the drop on her, probably using the gas smell to cover their scent. 
But how had they just carried her off Lionsgate property without security
throwing down?  Of course, with her being beddy-by, there could have been a
major military skirmish and she would not know.  That’s what she got for
letting her guard down because she was home. 
Moron.

At least she still had
her boots on, and although they had stripped her of most of her weapons, her
khaki pants were in place, her favorite “Heavily Armed, Easily Pissed” t-shirt
Eli had gotten her for her birthday was untouched, and her boots were still
laced.  No way did they get all her weapons if she was fully dressed.  She
looked around carefully, searching for any telltale light or smell that meant fiber
optics or company.  All she could smell was moldy old home and the iron in the
bars.  And distantly, wet dog.  Since light was coming through the seriously
dirt-crusted window, she knew at least that it was daytime. 

When she was satisfied
she was alone and unobserved, she flipped her feet over her head so that she
could pull a thin wire from the hidden pocket, one of many her boots all
contained.  Within seconds, she was free of the cuffs and rubbing her reddened
wrists as she stood up.  They had cleaned her out of most of her weapons, but
they did not examine the boots longer than it took to clear out her knives.  She
still had a garrote, the lock-picking wire, two throwing stars, some odds and
ends, and if she hit it just right, the blade at the tip of the boot flipped
out and became a weapon.  Whoever had her either had no idea what they were
doing or just underestimated women completely. 
Amateurs.

Walking around the
circumference of the room, Cleo noted that the cage was definitely shifter-made. 
No way could she bend or break the bars.  It was not bolted to the floor. 
Another rookie mistake.  Cleo flipped the lumpy mattress over and found the
exposed springs hooked to the metal rails. 
How did anyone this stupid get
the drop on me in the first place?
  She sighed, and then started to
dismantle her bed.

***

They did not want to
waste time after departing Omaha to take Miley home.  So she was working with
Eli on her laptop, while the men strategized and called in markers for
information all over the Gulfstream jet’s expensive leather seating.  They were
headed to the only lead they had in hopes that it would pan out.  No one was
talking much except in harsh whispers, and Miley could feel the territorial
aggression saturating the air around them.  To make matters more interesting,
they had lost touch with their man on the ground who was supposedly checking
the Bidel lead.  Either he was just somewhere with no reception or Bidel was
there and he ran into trouble.  Miley was actually hoping it was no reception,
the guy was fine,
and
Bidel was there.  In any case, they had no choice
but to go check it out and hope that it would lead to Bidel and an unharmed
Cleo.  Without that, they would have no other leads unless Bidel attempted to
contact them directly.  But there was a reason he had gone through Rickarts. 
He knew Lionsgate specialized in just this situation and he did not want to
give them an electronic signature to follow.

Eli had set Miley up on
her laptop checking any hits with possible aliases on properties.  Nothing. 
Whatever he was doing he didn’t appear to have any luck either, from the
flagrant and varied cursing coming her way.  She looked over at a particularly
violent curse then looked over at Lucas who, like all the men, had changed on
the plane to commando black.  He was strapped with weapons as were all the
guys, and he was staring at nothing, his eyes looking like iced-over rage in
his hardened face.  She knew better than to go to him now.  Not when he wore
his warrior face.  He was holding himself back, but give him the smallest
target and he would explode with violent intent.  If it was anybody but Cleo,
she might actually be feeling sorry for Bidel right now.  Miley closed her eyes
briefly on a prayer. 
Please let her be alright. 
If Cleo was actually
hurt . . . She did not even want to finish that sentence.

Cleo slipped the
flattened bedrail under the edge of the cage bottom and levered it up.  It rose
about an inch if she used her full body weight, before the rail slipped out and
dropped with a clang.  She winced at the sound, but pushed a piece of the
dismantled frame closer to the cage with her foot.  Then she lifted it again,
and shoved at the piece with her foot at the same time.  After a few more
over-loud clangs, she managed to wedge it under, keeping the cage elevated a
half inch up from the concrete.  Then she shoved the lever farther under that
and lifted it higher; her muscles straining, she had to lean over the lever while
at the same time using her foot to move the rolled up mattress under the
opening and wedge it there.  By the time she accomplished that, she was
breathing heavily and shaking from the muscle strain.  She dropped to the floor
and worked herself through the opening she made.  Then she headed for the
window to assess her situation.

***

It was still daylight
when they took the house.  On the outskirts of Dundee, Oregon, it was situated
in a fairly populated area, but the house itself was set far from the street on
an acre and separated by tall evergreens.  It was drizzling, the sky overcast,
as Oregon usually was this close to Portland, and the sounds of the distant
busier street was buffered by the trees and rain.  They had caught up with
Logan’s guy, a skinny teenage shifter who looked Native American and changed
into a crow.  Lucas took one look at the kid and lifted a brow at Logan.  He
shrugged sending the boy home and out of the danger zone before he spoke.

“Orphan.  His mother
kicked him out when he took after his crow father.  In her culture, a crow is a
death omen, bad luck.  He needed a job and a place to live.  I made sure he
understands how to stay safe and under the radar.”

They could hear voices in
the house and smell wolves.  Demon growled low at one point, and nodded to
Lucas.  Bidel was in the house.  They surrounded the house, taking out the
guards quietly as they went.  There were four patrolling and two with rifles
high in the trees.  It wasn’t nearly enough.  Demon and Logan took the front
door.  Shawn headed for the roof and would come in through the top floors.  Mac
and Ben took the door in the back and the side window.  Eli took to the trees
as jaguar and waited for anyone coming or going.  His only motion the tip of
his tail flicking back and forth in the tall pines.

Lucas kicked in the
door with a crash while Eli watched, and Mac took that as the sign and
shouldered through to the kitchen at the back of the house, the same time glass
shattered upstairs.  They moved fast.  Two on each floor, two taking the stairs
to the basement.  Demon stepped around Lucas and followed his nose to Bidel.  The
place was a sty, and there was a lot of garbage, putrid food smells, and
unwashed wolf-shifter to confuse the scent trail.  But Demon was not likely to
forget the smell of the man who had made his childhood a living hell.

Following the hallway
with Lucas behind him, he ended up at one of the bedroom doors.  He nodded to
Lucas to keep his cover and he turned and kicked the door in.  Moving to cover
fast while bullets peppered the walls and hallway where he would have been – if
he was a fucking moron.

***

The window was high and
covered from the outside with a thin layer of newspaper and on the inside with
layers of dust, but she could see the shadow of a grate blocking her escape. 
If she could get up there and break the glass, removing the grate might be
possible.  But it was not going to be her first choice.  Not when she had a
perfectly good locked door to walk through.

She heard the commotion
when she was just kneeling to unlock it, and she smelled something coming her
way that was a little unexpected and not to mention worrisome.  She hid the
lock-pick wire back in her boot and palmed a throwing star.  Then she backed up
as far as the giant cage that took up the room would allow, which wasn’t far,
and moved along it to the side of the door.

After a brief tussle
with the lock, a young man in a suit opened the door and walked in.  He blinked
at the cage resting up off the floor and tilted over the rolled mattress.  By
the time he turned to look for Cleo, she was wrapped around his back, a
throwing star at his neck and her lips against his ears.

“Quiet,” she said
softly.  The man utterly froze at the first sting of the blade.  “You want to
tell me why lions are holding me hostage? . . . and if you tell me this is some
fucked up breeding thing, I will gut you where you stand.”

***

“Top floor is clear,”
Shawn said, just as Ben joined him.  “Clear in the basement.”  Mac came up to
the huddle at the decimated doorway, his voice grim.  “She’s not fucking here.”

They turned together and
looked into the room where Lucas and Demon were standing knee deep in Bone
Crusher wolves.  Demon had 200 pounds of solid ornery wolf hanging by his neck
against the far wall; he was bleeding from a wound in his side and a bad one on
his chest.  Another one on his thighs was an open cavity of pulverized bone. 
Lucas was standing beside them with bloody claws out, ready to start on the
other leg.

“Where is Cleo Gibbs,
you sorry piece of shit?” Demon roared, shaking the man who had frequently
beaten him as a child.  “Where!?”

Bidel was actually
laughing through the blood bubbles spraying from his mouth.  “Gone.”  He
screamed when Lucas shoved his claws in his other thigh and rooted around. 
Bidel actually laughed again when Lucas pulled back his bloody hands with the
sound of sucking flesh.  His eyes wild, crazy, and mean, he screamed in their
faces.  “Sold her like the bitch she is!”