Erased (22 page)

Success. Coordinates Found.

Got you, asshole.

I send the location to my phone, kill the program, and wipe it in case someone gets into my office while I’m gone. Then I’m out the door.

I’ve got you, Joss.

“DID HE HURT you?” Jack asks softly from the driver’s seat. Anger laces his voice, and I suppress a shiver.

Yes.
“No.”

We drive a few more minutes in silence. My chin keeps quivering, and I once again have to bite my lip to get it to quit.

Slade is Gideon.
God, how could I have been so stupid? His voice. His scent. I knew it all along. I just chose on a deep, psychological level to push that fact away. My eyes had landed on that beautiful man and accepted him as my protector. As my lover.

“I’ve been staying at a hotel downtown. Paid cash. He won’t find us there,” he promises with an edge to his voice that raises every internal flag in my body.

“Are you just visiting?” I ask in a whisper as I watch the buildings pass by in a blur.

He puts on his blinker, which is very Kent-like, and pulls into a mid-grade, empty hotel parking lot. “You could say that.”

His demeanor is freaking me out, but I know it’s just because my nerves are on edge. The Korean men who came into the bar last night were the ones coming after me. They were the bad guys.

And Gideon.

Derek fucking Slade.

Tears sting my eyes as he whips into a parking spot. After he turns off the car, we both climb out and walk around to the trunk, where he stowed my bags. As he lifts the heavy suitcase, I grab the straps of the large bag that my laptop and purse are stuffed into.

“What kind of business?” I probe. My eyes find his as he slams the trunk a little too forcefully, which makes me jump.

“The important kind,” he smirks.

Asshole.

Jill threatens to give him what for, but Joss calms her down.

We need him to get out of here.

The entire walk through the empty hotel lobby is a quiet one. Too quiet. As we enter the elevator and begin our ascent, I feel another shiver.

“Room 407. It’s right this way,” he calls to me as he exits onto the fourth floor.

Without a choice, I follow him down a hallway that has a faint scent of stale smoke. My stomach roils, and I pray to God I don’t get sick. Finally, he stops in front of the door and inserts his keycard, it makes a ding and he pushes it open.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he says politely as I follow him in.

My eyes quickly roam the room, and I cringe when I see a queen-sized bed. I’d hoped for two. I’m so damn tired, but I am not sleeping with Jack.

When I peel my gaze from the bed, I find him staring at me, no longer holding the suitcase. His gaze isn’t friendly like it usually is. It’s satisfied. And it scares the hell out of me. I flinch when he stalks over to me and almost sigh audibly out of relief when he reaches down for my bag. With shaking hands, I reluctantly hand it over to him.

“I can just make a place on the floor, but I really need to get some sleep if I plan on being at the bus station in a few hours. Thank you for your hospitality, Jack. You’re a true friend,” I murmur and attempt a smile.

He walks over to the bed and sets my bag down before turning back to look at me. This time, I don’t miss it. There’s a wickedness behind those friendly, blue eyes. Not very Kent-like at all.

“You never told me why you left him. He didn’t hurt you, so why else would you steal away in the middle of the night?” he questions. It’s almost as if he already knows what my answer will be.

“I . . . uh . . . Well,” I stammer out and drop my eyes to the desk in an effort to escape his gaze while I formulate a lie.

And then I see it.

My picture.

Hundreds of them—all scattered about the desk. Some with my blond hair. Some at my concerts as I pound away on the piano. Many of me in the bar.

Fuck.

“Oh, Joss, I guess you figured out what sort of business I’m into. I’m sorry we never got a chance to fuck, but you’re just a job. And you’re worth a whole fucking lot,” he chuckles darkly behind me.

I start to whirl around to face him head on, but I’m not quick enough to avoid the butt of his gun against the back of my skull.

As blackness sets in, one thing is certain.

Slade was right.

“Wake up, Jossy girl.”

The familiar voice sends warmth surging into my heart—that is until I crack my eyes open. Until I realize I’m not seven years old and Uncle Bruce is not waking me up to tell me that he is taking me to Disney World.

Terror seizes me when I come to and see my beloved godfather smiling at me with a shit-eating grin. Awareness hits me quickly, and I scramble away from him. That idiot Jack must have left me on the floor, because I am halted on my journey to escape him when the leg of the desk jabs me in the back.

“Where do you think you’re going, Jossy girl?” he laughs as if I’m once again seven years old and amusing him with my silly, childish ways.

Are all the men in my life hell-bent on betraying me?

“Let me go, Bruce. I don’t have what you want. I can’t get you what you want. You saw how Dad reacted last time. He won’t give you what you want. Not even for me,” I admit bitterly.

His gaze loses its humor as he glares at me. “He’s a stupid man. I’d have done it for you, Joss.”

I know he would, but it doesn’t change the fact that he isn’t in the position of my dad right now. Bruce is the bad guy.

“Please, Uncle Bruce,” I beg tearfully.

There was once a time when I could get him to buy me an expensive pair of jeans or let me have ice cream before dinner by just filling my eyes with tears. Unfortunately, he seems immune now.

He looks away and snarls at Jack, “Get William on the line. Use this phone.”

Jack catches the disposable phone he tossed at him and begins dialing my father.

“Please,” I try again. “Don’t make me watch him deny me again.”

I hear his telltale sniffle and I burst into tears. Where is the uncle who was every bit of a father to me as my own?

Through my sobs, I beg some more. “Please, Uncle Bruce. I can’t lose my fingers.”

When he snaps his head back over to me, my heart sinks. There’s no trace of my sweet uncle in his venomous gaze.

“You won’t lose your fingers,” he snarls, “but you’ll lose your blood. All of it.”

My eyes widen in horror as he unsheathes a huge fucking knife from the inside of his jacket.

I wish Slade were here.

The thought is brief but true. I was a fool to leave the comfort of his warm body. I made a mistake and ran right into the arms of the ones set on hurting me. Sure, Slade may be Gideon, but deep in my heart, I feel like he’d never hurt me again.

He loves me.

“He’s not answering,” Jack growls, holding up the phone to show that it went to voicemail.

“Fuck!” Bruce roars as he stands. The knife blade flashes with the reflection of the sun that’s barely peeking into the hotel room, making me shudder. “Open her laptop. We’ll message him through that.”

As Jack kneels at the bed and pops the laptop open, my eyes veer to my left. The door is only a few steps away. But I return my gaze to watch Bruce walk over to him and bend over, barking out what he wants it to say.

Now.

I scramble to my feet, ignoring the dizzy wave from having been hit in the head earlier, and grab the door handle in what feels like record speed. Once the door opens with a swish of air, I fucking run. All noises are dulled as I tear past the other hotel rooms.

I’ll find Slade. He’ll save me.

“Not so fast,” Jack snarls from behind me.

Fuck! He’s close. The elevator is nearby, but the stairwell is even closer. Just a few more steps and—

A strong arm hooks my waist and yanks me back. I crash hard into Jack’s chest. My lungs fill as I prepare to scream so loud that I wake my mother from the dead. Yet no sound escapes as Jack’s palm smashes over my mouth, snuffing any and all attempts.

Tears blur my eyes, but I keep struggling in his grasp. I won’t make this easy for him.

And then I see them.

One.

Two.

Three.

And four.

Four foreign men in suits. The same men from the bar last night. Number One has his gun raised. Number One squeezes his trigger.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. It’s supposed to be of all the best memories of your life. I should have had flashes of watching my mother’s concert videos. Flashes of making Uncle Bruce ride Magic Mountain for the fourteenth time in a row. Flashes of Dad taking me to every single piano practice with a proud smile on his face.

Instead, my future flashes before me.

Dark, steel-colored eyes are in that future. Images of hard but passionate Derek Slade lifting my veil in the small church. Visions of holding a dark-haired angel in my arms and seeing a teary-eyed father nearly brought to his knees by the birth of his first child. Thoughts of watching a sunset on a rickety porch swing while holding the weathered hand of an old but still fierce man.

My future is supposed to be Slade.

And now, that too would be stolen from me.

The shot is silent, and the men are still approaching, but Jack releases me. Then I hear a thud behind me as Jack crashes to the floor.

“Joss Parker?” Number One asks with a thick Korean accent.

My heart nearly explodes from my chest in relief at the fact that they have not chosen to shoot me too. However, they are not here to save me. These men are probably worse than what I just ran from.

“Jill Anderson.”

He raises a gun just inches from my forehead, so close that I can feel the heat from his last shot. “You are same,” he replies coolly. His English may be slightly broken, but I don’t miss the malice.

Number Two comes around and roughly grabs my bicep to turn me around. We’re going back to Jack’s hotel room. Speaking of Jack, I get glimpse of his crumpled body in a pool of blood, a gunshot wound in his forehead.

Fuck!

“Please let me go,” I whimper, but even I am not naïve enough to think it will work.

Slade, please find me.

As we reach Jack’s room, Number One steps up and knocks on the door. No answer. Bruce, the man I always thought could do no harm, is hiding like a fucking coward behind that door. He knows these men are here.

“Konu, shoot lock,” Number One instructs Number Two, and I wonder why they aren’t speaking in their native tongue.

Konu raises his gun and fires off a succession of three shots into the door handle. They must have silencers on the guns because all that can be heard is the damage being done to the handle and no echoes of bullets. And considering the empty hotel parking lot, there probably aren’t many people to even hear the noise.

When Konu kicks his foot hard against the door, it flies open, revealing Bruce, who is cowering on the other side of the bed.

“Yejun,” he says sharply with arms raised, “don’t kill me. I found the girl. We’ll get the password right now. You’ll get what you need. Pay me half of what you owe me. Besides, you still need me. I can work the program.”