Kidnapped by the Billionaire (3 page)

But someone had accessed that locker, and it had to be Theo. Which meant he was alive and she wasn't going to rest until she'd found him. She just had to get away from Mr. Elijah Hunt first.

“You'll find out,” Elijah said. “Come on. I haven't got time to piss around arguing with you.”

Swallowing, Violet pushed down the fear and the grief, and turned around.

Ahead of her was a walled-off part of the echoing apartment with a door in the middle of it. The bathroom space clearly.

She walked over to it and pushed the door open. There was a hallway beyond, painted stark white, and then another door.

“Through there,” he ordered.

Obediently she went through the second door into a stainless-steel and white-tiled bathroom. A massive freestanding tub faced one of the huge windows, a glass walled shower area that could have fit in a whole baseball team off to the right of it.

There was a vanity unit near the door, as minimalist and bare as the rest of the space, white porcelain and stainless steel, an unframed mirror hanging above it.

Elijah went past her and reached into a cupboard under the unit, bringing out a big white plastic box. Setting it on top of the vanity, he took the top off and began to pull out what looked like some first-aid stuff, all the while keeping the gun trained on her.

Briefly she debated seeing if she could take him by surprise and try to knock him out somehow, then discarded the idea. She'd probably only get herself hurt. If she was going to get out of this, she'd have to think of another way.

“What are you doing?” Her voice echoed weirdly off the hard surfaces in the room.

He didn't reply, shrugging out of the overcoat he still wore.

Violet swallowed again.

She'd been right about the glimpse of bare skin she'd seen earlier. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Or at least the remains of a dark gray business shirt that had been torn up and used as a bandage were still wrapped around one massively muscled left shoulder. Blood streaked the sharply cut and defined lines of his chest and abdomen, staining the waistband of the business trousers that sat low on his lean hips. The blood also partially obscured the tattoo inked into his skin just above his heart. A rose with a thorny stem, red ink drops of blood mingling with his real blood.

It seemed a strange image for a man so cold. Did it mean anything? Was it for anyone?

What the fuck are you thinking about his tattoo for?

He was now unwinding the remains of the shirt from around his shoulder, revealing the source of the blood. Holy shit. He'd been shot.

The cold bite of fear returned as she glanced from the bloody wound to his face, suddenly becoming aware of what she'd only half taken in before. That his face was bruised. He had the beginnings of a black eye and there was a raw gash in his lip, more bruises along his jaw.

He looked like he'd been in one hell of a fight and hadn't come out the winner.

Your father is dead.

Elijah Hunt was his bodyguard.

Oh fuck. What the hell had happened?

He looked up, his black gaze catching hers. “Come here.”

“Why?” The fear was rising in her chest, making her feel sick. “What do you want me to do?”

In one hand he held the pistol, still steadily pointed at her. “As you can see, I have a gunshot wound.” He reached for a pair of what looked like forceps with his free hand, then held them up. “And you're going to remove the bullet.”

 

CHAPTER TWO

She felt even sicker. She'd never taken a bullet out of anyone in her entire life and she really didn't want to start now. “But I'm not—”

“I don't care what you're not. Get over here and get this bullet out.”

“And if I don't, you'll shoot me?”

The muzzle of the gun didn't waver and neither did the hard certainty in his eyes. “Yes.”

“But if you shoot me, you'll have no one to get the bullet out for you.”

He lifted his uninjured shoulder. “Then I'll get it out myself.”

“So why don't you do that now?”

“Stop fucking arguing with me and get over here.”

Yeah. Stop fucking arguing and do what the man says. What the hell is wrong with you?

She didn't know. She wasn't usually this brave—or this stupid, the jury was still out on which. Yet still she held her ground. “Tell me what's going on,” she said hoarsely. “Tell me why I'm here and what you want with me.”

The look on his face was absolutely expressionless.

She didn't see the movement of his finger. There was only an explosion of sound and something hot whizzing by her ear. Behind her the window cracked, a hole punched clean through it.

He'd shot at her. The bastard had actually shot at her.

“Like I said.” His voice was hard and flat. “Get over here, otherwise next time I won't miss.”

She wanted to say something snarky, like how apparently not all of the windows in the apartment were bulletproof, but her sense of self-preservation must have finally kicked into gear because she managed to stop herself, moving toward the vanity instead, her knees weak, her heart thumping, her ears still ringing from the gunshot.

Really, she should have been on the floor in a puddle of terrified tears and yet she wasn't. Perhaps knowing Theo was alive had uncovered a determination she never realized she had. Or perhaps it was simply sixteen years of living with the niggling feeling that there was something not right about her brother's death. Something no one else seemed to understand. Not her mother. Not her father. No one.

That there was something not right about her entire family. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on but was there nonetheless.

It was a terrifying, isolating feeling. Pretty much the way she felt right now in fact.

Violet didn't want to get too close to him, especially not while he was holding that gun and especially not with that horrible, emotionless look on his face. As if he felt nothing. As if he was dead inside.

It terrified her. And fascinated her for reasons she couldn't even begin to fathom.

That's really why you don't want to get close.

She carefully pushed that thought away.

“Here.” Elijah handed her the forceps. “I don't think the bullet's that deep. Shouldn't be too difficult to get out.”

Reluctantly she looked at the hole in his shoulder. It was crusty with congealed blood, a nasty-looking wound. “I-I've never done this before. I don't know what to do.”

“Just stick the forceps in the wound, find the bullet, pull it out.”

Her jaw tightened. “If it's so easy, why don't you do it?”

“I could if I had to, but the angle's wrong.”

She let out a breath. “It'll … hurt.”

He smiled that empty, cold smile. “Does it look like I give a shit?”

“I just don't want you to shoot me.”

The muzzle of the gun remained steady. “Don't ram those things through my chest and I won't have to.”

Jesus. “Alrighty then,” she muttered under her breath and glanced back down at the wound.

Her hands shook slightly as she lifted the forceps, biting her lip as she pushed the metal tips inside the torn flesh. He didn't move. He didn't even flinch.

She glanced up, unable to help herself, meeting his gaze.

There was no sign of pain on his face, no anguish twisting his features. His expression was blank, like a robot's. Except … deep in his eyes something blazed. A fierce, ebony flame. Dense as a black hole, sucking in light and heat, and crushing them flat.

Rage. It was rage.

An icy wave of shock swept over her and she looked hurriedly away, trying to still her shaking hands. The ever-present fear twisted in her gut, tightened a noose around her throat.

This man wasn't just dangerous. He was lethal. And she was his prisoner.

No, don't think about it. Pretend. That's what you're best at.

Yeah, that was what she had to do. Pretend the way she always pretended with just about everyone she knew. That she was this rebellious, live-in-the-moment hippie chick. The one who made her mother so furious and yet had no effect at all on her father.

The girl who didn't care what was happening as long as it felt good and she was having fun. A girl at ease with herself and her sexuality, who went wherever the wind took her.

A girl she wasn't and never had been.

“That's got to hurt,” she said as she probed the wound, feeling around for the bullet, her bracelets chiming with the movement.

“It's sweet that you care, princess.” His voice was steady, betraying nothing, and the gun in his hand didn't waver.

“‘Princess,'” she echoed. “I thought you were only supposed to call me Miss Fitzgerald.” At least, that's what he'd always called her as her father's bodyguard.

“Not anymore.”

She resisted the urge to look at him, not wanting to glance into that terrifying, fathomless black gaze again. “I'd prefer you called me—”

“Stop talking.”

Violet shut her mouth with a snap. Her palms were sweaty, her fingers trembling, and she couldn't seem to slow the frightened beat of her heart.

Blood slid slowly down over his dark olive skin that looked like the legacy of some Mediterranean ancestor, obscuring the strange rose tattoo. This close she could smell the heavy, metallic scent of blood, and something else. A darker, earthier scent, like a forest covered in snow.

He didn't speak, his breathing slow and even. The gun never wavering.

The silence in the room was so thick it felt like her ears were stopped with cotton balls.

And then just when she thought she was either going to burst into tears with fear or scream from the pressure, she felt the metal tips of the forceps close around something hard. Muttering a prayer in her head, she tugged and slowly drew the bullet out.

The only sound from Elijah was a short, barely audible intake of breath, and then he was taking the forceps from her suddenly nerveless fingers, dropping them with a clatter into the sink, and reaching for a bottle he'd gotten out earlier.

Putting the gun down, he opened the bottle and poured it directly onto the wound. Then he reached for a thick white pad as more blood began to slide down his chest.

Violet stood back, watching him, trying to still the tremble in her limbs. Now would be the time, of course, to see if she could grab that gun. Or maybe hit him over the head with something.

Yet she made no move. Even with a wound like that he'd probably be light-years faster than she was, not to mention about a thousand times stronger. And she really didn't want to test whether or not he'd actually shoot her.

Better to wait for another opportunity or think of a plan that didn't involve a physical fight.

“Press hard here,” Elijah ordered, pointing at the white pad with his chin.

Reluctantly, Violet came back to the vanity and did as she was told, pressing her hands against the pad to stop the bleeding. She didn't really want to touch him; at least there was a whole lot of white wadding between her hand and his bare skin. Yet even so, she could feel the heat of his body burning through into her palm. Didn't seem right for a man who seemed so goddamn cold to be so goddamn hot, and it made her uncomfortable.

She looked down to the vanity instead, where the gun rested.

“Don't even think about it.”

“I'm n-not.”

“Bullshit.”

There was a surgical needle and thread next to some bandages. With a series of brisk economical movements, he bit off a length of thread then threaded the needle. “I should give those hands of yours something to do.”

Her fear spiked. “I won't … I m-mean, I-I'm not—”

“Sewing,” he interrupted flatly. “Sex is the last thing I want from you, princess.”

She should have felt relieved, and she did, because God knew it was the last thing she wanted from him too. But there was also a little flash of something else. Something she didn't want to examine closely.

You're fucking crazy.

Yeah, she was. She might have been fascinated with him when he was her father's bodyguard and she was completely safe from him. But all bets were off now.

Shifting her hands on the pad at his shoulder, she said, “I can't sew to save my life.”

“Fine.” The word was uninflected. “You can stop pressing now.”

Lowering her hands, Violet stepped back.

He peeled the pad from his shoulder and seemingly without any pain, began to sew up the wound.

Perhaps this was a good opportunity? While he was distracted?

The gun was too close to him, and she probably couldn't grab it without a fight. But … maybe she could hit him in the shoulder, where it hurt. Or push him. Or maybe even slip by him and run back into the lounge area of the apartment.

And then what? You can't get out the door without that code.

No, but her purse was out there, and inside her purse was her phone. She could call the police, get help somehow. But then she'd have to wait until help arrived and he might very well shoot her in the interim. Not exactly the best plan.

Perhaps it would be better to wait until later, when he was asleep or something. So she could make a call or send a text without him knowing.

“Yeah, I know what you're thinking.” The cold, rough sound of his voice was a shock. “You're thinking about how quickly it would take you to run for the phone in your purse.”

Violet stared at him. “I wasn't … I mean I didn't—”

“You're a fucking hopeless liar too.” He didn't look up from his wound, pushing the needle into his skin and drawing the thread through it. “Try it. I'll even time you.”

She tensed. “What would you do if I did?”

“Shoot you.”

A shiver swept through her. “That's kind of your response to everything, isn't it?”