Eric ducked out of the house and ran for the car. He wasn’t a coward, just a very smart man. Leaving two alpha females in the house, alone, was a recipe for disaster. But he had no choice. Eric wanted to get out of the firing line before they turned on him.
* * * *
The kitchen buzzed with rushing staff as Kyla and Missy entered through the back of the casino. Kyla reached the door to the staff corridor, spun around and pointed with her finger at Missy. “Okay, here’s the deal, little girl. You pay attention to me and do whatever I say. Mostly don’t talk, it annoys me.”
Missy fought the childish urge to poke out her tongue. This woman brought out the worst in her. She found herself acting like the little girl the wolf in front of her accused her of being. “Fine she-man. Whatever you say.”
Kyla bared her teeth at Missy, but paused when another guard ran up and whispered in her ear. She threw her hands in the air and closed her eyes for a moment. Opening her eyes, she gritted her teeth and forced words past them. “I have a disturbance I have to deal with. Warring factions are going at each other on the casino floor. I have to deal with it, and your thin skin wouldn’t survive. I need you to stay here.” Kyla rubbed her forehead and stared at Missy. “I know Eric told me to keep you close, but it’s dangerous. We have increased security and I have wolves posted at the exits and the chef is an ex-guard. Only staff gets into the employees areas now and they are being screened at every access point and we have extra cameras around. One wrong move from you and I’ll give you to the puppies. Got it?”
So much for Kyla sticking like glue to her. At least in the kitchen there were people constantly around her. No one could take her here. “Fine, whatever. Hurry along like a good little dog then.”
She prudently stepped back. Kyla had nasty claws that’d peel skin off if the woman chose to use them. She watched as Kyla bared her teeth in an evil grin and swung through the doors and out into the corridor.
Letting her breath out, she turned around and faced the kitchen. A large man in a white uniform with a beige eye-patch smiled and motioned her over.
“You’re the little puppy who got the boss angry and Eric hot, hey?”
Missy blushed and laughed, unsure what to say. She might care for Eric, but things seemed impossible. She was human and fat and…
“Stop your thinking. Things will always work out the way they’re meant to. Take a look at my eye. Lost it in a fight. Thought my days were over until Kyla got me this job. I love cooking even more than fighting and now I’m Head Chef. My life’s worked out good, hey?” He patted her on the back. “Now you do me a favor and go get extra pasta from the storeroom, yeah? We got all these deliveries and I don’t have the time to do it myself. Storeroom’s in the back.”
Missy dithered for a second. Eric wanted her to stay with people. Now that Kyla had ditched her, maybe she should actually follow what he’d said?
The old chef gave her a little shove on her back. “It’s all right. Guards are posted at every exit. Men are stationed at points throughout the kitchen. No stranger is getting in here.” He pointed to the far corner of the kitchen.
Missy smiled and headed for the storeroom. He had valid points so maybe she shouldn’t worry. It would all work out the way it was supposed to. If that meant her and Eric together, great, and if not? Well, she’d deal with it then.
A scuffling noise distracted Missy from her musings as she entered the storeroom. Standing still, she concentrated. Worry gnawed away at her stomach, little mini cramps grabbing her insides and twisting them in a vise.
Nothing. All she heard was the noise from the kitchen. Putting it out of her mind, she reached for the pasta. “Damn, it would be on a top shelf.”
Grabbing an empty barrel, she maneuvered it next to the shelf and clambered up on it. Stretching for the pasta, Missy grasped it in a tight grip and hopped down and pushed the barrel back to its original position.
Then she heard the noise again.
Louder. Closer. Right behind her.
She had no idea why, but for some reason the noise filled her with trepidation. Her heart rate sped up and her breathing accelerated. A sense of the inevitable swept through her, invading her gut and spreading throughout her whole body.
Fear held her immobile when she saw who’d made the noise. A man dressed in a delivery uniform loomed behind her. Staring at her. “Is there a problem?”
There was no response. Instead, he grabbed her and pulled her close, spinning her about until her back pressed against his chest. Then a wad of material appeared in front of her face, the person intent on pressing it over her mouth and nose. Missy fought. She held her breath. The assailant was too strong for her. The material covered her face, the strong chemical solution it was impregnated with seeping into her lungs. The last thing Missy remembered as her vision dimmed was Eric. She hadn’t told him how much she loved him and wondered if there’d be any more chances…
* * * *
“What? You lost her? How could this happen? How could she disappear under your very noses?” Eric paced, pausing frequently to slam his fist into the breadboard on the bench. Missy’s ex-husband had been a complete bust. He was so damn spineless he’d never be able to think up something like this, let alone carry it through. But who had?
“I’m sorry, Eric. This is my fault, no one else’s. I thought she’d be safe here. They must have had a plant in the storeroom early, before anyone else arrived. Someone they’d bribed to do the job. We do have a list and there’s only one supply truck, Ryerson’s Oil. They picked up an empty barrel. Missy must have been in it.”
Eric closed his eyes. They’d shoved her into a barrel? He’d kill who ever had done this. He hoped he’d have a chance to tell her he loved her. “Fine, do you have an address on them?”
“It’s over on Mason. Here’s the kicker. They’re closed today for a funeral. It’s all empty. It will have to be us going after her. My wolves are handling another disturbance.”
Grunting, he stormed out of the door without a backward glance. Eric didn’t care who came, but if anything happened to Missy…
* * * *
“Eeek.” Missy’s scream echoed around the small room. “They shoved me into an olive oil vat? Where are they? Let me at them, I’ll kill them.”
She hunted around for something to throw at the door.
Damn bastards, I suppose I should be lucky it wasn’t full.
Small comfort when she was a hostage dripping oil, holed up in what must be the tiniest room ever. She wondered what Eric would do. “Please don’t come barreling in, guns blazing. That would be the quickest way to get it, even for a Demi-God.”
Yeah, right, mumbling to herself, a sign of madness, but the last thing she wanted was Eric caught in a gunfight. How much hurt could his body take before his healing shut down?
“That’s it.” Missy jumped up and paced around the room. “If a girl wants a job done right, she does it herself.
Come on, let’s find a way out.”
The room was bare, with the exception of her barrel. But the door was a heavy metal one and the barrel would barely dent it. She sat on the ground and lifted her face up to the cold air flowing over her.
Wait a minute. Cold air has to come from somewhere.
Missy spotted an air-conditioning vent above her.
The barrel would come in handy for something other than a transportation device from hell.
She shoved the barrel over to the wall and clambered up on it. The vent was right in front of her, but first she had to get the grating off. She sighed down at her hands. A pretty red color greeted her sight, but no nails. They were cut short for typing, but her toenails weren’t. She’d placed false press on her toenails the day before her house exploded.
Gosh, that was like years ago instead of days.
Screeching like a demented ninja, she ripped off her big toenail. She used it to unscrew one of the two pins holding the grate in place. Reaching for the second pin, she couldn’t believe how tough those false nails were. Placing the grate on the floor, she stared straight ahead.
Crap, minor problem. I’m too fat to get through.
“Aha.” Clicking her fingers, Missy hopped down and took the lid off the empty barrel of oil. “When in doubt, oil up.”
Grabbing the cloth used to chloroform her, she liberally wiped it against the sides of the barrel then on her. After she’d wiped herself all over, Missy placed the lid back, reached for the vent space, and hauled herself up and in.
“Watch out, you bastards, I’m coming and I doubt you’ll be able to grab a hold of me now.”
Chapter Nine
Missy peered through the air-conditioning vent at the scene below. She could hear someone arguing. She wiggled a bit inside the tight confines then settled into a more comfortable position. Thank God the vent had been a straight-through crawl to the main holding area. Now Missy had to wait for them to leave before she could get out.
A shout snatched her attention away from her escape plan to the moving figures below her. She pressed her face closer to the vent, but couldn’t make out anything but her agent’s figure below her.
Her dirty turncoat agent. Her friend had kidnapped her and tried to kill her, not to mention hurting Eric twice. Missy had known it hadn’t been her ex, but her agent? Talk about shock… But she was gullible enough her ex had cheated without her knowing.
A loud crash shocked a gasp out of her and she ducked, worried the noise had been heard. A familiar shout had her looking up again just as Eric and a wolfish Kyla came bounding into sight.
Shit, just what I didn’t want. I don’t want them hurt.
At least not Eric anyway. She wanted to get away before anyone turned up injured trying to rescue her.
Panic shot through her, curdling the blood in her veins when her agent drew a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at Eric. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. Kyla launched herself in front of Eric, but the bullet missed and hit a pile of metal above them. Debris fell to the floor, trapping both of them below. She prayed that it wasn’t silver, the one thing that would take Kyla out permanently. Eric needed all the help he could get.
Her agent cracked a high-pitched laugh, which quickly twisted into a gasp when Eric threw the metal off both him and Kyla. Unfortunately, Kyla was out for the count—no help to Eric at all.
Missy’s hands grew clammy. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Sweat collected between her breasts and trickled down her body. Terror made her mouth dry and her breathing accelerate to the point she hyperventilated into her cupped hands. Worried about her agent, Missy peeked back at her kidnapper only to find he’d turned the weapon on Eric. She had to do something or her lover would bite the bullet in a big way.
Okay, Missy, here goes.
Thank God she was still slippery
.
Missy wriggled until she’d spun round with her feet against the grating and pushed hard. Lucky for her the grating was a little loose because the cover flew through the air, hitting the ground with a distracting thump. Her shoes arced into the air and fell at her agent’s feet, drawing his attention.
Missy launched herself through the opening, airborne for a few seconds until she dropped with a thud on top of her agent, knocking him out. Picking herself and the gun up, she sashayed over to Eric.
“Just call me Rescues-R-Us. Are you all right, Eric?”
In answer, Eric grabbed her and held her tight against him. “God, Missy, I thought you were hurt or dead. Don’t ever do that to me again.”
A groan from both Kyla and the agent distracted her from Eric’s speech. “Excuse me, Miss Big Warrior Wolf. Look at you, down on the ground.”
Missy turned to Eric, flashed him a dimpled grin and grabbed her shoes from the floor. “Can we take pictures of Kyla before we wake her up? It would be good blackmail.”
“Ah, I don’t think Kyla would be happy with that and she’ll be coming around soon anyway. Why don’t you tie up your agent and we can get out of here?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
That voice.
Missy spun round and gaped at the person threatening Eric with a gun again. “Winnie? What the hell are you doing?”
Eric stared in shock at his gun-toting captor. “Winnie? Your best friend who slept with your husband Winnie? Your husband left you for a man?”
Sniffing in disgust, Missy glared at Eric. “Edwin, his name is Edwin, but everyone calls him Winnie and yes, my husband left me for
him.
Apparently my ex-husband swung both ways. He just neglected to tell me
.
”
“I’ve always hated you. Your marriage, job, womanly figure. I wanted what you had, so I went out of my way to get it. I stole your husband and now I’m stealing your work. With you out of the way, no one will know I didn’t write it.”
“Take Andrew, trust me, I don’t want him, but why would you want my work? Go and write your own.”
“That’s the problem. I can’t write. Besides, a movie guy has optioned one of your books and is interested in more. It would have made you a packet, now it’s going to make me rich. Your laptop had seven full manuscripts and lots of ideas I can get a ghostwriter for. But you need to die first.”
“But why did my agent get involved? We’re friends.”
Winnie straightened his bow tie and pointed the gun more fully at Eric. “Oh, money, of course. He likes the titty bars and has a girlfriend who needed money. When he told me about the options, I offered him half the cash and he took it.”
“Why would he tell you about my deal?”
“Because I’ve been bribing him for the last year to tell me all your literary movements. I needed to be ahead of you to plan how I was going to steal your work.”
Eric moved slightly and Missy shook her head a fraction. The last thing they needed was him playing hero. Knowing Eric, he’d rather get shot than let anything happen to her. Ignoring her seesawing stomach, she concentrated on Winnie. “What about Andrew? Was he involved?”
“Andrew? Of course not. He may have suspected, but he wouldn’t say anything. He’s nothing if not pliable—a bit boring, but still useable.”