Take Me Deeper Page 22

  Feelings, huh? Exactly what kind of feelings?

  No, he couldn’t think about that. Feelings were irrelevant. They got in the way. The only thing that mattered was having a coherent plan and the determination to carry it out. He had the latter in abundance, he was just missing the former, which meant he had to get himself the hell together and figure out how he was going to find her.

  Despite everything, an old emotion wound through him, a complicated mixture of desperate fear and an intense frustration, the need to do something, anything, right now, immediately. He knew where it came from, he knew why it was there.

  He’d been fifteen and Quinn had been missing for a week and Rush had been at Jack’s since midday for the third day in a row while he’d had to sit and watch his father sink into another bourbon coma, doing nothing while his sons’ lives fragmented around him. Zane had to do something, had to take action. Had to make his father wake the hell up.

  You should never have done what you did. You only made it worse.

  Forcing away the emotion, Zane focused on the building opposite him, ignoring the brush of the crowds on the sidewalk, slowing his breathing, slowing his heartbeat. Getting himself under control. There could be no room for error in this, he wouldn’t allow it.

  Clarity descended, the desperation raging inside him and all the reasons for it fading away. His focus narrowed on his surroundings, and he allowed himself to become aware of them bit by bit, processing the information, his brain turning it over, thinking.

  Across from him was a streetlight and there was something attached to the top of it. A security camera, its lens pointed to the entrance of the hotel.

  He smiled.

  Got you, you fucker.

  Calmly he got out his phone again and called Quinn back. “You’re right. I can’t do this alone,” he said before his brother could start up with the I-told-you-sos. “I’m going to need your help with something.”

  There was a silence, and Zane’s jaw tightened. If Quinn was going to start in on the subject of family loyalty again, he was going to rip the guy a new one. But Quinn only asked, his tone neutral, “You need help with what?”

  “Security cameras in the hotel and on the streets around it. I need to look at the footage.”

  “Hmm. Difficult.” There was a pause on Quinn’s end of the phone. “But not impossible.”

  “You know how we can get access to it?”

  “Yeah. Not legally though.”

  “Like I give a shit.”

  Quinn gave a mirthless laugh. “Oh, don’t worry. I know you don’t. But I do.”

  “Really? Since when did you give a crap about the law?”

  Another pause. “Let’s just say I’m not happy about asking Duchess for yet another favor.”

  Zane frowned. “She’s involved already. What more can she do?”

  “Her sister knows her way around computers. Pretty sure she could hack her way in to the system.”

  Determination closed like a fist around his heart. “Then do it. Any favor owed, I’ll pay it.”

  Quinn snorted. “Fuck that. We’re a team, Zane. No one’s paying anything on their own.”

  Jesus, he could have been listening to his father. “Are you sure Dad’s in that box behind the bar? You didn’t swap bodies with him or anything, did you?”

  “Prick,” Quinn said without heat. “You might not have agreed with Dad’s bullshit, but I did. I still do. I’m your brother and I’ll always have your back, Zane. Whether you like it or not.”

  He wanted to tell Quinn he didn’t need him at his back or anywhere else for that matter, but the words wouldn’t come. Because the fact was, right now, he did need Quinn. And those words…well, they mattered. And when Quinn said them, somehow, he believed them.

  Glaring at the security camera winking in the late-afternoon sun, he said, “I don’t like it. But thank you all the same.”

  “Stiff-necked asshole. I’ll see you at Duchess’s in half an hour.” Abruptly Quinn was gone, the call disconnecting.

  Zane cursed under his breath. Even half an hour was too long, but it wasn’t like he had a choice, not if he wanted to find Iris.

  And he would find her.

  Then he’d rain hell down on those who took her.

  —

  The blond receptionist at Duchess, who’d turned out to be Lily Hammond’s sister Rose, sat in front of the computer, her fingers a blur on the keyboard. One of the others had locked the Duchess Bail Bonds office door and had flipped the sign to closed.

  “And…I’m in.” Rose hit the last button with a flourish. “Piece of cake.”

  Standing behind her chair, Zane leaned in over her shoulder to get a better look at the monitor.

  She gave him a flirty glance, all blond curls and big blue eyes. “Hey there, handsome.”

  Someone in the group of people clustered behind him cleared their throat a bit too obviously, but Zane ignored both Rose and the throat-clearer. He didn’t give a shit about either of them. There was only one person who mattered and he was hoping to see her right now, from the perspective of a camera in the hotel hallway.

  “Fucking hell,” Quinn muttered. He didn’t sound pleased.

  “Say what you like about technology, Quinn,” Duchess said coolly. “But it’s quite useful, don’t you think?”

  Quinn said something in return, but Zane wasn’t interested. He wanted to tell them all to shut the hell up, especially when the guy in the hotel staff uniform held something up to the peephole of the door and it opened a couple of seconds later, revealing Iris. Who just stepped back to let the guy in.

  Jesus. Why the hell had she done that? And what had she seen on that phone?

  Every muscle in his body went tight as the door shut after the guy. There were no cameras inside the suite, so there was no telling what was going on. That fucker could be doing all manner of things to her and he’d never know. Hell, she might not even be alive.

  Get it. The fuck. Together.

  He stared fiercely at the closed door, fighting to get his breathing under control again, to find his usual sniper’s cool.

  People were talking behind him, but he paid them no attention whatsoever, waiting for that door to open. Waiting to see if Iris was still okay.

  Then suddenly it opened and Iris was there, walking slowly, the guy in the hotel uniform following close behind her. He was holding onto her, making it look like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was obvious that he had a gun and was pressing it against her back.

  “So,” Duchess said. “They want her alive clearly. Any idea why they decided to make a move now? Unless they found out about our little surprise at the restaurant.”

  “No, they couldn’t have known.” Zane couldn’t take his eyes off the camera, watching until Iris and the asshole holding her passed out of sight. “Only we knew and none of us would have told anyone.”

  “Maybe they wanted to get information out of her and didn’t want to wait until tonight,” the woman in the cowboy hat, Nora, said. “I mean, that’s what I’d be assuming. Perhaps they wanted to find out whether she talked to the police or not.”

  “True.” Quinn sounded grudging. “But who knows how long that will take?”

  The view of the elevators came up and, sure enough, there was Iris and her cartel abductor. They waited until one of the elevators opened and then stepped inside.

  “Are there cameras in the elevator?” Zane asked sharply.

  “Yeah.” Rose reached out and hit another button. “Bossy, aren’t we? Reminds me of someone.”

  “Can’t think who that would be,” Nora muttered.

  “Can we not air family business in public, please?” Duchess said calmly. “Just show him the footage, Rose. We don’t need the commentary.”

  Rose said something rude under her breath, but she shut up and just as well. Because as the scene of the inside of the elevator popped up, Zane nearly lost his crap.

  The man was leaning in, whispering someth
ing in Iris’s ear and from the expression on her face, it was clear that whatever he’d said, it wasn’t nice. Then some people got in, making Iris and the asshole have to move to the back, his arm settling around her.

  Zane had never in his life been possessive of anyone, not even Charlie. But right now, if he could have, he would have reached through the computer screen and quite cheerfully strangled that prick for daring to lay hands on Iris. For touching what was his.

  Oh really? Since when was she yours?

  Earlier today, she’d been his. When she’d knelt at his feet and taken him into her mouth. When she’d looked up into his eyes and told him she needed him. When she’d held his hand and told him it wasn’t his fault.

  When he’d chosen her.

  Maybe that only made her his for a little while, but that little while hadn’t run out yet. She was his until he made her safe. Until she was back with her sister. He’d promised her that, and he wasn’t a man who went back on a promise.

  There were many people in his life he’d failed. But Iris wasn’t going to be one of them.

  “Which floor?” he demanded. “Did anyone see which button he pressed?”

  “Ground floor,” Quinn said.

  “Foyer cameras,” Zane ordered. “Now.”

  This time Rose didn’t say anything, pressing another key on her keyboard and calling up the foyer cameras. It took them a moment to spot Iris and her abductor because they didn’t head toward the front doors of the hotel, making their way to a door out the back and disappearing through it instead.

  Then there was more time wasted as they all tried to figure out which way Iris had been taken, Rose having to do some quick typing to switch to the outside cameras. With more than one entrance, it involved having to study more than one camera, but luckily the second one they called up gave them a prime view of a small alleyway at the back of the hotel where a car was parked.

  “That’s it,” Zane said with utter certainty. “That’s got to be their ride.”

  And it was. Because not a second later, Iris was pushed outside, her abductor urging her toward the waiting car and inside. As it drove off, Rose reached out and pressed yet another key, freezing the picture. “Plates?”

  “Already got them,” Quinn said, a hint of smugness in his tone.

  Of course he would. Quinn’s memory was nothing short of photographic.

  With difficulty, Zane dragged his gaze from the screen and glanced at Rose. “Can you track them?”

  She lifted a shoulder, blond curls bouncing. “Sure. But it’ll take time.”

  He didn’t want it to take time. He wanted Iris found fast, before those assholes had a chance to interrogate her. Because if they did…Jesus. They were thorough and brutal in their methods. She wouldn’t last long.

  At that moment someone knocked loudly on the glass of the Duchess office door, rattling the pane, the massive figure of a tall, powerfully built man looming on the other side of it.

  “Ah,” Duchess said. “Is that the gentle sound of a Redmond demanding some attention I hear?”

  Quinn ignored her, moving over to the door and pulling it open. Rush was on the other side, grinning as he sauntered in. “Hey team. How’s it hanging?”

  Zane straightened, narrowing his gaze at his other brother. “What did you get?” Quinn had told him that he’d put Rush on pumping his contact for more intel about cartel operations, likely safe houses for interrogation, stuff like that. God, he hoped to hell Rush had managed to get it, because that was looking like the quickest way to track Iris down.

  Rush tilted his head, gave Zane a measuring look. “Impatient much?”

  “Stop fucking around and give him the information,” Quinn ordered. “Otherwise I’ll just stand back and let him rip your head off.”

  Rush had turned into a difficult bastard since he’d gotten out of jail, but he wasn’t a stupid one, because the cocky grin faded, his scarred and battered features settling into more serious lines. “Yeah, okay. So my contact was a bit reluctant, but you know me, always the charming asshole.” He grinned, this time mirthlessly. “The guy was a cheap date. One hit and he spilled his goddamn guts.” Rush lifted his fists, cracking bruised knuckles as if to illustrate his point. “The cartel really needs to hire a better class of thug. The ones they have now are pussies.”

  Zane went very still. “You know where they might have taken Iris?”

  “He gave me an area, not a specific location. I tried getting more out of him, but he decided being unconscious was a better bet, the fucking asshole.”

  Zane ignored that. “Doesn’t matter. Even the general area will narrow down a search on the plates. So where are they?”

  Rush gave him the details, a featureless suburb that contained mostly business parks and storage units, then Rose adjusted her search.

  Zane tried to ignore the desperation curling tight as a fist in his chest. This could be wrong. Rush might have been given bad intel, the car could have been swapped. They could be searching for Iris in completely the wrong place. God, what if they’d taken her to the airport? What if she was even now being taken out of state?

  No, shit, all this flailing around wasn’t like him. One thing at a time, that’s how he usually dealt with a problem. No point trying to second-guess variables that he might not have to.

  He could feel someone watching him, which didn’t help either. The last thing he wanted was someone else to notice he was having problems locking it down, especially—God forbid—one of the Duchess team.

  Something popped up on Rose’s screen. Another grainy security camera image of an empty parking lot outside a featureless building. There was a car parked outside. A familiar car.

  “Holy shit,” Rose said. “There they are.”

  Someone said his name, but Zane had already turned from the computer and was heading for the door.

  “Zane. Wait.” It was Quinn.

  But Zane ignored him, reaching for the door, flinging it open, and stepping through.

  Nothing was going to stop him from getting Iris.

  Nothing.

  Chapter 13

  Iris came to, feeling like absolute shit. She was sitting in a chair, her arms behind her back and her wrists tied together with what felt like plastic ties. The same ties were around her ankles, lashing them to the legs of the chair.

  Her head throbbed unmercifully.

  When she’d gotten into the car outside the hotel, the guy who’d taken her hostage had suddenly leaned over and hit her over the head with something hard—probably the butt of his gun—and she’d gone out like a light.

  She had no idea why, since it hadn’t been like she was escaping or anything. Then again, perhaps it had been so she wouldn’t see where they were going. Not that she was going to be alive long enough to tell anyone in all probability.

  She blinked, trying to pull herself together and figure out where she was.

  Looked like some kind of small warehouse, with a concrete floor, an iron roof, and lots of big metal shelves, some empty, some stacked high with boxes. There was no one else in her immediate vicinity, though she could hear male voices down one end of the warehouse, whoever they were hidden by the shelves.

  Fear pulsed inside her, slow and steady as a giant heartbeat, and she had to force herself to take some deep breaths to keep the panic at bay. Because that definitely wasn’t going to help.

  So…the pros of the situation were that she wasn’t dead. Which meant they wanted something. The guy who’d taken her had said that Shaw wanted to talk to her and that was a pretty massive con, since he probably wanted to know if she’d told the police anything. He’d get that information out of her one way or another and then, well, they wouldn’t need her anymore, and she was more useful to them dead than she was alive.

  Oh yes, and not forgetting the other huge con: the threat of armed men outside Jamie’s school.

  The panic rose, a thick choking wave of it, rising up in her throat, threatening to cut off her airway.


  Deep breaths. Just take some fucking deep breaths.

  Yeah, well, all the deep breathing she was doing was only making her dizzy, so that wasn’t going to work. Luckily what she did have was the throbbing in her head, so she concentrated on that instead. Pain proved to be an excellent distraction from her panic and soon her heartbeat had slowed a little.

  Okay, she had to think this through. They wouldn’t kill her until she told them what they wanted, and if that was whether she’d talked to the police or not, she could tell them pretty quickly that she hadn’t. It was more than likely they wouldn’t believe her, in which case they might try other tactics.

  The panic twisted again, her gut churning. She felt sick, because she knew what those tactics were. Torture she could probably handle. But if they used her sister? Not so much.

  You’re stupid, Callahan. You thought you were going to be better than Mom for her.

  Iris fought down the snide voice. Okay, so she’d made a monumentally stupid decision in trusting Dylan. But at least she’d never walked away from Jamie. Not like their mother had walked away from them. At least she was still here, still fighting for her. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

  “Sounds to me like you pretty much raised your sister on your own. And the fact that both of you are alive and well, given that, is pretty goddamn amazing.”

  Zane’s voice echoed in her head, a reminder. And another feeling shifted inside her, a stronger feeling. More intense than even her panic.

  The feeling moved outward, filling up the spaces that the panic hadn’t reached like water in a jar full of pebbles, surrounding her, making her feel strong. Determined.

  Yes. She had raised her little sister all by herself. And that was pretty goddamn amazing. Jamie was happy and healthy and most important of all, she knew she was loved. That was more than Iris had ever gotten from her own mother.

  Besides, if she hadn’t trusted Dylan, if she hadn’t run those packages for him, she’d never have met Zane, and she was so very, very glad she had. They hadn’t been together very long, it was true, but in that time, she’d learned what it felt like to have someone protect her, care about her. She’d learned what it felt like to belong to someone. To trust someone.