Honeymoon To Die For (13 page)

But Mama was on a roll. “When you bringin’ your new husband up to meet everybody? We’ll have a get together just for you two.”

Bianca envisioned walking Ryder Van Dyke, raised amidst the Van Dyke fortune, into an old wood-frame house with few amenities beyond indoor plumbing and the smell of home cooking. For a fleeting moment, the idea of him seeing her poor origin embarrassed her.
Like hell.
Her family might not be the Van Dykes, but they gave unconditional love—the same love that had backed her when she left to study at the University of Georgia.

“We’re on our honeymoon right now.”  Bianca almost choked on the lie. She felt Ryder stir next to her. “Give me two weeks and I’ll come visit. Tell Daddy to stop threatening to have a heart attack. I’m going to be out of touch for a while, so don’t worry and I’ll call soon. Okay?”

“What about your job? They said you left your job because you said the government didn’t give him a fair shake and they’re not happy with you. They should be proud of you for standin’ up to everyone and provin’ this Van Dyke fella innocent. Why’d you leave?”

Please, God, just strike me with lightning. It would be so much less painful.
“Things changed at work and it just wasn’t a place I wanted to stay, but I promise to explain everything when I see you.”  That was as close as Bianca could dance to the truth for the next week.

“All right. We’re going to look for you
both
in two weeks. But I’m still hurt you didn’t invite us. They said his family’s rich. Is ... that why we weren’t—”

Pain like a knife struck Bianca’s heart
.
She’d never intentionally hurt her parents and hadn’t now, but they didn’t know that.

“No, Mama. I don’t care that his family’s rich. When I come up, I’ll explain why we had to get married so quickly and, before you ask, no, I’m not pregnant. It’s complicated. We just did a simple service with no family, his or mine. I’m sorry for not telling you and I know it’s confusing, but just trust me for now and I’ll explain it later, okay?”

“Okay, Baby. We’ll wait to talk to you. We love you.”  Her mother sounded more sad than worried.

Bianca squeezed her eyes to stave off tearing up at her mother’s wounded voice. No matter what she said, her parents would still probably believe she hadn’t invited them to the wedding because she was ashamed of her roots. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but until this mission was over she would have to haul around a truckload of guilt.

Swallowing hard, Bianca said, “I love you and Daddy, too, with all my heart. Bye.”  She shoved the phone into her purse.

Amused, Ryder asked, “When do I meet Mama and Daddy?”

Kidding or not, he needed to know right now that some areas were off limits. She was not going to spend a week with him taking shots about her parents as if they were some joke. Bianca set her jaw and set him straight. “You are
not
meeting my parents. Ever.”

He was undaunted by her anger. “So the media’s hounding them?”

“No media. The Appalachian Mountain drumbeat reached them.”

Ryder studied on that for a thoughtful moment. “They haven’t seen
any
media yet?”

“My family doesn’t have an address. You can’t find them without really good directions and it’s a close-knit area. If the media started up that way, they’d get sent in circles until someone got word to my family and they gave the okay.”  

She could—would—protect her family from anything.

Ryder nodded. “That’s one less worry.”

Why? Did he think they’d say something that might blow her and Ryder’s cover?

Bianca waited on him to taunt her again about her family or criticize her for having a cell phone, but he didn’t.

Just who was Ryder Van Dyke? He’d been annoying and abrupt at times, but he’d also been considerate today, even pleasant now and then.

But there were the other times—the times when she’d looked into his eyes and known he’d retreated to a dark place. It happened during those moments when something triggered his anger.

Something like facing Hubrecht.

Tough. If Bianca could ride
down
thirty-four floors in an elevator, Ryder could sit in the same room with his father without going off on the senior Van Dyke. But it had been a close call.

Stepping inside that elevator had been a close call too.

So stupid for her to still be terrified of elevators.

She wasn’t twelve any more.

Elevators were fine. Rotten wood covering old wells was not.

It was that sickening fear that the bottom was going to drop out from under her that brought on crippling panic when she was in an elevator. But her mama’s phone call had distracted her on the way down from Hubrecht’s office.

“You traded the country for the big city?” Ryder asked, distracting her from elevators and old wells.

She considered his question that had been presented almost as a criticism. “Not a lot of colleges or jobs like mine where I grew up.”

“If there were?”

“What are you asking, Ryder?”

He shrugged and didn’t answer at first. “Nothing.”

Why didn’t she believe him? She started to dig into it when he asked, “Murdock know about the phone?”

No. Guess the confrontational Ryder was back. “I’ll deal with Murdock when this is over, but my parents would not understand not being able to reach me.”

“Guess that’s the downside of having parents who care about you,” he quipped.

Bianca considered his words and the way they came out as a brutal taunt against anyone who was loved. “There is no downside to being loved by my parents.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I can understand that it was tough to be adopted, but there are worse things.”

“
You
can understand? Really?” His attitude took a nasty downturn. “You with parents who miss you and beg you to come home? How can you possibly understand what it’s like to grow up as the bastard forced on a woman who blames him because she’s in a wheelchair and for her
real
son’s health issues?”  

She managed not to flinch at the bitterness in his words. “I thought Lady Anne was driving the day of the wreck. If anyone was to blame, that would make her at fault for the wreck because she lost control.”

“Not when she can blame
me
for my mother going into labor and distracting her. If not for
me
being in the womb, then there would have been no labor pains.”

Ryder had gotten on Bianca’s nerves all day, but she was appalled at Lady Anne’s blaming him for that. Talk about screwed up.

Putting aside Hubrecht’s being suspected of dealing with terrorists, the man had adopted his sister’s child and given Ryder a home. Bianca admitted, “Okay, Lady Anne sounds like a roaring bitch, but Hubrecht must have cared about your mother to take her in when she was pregnant, and to adopt you. Sometimes bad things happen and you just have to accept your lot in life and make the best of it.”

His laugh was dark and warned against pushing this topic too far. “Don’t play psychologist with me. And don’t kid yourself about understanding what it was like to grow up a bastard in that family.”

Bianca shoved her face right up to his. “Oh, you’re right. I have no idea about growing up in
that
family, but you’re wrong on the rest, because I’m just as much a bastard as you.”  

That punched the wind out of his anger.

She nodded. “That’s right, I’m adopted. In fact, I don’t even know who my mother was, but I do know she didn’t want me. Someone left me in my daddy’s barn in a stroller that cost as much as Daddy made in a month. There was a box of fine baby clothes you didn’t find in a Walmart. Inside the stroller was an envelope with ten-thousand-dollars in cash and a typed note that said no one would
ever
come hunting for me.”

Ryder’s throat moved with a hard swallow, but he didn’t try to pass off any useless sympathy.

Her voice softened as she recalled the story she’d been told. “Just that week, Mama had lost her third baby and couldn’t even look at me, but Daddy said she was still full of milk. By that night, she finally picked me up to stop me from squalling for food. She fed me and after that, she never let go.”

Bianca shook after that rant. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper, but Ryder at least knew who his mother was and that she’d wanted to keep him.

He frowned. “I had no idea—”

She held up a hand. “Do
not
feel sorry for me. I was raised by two people who loved me even though they’d lost their natural child. I don’t think about the wealthy woman who tossed me aside and could have kept me. I think about the two people who shared what little they had because they believed God had given them a miracle. Maybe you were so busy looking at the negative you missed some of the good things. That’s not psychology. It’s just plain common sense.”

“You’re lucky.”  

His words had been uttered with sincerity that mollified her anger. Nice Ryder had shown up again. “Yes, I am. As for the phone, it’s a pre-paid, with no link to the agency. A trusted friend forwards the calls, and obviously she thought this was an emergency.” Bianca felt the heat in her face and looked away. “I won’t be where my parents can’t get to me.”

The limo slowed to a crawl, but Bianca felt Ryder’s silver gaze on her.
To avoid continuing that conversation, she asked, “Where are we?”
 

“Middle of downtown.”
Ryder sighed. “Traffic sucks no matter what hour here.”

Bianca caught flashing lights. An accident had just occurred and traffic was being diverted to the left.

She didn’t know metropolitan Atlanta well, but they’d been traveling south on Peachtree Street and were now headed east on Edgewood into a much older area. The limo was detoured again a couple of streets later. She lost track of where they were, but the four-lane road they motored down had a desolate feeling.

The limo slowed in the left lane to stop behind an old beater that managed to miss the green traffic light even though there’d been plenty of time.

Bianca grumbled, “Waiting on a favorite shade of green, buddy?”

Ryder didn’t move, but Bianca could feel him tense right before he muttered, “Shit.”

The way he’d said that one word sent chilly fingers clawing up her spine.

Ryder grabbed her hand. “If anything happens, do what I say. Please.”

The “please” from a man who probably hadn’t said that word in a long time sent her pulse racing. But she was too busy taking in the changing landscape to answer him.

With perfectly executed timing, a white panel van pulled up tight behind them, then another one blocked the right lane beside them and a third matching van made a fast left hand turn in front of the beater and stopped short on the driver’s side of the limo. White panel vans with no windows. Even a computer geek knew that meant
agency
.

Or agency look-alikes.

Professionals.

Ryder was talking calmly as the scene unfolded. “I’m sorry you’re here, Bianca, but I’ll find a way to get you out alive. Don’t do anything to put yourself in more danger, no matter what.”  

“You’re my responsibility,” she said, even if her heart was thumping wildly in her chest. In spite of her words, she was hoping between the two of them they could get out of this.

He cursed as he physically lifted her and tossed her onto the seat closer to the front of the limo. “Don’t fight them, Bianca. Don’t give them a reason to hurt you.
Please.
Just do what they say.”    

Six masked figures jumped out of the vans. They surrounded the limo and used sharp-ended batons to smash the rear windows of the limo, then they reached in to pop the rear doors on each side.

Everything happened in seconds.

Ryder fought two people on his left.

Someone lunged in and grabbed Bianca’s leg, dragging her out the right side while she kicked wildly to free herself.

Booting his attackers away, Ryder dove for Bianca. She reached for him, but was snatched out of his grasp.

She hammered her attacker with every strike she could make, but whoever had her was far more powerful, and anticipated the moves. He knew what he was doing. In less than twenty-five seconds, she was inside one of the vans with a gag shoved in her mouth, and with her wrists and ankles flexi-cuffed. The last thing she saw before a black bag descended over her head was Ryder. He was also cuffed, but still struggling against the three figures tossing him into the van.

Please don’t kill him
.

Fear for him hit her in the gut like a battering ram. She couldn’t have explained that to save her life, but there it was. That, and what these people might do to
her
sent her into alien emotional territory.

Murdock was right. She wasn’t trained for this.

What did these people want?

Had Hubrecht found out what she and Ryder were up to and sent a team to eliminate the threat to his activities?

She didn’t want to die this way.

Would anyone even find their bodies?

God, this would kill her parents.

Doors slammed shut on the van and it started moving.

Ryder asked, “What the fuck do you—”

His words were cut off by the sound of a thud, like a fist or boot hitting his body. He sucked in air and grunted.

Bianca had been acting badass with Ryder, but this was the real world. This was what happened to
real
field agents. She’d never been so afraid in her life, and if Ryder couldn’t fight these people with his skills, there was no chance of her surviving against a professional black ops team.

Her lungs squeezed tight with fear. The FBI unit tracking Ryder’s chip would find
him
.

But by the time they did, there might be nothing left but a body.

CHAPTER 11

A professional snatch job.

Ryder could hear Bianca breathing hard, terrorized rasps. She was right. He’d forced her to do this and she was in danger because of him. He cursed his miserable ass over and over again for dragging her into this mission. If he got her to safety, he’d find a way to get her pulled off the mission.