Midnight Rescue: A Killer Instincts Novel (32 page)

“What do you want?” D said coldly.

“I need your help.”

He moved to close the door.

“Please,” she pleaded. “Please. Come with me, okay?”

Something in her voice must have alerted him to her state of desperation because he stepped out into the hallway. His stiff body language radiated suspicion as he followed her into the bedroom she and Kane were sharing.

“Inside,” she murmured.

D entered the room, took one look at Kane lying on the bed, and spun around to face her, murder in his eyes. “What the hell have you done?”

“I didn’t kill him,” she said quickly. “Please. Just…” She took a breath. “Just dial the rage down a bit. I need your help.”

D was already heading for the bed. He leaned over Kane to check for a pulse and Abby wanted to scream. Did he honestly think she would hurt Kane?

“What the fuck is going on?” he demanded when he was certain Kane’s heart was still beating.

“Devlin called. He knows about the rescue, but I convinced him not to alert the other guards about it. He gave me his word, but we both know his word means shit, so make sure you tell Kane and Morgan that the element of surprise might have been lost.” The words
spilled out fast and urgent. “I agreed to meet with him at the same time the rescue is going down. I have to lure him away from the compound, otherwise he’ll fuck everything up. I need to get out of here, D, and I need your help to make that happen.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Are you serious? Do you honestly think—”

“Kane would have tried to stop me,” she interrupted. “Or worse, he would have found a way to go with me, even if it meant leaving you guys in the lurch. You need him on the extraction, D. You can’t do it without him.”

“So you
knocked him out
?”

“I had no other choice.” Desperation bounced off her words. “Devlin wants me to come alone. Kane wouldn’t have let that happen. You
know
it.”

D’s jaw was tight, his expression feral. “I once told you that if you hurt any of my guys, I’d break your neck.”

“I remember.” She met those furious black eyes. “But you know I did the right thing. Kane can’t be a part of this.”

“He’ll kill me if I help you.”

“He’ll get himself killed if he tries to help me. Not to mention leave you one man short on this rescue. So for the love of God, stop arguing with me and
help
.”

D shook his head. “You want me to send you into Devlin’s clutches? I worked with that man once, Abby. He’ll tear your throat out.”

“Would that really bother you?” she said, sarcasm oozing from her tone. “You don’t give a damn what happens to me. But you
do
care about this mission, and making sure that everyone involved gets out of it alive. The extraction will go smoother if Devlin isn’t at the compound. That’s one less thing to worry about.”

He didn’t argue with that one. Like he’d said, he’d worked with Devlin. He knew better than anyone what a vicious pain in the ass that man could be.

D went silent. She could see him thinking, working it over in his head, and then some of the ice in his expression thawed, and she knew with a burst of relief that he would help her.

He squared his shoulders. “Follow me.”

Knowing better than to ask questions, she did as he asked. The living room was empty when they entered, but Morgan’s voice wafted out from the den, followed by a loud guffaw from Luke.

“Out, now,” D said almost inaudibly.

They quietly moved toward the front of the house, but rather than leave by the front entrance, D gestured to a narrow door to the left of the hall. She’d assumed it was a closet, but to her surprise, it opened to reveal a metal staircase.

“Hurry,” D snapped, sounding annoyed as he glanced over his shoulder to see her hesitating at the top of the stairs.

She quickly followed him down. Neither of them made a sound as they reached the landing at the bottom, which featured yet another door, this one opening to a spacious garage she hadn’t known existed. Several SUVs cluttered the large space, along with a pickup truck and a sleek yellow Ducati motorcycle that made her gasp.

“Is that a Desmosedici?” she demanded.

D looked like he was going to smile. He didn’t, of course. “Latest model on the market.”

“Those things go like two hundred miles an hour,” she said in admiration.

“Which is why you’re taking it.” He strode in the opposite direction of the bike, toward a metal utility cabinet. Yanking it open, he looked over his shoulder and snapped, “Get over here. Help me with this gear.”

Five minutes later, she had everything she needed and D was handing her a black helmet. “The garage door is automatic. They’ll hear it opening from upstairs.”

Abby tucked her hair behind her ears and slid the helmet on. Flipping the visor open, she shot him a grave look. “Stall. Make something up. Give me as much time as you can. And when Kane wakes up…” Her throat clogged. “Tell him…”

D waited impatiently.

Abby swallowed hard. “Forget it. I’ll tell him myself.” She swung a leg over the bike and straddled the powerful machine.

D stepped toward a control panel on the wall. “Ready?” he said gruffly.

She lowered the visor and revved the engine.

D pressed a button and the garage door came to life with a grating metallic roar.

A moment later she was gone.

His head felt like someone had pounded it with a baseball bat. Lord, why did it hurt this much? Why did—? Kane’s eyes snapped open.

What the
hell
?

Feeling groggy, he took a few seconds to orient himself, groaning as he tried to sit up. His temples ached. Blinking wildly, he tried to remember where he was, what had happened—and then it all rushed back with startling clarity.

“Son of a bitch!” He shot into an upright position.

Abby. Abby had knocked him out. The image of her dark yellow eyes, glimmering with regret, swarmed his brain. Red-hot fury crashed into him like a tidal wave.

He heaved himself off the bed, but a deadly voice stopped him before he made it to the door.

“She’s already gone, man.”

Fighting a wave of dizziness, Kane spun around and spotted D in the armchair by the window, his ankles crossed, his expression nonchalant.

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Kane demanded.

“She left. A few hours ago.”

Kane swore violently. “She knocked me out. She…
kissed
me,” he choked out. “She fucking seduced me and then knocked me the
fuck
out.”

“I know,” D said with a shrug.

“What?”

Sounding extremely calm, D uncrossed his legs. “She brought me in here afterward. She asked me to help her leave. So I did.”

Rage congealed in Kane’s blood. His body went stiff as the implication of what D had just said settled in. “You helped her? Why the hell would you do that? Where the hell did she need to go that was so damn impor— Devlin,” he said dully.

D didn’t respond.

“He got to her,” Kane muttered. He sagged against the wall—it was suddenly hard to keep himself vertical. “He convinced her to go to him. Why? Why would she agree?”

And why wouldn’t she tell me?

The question hung in the air, but neither man said it
out loud. Didn’t matter. Kane knew the answer anyway. She hadn’t told him because he would’ve tried to stop her. Failing that, he would have gone with her.

And she hadn’t wanted him to come.

She hadn’t trusted him to come.

His chest felt ravaged, as if someone had burned it with a hot poker. He’d actually believed they were getting somewhere.

It was a slap in the face, knowing he’d been wrong.

“It doesn’t matter why she went,” D said calmly. “She’s gone. And all you can do is focus on the mission now.”

The fury swirling through his body channeled itself at D like an electrical current. Kane charged across the room and heaved the other man off the chair, slamming him against the wall with so much force that a picture frame came crashing down to the parquet floor.

“You let her go!” Kane’s vision registered nothing but a red haze. “You let her go so she could meet up with a
psychopath
! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The bedroom door burst open. Morgan took one look at the scene in front of him and let out a curse.
“What is going on here?”

Kane held D up by his collar, shaking him hard. “You bastard,” he muttered.

It took him a moment to realize that the other man wasn’t fighting back. He hung limply in Kane’s grip, his face completely emotionless.

Tamping down his disgust, Kane regained his sanity. He swiftly released D and turned his back on the guy. He couldn’t even look at his friend right now.

“Abby’s gone,” Kane said flatly. “D helped her escape.”

Morgan shook his head. “I knew something was up
when you told me you opened the garage by
accident
.” He glowered at D. “What were you thinking?”

“She asked for help. I gave it to her.” There was zero remorse in D’s voice.

“She went to meet Devlin,” Kane said.

“Shit.” Morgan reached up to rub his temples, which couldn’t be hurting more than Kane’s were at the moment. “I should’ve known she’d do something like this. That woman is going to get herself killed.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Kane muttered.

“No way.” Morgan’s tone was hard as steel. “You’re not going after her.”

“Like hell I’m not.” He shot D a cold look. “Where did she go?” When D simply shrugged, Kane had to resist the urge to attack him again. “Where—did—she—go? And if you don’t answer me, I swear to God, I’ll rip your throat out, Derek.”

As if weighing the options, D finally let out a frustrated breath. “Muzo. It’s a small town two hours north of here. I put it in the GPS for her. But you don’t want to go after her, Kane. We’re about to storm Blanco’s fucking compound.”

Frustration seized Kane’s insides and twisted them into hard knots. D was right. He couldn’t abandon his men, not when he’d been the one to convince them to take on this mission in the first place. Anger streaked through him, all of it directed at Abby. She’d put him in an impossible position. Christ, how could she do this? She’d known, when she knocked him out and ran off to meet Devlin, that Kane wouldn’t be able to follow her. That he wouldn’t desert his team.

Unless…

“When is she meeting him?” he snapped.

D sighed. “Right when the auction begins. Seven o’clock.”

“The chopper’s not taking off until eight twenty,” Kane said slowly.

Morgan’s tone took on a note of wariness. “Kane…”

Without a word, Kane marched out the door. Luke and Ethan were in the living room, shoving magazines into the pile of assault rifles on the coffee table. Both looked up in shock when he rushed past them, but he paid them no attention. He found what he was looking for in the den, and when Morgan and D appeared in the doorway a few moments later, he met Morgan’s eyes with the determined set of his jaw.

“Muzo’s an hour from the helipad in Corturo,” he said as he closed the laptop he’d swiped from the desk. “I can make it.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kane—”

“I won’t let that maniac kill her,” he interrupted, feeling his cheeks go hot. “And I won’t leave you in the lurch either.”

“Kane, I know you care about her,” Morgan said, “but—”

“She
needs
me.” His mouth tightened in a grim line. “Whether she likes it or not.”

Before either of them could object again, he sprinted out of the room, nearly knocking them both over in the process. Two hours north. Abby was probably already there, scouting the area and making sure Devlin wasn’t laying a trap for her.
Damn
her. He let out a string of expletives, which only got louder and more obscene as he burst into the garage and discovered that Abby had commandeered their fastest vehicle.

He forced himself not to dwell on what she’d done as he ran around the garage like a crazy person, gathering everything he needed. But it was hard not to. She’d knocked him out. She’d run out on him. Hadn’t even trusted him enough to tell him what she was doing. She’d trusted D.
D
, for fuck’s sake. Biting back his anger and resentment, Kane hit the button to open the garage door and slid into one of the armored SUVs parked in the large space.

He was going to
kill
her.

If Devlin didn’t do it first.

“This is it,” Isabel murmured.

She and Trevor were being escorted out of the car Blanco had sent to their hotel, and she was troubled to see that the courtyard of his estate was littered with other cars. Isabel counted eleven. She suddenly felt sick. Eleven sick bastards already here, eager to purchase a
human being
. What kind of world was she living in? What kind of people did these things?

Trevor casually gripped her hand as they climbed the front steps of the house. The sun was just beginning to set, filling the sky with shades of orange, pink, and yellow. Beautiful, actually. She felt even sicker, finding beauty in such an ugly situation.

At least she didn’t have to do this alone. A part of her was incredibly grateful to have Trevor by her side, though she was still a tad apprehensive after last night’s unsettling encounter. He’d almost kissed her. He might deny it, but Isabel knew when a man wanted to kiss her. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t.

No, of course she wasn’t disappointed. She’d told herself
right from the start that she couldn’t get involved with Trevor Callaghan. He was too broken, maybe even beyond repair, and as she held his hand on their way to the house, she forced herself to push aside the troubling thoughts and focus on the task at hand.

As before, Trevor’s weapon had been confiscated at the gate, and although both of them had been subjected to a thorough search, Isabel drew comfort from the fact that none of the guards seemed to be eyeing Trevor and her with suspicion. Morgan had called earlier to give them a heads-up that Blanco might have caught wind of their plan. If Devlin had told his boss about the potential ambush, then Blanco might very well suspect that the Martins, last-minute bidders, could be involved. Even though she and Trevor had been treated with indifference by the guards, Isabel prayed that they weren’t walking into a trap.