Mine To Protect (Mine #6) (15 page)

And as she stared at him, Victor saw the fear in her gaze. He’d never wanted her to look at him that way. Never wanted her doubt and her anger and her pain.

He stopped in front of her.

“Victor?”

There were a million things he needed to say to her. A million. But he had no idea where to begin. He lifted his hand and swiped that keycard so he could get in the elevator. So
they
could get in. He pushed her inside and turned to look back at Tom. Blood dripped down the guy’s face and stained his suit. Tom glared at Victor with absolute hatred in his eyes.

The doors slowly slid closed.

The bastard had broken his nose. Tom swiped at the blood that kept gushing out and glared at the elevator. Victor Monroe was a pain in his ass. He was also a problem that
would
be eliminated.

One way or the other.

Tom swung around and stomped back to his office. He yelled at the guards. Those two had sure been freaking useless. If they failed him again, it would be the last mistake they made.

Tom headed toward his desk. He typed in the security code that unlocked the top drawer of his desk, and when he opened the drawer there, his laptop waited. He pulled it out, booted it up, and, a few keystrokes later, he connected with the building’s security feed.

A couple more taps, and he was accessing the camera in the VIP elevator. He saw Zoe. Beautiful Zoe. She was still so perfect to him. All those curves. That husky voice. Those eyes that promised heaven. Perfect sex appeal. The arm candy he needed. The jewel that showed just how far he’d come.

And Victor Monroe was at her side. Looking furious. Desperate.

That’s right. Be desperate. Because you don’t have options, Victor. Soon, you won’t have anything at all. No FBI. No freedom. No Zoe.

Tom had been prepared for this meeting. He’d gotten plenty of dirt to use from Luther and he’d even paid some folks at the FBI to spill the information they had on Elizabeth Ward. Oh, yes, he’d been ready.

At that moment, Victor’s hand flew out. He hit the control panel once. Twice. He drove his fist into it again and again.

“What the hell?” Tom muttered. What was that freaking psycho agent doing? And, yeah, the guy was nuts. Based on the crazy shit he’d read in Victor’s files, the special agent had more than a bit of a dark side going on. And Zoe thought
he
was the good guy?

When would she learn?

They truly were letting just anyone into the FBI these days. How disappointing.

Zoe tried to grab the guy’s arm.

Tom’s eyes narrowed as Victor swung toward Zoe, with his hand still fisted.

***

“What is wrong with you?” Zoe asked when Victor whirled toward her. His knuckles were bleeding.
Because the guy had just been pounding the hell out of that control panel.
“Stop it!”

“It is stopped.” His hand fell to his side. She saw him flex his fingers. “I didn’t have the right access to stop the thing the normal way, so I figured a couple of hits—if they were hard enough—might just do the trick.”

Her heart was racing so hard that her chest hurt. It took her a frantic moment to realize what his words meant. Then she understood…
he’d stopped the elevator.

“Now, to make sure
he
stops watching us.” His head turned and Victor scanned the elevator. “Ah, there you are.” He headed to the small, dark box positioned to the left of the elevator doors. The box was up high, but he could easily reach it. And he did. He smashed through the glass covering on the box, and shards of glass rained down on the floor. Then he yanked out the small camera. “Can’t see us now, can you, bastard?” Victor broke the camera and tossed it away.

Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. Her body was shaking. Fury and pain and fear twisted inside of her as she stared at Victor.

Sister. I have a sister and he never told me.
She’d only met Elizabeth Ward one time. One desperate time. Then the woman had vanished. “You sent her away.” The pieces were sliding into place, so very slowly now.

Blood dripped from his battered knuckles. “I was protecting her. Just like I’ve been protecting you.” He stepped toward her.

She retreated fast, because she couldn’t bear the idea of his touch, not right then. If he touched her, Zoe wasn’t sure what she’d do. Break apart? Attack him? Maybe both? “Were you?” Her words felt hard even as they burst from her mouth. “Or were you just using me? Trying to isolate me even more so that I was completely dependent on you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No. I had to keep her safe. She married my brother—she’s
family.
”

“She’s
my
family, too, dammit! I had a right to know!” Her eyes burned, but not with tears. Just…fury. Fury was all she could handle in that moment. She wouldn’t let the fear and pain take over. She couldn’t.

He was still shaking his head. “This isn’t the place to talk about that, okay? I stopped the elevator, but that is just going to buy us a few minutes. Your bastard of an ex-lover will have his crews working to get this thing moving in no time.” And he took another step toward her.

There was no place for her to go. She was trapped between him and the back wall of the elevator. His hands lifted—

“Don’t,” she ordered. “Do not touch me right now. I-I can’t handle it, okay?”

He froze.

“My heart hurts,” she whispered. But the words were a lie. Her heart didn’t just hurt. It felt as if it had been ripped right out of her chest. Tom had been telling the truth. Victor’s reaction left no doubt about it. Elizabeth Ward was her sister. Victor had known and kept that secret from her. And if he’d kept that secret…
how many other secrets does he have?
“Why did you do this to me?”

His jaw locked. His face held no expression—his features were just tense, but his eyes blazed with desperate emotion. “You knew, all along, that I was working your father’s case. I
told
you. You knew I had a job to do. You even said you realized I was—”

“Why did you have to make me fall in love with you?” There. She’d said it. The stark, horrible words were out and she couldn’t pull them back. Zoe didn’t want them back. “Were you following orders? Doing
anything
to make me trust you?” She had to swallow twice in order to keep speaking. “Was that what your boss at the FBI ordered? My trust…so you could control me?”

“Zoe…” The desperation flared even more in his eyes. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

Sometimes, it was what people
didn’t
say that mattered the most. She’d just told him that she loved him. And he’d said…

I never wanted to hurt you.

Those words hurt the most. They told her that while she’d been giving him her heart, while she’d been getting lost in him, Victor had just been following his orders.

Building trust.

Breaking her.

“You kept holding back,” he rasped. “No one could get through to you. We knew Luther was working some new plan. We can’t let him back on the streets. He was supposed to cooperate with us—that was the whole reason you had protection.”

Her heart hurt even more. She lost her breath.
The whole reason.
Right. Because when Victor was with her, it wasn’t personal. All business. How could she have ever forgotten that?

“He can bring down nearly the entire East Coast crime syndicate—and the guy can destroy Vegas, too, you know it. His ties are that fucking far reaching. But he stopped talking—he went back on the deal we’d made.”

A deal that had been set up to protect her. “I guess I didn’t mean that much to him. Not when his own freedom was on the line.”

Victor reached for her once more.

“No!”

His hands slammed down on either side of her head, his palms hitting the mirrored back wall of the elevator. “We don’t have time.”

He kept saying that crap.

“Tom is trying to take you.”

“Get away from me, Victor.” She hurt too much. He was too close. She couldn’t
think.

“He offered me a deal. Dammit, it’s a deal I don’t want to take.”

Now she laughed, bitterly. “But you’re the man always making deals.”

“
Tom wants you.
”

“And you don’t.” No, hell, she hadn’t meant—

“I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in this world.” Victor’s words were guttural. “Never doubt that. You are not just a job. I am an asshole, a cold-hearted bastard. A fucking fool. And you are the best thing that has ever come into my life.”

Now she was the one to shake her head. She wouldn’t believe him, not again. How many more lies did he have to tell?

“Your trust is gone. I saw it happen. I saw it die in your eyes. I saw the moment when you started to look at me the same way everyone else does.” His breath was ragged. “I didn’t want that. Not with you.”

The elevator jerked. He swore.

Being so close to him was too painful. “Let me go.”

“
Baby, please…listen to me.
”

She didn’t want to listen. Was it so wrong that she wanted to lick her wounds? “Michelle.” Saying the other woman’s name helped to stiffen her spine. “She’s what matters now. We have to find her. We—”

“Tom knows where she is. That guy is in this mess up to his eyes.”

Yes, she was afraid he was.

“But I can’t take him down. If I fight him right now, he’s going to expose Elizabeth. She’ll be a target. Do you want hitmen hunting her, the way they are you?”

No. No, she didn’t. “I wouldn’t wish my life on anyone.” Being Luther’s daughter was its own brand of hell.

The elevator jerked again. “Tom wants you,” Victor said again, the words so dark and rough. “And if he doesn’t get you, when this elevator stops, I’ll be charged with assault.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have attacked the guy!”

“I know! Shit,
I know!
But he knew my weakness. Going in, he fucking knew…knew about Elizabeth. Knew that I would attack to try and keep him quiet. He used that. He planned that whole scene up there. We were here, looking for the bastard who has been pulling all the strings, looking for the man who was going to swap Michelle for you, and I think we found him.”

“Tom?” Tom had always been low on the totem pole. Not a power player in her father’s organization. Hadn’t that been why he’d wanted to marry her?

Once more, the elevator lurched. Only this time, it didn’t stop with that jerk. It began to descend.

“I have to walk away,” Victor said. “It has to
look
as if I’m walking away.”

“I don’t understand.” He was leaving her now?

“If I go to jail, I can’t protect you. If he releases what he knows about Elizabeth…she’s next on the kill list.”

They were almost at the lobby level. Above the elevator doors, she could see the shining lights counting them down.

“He’ll take you.”

What?

“It’s part of the deal. I am so fucking sorry.”

“You’re…leaving me?” How could the pain keep getting worse?

“When this elevator gets to the ground floor, I have to walk away. But I am coming fucking back. There’s no way I’m giving you up.”

Walking away…it sure sounded as if he were giving her up. “I was a case.”

“No.” Hard, rough. “You are everything. Remember that. To me, you are
everything.
Fuck the case. Fuck the FBI. Fuck Luther Bates.”

The elevator dinged. The doors opened.

“You are everything.”

Then he kissed her. A deep, hard, desperate kiss. One that made her ache for the things that they’d had. For what
could
have been. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold tight but she didn’t move.

Well…didn’t move except for the tear that slipped from her eye and slid down her cheek.

“Boss wants to know…”A nasally voice grated. “You make your choice?”

Victor’s head lifted. He looked over his shoulder. She saw the two men standing just past those open elevator doors. More guards with ear pieces.

“She’s my choice,” Victor said. He turned back to stare at Zoe. “She always will be.” He put his forehead against hers. “I am so damn sorry. I wish I could start over again. I’d do everything differently with you.
Everything.
”

The guard said, “Boss is going to—”

Victor let her go. He whirled to confront the guards. “Tell your boss we aren’t done. When it comes to Zoe, I’m never done.”

Then he strode forward. The guards slid away, opening a space for him to pass.

And he just…

Left her.

Left her standing in that elevator. Left her all alone.

Zoe pressed her lips together so that they wouldn’t tremble, and she tasted him. She could still feel him. Even though he was…gone.

Gone, without a second glance back.

She straightened her shoulders. Marched forward, but the guards didn’t let her pass.

They blocked her way. “Boss wants you back upstairs.”

“I don’t really give a shit what he wants.”

One of the guys grabbed her arm, tightly, in a grip that bruised. “Funny, we don’t really give a shit what
you
want, either.”

The other guard jammed a gun into her side. “You’re going back upstairs.”

“Victor!” she yelled.

He stopped.

The guards pushed her deeper into the elevator.

Victor had swung around to face her. She saw the fury and the pain on his face. So much emotion, but he wasn’t moving toward her.

“Victor,” she whispered.

“Those earrings are fucking gorgeous on you.”

The elevator doors closed.

He’d never wanted to destroy someone so completely. Victor stood in the casino lobby, people all around him, the whir of slot machines and the too high peal of laughter grating in his ears.

She loves me, and I have so fucked everything to hell and back.

His hands were clenched. Every muscle in his body was poised to attack.

Zoe had been afraid when she called out to him. He’d heard the terror in her voice. She’d been afraid, and he’d been helpless to do anything to save her.

Someone bumped into him. A hard hit in his shoulder. “Sorry, buddy,” the guy muttered and kept going.

Not just a stranger—Cain, doing his undercover work. Scoping out the casino. Victor whirled and grabbed him before Cain could go too far.

“Watch where the fuck you’re going!” Victor yelled at him. Then he jerked Cain closer. “Penthouse. Tom Winters has Zoe up there. I need eyes on her.” He shoved the guy away. Glared.

Cain glared back, but, knowing how to play his part perfectly, he whirled away, muttering about “Drunk assholes” as he headed toward the elevator bank.

Victor heaved out a hard breath. He tried to figure out his next move. Tried to think past the desperation and fear choking him. Then…his head turned. He found the security camera perched high on one of the white columns that lined the lobby.

Tom would be monitoring him through the casino’s cameras. Watching his every move. Victor stared into that round lens a moment. Then he said, quite clearly, moving his lips slowly so he could be sure that Tom would understand. “Zoe. Is. Mine. Hurt her…and you die.”

Then he headed out of the casino. As soon as he cleared those big, gleaming entrance doors, he yanked out his phone. He was going to have to move, hell fast. He dialed his brother—the man he
thought
of as his brother. Saxon Black. The guy who’d been at his side when they were desperate teens on the street. The man who’d followed him to the FBI when Victor had wanted to stop
being
a criminal and to fight against the bad guys out there. The agent who’d lost his heart to Elizabeth Ward…and who’d gotten out of the FBI because he’d wanted a normal life, with his new love.

The phone rang once, twice. Then…

“Vic? Hey, bro, long time, no talk,” Saxon greeted.

“Elizabeth may be compromised. Get her the fuck out of the country right now.”

Silence. Painful. Stark.

“Get her out,” Victor snapped. “Get a burner phone. When you’re someplace safe, call me to check in.”

“Vic…what’s happening?”

He turned back to stare up at the glittering lights of the Vine. “I fucked up. All those secrets I keep? The ones you warned me about? They’re coming back to bite me in the ass now.” And they were biting hard.

“How can I help?”

That was Saxon. That was his family. “Help by protecting Elizabeth. That woman is carrying my niece, and I damn well want them safe.” Another fucking secret. One that he hadn’t been able to tell Zoe.

Zoe, baby…I will make this up to you. I will find a way.

“We’ll be gone within the hour.”

Victor knew Saxon would do anything necessary to protect Elizabeth and the baby.

He ended the call. Kept walking. The street was full of traffic and Christmas lights and people laughing with their freaking holiday cheer. His world was imploding and everyone else just carried along with their business as if
nothing
was happening.

He needed help. So much help. Russell and new agent Lauren Ward were waiting around the corner in an unmarked van. They’d expect a full report from him, but a full report was the last thing he could deliver. And the local cops working this case—they were already seething. That seething would just get worse. One of their own was missing, and he had no new information to give them on Michelle’s whereabouts.

He pressed another button on his phone. Sometimes, the FBI and the cops couldn’t help. Sometimes, the only people who could help were your family. He waited, with the phone pressed to his ear, until the call was answered.

“Victor…” Jasmine’s voice was soft, worried. “What do you need?”

I need Zoe back.
“Help,” he managed. “I need you and Drake to help me.” Because he was about to cross too many lines. He was about to break the law. About to turn his back on the agency. About to do anything necessary…to protect Zoe. To keep his unborn niece and her mother Elizabeth safe.

To stop Tom Winters.

To stop Luther Bates.

To get Zoe back with me.

***

The gun stayed in Zoe’s side during the elevator ride. It pressed harder to her as the guards escorted her down the narrow hallway and toward the penthouse. One goon opened the door for her and pushed her inside.

Tom was leaning over his laptop when she entered the room. He looked up at her and a wide smile split his face. “You came back to me!”

“At gunpoint,” she responded. Her hand rose and pressed to her right earring. She sure hoped she was activating the device the right way. Victor had told her to just press down on the little diamond stud…Zoe tried to make the move just look like a nervous gesture.

Those earrings are fucking gorgeous on you.
She’d gotten Victor’s message, loud and clear. Now she just hoped—
I can get Tom to confess to me.

Tom motioned dismissively toward her guards. “Leave us.”

That was it?
Leave us?
No reprimand for the guns? The guards scurried out, shutting the door behind them.

Tom’s nose was swollen. Dried blood was on his face. And his jaw was bruised a deep purple. Hardly the suave man that she remembered.

“I’m sorry that I had to be the one to tell you the truth about Victor Monroe.” Now Tom sounded sympathetic. Was she supposed to buy that bull? He wasn’t sympathetic. He was like Luther—psychopathic.

“You have to be more careful who you trust,” Tom added.

She
had to be more careful? Her vision seemed to go red as she stalked toward him. Fury drove her. A fury that left her ice cold.

His smile widened as she approached. The fool looked so confident and smug. Time to change that. Time to change everything.

“Victor doesn’t matter.” She could lie easily. After all, she was her father’s daughter. Zoe smiled at Tom. “Not at all.” Her right hand slid toward the top of her dress. The neckline dipped, exposing the upper curves of her breasts. Tom’s gaze followed the movement of her hands and his breath hitched faster.

Men. So disgustingly predictable sometimes.

She leaned closer to him. Her fingers skimmed inside the vee of her dress, reaching just under the bra that she wore and—

In a flash, she’d pulled out the small knife that Victor had given to her. Her first present from him. A very handy gift. She shoved that knife right up against Tom’s throat. He instantly went still.

“I am so sick and tired of being used,” she whispered to him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I-I can understand that.”

Her eyes turned to slits as she stared up at him. “Michelle Lane.”

“I don’t—”

She let the blade cut his skin. A fat drop of blood trickled down his neck. She wanted to show the guy she meant business.

But…

He laughed. “You aren’t going to kill me. We both know that. You may be Luther’s daughter, but you don’t have his…instincts, shall we say?”

Why did people always underestimate her? “Don’t be too sure of that. Right now, it’s taking every bit of self-control I have not to slit your throat from ear to ear.”

His laughter stopped. Maybe he believed her. Maybe he didn’t. If he pushed her more, they’d both find out whether or not she was bluffing. “You went to see Roy at the station. How did you become his lawyer?”

“We have an…acquaintance in common.”

“Michelle?”

He didn’t speak.

So the knife cut deeper.

“You have her,” Zoe said. “
You’re
the one in charge here. The one using this big ass fancy office.”

“I have come up in the world since we last met,” he allowed.

“Is she alive?” Zoe had to know.

“Move the knife, and I’ll tell you.”

“Is she alive?
Dammit, it’s just us in here! Why keep lying to me? Why keep—”

“She’s alive,” Tom said. His face changed. Went cold. Sinister. “And she’ll stay that way, as long as you keep cooperating with me.”

Ice spread from her belly to her lungs…to her heart.

“If you want Michelle Lane back, well,
you
have to work a deal with me.”

Disgusted, her lips curled at him. “Why is everyone all about deals these days?”

His hand flew up and closed around her wrist. She tensed, locking down to make sure he couldn’t jerk her hand—and her knife—away from his throat.

“What can I say?” Tom murmured. “I guess folks like a good deal.”

Bastard.

“You’re the only one who can do this particular job. Do it…and all the hits on you will vanish. The slate will be clean. Michelle will be released, and you won’t have to look over your shoulder any longer, always worried about the next attack.”

He was so wrong. “There is no way for me to escape.”

“I’ve been working both sides.” His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist. A sensual movement. She had a knife to his throat and the asshole was acting as if they were about to make out.

In his freaking dreams.

“You suspected that, though, didn’t you, sweetheart?” Tom murmured. “I saw the suspicion in your eyes when you saw me walk into this room.”

“My father treated you like shit years ago. I didn’t buy that you were suddenly jumping to do his bidding again.”

“No.” Again, he stroked her wrist, right over her racing pulse. “But he doesn’t understand how I feel about him. He thinks I’ll keep doing his dirty work forever, but times have changed. While he’s been locked up, I’ve had access to his contacts. I
used
them. I created my own empire.”

“And you’re the new power in Vegas.”

He inclined his head toward her, not seeming to care that when he moved, the knife cut even deeper into him.

“I’ll be even more powerful once you do one simple task for me.”

She was staring at a monster. “You’re the one who put the two million dollars on my head.”

He shrugged.

“You did it.
”

“Guilty.”

Her fingers trembled with the effort of holding back.
Cut his throat. Cut it.
Maybe she was more like Luther than she’d realized.

“I didn’t think you’d actually
die
, you know.” Now Tom sounded offended. “It was only two million, after all. The heavy hitters don’t really get involved in business like this—you know, with a guy like Luther Bates hanging in the background, poised for epic retaliation—unless it’s at least four million.”

Insane bastard. “You put a hit on my life.”

He gave a little shrug. “I moved the pieces on the chess board.”

She could see herself killing him. In that moment, it would be so easy. One slice. Done. Sure, the blood would pour on her and he’d probably fight as he went down…

The same way my mother had fought. The same way the blood had pumped from her. The same way…

“You’ve gone so pale, sweetheart. I’m sorry, but, come on, at this point in your life, shouldn’t you just expect betrayals?” Then he twisted the wrist he’d been stroking. Hard and brutally and the bone snapped.

She didn’t cry out, but the knife she’d held slipped from her fingers.

“I had to put the hit on you. I didn’t know where you were hiding. I needed you to come out. To come back to me. It’s the same reason I took Michelle. You had to come to me…and you did.”

“I could’ve died, asshole!” Her wrist throbbed. The pain was so intense that nausea rose within her and dizziness had her swaying. “If it weren’t for Victor—”

“Ah. Dear Victor. He’s the man I knew would save you. After all, you are his weakness. I’d long suspected that, and it was so nice to get the confirmation from Roy. Roy would have told me anything—everything—of course, because the fool actually thinks I’m going to help him.” His head leaned toward her, right next to her ear, as if he were sharing a special secret when he whispered, “I’m not. I’m going to let him go to jail and I’ll let one of the prisoners kill him there. Just like I sent another prisoner to kill that fool who tried to shoot you in the alley.”

“
You
sent that shooter!”

“And I couldn’t risk him turning on me.” He spoke with no emotion. “Just so you know, I
did
include a bonus in the hit…a bonus that would be paid if you were brought in alive. See? I was doing my part to protect you, too.”

What?
That was insane.

“I needed you back, Zoe.”

“Why me?” Why was she so important?

“Because, sweetheart, you’re the only one who can do this special job. The only one
he
won’t see coming.” His breath blew over the shell of her ear. “If you want Michelle back alive, if you want
your
life back—no hits, no enemies, nothing but you dancing your heart out on a glittering Vegas stage,
my
stage—then you just have to do one thing for me.”

“What?”

He eased back so that he could stare into her eyes. Then he smiled as he told her, “You have to kill Luther Bates.”

***

Victor yanked open the side door of the van.

“Hell, yes!” Russell said as his fist shot into the air. He had headphones on and was leaning over a computer. Lauren sat at his side, her eyes gleaming, and a wide smile on her face.

“We just got the bastard,” Lauren whispered. “
We got him!
”

Victor shook his head, not understanding.

“Zoe activated her listening device as soon as she got close to Tom,” Russell said. “We recorded every single word that prick just said to her. We got his full confession. That bastard is going
down.
”

She’d done it.

“He’s the one who took Michelle,” Lauren said quickly, shoving back her hair. “He’s the one who put out the hit on Zoe. He’s the one who’s been doing it all.” She gave a quick, excited laugh. “Your plan worked freaking perfectly.”