Passionate Vengeance (3 page)

“I understand that your first priority will be to get this girl out of the clinic and safe,” Jones said, his deep voice firm and serious. “But I need to give more than that to the higher-ups. If they have her under psych evaluation she might be doped to the gills on meds, in who knows what kind of physical and mental state. Questioning her immediately might need to take a back seat to the Agency medics doing their job and keeping her well.”

“You want us to question the staff?” Tristan asked sceptically. “If we’re going to be carting off one of their patients—with or without their approval—I doubt that will lend them to standing around placidly answering twenty questions with us.”

“No shit,” Preston cut back. “I was thinking more along the lines of perhaps one of you getting the girl under control and the other doing something useful, like nosing into their records, seeing what information they have on Dr Harper that might be of use to us. Small, unimportant things like that.”

“I can get the guys in tech to set up an external hard drive for us,” Lucas suggested. “Since George knows the software they’re using over there maybe he can help them get a drive copier installed for us, and instead of leafing through and scouring their drives we can just copy the lot?”

Preston winced but appeared to consider his suggestion for a minute.

“How about you instruct George to set the software up to copy anything related to Harper. What say we try to keep the massive breach of privacy to a minimum?”

Lucas nodded and they were silent a moment.

“Get cracking, men,” Preston finished. “It will be dark in just a few hours. I want you back in here with a solid plan before then. Talk to the techs, get whatever equipment you’ll need, and be certain you warn the medics they’ll have another bed filled, at minimum overnight. Go.”

Lucas and Tristan stood and left the office. They crossed to their own desks and sat down in silence. Lucas glanced around the room at the many other agents busily working on their own cases and finally came a full circle back to watch his partner. Tristan’s dark gaze remained on him and Lucas sighed.

“What is it?” he asked in a low tone, hoping they weren’t going to have a problem. From experience he knew showing mutual support in front of one’s superiors was one thing. Privately supporting one another when one party didn’t agree with the other was completely different. While Tristan might be perfectly willing to not rat him out to Preston, whether his partner thought he’d lost his marbles in private could still make things uncomfortable between them.

“When we were assigned together after Peterson was murdered I did some checking on you.” Tristan’s response surprised Lucas. He kept silent, waiting for Tristan to continue with what he needed to say. “Despite the fact it took us a while to find our pace together I knew from the start you were a good man, and after the first few weeks I could tell you’d make a damn fine agent.”

Tristan’s words caused Lucas to lift his eyebrows and a smile blossomed across his face. They were friends and partners, but rarely did they so explicitly state their faith in one another. It just wasn’t something either really did. Lucas had to admit though, warmth and a kind of gratitude spread in his chest at his partner’s words.

“Uh, thanks,” he replied. Lucas wasn’t quite sure what he was meant to say to that. They nodded at each other. Lucas understood that Tristan was conveying they’d stand side by side whatever might come their way.

“I appreciate it. And I don’t need to tell you what a good agent you are, mate. I’m glad we’re partners,” Lucas said a bit gruffly.

Tristan chuckled as he gathered his notebook and stood. They stared silently for a moment before Tristan seemed to come to some internal decision. He tilted his chin slightly at Lucas in acknowledgement.

Lucas’ gut tightened nervously. For a few brief seconds he worried about what exactly his partner had decided.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Tristan warned him. “I know you’re way more invested in this girl than you should be, but frankly I’m not in a position to point fingers. I would have crossed every line imaginable to keep Kimberly safe and be with her like I am right now. I have to side with Jones, though. We don’t know anything about Abigail. You haven’t even met her. Maybe she is an innocent caught up in a nightmare, but maybe she isn’t. I’ll protect your back as long as I can, Sloan, but just try to take it easy. And like I said—don’t screw this up. It’s not just your arse in this fire, but mine too.”

Lucas nodded, his friend’s warning hitting home far more than Preston’s ever could. Jones was their boss, and while he was decent as far as managers went, he still had to keep his eye on the bottom line and kiss the arses of those above him. Tristan wasn’t spouting the party line or bullshitting him. His partner was merely trying to slap him with a reality check and Lucas appreciated it.

“I won’t get in too deep, I promise,” he returned. “Besides, you’ll be there in the clinic with me. If I go over the top you can beat me about the head with a stick or something to keep me in check.”

“Like you’d listen,” Tristan snorted. “I’d have shot anyone who’d tried to stop me being with Kimber. I doubt you’ll be any different.”

Lucas grinned widely, amused.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to not mess this up, won’t I?”

Tristan winked at him.

“I’m going to go and chat to the techs, since it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise I’ll be the one scanning the data files and you’ll be the one playing knight errant to Ms Turner.”

“How did you guess that’s how I’d want us to divvy up the tasks?” Lucas teased.

Tristan gave him the finger and left.

Lucas took a deep breath and tried to push the mental picture of long strawberry-blonde hair out of his mind. He could still so clearly visualise her struggling with those two goons, her back arching as she’d tried to wrestle free from their grip while they’d shoved her into the truck.

Trying to calm himself, he instead imagined her straddling him, those long red locks flowing down her back which was bowed in pleasure. He would thrust himself deeply inside her, those pale green eyes piercing him. He’d sheath his cock fully within her tightly clenched pussy. Her warmth would encompass him when she swallowed his dick deeply into her. He imagined her taking him far within her, until his balls slapped against her soft skin.

Panting, Lucas realised too late he’d let his fantasy go too far. His shaft pressed beneath the zipper of his slacks, hard and erect.

“Damn it,” he cursed and closed his eyes. This woman had been taken advantage of enough. He didn’t need to be fantasising about her, wishing he could hold her and feel the softness of her skin when heaven knew what she’s already been put through. Since when was he such an idiot?

Lucas forced his mind away from her. He had to write out the course of action he and Tristan would use in their attempt to rescue Abigail. First there would be the paperwork surrounding a request for the equipment they would need, then—the mental picture of Abigail’s large, green eyes filled the darkness behind his closed lids.

Her silky hair fell to either side of her face, her skin pale as porcelain. Lucas could see the tiny smattering of freckles over her nose as she bent down. He was seated and she on her knees before him. She would part those rosy red lips, swallow down around his aching shaft.

In his fantasy she sucked him down like a pro, the heat of her mouth and throat surrounding his cock even better than her dripping cunt. She bobbed her head, her strawberry locks swaying against his legs and falling halfway down the slender line of her naked back. Abigail would flick her tongue out to run it along the head of his shaft, collecting his pearls of cum. She’d then swallowed them down, the motion caressing his cock like a heated fist.

“Fuck it,” Lucas stood and stalked to the men’s room. He needed release right now. The bloody reports could wait a minute or two. Lucas fully understood he needed to get a hold of himself when it came to this woman, but he was too far gone. Right now he needed to come with an urgency he hadn’t felt since he was in his teens.

After he’d finished, then he could write the damn reports and go and rescue this alluring, intoxicating, bloody frustrating woman of his fantasies.

Chapter Two

Abigail still struggled to differentiate between reality and her dreams, though she had to admit over the last twenty-four hours things had cleared up significantly. She no longer thought she was hallucinating being trapped in a nightmarish hell. She now knew that was part of her new reality.

Strapped down to the hospital style bed, Abigail regretted the many horror movies she’d so enjoyed in her youth. And the manner with which the nurses and doctors treated her like an imbecile was insulting, though when she’d tried to point it out to them, she’d been ignored like a naughty child. Worse, Dr Harper had evidently told them she was a threat to herself as much as them.

It was ridiculous. Her world had been turned upside down, and those to whom she would have instinctively approached looking for some help—the nurses, orderlies and doctors who professed to be on her side, for starters—refused to believe her when she’d said she was fine and wanted to go home.

At first she had been calm, trying to explain things.

“I’m not the least suicidal, I just want to go home. I’ve been unwell and wanted some medicine…”

Pitying glances, murmurs of ‘Denial is not the sign of a healthy mind, Abigail’, and other condescension had met her rational requests. So she had become frustrated—who wouldn’t in similar circumstances?—and she had shouted, had screamed to be let out or at least be able to plead her case with the doctor.

“Who do you think sent you to us for assistance?” had been their reply to that.

When Abigail had gasped, had insisted they’d lied, they had parroted Dr Harper’s phone number, email address and personal details to her and had insisted it had been he who had committed her ‘for her own good’.

The entire situation was nightmarish. Abigail half believed it had been they who had made her so sick that first night. Certainly she was inundated with crazy, frightening dreams every time she fell into an exhausted sleep—or worse, when they sedated her, but if she’d had a fever earlier it had long passed and now she simply wanted to get out of there.

“I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I am definitely not crazy,” she repeated to herself softly enough to not be overheard. Should one of the nurses, or syringe-happy doctors hear her reassuring herself of such a thing they’d certainly pump her full of their favourite drugs.

Her wrists were chafed raw from her trying to get out of the restraints, but still she tried to tug herself free. Unable to contain the whimper that escaped, she struggled again. Trembling in mingled fear and anger she stopped, realising escape was only a useless fantasy. She tried to compose herself.

Never had she been so helpless before, or so completely at other’s mercy. She hadn’t wanted to be in a situation like this, but now she knew for a fact she simply couldn’t cope with being restrained. She loathed the knowledge that she was so powerless, unable to do so much as scratch her nose should she have the desire. The entire situation sucked and a part of her mind continually screamed in terror.

What would happen should there be a fire? Should someone come in to harm her? She’d not ever before lost her independence so thoroughly. The entire situation petrified her. Abigail breathed slowly, forcing herself to have faith something miraculous would occur.

Calming herself as best as she could, Abby gathered every scrap of information she’d been able to assimilate and overhear. She was being held on a seventy-two-hour suicide watch. Dr Harper was supposed to have come and seen her today, to ‘gauge her mental state’, but gossip amongst the orderlies who had washed the floor of her room before dinner had indicated something big had occurred at one of his other clinics and he’d been unable to get away.

Part of her was terrified she’d scream and shout at him, lose control totally and he’d have her committed fully. Losing so many of her basic human privileges had her on edge, ready to claw at him, hurt him in the same way he’d managed to hurt her. Yet she knew that way only led to more trouble.

Dr Harper would see her in the morning and she’d state frankly that she would give him whatever it was he wanted, but he had to let her out. Or else.

Abigail couldn’t even begin to think of what the doctor wanted from her. She had nothing. No real assets and very little money stashed away into a small savings account. Certainly nothing in any aspect of her life led her to believe anything like this could be possible.

Abby had sworn earlier in the morning that when she got out of there she’d take steps to make her life more worthwhile. She’d always imagined she had plenty of time to date, to get out more with her friends, to watch that movie or attend that party. The fact she’d been so easily coerced into this and completely out of touch for almost forty-eight hours now, and not a single person had come looking for her, was humbling in the extreme.

“Oh, Gran, I miss you so much. You would rescue me, come hell or high water.”

Tears filled Abigail’s eyes but she blinked them away.

Instinctively she tested the restraints again, refusing to cower and give in, despite her genuine fear. Sooner or later she’d get out of them, and she swore the first thing she’d do would be to cause serious bodily harm to Dr Harper. She imagined punching him in the nose, shooting him through the heart or perhaps sticking him with one of those damned needles, filling him with whatever cocktail of drugs he seemed so entranced with and watching him suffer the nightmares she’d experienced.

She was not some spineless imbecile. This would not get the better of her.

Abigail tugged on her restraints again, ignored the pain in her wrists and plotted vengeance.

* * * *

Breaking into the clinic had been almost embarrassingly easy. Tristan had seen two of the orderlies wedge open a side door with a broken brick. They’d walked around the small car park and had smoked their cigarettes. After hours, the main body of the clinic was closed down and dark, but the few patients were watched over by a skeletal staff of two night nurses, some cleaners and a few other assorted helpers.