PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (58 page)

“Yes, Nathan,” I murmured without hesitation. He
smiled, and I returned it. “Oh God, yes.”

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

I
was shivering.
When I had things under control, I could suppress my fear. Right now, things
were very much out of my control.

The plan was simple: let Captain Pierce into the safe
room, let him play with the dummy computer Nathan had his tech guys set up, and
record the whole thing. Surely, there’d be something on the tapes and computer
logs to nail his ass to the wall.

Things had went
wrong right from the start.

Nathan had made himself scarce just like we’d planned,
but when Captain Pierce arrived, he wasn’t alone. That wasn’t part of the plan.
He wasn’t supposed to have company.

Four men climbed out of the squad car, looking
uncomfortable in their blues. I stared at the stiff and immaculate uniforms as
the captain approached. They were too clean. Too perfectly pressed. They were
bullshit.

Brand new uniforms. All of them. Uniforms taken right
out of inventory at the station. They were the complete opposite of the
rough-looking men wearing them, and that meant these men weren’t cops. They
were playing dress-up. Emerald green eyes shined on the face of the closest
phony officer as they approached. I tried to stay calm, leaning up against the
unmarked black Crown Victoria.

Irish. Fuck.

Nathan was right. Captain Pierce had been working with
Mr. Wallace this whole time. Getting Nathan out of his mansion and into
protective custody was his way of putting him under his thumb. He was never
supposed to testify.

The mansion loomed just at the end of the street,
quiet and unguarded. Nathan’s men would be nowhere near this place today. We
were taking no chances and definitely didn’t want to spook the Captain. The
trouble was that I desperately wished they were here now.

“Detective.”

“Captain,” I replied, nodding toward the other men.
They kept their distance, not locking eyes with me.

“Don’t mind them. I needed a few men I could trust on
this one. Where’s Nathaniel Hale?” the captain asked.

“He’ll be in Philadelphia for some big charity drive
all weekend. His company is investing in a children’s hospital,” I responded,
the rehearsed words flowing easily from my lips.

“Smart man, giving himself an alibi as that shipment
hits the docks. I take it you’ve got the keys to the castle?”

“Keys, and a disabled security system,” I replied. “He
keeps his computer in some kind of safe room just off the kitchen. I’ve taken
the liberty of shutting down his video surveillance for the afternoon.”

“Excellent. Move out. I want this done quickly,” the
captain said, waving the men toward the house. They started up the path toward
the oversized front doors as he turned back to me. “You did good work,
Detective.”

Fuck.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

The captain was the one who was supposed to go into
that room. He was the one I needed on video, planting evidence. I could hit the
panic switch, and he’d be locked in that stupid room until I could hand this
whole case over to the boys in Internal Affairs.

“Now walk.”

The Captain’s voice had become gruffer, more stilted.
I stared at the hard lines on his face before glancing downward to see his Sig
223 pointed squarely at my stomach, the dark shape both sinister and
beautifully engineered.

“Captain… I don’t understand,” I said, staring down at
the gun.

“Sandra, I’ve sat across the table from the kinds of
criminals that would haunt your fucking nightmares. I’ve seen evil, and I’ve
been lied to by some of the best. I’ve made a career on seeing straight through
bullshit.”

“Captain,” I started, but he cut me off, jabbing my
gut with the barrel of his gun.

“I said, walk. No more lies, no more fucking bullshit
you stupid bitch. I’ve had to put up with your ass on my force for all these
years, and this is how you repay me? You’ve put my whole fucking family in
danger. How much is Nathaniel Hale paying you for your loyalty?”

I stared to move, urged on by the business end of his
firearm. The Irish men had reached the house, but clearly they weren’t just
walking in the front door. One was moving around the side of the house, quickly
finding an electrical box and beginning to work on it.

He’s cutting
the lines…

“My loyalty? How much did your soul cost, Captain?” I
asked, looking at him with all the vile hatred I could muster.

“You don’t understand, do you, Sandra? You could have
let that squad car go, and we’d never be standing here. Sometimes, you break a
few eggs for the greater good.”

“Nathaniel Hale would be dead if I did that. Is that
your greater good?”

“Nathaniel Hale is dead anyway, and the world won’t
miss him” the Captain replied coolly. “I need to think about the rest of my
city and I need to think about my own safety. Did you seriously think four
walls and some iron bars would keep anyone safe from Mr. Wallace? Half the
prison guards this side of the Mason Dixon line are named ‘Mick’ and
‘O’Reilly,’ for Christ sakes. I’ve got a wife, and a child, and I’ll be fucking
damned if I let you get them killed for some self-centered billionaire
asshole.”

I grunted as he jabbed me in the ribs with the gun,
pressing me on toward the door. “Open it,” he said angrily, forcing me inside
as I pulled it open. Two of the phony cops followed us through, guns drawn.

“Point them to the laptop,” the captain demanded. I
raised a hand, pointing toward the kitchen.

“In there, past
the cabinets on the right. It’s open.”

As they followed my directions, I turned to the
captain once more. I knew there was no swaying him, but maybe I could stall for
a little more time, time that might reveal a way out of this mess.

“Captain Pierce, please… You can’t do this,” I said,
trying desperately not to glance toward the decadent chairs that sat across
from us. I knew full well the t22 would be transmitting this whole
conversation. Just up the road, everything going on inside here was being
recorded. Video, audio—it would all be in the undercover car I’d parked just on
the edge of radio range. I just hoped I’d live long enough to see this bastard
behind bars.

“Shut up, you stupid cunt,” one of the Irishmen said,
turning and flashing me a vicious smirk. “The good captain here knows what
happens to assholes who get on Mr. Wallace’s bad side. You’ll find out too,
soon enough.”

I stared back at Pierce. The fire in his eyes was
gone. “Is that true?” I asked, tears filling my eyes despite my attempt to
control my emotions. I wondered what I saw in the man staring back. Was it
regret? Fear?

He didn’t give me the pleasure of knowing. Before I
could say a word he swung up the butt of the gun and smashed it over my head.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Darkness.
Pain.
Movement.

I woke to the feeling of being bounced around the
roomy interior of a trunk, but the main reason I had been shaken from my
slumber was the nearly destroyed spare tire that had landed on my leg. Judging
from the space and the tire floating around back here, it was probably my own
detective-issued Crown Vic, and that wasn’t a good thing. I’d replaced that
tire just three weeks ago, never bothering to put the stupid spare back where
it belonged. They’d been putting me off at the motor pool ever since…

I took a moment to think about my situation. The
captain would have taken his own car, so it stood to reason there was an
Irishman at the wheel. I fumbled around in the dark for a moment, trying
desperately to get my bearings.

The shotgun…

My hands flashed to the roof of the trunk, feeling
around for the shortened tactical shotgun that was normally strapped to the
underside of the lid. Unsurprisingly, it was missing.
Just one more thing to worry about.
I slapped my hands up against
the edges, looking for some kind of handle or release to get myself out of
here, but the car was too old for such silly little safety features.

I’d very quickly started to develop a hatred of the
budget cutbacks that had been imposed on the force lately. In the span of only
a few moments, they’d moved up the ladder from “mildly annoying” to full-blown
“rage-inducing.”

What the hell was I supposed to do? Wherever we were
going the ground was definitely not paved. That meant a kill site. If I knew
anything about the Irish, I was about to be buried so far out they’d find Jimmy
Hoffa before they found my body. If I was going to survive, I needed to get the
hell out of here.

Think, Sandra.
Think!

I clawed at the edges of the carpeted interior,
desperately trying to inch along through the cavernous trunk. There had to be
something I could do.

My fingertips hit the edge of a small compartment
along the side of the space. I wrenched it open, my hands feeling around
inside.

The jack!

I unscrewed the small wing nut holding it in place,
pulling it out and wedging it against the floor, aiming the upper face toward
the trunk latch as I began to spin the scissoring mechanism with the tire iron.
It expanded, pressing the edge against the trunk and tightening even as the car
accelerated. We must have been doing fifty miles per hour or more down this
dirt road.

Daylight…

A small glimmer was peeking out from the edge of the
trunk lid as I continued to spin the jack, my arms burning from effort as I
wrenched the tire iron around rapidly. This had to be fast. I had to pop this
latch before the driver saw what was happening.

With a satisfying sound of cracking and destruction,
the lid burst open, blinding me with light as I stared out into the dust cloud
stretching behind us. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, my
adrenaline pumping through me, seeping out like glacial water from the nodes
above my kidneys. We were traveling too fast to safely jump, but there were
other things I could do to stop the car.

Without even a thought, I reached to the side and
shoved the battered flat spare right over the edge, finding myself suddenly
slammed against the inside of the rear seats as the car fishtailed.

Guess he noticed…
I thought to myself, clutching the
tire iron.

The car skidded to a halt. The driver’s door opened,
and there was the sound of cursing as a man came running into view, staring
back at the dust trail behind us.

He didn’t even see it coming. I swung the tire iron
around and screamed at the top of my lungs, the metal impacting his face and
sending him sprawling. Leaping out of the trunk with pain coursing through my
throbbing head, I followed up with a second blow, watching him go limp as I
kicked the shotgun away from his hands.

“Motherfucker!” I screamed, my foot laying into the unconscious
man.

I looked around, trying to get my bearings. We were
outside of town, at least twenty miles north, judging from the mountain range
in the distance. Wherever we had been going, it wouldn’t have ended well for
me. I left the man sprawled out on the ground, rooting around in the glove box
for the heavy duty zip ties. A few minutes later, the battered man was hog tied
and left on the side of the road. It wasn’t a very friendly thing to do, but I
wasn’t thinking much about this man’s personal welfare. I had a job to do.

Serve and
protect.

I picked the shotgun up from the dirt and threw it
across the bench seat. I would have preferred something a little more
concealable, but it would have to do. I needed to get back into the city.
Nathan needed me, and every moment I spent out here was a moment I knew was
killing him. By now, he had to know I was missing, and if he went back to the
house…

If I had any hope of stopping this, I needed to get my
hands on the video before Captain Pierce realized I wasn’t quite dead yet. My
survival was an advantage, but it wouldn’t last.

The engine roared as I stepped on the accelerator,
spinning the old Crown Vic around and leaving the Irishman in my rearview
mirror.