Rogue Alliance (30 page)

             
“Okay, and by work ethic, you mean legal versus illegal?”

             
Why was she being so obtuse? It wasn’t like her. Maybe Shawn was right, maybe she did have a death wish.

             
Victor
shifted his weight and cocked his head to the side. Shyla didn’t like the look on his face.

             
“Speaking of legality,” Victor said, “why don’t you tell me about your run in with
the law a few years back, Shyla?
”

             
To hide her own expression, she took a sip of her drink. It was like fire.

             
“A f
ew years?” she asked innocently,
“I don’t recall anything
in particular
a few years back.”

“I’ll be more specific then,” Victor said, giving a wicked smile, “h
ow
about nineteen
years ago,
when you were about fourteen years old
?”

             
Shyla
swallowed hard.

             
“Sounds to me like you already know a few things all on your own, so why would you need to ask me?”

             
Victor set his glass on the bar and walked toward her with the stealth of a cougar hunting its prey.
He walked around her, running his index finger along her jaw line, down her neck and around her shoulders as he encircled her.

             
“I thought I’d give you the chance to tell me yourself. Typically, I don’t have a problem with secrets. I have plenty of them
myself. But seeing on how we’re…
together, it does bother me to think that maybe you’re keeping things from me.”

             
He stopped
in front of her and looked her in the eyes. She met them and hoped he couldn’t see her doubt.

             
“I
don’t hide it from anyone,” she said, “b
ut I don’t announce it either. I live here, where it all happened. Half the town remembers. I can’t hide from it here. Why would I try?”

             
“I can understand that,
”
Victor nodded.
He started
pacing slowly around her again,
“I had just hoped that we were at a point where you felt you could be open with me.”

             
The way he was making her feel
,
stalked and out of control, was testing all of her reserve to maintain her calm. She wanted to lash out at him and put his pompous, arrogant ass in place.

             
“I do feel that way. I should have said something before. It
just never was the right moment,” s
he looked over
her shoulder and met his eyes,
“I’m glad you know now.”

             
With a delicate smile he leaned in and gave her neck a soft kiss. She shivered with re
v
ulsion.

             
“Is there anything else you would like to share, Shyla?”

             
The breath on her neck gave her the chills. She could sense that he was fishing for more information and she was suddenly acutely aware that he knew more than he was letting on. Shawn, Eli and Hal, had all been right. She should have never walked back into Victor’s life, thinking that her cover was solid. She needed to get out of there.

             
“No,” she said in a breathy whisper.

             
The phone rang. It startled her.

             
“So jumpy tonight,”
he chuckled, “j
u
st hold tight. I
t
’s Brennan.
I need to take this call real quick.”

             
He stepped away but didn’t leave the room.

             
“Hello?”

             
Shyla’s mind was racing. Should she try to wait out the rest of the date or should she come up with a lame excuse and bolt right now?

*

             
Brennan was confused. Victor didn’t sound shocked or angry. He sounded amused
, dangerously so
.

             
“Huh, is that right?
” he mused,
“T
hat is interesting news, Brennan.”

             
“Uh,
”
Brennan hesitated, “
well, it definitely confirms our suspicions, sir.
How would you like me to handle this?”

             
“Oh, no need, Brennan”
Victor chuckled, “
I’ll take care of this myself. You did great work. I appreciate it. See you when you get home.”

             
Brennan heard a click and then a dial tone.

             
He rubbed his sternum. There was a sudden fire in his chest. The cylinders of his mind were turning and grinding as he
thoroughly processed what Victor had insinuated. Shit! It was
after six on Thursday night. Victor and Shyla had a date. She would have been at the house during the phone call.

             
Bolting out of the limousine he rushed across the tarmac toward the plane.

             
“We need to get home fast,” he shouted. “There’s been an emergency.”

             
Flashes of violent possibilities of how Victor would handle the situation filled his mind.
The thought of
Shyla, at the mercy of Victor’s rage, made him cringe with guilt.
He had wanted to get to the bott
om of what was going on, but
had been
short-sighted, without playing
out the consequences of discovering such burdensome information.

What had he done?
If anything happened to Shyla, it would ultimately be his fault. He
had enough blood on his hands. H
e couldn’t stand the idea of having Shyla’s on his conscience as well.

             
Glancing at his watch, he di
d the math. It would be a well over and hour
before he was on the ground, in the car,
and
at Victor’s
doorstep
. He hoped he would make it in time.

THIRTY-ONE

             
Consciousness slipped through her fingers like water through a sieve. Part of Shyla wanted to grasp
onto coherent thought, but overwhelming pain
took over all senses.

             
T
he sound of Victor’s psychotic
, angry laugh filtered through to her and
Shyla’s eyes fluttered open. She saw a Native American
Pendleton
blanket hanging over a couch. She blinked and her head fluctuated.
Everything hurt. There wasn’t a spot on her body that wasn’t aching and sore.

             
F
lashes of her encounter popped into the forefront of her mind. Vict
or had hung up the phone and
walked up to her with
a deceptively pleasant smile
. W
ithout a word
he
had slapped her across the face as hard as he could. Her head must have hit the bar because she blacked out for a moment and when she came to he was looming over her.

             
“I always wanted to fuck a cop,” Victor said.
He spoke so calmly, it unnerved her how
disproportionate his tone was compared to his behavior.

             
Instinct kicked in and she threw out her right leg with every ounce of power she had, landing the force hard behind his knee caps. As he went down she had
jutted her left palm up and in to his nose. She heard the shatter of bone with the impact.

             
Victor wasn’t going down without a fight. With blood gushing from his nose, he didn’t waste even a second. He rolled away and hopped up to his feet, a wild look in his eye.
Shyla
thought about
rushing toward
s
the door but
knew she would never make it. She pulled herself to her knees and rushed him instead, taking him at the waist. He toppled over and grabbed her by the hair.

             
“Agh.
!
”

             
The sensation of her hair being pulled started at the root and rushed down to her toes. It was a feeling that she had felt many times at the hands of her father. He used to love to grab her by the hair and g
ive it a tug.

             
When her cheek slammed against the hardwood floor the world was no longer sequential or in order. It all blurred to together. But she still fought.

             
N
ow, as consciousness was slowing fading in, she recalled those violent last moments and felt every blow all over again as her body screamed out in agony.

How much time had passed? A few minutes, an hour?

             
She did a mental inventory and noted that there was a new sensation. Without opening her
eyes, she made note of the fact
that there was rope strapped against her wrists and ankles. When she opened her eyes she glanced down and confirmed she was tied to a chair.
They were still in the parlor. It was completely dark outside and they were alone.
A good amount of time had passed while she’d been out.

             
She
thought of her cell phone in her purse. Glancing around, she had no idea where it was or how she would get to it in her current predicament. She
was in
a
shit ton of trouble.

             
“Well, hello, Gorgeous,
” Vi
ctor stood over her and gave
a charming smile
, “i
t seems we have something to talk about, you and I.
It
looks like your
game is up Miss.”

             
“
It’s not a fucking game, Victor,
” Shyla spat out through her bloodied mouth.

             
Victor
squat
ted down and tipped up her chin.

             
“Isn’t it
,
though?
” he said, “i
sn’t that what you’re all about
,
Shyla? Going in under cover, getting a rare glimpse from the ins
ide? It makes you feel powerful
doesn’t it?

             
“I would imagine that after so
mething as intense
as stabbing your own father to death
, everything else
would pale in comparison. So you live for moments such as these don’t you
? To feel alive, to feel worthy?
Well here we are.
Is it what you imagined?”

             
E
verything inside
her hummed with anger and disgust.
S
he screamed
and st
rained against her restraints.
Victor raised an eyebrow and she spit
in his face.

             
Fury flickered over his features. He wiped at his face with a sneer.

             
“Don’t be angry with me, little girl. I’m not the one who invited this mess.
Whatever happens here tonight
, you brought on yourself. O
ne
crucial
thing you may not have learned about me
yet
is that I show no mercy for traitors. You are going to die. Tonight. By my hands. And no one will miss your lying, murderous soul.”

             
Shyla
bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. She
wanted to lash
out with harsh words of her own, b
ut reali
zed it was not only useless,
it was a waste of her time and energy. If she wanted to survive, she needed to think her way out of this.

             
“Nothing to say, Shyla? No smart come-backs or
attempts to beg for your life? How disappointing. Well, maybe I need to amp up the stakes up bit here to show
you
how serious I am. Maybe you aren’t taking me serious
ly
.”