“Careful,” she said.
Before she could acclimate to the light, rough hands grabbed her and jerked her toward the door. She knew instantly they didn’t belong to Colt.
Fear surrounded her heart with icy fingers.
Angie screamed, lashing out at whoever had her in his grasp. She kicked, but it was useless because she wasn’t wearing shoes. Her toes bent painfully as they connected.
“Shut up, bitch,” someone growled. Not the person holding her. Someone else.
A hood fell over her head, blocking the light once more. The inside of the hood smelled sweet. Her attacker tightened it around her neck as she struggled. Angie sucked in a breath to scream again. Nothing came out. It was like her lungs weren’t working.
“Did you bind him?” the man holding her asked.
“Yeah. He ain’t coming to anytime soon. We should light this place up before we go.”
“Against orders. Hey, there’s a gun on that dresser. Grab it.”
That was the last thing she remembered.
The side of Colt’s head—his face, actually—ached like a son of a bitch. The floor beneath him was hard and cold. He came awake slowly, wondering how the fuck he’d gotten onto the floor.
His cheek pressed to the vinyl tile and his arms were behind him. He tried to move them, put his hands on the floor and lever up. But his arms were restrained, and that triggered a memory. Somebody had hit him from behind. He didn’t remember falling, but his side hurt where he must have landed. He got his legs beneath him and shoved himself up to a sitting position.
Angie.
He knew better than to call out for her. She wasn’t there. He knew it because he was still alive, and restrained. If someone had come to kill her, they’d have killed them both. If they’d only intended to kill her, they wouldn’t have restrained him. They’d have incriminated him, which meant leaving him unrestrained and probably holding a smoking gun.
Fuck. His gun. He’d set it on the dresser when he’d gone to get the light. Fucking stupid thing to do even if he’d already searched the house and found no breach. He’d also verified the power was out on the entire street. Everything had been dark, not just his house. He’d treated it like a routine outage when he should have been on his guard.
His carelessness had put Angie in danger. He had to get up and he had to find her. Now.
He got his legs beneath him. Got to his feet. Concentrated on the way his wrists were bound. They were behind his back and he could feel the bite of plastic in his skin.
Fucking amateurs. Though could he really call them amateurs when they’d gotten the jump on him?
Colt growled. Then he bent at the waist, lifted his arms as high as he could behind him, and brought them down fast and hard.
The zip ties broke free. His wrists stung, but it didn’t matter. No amount of pain mattered right now. It was still dark outside but the room was no longer black. The clouds that’d been blocking the moon had drifted part and light shone into the kitchen.
Colt’s eyes were acclimated to the dark so he didn’t bother trying to find the lantern he’d been looking for. He only needed his phone.
If they hadn’t taken it. He’d been holding it in his hand, shining the light as he’d walked. And then something heavy crashed down on him. He thought he’d been holding the phone when he fell, but he didn’t know if they’d taken it from him.
Why was he thinking in terms of they? What made him think there was more than one?
Because he’d heard voices. He remembered it now. Two voices. In the seconds before he’d lost consciousness—or maybe he’d been drifting between being out cold and awake—he’d heard them talking in low voices about restraining him and taking the girl alive.
Alive. Thank God.
The glimmer of a light from the floor caught his eye. He fell to his knees and reached beneath the table. Tugged out a smooth rectangle and turned it over. The surface was cracked as if someone had stomped on it.
Fucking idiots. They’d have done better to take the phone with them. It might look like an ordinary iPhone, but there were modifications. There had to be for a man in his profession.
Colt tapped the surface. His contacts came up, and he conferenced Ian and Jace. They both answered immediately though it wasn’t yet two a.m.
“What’s happened?” Ian asked.
“Angie,” Colt said, his throat tight. “Somebody took her.”
Jace swore. “I’ll be right there.”
“I’m heading to the office to manage this,” Ian said. “But I’ll send Ty and Jared so they can help evaluate the scene and bring you in. I assume you’re in no condition to drive.”
He wasn’t. Not yet anyway. “Thanks, boss. And Jace,” he added. “Don’t leave Maddy alone. I feel like that’d be a bad idea.”
“Gotcha, brother. I’ll take her to BDI and wait for you to get there. Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”
“I know,” Colt said. They had to find her.
Failure wasn’t an option. He couldn’t contemplate failing. Angie meant everything to him—and he hadn’t told her. It’d seemed too soon to tell her something so important.
But it was never too soon when your heart was on the line. You had to tell people you loved them. Before they were gone forever.
Chapter Nineteen
When Angie woke, she thought she was still wearing the hood. It was black as pitch. But as she moved her head, she realized the hood was gone. There wasn’t any fabric impeding her air. She could breathe easily.
Angie bit the inside of her cheek to stifle the panic rising like bile in her throat. Had she been closed into a room with no windows?
Tentatively, she moved. She wasn’t bound. She lay on a lumpy mattress with a blanket on top of her. Which she needed because the air she breathed in was cold. Not freezing, but definitely not warm.
The
