Kids today.
By the time she settled in, it was after midnight. She was holding the phone, the way she always did around this hour, because she was thinking about Reid. She’d taken his number off her phone to avoid temptation or misdialing but she’d memorized it. Repeated it over and over in her head, thought about his blue eyes and handsome face, the rub of his hands on her body.
She put the phone back into her pocket and blew out a frustrated breath. Things were so complicated between them. When they’d met, she’d been chasing down a missing witness named Teddie, and Reid had been protecting Teddie by running interference. Grier and Reid had a brief affair, during which she’d bandaged his wounds—and he’d paid her back by saving her life. It culminated in her being targeted by the very dangerous man hunting Reid and WITSEC’s plan to fake her death to help her escape.
That’s where everything went terribly wrong between them. He’d watched her get shot, and then he’d figured out what she’d done, but she could only imagine how he’d felt. He’d been so angry—rightfully so—and then he’d come through and saved her ass again, not once, but twice after that.
Maybe that was the problem—she wasn’t ready to admit she’d been wrong. That had never been her strong point. She’d also convinced herself that it was better—safer—that he didn’t know the plan. And she was right about that, but Reid wasn’t just anyone. He was a Delta Force Operator, worked black ops jobs and knew the inherent dangers of her situation. And then she’d let a year go by—a lifetime for a man like that. He’d probably been to a different country a month, started a war, found different women to seduce.
She was so tense. Needed a long run. Maybe when Jack got here tomorrow, she’d sneak out and run until she stopped thinking.
She heard the clinking of Benji’s chain. When she looked in, she noted he’d turned on his side, his arm dangling down. The TV seemed to be louder than it had been, but it kept him asleep.
Witnesses were generally happiest when asleep.
Her phone rang. Unknown number, but that wasn’t odd for her. “Vanderhall.”
“I’ve got information on the fighting ring.” It was a low, gruff voice with a heavy East Coast accent. New York, for sure.
“I’m listening.”
If she held him on the line for thirty seconds, she’d get a trace. But the entire world knew that trick now. “I need to see you in person.”
“Not possible,” she said.
“It is.”
She whirled around, because the voice had come from behind her. A tall man stood there, his face uncovered.
He’s not bothering to cover his face.
She fought for her life—it was the only way she could save herself and her witness.
He was too close, too big and he pinned her arms. She fought. Scratched, clawed and punched and she might’ve actually gotten to her gun in her pocket if another man hadn’t come up from behind her and squeezed the pressure point in her neck.
Before she lost consciousness, she heard one of them say, “We’ve got ourselves a fighter.”
Then she dropped with a thud that echoed in her ears. Woke in a moving car—the trunk—and fought to keep her eyes open. There was duct tape around her arms and legs. Across her mouth. She tried to move around, to find a weapon, anything.
Before she could stop herself, she passed out again.
The next time she woke, everything was wavy and she fought the urge to laugh. Everything was funny. Everything was wonderful, especially because the duct tape was gone. She stood, stared at the wavy lines again and realized they were iron bars that reinforced the heavy metal door from the inside.
And she laughed again.
The next time she opened her eyes, her head throbbed and she definitely wasn’t laughing. She lay there for a few minutes, looking around, noting the camera mounted in the far right corner. She couldn’t get up to look out the square window, but saw nothing but darkness.
Her hands were tied above her head, ankles lashed together and her head throbbing. She’d been drugged—she knew that for sure—and they’d hit her over the head for good measure, the bastards.
She swallowed—her throat was so dry, it burned. She’d been put into a short-sleeved T-shirt and she searched her arms, looking for track marks. She finally found them, in between her fingers.
“You’re as smart as I thought you’d be.”
She glanced up to see a big man watching her. She blinked, stared at his face. He was handsome, despite the craggy pockmarks that cratered the skin on his cheeks. “Where am I?”
“The place you and your people were trying to keep Benji from. And now you’ve got a job here.”
She stared back down at the track marks, her mind working overtime. They were drugging her with addictive narcotics. She’d go into withdrawal without them if they kept injecting her at this rate. She’d have to beg them for drugs, would have to fight for them.
She’d always felt that it was safer to work within the law, and she wasn’t so sure that was going to save her this time.
She closed her eyes and thought about Reid, what he’d do in a situation like this.
He’d fight, any way he had to. He’d always been dangerous. When she’d told him she thought he was one of the good guys, he’d told her she was wrong.
Wrong or not, she wished he was here to help her, but she’d used up all her get-out-of-jail-free cards with him.
She shouldn’t be using this time to think about regrets, shouldn’t be seeing her life flash before her eyes. That meant she was giving up and she couldn’t do that yet. “I never thought women would be such a big draw. But some of their fights actually outperform the men’s for money.”
She committed the face to memory. This wasn’t the man on trial for illegal cage fighting. And this operation was bigger than any one conviction could
