Cops 02 - Love on the Run (22 page)

Tony hadn’t commented again about it, because all he had were wild conspiracy theories and no proof to back any of them up. And he didn’t want to upset Bianca any more than she probably already was.

“Yeah,” he finally responded. “I remember.”

“Well, earlier today after I talked to you, I got a call at work. The guy said he was a friend of Viktor’s, and that Viktor told him to call me. He kept trying to get me to meet with him, but I wouldn’t. I knew he was lying. Viktor never mentioned any friends to me.” She paused. “That guy had an accent, too. And when I went out for lunch today, I kept feeling like I was being followed. At first, I thought I was being paranoid because of last night.” She grew quiet. “But after what happened tonight, I’m just not so sure anymore.”

This new information from Bianca made his theories seem a hell of a lot more real, and his concerns about her safety that much more critical.

“Something’s not right here,” Tony said. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone right now. I want you to stay with me until we can figure out what’s going on.” Tony would be fine if she never left again, but he kept that to himself for the moment.

He couldn’t help but notice how Bianca sat quietly staring out the window, as if she were trying to avoid responding to him.

Several minutes of tense silence passed before Tony finally couldn’t take it anymore.

He pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the expressway, put it in park, and turned to Bianca.

“What is it?”

She sighed heavily. “It’s just that a few weeks ago, we were barely exchanging pleasantries with each other. Now we’re in love with each other and talking about moving in together.” When she turned and looked at Tony, so much uncertainty filled her eyes that it made his heart skip a few beats. “Our best friends just got married, and I want to make sure that we haven’t gotten caught up in the afterglow of their happiness.”

“Is that what you think is happening here?”

“I don’t know, Tony, I just… So much has happened between us in such a short period of time, and I…”

Tony swallowed hard. “You what?” Please don’t say you’ve changed your mind about us.

“I just don’t want you to suddenly look up and realize that you’ve made a mistake and get tired of me.” “What?” Tony had prepared himself to hear her say a lot of things, but not that. Never that. He unfastened his seat belt, then hers, and pulled her into his arms. His lips sought hers, desperate to erase any doubts she had about his feelings for her.

“Love you,” he breathed out. “Never get tired of you, never get enough.”

Bianca released a helpless little whimper as her hands slid over his head, down his neck, and around his shoulders. Her grip was amazingly strong as she clutched him tightly against her.

“I love you so much. God, I missed you…couldn’t wait to see you…need you so much…”

Tony kissed down her throat. His hands slid into the opening of her top, pushing the material to the side and revealing her bare breasts. His head dipped lower, and he sucked one, then the other nipple into his mouth. His actions drew soft moans from her.

He felt one of Bianca’s hands between his legs, rubbing his erection through his jeans.

She’d just started working his zipper down when light suddenly filled the truck.

“Fuck.” Tony practically snarled as he glanced out the back window at the squad car that had pulled up behind them. He pulled Bianca’s top together to cover her breasts and then he attempted to readjust his cock so that what they’d been doing wouldn’t be so obvious.

He looked up just as the officer approached the door. He lowered the window and displayed his badge.

“How’s it going?” The officer smiled and leaned into the window. “You need any help?”

“No, we’re good. We were about to drive off when you pulled up,” Tony lied easily. He tried not to bristle when the man’s gaze lingered on Bianca just a little too long for his liking.

“Thanks for checking, Officer” — Tony peered up at the man’s name tag — “Buchanan, but I got it from here.” Tony’s words were polite, but his tone was far from appreciative.

“Oh, sure…no problem.” The officer finally took the hint and stepped away from the truck. Tony waited until he’d returned to his squad car and had driven away before he turned to Bianca. She sat there with her hand over her mouth, her body shaking with barely contained laughter.

“Oh, you thought that was funny, huh?” His words had very little heat in them, and he struggled to hold back his own smile. Bianca nodded and collapsed into a fit of giggles. His laughter soon joined hers.

“Come here.” He cupped her jaw and urged her head toward his. The kiss he gave her was slow and deep. He gently pulled away and took a shuddering breath. “God, woman, you make me crazy. I can’t think straight when I’m around you.” He kissed her again. “If it wasn’t so late, I’d take you to the club. It’s been too long since you were all tied up and ready for me. I can’t wait to see you like that again.” Bianca moaned. “Me, too. I can’t wait to do it again, can’t wait to feel it again.” She kissed him, and it made his dick throb. “I missed your lessons, Tony,” she whispered against his lips. “I dream about them, ache for them.”

“I know, baby. Don’t worry. I have plenty of things at home to take the edge off until we go back.” His lips covered hers again, his kiss hot and hungry. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Tony finally pulled away and refastened their seat belts. “Before I decide that I don’t care that we’re still in the truck and give the other drivers a sight they never expected to see on Lakeshore Drive before.”

“Tony?” He paused at the sound of his name and turned to Bianca again.

“Is that offer to stay at your place for a while still open?” she asked quietly.

“You know it is, baby.”

“Good.” She gave him a heart-stopping smile. “Then I accept.”

Tony leaned over and stole one more kiss before he started up the truck and pulled back onto the expressway. Getting Bianca to stay with him was a start. Now all Tony had to do was figure out how to turn “for a while” into forever.

A slight glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye was the only warning Tony had that he and Bianca weren’t alone when they entered his condo. He barely had time to react before pain exploded behind his ear and made his knees buckle.

A large forearm wrapped across his throat, the pressure brutal and excruciating, cutting off his air supply and causing his vision to blur.

“Tony!” Bianca’s screams brought him back from the edge of unconsciousness, and a burst of adrenaline pumped through him as his instincts took over.

He slammed his head back and into his attacker’s face. The sound of breaking bone and a painful groan told him he’d made contact. The hold on his throat eased just enough for him to take a deep breath, and he used the momentum to lunge backward and slam the attacker’s body against the door.

The man made a whooshing sound as the air was forced from his lungs, and his grip loosened even more. Tony’s elbow came up, and he swung it backward, connecting with the side of the man’s head several times until the man’s hold on him disappeared completely.

“No!” Bianca’s screams made him want to roar with rage. Hold on, baby. Tony spun and grabbed the next man, slammed him to the floor, and smashed his fist repeatedly into the man’s face.

“You come into my motherfucking house, you attack my woman. I’m going to fucking kill you!” he bellowed, landing several more punches before he was jerked backward.

Landing heavily on his back, the weight of a new attacker rolled on top of him and pinned him to the floor. Tony found himself staring up at a gun with a silencer pointed at his face.

“What are you gonna do now, huh, cop?” Amusement filled the man’s accented words.

“Looks like I’m on top now, so that puts me in charge.” Tony never broke eye contact with the man as he carefully slid one hand beneath him, searching for his own gun but settling for his knife instead. He eased it from his belt and released the safety before he whipped his hand up and sank the blade into the man’s neck.

Blood sprayed from the wound as the man’s mouth opened in a soundless scream. He slowly fell to the side, his dead body hitting the floor hard.

A shadow moved, and Tony grabbed the dead man’s gun. He turned quickly onto his side, pulling the trigger as he went, the sound of the gun firing muffled by the silencer. The man jerked several times as the bullets pierced his flesh, and his lifeless body crashed to the floor.

Tony scrambled to his feet. “Bianca! Baby, where are you?” He frantically raced from room to room in the house searching for her, before finally throwing the front door wide open and running into the hallway. He looked in both directions but couldn’t find Bianca anywhere.

She was gone. Those bastards took her.

Fuck.

*

Bianca struggled desperately against the two men holding her as they dragged her, kicking and clawing, from Tony’s condo.

When they reached the stairwell, they picked her up and carried her down the steps.

Bianca continued fighting, raking her nails against every available piece of skin she could reach and sinking her teeth deeply into the hand that covered her mouth.

“Ahh!” the man howled, and Bianca cried out in pain when he struck her hard across the face, tasting blood in her mouth.

“Hey!” the other man snapped, and Bianca immediately recognized his voice as the person who’d called her at work. “Reggie said no hitting!”

“The fucking bitch bit me!” The other man grimaced in pain, and Bianca could see the places on his hand where her teeth had sunk deep enough to puncture the skin. “Goddamned wildcat.” He glared down at Bianca.

“Yeah, well, you hurt her, and it’s your funeral,” the other man warned.

A car waited at the curb when they exited the building. The man holding her legs released them long enough to open the car door, and they forced her inside. The car pulled away as soon as the door closed, and Bianca immediately reached for the handle and attempted to get the door open.

“Don’t waste your time, Ms. Mendez. You’re not going anywhere until I say so.”

Bianca’s hands froze on the door, and she slowly looked to the side at the man sitting next to her. “So, we finally meet. Although I feel like we know each other already, considering how much I’ve heard about you, and how much I’m sure Viktor told you about me.”

Bianca had seen pictures of Dimitryi before, but they were always grainy and unclear and never provided a true image of the actual man. He was quite handsome, actually, in a dangerous sort of way. She judged him to be in his fifties, with fashionably long salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a custom-made suit that Bianca was pretty certain cost more than her rent and car payment combined.

“Reggie was right; you truly are exquisite. I can see why Tate wants you so badly.” He smiled, but his ice blue eyes remained cold and deadly. “Our overseas partners will be fighting amongst themselves for the chance to own you.” He reached out and brushed his fingers across her face, his touch like acid, and Bianca had to brace herself to keep from flinching away.

“But I think I’ll let Reggie have a little fun with you first. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Reggie?”

Movement from the front seat made Bianca look up. “Oh, my God…” Her blood ran cold at the sight of Reggie as outrage and horror warred within her. Reggie stared back at her with lifeless eyes and an expressionless face before addressing Dimitryi. “It’d be my pleasure, Dimitryi.”

Dimitryi chuckled. “Nobody gives out pleasure quite like Reggie, as you’ll soon experience firsthand for yourself.”

The smile Reggie gave her was cruel and filled with promises of pain and torture. She knew that whatever Reggie showed her wouldn’t have shit to do with pleasure.

“You…” Bianca took a deep breath. Her voice shook so bad, she could barely form words. “You won’t get away with this. Tony will find you, and when he does, he’ll kill you.”

Dimitryi laughed hard, as if he were genuinely amused. “Tate has trained you well, I see. I have to commend him and Parker for picking pathetic whores who are amazingly loyal to them.”

Anger immediately outweighed Bianca’s fear as she listened to him, and it made her want to rip off his balls, scratch out his eyes. “I seem to recall that it was one of those ‘pathetic whores’ who managed to outsmart your son long enough for Jack to find him and put him down like the worthless animal he was.”

Bianca took satisfaction in watching the arrogant smile slide from Dimitryi’s face as she quickly prepared herself for his wrath.

“I admit I underestimated that little cunt of Parker’s. But my son, Guillermo, was weak; he allowed himself to become distracted by a beautiful face, and it ended up costing him his life.” The look he gave Bianca sent a sliver of ice-cold terror down her spine. “But rest assured, Ms. Mendez, that although I find you positively stunning, I have absolutely no reservations about killing you where you sit.” Bianca didn’t consider herself an overly religious person, but she closed her eyes and found herself silently praying. She was certain she was sitting in the presence of pure evil.

The sound of ringing interrupted her prayers, followed by the muted sounds of Reggie speaking softly on the phone. She opened her eyes when the car pulled to a stop a few blocks from Tony’s condo. She watched Reggie get out of the car and walk over to another car that had pulled up behind them. Reggie disappeared inside the car, and it pulled away from the curb.

Before Bianca had a chance to worry about what was going on, something pinched her.

She looked down to see a needle sliding out of her arm.

“What…” Her mouth suddenly felt like it had been filled with glue as she struggled to speak. A warm haze settled over her, and her vision dimmed as she fought to keep her eyes open.

Oh, God, I’m going to die…even as she slipped further and further into darkness, the idea of never waking again didn’t frighten her nearly as much as the thought of never again seeing the man who’d come to mean so much to her. “Tony…” she finally managed to whisper.