Miah (Lane Brothers #2) (12 page)

“No, I need Jared here on the rifle in case something goes wrong with Roman. You know he’s the better shot of the three of us, so don’t argue. Suck it up and get to Lynn. Make her talk, Jace. I want peace of mind in at least one area before Ellie and little Alex come home.”

“Fine. Shit. You’re a real peach, you know that?”

“You can take Wyatt’s jet after I get back from my meet with Roman. I want both you and Jared here with Clari, Josh, and the parents.”

I’m being paranoid, but I’ve got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and my gut is never wrong.

Clara

My Monday morning starts just like any other Monday morning has since I moved in with the Lanes and adopted my little brother. I shower, dress, and eat breakfast with the family while trying to draw my little brother into conversation despite his reticence around me.

Miah’s got three guards to watch me at work, and today I’m going to try and take Josh with me to see how he responds to other children.

He seems fascinated by Alex and talks to him constantly since he and Ellie came home four days ago. I am looking to see if socializing is one of Josh’s trouble areas.

Jones only agreed because I told her that a school discriminating against a child with special needs would not look good on my new blog.

“Hey, Alex. Hey, little man. Aren’t you just a precious little bugger? Yes, you are, sweetheart. Come on over here and give your aunt Clari a kiss good-bye.”

Ellie laughs and lets me kiss her kid to death before taking him back to let me approach Josh.

“Josh, buddy? Remember how we talked about you coming to work with me so you can meet some new friends?”

“Me play.”

“That’s right, buddy, you can play at recess with all of the other kids. Are you ready?”

He claps excitedly and runs around the room to say good-bye to everyone, especially Alex, before allowing Miah to lift him into his arms so we can leave.

Strapping him into his booster seat isn’t easy since he’s the squirmiest kid ever, but we finally get him settled before Miah pulls out and starts on the deserted road to the school.

“You okay, babe?”

I look over at him and shrug, feeling out of sorts.

“Just nervous about Josh is all. What if he doesn’t like it and starts yelling like he did when Jared tried to buy him a new puzzle?”

“He’ll be fine. You just need to trust in him and yourself. If he doesn’t respond well, call me and I’ll swing by to pick him up.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. He’s my kid, too. Now stop worrying and relax. It will be okay. Hey, Josh, you want music, buddy?” he asks, grinning into the rearview mirror when Josh starts clapping and singing “Humpty Dumpty” at the top of his lungs.

The kids songs have a soothing effect on me, and by the time Miah sees us to my classroom and leaves us to go to work, I feel a little calmer. The meet and greet goes okay, except for one incident when Billy tried to touch Josh and got an earful of recriminations for his efforts.

When playtime rolls around I’m feeling great and so jazzed about this progress that I’m giddy and tempted to call Miah and tell him all about Josh’s day.

For the rest of the school day, Josh shows the children how to do multiplication tables—Jared actually taught our four-year-old multiplication and he picked it up almost instantly—and by the time last bell rings, I can see the benefit of putting Josh in a nursery school at some point.

I turn from tidying my desk and notice Josh is hiding between the lockers, making himself almost invisible, and I smile until I feel a hand wrap around my mouth from the back and the hard muzzle of a gun at my temple.

“Scream and I will kill you. Now drop your phone on the desk and move. We don’t have all day.”

That voice is so familiar, it sends chills up my spine. It’s the second man from the night I hid in the window seat.

He’s the one Miah kept asking me questions about, and now that he’s touching me I know why. This man is no civilian contractor. He must be military from the way he stalks and holds himself.

Josh moves to scream and I shake my head once. He freezes and follows my eyes as I lower my phone to the desk and let him know that he should use it to call Jared, the number I swiped onto the screen before dropping it to the desk.

We start walking when he transfers the gun from my head to my back and digs the metal into me. Making me cry out in pain.

“You warn anyone and they die, too. Walk, Miss Elms, and don’t try to run. I’d hate to have to shoot you in the back of the head.

I’m shaking so hard that he’s forced to help me along when my knees threaten to give out, but we eventually make it outside to the back parking lot and a dark SUV that’s still idling.

“In.”

I hop up with difficulty and scoot over, almost biting into my tongue when my teeth start rattling dramatically.

“Give me your hands.”

He uses cable ties to restrain me, making me wince when the thick plastic is pulled too tight and cuts into the tender skin of my wrists and ankles and then a sack of some sort lands on my head and the world goes dark.

I’m shoved down behind the front seats and I lie there immobile, knowing that this is the cause of the bad feeling I’ve been having all week, but at least I protected Josh.

The man says nothing else and we drive for what feels like minutes but could be hours. I try to follow the route and guess where we are, but he makes so many turns that I’m soon too lost to keep up the effort any longer.

The only advantage I have is that at least I’m not gagged, but if this guy is legit and ready to kill me at the blink of an eye, I doubt that’s a problem for him and he knows it.

“Stop crying, you’re making a damned racket, woman!”

I jerk at his yell and realize I am crying—so loudly that my head is throbbing. I stop immediately and hiccup through my sniffles, not willing to do anything to annoy a man who Jace and Jared have agreed was probably hired to kill me.

Miah has never come right out and said it, but I know that he believes it, too. If they’re going to kill me now, I hope to God they at least leave my body somewhere that I’ll be found so that my family can bury me and Miah can have some closure.

“Please don’t kill me. Just let me go. I have a kid to look after, and a family.”

“Shut the hell up, lady. I ain’t gonna kill you, okay? So you can stop the theatrics for now,” he barks, ripping the sack off and handing me a bottle of water. “My employer sent me to take care of that first guy who was hired to grab you. I took care of him but couldn’t get to you to arrange the meet before now. That man of yours sure knows how to keep you on lockdown.”

He’s annoyed and seems affronted by my assumption that he was going to kill me in cold blood, but honestly, what the heck am I supposed to think here? It’s not as if he came up and issued a friendly invitation, and he freaking knows it.

I don’t trust him. For all I know he’s just trying to shut me up before murdering me viciously and dumping me in the swamps for the gators to take care of.

“Miah loves ma and takes my safety seriously, Mr.…”

“Lock.”

“Mr. Lock. If you’re lying and intend to do me any harm, I would think twice if I were you. Miah won’t stop till he finds me, and if you’ve harmed me in any way, he will hurt you very badly before killing you just as badly.”

That starts him muttering and I almost smile when he looks at me with a little fear and a lot of respect.

“You Lane women have balls, you know that? Relax, sweetheart, I ain’t gonna hurt you. I just have to deliver you for a little meeting and then I’ll drop you off at the nearest gas station to make a call to that animal guarding you. Fuck, they all said Lane was not a man to mess with, but what could I do? I follow orders just like anyone else has to, you know.”

Whatever. I’m not even interested anymore and I think he knows it when he stops talking and starts muttering beneath his breath. After what feels like hours of nonstop driving in the sweltering heat, we turn left onto a gravel rack and bump our way down a long road that takes another twenty minutes of travel before he pulls over and turns the engine off.

“Now I’ll untie your legs and let you walk if you promise not to run. I don’t want you hurting yourself, and there are wild animals in the woods.”

“Fine. Just please let me out of here. My legs are going dead.”

He huffs and gets out to open the back door and I get a look at my surroundings and gasp. He’s right. There are trees everywhere, and enough thick vegetation that I know I’d never even make it to the forest before he caught me.

Another car sits a few feet away in front of us, and I stand still when the door opens and a short brunette with long wavy hair and gray eyes comes towards me.

“Miss Elms. My name is Stephanie Williams. I’m an agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I would like to talk to you about Jeramiah Lane and his brothers.”

I ignore her outstretched hand and look her up and down in disgust.

“You arranged this kidnapping? What, you don’t have opposable thumbs and can’t use a phone?”

They start laughing and I grind my teeth and resist the urge to take a swing at one of them.

“Miss Elms, I saved you from being murdered by a man hired by a Mr. Nicolas Grimes, so if I were you I’d play nice. I called you here because, despite my many attempts to reach your man and his brothers without compromising their mission, I have yet to make contact. I need to speak with Miah, Clari, before he gets himself killed dealing in something he does not understand.”

That throws me and I stop giving her lip long enough to listen.

“Talk.”

“Your fiancé—”

“Boyfriend.”

“Your boyfriend has been led to believe that there is only one cell in this group of homeland extremists, when, in fact, the rot spreads way further than even we realize. If any of the Lane brothers attempt to expose the department he works in, all of you will be in extreme danger. These men do not believe in mercy or splitting hairs, Miss Elms. They will kill any Lane they can find.”

My mouth must be hanging open because she nods once and hands me an A4 envelope and a bottle of water.

“Mr. Lock will see you to safety. Please give this to Miah and ask him to call me as soon as possible. We’re on the same side here, and I’d hate to see anyone hurt because of one bad apple in the black ops unit he used to belong to.”

She turns swiftly and gets back into the car, leaving me alone with Lock and the envelope I can barely hold because my hands are so tightly bound.

“We need to move before that boyfriend of yours comes looking. I really do not feel like dying today.”

He puts me into the front passenger seat and even buckles me up before starting the car and reversing very quickly back onto the main road.

“Now remember, Clara. Give that package to Miah and get him to at least call us. We need to work together on this to weed out all the bad seeds.”

The gas station he leaves me at is kind enough to let me use the phone to call Miah, but I suspect that has something to do with the cable tie still cutting into the skin on my wrists and the slight pallor I’m still sporting.

“Miah?”

“Clari? Jesus, babe, where the hell are you?” he yells, making me wince and pull back the phone.

I give him the name of the gas station and put the phone down with a sigh. Out of all of this madness, the one thought that keeps sticking with me is that now I’ll have to tell Miah about Nick and what that FBI chick said, and I’d so hoped to keep this under wraps a little longer.

If Nick is indeed as dangerous as she says, and willing to hire a killer to come after me in my bed, then he’s not about to give up anytime soon.

My thoughts are halted when I hear the squeal of tires and see Miah, Jared, and Jace running my way.

I almost fall before he reaches me and hugs me tightly to his chest with a curse.

“Babe—”

“Josh? Is he alright?” I cut in, needing to know that he didn’t flip out when that agent took me.

“Fine. He called Jared right away and we went to the school to get him. He’s shaken but settled down right away once Jared got him home. Are you okay?” he demands, holding me at arm’s length and cursing at the state of my wrists.

Jared grabs the package and Miah cuts me loose, growling when he sees blood oozing from my bruised wrists. It’s not that bad, but I am a fair-skinned woman and tend to bruise easily.

“Hush, let me speak. Please,” I say when he starts yelling again. “That envelope you’re holding is a package from Agent Stephanie Williams of the FBI. She wanted me to give that to you. She also let me know that the first man who broke into my house was hired by Nick to kill me. The second guy was there to get rid of him so that he could bring me in.”

Jared narrows his eyes, leaning down to get eye level with me.

“Stephanie Williams? She a short brunette with slate-grey eyes and a big rack?”

My lips twitch at his description, and I nod, rolling my eyes.

“Fuck. Miah, man, if Williams went to all this trouble to get to us, we need to at least look into it. She’s a good cop, and I owe her a debt for a favor she did me back in Kabul.”

Miah starts cursing and runs a hand through his hair before picking me up and walking back to his SUV.

“Take a look at the package and get in touch with her. I want her to answer for scaring Clari this way, and then I want to know what the hell is going on.”

He’s agitated and looking too unsettled for my liking when he gets into the back with me and tosses Jace the keys.