Midnight Action (27 page)

As their bodies frantically moved together, he slid his hands beneath her back and wrapped his arms around her, holding her like he was drowning at sea and she was his life preserver. His strong grip heightened her excitement, and the pressure between her legs intensified, a ball of tension that grew and grew and grew until finally it burst apart and a mind-blowing orgasm swept through her.

Jim cried out a moment later, burying his face in her neck as he shuddered in release.

Afterward, he collapsed on top of her in a blissful heap, his heart hammering against her breasts, matching the erratic beating of hers. Then he rolled over and pulled her close, his fingers tangling in her hair, stroking the long strands.

She wasn’t sure how long they lay there, but she eventually became aware of his even breathing, his closed eyelids. He’d fallen asleep, and she’d never seen a sexier sight as she propped herself up to watch him. His features softened in slumber, making him look younger, less cold and savage.

Her gaze rested on his mouth, those firm, sensual lips that she had yet to kiss. By choice, anyway. The last two times they’d kissed didn’t count because she hadn’t asked for it. But now...now she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She was longing to press her mouth to his, but she knew that the moment she did, everything would change.

She suddenly registered the wetness on her cheeks, and was horrified to discover she was crying. Goddamn it. What was wrong with her?

She wiped the tears with the back of her hand, still staring intently at his mouth. Maybe she ought to do it. Just kiss him. Now, when he was sleeping and unaware. She could succumb to the craving without him ever knowing she’d surrendered to him.

Swallowing hard, Noelle swept her fingertips over his bottom lip in a timid caress. As indecision floated through her, she slowly brought her mouth close to his, hesitating when their lips were millimeters apart.

Just as she was about to bridge that infinitesimal gap, a cell phone vibrated.

Her head snapped up guiltily, but Jim didn’t stir. He was still sound asleep, oblivious to the buzzing sounds coming from the nightstand.

Collecting herself, Noelle took a deep breath before leaning toward the end table to grab Jim’s phone. She’d thought a call was coming through, but when she checked the screen she realized it was a text message.

Unconcerned with pesky issues like privacy, she clicked on the message and quickly scanned its contents.

Then, with a heavy sigh, she placed a hand on Jim’s bare chest and gave it a nudge. “Wake up,” she said grimly. “You need to see this.”

Twenty minutes later, Morgan hung up the phone and turned to Noelle and Ash with a grave look. “Liam says something went down at the house tonight.”

“Care to elaborate?” Noelle prompted.

She stood in the open doorway of the terrace with a cigarette dangling from her hand, and the smell of smoke only made Morgan’s temples throb harder. He’d chugged a gallon of water and two coffees in an attempt to sober up fast, but it still felt like someone was operating a jackhammer in his head.

“Would you put that thing out?” he grumbled.

“Yes, sir.” Rolling her eyes, she ducked out to extinguish the cigarette, then stepped back inside. “Now tell us what happened.”

“Cate came running out of the house and disappeared into the maze. Apparently she was being chased by a blond man who was screaming her name.” As Morgan repeated what Liam had reported, his chest clenched with worry. “Liam and Bailey couldn’t see what was going on in the maze—the thing is too damn tall—but after about five minutes, Cate and the man walked out. Liam says she looked upset, but she wasn’t fighting the guy. They went back inside, and there’s been no activity since.”

His head continued to pound, but now his heart had joined in, so loudly it felt like a damn drum circle had possessed his body. He wanted to hijack Noelle’s Town Car and speed over to the Durand estate, but Liam had assured him that Cate hadn’t looked injured as she’d walked into the house.

But how long would it stay that way?

Rage bubbled inside him as he thought about the mysterious man Liam had mentioned. Christ, if that bastard hurt so much as a hair on Cate’s head, Morgan was going to go postal on him.

“Did Macgregor recognize the blond?” Noelle asked with a frown.

“He said it wasn’t Durand, that much we know.”

She went quiet. He could see the wheels in her head turning.

“What is it?” he said sharply.

“The night of the party...” She trailed off for a moment, her frown deepening. “When we were leaving, I spotted a blond guy on the front steps. Did you happen to get a look at him?”

Morgan searched his brain and came up empty-handed. Not much of a surprise—the shock of seeing Walther Dietrich that night had sent him reeling. He’d been too distracted to pay attention to anyone else, and if he were being honest, the only reason they’d made it out of the party undetected was thanks to Noelle’s quick thinking.

“No, I don’t remember seeing anyone,” he admitted. “Did you recognize him?”

“He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him at the time.”

“What do you remember about him?”

She licked her lips in thought. “He was tall. In good shape, but more lanky than muscular. Light blond hair, blue eyes, clean-shaven face. I remember his eyebrows being darker than the hair on his head, dark enough that someone might think he dyed his hair.”

Morgan froze.

Noelle, as usual, was attuned to his every nuance. “Do you know him?”

“Maybe.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Do you by any chance remember a man named Nikolaus Bauer?”

She paused for a second, then sucked in her breath. “Son of a bitch. You might be right. The man at the party definitely could’ve been Bauer.”

From his seat on the couch, Ash tentatively joined the conversation. “Who’s Nikolaus Bauer?”

“Ariana’s fiancé,” Morgan said flatly. “Or at least he was supposed to be. They grew up together, and their families were tight. It was pretty much a given that they would get married someday and unite the family fortunes.”

“So what happened to him?” Ash asked.

“I happened. I came into Ariana’s life, she decided she wanted me, and she tossed Bauer aside like a piece of garbage.”

“Charming girl,” Noelle muttered.

“I told you, she wasn’t a very nice person,” he muttered back. “Anyway, after Walther and Ariana disappeared, I kept tabs on Bauer for a year. He was just going about his same old routine in Berlin. He worked at his father’s shipping company, which was a front for a drug-smuggling operation. Far as I could tell, he had no contact with Walther, so eventually I stopped monitoring him.”

“Well, they must have made contact at some point,” Noelle said. “Because the more I think about it, the more I’m certain it was Bauer I saw that night.”

Morgan gave a harsh chuckle. “I guess he ended up with Ariana, after all.” Something else occurred to him. “Bauer must be the guy my informant told me about last year.”

Noelle wrinkled her brow. “What are you talking about?”

“The arms deal I was tracking in Pakistan,” he clarified. “You know, when you headed up the op in Monte Carlo after our compound was attacked? I heard some rumblings about a major deal, and I thought Dietrich might be involved, but when I flashed his picture around, nobody recognized him. One of my contacts said that the seller involved in the transaction did resemble the man in the photo, only he was much younger and had light eyes instead of dark. I think he was talking about Bauer.”

“So he’s active in the arms trade too,” Ash commented.

“Like I said, the two families were tight. Bauer’s father focused primarily on drugs, but his smuggling operation overlapped with Dietrich’s gun routes. I think Bauer Sr. often helped Dietrich with his shipping needs, and Bauer Jr. took over the business when his father died, so I’m guessing Nikolaus was always heavily involved in both operations.”

As he finished talking, his gaze strayed to the phone he’d left on the glass coffee table, and a flood of anger filled his gut.

“Bauer grabbed my daughter.”

Noelle took a step toward him. “Jim...”

“He laid a hand on her, Noelle. Liam saw him grab her.”

“Don’t jump to any conclusions just yet. You don’t know the circumstances that led to it.”

“We don’t know anything!” As he stalked to the table and grabbed his phone, another gust of worry blasted through him. “All we have is Liam’s report, and this text message Cate sent twenty minutes ago. That’s all we fucking know.”

He clutched the phone in his hand, but didn’t bother pulling up the message again. It had been sent from the burner phone he’d given Cate at the Eiffel Tower, and he’d already memorized every damn word.

You need to come get me. I’ll text you the time and place tomorrow.

That was it. Two sentences. Zero details.

He’d texted her back, but he’d yet to receive a response. He suspected she’d turned off the phone, but that was just another cause for concern. He had no clue what had happened tonight, but he knew his daughter was scared. Noelle had insisted it was impossible to discern fear from a text message, but she was wrong. Cate was terrified—he
felt
it, damn it.

“We could go in tonight,” he said in a low voice.

Noelle wasted no time shooting down the idea. “No way. We have no idea what the security inside the house is like. We could be walking into an ambush.”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“And risk your kid’s life in the process?” she challenged.

Fuck. Noelle was right. They couldn’t go in blind and risk Cate getting hurt.

“You have to trust her,” Noelle said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “She said she’ll contact you tomorrow, and I have no doubt that she will. Once we know more, we can extract her.”

Hesitation rippled through him.

“Jim.” She marched up to him and grasped his chin with one hand. “Look at me.”

He slowly met her eyes, not bothering to mask his despair.

“We’ll get her out of there,” Noelle said firmly. “But we have to be smart about it. Okay?”

He swallowed, his gaze dropping to the phone in his hand.

“Jim. Hey. Look at me, babe. You good?”

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the fascination on Ash’s face, but it was impossible to focus on anything but Noelle. Her blue eyes, shining with intensity. Her voice, ringing with confidence.

He took a shaky breath and managed a nod. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Cate approached her grandfather’s study on stiff legs, working hard to control the ferocious eddy of hatred rolling around in her stomach.

Was it possible to love someone one day and loathe them the next? Because in less than twenty-four hours, everything she’d ever felt for her grandfather had vanished like a puff of smoke. The love. The respect. It was all gone, replaced by white-hot hostility that continued to wreak havoc on her body.

The events of last night had made it even more imperative that she get out of this house. She couldn’t stay there for one more second, couldn’t share the same space or breathe the same air as the two murderers who’d been lying to her since the day she was born.

But escaping wouldn’t be easy. She’d discovered that the hard way yesterday, and each time she thought about what had happened in the maze...

A wave of nausea swept over her, making her gag. She still remembered the wet warmth of Nik’s mouth. The way his fingers had quivered when he’d touched her breast.

Cate halted in front of the study door, breathing through the nausea. She couldn’t think about Nik right now. And she certainly couldn’t think about Gabriel—that was guaranteed to make her fall apart again, and right now, she needed to stay strong.

She had a plan to carry out, a plan that wouldn’t work unless she managed to keep her cool.

Taking a breath, she rapped her knuckles on the door and waited.

When it opened, she was startled to find Nik in the doorway.

“Cate,” he said softly.

Every muscle in her body coiled tight. “Where’s my grandfather?” she demanded instead of offering a proper greeting.

“He’s attending the quarterly board meeting at company headquarters. He mentioned it at breakfast yesterday. Don’t you remember?”

She blinked in disbelief. “Gee, Nikolaus, I apologize for not remembering. I guess I was too busy thinking about my best friend being dead. You know, the boy you murdered?”

His eyes flickered with regret. “Cate...”

“Don’t worry,” she spat out. “I won’t threaten to call the police again. I heard Maurice loud and clear.”

In fact, her grandfather’s speech had been buzzing around in her head all morning, kindling the fire of anger still burning inside her. Maurice had been waiting for her when Nik escorted her back into the house last night, but the long reprimand she’d expected, the excuses and lies...They hadn’t come. He’d simply spent a total of four minutes spelling things out to her.

Gabriel had been killed for his “interference.”

Calling the police would not help her because Maurice owned the police department.

She was never to see James Morgan again.

And she was never to step foot outside the house without supervision.

Short and sweet, a cold, emphatic speech that left no question in Cate’s mind about her new position in the household. She was a prisoner now, and there wasn’t a solitary thing she could do about it.

But she’d be damned if she meekly rolled over and allowed her grandfather to get away with what he’d done.

“Cate,” Nik said again, gesturing to the doorway. “Come in so we can discuss what happened last night. Please.”

“I don’t want to
discuss
anything,” she said coldly. “I want to see my mother.”

He looked startled. “You do?”

“Yes.” Determination hardened her jaw. “I can’t stomach another second of being in this house. I want to go to my mother’s.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart.”

“I don’t give a damn what you think. She’s my mother and I want to see her. Send a hundred guards to accompany me if you want, but don’t bother arguing with me about it. I’m going.”

Hesitation creased his forehead. She could see him mulling it over, weighing the implications, but then he released a breath.

“Give me a moment to discuss it with your grandfather.”

Nik strode back into the study, but Cate stayed rooted in place. She refused to step foot in that room, breathe in the familiar scent of leather and aftershave, look at all her grandfather’s expensive paintings. Any reminder of Maurice Durand was liable to make her throw up.

She waited in the hall and listened to Nik’s quiet voice as he spoke to her grandfather on the phone, and when he walked out a minute later, she knew she’d won this round.

“Your grandfather has agreed to let you go,” he said woodenly. “Bruno and Christian will take you there shortly. I’ll be joining you as well.”

“No.” She shot him an icy look. “I don’t want you to come.”

The guilt in his eyes was unmistakable. “Cate...I know I scared you last night, but...I wasn’t in my right mind. I thought...”

“You thought I was my mother?” she supplied tersely. “Yeah, Nik, I got that. But forgive me if I don’t want to be around the man who tried to rape me.”

His jaw fell open. “I...I would never...That’s not what happened, Catarina, and you know it.”

“Maybe. But my grandfather doesn’t know that, does he?” She offered a sugary sweet smile. “So here’s the deal, Nik—you’re going to walk back into the study and close the door behind you. I, on the other hand, am going out to the car so Bertrand can take me to my mother’s house. If you try to come with me, I’m going to call Maurice myself and tell him all about what you tried to do to me in the maze last night.”

His eyes flashed. “Are you blackmailing me, Catarina?”

“Call it whatever the hell you want. But I don’t want you anywhere near me ever again.”

They stared at each other. Seconds ticked by in silence, until finally, Nik’s shoulders drooped in defeat.

“You win, Cate.” He sounded sad and ashamed as he turned to the door. “Enjoy your visit with Ariana. Please tell her I said hello.”

Feeling vindicated, Cate marched off before he could change his mind.

•   •   •

Thirty minutes later, she walked into her mother’s suite flanked by her bulky bodyguards, who refused to give her even an inch of personal space.

When the two men followed her right into Ariana’s bedroom, Cate had finally had enough. Whirling around, she crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at both men.

“Could I please have some privacy?” she snapped. “I want to be alone with
Maman
.”

Her guards exchanged an uneasy look.

She didn’t bother hiding her aggravation. “I get it, guys. Nik told you not to leave my side. But what exactly do you think is going to happen?”

She gestured to her motionless mother, then swept her hand over the various machines surrounding the bed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Cate muttered. “I’m going to sit in that chair, the one right over there, take my mother’s hand, and spend the next hour talking to her. Maybe I’ll tell her about Gabriel.” She shot them a pointed a look. “You remember my best friend, Gabriel, don’t you?”

Christian softened his expression first, and it didn’t take long for Bruno, the more stoic of the two, to follow suit.

The sadness on their faces threw Cate for a loop. She’d figured that everyone on her grandfather’s security staff must know that Nikolaus had killed Gabriel, but her guards looked genuinely grief-stricken.

“Gabriel was a good boy,” Christian said quietly.

“Good boy,” Bruno agreed, his tone gentle. “My heart goes out to his family.”

Christian spoke again. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Catarina.”

She fought a rush of suspicion as she listened to their condolences, but whether or not they were being sincere didn’t matter at the moment. She needed to send them away, and by mentioning Gabriel, she’d succeeded in doing just that.

“We’ll wait for you outside the suite,” Christian told her. “Take your time.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Once they were gone, she let out a breath of relief, then checked her watch. It was nine thirty. She’d texted Morgan earlier and arranged for him to come at ten o’clock. That gave her a half hour to figure out how the heck she was going to slip away without alerting her guards or any of the household staff.

But first, she had to say good-bye to her mother.

She was feeling surprisingly emotional as she approached the bed. Ariana’s cheeks revealed a rosy blush, her eyelids held a hint of cream-colored shadow, and her hair was perfectly brushed, which told Cate that the stylist had already paid her mother a visit.

“I wish I got to know you when you were...alive, I guess.” Her voice cracked. “I bet you were even more beautiful.”

Sadness washed over her. God, it wasn’t fair. Ariana hadn’t deserved this fate.

“I’m going to be with my father for a little while,” she whispered. “I hope you’re not upset that I’m leaving you. Actually, I know you aren’t. I know you can’t hear a word I’m saying right now.”

Her grandfather might believe otherwise, but Cate knew better. She’d read about coma patients waking up and claiming to have heard their loved ones talking to them, but her mother wasn’t in a coma. Her mother was brain-dead. She had no sense of cognition. She was simply...there.

“I think he’s a good man. Grandpa says he isn’t, but I don’t believe much of what he says these days. He did something terrible, Mama. Something I can never forgive him for.”

As her throat closed up, she forced herself to banish Gabriel from her mind. She would grieve for him later. Once she was actually free to do it.

“I have to believe that James Morgan is good. You must have seen something good in him, right? The two of you conceived me, after all.”

Cate trailed off, having a tough time picturing her mother with Morgan. Growing up, she’d pored over the family photo albums her grandfather kept in his study, and from what she’d been able to glean, her mother had been a lively, outgoing person. The pictures of her revealed the devilish twinkle in her eyes, the confidence in her posture. She’d seemed like a girl who liked to go out and have fun.

But James Morgan didn’t strike Cate as a fun-loving guy. He was more serious, and incredibly difficult to read.

Ironically, she’d felt more of a connection to him in the twenty minutes they’d spoken than in all her visits with Ariana combined. She was never able to get a clear sense of her mother. Maurice revered her, but who was Ariana Durand, really? Who had she once been?

Cate had no answer for that, and no time to think about it, because her watch revealed she had only fifteen minutes left.

She needed to find a way out.

Squaring her shoulders, Cate left her mother’s room and headed for the door of the suite. When she opened it, she found her guards lurking in the hallway, much to her dismay.

She cleared her throat. “I was just going to run down to the kitchen and grab a cup of tea. It’s kind of cold in there.”

Bruno immediately straightened up. “I can do that. Go back inside and sit with your mother, and I’ll bring it in for you.”

Frustration seized her spine. “Okay. Great. Thanks, Bruno.”

“No problem.” He hurried off, leaving Cate alone with Christian.

She searched her mind, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a way to get rid of him, so she simply wandered back to the suite and returned to her mother’s bedside.

She found herself reaching for Ariana’s hand, something she rarely did, but she was too distracted at the moment to notice the ice-cold flesh beneath her fingers. As anxiety rose inside her, she absently stroked her mother’s knuckles and struggled to come up with a plan.

When Bruno strolled into the room five minutes later, she was no closer to finding a solution.

He handed her a cup of tea on a delicate saucer. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, then waited until he was gone before releasing a frustrated groan.

She checked her watch for a third time. Damn it. Only ten minutes to make her way outside.

But how?

How could she escape without alerting Bruno and Christian? She certainly couldn’t outrun them—they were both former soldiers with endurance to spare. And they carried guns. What if they shot her?

She contemplated going out the window, but it was a two-story jump down to the ground. She was afraid she’d break her leg, which would officially squash any hope of making it to Morgan’s car. Heck, even an ankle sprain would slow her down.

Her head lifted when she heard a female voice out in the hall. Her mother’s nurse. But Mimi didn’t come into the suite. She stayed outside the door, chatting with Cate’s guards.

Cate turned back to her mother, but not before her gaze rested on the power bar in the wall beside the bed. Dozens of cords were plugged into it, belonging to the machines that kept her mother’s various organs working.

That was when something unthinkable occurred to her.

So unthinkable, in fact, that it brought a rush of sickness to her throat.

Cate jumped off the chair, barely making it to the private bathroom before the nausea spilled over. She collapsed in front of the toilet and heaved, emptying the contents of her stomach as horror spiraled through her.

Oh God. How could she have even considered such a thing?

Is it so preposterous?

She promptly threw up again.

And when there was nothing left to throw up, she remained huddled over the porcelain bowl, dry heaving. It took every ounce of strength she had to raise her head and check her watch again.

Nine minutes.

Her legs were shaking as she left the bathroom and returned to her mother. She stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the electrical outlet before focusing her attention on the ventilator, which slowly expanded as it released even bursts of oxygen into her mother’s lungs.

Ariana’s vacant eyes stared back at her. Normally Cate closed her mother’s eyelids when she came to visit. She hated seeing those unresponsive pupils, the unblinking expression. She’d left them open today so she could feel like her mother was actually looking at her when she said good-bye.

But seeing them staring so vacantly made her realize that they’d said good-bye a long time ago. They’d said good-bye when Cate was just a fetus in her mother’s stomach. Ariana had died with her baby inside her, and only the miracle of technology had allowed for Cate to be born.