Sweet Seduction Shadow (25 page)

No. I wasn't alone anymore. And Roan McLaren wasn't even here. He was in Hamilton, about to be arrested for his multitude of disgusting crimes. But Kasey could blow the whole thing and there were no cops here to stop her.

I sucked in a fortifying breath. Then another and another, until my heart rate settled, my mind cleared, even though my throat felt tight and dry.

"I'm OK," I said after a few long seconds.

"You're more than OK, red," Ben announced, laying a soft kiss against the side of my neck. "You're amazing."

I huffed a breath out at that. Charmer. I realised my lips were tipped up and I could actually swallow for the first time in several minutes.

Kasey abruptly turned into a driveway up the street. My eyes took in the house. An old dilapidated weatherboard bungalow with chipped paint and patchy grass out the front. The concrete drive was cracked, the blue fence, which had peeled in places to show a dark green paint job beneath the blue, had several planks missing. Making it look like the gaping maw of a toothless monster.

Roan's bolt hole. Directly across the street, from the rear corner of his Compound.

Shit. Pierce had been right after all.

"Bugger," Ben whispered, seeing exactly what I was seeing.

"What now?" I asked. Did we follow her? Pierce wouldn't hesitate to arrest us if we got in the way of this operation. But, Kasey could be about to hit a trigger and set off some sort of alarm. I took a quick look at my watch. Sixty seconds and counting. More than enough time for her to warn McLaren's men.

My muscles tensed, in readiness for movement. My mind already made up. We had to risk Pierce's wrath, we couldn't let Kasey destroy any chance of the taskforce's raids succeeding. We had no choice but to follow her in.

I took a step out from the safety of our hiding place behind the bus shelter and felt Ben's hand wrap around my upper arm and haul me back behind the poster covered glass wall.

"What?" I hissed, adrenaline pumping through me and having no outlet to escape.

"Watch," he whispered, eyes fierce as he looked back up the street.

I followed his gaze and watched as Detective Andrews crossed the street casually, from the direction of the Compound's road. Then he walked up the path to Roan's broken bolt hole of a house and stepped through the front door.

"Cops already know she's there," Ben said on an exhaled breath filled with relief. "Andrews will contain her. Fuckin' arsehole will probably hit the woman in the face, the way he was behavin' earlier."

I frowned. It was a relief to know the police were aware of Kasey's current location and the danger she posed to their mission, but even though Kasey was clearly no longer the girl I used to know, I did not like the idea of Detective Andrews taking out his rage and disgruntlement on her. She'd suffered enough. Delusional or not, the woman did not deserve Andrews' type of treatment.

"Come on," I said, stepping out from behind the shelter and walking towards the footpath.

Ben fell into step beside me. "Whatcha plannin', red?"

"I'm stopping that jerkwad from giving Kasey a hard time. Got a problem with that, shadow-man?"

Ben chuckled, flicking his eyes all over the street. Taking in the shadows, the possible hiding places, the tops of buildings, the darker shades beneath the cars across the street. And the road that led to the Compound.

Movement could be seen up there. Black hunched figures advancing on the main gate; flack jackets, helmets, assault rifles held across their chests.

The raid was on, the Compound about to be brought down. No doubt something similar happening in Hamilton right this second.

Time to save, at least, one last innocent from the fallout of Roan McLaren's filthy world.

The front door was ajar. No sounds from inside breaching the gap created. My hand hovered above the tarnished brass knob, a small tremor taking up residence there. I may have wanted to get to Kasey before Andrews did something needlessly cruel, but the darkness peeking out from behind that barrier felt complete. A black hole about to suck in everything that got too close.

Ben pulled me back, placing me behind his body. Offering a shield again. I wasn't above taking it, even if the guilt at that thought gnawed at my insides. He was better at this than me. I still had so much to learn, I wasn't going to go off half cocked thinking I was invincible. I'd survived too long in this fucked up world, to throw it all away on overconfidence.

A gun appeared in his hand from out of nowhere. I hadn't even seen him bend down to retrieve it from his ankle holster. Either I was blanking out, or the man was super fast. What with all the adrenaline raging through my system right now, I was going with Ben being quick. His hand came up and rested on the door panel; there was no evidence of shaking there at all.

He pushed the door open, lifting his gun at the same time, while he crouched slightly and peered into the gloom inside. Still no sounds. No arguing Kasey and Andrews. No fighting - fist to flesh, crunch of a shattered bone. It was still and ominously silent.

I sucked in a breath and waited for Ben to advance.

"Stay behind me," he murmured, almost too low for me to make out the words.

I placed my hand on his back to let him know I'd heard and felt him move across the threshold. I half expected him to simply disappear. To fall down a yawning abyss, or get sucked away into a pitch black portal. Everything about this was making the fine hairs on my arms lift.

But nothing happened. My breath came out in a rush and sounded so very loud in the ensuing silence. I couldn't hear Ben breathe, but me? I sounded like a steam train chugging into station. Ben glanced over his shoulder to check on me, obviously concerned about how freakishly loud my respirations were. And it happened.

Just like that. In the split second of his distraction - caused by me - his gun was knocked from his hand and an aluminium baseball bat connected with his cheek.

I heard the crunch of bone then. That gut wrenching God-awful sound that let you know something had shattered. Whoever had swung that bat had used phenomenal force. Then he was being yanked to the side, his body flailing; uncoordinated attempts to take his attacker down. Desperate and conversely sluggish movements that met only thin air.

I'd fallen into a crouch immediately. My fists raised, my eyes wide and my breaths no longer chugging, but utterly still. If I'd been alone, I would have retreated. I would have used the distraction to turn and run. But I wasn't alone anymore. Ben had said so. And there was no way my feet would move away from him. Even if logic dictated I needed to escape and regroup, call in reinforcements and return to free him then.

Logic did not coexist with love. That tie was stronger than man's link to survival.

My hesitation cost me. It would probably cost Ben his life. A fist grasped my hair tightly and then I felt my body lift as the strands tried to pull my scalp from my head. I gasped, reached up to grip my hair and ease the pain, leaving my chest and face open to attack.

A second fist connected with my jaw, then quickly followed that assault up with a punch to my gut. I doubled over, feeling strands of hair rip free from my head and my stomach contents threaten to expel. Then I was flying. Down that pitch dark abyss, landing in a painful crumpled mess against an internal door frame. The skin on my hand tearing on an exposed nail in the hardwood floor. The pain of my attempted scalping paling in comparison to the pain of my head hitting plasterboard, clearly supported by a hidden joist, because despite the force, the wall had absolutely no give.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't hear a single thing as a high pitched ringing sounded out in my ears, blocking all external noise. My chest heaved, joining my stomach, and blood welled in my palm, dripping onto the floor and smearing under my outstretched hand. I needed to protect my body. Curl up, raise my hands in defence. Do
something
. But the world was spinning in a strange dark way. Unable to make out shapes or shadows, the spinning felt disorientating. Unreal and unusual, leaving me nothing to focus on to combat the world turning inside my head. I tasted bile on my tongue, a precursor to vomiting. I retched and spilled the contents of my stomach all over the floor at my feet.

The effort required made my ribs scream. That punch to the gut had done some damage.

Within seconds of entering this house I was completely incapacitated.

And where was Ben? Was he faring any better? He was a professional. He was more experienced than me at this type of thing. But that bat had been more than anyone could combat. Even more than Ben Tamati could?

A whimper left my lips before I could stop it.

"Pathetic," someone hissed in the darkness.

"You deal with her, I'll teach this dipshit a lesson or two in the front room."

I recognised the second voice. Andrews. Detective Andrews had swung the bat.

And he was working with Kasey. That hissed voice had to be hers. But I wasn't certain. Because it sure as hell didn't make any sense. My head was still foggy, trying to fight the nausea the spinning had created, and I couldn't quite work this all out. Andrews was a cop for Christ's sake. Hell bent on bringing Roan and his organisation down.

But that threat had been real.
Teach this dipshit a lesson.
What lesson would Ben give me right now?

I couldn't see a thing, my head was still a cotton wool mess, and my limbs weren't responding to any mental directives. I could segregate the pain. There was nothing left in my stomach to vomit, so I could force the nausea down. But being blind, immobile and unable to think clearly were true disadvantages.

I didn't need Ben's voice in my head to know what I had to do.
Play dead.
At least until I could see, think and move again.

A hard hand gripped me under the elbow and lifted my upper body off the floor. A boot to my side encouraged me to follow the pull on my arm. I came to my feet, sweat dripping down my temples, between my shoulder blades, over my chest. I panted through the dizziness, gritted my teeth and stumbled after the vice-like grip on my arm. The fingers of my captor dug painfully into the joint. I could feel tendons compressing, bone shifting, a nerve reacting to the assault.

My body was slung onto the floor in a new room. Light erupted out of the ceiling, someone had flicked a switch. I blinked back spots, trying to focus on the shape looming over me, desperate to be prepared for the next hit.

A gunshot sounded out in the distance. Was it the raid at the Compound? The SWAT team? Or did it sound closer than that? Like the room next door. My heart tripped painfully, fear gripped my chest. I blinked rapidly, trying to get the room and the shadow before me to come into focus. Panic had made my body shift into a basic survival mode.

See.

Assess.

Escape.

It took longer than it should have, the entire time my heart tried to escape the confines of my chest. I must have looked like a frightened rabbit, at the end of a farmer's shotgun. I could hear a feminine chuckle off to my right hand side. The ringing had at least stopped in my ears. Kasey then,  I swung my head towards her laughter, making out a hazy figure leaning against the wall.

She came into focus painfully slowly. Enough time passed, before she was fully visible, for me to know we were not alone in this room. I scrabbled backwards like a crab, until my shoulders found a wall. I flicked my gaze around the over bright room; taking nothing of the sparse furniture in, my mind stalled on the foreboding figure towering before me.

My breath hitched in my throat. The rest of the world ceased to exist. It wasn't a head injury that gave me tunnel vision. It was pure terror.

He wasn't meant to be in Wellington. He was meant to be over five hundred kilometres away. Did Pierce already know? Had he tried to warn us? I had no idea where the walkie-talkie was now. With Ben? Discarded on the floor in that pitch black hallway?

My disbelieving gaze took in the reedy frame of Roan McLaren. His dull black eyes hungrily washed me from head to toe, he licked his lips lecherously and stroked his greying goatee beard.

Oh shit. My stomach plummeted. Shitshitshitshit!

"Sarahhhh," Roan said in that high pitched nasal voice of his, elongating my name as though he was savouring it.

The sound of him speaking scratched imagined claw marks down the middle of my back, making my insides roll and bile rise up into my mouth again.

"You came home," he purred, and I actually swallowed back a little sick.

He took a menacing step towards me and my chest began to hurt. A real sharp pain, as though I was having a heart attack. Not that I've had one before, but I could guess at the agony involved. I simply did not have the strength to face this man. After everything I had been through, after coming so far personally in the past three days, I wasn't strong enough to confront him. To stand up to him. To look in the face of my wretched past and stand tall.

Every little thing he'd done, that I had witnessed, flashed before my eyes. Followed swiftly by every little thing he threatened to do me after I became his. It was too much. My mind couldn't cope with the onslaught of horrific images. The fear that coated each one grew and grew, until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't survive.
This
.

For five whole years I had evaded this man, but the sacrifice my father had made was for nothing. Because I had simply walked back into his clutches in the end.

The enormity of the situation threatened to drown me. The pure dread of realisation choked off all air. I spluttered, trying to draw a breath in, but the sound I made only heightened my fear. I felt disconnected from that high pitched keening whimper. It was me making it, but it wasn't. I needed to get a grip, but for too long Roan had been the monster knocking on my door. And my giant was in another room fighting for his own life.

Or already dead.

I was alone, facing my past. And it was winning.

"You have changed," Roan said, the sound like a snake hissing or a rat scratching. I'd despised Roan's nasal tone, I'd always cringed when I'd heard it.

I stared up at him. Holding his gaze gave me a measure of strength. But I wasn't sure it would be enough in the end. He loomed over me, and although Roan McLaren had never been a muscular, big bodied man, he'd always been menacing. His long limbs and lithe frame towered above me and I had to stifle another whimper when my eyes met the evil of his.

"I like the longer hair," he said, his gaze washing over my ginger locks. "Even the beads are attractive. More feminine. You will keep them," he demanded.

Abi keeps them, yeah?

Ben's voice in my mind filled a gaping hole that my father's words would have occupied at moments like this. But I hadn't heard my father's remembered advice in my head for what seemed like a long time now. Had it only been a day?

Still, I wrapped Ben's voice around my fragile mind and held on tight.

Roan's words were nothing to me. I could ignore them, when Ben's voice sounded in my head.

It was enough to keep my lungs open, air flowing in and out. But anything more, like getting up off my butt, was impossible right now. I clung to the sound of Ben's words in my mind, even as I tried to tell myself that he was OK. Tried to block all thought of what Andrews could be doing to him. What that gunshot meant. I had enough to contend with, I had to trust that Ben could get himself out. Facing Roan was immobilising, soul destroying, courage zapping. I was plumb out of resources to pull on, just keeping my head above water with Ben's beautiful voice in my mind.

Roan started to pace before my crumpled form, his beady eyes assessing every little detail in front of him. I felt like I was being looked over for a purchase. Roan was getting his first good view of the prize he had sought for so long. I couldn't track his progress, my head was still spinning, my vision was still wavering, and the only spot I could focus on was a scrap of dirt on the floor. I put all of my concentration into looking at that smudge. The shape of it. The texture. The size.

Why was it there? How had it come to be there? What led to that small, insignificant, but sanity-anchoring, smear of dirt being right there on the floor? Stupid questions flicking through my consciousness; all I could do to stop myself from screaming out in fear.

The smudge of dirt got covered by two highly polished black leather shoes. Roan might have been a rat, but he was an expensively dressed one.

"Look at me," he demanded. I took a shaky breath in and tried to obey the command.

I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. My head wouldn't move on my neck. My eyes wouldn't pull away from the sheen on his shoes. I knew I had to, Roan didn't care for disobedience. He'd make me pay. But my body simply wouldn't do what my mind was telling it to. I was struck numb with fear.

He crouched down in front of me, surprising me by his sudden proximity and the fact he'd bothered to bring his face in line with mine. Roan didn't usually go for such niceties. He was more a fist-in-the-hair and yank-them-up-to-his-height kind of guy.