Hellbent, page 7
She didn’t want to live in a world that didn’t have Anton Trask in it. How flat and dull and stupid that would be.
Such a shame, the way things had gone down tonight. To think she could have chosen Door Number One, and be sipping fine champagne in a big, comfy bed in some luxury stronghold with Anton Trask stretched out before her. Stark naked. Dick in hand. Smoldering at her dangerously with those beautiful bedroom eyes of his.
But no. True to her nature, she’d opted for Door Number Two. Blood, guts, violence and death, her standard default setting. For fuck’s sake.
But enough with the regrets. A fresh squad of Kimball’s thugs were probably already moving in her direction. Everyone concerned would be safer if she left this place right now. Except for her, of course.
But that was just how she rolled.
She plucked the needle out of her arm and got to her feet, steadying herself with the IV rack. Whoa, whatever they had given her was unpleasantly potent. Fiona shuffled barefoot into the bathroom and switched on the light.
She winced at what she saw in the mirror. Her eyes were doing that reflecting-back-the-fiery-pits-of-hell thing, and her face was ash-gray under the smeary remains of blood and makeup. And to top it off, she sported horror movie blood-dreads.
She scrubbed her hands and forearms in the sink. The water ran pink. Then she did what she could about mascara smears with the stinky anti-microbial hospital soap. No time to wash blood out of her hair. Vanity could wait. She had no extra energy for it.
The clothes Anton had left fit perfectly. Warm and comfy. Good quality hiking socks, yay. The two shoeboxes held hiking boots, one pair in a size six and a half, one in size seven. The sevens slipped on like they were made for her. The coat fit her perfectly.
There was a pack of hair ties, a toothbrush, toothpaste and a comb. She made use of all of them. The blood-encrusted hair was too big a job to tackle right now, so she divided it into three rough, sticky bundles and braided it into a stiff rope. Her fingers were so cold and shaking, it took her several tries to get it right.
A look out at the corridor showed her that no one was moving around out there. It also showed that this place wasn’t a public hospital at all, but a posh private clinic. That Anton. Throwing money around like he was made of it. Which he probably was, come to think of it.
She spotted an exit sign and made for it, taking the stairs down to the ground floor. She stole through the quiet lobby area, drifting like a shadow past the administrative spaces where the night shift people lurked. No one noticed her. Not that they would have stopped her, but it was just as well not to engage.
She walked out the front door unchallenged, put up her hood and hunched her shoulders against the dawn chill. She picked up the pace to get away from security cameras.
“Fi! What the fuck?”
She spun around, heart thudding wildly. “Shit, Anton! You startled me!”
Anton strode toward her. Wow. He was more crazy gorgeous than ever. A long, black wool coat billowed out in the chilly wind, which ruffled his shock of tawny hair.
“Going somewhere?” His voice was mild, but his dark eyes burned hot.
She stuck her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Um. Thanks for the heroic rescue. And the medical attention, and the clothes. I’ll pay you back when I—”
“Please. Don’t even start with that.”
She backed away from the intense emotion radiating off him. “What are you doing loitering out here? It’s cold and damp. You should be resting somewhere.”
“I just got here,” he said. “I’ve been at the police station for hours, going over what happened tonight with the detectives. I called one of my security guys to watch this entrance until I got here, in case they decided to come back for you. Wong’s covering the parking garage entrance. Nate’s still down at the station. But nobody gets into this place without us knowing who they are and why they came. Not while you’re in residence here.”
“Oh.” She was startled by the vehemence in his voice. “I see. Well…thanks. But it’s no longer necessary. Since I’m, ah…leaving.”
“You thought I’d leave you here unguarded?”
“It never occurred to me that anyone would guard me in the first place. I’m accustomed to looking after myself. Your concern is appreciated, but I’m good now.”
“Fi.” His voice was rough. “Please. Don’t.”
“I have to keep moving,” she told him. “Don’t you understand? They caught up to me at your club tonight, and you saw what happened. I can’t relax for one second.”
“Did you see what else happened?” he demanded. “Did you see us come after those bastards and cut them down? Did you see us bust you loose and send them running? Did that detail escape your notice?”
“No, it did not,” she said stiffly. “And I think I thanked you already, but in case I didn’t sufficiently—”
“I don’t need a fucking pat on the head, Fi! That’s not the point!”
“Don’t take this personally,” she soothed. “Those guys were going to chop me into chunks. You expect me to loll around in a fancy private clinic, taking it easy, and waiting for them to get themselves organized again?”
“I agree, and I’m glad you’re ready to leave, because this place is not easy to secure. Let’s go to my place.”
“You are not listening me,” she said wearily.
“No, you’re the one who’s not listening,” Anton said. “I believe you about Kimball, Fi. That he’s alive.”
She gaped at him, flummoxed. “Ah…but…but—you do?”
“Yes. I’m convinced. It’s either Kimball, or some asshole who actively partnered with him back in the day. And whatever they want, I think it’s connected to GodsAcre. God knows how, but somehow it is.”
She swayed on her feet. It was almost dizzying to have someone actually believe her. She couldn’t quite take it in. “Well, ah. That’s great,” she said haltingly. “It’s nice to have my theory validated.”
“Stay with me,” Anton said. “My home is secure. And I mean, super-paranoid-Prophet’s-spawn-level secure. I’ve got kick-ass security experts on call. One of them is already in place at my apartment. I called him to watch our backs and keep his eyes on the security monitors while we rest. Come to my place now. Take a deep breath. Clean up, rest up, heal up, chill out. We’ll figure out what the fuck is going on together.”
Together. Well, hell and damn. The wind ruffled the shock of dark blond hair that stuck up like a brush on top of his head. The intensity of his beautiful dark eyes made her shake. He was so gorgeous, it would be hard to think straight even if she weren’t exhausted and traumatized.
It was so tempting. But one did not make life-or-death decisions based upon a man’s sex appeal.
“Why the change of heart?” she asked, playing for time.
“Five armed assholes prepping to slice you open was pretty fucking convincing,” he said. “But even if I hadn’t seen that, weird stuff has been happening to Eric and Demi back in Shaw’s Crossing. I wouldn’t accept the idea that your problem was connected to theirs, but now I see that is has to be. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “No sane person would have swallowed it.”
“I should have,” he said grimly. “I didn’t want to have to think about that fucking place again. I wanted so bad to be done with it, I almost got you killed.”
“Ah, not really, Anton,” she murmured. “I did that all by myself, thanks very much. Who’s Demi?”
“A woman that Eric met in high school, when the three of us were living in Shaw’s Crossing, after the fire. I didn’t know her myself except by sight. I left Shaw’s Crossing before she and Eric got involved. Eric was crazy in love with her, but Demi’s dad hated his guts, and it all went to hell. Then last week, after Otis’s funeral, they hooked up again, but some goons tried to kill them, up at the ruins of GodsAcre. And Eric thinks that they’re the same people who killed Otis.”
Her mind reeled at the implications. “Killed Otis? Your foster father? You think that he was killed?”
“Eric is sure of it. Deadly trouble on two fronts, both involving people from GodsAcre. Maybe it’s the same problem. So? Let’s face it together. Pool our resources.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “I don’t have any resources, Anton,” she told him. “I got nothing. No clues, no insights, I don’t even have any fucking cab fare. All I’ve got are a bunch of stinking assassins riding my ass, and they’re not going to help you very much.”
“They won’t get near you if you’re with me,” Anton said. “Besides, you’ve got more than nothing. You have the ultimate thing. Why else would they be hunting you?”
“The microchip? Sure, I have it, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good to us. I can’t get into the portal, so it’s not a resource at all. It’s just an enigma to torture me.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s also bait. Leverage. A bargaining chip. Someone wants it bad. Who knows? That someone might be willing to start a conversation with us.”
She shrank back. “You want to converse with the asshole who did this to me?”
“Sure,” Anton said. “Until I can lure him close enough to tear him limb from fucking limb.”
Their eyes locked, and Fiona let out a long, unsteady breath. “Now you’re talking.”
“And you’re finally listening?”
She nodded.
“Those guys who took you tonight should never have gotten near you,” he told her. “That’s on me. I should never have doubted you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Stop. It’s not your fault, Anton.”
He waved that away. “My place has state of the art security, an armed guard, soft beds, hot showers, good food, strong coffee, a powerful computer system. If you come with me, nobody will beat down a flimsy hotel room door and drag you off. I would see them coming from a mile away, and I would destroy them.”
She stood there, contemplating it. It sounded amazing. But her natural instinct was to assume that anything that tempting had to be a trap of some kind.
Then again, this was Anton. He’d come through for her before in her time of need, when no one else had the nerve.
She closed her eyes for a moment, let out a shuddering breath, and gave in to sweet temptation. “Okay,” she said softly. “Thank you. I accept. I would love a shower and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.”
Anton smiled at her, and that assault upon her sensibilities took whatever starch was left right out of her knees. “I’ll tell Wong to bring the car around for us.”
“What about the cops? Don’t they need to talk to me?”
“They were going to come here tomorrow, but I’ll call the detective and tell him you’re at my place now. He can talk to you there, after you’ve rested.”
Rest. What a concept. She hadn’t actually slept since she found Patti’s body. She didn’t feel safe enough anywhere to let herself relax. And she had never been a great sleeper to begin with.
The SUV pulled up. The big Asian bouncer who had been at the club and with Anton at the warehouse was driving the car. His window hummed down.
He gave her a toothy grin. “Nice to see you on your feet.”
“Fiona, this is Jim Wong, one of my security specialists,” Anton said.
She gave Wong a wobbly smile and climbed into the back seat. “Thanks for your help earlier,” she said.
“My pleasure,” Wong replied.
Anton got into the back seat right next to her, to her surprise. He scooted over and sat much closer than he needed to. Arm to arm. Thigh to thigh.
He generated so much heat. It felt good, but it made it hard to breathe.
It took a while to make their way through the city. Seattle was already starting to wake up and go busily about its normal weekday, while she cruised along in her own strange parallel dimension of doom and blood. Trying to fake it.
Like she’d essentially been doing ever since she’d escaped from GodsAcre. Thirteen years she’d been pretending to be a normal person who inhabited the normal world. Never quite sure if she was convincing anyone. Or if there was any point in trying.
She didn’t have to fake it with Anton. It was a wonderful feeling, on top of all the other intense and inconvenient emotions she had about him. Finally, someone could see the darkness and blood that stalked her for what it truly was. He saw it, acknowledged it, and best of all, he didn’t even seem all that intimidated by it.
That didn’t make it any less a problem, but oh, sweet, sweet relief, not to be completely alone with it all.
She gasped, jerking up when she felt him shake her arm. “Huh? What?”
“Wake up,” he said. “We’re here.”
She looked around herself, nerves jangling. “Where? What? Where am I?”
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “You’re safe. You just dozed off, that’s all. We’re home.”
Holy crap. Since when had she ever dozed off? In the best of circumstances, sleep was a challenge for her. She did not doze. She was hyper-aware of her surroundings.
She must be wrecked, to nod off in somebody else’s car after all the shit that had come down that night. Maybe it was the drugs they’d pumped into her at the clinic.
She followed Anton out of the car on a street full of what must have once been old brick warehouses, but these buildings were aggressively gentrified. Sleek, clean, with huge, sparkling clean windows and leafy rooftop garden terraces.
There was a sign above the nearest door. Hellbound Productions. Wong waited until Anton got the gray metal armored door open before he pulled away.
She followed into an entryway, and waited as he unlocked yet another door and then led her into a deluxe wood-paneled recording studio. There were big soundproof booths, banks of recording and mixing equipment, a drum set, walls hung with guitars. Shelves covered with awards and honors, statues and plaques.
“You live in here?” she asked him.
“My apartment is upstairs. The ground floor is all Hellbound Productions.”
A beefy guy tattooed up to his neck with lots of facial piercing came to greet them.
“Fi, this is Mitch,” Anton said. “He’ll watch our backs while we get some sleep.”
Fiona shook Mitch’s enormous hand. His thick fingers were tattooed with letters, but she was too tired to read the words they formed. “Glad you’re here,” she told him.
“You betcha. Rest easy,” Mitch called, as Anton herded her into a freight elevator.
“I’ll try,” she called, as the mesh cage started to rise.
The apartment that the elevator opened onto was astonishing. Huge, open spaces, a lofty ceiling with skylights in addition to huge arched windows that marched along both sides of the building. Gleaming oak plank floors. Strings of lights on black cables stretched out high across the vaulted open spaces. The second floor was lofted, with a staircase leading up to the walkway. A big kitchen at the far end, a dining room table in front of it. A Persian rug dominated the living room area, defined by low plushy couches and chairs. There was art everywhere, the walls were covered, but she didn’t have the juice to take it in. In the far corner was a nook with more couches and chairs and a huge TV screen. Or rather, it looked like a nook in comparison to the vastness of the rest of the space. The nook alone had more square footage than the first floor of her beach house.
Fiona stood in the middle, turning around to take it all in. “Wow, Anton. Looks like you didn’t absorb Jeremiah’s loathing for wealth and ostentation.”
“This isn’t ostentatious.”
She tried not to smile at the edge in his voice. “Sorry about that. I’m not being a bitch on purpose. It’s just my default mode. Believe me, I like money just fine. I’m not bad at making it myself, at least when people aren’t actively trying to kill me. And I liked my funky little beach cottage with my ocean view. But it’s nothing like this place.”
“I’d like to see your beach house.”
Something clenched inside her. “I don’t think I can ever live there again,” she said. “I’d see Patti every time I walk in. I see her every time I close my eyes already.”
“I hear you.” He took off his long coat and held out his hand for her new Gore-Tex jacket, hanging them both up in a closet hidden in the paneled wall. “Tell me what you need to get settled in. Breakfast and coffee? Some food? Or a glass of whiskey and a bed with the shades drawn?”
“Some food might be good. It’s been a while. If it’s not too much trouble.” She swayed, steadying herself on the banister of the stairway that led up to the loft. “And a shower, definitely. Shower first of all. I can’t stand having this blood in my hair.”
“I’ll get food going. Bedrooms and bathrooms are upstairs. Let me carry you up.”
“Hell, no.” She backed away, holding up a warning hand. “You will do no such thing.” Her voice cracked with exhaustion, but she gave him her sternest look. “It was bad enough when you did it back at the warehouse. I can walk.”
His arms dropped. “Just this once?”
“No. Lead the way. Eyes facing front. I can drag my own tired ass up the stairs.”
Anton started up the stairs in front of her. As requested, he did not turn to watch her stumbling progress in his wake, nor did he look back when he led her down the long lofted walkway overlooking the huge space below. Various doors opened off it. The slanted ceiling above them had big skylights inset at regular intervals.
Anton led her into a room that was large and beautiful, and sparsely furnished. A king-sized bed with a comforter, many soft pillows. Reading chair, table and lamp. A push of a button angled the hanging blinds to instantly block out the morning light from the enormous windows. He snapped his finger, and a reading light flicked on from the bedside. A rosy, welcoming glow warmed the shaded room.
“The bed’s made up. I told my housekeeper to get the bathroom ready,” he said.
She smiled at him. “Figured I was a sure thing, did you?”
“I hoped for the best,” he said. “There are towels, toiletries, whatever you need. Clothes in the drawers and the closet.”
