“Tonight?”
“We’ll do what we can tonight. Segue has a significant intelligence operation, we should be able—”
Custo tilted his head, as if listening. Then he moved in a blur, grabbed her arm—the flashlight had her wrist twisting painfully—and pulled her behind him. “It’s going to be fine,” he said too calmly.
“Where is it?” Annabella’s heart jumped. She grabbed his waist to steady herself and peeked around his trunk, flashlight on, searching for the hulk of the wolf.
She couldn’t see anything but crates.
“Hold your fire. I am unarmed,” Custo yelled, “and I have an innocent woman here.”
So not the wolf. She kept the flashlight pointed at the door anyway.
Custo glanced down at her. “Don’t resist. I expected this. Adam is only being careful.”
“On the floor,” a gravelly male voice called back.
Custo nodded, as if he thought that was the right course of action. “Down,” he said. “They won’t hurt you.”
“But I thought—” She didn’t know what she had thought. Maybe that they’d be spending the night here. Maybe that he’d have some quick fix to her problem, like Jasper’s hot screw. Maybe that she’d be safe enough to rest so she could be ready for her performance. If she didn’t put her head down soon, she was going to fall down anyway.
“On the floor now!”
Custo pushed her to her knees as he lowered himself. “No sudden movements. Just lie on the floor. Everything is going to be all right.”
No sooner had her cheek touched cold linoleum than several pairs of black combat boots ran into view. One pressed on Custo’s neck, the tip of a gun at his head. Other boots had him at his arms, the small of his back, his legs.
“No, no, no,” Annabella yelled as her body trembled with fear and anger. This was a mistake. A mistake to share a cab. A mistake to trust a strange man. A mistake that might cost her Giselle. “He called you! He called you!”
Custo had the perverse nerve to attempt a smile at that, boot rubber in his face, but he remained silent, the rest of him still.
Rough hands hauled Annabella up from under her armpits. Her flashlight clattered to the floor. From the corner of her eye, she spied a soldier dumping the contents of her bag into a messy pile and dissecting her stuff. She was driven up against a wall, held with her arms twisted behind her. Whatever idiot was doing this to her probably thought the arm hold hurt, but he’d be wrong. She’d been dancing since she was four; flexibility was no problem for her. She could have gotten out of it if she wanted, but she took her cues from Custo.
Let it happen.
A hand roved her body, dipping between her boobs, as if they were big enough to hide anything. Then the jerk swept the juncture at her thighs. Totally humiliating. He located her mobile phone—didn’t take a genius to put a hand in her pocket. Then suddenly she was yanked back and propelled out the doorway. “If he twitches,” her captor called, “shoot him.”
“He was helping me,” Annabella said, finally getting a glimpse of the infamous Adam. Dark hair, chiseled face, clenched jaw. Might be good-looking if he weren’t such an asshole.
“I doubt that very much.” Adam directed her to a black SUV idling in front of the building.
The street was otherwise dark, shadows shifting with her quick glance. If she couldn’t have Custo, she at least wanted her flashlight, though she doubted Adam would run back in and get it for her. Someone inside the SUV opened the side door.
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, “he’s a little crazy, but I swear he hasn’t done anything wrong.” She tried to twist out of Adam’s cruel grasp while he propelled her into the vehicle.
“No, you don’t understand, Ms. Ames.”
How did he know her name?
“That couldn’t be Custo Santovari.” Adam’s eyes were flinty, his mouth cruelly twisted with strong emotion. “The Custo I know died over two years ago.”
Chapter Four
BLOOD ran off Custo’s arm into crimson splatters on the cold concrete floor of his holding cell. His forearm was a scream of pain from a deep diagonal slice through skin and muscle—a parting gift from one of Adam’s men, and a test: wraiths heal rapidly, humans do not.
Not that Custo had expected a welcome parade; Adam had to take all due precautions. Custo leaned against the cell wall—his butt was already going numb from his seat on the hard floor—and rested his lower arm on his knees in plain sight. His sleeve was bunched over his elbow. Easiest way to safely ID a wraith was to watch him regenerate, a bracing combination of nightmare and miracle.