If You Only Knew

Chapter Twenty-Two



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RAYNA WOKE TO the vibration of the phone in her pocket and instinctively reached for it, then gasped as the plastic bindings around her wrists gouged her skin. A heartbeat later, it all started to come back. Ribs… Sean Phillips… Maria… the rag shoved in her face smelling of something putridly sweet. Everything came alive in her memory with surprising clarity. Everything except where they were going and why.

She was in a speeding vehicle. Darkness obscured anything beyond the windows, not that she’d be able to see much from her position on the floor, crammed between the front and back seats of a mid-sized car. How long since they’d left Nate’s house? Ty. Was he looking for her?

The phone vibrated again. Should she go for it? Her hands were secured in front of her. She could reach the phone. It would just be a matter of pushing the right buttons before Sean realized what she was doing.

The vibration came again and Sean swore, jammed on the brakes, and reached between the seats to grope her pockets for the source of the noise. It was all she could do to keep from gagging as his hands probed and explored in ways that made her feel violated. He jerked the phone from her shirt pocket and turned back toward the front. A scornful laugh rang out, and then he must have hit the speaker button because the next voice she heard was Ty’s.


“Sean?” Ty paused for a heartbeat, and when he spoke again, the uncertainty was gone from his voice. “If you hurt her, Sean, I’ll kill you.”

Sean snorted. “Told you this wasn’t over, Whitlock.”

Rayna heard the beep ending the call and then Sean stepped on the gas. The vehicle accelerated again. She raised her head just enough to see over the console before she was overcome with swirling, dizzying nausea. She couldn’t stop the groan that twisted from her throat. Sean put on the brakes again and jerked the car to the side of the road.

He shifted in the seat and reached for her, dragging her from the floor, apparently effortlessly, and shoving her onto the backseat. She flinched as he jerked the gag from her mouth.

“I don’t think we need that anymore. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to kill Andre Komarov for me.” Sean smirked. “What happens after that is totally up to you.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“A safe house for the time being. As soon as the FBI learns where Andre is holing up, you’ll be my ticket in the door.”

The dizziness made it hard to concentrate, but she was confident her life depended on garnering all the information she could from this man. “Ty has already planned to go after Andre. Why not let him finish what he’s started?”

“He’s doing it to protect you and the kid. Let’s just say our motives differ. I have a personal vendetta to settle with Andre. I need to get to him first, so the quicker we get this done, the better.” Sean swung toward the front again.

“Can I talk to Ty?” Rayna didn’t know why she asked. She already knew what Sean’s answer would be, but suddenly she missed Ty desperately and needed that lifeline.

“Don’t worry. He knows you’re safe with me.” He rolled down the window and tossed the phone into the roadway.

Sean threw the car in gear and spun off the shoulder. Rayna leaned back, closed her eyes, and concentrated on keeping the dread that roiled in her stomach from turning into full-fledged panic. Focus on finding a way out of this. That was what she’d been trained to do.

The gun was gone from her waistband. She’d known Sean would search her, but it was a disappointing blow anyway. Surreptitiously, she tested the bindings on her wrists. The thick, plastic zip ties didn’t give but bit into her flesh cruelly. She was grateful her ankles weren’t bound. At least she’d be able to run if the opportunity presented itself. She couldn’t count on Ty or anyone else coming for her. There was no way he could know where she was. She was on her own.

Surprisingly, realizing what she had to do calmed her, and she started taking note of the roads, signs, and buildings as they rushed by. If Sean allowed her to speak to Ty, it would be imperative to know where she was.

Ty was probably blaming himself. A sudden image of him grinning at her from the bed as she donned his shirt and buttoned it made her smile. His eyes still dark with passion, his hair tousled, his nakedness barely covered by the sheet, he’d wanted to go downstairs with her, but she’d insisted he stay.

She remembered Ribs, lying motionless on his blanket, and jerked forward on the seat. Gritting her teeth against the nausea, she ground out the question. “You bastard! What did you do to Ribs?”

“That vicious damn dog? I gave him some hamburger laced with sleeping pills. ’Course, I didn’t know how many would do the job, so I may have used a few more than he needed. Put him out like a light.” Sean chuckled as though telling a funny story.

Rayna bit her bottom lip in an effort to keep from launching into a tirade that would obviously only amuse him while not helping Ribs in the least. Besides, in her present circumstances, there was no sense in antagonizing the man. Her best bet was to go along with whatever he said. Maybe, with enough time, she could talk him into untying her. If she had her hands free that would change the odds considerably.

“I understand why you’re doing this. I mean… I would have felt exactly the same way if Ty tried to keep me out of the fight. Of course you want to protect Madison and Bree.” She leaned back against the seat again and forced a conversational tone in her voice that she hoped would get him talking. “You know they’ll suspect Bree of being in collusion with you.” She paused. “She isn’t, is she?”

Sean shook his head. “Bree is blissfully ignorant of any of this, and with a little luck, I’ll keep it that way.”

“You don’t want her to know how far you’re willing to go to protect her and Madison?”

Sean scowled at her in the rearview. “You ask too many damn questions.”

“But Bree could convince Ty to help you.”

“Bree doesn’t have the power over Ty she thinks she has. Besides, I don’t need Ty’s help. I’ve got you.” He laughed and set his gaze back on the road. “You’re going to get rid of Andre for me. If you play it smart, you might even survive this.”

He was lying. It was obvious that her cooperation was all he wanted. He had no intention of letting her live.

“What the hell?”

His alarm drew her gaze to the front. He was staring in the rearview mirror, and a fraction of a second later, crunching metal and a hard jolt propelled the car and her body forward. Her head snapped back against the seat as someone rear-ended them. Their vehicle swerved dangerously before Sean brought it under control and floored the gas pedal.

Rayna craned over her shoulder. At first she saw nothing behind them but dark, empty roadway as their car sped over the asphalt. Soon, though, a dark-colored SUV, headlights off, gained on them quickly. This wasn’t good. She braced her arms against the front seat and held her breath as the other car rammed them again, sending them fishtailing toward the side of the road.

Once more, Sean got the car under control and accelerated. They were entering the outskirts of Portland. Sporadic houses came into view with yard lights giving them an inhabited look, even though everyone was undoubtedly sleeping and wouldn’t care that she and Sean were about to be run off the road.

It couldn’t be Ty behind the wheel of that SUV—not if he knew she was in the car. Running someone off the road was too dangerous… too unpredictable. It had to be Andre or someone who worked for him. Andre had sworn to kill her on sight unless Ty delivered Bree and Madison to him. In any case, whoever it was meant business and clearly didn’t care whether there were survivors or not.

Rayna swung toward the front in time to see a green light ahead of them turn yellow and then red. Sean bore down on the intersection with clearly no intention of stopping. She peered down both side streets. Empty. No one else was around at whatever ungodly hour it was.

When another SUV, also with headlights off, seemed to materialize from nowhere on the right, she didn’t even have time to scream before it slammed into the passenger side of Sean’s car. The vehicle spun in a three-hundred-sixty-degree circle, flipped up on two wheels, and wavered there for an unbelievably long time before dropping back to all four.

The airbags deployed with a loud pop, Sean shoved himself toward the passenger seat, and she lost track of him. When the front passenger door opened, she heard angry voices and the sounds of a struggle before everything went quiet.

Rayna had bumped her head pretty hard on the side window, but she didn’t feel any blood, and it was probably the least of her worries. She sank down in the backseat, hoping against hope that they didn’t know she was there. No such luck. The driver’s side rear door jerked open and a man she’d never seen before looked her up and down, clearly surprised by her presence and her bound wrists.


“What have we here? Step out of the car.” The man held out his hand like he expected her to accept his help.

Rayna ignored him and shoved herself across the seat, stepping down to the roadway under her own power, which seemed to amuse the stranger. Two more men appeared, dragging an apparently unconscious Sean by the arms, and tossed him in the back of their SUV. She didn’t have to be told. These were Andre’s men. Out of the frying pan…

“You’ll ride with me.” The man who’d opened her door stopped her from getting into the same SUV as Sean.

She pressed her lips together and said nothing as he hustled her to the vehicle that had rear-ended them twice.

Asking where they were taking her seemed like a waste of breath. She’d pretty much guessed how this was going to end.

The man helped her into the front seat. She was grateful he didn’t feel the need to taunt her. Alone with her thoughts in the silence of the car, disappointing Ty was heavy on her mind. If only she’d done so many things differently. From putting their relationship on the back burner while she grieved for her brother to leaving as though Ty meant nothing to her, she’d played every wrong card in the deck. Last night she’d found out exactly how much she’d been missing, and she’d never get a chance to tell Ty how much that meant to her and how sorry she was for screwing it all up. She wasn’t afraid to die, but she hated the fact that Ty would suffer more because of it.

The drive went by too quickly and soon the driver pulled into a huge riverfront warehouse. The second SUV drove in beside them. Two men exited that vehicle dragging Sean, awake and blustering his usual threats, and disappeared toward the back of the warehouse.

Her driver still waited behind the wheel, and her nerves slowly frayed, not knowing what was coming next. Seconds crawled by while her heart pounded with dread. She caught her breath when her door suddenly swung open. Andre stood there, his hands on his hips, scowling blackly.

“I figured you were skulking around here someplace, Andre.” The words shot out before she could remind herself it wasn’t a good idea to provoke him.

He only quirked a lip in scorn. Her driver opened his door, stepped out, and met Andre at the front of the car. They spoke quietly for a few seconds.

Andre’s gaze swept back to her when they were done. “Come with me.”

Rayna didn’t move, and he returned to her side and reached for her arm, drawing her from the front seat even though she was sure her legs would be too wobbly to hold her. He closed the door and pulled her with him toward a flight of wooden stairs leading to the second level.

“What are you going to do?” Her voice sounded strained even to her own ears.

He shoved her ahead of him up the stairs and into a room with a wooden desk, two armchairs, and a coffee table. She stopped in the center of the room. He retrieved a knife from one of the drawers in the desk and turned toward her.

Her time had run out. Apparently, he was all done talking. Ty and Nate said Andre didn’t bluff, but deep down, she’d never expected it to end like this. Fleetingly, she considered making a break for it but weighed the odds and came to the conclusion she’d never make it.

A weary smile touched his lips. “I’m going to do what I should have done that night in your apartment.”

Rayna forgot to breathe as Andre stalked toward her with the knife.

Her brain screamed for her to run, but her feet seemed permanently fixed in place. At the last second, her hands came up, a pitiful attempt to ward him off. He caught her wrists and the knife sliced through the plastic tie. She stumbled backward. He tossed the knife onto the desk and reached for her arm, catching her in time to keep her from falling. Her breath escaped in a rush, not sure if she should be glad or sorry he hadn’t just killed her.