My eyes shot open. I jerked my head to one side and then the other. Where was I?
My father. Yes, he was driving. Juliet lay in the back seat. I rubbed my eyes. How had I fallen asleep? I’d been so determined not to.
The dream pervaded my mind. Ryan had been there…and then not there. Everything had changed. The feelings, the desire…had morphed into pain and fear. My skin prickled, and I rubbed my arms.
My father turned the car onto a desolate road. “We’re here.”
Dawn was breaking, and before us stood a concrete wall with a wrought iron gate in the middle. The thing had to be twenty feet high at least. I looked back at Juliet, who was still sleeping soundly. I hated to wake her, so I didn’t.
“I need to call and get the gate opened,” Theo said.
I yawned. “Who lives here?”
“Several people.”
“We are on the same island, aren’t we? How long were we driving?” I wished I’d stayed awake. I had no phone and no watch, so no way to know what time it was.
This time, Theo yawned. “We’re on an adjacent island. We took a small ferry. You slept through it all.”
The gate opened, and we drove in to what appeared to be a country estate. On an island in the Caribbean. I had to blink a few times to be sure I wasn’t seeing things. “What the hell?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” he said. “It’s just a few more miles from here.”
“Lower your voice. She’s still asleep.” I turned to see Juliet moving a little. “Never mind. You woke her up.”
I tumbled over into the back seat once more. Screw what my father wanted. I touched her arm gently. “How are you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I slept.”
“You did.”
“That’s the best sleep I’ve had in a while.”
In the back of an SUV. I didn’t like it, but I felt a sliver of gratitude toward my father for letting her have this rest. I’d heard that babies found the movement of a car soothing. Apparently, so did abused women.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I stopped being hungry a while ago. Do you know where we’re going?”
“I don’t have a clue, but you’re safe with me, okay? I’m going to protect you.”
They were empty words, I knew. I hadn’t been able to protect her from being raped in front of my eyes. But I’d do my damndest to make sure that never happened again. I’d take the punishment for her if I had to.
Just the thought made me want to retch.
But I would. I owed her that much.
Melanie would say I didn’t owe Juliet anything, that it wasn’t my fault she was here. Melanie would be right, but that couldn’t negate the guilt that permeated my soul.
Melanie. Just thinking of one member of the Steel family brought Ryan crashing to the forefront of my mind.
Not that he was ever out of my mind.
According to my father, he was here. Near.
My father wasn’t known for his truthfulness, but for some reason, I didn’t think he was lying to me. I didn’t think he’d lied to me at all since he’d made contact with me recently. I had no reason for this—just a gut feeling. Something in him had changed. Whether it was good or bad, I didn’t know.
For a split second, I almost wished my father hadn’t brought Juliet along. I had to keep her safe, and she would take my focus off Ryan. I hated myself for even having the thought. Besides, Ryan and his brothers could take care of themselves, right?
I kept repeating that to myself. Over and over, until—
I inhaled a sharp breath.
We arrived at a sprawling ranch house.
My father stopped the car and looked into the back seat I was sharing with Juliet. “Look familiar?”
Chapter Seventeen
Ryan
“Get the fuck up,” a low voice said.
My heart pumped wildly. A man in black, including a mask, stood above me. Another was gripping Talon.
Talon easily dislodged the grip. “Get your filthy hands off me.” Rage glared in his dark eyes, the moonlight accentuating it. He looked like a wolf gone mad under the full moon.
“Easy, Tal,” I said.
I understood. He’d been grabbed once before, and it had led to the most horrible time in his life.
Several yards away, another man was rustling Raj out of his deep sleep.
“You’re coming with us,” the man holding me said.
“The hell we are.” I broke his grip. Now if only I could reach my gun.
Talon shoved his fist under his attacker’s chin in a perfect uppercut. The attacker let out an oof but managed to grab my brother again. Talon easily broke the grip once more and pounded the guy’s face into the tree we’d been sitting under. The man yelled and fell to the ground.
Talon turned to my guy, who had grabbed me again. He hurled his body into both of us, taking us to the ground. He grabbed the goon and started pounding his fists into his face. The guy screamed and gurgled.
“Get off him.”
Raj’s voice. The big man approached us, holding his own attacker at gunpoint. He regarded the two unconscious, bloody men.
“Make sure they aren’t armed, and then strip them. The two of you put those black clothes on over your own. This one will show us where we’re going, or he’ll get his fucking head blown off.”
The man with Raj was also dressed all in black, including a black ski mask.
I grabbed Talon and pulled him into a stand, steadying him. His eyes still shone with a wildness, a primal fury.
“You okay?”
He nodded slightly but didn’t say anything.
“Come on. Let’s go with Raj.”
“Not until we make sure they’re not armed,” Raj said.
I quickly frisked the two men, finding two pistols and three knives. I took one of the guns and gave the other to Talon, who still looked freaked.
“Take this, but be careful,” I said.
He nodded slightly again. I’d need to keep my eye on him.
Then I stripped the clothes and masks off them. One was white and the other black. Without masks, they looked a lot less menacing. The masks were both tainted with blood, but Raj was right. We needed to put them on. I handed Talon the better mask of the two and took the gun from him for a minute.
“Come on,” I said. “Put this shit on.”
I pulled the shirt and pants on over my clothes. They were tight, but I was able to get into them. Then I put the mask over my head. It was made of a breathable cotton, thank God, but with the coppery smell of fresh blood…
I held back my puke.
Talon followed my lead. Once he put the mask on, I shuddered a bit. His eyes still looked wild, and with his face obscured…
I wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley.
“Okay, mon,” Raj said to his own attacker. “You take us in.”
“The fuck I will.”
“Let me make this easier. You take us in there, or your brains will be smeared all over your friends here.”
“They’ll kill me.”
“Well, then, you’ll have a few hours’ reprieve while you take us there, then. A few hours is better than nothing, right, mon?”
Raj’s attitude overwhelmed me. The man had nerves of steel. Quickly he pulled the mask off the man’s face. He was white with darker hair. I couldn’t discern his eye color yet, but the haze of dawn was just beginning to break. Had we really been up all night?
Raj stopped a moment and looked back at the two men. “You think they’re out for a while?” he asked Talon and me.
“I’d say so,” I said. “Talon went at them pretty good.”
Raj regarded them for a few more seconds and then shook his head. “Can’t take the chance.” He produced some twine from his bag and bound their arms and legs. “I ought to put bullets through their brains.”
I stopped myself from gasping and looked to Talon. He didn’t seem fazed.
I quaffed down my astonishment—and a little bit of fear—and followed Raj.
The man led us to an SUV parked on a dirt road about a half mile away. Raj pushed him into the driver’s seat, still holding the gun to his head. “Get in,” he said to Talon and me.
We got in the back seat, and I held my gun on the guy while Raj got in the passenger side of the front seat. He situated himself and then pointed the gun at the man’s temple.
“What’s your name, mon?”
“Fuck you,” he spat.