In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2) (7 page)

She was highly intelligent, excelling in her studies. She had a photographic memory and could store data in her brain much like a computer did. And yet with her superior intelligence and her psychic powers that she hadn’t truly tested to see just how powerful she was, she was still fragile and vulnerable. She knew it. She hated it. But she accepted it, because it was who she was and she couldn’t change it no matter how much she wanted to.

She wanted to be strong. She wanted to live life without forever looking over her shoulder and suppressing her true self. It was no way to live even if her parents surrounded her with their love, always protecting her. At some point she had to step from her parents’ shadow and take on the world herself.

She sighed, closing her eyes after checking her watch for the hundredth time.

The two hours her father had assured her they’d be back in had turned into three and then four and five until every minute seemed an eternity. At first Ari hadn’t been concerned, because above all else her father was lethal and fiercely protective of her mother. He’d never allow harm to come to either his wife or his daughter.

He’d left a security detail with Ari, surrounding her, the house. She didn’t see them but she sensed their presence. Their watchful eyes. It should have reassured her, but with every passing hour that her parents remained gone, her anxiety mounted until she was literally paralyzed with fear. And indecision.

She was exhausted, unable to sleep with her parents gone and her not knowing if they were dead or alive. Now dawn crept across the sky, bathing her room in pale shades of lavender. She’d tried to call her father countless times. Her mother too. And each time both attempts had gone straight to voice mail.

She knew she had to do something. But what? She didn’t even know where her father had taken her mother to shop, so tracing their route was impossible.

What if they’d been in an accident? Wouldn’t someone at least check their cell phones, see all the missed calls and at least contact her to let her know if they were in the hospital? Or . . . dead?

Frigid cold gripped her insides. Her chest tightened to the point of pain, and she struggled to squeeze air into her burning lungs.

They couldn’t be dead. And if they’d been in an accident, one of them would have called her. Unless they were
incapable
of making a call. Unconscious. Fighting for their lives?

Her knotted fist went to her mouth, her teeth sinking into her knuckles. Oh God. She couldn’t imagine her world without her parents in it. They had to be okay. They
had
to.

She couldn’t stand it another minute. She’d go find one of the men keeping silent watch over her. Her father had brought two of his detail with him and her mother. Wouldn’t the men have known if something awful had happened? And if they knew, then why the hell hadn’t they informed her and, better yet, taken her to wherever her parents were?

She dressed hurriedly, packing a light bag in case she needed to immediately rush to her parents’ side. She took only what was absolutely necessary and threw everything into an oversized tote before slinging the strap over her shoulder.

Then she headed for the front entrance.

Ari stepped past the front door, shutting it firmly behind her. She clutched her bag and glanced furtively around as she moved farther down the walkway to where another vehicle was parked. Thank God her father had ensured that she had keys to every vehicle they owned in case she ever needed to use one of them.

Her gaze skimmed over the grounds, carefully observing for any sign of the men posted around the perimeter. The wind blew, ruffling her long hair, and she reached up with her hand to shove it from her face and tuck it behind her ear.

“Hello!” she called loudly. “I know you’re there. I need your help. Please.”

Only silence greeted her. No answering call. No one striding from nowhere to suddenly appear at her side. Maybe they’d been called away because her parents had needed them?

She tried once more, louder this time, until her voice cracked. And once again, there was no response. With an aching sigh, she trudged farther down the pathway, resigning herself to the fact she was flying blind.

She took the inside curve of the sidewalk that skated outward to where the other vehicles were parked. Dismay made her freeze momentarily because while she had several keys on her key ring, she wasn’t at all sure what key went to which vehicle.

She paused, shimmying the strap of her tote bag down so she could reach in to retrieve the heavy clump of keys lying in one of the pockets. When she looked up again she let out a startled gasp and instinctively took a step backward.

There was a tall man dressed in fatigues and a white form-fitting T-shirt. His hair was cut short and he wore combat boots. Combat boots? And his eyes were completely shielded by dark sunglasses, but even so she could feel the heavy weight of his stare.

Something about him made her extremely nervous but then her nerves were already shot so he likely wasn’t to blame. He had to be a part of the security detail her father employed. He could very well know where her parents were or have heard from the detail her father had taken with him and her mother. Someone had answered her summons after all.

“Have you heard anything about my parents?” she asked anxiously, though she still kept her distance. “They should have been home
hours
ago.”

“They’re fine,” he said calmly, not so much as a flicker in his expression.

Relief made her unsteady. Her knees wobbled and shook and she let out a hard whoosh of air as it burst free from her lungs.

Before she could react or ask how he knew they were fine, her face exploded with pain and she went flying backward, landing on the pavement. Her already bruised and tender ribs screamed their protest and her entire face throbbed. The son of a bitch had hit her!

She tasted blood but ignored it, focusing instead on the man bearing down on her. She caught the barest glint of something in his left hand and it was enough to have her on her feet in a fraction of a second, prepared to fight with everything she had.

Thank God, her father had taught her self-defense moves from the time she was a child. He’d always worried about her protection not only because she was his only child and he openly adored her, but because he never wanted her in a vulnerable position without a way of defending herself.

The attack in the school parking lot had caught her so unaware that her first instinct had been to use her powers.

And then dread pooled deep in her stomach, spreading its poison through her body as realization hit.

He intended to drug her so she
couldn’t
use her powers.

Which meant not only did her father have a traitor in his ranks, but who knew how many others were involved? Were all of them bad? Her mother and father had fallen off the map when her father had a taken a security escort. They should have been able to protect him and for that matter her father was very capable of kicking some serious ass.

Unless . . . Perhaps they’d drugged her parents like they intended to drug her.

There were a million questions surging in waves through her mind, but she shoved them down and instead focused on her attacker, who was now only a few feet away and making no effort to hide the syringe in his hand.

She did a quick assessment and knew there was no way to physically overcome this man. He was a fighter. Looked ex-military. Still wore the clothing of an enlisted man with ease and confidence that told her he hadn’t been out long.

The resolve in his features frightened her more than his obvious physical strength. He had a mission, one that would be completed at all costs.

But if he planned to drug her and hadn’t killed her outright, which he certainly could have done, then his orders were obviously to bring her in alive.

She narrowed her focus and the rest of the world simply fell away. Sweat beaded her forehead as she concentrated on the hand holding the syringe. His arm lifted, as though he were a puppet on strings. Jerky, him fighting it the whole way.

He lunged at her, reaching for her with his free hand, and she dodged out of the way, her concentration momentarily broken. She had to get to one of the vehicles and the only way to do that was to impair him enough to give her that window of opportunity. She doubted he was alone, but perhaps they’d expected her to hole up in her room like a scared, defenseless child until they came for her.

She forced every bit of her mental energy on that syringe until it took on a life of its own, wrenching free of his grasp and hovering in the air, looking suddenly like a menacing wasp. The man cursed and ducked and dodged as the syringe stabbed forward, his sunglasses falling to the ground so his eyes were revealed. The entire time, he inched his way in Ari’s direction, but she kept sidestepping, never taking her gaze from the syringe.

If it had been capable of incapacitating her, then it should do the same for him.

Impatience simmered in her consciousness. Things she used to do with ease that felt natural now seemed like such a long time ago. A lifetime. She’d grown so used to not using her powers that they seemed alien to her, not an integral part of her, as they should have been.

It required every ounce of discipline her father had instilled in her to push her panic and terror down and focus only on that syringe. She began to recognize the pattern in which he danced his intricate path to avoid being stuck by the needle.

She plunged the syringe toward him but at the last moment pulled it up sharply and then thrust with speed and accuracy exactly where she anticipated he’d be.

It struck him in the throat and she gave the plunger a strong mental push so it emptied the contents of the syringe into his body.

His expression was murderous as he reached up and yanked the needle from his neck, tossing it away in fury. But already his eyes were glazed, his movements sluggish. He staggered and collapsed to his knees but in a last rush of strength, he lifted his head, looking at her with a mixture of hatred and . . . respect?

“Don’t think this is the end,” he said, his words slurring. “We’ll come after you. You aren’t safe anywhere. There is nowhere we can’t find you. I underestimated you this time. I won’t make that mistake again. And if you ever want to see your precious mommy and daddy you’ll do just what we want. Not that they’re really your parents.”

The last words slipped nearly unintelligibly from his lips as a goofy-looking smile that was completely incongruous given the situation curved one side of his mouth upward. There was a look of triumph in his glazed eyes, and then the sedative took full effect and he rocked over to the side, hitting the paved sidewalk with an indelicate thud.

“What?” she demanded. “What did you say?”

She ran over to him and kicked him in the side, trying to rouse him, though she knew he’d be out for quite a while. It was what he’d intended for her to be. Bastard.

Had she heard him correctly?

She shook her head and turned, pissed that she’d spent those extra precious few seconds worrying over something stupid her attacker had said when he was in the grip of a strong sedative. The whole thing was crazy and in a world where she couldn’t be certain about much, the one thing she did know with certainty was that her parents loved her. She was their only child. She’d seen her birth certificate and had dual nationality since she was born outside the United States.

She was not going to give in and react to his words, because that would be precisely what he wanted. He wanted to plant a seed of doubt. He wanted to scare her. Well, he’d certainly succeeded in scaring her, because it was obvious he knew where her parents were and that it was Ari they wanted.

As she fumbled through her key set looking for the telltale symbol on the key fob that told her what key went to which vehicle, she decided on taking the biggest, toughest vehicle in her father’s arsenal of vehicles.

She knew for a fact that the bulky SUV had a reinforced steel frame, was bulletproof with shatter-proof windows and would take a beating. And if another vehicle tangled with it, there was absolutely no way for her to come away the loser unless she was flattened by an eighteen-wheeler and even then it was a coin flip as to who would come out worse for the wear.

She unlocked the vehicle, slid behind the wheel and quickly revved the engine, leaving tire marks on the pavement as she began putting as much distance as was possible between her and the people she now knew couldn’t be trusted.

EIGHT

ARI
pulled her oversized purse closer to her body and walked at a fast pace toward the entrance of the building that housed Devereaux Security Services. She was dressed in a manner to indicate wealth and elegance. Designer clothing, diamond earrings and designer sunglasses with an Hermès scarf covering her head as if to protect her hair from the wind when in fact the sunglasses and scarf were to hide her distinctive hair and eyes, not to mention the bruises that colorfully adorned her face.

The car she’d parked curbside where she wasn’t boxed in by cars front and back was a sleek BMW M6 convertible that comfortably fit the image she was trying to project. And it had the added benefit of being fast. Five hundred and eighty horses under the hood. She remembered every single detail her father had shared with her on every vehicle in his possession. The M6 was faster, more powerful, than a Mustang, a Camaro—even the ZL1—and the Corvette, though it would likely be a tight race with the latter.

While before she’d wanted an impenetrable moving fortress, now she wanted something easier to navigate and a vehicle capable of outrunning most others. If nothing else, her father had drummed into her the importance of advance thinking and planning.

She’d carefully considered her options when she’d gone to retrieve the contents of a safe-deposit box her father held at one of the local banks. He’d set it up so that if she were ever in trouble or need, she could access cash and alternate identity, including driver’s licenses and passports—three total in all.