Mine To Have (Mine - Romantic Suspense Book 5) (22 page)

“What’s he gonna give you?” Spittle flew from Hugh’s lips. “If you take me out? What is that bastard gonna do for you?”

Cancel a hit.
“Hugh—”

“
What is your deal with him
?” Hugh was screaming now.

Zoe was dead silent.

Victor lifted his chin. “If I bring Zoe back in, then he’ll cancel a hit that he has…a hit on one of my friends.”

Hugh laughed. Mocking, rough laughter. “He’s lying to you. He won’t cancel anything. Your friend is dead, and you don’t even realize it.”  The laughter slowly faded away. “Dead…like you.”

Then he fired at Victor. 

Chapter Fourteen

Victor hadn’t checked in.

Saxon frowned down at his phone.  His brother should have called by now, but he hadn’t. Victor never missed a check-in.
Never.

Victor had sworn
he
would call Saxon. The plan had been for Saxon to never call him, probably because his uber-suspicious brother wanted to only use a burner phone when he contacted Saxon but…Something was obviously wrong with the plan.

Saxon called his brother.  Not some number to a burner phone, but Saxon’s
real
number. The phone rang. Once. Twice.  Three times.

Pick up, Vic. Just pick up.

On the fourth ring, the phone was answered.

“Victor,” Saxon said his name in a relieved rush. “What the hell, man? You missed your check-in with me—”

Then he heard laughter. Laughter that sure as shit didn’t belong to Victor.

“I’m afraid Victor will be missing more than just a check-in,” a grating voice told him.

“Who is this?” Saxon demanded as every muscle in his body locked down.

“I’m the man who just shot the FBI agent.”

“Then you’re the man I’m coming to kill,” Saxon said flatly. 
Victor isn’t dead. Vic isn’t dead!

“Get in line,” the guy told him and he hung up the phone.   

No,
no!

Saxon dialed back immediately, but the phone just rang and rang. 

***

“I thought you were here to rescue me,” Zoe Peters said as she turned her head to stare at Victor. “Not die with me.”

He wasn’t dead, not yet. The bastard had shot him in the right shoulder—
trying to take out my firing arm—
then he’d cuffed Victor and left him on the floor of that damn basement.

Now he was in that room with Zoe, and she still had a bomb strapped to her chest. Not the best odds he’d ever faced, but not the worst ones either.

Victor’s phone was ringing again.  A phone that Hugh had in his hand.

“Who is that asshole calling?” Hugh demanded. “Why won’t he just stop?”

Victor sucked in a deep breath and ignored the pain that pulsed through him. “That asshole is my brother…”
Think, think, think.
There had to be a way out of this. A way that didn’t involve Victor and Zoe getting blown into a million pieces.

“Family,” Hugh muttered, disgust thick in his voice. “Family is why I’m here. Why you’ll die. Why
she…”
Fury darkened his face. “Why she will die.  I’m going to make Bates pay for what he’s done. I will make him—”

“You’re trying to get at Luther Bates?” Like he didn’t already know that. “Then answer that phone. My brother has something that Bates wants very, very badly.”

Hugh’s eyes turned to slits.

“Bates took out a hit on the Ward family years ago.  Maryann Ward is the lawyer who gave the DA all the evidence on Bates. She’s the one who sent him to prison.”

“Maryann Ward.” Hugh smiled. “Oh, I do remember her name.”

“Then maybe you remember that the hitman took out Maryann and her husband, but he missed the daughter, Elizabeth Ward.”

Hugh’s smile stretched even more.  “Elizabeth.”

He didn’t like the way the guy said Elizabeth’s name. With such smug satisfaction.  Victor started backpedaling with his plan because…
something is off here. Some shit is really off.

Other than the bomb and the woman who’d been held hostage and—

Hugh answered the ringing phone. “Do you have Elizabeth Ward?”

“No!” Victor shouted because maybe Saxon would hear him. “Don’t give her up! Send the FBI here—I’m in South Carolina, with Zoe—”

Hugh sighed and lifted the bomb trigger.

“Don’t say another word,” Zoe whispered. “I don’t want to die like this.”

Victor stopped talking.

Hugh held his stare. “I ask again…” he said into the phone. “Do you have Elizabeth Ward? Because your
brother
just brought her to my attention…and I have to think that he wouldn’t have said her name unless you really did have her with you.”  And the guy looked as if he’d just been given some amazing-ass Christmas present. 

***

Do you have Elizabeth Ward?

Saxon had to loosen his hold on the phone because he was close to splintering the thing.  “Who is this?”

“We covered this already,” he was told, “I’m the man who shot your brother, and I can be the man who kills him, too.”

Not Victor. “What do you want?”

“I want Elizabeth Ward, if you have her.”

His jaw locked. “I don’t.” Lying was easy.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” The voice was mocking. “Because now I’m going to put a bullet right between your
brother’s
eyes.”

“No!” Saxon shouted.

The guy demanded once more, “Do you have Elizabeth Ward?”

“Yes,” he growled. Elizabeth’s image flashed in his mind. Beautiful, sensual Elizabeth. The woman who could make him feel so much, who could make him need so much.

“I want her.”

Too fucking bad. She’s mine.

“I’ll let your brother go, if you bring Elizabeth Ward to me.”

That wasn’t going to happen.  “Tell me where you are.”

“Your brother already told you…South Carolina.” Now the guy’s voice was annoyed.

“I’m nowhere near South Carolina.”

“Then you’d better get here, fast, and when you do, we’ll talk again.”

“Don’t you hurt him, do you understand me?”  Before he could fly to South Carolina, the guy might decide to sink a bullet into Victor’s brain.   

“If you don’t bring Elizabeth to me, I’ll do more than hurt him.”

Shit, shit, shit! “Why do you want her?  What are you going to do?” 
Because you won’t—

“Elizabeth Ward and I share an enemy.  I need her.  You bring her to me, and you and the FBI agent can just walk away.” There was a pause. “He says he’s your brother.  Surely your brother is worth more to you than she is?”  Then he laughed again. “Maybe you think you know the woman, but you don’t.
I
know her secrets. I know all about Elizabeth…
now bring her to South Carolina.”

The guy knew her secrets? That didn’t make a bit of sense to Saxon. Elizabeth didn’t have any secrets. She was good and kind and the best thing that had come into his life in so long.

The best thing…since I met Victor and Jasmine. They’d been my only family until I found her. 

“Call again when you’re in South Carolina. If I don’t hear from you in four hours, the FBI agent is—”

“I’m on the West Coast,” Saxon rushed to say. “I need more time.”

“What you need…is to get on a freaking plane. Get on a plane and head to Charleston.” The line went dead.

Saxon stood there a moment, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do.

Trade one life, for another?

He looked down at his phone.  Victor had always been there for him.  His brother needed him right now.  If Victor was already shot, if that bastard on the line hadn’t been lying…

I can’t let Vic die. 

He dialed the FBI. Used the contact number that Victor had given him.  Within minutes, he had Tracy Adams on the line.  Before he’d left Miami, Victor had told him that Tracy had been cleared through the FBI channels. The suits in power  had put her back in the field.

“Saxon?” Tracy asked, voice confused. “What’s going on? I-I thought you were gone…”

He had been gone from the game, but his brother’s life was on the line now. “I need you to help me find Victor.”

“What?”

“Victor’s in trouble. I know he’s somewhere in South Carolina, but I need a specific location. He’s…his life is on the line here.”

“But he’s not on any sanctioned FBI case.”  Her voice lowered, became hushed as if she didn’t want anyone to overhear her as she said, “The Brass is pretty pissed at him because he went off radar. He was supposed to come in for an interrogation, but he didn’t. Said he was working something on his own.”

My fault.
“He’s working for me.  He’s trying to get Luther Bates to take the hit off Elizabeth Ward.”

“What?” Now her voice sharpened. “But—but she’s gone. The last I heard, the US Marshalls were supposed to be putting her into protective custody.”

“She’s with me.” 
And I won’t risk her, but I will save Vic.
 “I’ll be flying in to the Charleston airport, and Tracy I’m going to need help.”

“You have it.” Now her voice was soft again. “I’ll get there before you do.”

“You can track his phone, right? Find him that way?”

“I’ll find him,” she promised. “You just look for me when you land.”

He ended the call. Exhaled. For a minute, he stared down at the scars on his hands and he remembered the past. Once, he’d fought Victor. Now, he’d fight for him.

Just as Victor had fought for him.   

***

Elizabeth glanced around the tasting room once more. She had plans for a kick-off gala to be held in that room. She’d already started making arrangements with a local caterer so that they could be ready—

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She whirled at Saxon’s voice, a wide smile on her face.

But he wasn’t smiling back at her. His face was hard, so very tense.
Just as it had been the first time I saw him.

He stalked toward her, an air of menace hanging around him.  “Do you know what I would do…” Saxon asked quietly. “To someone who threatened your life?”

Goosebumps rose on her arms.  “Saxon?”

“I’d destroy him. I’d destroy anyone who wanted to hurt you.”

There was a hard, flat tone of utter certainty in his voice. She shivered.

His head cocked to the right. “Does that scare you?”

“Nothing about you scares me.” That was the truth. She wanted all of him, good and bad and everything in between.          

His hand lifted and his knuckles slid over her cheek. “I can be here, wearing the suit, pretending to be someone else, but deep inside…we both know what I am.”

“Saxon—”

“A killer, a—”

“No.” She caught his hand and held tight to it. “You’re a fighter. A protector. You’re the man I-I want.” She’d almost said he was the man she loved. But Elizabeth had held back.
Why? 
Because she was scared. Not of him, never of him. Her eyes searched his as worry slid into her heart. “Something’s happened.’

He gave a faint nod. “I have to leave town for a bit. One of the winery’s security guards will be seeing you home today.”

Her hold tightened on him. “Where are you going?”

His gaze became shuttered. “To see Victor.”

He was holding back on her. “What’s going on?”  When he was silent, she stepped closer to him. “Please, Saxon, tell me.”

He glanced away from her. “I’m going to see my brother. A short trip.  Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Liar,” she whispered.

His lips curled the faintest bit.  “I’ll be back before you know it.” He pulled away from her and headed toward the door.

She stood there a moment, her mind whirling, then she blurted, “I want to come with you.”

He stilled. “That’s not an option.”

“Why not? If you’re just going to visit Victor…”

Saxon looked back at her.

She could see the terrible truth in his eyes.  “Victor is in trouble, isn’t he?” Her voice was hushed.

The lines near his mouth deepened. “I’ll take care of him. It’s what we do. We take care of each other. Me, Victor, and Jasmine…” He turned away again.

She raced across the room and blocked his path before he could reach the door. “I want to help. Whatever is going on here, let me help you.”

He stared down at her. There was longing on his face, in his eyes, but he gave a determined shake of his head. “There’s one thing I won’t risk for him.”

“What? Saxon, I don’t understand what’s happening.”

His hands curled around her shoulders. He pulled her up against him.  Crushed his mouth to hers.  Kissed her with a wild fury that made her heart race and her body ache.

“You,” he rasped against her mouth. “I won’t risk you.”

Then he left her, striding quickly from the room.

And Elizabeth knew that whatever was happening—whatever dangers Victor faced—they were very, very bad. The last time she’d seen Victor, he’d been determined to get the hit on her canceled.

Whatever has happened to him…it’s because of me.

***

The airport was busy when Saxon strode inside. There were families around, laughing, talking. Businessmen rushing to collect their luggage.

He barely spared any of them a glance. Everything happening around him—it was all just noise. Getting to Victor, saving his brother, that was his priority.

He hadn’t called Jasmine. He didn’t know what he’d find waiting for him in South Carolina, and he didn’t want to risk Jazz, too.  Tracy had promised to provide support for him—and he would trust her.  Victor had said the woman was a good agent, the best on his team.

He would—

The noise around him dimmed because she was there. Standing just a few feet away and nervously biting her lip.

“Elizabeth?”

She swallowed and nodded.

He was at her side in an instant. “What the hell are you doing here?” He’d left her all safe and sound back at the winery. She shouldn’t be in that busy California airport with him.

“Something has happened to Victor, right?”

His back teeth clenched. “Yes.”

“Because of me?”

He looked away.