Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7) (15 page)

“You— You bastard,” she gasped. “You let me think— You just lay there and let me think— You bastard!” She scrabbled to her feet, her face paling as she swayed slightly. “I’m going to be sick.” She stumbled off into the overgrown weeds and promptly lost the contents of her stomach.

“I have a feeling you’re going to pay for that,” Jonas murmured as he watched her.

Seth did too.

“You saved my life out there.”

Diana glared at Seth through narrowed lids. “Don’t try to be nice to me, you, you—”

“Bastard,” he supplied helpfully.

“Yes,” she snapped.

He and Jonas had carried the injured man inside, Seth cleaning the worst of the blood off himself before they turned their attention to the shot man. They had applied a bandage to the man’s shoulder. Lucky for him, it was a through and through. Once Seth and Jonas were assured the man was only in discomfort rather than in any danger of dying, they had tied him to one of the kitchen chairs. If anyone had heard the gunshots, then hopefully they thought it was a car backfiring. There certainly hadn’t been any sudden police presence demanding answers.

While they were busy with their captive, Seth heard Diana come back into the house and go straight upstairs.

Seth had followed her up there a few minutes later, the sound of water running in the adjoining bathroom telling him that Diana was taking a shower, no doubt in an effort to clean off the blood she was covered in. He went to his room and grabbed his T-shirt, going to one of the other bathrooms to finish cleaning himself up before going back to the kitchen to join Jonas in questioning their captive.

Seth really had been too winded to be able to speak earlier.

But there was no denying he had enjoyed having Diana’s hands on him too…

She had avoided looking at him directly when she returned to the kitchen a few minutes ago, although she gratefully accepted the mug of hot sweet tea Jonas handed her, which she was still nursing in her slightly shaking hands.

Jonas stood silently across the kitchen now, wisely staying out of this conversation.

The man tied to the chair occasionally let out a groan but was otherwise silent too.

“I don’t have to try to be nice to you,” Seth told Diana softly. “You really did save my life earlier.” He still couldn’t believe she had actually shot the man who was trying to shoot him. A pretty accurate shot in the shoulder too. A shot, as he had requested, meant to wound rather than kill. That had taken some presence of mind, in the circumstances. And courage.

There was a vast difference between knowing how to shoot at an inanimate target at a firing range and actually shooting another human being, knowing the bullet was going to rip through blood and tissue. Maybe even kill. Diana had done it anyway.

To save him.

She had also seemed pretty cut up when she thought he was dead.

Emotions that were completely alien to him.

Oh, he had friends, like Jonas, who would mourn if he died, but Diana’s wrenching tears had seemed to come from deep inside her. As if she cared. Not liked but
cared
.

And I’m living in cloud cuckoo land if I think that meant anything other than Diana has a soft and gentle heart. She would probably have been as upset if Jonas had been shot.

Besides which, the two of them had previously had mind-blowing sex, which was apt to cloud—

“Time to continue trying to get some answers,” Jonas put in gruffly as he pushed away from the kitchen unit and approached the man who had attacked Seth outside.

Diana had been doing her best not to look at the man she’d shot a few minutes ago. Not to look at Seth or Jonas either, after the spectacle she’d made of herself outside, crying and carrying on like a deranged idiot because she’d thought Seth was dead.

Or to dwell on how she had wanted to put another bullet, a kill shot, into the man responsible.

She looked at that man now. Late thirties. Dark hair, swarthy complexion. Heavy with muscle, not fat, as she had assumed it was earlier. Which was probably the reason he and Seth had been engaged in such a furious battle for possession of the gun between them.

A cold shiver traveled the length of Diana’s spine as she saw the man was returning her gaze with contemptuous dark eyes.

Her spine straightened as she met that gaze unflinchingly. “What is it you want from me?”

The man launched into an unintelligible stream of what sounded like verbal abuse. Spanish verbal abuse. The language most commonly spoken in Colombia.

“English,” she snapped tensely. “Who are you and why are you following me?
What do you want from me?
”

Seth’s respect for Diana deepened as he saw the cold determination in her eyes. She looked…beautiful. More than that, she was steely, uncompromising.
Fucking amazing.

The man burst into another stream of what Seth easily translated into several very unsavory names. He answered the man in Spanish, his voice harsh with warning.

“Carlos,” the man spat out his name. “Moore was a treacherous bastard,” the man spoke his vitriol in broken English now. “We had deal. He break. I only want what is mine.”

“What sort of deal…?” Diana’s face had gone pale at the mention of her husband.

Jeremy Moore, shot and killed in Colombia.

By this man and his now-dead associate?

Seth winced inwardly, pretty sure this was going to get very nasty by the time the mystery was completely unraveled.

“Answer me!” Diana’s fingers had tightened about the mug of cooling tea she still held.

The man Seth was pretty sure was Colombian gave a disdainful sniff. “We kidnap wife for him. Split ransom money. He bring emeralds to England for us and take cut. Buyer waiting. Still waiting,” he snarled. “Not man to be crossed.”

That last bit explained why the two men had been following Diana and searching her apartment and hotel room.

The part about Moore’s involvement in Diana’s kidnapping was…well, fucking unbelievable.

But not completely unexpected?

Not to Seth.

But he could see it was a shock to Diana, her eyes dark with pain, her face becoming paler for the same reason.

“Diana—”

She shook off his hand on her shoulder as she placed the mug noisily on the table before standing to bend over the restrained Colombian. “So that we’re clear, what you’re saying is my husband—that Jeremy Moore was involved in my kidnapping?”

The man smiled scornfully. “He plan it. Say father rich. He pay.”

Seth dearly wished he could spare Diana from knowing of Moore’s final betrayal. But he knew that wasn’t possible. That the truth, all of it, had to come out now, if they were going to ensure that she was no longer in danger.

Diana recoiled as if the man had struck her. “Jeremy did that…?”

The man shrugged. “He say kill once we have money. We—Jose and I—we decide to keep.” The darkness of his gaze traveled over her boldly. “We get money, have a little fun first, then kill.” He shrugged unconcernedly.

Seth wanted to put his hands around the man’s throat and squeeze his last breath out of him for even daring to think… He didn’t want to think of this man’s hands,
any damn part of him
, anywhere near Diana.

He presumed that Jose was the man who had been posing as Eduardo Garcia. A man who had died from having his throat cut. By this man?

Seth’s hands clenched into fists at the realization Carlos and Jose had obviously intended for Diana to die in the same way. After they’d had their “fun” with her.

“Moore furious when wife returned to him. Say we not keep our part of deal, so he keep emeralds for himself.”

“Which is why you shot and killed him,” Jonas put in dryly.

“Jose did that!” Carlos defended himself.

“Is that why you killed Jose?” Jonas questioned mildly.

The other man’s eyes glittered with venom. “Buyer patience almost gone. I sick of listening to Jose whining about following stupid bitch, so slit throat—”

“
This
stupid bitch?” Seth prompted in a voice soft with menace.

The other man’s face flushed and his expression became petulant as he obviously heard that threatening edge. “Moore break deal,” he insisted stubbornly.

“Might have been a good idea to find out what Moore had done with the emeralds before you allowed Jose to kill him, though, hmm?” Jonas taunted.

Carlos pulled at his restraints as he launched into another diatribe of Spanish vitriol, obviously unappreciative of Jonas’s mockery.

Seth was barely listening to the exchange as he watched Diana drop back into the chair behind her, a dazed look on her face and in her eyes as she stared down at her clenched hands.

No doubt trying to assimilate, to comprehend, accept, exactly what that bastard Moore had done to her.

Not only had her own husband handed her over to these animals, but he had expected them to kill her. A plan that would have allowed him to play the part of the grieving widower rather than have Diana divorce him for being physically abusive.

As Seth had suspected.

Fucking bastard.

“Where emeralds?” their captive now demanded of Diana. “What you do with them? Our buyer not a good man.” As if he was! “He tell us we have one more week to deliver emeralds, or he kill us.”

Diana stared at Carlos blankly, obviously still in shock from Moore’s absolute betrayal.

“Maybe we should set you free, then, and let him deal with you?” Jonas mused.

“No!” The man looked terrified. “I never be seen again, you do that.”

“Now wouldn’t that be doing society a favor?” Jonas said scornfully.

“I have wife. Children. You not allow, Mrs.” The Colombian turned pleadingly to Diana. “I dead they do that.”

Diana had gone completely numb after the revelation of Jeremy’s involvement in her kidnapping. He had plotted and planned with these two Colombians to kidnap and then kill her. Had probably told them where and how to take her captive too.

What sort of man had she married?

She had thought an abusive monster was bad enough, but that Jeremy could coldly plot to have her kidnapped and killed, and then pocket half the ransom money paid by her father, was so far beyond anything she could possibly have imagined, she didn’t know how to deal with it.

Even though she had no doubt it was the truth.

She remembered Jeremy’s expression of surprise the day Seth had returned her to the embassy. She had thought it was because Jeremy had feared he would never see her again. Now she knew it was because he had
hoped
never to see her again.

On top of all that, he had been going to smuggle emeralds for these two men.

Emeralds that had never been recovered.

And now her kidnapper, the man who had been in cahoots with her husband, was pleading with her for mercy?

She should have killed him earlier, not merely wounded him.

Her gaze moved to the gun once again tucked into the waistband of Seth’s jeans. Diana stood and grabbed the gun before pointing it at Carlos.

“What the fuck—” Seth’s shout of surprise came too late as he realized Diana now had his gun and was threatening to use it on their captive. “Diana, no. He isn’t worth it.”

Her gaze didn’t waver from the now-terrified Carlos. “Killing him is the next best thing to being able to kill Jeremy.”

Seth could understand her having murderous thoughts toward her husband for what he had done. Hell, he had murderous thoughts toward her husband for what he had done. But this wasn’t the way. He could live with killing this lowlife bastard, but he doubted, once she calmed down, that Diana could.

“The authorities will deal with him, Diana,” he continued to soothe. “Show her, Jonas.” He waited for the other man to take the device from his pocket. “Jonas has been recording all the conversation.” He ignored the heated protest of the tied man. “I doubt it can be used as evidence in a court of law, but it will be enough to convince the police, both here and in Colombia, to investigate Jose’s killing, Moore’s death, and your own kidnapping.”

She flicked a glance at him but didn’t lower the gun. “All tied up in a neat little bow, hmm?” She gave a shake of her head. “It’s much less trouble to everyone if I shoot him right here and now and we bury his body in the garden.”

“No! No shoot. I tell name of buyer,” the Colombian began to plead and babble. “I tell anything want to know. Don’t let her shoot me.” The big man began to cry unbecomingly.

Jonas kept his eyes on Carlos rather than Diana. “His name?”

“Oliver Dryden. Very wealthy man. Private collector.”

Diana lowered the gun. “Did you get all that?” she asked Jonas calmly.

“I did,” he drawled.

“Good.” The fanatical glitter had gone from her eyes as she held Seth’s gun out to him. “What?” she queried as he made no move to take the gun but simply stared at her. “You didn’t think I was actually serious about shooting him? You too, Jonas?”

“You had me worried for a second or two back there.” Jonas chuckled. “The ‘burying him in the garden’ remark tipped the scales in the direction of you just wanting to persuade Carlos to spill the beans regarding the buyer’s name.”