Page 46 of Love In The Shadows

“Get your husband on the phone and tell him to agree to my deal, or I’ll have to make a bigger move to convince him.”

“Go to hell,” Paige spat.

Richie smiled. “You don’t want to push me, Mrs. Parkston.”

Paige lowered herself from the side of the desk and squared off with Richie. “I don’t appreciate your tactics, Mr. Dalton. You cannot come into my place of business, my private office, make outrageous demands and expect to be taken seriously. Now, please take your friends and leave the premises.”

Richie’s smile dissolved as he curled his lip back, revealing his cruel teeth. “In that case, we’ll do this the unpleasant way.”

His two men sprang into action as though he’d issued a code word. One of them grabbed Paige, twisting her wrists and pinning them behind her back as another hand slapped over her mouth to muffle her scream a moment before it erupted from her lips. I was grabbed in the same fashion before my shock could dissolve enough to act.

I tugged against my captor, but his fists were like iron clamps, locking me in place. My wide eyes flashed to Paige as she struggled to escape the man gripping her.

“This is most unpleasant,” Richie purred, stalking slowly toward me. When he got close enough, he reached out and smoothed his pudgy fingers over my cheek. I reared back, trying to get out of his reach but hit a solid wall of muscle and remained pinned in place. Richie flashed a sick smile.

“Don’t worry, Red. We’ll have some fun when you wake up.”

Wake up?

The answer came quickly, as a butt of a pistol smacked me in the head, and my world went black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Bennett

Holy shit. It was done. The nightmare that I’d been lost in for what was starting to feel like forever was finally coming to an end. There was just one last step…one final roadblock between me and freedom for Tori and me.

And par for the course, Richie was bent on fucking that up too.

“Why aren’t they moving?” I demanded, slamming my hand against the side of the monitor.

“Hey! Easy there!” one of the technicians barked, cradling the monitor as though it were his own damn child. He shot me a nasty scowl as he looked it over.

“It’s fine,” I sneered, pushing up from my place at the desk. I spun on my heels and ran my hands over my hair. “What the fuck is taking him so long to move that shit? He’s playing at something.”

Harold Stevens, my boss, said, “Bennett, chill the fuck out.” He managed to keep his tone calm and even. “He’ll move it soon. He knows he can’t sit on that shit for long.”

I gave a terse nod, but inside my mind, a shitstorm of possibilities raged. If Richie didn’t move the weapons, the rest of the sting would fall apart. Sure, we could zap him for possession, but we needed him to move them across state lines. That was when the hammer would fall on his greedy ass.

We needed to wait until we found out who he was selling them to. That was the bigger picture. If that fell through, the mission would go down as a failure. Months and months of work would all go up in smoke.

I turned around and crossed my arms to keep from slamming a fist against the monitor again. Unfortunately, the lights were still blinking, indicating they were still at the warehouse. Damn it, Richie. Get your fat ass in gear.

What was he waiting for? We’d made the swap two hours before. For two fucking hours, we sat in the surveillance office—an FBI outpost set up to look like an accounting office—staring at the tracking device reports on the screen, waiting for Richie to make the call and move the weapons. As soon as they moved, we could follow the trackers and find the new owners. Then the arrests would fall like fucking dominos.

“Damn, Bulldog,” Pax started, one of my best buddies at the agency. “You’ve been in the field too long. You’ve forgotten how this part works. Patience is your friend.”

I snarled at him as he casually munched his way through a bag of barbecue potato chips, his feet propped up on the desk, not a care in the whole damn world. “Yeah, well, when it’s your ass on the line, you let me know if you can sit still.”

Pax shrugged. We made a good team. I was the bravado and muscle; he was the cool head and steady hand. I’d spent the last few months working undercover, deep cover, all by myself. I’d managed to keep my shit together, for the most part, but now, all bets were off. I was a loaded Jack-in-the-Box, and someone just tripped my spring.

“Pax’s right,” Harold interjected. “You need to play it cool. Your part in this isn’t over just yet.”

I cringed at the thought of going back to see Richie. He’d made his feelings about me quite evident during the final meeting. He didn’t trust me, and if there was one more whiff of suspicion, he’d put a bullet in my head.

No, I wasn’t going to talk to Richie again. I was going to grab Tori and vanish into the night. I’d already made up my mind. Nothing was worth risking her safety. I needed to get her far, far away from Richie and any of his creepy-crawly friends. The whole damn Sanderson organization could burn in hell as far as I was concerned. And if they pushed me one more step, I’d find a way to light the fucking match myself.

I threw myself back into my chair. The tech gave me a steely eye, and I made a show of crossing my arms, indicating I wasn’t going to further abuse his precious surveillance system. “Do we have the tap on his cell?”

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