Page 52 of Be Courageous

She backed away, shaking her head. “Oh, don’t do that. You’re going to hurt my baby with those drugs.”

Her captor paused, giving her hope that he would simply tie her up again. But then a sneer curled his upper lip and he lunged toward her, seizing her by her coat. The needle pierced the thick material, just as it had done two times previously.

In a matter of seconds, Ruby slumped against him. The room turned gray, then black. Why was he keeping her alive?Please God, not human trafficking. I just want to go back to Tony.

CHAPTER10

“Eat your sausage, Antonio,” Tony’s mother insisted.

“I’m not hungry, Mama.” He pushed away the plate that had been there since breakfast that morning. Though he’d stayed up most of the night guarding his family, Tony still seethed with restless energy. If only he could have joined Monty and Ben, he wouldn’t be feeling so useless.

With his mother puttering around him, he watched Ruby’s interview with Katz again on the Nikon’s previewer, unable to take his eyes off the man.

Katz looked so clean cut, so upstanding. It was bad enough the man had shot a little boy dead, just because he’d gotten bad intel and the crying kid had gotten on his nerves. To have abducted Ruby—Tony’s clever, glittering Ruby—made Tony want to wrap his hands around the man’s neck and squeeze the life out of him. That was what Katz was doing tohim. Tony couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t eat a thing.

Swallowing a bitter taste in his mouth, he wished someone had tried to hit his house last night. Not that he’d wanted Corinna or his mother in harm’s way, but he’d been stewing for a fight. Still was.

“Are you going to kill him?”

The fearful question brought Tony’s attention back to the present. He’d forgotten Corinna was sitting in the chair next to his, keeping him company. The dark smudges under her eyes and the pallor of her olive complexion told him she had hardly slept a wink herself. “No.” He frowned at her. “’Course not. I’m not a murderer.He’sthe murderer.”

Corinna nodded, her eyes watering. “But you wish you could kill him.”

Tony examined the words with a pinch of shame. Wanting to kill someone was just as bad as actually killing them. What he ought to do was pray for Katz to come to his senses.

The tear rolling down Corinna’s face tore him from his introspection.

“Hey.” He lifted a hand to her soft cheek and wiped it away. “This isn’t your fault, Corinna. No matter what happens, you remember that. Ruby does what Ruby does. You didn’t force her into anything, did you?”

She shook her head, unable to answer him.

Just then his cell phone buzzed, and he snatched it off the table, his pulse leaping to see his CO calling him. “Whatchu got, sir?”

“Nothing yet.”

The dampening news kept his expectations low.

“Just wanted you to know, I’m watching Katz’s home, and Harm has a bead on his office. If anything happens on our end, I’ll update you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Monty had to be hearing the agony in Tony’s voice.

“Anything to report there?” His own voice was full of sympathy.

“No, sir.”

A short pause. “I’ll be in touch.”

As Monty hung up, Tony lowered the phone to the table. A great weight sat on his chest. “I’m gonna go work out in the basement.” His old punching bag still hung from a beam down there. He pushed his chair back. Mama and Corinna regarded him with identical expressions of worry as he headed for the basement stairs. “Call down for me if you need me.”

He was going to beat the punching bag to a pulp. And then he was going to pray that Katz repented of his evil ways. He could only hope his prayers heaped burning coals onto Katz’s blond head.

* * *

Ruby roused to the feeling of being moved. There were hands under her arms and a second set of hands around both ankles. Another person had joined them! She tried prying her heavy eyelids open and managed a quick glimpse of a well-dressed young man walking backwards as he carried her lower extremities toward a snow-dusted vehicle.

“Since when did you drive a Range Rover?” he asked.

Recognition shot through Ruby. Cullum’s voice! Why was Katz’s assistant getting involved?

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