Page 68 of Protected Hearts

One of the airport employees wearing a black uniform with reflective stripes walked by.

“Hey! You!” William called out to him.

Had he always been this rude? He had. It just took him ripping the smoke screen away from Shiloh’s eyes for her to see that he treated anybody he believed beneath him badly.

The man looked at William and reluctantly changed direction to meet him. He carefully avoided looking at Shiloh, though she kept trying to catch his eye.

“What’s taking so long?” William demanded to know.

“There’s been a delay, sir.”

“What kind of delay? I paid for this flight to be in the air ten minutes ago!”

“Yes, sir. I’m aware. But it’s protocol to examine the aircraft inside and out to ensure it’s ready for flight.”

William looked so out of place in this small-town country hangar with his designer clothes and high-quality shoes. Even his coiffed hair was held in place by his stupid French pomade, while everyone else’s was blown into disarray by the Wyoming wind.

Her own blonde strands drifted around her face, but she didn’t care about anything but getting away from her two captors.

“How much longer will it be?” William’s tone was edgy. He was jittery.

She could use that to her advantage, but how?

The employee kept his stare trained on William. “Not much longer. Why don’t you have a seat in the waiting area and someone will come get you when we’re ready?”

He grunted and twisted away from the employee in a rude act of dismissal. When William centered his attention on Shiloh, she felt her stomach curdle. Though she hadn’t eaten anything since that romantic dinner with Oaks, her stomach still rebelled.

She breathed shallowly through her nose in an attempt to dispel her disgust.

When William latched on to her forearm with a grip of iron, she bit back a cry. Drummond shifted her jacket aside, allowing Shiloh to see the weapon she still had aimed at her.

“Walk, bitch.” Her voice was all English. It didn’t carry the accent of her native tongue, which made Shiloh all the more aware of how dangerous this person was. She could turn on her without batting a mascaraed eye.

With no other choice in sight, she allowed William to propel her toward the waiting area, which consisted of four chairs along the steel wall of the hangar. Not far away was an exit to the outside. She estimated the number of steps it would take for her to reach it, and tried to calculate if she could buy enough time to beat Drummond pulling the trigger.

She guessed no. Luck was not on her side in this case. She needed to use her wits and hope that Oaks realized something was wrong and came looking for her.

Oaks.God, she ached to set eyes on his face again. Would she? She shouldn’t think on the dark side, but the last year of her life was mostly storm clouds hovering over her.

Her two kidnappers forced her into a chair and stood over her menacingly. She looked up at William and then at Drummond. The woman’s lip curled.

Shiloh forced herself to draw a deep enough breath to gain a measure of control. “You can’t kill me, so call off your bitch.” She flicked her eyes to the woman.

Drummond snarled.

Shiloh raised her jaw. “I’m the only thing keeping you from poverty and prison. The feds will seize all your assets as soon as they have proof.”

William’s eyes narrowed on her.

“You can’t do anything to Oaks or anyone at Black Heart Security either.”

William got in her face, so close that his hot, sticky breath oozed over her skin. “You’re going to give me those files.”

“That was the deal before you forced me into a vehicle at gunpoint and brought me here. I was prepared to share everything with you and walk away just to be free of it all.”

Of course, she’d planned on then going to the authorities and telling them everything, but her captors didn’t need to know that.

She looked around again. “What do you plan to do with me once you stuff me in a plane? If youdoplan to kill me, then why not just do it here? Now?” She tipped her jaw toward the woman in defiance.

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