Page 10 of Captured Pawn
“Handcuffs? Well, sure… we have… but I thought she was Matt’s sister?” Tom asked, rather obtusely.
“Matt’s sister or not, she disobeyed me. If being locked in a luxury suite isn’t to her liking, perhaps I need to give her a taste of how much worse I can make things for her.”
I didn’t like the look of disapproval on my employee’s face, but he wisely kept his damn mouth shut. If I’d wanted his opinion, I would have asked for it.
Tom got up and went to the closet and pulled out a bundle of rope. “Here,” he said, throwing it at me with disdain. “If you have to restrain her, you should use rope instead.”
On a normal night, I’d have stayed behind and had a little heart to heart with my employee about respect and minding his own fucking business, but tonight wasn’t a normal night. In fact, nothing since the night Matt had died had seemed normal. And as much fun as it would be to give Tom a lesson on authority, I had someone else who was in dire need of that exact conversation.
I left through the front door, jogging down the steps two at a time, and took off running through the dark to the west side of the property. There were enough landscape lights and a partial moon to light the way and as I got closer to the edge of the property, I could see flashlights flickering and hear distant shouts.
Stevie saw me coming and waved me over to their location.
“I’m so sorry, boss. I don’t know how this happened.”
As much as I’d like to blame my guys, I knew the blame for this little midnight jaunt laid squarely at the feet of one Sophie Locke, who from the looks of things was presently about fifteen feet off the ground.
I grabbed the high-powered flashlight from Stevie and trained it into the tree. The little minx was shimmying farther out onto the branch she was straddling, trying her best to get out far enough to drop down on the other side of the wall.
“I don’t plan on letting her get across but send some guys out to the other side. Have them waiting to catch her just in case she does make it that far.”
The sound of retreating steps told me that at least someone around here actually listened to my damn orders.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I shouted, realizing after I asked how lame the question was.
She didn’t bother to answer, but instead started to move faster. She had to be cutting the living shit out of her arms and legs on the thick branches, but she didn’t seem bothered.
I shouted up to the escapee again. “You have exactly ten seconds to get your ass down here, or else.”
I was grateful that her forward movement stopped long enough for her to shout down to me, “Or else what? You’ll make sure I’m dead like Matty?”
“What the hell are you even saying? I loved Matty. I hate that he died.”
“Well, that might be the only thing we have in common then.”
“I mean it, Sophie. I’m out of patience. Get down from there right now.”
Her forward movement started again, but she had reached a bend in the branch. She might have been thin, but at some point, I knew she’d climb onto a limb that would no longer carry her weight. While it would serve her right if she fell, the thought of her truly hurting herself bothered me more than I wanted to admit.
I hadn’t made a lasso since my summer camp days, but maybe it was a bit like riding a bike, because within a minute I had a decent loop in the rope. It was time to go fishing.
My first throw was off by a lot, but by my third attempt, I managed to brush the rope against her shin. So close, but she knew I was getting closer to catching her, so she took the final plunge forward onto the farthest branch. She’d be able to drop to the ground on the other side any second.
My fourth throw was the charm, lassoing Sophie’s right ankle just as I heard the branch she was on starting to crack under her weight. In a flash, I envisioned her falling on the other side of the wall but because I held the rope, she would end up crashing face first into the brick wall. I had to decide in a split second what to do.
“The tree is breaking! Come back this way!” I yelled as I yanked the rope with all my might.
The branch crashed to the wall, yet I was able to keep Sophie on my side of the brick, but barely. She fell through the offshoots between us. I could hear the twigs tearing at her dress and skin on the way down.
I was waiting for her when she dropped into my arms, kicking and screaming the entire time. My instincts to strangle her were strong, but I pushed them down. Still, I didn’t like that my brother had been right again. The last twelve hours had pretty much been nonstop commotion, courtesy of the wildcat in my arms.
It was time to put an end to the drama.
I didn’t bother putting her feet on the ground, she wouldn’t be walking anyway. I also wasn’t going to wait to share my displeasure with her until I had her safely back in her room. Her first lesson in obedience would come here and now.
I glanced around, realizing we were only twenty feet from the orchard gazebo my mother had insisted on putting in years before. Since she’d moved to Boca Raton, it got almost no use. I couldn’t help but smile as I secured the wriggling cargo in my arms, wondering what my mother would think if she knew what I had planned for her sacred garden gazebo.
“Put me down!”
