Page 42 of Seductive Secrets

James didn’t bother responding. He was too focused on getting to Angela. There was no way to warn her that Joe was a danger. They’d suspected that something was off, but those were mere suspicions. Now they had proof that Joe was out to get Angela because she dug into details she should have ignored, according to one of the text messages he’d just read.

Dash was rooting around in the backseat, but James ignored him. He didn’t care what Dash was doing. Every thought in his head was focused on one thing: finding Angela. He needed to hold her and be assured that she was safe.

He pulled up right outside of the grocery store, not paying any attention to Dash who was speaking to someone on the phone in hushed tones. James ran into the grocery store after confirming that his sedan was in the parking lot. He wouldn’t breathe easy until he saw her, held her, and confirmed that she was safe.

Running through the produce department, James ignored the startled glances from the other customers. He dodged around carts, checking aisles as he went.

It wasn’t until he reached the wine section on the opposite end of the store that he found her. For the briefest moment, he calmed slightly. She was there! Angela was alive!

He started towards her, but as soon as she turned her head, he froze. The look in her eyes wasn’t joy at seeing him. It was absolute terror.

That’s when he noticed the man standing beside her. They turned as one, and James caught sight of the gun pressed against Angela’s ribs and the sneering fury on the man’s face next to her. Joe? Must be. The man was short and round with a camel colored overcoat, even though today was relatively warm. All the better to hide the weapon, James thought.

Dash came to a sliding halt next to James, staring at Angela as she stared helplessly back at them.

“Get away or I’ll kill her!” Joe bellowed.

James lifted his hands, palms out in an effort to placate the man. “Joe, you know that we can’t do that.”

“Stop!” he shouted and shoved the gun harder against Angela’s ribs. James stopped, grinding his teeth in fury.

“I won’t come closer,” James replied. He sensed Dash rushing the other way but wasn’t sure what was going on until he heard panicked screams in the distance. Dash was clearing the other customers out of the store. Smart, James thought. James hadn’t considered anyone’s safety beyond Angela’s. The thought of her going through another kidnapping was more than he could stand.

Joe snarled, clearly starting to panic. “Not good enough! Get the hell out of here!”

James shook his head. “You know how this works. You know that I can’t leave her here with you, Joe.”

“Think again!” he snapped, tightening his grip on her arm. “I’m not messing around! Everything was going so well. Until she justhadto stick her nose into things that had nothing to do with her! She had no business mucking up my work!”

“Are you the one that commissioned the drug, Joe?” Angela asked quietly.

“Yes! It’s a brilliant drug! It was all my idea and I’m not going to let you or this ass,” he ranted, jerking his head towards James, “mess things up!” He jerked Angela towards the back of the store, toward the employee door. “Do you have any idea of how much money we could be making? If you’d just come to me with your suspicions, I could have cut you in on the deal! You’re smart, Angela! You know how to make things happen. But no! Youhadto get the authorities involved!”

“I didn’t have a choice, Joe,” she asserted, stumbling on purpose to slow him down. No way was she going out the back door of the store. The loading docks would be a perfect placefor a kidnapping. Nope! Angela had gone that route once before. Not gonna happen again!

“Of course you had a choice!” he snarled, jerking her against him when she stumbled again. Angela clutched at the nearest shelf, bumping a line of bottles. They all came crashing loudly to the tile floor.

“Damn it! Angela, you’re doing that on purpose!”

“I’m not!” she lied. “But you’re hurting me. Just put the gun down. Bullets make me nervous.”

“You’re such a goody-goody! Is that why you didn’t go to the shooting range with us last year?”

“No,” she replied, looking at James and shifting her eyes to the left. “I didn’t go to the shooting range because I didn’t want to be around a bunch of old white men who didn’t know how to shoot a gun.”

He snorted. “There was a training class before we went out to the range,” he assured her. “And as the only female on the executive team, it would have been good for you to be there.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are we really going to have a conversation about team bonding and feminist issues while you’re trying to drag me out of a grocery storeat gunpoint?”

He snorted and she felt him shrug. She kept moving to the right while the hand gripping her arm pulled her left. She wanted him to think she was trying to go right so that when she…!

Angela shifted hard to the left, throwing Joe off balance. She grabbed the arm with the gun and spun, throwing all of her weight into the movement. That got the gun away from her ribs, but it wasn’t enough.

Using all of her self-defense training, she spun again, pulling Joe with her as she twisted, ensuring that he was off balance while planting her feet firmly. Then she rammed her knee as hard as she could into his groin, following it up with a sharp elbow to his jaw.

Joe dropped to the floor with a comically stunned expression of pain. Dash immediately rushed in, obviously anticipating Angela’s moves, and cuffed the guy, pulling him to his feet before practically dragging him from the store. Joe was still squealing in pain but Dash had no compassion for him as he handed him off to the police who had just pulled up outside of the grocery store.

Arms surrounded Angela from behind. Before she could struggle, she recognized James holding her and she relaxed. He scooped her up and carried her from the store, both of them ignoring the bystanders and police, all of whom were gawking at them.

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