His Toughest Call Read online

  Walking across the passage, he opened Leah’s door and her empty bed confirmed what he knew to be true. Somehow and somewhat impressively, Leah had snuck out of the house. Seth stepped back into his room and looked longingly at his empty bed. Yanking his jeans off the back of a wingback chair, he dragged them on, pulled on a pair of socks and his tennis shoes. Shoving his hands into his hair, he pushed it back and ran his tongue over his teeth while he pulled on a t-shirt. Deciding he could take thirty seconds to brush his teeth, he ducked into the bathroom and took care of that.

  He ran down the stairs, his eyes on the screen of his mobile. He’d placed the tracking devices on her phone and on her car the morning after the mannequin incident and he was grateful for his suspicious and mistrustful nature. Only the tracking device in her cell phone was activated, which meant she wasn’t in her Jag. If she was, then there would be two dots on his screen. No, the Jag was still in the garage, which suggested Leah was either in a taxi, in a friend’s car, or she’d been abducted from her own bed. He could, just and very reluctantly, swallow the possibility of Leah sneaking past him but he doubted that she could be taken without him knowing.

  And that suggested she left the house under her own steam.

  They would, be having words about that. Loud words, possibly angry words.Lots of words.

  Seth jogged into the night and called her, impatient for her to answer. He could imagine her staring at the phone, debating whether to answer his call or not but eventually, and thank God, she did.

  “What the hell are you up to?’ he demanded, not bothering with niceties.

  “Look, this is nothing. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “You sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night is not nothing!” Seth yanked open the door to his rented SUV, climbed inside, and gunned the engine. “Where are you?”

  “In a taxi heading toward the Sea Point area,” Leah muttered.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you said the Sea Point area. You know, where the hookers and drug dealers hang out?” Seth snapped, speeding through the gate as his mobile connected to the car’s onboard computer. He dropped his phone into its holder before pulling his seat belt over his chest.

  “How do you know that? You haven’t been in the country long enough to know where the red light district is!” He heard the frustration in Leah’s voice.

  “I do my research,” Seth said, gritting his teeth. “So tell me, are you freaking nuts?”

  “Obviously I wouldn’t be going to Sea Point if it wasn’t important. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “Right now? Hell, yes, I think you’re stupid!” Driving with one hand, Seth plugged “Sea Point” into his GPS and glared at the screen on his phone.

  “Why?” Seth said after a ten second silence.

  “Milo is in that area. He sent me a text message. He’s drunk and he needs me to drive his car home. It’s expensive and he doesn’t want to leave it in the area.”

  Seth swore and shook his head. “And what the hell is he doing down there?”

  Leah’s sigh was audible over the phone. “Milo is...Milo has some... God, how do I put this? He has some sexual...leanings.” Seth just waited her out and her next words flew out in a rush. “There are these fantasy, pop-up sex clubs where singles, couples, gay straight people go and have sex with whoever they fancy.”

  “They don’t normally pop up in a bad part of town. They are usually in upmarket places, homes, suburbs,” Seth said.

  “Milo says that, sometimes, slumming it is part of the attraction. You don’t seem shocked.” Leah stated, her voice quiet.

  He wasn’t. Not yet.

  “Kids involved?” Seth demanded.

  “No! Fully consenting adults, or so Milo says.”

  Seth needed to keep her on the line, needed to have that connection as he whipped down side roads and across intersections to get to her. “I once tracked down the wild daughter of a scion of American politics who disappeared, willingly, into the sex world. I followed her and as a result I’ve seen some things that turned my stomach. Provided that there are no kids and no one is being forced to provide a service, I’m a live and let live type of guy. And after what I witnessed, you’d have to come up with a something very new and exceptionally weird to shock me.”

  “It still shocks me,” Leah admitted. “I’m a bit weirded out by the concept.”

  “So, what’s the plan? Are you going to go into this club and scoop him up?” Seth demanded, noticing that he was now only five minutes behind her.

  “Pretty much,” Leah said, her tone glum. “I might have to bleach my eyes afterward.”

  “You have the brains God gave a gnat. And while I don’t have a problem with how Milo gets his sexual kicks, I do have a problem with him phoning you to rescue him from a shitty part of town late at night,” Seth muttered, ducking around a slow moving truck. “Right, Leah, listen up. When you get to the club, you stay in the taxi and wait for me to come and get you. You do not open the door for anyone but me.”

  Seth heard Leah convey his message to the driver and heard him say he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

  “Tell him I’ll pay him double.” Seth interjected and heard the driver’s agreement. As he thought, money had a way of getting him what he wanted. “You wait in the taxi, I’ll come and get you and when you leave the taxi you stay right next to me, on my left side at all times.”

  “Why?”

  Civilians, Seth did an eye roll. “I shoot with my right hand.” Seth was quiet for a long time before releasing a deep, frustrated sigh. “Right now, I’m not sure whether I want to strangle you and tell you that you’re incredibly stupid or to commend your obvious commitment to your friend.”

  “We’re parked outside the club.”

  One minute. She was just around the corner. When he finally turned the corner, he saw the battered taxi and Leah’s dark head inside and some tension drained from his shoulders. He pulled in behind the taxi and she turned and gave him a small smile. Seth frowned at her, holding her eyes but still speaking to her via his phone.

  “I’d just like to state, for the record, that if you ever do something so categorically stupid again, you will not be able to sit down for a week. Are we clear?”

  Leah peered up at the decayed buildings, yellow and spooky in the sodium light of the street lights. The flickering neon sign from the corner bar tossed green ribbons onto the pavement and momentarily turned the faces of the people milling outside the bar, bottles of beer in hand, into aliens.

  Leah tried not to notice that the presence of a big, black expensive SUV caught their attention and more than a few heads lifted, obviously scenting an opportunity to do some illegal shopping.

  Okay, admittedly, this wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. After escorting her out of the taxi, Seth climbed back behind the wheel of his SUV, his eyes constantly on the lookout for trouble.

  Seth nodded to the phone in her hand. “Call Milo. Tell him to get his ass out here. We’re not getting out the car until we see him. In fact, you’re not getting out the car at all.”

  Leah lifted shaky hands and dialed and cursed when Milo’s phone went straight to voice mail. Frowning at her answer, she disconnected and looked at Seth.

  “It’s still not going through,” Leah said.

  “Five minutes and we’re out of here.” Seth told her.

  Dammit, Milo? Where are you? Leah tried to call him again and then heard the beep indicating that she’d received a text message.

  “He left the club and he’s in the lobby of the apartment block next door. He’s drunk and needs my help.”

  “Yet he can send readable text messages? I don’t like this. Something’s off,” Seth said. “Enough, we’re gone.”

  Leah slapped her hand on his arm. “I can’t just leave him, Seth! I have to check!”

  Seth dropped a series of F-bombs that bounced around the interior of the car. He eventually nodded his agreement. “I can’t leave you i
n the car alone so we stick together. Do not get out of the car until I open it. When you do, stay behind me.”

  Leah watched him walk around the hood, big and dangerous with his forbidding face and dark clothing. He stopped for a moment to watch the crowd on the pavement, who were watching them, his body quivering with tension. Leah scrambled out of the car when he opened the door and he immediately jerked her to his left side, placing his big body between her and the revelers.

  “Move!” Seth hustled her towards the building and banged open the flimsy front door.

  Pushing her inside, he looked around the empty lobby and Leah swallowed when she noticed his right hand ended in a lethal-looking pistol that he kept against his leg.

  “See him?”

  “No.” Leah gestured to a dim passage way.

  Seth stood at the entrance and frowned into the gloom. “Stay where I can see you. You have a minute. If I don’t see him, in that time, we’re out of here.”

  Leah nodded and hurried down the passageway, stopping when she hit the corner. She called for Milo, keeping her voice low so she didn’t wake any of the flat’s inhabitants. When Milo didn’t appear, Leah turned to Seth and lifted her hands in confusion.

  “He had his chance. We’re out of here.” Seth latched his hand around her right wrist and yanked her towards the door. Holding her to the side of the door, he looked out onto the street and groaned.

  Leah tried to look over his shoulder. “What’s the problem?”

  Seth peered up the street again. “Most of the onlookers have gone back inside.”

  “And why is that a bad thing?”

  “If you’re not an eyewitness, you can’t give statements, especially if robbery turns to assault.”

  The blood drained from Leah’s face. “Let’s go back to the car,” she said, grabbing his shirt in her clenched fist.

  “I can see two, there’ll be a third. They’re waiting for us. Tats, tight clothing, knives. Good odds.”

  He sounded like he was ordering coffee. “Can’t you just point your gun at them and tell them to get out of your way?”

  “I’d prefer to keep guns out of the equation. No, quick and quiet.”

  Leah tried not to panic, tried to think, but she felt like a quivering mass of jelly.

  Seth pressed the car keys into her hands. “When I say run, you fly to the car and get the hell out of here. I’ll see you back at the house.”

  Seth didn’t give her a chance to argue. The next minute was a blur of motion. Seth bulleted from the front door in a low, weaving run and slammed into the closest gang member. Leah heard the crack of an elbow against a head and saw Seth’s booted foot fly out and connect with the chin of a knife-wielding lout who’d come to his friend’s aid. Leah heard Seth’s yell and flew down the path to the street as another gangster jumped Seth from behind.

  The fight was a blur of motion...kick, punch, kick from both parties...and out of the corner of her eye she saw a body fly through the air and land across a metal dumpster. Horrified, she stood by the car, trembling with fear. Fear then turned to terror as a thick forearm crushed her windpipe and she felt herself being dragged away from the car across the tarmac.

  Scratching her captor’s arm with her fingernails, she twisted against his wiry body and wanted to gag at his sour breath on her cheek. Seth was still fighting off a fourth gang member on the other side of the car and she caught the glint of a wicked blade in the low light.

  The bad guys had knives...

  Then a whirling dervish vaulted across the hood of a car in a blur of speed, motion, and deadly intent. The sound of crushing bone and a pain saturated grunt accompanied the disappearance of the arm around her neck and she staggered backwards as Seth kicked a knife out of the hand of her assailant and followed the movement with a lightning fast kick to his temple.

  “Where are the keys?” Seth yelled.

  Leah looked down at her closed fist. Her white fingers were still wrapped around the set of keys. Seth pulled her fingers open, opened the door to his SUV and tossed her across to the passenger seat. She had barely settled her backside in the seat when he gunned the engine and accelerated away.

  When they were on the freeway and heading for home, Seth took his foot off the accelerator and looked at Leah, huddled and shaking in the corner.

  Seth dabbed his nostril with the back of his hand and winced when he saw blood on his hand. “You, angel, should come with a health warning.”

  Chapter Six

  Seth checked his rearview mirror and, wanting to put as much distance between them and the Sea Point area, veered in and out of the sparse traffic as fast as he possibly could. He risked a look at Leah’s face and sighed when he saw that she was colorless. While she’d had grown up with strong, healthy, alpha males who were intimately acquainted with war, weapons, and hand to hand combat, he was convinced she’d never seen either her father or brother, or any man, in full warrior mode. Violence, for her, happened in action movies and on TV. Actually, that wasn’t a bad analogy. In fact, the past hour felt exactly like he’d been acting in a B-grade action flick.

  The world flashed by as Seth pushed the SUV through the central business district, heading for the motorway out of the city. Seth, intimately acquainted with adrenalin and far better able to deal with it, knew what she was feeling. She would be thinking the buildings were flying past the car and time had slowed down. Her mind would be floating, yet she felt like she could take on the world single-handed.

  A car drifted into their lane and Leah nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard his low, inventive, stream of profanity directed at the driver as he ducked around the car to avoid a collision. He was sore, tired, and he also had to deal with idiotic drivers? In what universe was that fair?

  What if one of those knives connected with her skin? What if he’d lost her, what if something had happened to her? Nothing scared him but, hell, losing her did.

  Leah, knocking the side of her head with the base of her hand, distracted him from the terrifying road his mind was flying down.

  “I feel funny,” Leah said in a thin voice.

  “Adrenalin.” Seth snapped back, swinging onto the highway. “It happens when you get caught in stupid situations.”

  “This wasn’t my fault. How was I expected to know that we’d be attacked by a gang?”

  “Maybe the fact that it was a rough part of town and it’s three o’clock in the bloody morning!” Seth roared. “You have the brains God gave a flea. You insisted on going into that building, wouldn’t listen to me when I told you that I didn’t like the situation! Didn’t get in the freaking car like I told you to! And we still don’t know where Milo is!”

  “I know that and yelling at me won’t help! And, by the way, I’m not one of your soldiers who you can boss around at will!”

  “If you worked for me, you wouldn’t last five minutes!” Seth slapped his hands on the steering wheel.

  “That’s because I’m a normal human being and not a fighting machine!”

  “Normal? You? That’s like calling C4 a cracker!”

  “Screw you!” Leah’s words lacked heat and power and she lifted her hand to rub her throat.

  Seth frowned as he noticed her hands patting the door handle, looking for the button to open the electric windows. He cracked the window for her and Leah lifted her face to the air. Seth powered around a bend, moved into the fast lane to pass a truck, and looked sideways. Sweat beads dotted Leah’s forehead and her breathing was very shallow. Seth’s hand on her shoulder pulled her back to her seat and he flicked another glance at her face. Shit! She was porcelain white and she was patting her throat.

  “Leah?” He shook her shoulder and looked for an exit.

  Leah didn’t respond and Seth cursed. He lifted his hand and tapped her cheek with his finger, trying to get her to look at him.

  “You’re having a panic attack, Leah. You need to calm down. Just breathe.” Seth kept his voice low, knowing his low but stern tone would
pierce the fog threatening to consume her. “I’m pulling off, there’s a gas station just ahead. You’re safe. I’d never let anything happen to you. Breathe in for two and out for two, that’s it.”

  “Don’t...go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Just breathe, dammit!” Seth saw the bright lights of the gas station, pulled in, and whipped into a parking bay.

  Slamming on the brakes, he left the car idling as he yanked his t-shirt off his head and doused it with water from the bottle he kept in the cup holder. Leaning across the seat, he wiped her fire-hot skin. By the expressions crossing her face, he understood there were a whole bunch of unpleasant images flashing in her head.

  “Deeply, through your nose, in and out.” Seth ordered and turned his t-shirt over and swiped the cool cloth down her neck and over her chest.

  It was helping, because her breathing eventually settled and color seeped back into her face. Her eyes opened, met his, and he saw mortification under the naked fear.

  “I think I had a panic attack,” she mumbled.

  The corners of Seth’s mouth lifted. “I know you had a panic attack. The adrenalin faded and you bottomed out.” Seth picked a strand of wet hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. Seth doused his shirt with water again, wrung it out, and passed it to Leah when he resumed his position behind the wheel. “I wet it again. Drape it around your neck to keep you cool.”

  “Thanks, it helped. Seth, I—”

  “We’ll talk about it in the morning. No, Leah,” he said when she opened her mouth to argue, “in the morning.”

  He knew she had the strength of a day-old kitten and he wasn’t feeling that strong either. His body was starting to protest and he could feel where their attackers had got some solid blows in. He’d be sporting more than a couple of bruises in the morning.

  Oh, well. He shrugged. At least he managed to do some damage in return—one would be singing soprano and another would have a hell of a headache—and he’d avoided their knives.