Blindsided (Sentinel Securities) (16 page)

Brie felt a rush of air leave her lungs as a rough denial left her lips.

“No harm will come to her if you do as I tell you. But if you mention to anyone that we’ve spoken—or you decide not to do as I ask…I promise you, I
will
kill your daughter.”

Brie could only stare terrified through the glass window before her as her hand began to shake and tears formed in her eyes.
Oh my God
…thoughts were racing through her head in one huge roar. There was no way he could be bluffing—he knew Gladys was with Lucy…he’d somehow managed to overhear their conversation—somehow—there was no time to process the details—all she knew was this man was serious and her baby’s life was hanging in the balance. 

“Do as I say and no harm will come to little Lucy. You have my word. I want you to get that formula and bring it to me.”

“But I…I don’t have it.”

“I know that Sentinel have found it Ms Matheson. Mr Cruz has been most helpful in filling us in on all the details. He told us he gave it to you, and I know that you left your house with members of Sentinel Securities. This leads me to the conclusion that you are now in procession of my property.  I need you to bring it to me.”

“What have you done with Declan?”

“I would be more concerned about what could happen to your daughter.” His words stung as though he’d physically sliced her chest open with a sharp knife.  

“You will get me the formula and meet me this afternoon at this address…write it down, because if you do not make this meeting, I will follow through on my threat. Oh and by the way, if you even think about warning anyone and moving your child—I
will
know about it. I have someone watching the house and they have orders to immediately kill your nanny and bring me your daughter…I don’t think we want to distress the child by putting her through something like that do we?”

Brie sank to the chair and felt ill. An image of someone killing Gladys right in front of Lucy then dragging her away into a car was enough to instantly bring tears to her eyes. “Give me the address,” she said her voice as numb as she felt inside. She no longer cared about the ramifications of releasing this drug onto the streets or anywhere else—her child’s life was in danger and she had no illusions that this man would indeed follow through on his threat. She jotted down the address and immediately heard the click of the connection being disconnected in her ear and put down the phone with a shaky hand.

She took a moment to breathe through the rising nausea that lingered as she fought off a deluge of blinding panic. Stop it and think! She told herself sternly. She needed to draw upon her training and remain calm. She was normally good at being able to think quickly on her feet in her job, but her daughter’s life being placed in jeopardy was making it slightly more difficult to concentrate. When she managed a few deep breathes, she stood up, pocketing the address, and grabbed some cash from her purse, adding that to her pocket as well before heading for the door. Inside the elevator she ran through quickly in her head, what she needed to say and walked out from the elevator into the garage area, to find Jason tapping away on a computer at the table.

“Hey. Did you talk to Lucy?” he asked looking up at her.

“Yeah. She’s…doing great,” her voice wavered slightly at hearing her child’s name and she dropped his concerned gaze immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just miss her.”
Please don’t ask me any more questions
she silently begged making her way across the room to the kitchen area to pour herself a glass of water. Her hand was shaking too much to try and drink, so she placed it on the bench and forced herself to take a calming breath. Damn it—she never was much good at lying.
Your child’s life depends on this—make it work.
 

“I came down to tell you someone left a message on your answering machine…it sounded important. I think you need to go up and call them back,” she told him, keeping her voice level.

“What do you mean important?”

“Well they were pretty agitated…it sounded urgent,” she added.

“Okay,” he said slowly, his gaze seemed to be trying to figure out something, but thankfully he dropped it after a little while and closed his computer. “I’ll be right back.”

The minute the elevator doors slid shut, Brie hurried across to the office and immediately searched for the plastic bag containing the memory stick she’d seen that morning. She looked for some kind of safe, but couldn’t see one, she only had a few precious minutes to find it before Jason came back downstairs and then she was in trouble. She opened draws, rummaging through without success, then spotted a filing cabinet—locked.
Damn it,
she muttered softly, looking around for a set of keys. On the table was a large tin box beside the computer and Brie quickly opened the lid, almost sighing in relief as she saw a large set of keys.

She took the bundle of keys across to the tall filing cabinet and looked at them with growing dismay. There were so many—how the hell did she find the right one? There wasn’t time to try them all. She sorted through them quickly, discarding the ones that were obviously too big or that had brand names of cars, sports equipment or anything else that didn’t relate to an office product.
There must be a spare key for just about every car, bike, jet ski and apartment door in the damn building on here,
she thought with a shake of her head. She went for the smallest of keys and was relieved to discover there were only five. The first three didn’t fit and she was finding it difficult to control her frustration. Any minute Jason would be back, demanding to know what the hell she was doing. She couldn’t risk that happening…not when Lucy’s life depended on it. Then finally, the fourth key she tried slid in and she quickly turned it, hearing a lock snap open. She pulled open the top draw and saw that it was full of files, as were the second and third, but pulling open the fourth one she found it contained  an assortment of things—weapons, a few other tin boxes…
and a plastic bag
. With a small whimper of relief, she grabbed it out and shoved it in the pocket of her jeans, moving from the room and running across to hit the manual door opener, not waiting until it opened completely before ducking underneath and out into the empty side street.

She ran to the end of the street and searched both directions for anything looking remotely like a taxi coming and of course—when you needed one—there was never one around. She didn’t have much time and she couldn’t risk Jason coming after her. She picked up her speed and ran a few more blocks zig
z
agging her way through the streets until she eventually came to a district that was a lot more retail than business orientated and found a taxi waiting in its rank.

She dug through her pocket and found the scrap of paper she’d written the address on and gave it to the driver. As they pulled away from the curb she sent a worried glance out the window, making sure she wasn’t being followed. She knew she was going to be in a world of trouble once this was over—but she could live with that as long as she got her child back. Mac and Jason couldn’t do anything worse to her than what the man on the end of the phone had threatened to do…she’d deal with Jason Nash later.

Jason slammed his fist down on the counter top and swore a long, low string of expletives. He couldn’t believe she’d duped him like that.
What the hell was she doing?

He’d arrived back at his apartment and headed straight for the answering machine, wondering who the hell would be leaving a message on his private line that could possible sound so agitated and urgent. The answering machine had shown no new messages.

“What the hell?” His frown deepened. Something was off about this. His gut had tried to tell him that as soon as Brie told him about the phone call. She’d seemed nervous…he’d half put it down to their earlier encounter—but now he realised it was more than that…she’d seemed… jumpy.

He immediately headed back downstairs, the damn elevator seeming to move slower than usual even though he knew it was his impatience that made it seem so.

The doors opened and he immediately knew something was
very wrong
. The garage doors were open and Brie was nowhere in sight.

He’d run outside and searched, but there was no sign of her. Dread settled in his stomach and apprehension flooded him as he headed back inside.
He had to find her.
Something was very, very wrong with this picture.
His eyes fell on the office and he lengthened his stride until he reached the doorway, letting out a loud curse as he saw the open filing cabinet and knew exactly what she’d done.

She’d gone after Cruz.

He couldn’t believe it. Did she still love that bastard so much that she’d risk her life to hand over the formula? Did she really believe a man like Demetriou would
allow
them to live even if she did hand it over?
God damn it!
 

****

He’d called it in to Mac and now sat listening to him ranting about how stupid he’d been to let a woman dupe him like that. Nash let him rant—it’s what Mac did best. There was no way you could talk him down from this point—he had to just blow off his steam and then he’d calm down…and normally, that’s exactly what Nash would have allowed him to do—only this time, it was personal. He didn’t want Mac talking about Brie like she was some casual lay he’d picked up at a pub.
Damn it, she was more than that
. He could try and lie to himself and use his lifestyle and his training, his job and his past as an excuse—but the reality was, she’d managed to get under his skin and he knew he was in serious trouble.

“Enough, Mac!” he snapped. “You don’t get to talk about her like that—okay?”

“Holy shit…”Mac said staring at him as though he’d just sprouted a second head. “You’ve lost it.”

“Just don’t talk about her like that. She’s not like the others,” he muttered.

“Mate, all women are the same. I told you, they only mess with your head and create problems.”

“I’m not gonna’ stand here and take your crap today—I’m not in the mood to tread lightly around your shit,” Nash said in a low, angry voice.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nash…man, not a good idea,” Gracie warned nervously from behind them.

“I’m sick of hearing him preachin’ about women. You need to let go man—it’s been years.”

“Nash—” Stone cautioned.

“No, let him keep talking…just what do I need to let go of,
Doctor Nash?
”

“They’re not all Christina,” Nash said, holding the other man’s gaze. “Stay outta
’
my business.”

“If your business wasn’t the reason everything around here is turning to shit—I’d have no problem stayin’ out of it…but look around ya’ mate, this is all happening
‘
cause you were thinkin’ with ya
’
dick instead of your head. You have needs—I get that, hire a hooker, but don’t mess around with the kind of women who can ruin friendships.”

“I’m not gonna’ tell you again, Mac. Stay outta’ it.”

Mac’s eyes narrowed and a cold smile appeared on his face. “You’re not about to let some piece of arse—” he didn’t get to finish the sentence; Nash struck out and caught him across the jaw with his fist, the contact jarring the other man’s head sideways.

There was a moment of pandemonium as the others lunged across to separate the two men who seemed ready to beat the hell out of each other.

“Enough!” Stone barked, his fierce gaze hitting each of them like the crack of a stock whip. “We need to sort out this whole God damn mess before it destroys all of us.
This
is why we don’t work for criminals,” Stone said looking at Mac with an angry glimmer in his eye. “In the end we all sink to their level. We sort this shit out—find Brie and then we need to sit down and figure out if there’s any point in this business continuing,
‘
cause I for one have had a gutful of this crap. It’s not what I signed on for, Mac and I’m not gonna’ hang around and watch greed destroy everything we worked so bloody hard to build.”

Nash shook out of Gracie’s hold and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He had to find Brie. Every second that they dicked around here, she was getting further away.

“Nash—go over it again—slowly.”

He recounted the whole scenario once more, trying to see if he’d missed anything. She’d seemed distracted after he’d asked her about her phone call to Gladys. He grabbed the phone off the bench and checked the last dialled number.
Nothing unusual there. Just the number for
Gladys’s
and Lucy.
He hit the dial button and briefly spoke to Lucy’s neighbour. There hadn’t been anything strange about their conversation she’d told him and after assuring her that there was no need to worry, he made up an excuse that Brie just hadn’t seemed like herself...which wasn’t entirely
untrue
after all
,
she’d stolen their goods and taken off for who-knew-where...
no, she definitely wasn’t acting like her old self at all
, he thought dryly.