A French Whipping (27 page)

32

BLAKE FLEXED HER
wrists, trying to loosen the ropes that held her hands tied behind her back. She knew she could get free given enough time. Angela had stationed herself nearby, but her attention seemed to be on the men below. The boat swayed beneath them, knocking against the pier, and there was a thump from below.
What the hell is Keenan doing to Nick?

“He doesn’t love you, you know,” Blake said carefully, feeling the knot around her wrists with the tips of her fingers. Bless Nick for teaching her about knots.

“What do you know about it?” the girl snapped, barely looking over her shoulder at Blake. “He said you betrayed him.”

Blake laughed outright and the wind picked up the sound and carried it away. “I betrayed him? Honey, I never betrayed him. I helped the bastard. I betrayed my friends.”

“Whatever. He needs me.”

“Maybe.” Blake shrugged her shoulders, glad for the darkness and Angela’s lack of attention. She almost had the bend she needed to loosen the knot. “He’s good at needing someone, but he doesn’t care who it is, as long as they focus on him and don’t expect anything in return.”

Angela stepped closer to her and put the muzzle of the gun a few inches from Blake’s face. “Shut up.” The hand holding the gun trembled visibly.

Blake shut up and focused on the knot behind her. Below them, she could hear Keenan laughing. Never a good sign.

“He’s going to kill me anyway, you know. Both of us. He may even make you do it,” Blake added. It seemed like something Keenan would do, if only to prove how much power he had over someone. “He’ll break you down until there’s nothing left of you.”

The girl stood and backhanded Blake across the face with the gun. “I said to shut up. Just shut up. Neither one of you is getting off this boat.”

Blinking, Blake ignored the fire in her cheek and licked the blood off her lower lip. She had managed to hook her thumb into one of the bends. She just needed to loosen it. Bent nearly backward, her thumb already felt like it was about to burst out of its socket. Her hands were going numb.

Calm. Nick had shown her how to breathe, how to stay calm. Knots required patience. Patience, time, and practice. Crazy, stupid man. God, she loved him.

“You’re wrong.”

The girl looked smug. “We’ll see.”

Tears stung Blake’s eyes, but she ignored them. She was going to get out of this before Nick finished helping Keenan break into Accendo, and definitely before one or both of them were killed.

Below, in the galley, Nick sat at the dining table in front of a high-end laptop while Keenan stood behind him. With Blake’s life in the balance, he’d logged into Accendo’s network and was pulling up the MOMENT
software, hoping that Roland and Milton would get the message. He’d deliberately tripped the holes they’d left in the security, holes that were actually the code equivalent of poacher’s knots. You went in, but you were caught, and what you saw wasn’t actually what was there. They were pieces of art, actually, code so beautiful that he hated that they’d been created just to catch this asshole.

“I know what you’re doing,” Keenan said suddenly from behind him. “Clever. Roland always thought he was so clever. I see that I need to get Blake down here to properly motivate you.” He tapped Nick on the shoulder with his gun.

No, not Blake. He wouldn’t be able to think. Nick shook his head. “You don’t. All right, I’ll get you what you want.”

“Oh, I know you will, especially when I wrap some rope around her throat again and start tightening. How long do you think it will take for her to strangle?” Keenan sounded almost boyishly curious.

Nick gritted his teeth.

“Angela,” Keenan shouted. “Bring Blake down here for me, darling. And bring some rope.”

Blake had loosened the first bend and was working on a hitch when she heard Keenan’s shout. Her eyes shot to the girl’s.

“You don’t have to do what he says,” Blake tried again, frantically working at the knot behind her.

Angela stood, tucking the gun into the waistband of her pants. “I
want
to do what he says,” she said fiercely and picked up a length of rope from a hook on the cabin wall.

“Come on.” She took out the gun and waved it at Blake again. “Get up.”

Blake deliberately took her time, making a show of balancing awkwardly as she stood. She’d loosened the ropes enough to get her hands out, but she had to make Angela believe she was still tied as she climbed down the steps to get below. She held the knot in place and walked forward, letting Angela prod her in the direction of the stairs.

Wind slapped her in the face as she crossed the deck, and the boat rocked violently. Ropes creaked, and there was a sharp crack as a piece of the pier broke away.

She reached the staircase to the deck below and swayed as she made her way down the steps, Angela at her back.

Keenan was waiting in the dinghy galley, near the open storeroom where she’d been held. He’d turned on a light, which emitted a sickly yellow glow. He looked nearly the same as he had when they were young, but the cruel twist to his lips had worn a permanent line next to his mouth, and the laugh lines that would have been attractive on someone else seemed to be cracks in an otherwise handsome mask.

“Blake, darling, come on over here.” Keenan beckoned, waving her toward him. “I need you to help me with something.” Keenan had that sweet tone in his voice, that congenial warmth that had fooled so many people so many times.

Blake met Nick’s eyes. He was furious. And terrified.

Swallowing her fear, Blake started forward. Keenan had a gun. She couldn’t just break free or he’d shoot her or Nick. And then there was Angela with a gun behind her. Angela, who wanted to do what Keenan said. Blake had never been like that. She’d done what he said because she thought she’d loved him, not because she wanted to obey anyone.

Still holding on to the ropes that held her wrists, Blake approached Keenan warily. When she was close enough, he took her chin in his hands and turned her face from side to side.

“Oh, my. Angela, did she make you lose your temper?”

“She never shuts up,” the girl muttered in response.

Keenan nodded. “True. You never did know when to shut your mouth and be quiet, did you? You always had to say something.”

Blake spat in his face.

He backhanded her so hard that she fell on the floor, away from Angela, and made sure to turn her body as she fell, hiding her hands. While she was on the floor, she freed herself, twisting her wrists and catching the loosened rope in her fists.

Nick was shouting and Blake looked up through watering eyes to see that Angela had the gun pointed at him.

“Throw me the rope,” Keenan ordered Angela, and she tossed it to him. He stuck the gun into his pants at the back of his waist and uncoiled the rope, wrapping it around one fist. Bending, he grabbed a handful of Blake’s hair and dragged her upward by it, making her cry out. Blake kept her hands in place behind her back, holding on to the rope with a death grip.

Using his other hand, he reached around her neck and gripped the loose end of the rope about two feet from his other hand, wrapping it around his fist, and pulling back so the rope was taut around her neck. Her scars burned as the rough material dug into her skin.

“Please, Keenan, don’t,” she begged, sobbing. She wasn’t entirely faking. She didn’t want to relive the moment when she hadn’t been able to breathe, when her throat had been slowly crushed by the tightening rope in his hands.

He rubbed her cheek with his rope-covered fist. “That’s what I like to hear . . . begging.”

With a flick of her fingers, Blake dropped the rope she was holding to the floor. When he looked down, she jerked her head back into Keenan’s face and moved like she’d been taught, stepping back quickly with her right foot, between Keenan’s legs, and twisting, slamming her elbow into his nose. Blood spurted, covering her as Keenan stumbled back. Blake helped him out with a little push, shoving him away so that he fell backward over a table.

“Keenan,” Angela screamed, running toward him.

Nick seized Blake’s arm. “Come on, baby, run.”

They tore up the stairs and across the deck, stumbling over the debris toward the dilapidated pier, Nick pushing Blake in front of him.

Blake heard shouts behind them and a sharp crack and whine. Nick cursed and stumbled, falling forward against her and sending them both tumbling over the edge of the boat and onto the dock, which cracked beneath them.

Nick tried to shield her, twisting his body so that he took the brunt of the fall, but Blake landed mostly on her elbows, sending splinters from the rough dock into her skin.

Crying, she rolled over to see Nick’s white shirt turning dark, blackness spreading in a stain that seemed to start in his shoulder and move downward. Blake scrambled forward and put her hand over the hole in his chest, trying to stop the blood, knowing that Keenan was coming after them.

There were more shots, these even louder, but they seemed to be coming from a different direction.

“Nick,” she screamed and tugged on him, trying to get him up, just as the sound of a powerful motor roared. Exhaust filled the air around her and Keenan’s boat tore away from the dock, pulling free of the mooring and taking a big chunk of the damaged pier with it, shaking both of them and making them roll closer to the edge.

That’s when she heard them. Shouts. And sirens, coming closer.

She looked up and saw blue and red lights flashing and dark figures running toward them.

She stood, waving her arms. “Help. He’s shot. I need help.”

33

NICK KNEW HE
was in a hospital even before he opened his eyes. The air smelled like antiseptic and there was an annoying, but reassuring,
beep beep beep
of the machines monitoring his various bodily functions.

Someone was also in the room with him. He could hear breathing and smell the faint scent of perfume and flowers. Blake.

He opened his eyes slowly, expecting to see her smiling face. The bruised and battered visage he saw made him cry out and reach out to touch her, a move he immediately regretted. Cursing, he breathed deeply in an effort to ease the pain.

Beneath the bruises, she was scowling at him, her eyes hard and her arms folded over her chest. Her arms were bandaged as well. What had happened to her arms? Behind her, balloons and get-well baskets filled the room.

“What the hell were you thinking putting yourself behind me like that?”

Nick swallowed with difficulty. “Can I have some water?”

She grabbed a purple plastic cup with a lid and a straw from the table nearby and handed it to him. “You were nearly killed. I have never seen so much blood in all my life.”

Nick remembered the smell of blood and the coppery taste in his mouth.

“What happened?” Nick croaked.

“You were shot and Keenan got away,” Blake said bitterly. “And Angela with him.”

“Good to see you awake,” a voice said from the doorway. Roland, wearing a suit as usual, strolled into the room carrying a stuffed kitten. He held it up casually. “I thought you might be missing your newest houseguest. She’s currently staying with Regina and her sister.”

Nick blinked rapidly and held out a hand. Roland set the stuffed animal down next to a bouquet of Gerbera daises and walked over to Nick’s bed, stroking a hand over Blake’s hair as he passed.

Roland took Nick’s hand. “What’s up?”

“How’d you find us?” Nick knew there hadn’t been enough time to track the traps he’d sprung, not considering how far Keenan had driven away from the market.

Roland shrugged. “Well, I was just as worried about Blake as you were, so when I found out Keenan might be behind the initial hack of Accendo, I put tracking devices into her purse, her phone, and those stupid motorcycle boots she always wears.” He half smiled. “You almost screwed me when you took her shopping, but luckily she made the right clothing choice for getting kidnapped.”

Blake glanced down at her feet. She was still wearing the boots, though Milton had brought her a change of clothes. “I always knew that these boots would save my ass one day.”