Their Virgin Hostage, Masters of Ménage, Book 5 (8 page)

Law carried her out, wondering why he’d ever agreed to this
scheme in the first place.

* * * *

Dominic walked into the kitchen, well aware that he was
completely unwanted there. Law had taken his damn time. An hour had passed
since he’d carried her out like a fainting Southern belle’s gallant beau.

“Wow, he’s serious,” Riley had said, then gone thoughtfully
silent as they both waited.

Well, Dominic was serious, too, and it was long past time
that he got Law firmly on the same page as him and Riley.

He stopped as he caught sight of her. She was sitting in
front of the big bay windows, staring out at the expanse of trees and grass and
mountains in the distance.

“That’s a whole lot of nature. Like way too much nature.”
She shook her head. “Do you think there are animals out there?”

Law laughed, the sound of a deeply amused man. “Absolutely.
You wouldn’t believe how many, baby.”

He needed to rein this thing in. She was beautiful and
seemed fragile, but he knew something Law didn’t. “Tell him about your charity,
Kinley
. Tell him about the checks you’ve been
writing.”

She turned, a startled expression settling on her face.
“What? You can’t have abducted me to talk about Hope House.”

Luckily, he had everything laid out. He opened the folder in
his hand and set the documents Riley had dug up on the table in front of her.
“Is that your handwriting?”

She set her coffee mug down, then picked up one of the
copies of the checks. Her face flushed. “Yes. That looks like my signature. But
why is it made out to ‘
Cash
’
? I never need cash for the charity.
Everything comes through vendors and we use our Tax ID to get exemption. These
are the private checks, but they’re just for backup. I’ve never used one.”

So she was going to play dumb. “Over the last six weeks,
you’ve drained almost fifty thousand dollars out of that charity.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “No, I haven’t. You’re
lying!”

And now Riley came in handy. He had his laptop open and
ready. “This is your bank account for the charity. As you can see, over the
last six weeks, there have been five checks written for cash, each for nine
thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. One penny more
and you would have been required to fill out forms. Someone knows their banking
regulations. You’re down to almost nothing in that account.”

He saw Law’s face fall as he looked down at the evidence in
front of him. Damn, Dominic knew he was to blame for this mistake. He’d allowed
Law to focus fully on surveillance and hadn’t brought him into the loop during
the investigative portion. All Law needed was firm proof that his honey was
involved in Jansen’s organization, and he would stop thinking with his dick and
be ready to roll on the mission again.

Law took a step back from
Kinley
.
“When did the money start disappearing? What date? What time was the check
cashed?”

Riley ran his hands across the computer screen. “The first
date was May tenth and the time stamp on the check is two thirty-five pm.”

Law held up a hand. “Give me a minute.”

Kinley
sank into her chair. “I
don’t understand. I knew the balance was bad, but I had no idea the account was
so close to empty. Greg promised he would write a check for a hundred thousand
as a wedding present to me.”

“As a wedding present or to cover your tracks?” Dominic
paced as he talked.

“What? No! It wasn’t to cover up anything. It was the first
part of the fifty million he promised to endow the charity with.”

“All right. Did he ask you to take out the funds?”

There was a time and a place to be the good cop. He’d be the
best cop ever if she could help him pin illegal activities on Jansen.

“Greg never mentioned anything about it. I know this looks
bad.”

“This looks criminal,” Riley pointed out.

“But I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

Was she telling the truth? Dominic sat across from her.
Sometimes he thought he’d become far too cynical because he saw lies
everywhere. Still, he had those checks. She’d signed them. She’d taken the
money. Maybe she’d had virtuous reasons. Maybe not.

Dominic felt a little wave of peace flow over him. He was in
control again. This was right where he needed to be. She didn’t know it yet,
but he was her best bet to avoid both jail time and her own murder. “Then don’t
make me use this. Work with me. Let’s talk about your fiancé.”

“I already tried, man,” Riley said.

He ignored his friend. “The feds haven’t been able to catch
your fiancé, but I’m going to.”

Her eyes came up, narrowing as she looked him over. “What
did you say your name was?”

“I’m Dominic Anthony.” There was no reason to lie to her. At
the end of the day, she would be grateful he’d helped her. And if her gratitude
didn’t keep them out of the pen, then he would blackmail her with the
information she was looking at.

“Are you any relation to Carrie Anthony?”

His gut turned a little. Had that fucker been talking about
her? “Yes. She was my younger sister.”

Those brown eyes turned sympathetic. “I’m so sorry about her
death. She was far too young to go.”

“Yes, she was.” He let a moment of silence pass. “Especially
since Greg killed her.”

She should fully understand why he had chosen this path.

“Is that what this is all about?” She stared at him. “Mr.
Anthony, I am truly sorry about your sister. Greg says she was a wonderful
woman. He has a portrait of her that he keeps in the house. She was so
beautiful.”

Rage threatened to choke him at the thought of Jansen
staring at a picture of his sister and remembering how easy it had been to take
her money and her life.

Kinley
leaned forward, her hand
almost touching his. “But she was sick. It wasn’t Greg’s fault. He tried to get
her into rehab.”

Dominic practically saw red. Before he knew what he was
doing, he flipped the table over, sending everything crashing to the ground. He
was not going to listen to Jansen’s latest piece of ass tell him his sister had
been a fucking drug addict. “She never took a drug in her life. He’s a greedy,
murdering prick. Are you really this stupid?”

She raised her chin. “You’re obviously very upset. I’m sure
you don’t want to believe—”

“He took out a two-million-dollar policy on my sister. Do
you know what he bought with the money he got for killing her? A fucking condo.
And two weeks later, he moved his mistress in.”

She leaned back in her chair as though needing to put space
between them. “He didn’t kill her. He couldn’t do that.”

Dominic refused to allow the distance she sought. He stood
and hovered over her. “Why would you say that? Because you can’t stand the
thought that you fucked a murderer? Or because you’ve known all along what he’s
capable of and you hate being caught?”

“Dom?” Riley ventured, his voice tense. “Down, boy. I think
you’re scaring her.”

“I don’t think she’s scared enough.”

“I’m pretty scared, but you should know that I won’t let you
break me. I might look silly and you can call me stupid all you like, but I
won’t allow you to use me against the people I care for. So if this is your
best shot, Mr. Anthony, you should know you’ve failed. I believe you dummied up
those records. Or you stole the money yourself. You’re a grieving man, and I am
so sorry that your sister is dead, but I won’t allow your need for revenge to
ruin my life. Make a decision. Let me go or you should just take the revenge
you so obviously need and make it fast.”

He stopped. “What?”

She was shaking, but she stared up at him with steady eyes.
“I mean, I would prefer that you kill me quickly. You obviously can’t let me
go, and this would be a great way to get back at Greg if he loved me. You know
he doesn’t, though. I think he likes me all right, but he’s marrying me to help
his business. I’m quite a good hostess and I can help him in high society.
He’ll likely be upset, but I doubt he’ll mourn me for long.”

Kinley
thought he was going to
kill her? She actually believed he would take the life of a woman to avenge his
sister. Suddenly, he couldn’t think of a single reason why she shouldn’t think
he was a killer.

Dominic stepped back, nausea threatening. “I’m not going to
kill you.”

“Then let me go home.”

He couldn’t do that. He’d put them all in this situation and
there was nothing to do except go through with his plans. He had to prove
Jansen’s guilt to her. He had to break her down. “No. You’ll rest for a while.
Then we’re going to talk. I know you won’t believe me, but this is for your own
good.”

“You can’t keep me here forever.”

He turned and started to walk out. He needed to ready the
big guns. He’d hoped to spare her the worst of the knowledge, but she needed to
understand exactly who she was trying to protect.

It made him a bastard, but he had to destroy all of her
illusions. He wondered, just for the briefest of moments, if he was really
saving her. If she was as innocent as she seemed, what he was about to show her
might break her heart.

Well, he was proof positive that a person could live without
one.

“Watch me.”

Kinley
looked around her rather
nicely appointed prison with Egyptian cotton sheets, solid wood furniture, and
a stunning spa-like bathroom. She’d assumed that when Dominic said they could
hold her here forever, he’d been exaggerating. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Her
“cell” and everything she’d seen of the place certainly looked self-contained
enough to make that possible.

She’d tried all the doors and the windows, even to the point
of attempting to break one. But someone had installed ridiculously thick glass.
Her puny attempts to break through it had resulted in nothing except sore arms
and frustration.

She’d finally given up and showered, then slipped on clean
clothes. It was practically heaven to be out of that tight dress.
Kinley
had eschewed her jeans for a cotton skirt and long
sleeved T-shirt. They didn’t have any plan to rape her, it seemed. They’d had
ample opportunity while she’d been passed out and hadn’t taken advantage of it.
Since her skirt wouldn’t be making her ravishment easier for them, why not be
comfortable?

When she’d awakened in her posh prison, she’d been surprised
to find all her luggage and then some, including the cases of island wear she’d
packed for her honeymoon in the Caymans. With all the sandals, swimsuits, and sundresses,
she wasn’t packed for Alaska—and
Kinley
suspected
that’s where she might actually be. She didn’t hear the hum of a fan or air
conditioner. If she’d been in upstate New York in summer, wouldn’t they need
some cool air by midday?

The other bit of evidence? The warm clothing the guys had
bought her. Law? He seemed like the concerned one. She was struck by the fact
that none of the garments were as utilitarian as she would have expected a man
to buy. The sweaters were all soft and cheerful, in colors she would have
bought for herself because they complemented her complexion. The sweatpants
were adorable and stylish with bling running down the pant legs. Even the socks
were pink and fuzzy. It was as though someone had shopped with her taste in
mind. Why would they care if the clothes they bought pleased her?

They were unusual kidnappers who apparently didn’t watch TV
to see how bad guys should really behave. She should probably be as scared as
she’d been when she’d first awakened and realized they had locked her in the
unfamiliar bedroom. But that level of fear was hard to maintain when her
abductors had done little but feed and clothe her. Someone had even charged her
iPad
so she wouldn’t be bored. If they were going to
give her a diversion,
Kinley
didn’t imagine they were
going to
waterboard
her or stick bamboo shoots under
her nails.

What they hadn’t done was give her a sense of time. The sun
was still up—and didn’t it stay up forever in Alaska in the summer?—but she had
no idea how many hours had gone by. They’d taken all the clocks. Without
Internet, her tablet wouldn’t tell the time in her current time zone. And she’d
never gotten a cellular data plan for it. The rest of the room was bare with
the exception of a plush queen bed, an elegant nightstand, one chair, and a
lamp that hadn’t proven to be as sturdy as the locked window. One blow and it
was broken.

Maybe not her best move. When night fell would she be left
alone in the dark?

She gazed out the window at the mountains in the distance,
heavily covered by green everywhere—trees, bushes, soft grass, dotted with a
few fledging flowers, all surrounding a lake. The views were sweeping,
incredible. She’d only been to upstate New York once, so she certainly hadn’t
seen all of it, but the bit she recalled hadn’t looked this majestic. Still,
she had to hold out hope that she wasn’t too far from civilization to escape,
that home wasn’t over four thousand miles away…

A brief knock sounded on the door before it opened too
quickly for her to barricade it.

The biggest one walked in carrying the one thing guaranteed
to make her feel better.

“I thought you might want her.” He held Gigi in his big,
callused hands that had been so gentle when he’d gotten her out of that
god-awful corset. He was Law. The name suited him.

Her sweet Yorkie looked no worse for the wear. Gigi’s little
body shook, and she yipped and barked with joy.

With tears of relief,
Kinley
grabbed her sweet little puppy and held her close, filled with a guilty sense
of happiness. She hated that Gigi and been nabbed and wondered how she’d been
enduring captivity so far. But she was so relieved to have her puppy—one of her
most beloved comforts—here with her.

“They brought you here? Oh, baby girl. Are you okay? Were
you scared?”

Gigi just licked her nose, rubbing their faces together.

“She might have been scared, but she fought back.” A
lopsided grin bent Law’s lips. God, when he smiled, her heart tended to stutter
in a way it shouldn’t about a man who had kidnapped and drugged her. A criminal
shouldn’t have a smile like that. “She had the good sense to bite the shit out
of my brother. He struck out with both the Kohl females.”

Silently,
Kinley
cheered on her
dog. “Gigi is the sweetest little thing to me. Not so much to others. And she
can bark like crazy when she doesn’t get her food on time. She’s used to being
fed twice a day and she knows when it’s dinner time.”

“Ah, that explains a lot. She’s been a little high strung.”
He sobered as he looked at the lamp on the floor. “Did you try to break the
windows or was the lamp just particularly offensive?”

“You can’t expect me to not try to escape.” She turned away.
Maybe if she ignored him, he would leave. Being alone was preferable to being
with criminals.

Was Greg a criminal?

“The windows are hurricane glass. A couple of years back,
the owners had some trouble with hunters and stray bullets. They have kids and
a whole lot of money, so they changed all the windows in the house. They’re
very heavy and almost impossible to shatter. The house has a top-of-the-line
security system in place as well. We’d know if you somehow managed to even
crack a window and we’d be on you very quickly.” His voice softened. “You can’t
get away,
Kinley
, and you wouldn’t be very happy if
you did. We’re miles away from anything you’d call civilization. There really
are bears out there. You could get hurt.”

She clutched her dog. “If you’re so worried about me, why
did you kidnap me from a beautiful bridal suite in Manhattan and bring me to
this wilderness?”

He sat down on the bed, his big frame incongruous against
the flowery comforter. He was a masculine beast in feminine surroundings. “You
won’t believe me, but we’re trying to protect you,
bab
…
Kinley
.”

Yeah, she was buying that. “This is about the big guy’s
revenge. How did you get wrapped up in this?”

“Dominic and I stick together through thick and thin. Always
have, always will.”

So she guessed the idea of trying to divide and conquer them
wouldn’t get her anywhere. If Law was willing to risk prison time to help
Dominic, that said something serious about their bond. The only person she’d do
that for was Annabelle, so she knew they must be thick.

“Look, I’m sorry about his sister. But I don’t think I can
do anything to give him the…closure he’s looking for.”

Kinley
really was sorry. She couldn’t
imagine losing her sister. Becks might not be the most thoughtful sibling on
the planet, but she was blood, family. Whatever his faults—and she’d bet there
were plenty—Dominic had really loved his sister and grieved her now. Losing her
to an overdose must have been terrible.

“Carrie never took drugs,” Law said softly. “I grew up with
her. I was in the same grade as Dominic, but we came from different sides of
the tracks, to say the least.”

“He came from money.” She could tell. He had an air of authority
that she’d seen emanate from the wealthiest of men. It came from the world
being at their feet.

“A lot of it. And
Ry
and
I…didn’t.”

“So how did you two meet Dominic?” Usually kids with such
divergent upbringings didn’t meet. She and Annabelle were the exception more
than the rule.

Law shrugged, not like he didn’t know, but like he was
uncomfortable. “My dad ran off when
Ry
and I were
kids. Mom…well, she did everything she could to keep us clothed and fed. I was
out hustling kids out of their money at the movie theater one day. Cards, dice,
whatever game of chance I could rig. I didn’t beat anyone up for it, but some
of the other little pukes did. They started picking on Dominic because he was
rich and hadn’t gone through puberty yet, so he was small. I thought three
teenagers against a twelve-year-old was crappy and unfair. I was a few months
older and had already started my growth spurt…and I liked fights, so I jumped
in.
Ry
helped. Dominic became our best friend after
that. Since Carrie was younger than him, I kind of watched her grow up. She
didn’t do drugs. Not ever.”

Had Law been in love with her? She knew she shouldn’t care,
but he was being so gentle now, it was easy to imagine that he’d bestowed that
tenderness on Carrie in the years he had known her before she’d died. Yet...
Kinley
hated to admit that Law being in love with Dominic’s
late sister bothered her.

“Maybe not as a teenager,” she argued. “But she was a model.
That world is very fast. You can’t know what she did, then. Unless you were with
her in New York.”

He shook his head. “Oh no. We were getting our asses shot
off in Afghanistan.”

“You and Riley?”

“No, me and Dominic.”

Why would the rich guy go into a warzone? “Did he go to one
of the academies?”

“We were nineteen when 9-11 happened. Dominic said he
couldn’t sit in a classroom when his country was in danger. He left Harvard to
join up. I followed him.” Law shrugged. “I couldn’t let him go alone.”

Her sister wouldn’t even go to the bathroom with her. Only
Annabelle had ever been that kind of friend. She knew the deep connection it
had taken for Law to follow his friend into battle.
Kinley
even had to give Dominic some grudging respect. What kind of courage had it
taken for him to leave his wealth and privilege behind to serve his country on
the other side of the world?

Of course, Law could be lying, too, to win her goodwill or
sympathy or whatever. Kidnappers were criminals who didn’t normally do good
things. “I don’t need to know your history.”

She just wanted to escape. Maybe she and Greg could
rearrange the wedding quickly with the same understanding in place. Certainly,
she could convince him to pay for her father’s procedure until they could
schedule the ceremony again. The first payment to the hospital was due in a
week. Her fiancé wouldn’t punish her father by making him skip his treatment
because she’d been kidnapped…would he?

“Yeah, you need to know this part. We had finished up our
third tour of duty. We were back here in the States for training. Carrie had
married Greg while we were gone. By then, we’d moved onto Special Forces and
our missions were a matter of national security. We didn’t go to the wedding,
but Riley did. He told Dominic and I both that he had serious concerns about
how Greg treated Carrie. One night a couple of months later, Dominic got a
phone call from her. She left a voicemail because, well, we had the night off
and we were taking advantage of it.”

He flushed just a little, letting her know that they hadn’t
exactly been playing charades.
Kinley
frowned. Had
they been taking advantage of someone together? No. Oh. Oh. Were they gay? That
was a horrible thought. It was kind of an insult to women everywhere that those
two amazing hunks of masculinity would be interested in each other. She would
have never guess it, but…

Why did her hot kidnappers have to be gay?

Irrelevant.
She
forced herself off that mental track. “What did her message say?”

Greg had explained that his first wife had suffered bouts of
depression. He’d cared for her greatly, but in the end he hadn’t been able to
love her enough to save her.

“She sounded scared.” Law stared at her, as if willing her
to understand. “She said that she was leaving Greg and needed Dominic to call
her. She was perfectly lucid and totally scared. She wasn’t taking drugs.”

“But—”

“The police found her dead twelve hours later, and I know
Greg damn well killed her. Carrie was like a sister to me. He’s my best friend.
I can’t just let it lie.”

“Greg was in San Francisco when she died. He couldn’t have
killed her.” Dominic’s grief was clouding his logic.
Kinley
might not love Greg Jansen, but she certainly didn’t picture him actually
killing his wife.

So why was the tiniest part of her relieved that she wasn’t
going on her honeymoon today?

“What do you know about a man named Vincent
Dargo
?”

Kinley
shivered. He was Greg’s
head of security. She couldn’t stand how he looked at every woman who walked by
like she was a piece of meat he couldn’t wait to tear into. Brutally.
Viciously. “I don’t have much to do with him.”

“I believe in my heart that he force-fed Carrie drugs that
night under the orders of his boss, Greg Jansen.”

Law’s words painted a brutal picture that made
Kinley
shudder and wrap her arms around herself.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have to stretch her imagination to think
Dargo
capable of that. But Greg ordering him to do it?
“Why? Why should I believe you? And why should you care what happens to me?”

He stood up and seemed to fill all the space in the room.
“I’m not a gentleman,
Kinley
, but I’m going to be
very honest with you because too many people in your life haven’t.” He sucked
out a harsh breath. “I’ve been watching you for months.”