Rebecca York - Royal Lockdown

“Steady,” he whispered.

Outside their hiding place, something else was happening. Again he turned, and movement in the reception area riveted his attention. Two of the captors were silently and slowly moving around the walls, checking for anybody who hadn’t followed directions and gathered in the center of the room.

He felt his jaw muscles clench. Had he pulled Ariana into a death trap?

Praying that their hiding place would be undetectable, Shane quickly drew the princess farther back into the niche in the wall. When he came to the recess where the mechanism for the folding walls had been removed, he eased her into the tiny space, then followed her inside. It was a tight squeeze, and he had to hold her against his body so that her breasts were crushed against his chest.

Her breath was shallow, and he wanted to say something reassuring, but he’d run out of quips. Besides, talking was no longer an option with the gunman so close.

As footsteps came toward them, he felt Ariana tense.

The fight-or-flight reaction.

His own muscles were strung as tightly as coiled springs, but he knew there was little an unarmed man could do when he was standing twenty feet away from an assailant with an itchy finger on the trigger of a submachine gun. A man who had already killed much too casually.

Maybe the only advantage Shane had was surprise. From an inside pocket in his tuxedo jacket, he withdrew a small folding knife. Designed to pass through a metal detector, it was made of very thin plastic. He opened it and held it in his hand, prepared to slash at the gunman if he got the chance. It was a pitiful strategy, but his only option at the moment.

As the footsteps came toward them, he prepared to spring. The man stopped at the niche in the wall, and Shane pictured him staring inside, his night-vision goggles giving him an excellent view of the narrow space. He wondered if his tuxedo jacket was sticking out. Or maybe his shoe. He wanted to inch closer to Ariana, but he knew that any movement would be a fatal mistake. So he stood there with his breath frozen in his lungs.

The man took a step into the crevice, and Shane almost whirled and lunged with the knife.

Gritting his teeth, he held his breath and forced himself to keep cool. After seconds that felt like centuries, he heard the man take a step back, then another. But he remained in front of their hiding place for what seemed like eons. Finally, he moved on, and Shane let the breath trickle out of his lungs.

He heard Ariana doing the same.

“All secure,” one of the armed men reported to his leader.

That’s what you think, you bastard .

Ariana’s fingers dug into the arm of his tuxedo jacket. “Hang in there,” he whispered.

“What do they want?” she asked, her voice wispy.

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon,” he answered in the same barely audible voice.

“This could be like that school in Russia. Did the captives ever know why they were being held?”

“Maybe not,” he conceded.

He’d like to think this was about money. Or power. He suspected the motive was going to be a lot worse.

He felt Ariana shift her body. “Could you give me a little breathing room?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

He needed some breathing room himself. On the dance floor, he’d been all wrapped up in the intimacy of holding her so close. Now the proximity was only adding to his uneasy feeling.

He needed to clear his head and think. Reluctantly, he stepped away from her and took a breath.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

“Where are you going?” she asked quickly, tension quivering in her voice.

He gave her arm a quick squeeze. “Not far. To see if I can find out what’s going on. Stay here—you’ll be okay.”

Quietly he walked to the front of the crevice, then he got down on his hands and knees.

Round tables with long white skirts were scattered around the room, and he used one of them to shield himself as he tried to get a better handle on the situation.

Out in the reception room, one of the captors spoke again. He’d put on a gas mask, which muffled his voice. But the message was all too clear.

“There is no escape from the reception area. If you try to leave, you will activate our fail safe system, releasing cyanide gas into the room. Everyone here will die, except for the four of us who are equipped with gas masks.”

Cyanide gas .

As the words assaulted Shane, he felt a shudder go through his body. And not just because he knew the effects of the deadly poison. He remembered once before when he’d been in a dangerous situation and cyanide gas had been an important part of the equation. It was on that long-ago mission to Barik when everything had suddenly gone bad.

Oh, Lord. Was that what tonight was all about?

It couldn’t be. Yet even as he tried to downplay the importance of this new element, he was thinking about the man on the team he hadn’t mentioned to Ariana.

Liam Shea had been one of the players. And he was the reason the mission had turned from a smooth-running covert operation into a horror show.

After they’d gone in, Shea was supposed to wait for a visual signal, but he’d reacted too fast. He’d cut the power to the complex before the rest of the team had been ready. His premature action had resulted in the death of the U.S. secretary of state and some innocent citizens.

He’d been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged and sent to jail for the screwup, though he’d maintained all along that someone had given him the visual signal.

Because methodical habits had saved Shane’s life more than once, he had kept tabs on Shea over the years. Not that he’d thought the man was going to come after him. Still, he knew exactly when Shea had gotten out of prison.

And he knew that the jailbird hadn’t stayed around. He’d gone underground almost as soon as the prison gates had closed behind him.

Shane had thought it was because he was no longer equipped to function in society. Now he wondered if Shea had had big plans that he hadn’t wanted to reveal.

Was he back now, out for the sickest kind of revenge his twisted mind could conceive?

Shane crawled to his right and craned his neck, trying to get a good look at the leader of the men who had set up this terrifyingly well-executed scenario.

He couldn’t tell if it was Liam Shea. In the goggles and gas mask the man was unidentifiable.

Plus, Shane hadn’t seen Shea in years. On the mission the man had been one of the older members. Then he’d been locked away, which had probably sped up his aging. Shane wondered if he’d even recognize Shea.

Shea had insisted all along that he was innocent, but the court hadn’t believed him. So was this the desperate act of an innocent man who had decided the only way he’d get justice was through revenge?

If so, who were the men with him?

He’d had three sons, Shane remembered. Could he have convinced them to go along with his revenge plot? Were they so loyal to their father that they were willing to kill for him?

Of course, that brought up a whole other issue. If Liam Shea had really been innocent, who had made him the fall guy for the failed rescue attempt?

There had been eight men on the mission, although one of them—Commander Tom Bradley—was dead now.

The four who had joined Shane in Eclipse were above suspicion. He would trust any one of them with his life.

Yet a lot of them were here tonight, he suddenly realized, as he put the evening into a different context.

Chase might be outside in one of the limousines. Ty was guarding the vice president. Only Ethan was absent. But Shane knew he was in Boston, suffering in the same blackout as the rest of them. Maybe he was frantically trying to protect his young son from dangers Shane could only imagine.