Jenna Mills - Crossfire

It was a damn shame she was just a means to an end.

He always enjoyed sightseeing, but the rush he’d felt inside her room, going through her neatly packed suitcase, had exceeded mere pleasure. Her garments had been soft and sleek, much like she would be. He wanted to taste her before he broke her, hear her cry before silencing her.

The elevator at the end of the hall dinged, prompting him to return to his room. Inside, he lifted a pair of silk stockings to his face and breathed the subtle scent of vanilla. He wondered if she’d smell him, too. If she’d realize he’d been in her room. Touched her panties. Taken a pretty little diamond earring all for himself.

Fingering his treasures, he smiled.

“It’s an honor to be here tonight,” Elizabeth told the medical professionals gathered in the crowded ballroom. “The Carrington Foundation may help raise the funds, but it’s you, the doctors and the researchers, who deserve recognition. Through your tireless dedication, progress is made daily.”

Flashbulbs snapped and applause exploded. Elizabeth paused, pulling in a deep breath as she scanned the semidarkened room. The dim lighting from the chandeliers kept her from making out faces, but she quickly found the table where she’d been sitting, the empty place saved for Nicholas, who had not shown up.

“As many of you know,” she continued, not sure whether she felt relief or disappointment, “the Carrington Foundation was created by my mother, Pamela, after her father, a Calgary native, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. My mother is with my father in Ravakia now, but sends her warmest regards.”

With each word, familiarity replaced tension. During the dark days following her broken engagement, her work had kept her going. She’d poured herself into the crusade to raise funds to defeat cancer. The fight, the cause, had helped her heal.

“The war is not over,” she said, nearing her conclusion. “But thanks to you, more battles are won all the time.” She paused, scanning the room for impact.

“In closing, I’d like to—” A sudden movement at the back of the ballroom interrupted her words. She tensed, squinted, saw the flash of light too late.

“Get down!” a man shouted, but before she could move, the chandeliers went dark. A rapid burst of gunfire shattered the stunned silence, followed by a deafening roar.

Shock tore through Elizabeth. She dropped behind the podium as Hawk had trained her to do, heart hammering with brutal force. The shooter had been aiming at her. The knowledge shouldn’t have stunned her but did. She’d lived with threats for as long as she could remember, all the Carringtons had. But in the months since her future brother-in-law, Sandro, had brought down Viktor Zhukov, there’d been no signs of imminent danger.

And yet, not all danger carried warning signs.

Instinct demanded that she run, get out of the auditorium as quickly as possible. But she knew better than to expose herself, potentially putting herself in the line of fire.

Panic tore through the stampeding crowd. Chairs crashed and china shattered. “Find her!” someone yelled. And then the alarms started to wail. “Fire!”

Overhead, sprinklers kicked on.

She had to get out of there.

Elizabeth clutched the edges of the podium and stood. The darkness would cover her as she ran for the emergency exit. She started right, but something solid plowed into her from behind. She went down hard, landing on her hands and knees.

“Elizabeth!”

“Don’t fight and you won’t get hurt,” snarled an accented voice disgustingly close to her face. His breath was hot, riddled by the deceptively benign scent of peppermint.

She shoved against him. “Take your hands off me!” Above the alarms, she barely heard her own voice.

Rough hands pulled her to her feet. “Come on.”

Fight-or-flight kicked in, the countless hours Hawk had drilled her. Tested her. She fought every way she knew how, thrashing and swinging her elbows, squirming, kicking. Biting.

“You little bitch!” Her abductor slapped a hand over her mouth, and fleetingly Elizabeth wondered if this was what it had been like for Miranda.

“Let go!” she shouted, but his hand absorbed the words. His fingers dug into her upper arm as he dragged her toward the edge of the stage. She jabbed an elbow into his gut, but he didn’t slow. Twisting, she smashed her knuckles against his windpipe.

He grunted, collapsed against her and slumped to the ground. She fell with him, cried out when her sandals went out from beneath her and her ankle twisted. She landed hard, her attacker pinning her to the wet floor of the stage.

Fighting for breath, she shoved against the dead weight of his sweaty body, surprised when he rolled with ease. She scrambled to her feet and tried to run, staggered instead. Pain shot up from her injured ankle, and one of her heels snapped.

“Elizabeth!”

She kept running, refused to slow. Memory chased her, the present tangling with the past, reality with drill. The rough-hewn voice that haunted her during the long hours of the night could not be heard above the furious wail of the fire alarm. She was traveling alone this time, her life in the hands of nameless, faceless security personnel.

They were safer than him.

The edge of the stage rushed up to greet her, but before she made it to the steps a second man grabbed her. She darted from him, but in the process lost her balance.

She would have sworn she heard someone roar her name as she fell through the darkness.

She landed on her hip, the impact jarring through her with the force of a sledgehammer. Her head slammed against the linoleum flooring. Her vision blurred. She tried to get to her feet, but he was too fast for her. On a seeming dead run he scooped her into his arms and ran for the side of the room.

“Stop it!” Dizziness swept through her. She struggled against him, but his arms granted no reprieve. “You’re making a terrible mistake,” she warned.

“It’s mine to make,” growled a low voice, and the man crammed her more tightly against his body.

Something deep inside Elizabeth twisted, hard. Memory leaked through. The flash was so strong, for a fractured second she was thrown back in time, into another man’s arms. He’d turned her world upside down, but she knew, deep, deep inside, she knew he would have killed before he let some thug lay a hand on her.

Her abductor never broke stride. He sprinted through the darkened room, pushing past tables and kicking chairs out of his way. The hard muscles of his body gathered and bunched, forcing Elizabeth to realize this was one man she would not overpower. The blare of fire alarms drowned out his words, but she knew they were not nice. She thrashed against him, anyway, but he barely seemed to notice.

“Got you,” she heard him snarl under his breath. “Got you.”

Revulsion coursed through her. Awareness poured in. Hawk had trained her for situations like this, drilled her repeatedly. If this man got her away from the hotel, she would be completely at his mercy. He could take her anywhere. Do anything. There would be no one to stop him. No one to hear her scream.

He hit the emergency exit and kicked open the door, burst into the crisp night air. It was only September, but this far north, summer fled early, letting the cold spill in. Icy rain pellets slashed down from the darkened sky and stung her exposed arms and her legs.

“Help me!” she shouted above the wail of police cars and fire engines. “Please!”

The man never slowed, showed no fear. He rounded a corner and pounded down the wet pavement until she barely heard the sirens and confusion of the hotel. The safety.

Then he stopped abruptly. Time had run out.