chest right then and, taking a breath— Oh, yes, it was hard. Painful. She was very afraid that she might be about to hyperventilate. Her breath sure seemed to be wheezing out with each frantic exhale.
“Can you...” Tina huffed. “Move the gun?” If the guy stumbled, that gun could accidentally discharge. She knew firsthand the kind of severe damage a shot to the spine would do to a victim.
“No, I can’t.” The gun jabbed harder into her.
“Look, I—I...” She tried to suck in air. Don’t panic. Don’t. “I’m not who you think I am!” She wasn’t an EOD agent. If these men were taking her because they mistakenly thought that she had some kind of classified information she could give to them, they were dead wrong. She didn’t have the clearance level needed to access that sort of intel.
“We know you’re not an agent,” the man snapped. “Now keep climbing. Faster.”
She climbed until her legs burned. Flight after flight. Finally a door opened above her. The scent of fresh air and the mighty Mississippi River teased her nose as Tina was led outside.
Stars glittered overhead. Glancing around, she realized they were on a rooftop. And...and she could hear the whoop-whoop-whoop of an approaching helicopter.
This is so not good. As if masked men with guns could be good. But any group that came equipped with their own helicopter sure equaled a whole world of trouble in her book.
Fear had Tina shaking, but she made herself turn to face the gunman. “I-if you know I’m not an agent...” She had to raise her voice, nearly shouting, to be heard over the helicopter’s approach. The wind from its blades blew against her, and she trembled. “If you know that, then let me go! I’m of no use to you.”
The masked man—the fellow had to be the leader because no one else had done any talking—shook his head. “Mercer’s daughter is going to be plenty of use to us.”
Mercer’s daughter? Tina’s eyes widened. Definitely the wrong person. “I’m not his daughter!”
A rough, twisted bark of laughter escaped from the gunman. “Sure you aren’t, sweetheart.” A Texas accent. She could just hear it slip around his words. “That’s why Mercer pays for your apartment in D.C. and why he sprung for the fancy hotel here in New Orleans. Why he’s been paying your bills for years.” More laughter. “At first, I thought you might be his lover, and that connection would have been just as useful to me.”
The helicopter circled around to land. Her abductors had given her time to dress—a humiliating task since they’d watched her every move. The wind from the landing helicopter made her T-shirt cling tightly to her chest and it tossed her hair wildly around her face.
“Then I got intel that revealed your true identity.” He let the gun trail over her cheek. If she had been an agent, Tina would have done something incredibly cool right then. Such as wrestle the gun from him or give him a sharp right hook.
Then take all of these jerks out.
But she wasn’t an agent. She knew how to heal, not how to hurt.
“You’ve been the one constant in Mercer’s life since you got out of med school. You’re that constant because you’re Bruce Mercer’s daughter. The daughter he tried to hide after your mother was killed in that attack in France.”
She swallowed. The fact that she’d been born in France was really going to work against her here.
“Of course, if you’re not his daughter, you can just prove that to me.”
The gun was still at her cheek.
The helicopter’s blades had stopped.
“Prove who you really are,” the man in the mask murmured. There were slits over his eyes so that he could see out, but the rest of his face was concealed. All she knew was that the guy was big, with narrow shoulders and hips, and that his words carried a slight Texas accent. She couldn’t physically identify any of the men who had taken her.
“Are we ready?” another voice called out as heavy footsteps approached from behind her. This voice didn’t hold a Texas accent. This one just sounded bored.
It also sounded familiar.
Tina felt her cheeks turn ice-cold, then they burned red hot.
Those footsteps kept approaching. “Yeah, we got our package,” the gunman said with a quick nod. “Though she’s been whining the whole time about us having the wrong woman.”
The weapon finally left her cheek. Moving slowly, carefully, because she sure didn’t want to set anyone off, Tina turned to face the man. The helicopter waited behind him, perched perfectly in place.
There was a ski mask over this man’s face, too. Slits for his eyes, a hole for his mouth. As the others, he was also dressed in black from head to toe.
But she knew him; knew those broad shoulders, the tall, tough build. He towered over the other men by several inches and he walked with a slow, stalking grace.
Relief swept through her and Tina felt dizzy. Drew Lancaster.
“If she’s been talking so much...” his familiar voice rolled over her, edged with a Mississippi drawl, “then maybe you should have just gagged her.”
Wait. What? Tina’s eyes widened in horror. That wasn’t what Drew was supposed to say. Drew wasn’t a criminal. He was a good guy. He was a federal agent with the EOD.
He moved behind her, and put his hand over her mouth. “See?” Drew murmured. “Easy enough to stop her from talking.”
She nearly bit him.
But Drew bent and put his mouth right next to her ear. “Stay calm.” A bare whisper. One Tina wasn’t even sure she hadn’t imagined. But she’d felt the warm rush of his breath against her ear and a shiver slid through her body.
Drew kept his hand over her mouth as his head lifted a few inches. His eyes glittered down at her. She knew those eyes were golden, the color of a jungle cat that she’d seen once in the D.C. zoo.
Drew had always reminded her of that great cat. Because he was wild and dangerous, and he’d scared her, on an instinctive level, from the first moment they’d met.
“I didn’t realize our cargo tonight was a woman,” Drew charged as he glanced over at the lead gunman. “Maybe next time, you should clue me in on that.”
The guy grunted. “Need-to-know basis, Stone. Need to know.” Then he jerked his thumb toward the chopper. “Now are you ready to get us out of here?”
Stone. Her lips pressed against Drew’s palm. She hadn’t seen him in two months. Not since he’d left for his last mission.
Drew shifted his body and glanced down at her. This time, Tina could see past her fear and she easily read the hard warning in his eyes.
Drew was undercover. These men—they knew him as someone named Stone.
And something else that Tina realized... Drew wasn’t about to blow his cover.
Not
