on. But, old sparring partner, I’m glad you’ve got my back.
Zack was getting smaller and smaller in the distance, though, as the van kept driving. Ivan fired through the broken window, the explosion filling the metal vehicle like an echo chamber. Dmitry turned back and screamed at Ivan. But it was all the distraction she needed.
Rebecca leaped to her feet and charged. She grabbed the driver from behind and pressed her fingers into his eyes. Dmitry swore. The van spun wildly. Forcing the van to crash would be dangerous. But the van still hadn’t picked up that much speed, and something told her she was far safer in a collision with Zack running to her rescue than she would be going wherever these men were taking her. Ivan grabbed her hair. Dmitry stomped on the breaks. The van slammed to a stop, throwing Rebecca against the seat and tossing Ivan across the floor. Rebecca recovered first. She ran for the van’s back door, her feet crunching on broken glass. She could hear her abductors shouting behind her. She grabbed the door handle. The door flew open, wrenching the handle from her hand.
It was Zack. She nearly fell out of the van into his arms. Zack’s free hand grabbed her waist, just long enough to help her onto the ground. But then, before letting go, he whispered in her ear, “I need you to trust me and do whatever I say, without question.”
“What?”
But Zack stepped back. His head tilted in her direction. “You! Get down! Now!”
Zack was shouting at her. Not at the men who’d just abducted her. She hesitated. Her feet weren’t two steps away from the kidnappers’ van. Thick, endless forest spread out around her on every side. And Zack just expected her to drop to the ground instead of running?
Dmitry climbed out the driver’s-side door. Ivan stumbled across the back of the van toward them. Zack’s eyes cut sideways at Rebecca.
“Do it!” Zack said. “Trust me! Just get down.”
Her head shook. “But—”
Ivan’s bulk filled the van’s back door. With one large, steady hand he aimed his gun at Zack’s face and barked something in a foreign language. Zack didn’t move a muscle. Dmitry walked around the side of the van, slowly.
“She’s coming with us.” Dmitry trained his gun on Zack’s face.
Zack paused a long moment, without moving or speaking, as if he didn’t even see the guns or the men behind them. Then Zack shrugged and shook his head.
“She? You mean, this one?” Zack pointed one finger at Rebecca, shook his head and tapped his chest in a slow, exaggerated motion. “No, no. She’s coming with me.”
Ivan laughed. It was an ugly sound bordering on a snarl. His finger hovered on the trigger. “No, I kill you. She comes with me.”
Rebecca stood, with broken glass under her boots and legs tensed to spring. Zack was so calm and so in control, it was as if he was haggling over the price of meat instead of fighting for her life. Something within her tugged at the corner of her heart, reminding her of the sweet, sensitive man who she’d once trusted enough to spar with. She’d trusted Zack with her life back then. He was the first man she’d ever really trusted.
But how could she trust him now?
He’d kept secrets from her. He hadn’t told her who he was. Her life was in danger and he was being so casual about it, he was almost cold. Zack hadn’t just transformed his body to look like the jocks who’d once made them both feel worthless. Now he sounded just like them, too.
Zack shrugged again, rolling his shoulders up and down in a slow rise and fall that seemed to accentuate every curve of his muscular chest.
“This one, she’s a bit difficult. Clumsy, you know, and a chatterbox.” He made a mouth with his fingers and flapped it up and down in the same dismissive “talking” gesture Seth had once used to hurt and belittle her. “But I promised my boss I’d take her somewhere. You understand how this works. You have a job to do. I have a job to do. Maybe we can figure something out. How much is your boss paying you for her?”
The question hung in the air. Ivan and Dmitry glanced at each other. Neither answered. And now, Rebecca was too angry to even let the fear she was feeling even take hold. Zack didn’t look at her. One of Zack’s hands still held the gun firmly in its grip. The other was just inches away from it. She used to feel so safe in his arms. She didn’t doubt either the speed or aim he’d be able to pull the trigger with. But now, standing next to him, she felt anything but safe. She felt like that awkward, clumsy female in the martial arts class nobody wanted to get stuck with.
No, worse than that. She felt like a worthless scrap of meat in a dogfight.
“Ivan, is it?” Zack nodded to the man’s tattoo on the man’s neck. His voice rose. “You don’t want to take this woman. She’s a bad assignment. Cut your losses and move on. It’s not worth the trouble.”
Ivan snapped something at Dmitry. Dmitry shouted back. In an instant, both men were arguing so loudly they were almost bellowing.
Zack tilted his head and leaned toward Rebecca. “Trust me, okay? Do whatever I say to do. Without question.”
“No bribe!” Ivan shouted in English. “No money. No deal. No bribe. We’re taking her now.” He pointed one finger at Rebecca. “You. Girlie. Hands up. Come here, now.”
She nearly laughed. Did these men not see the gun Zack had trained at their heads? True, it was two guns against one, but it was not as if Zack was about to let them drive off with her.
“Okay, okay.” Zack lowered his gun and forced an artificial chuckle from this throat.
What? she nearly screamed inside her own head.
Ivan’s snarl turned into a smirk. “You’re just going to give us the girl?”
Zack shrugged. “What can I say? Like I said, she is clumsy. She will take two steps, trip over her own feet and fall down.”
Ivan snapped something to Dmitry.
“No, no, don’t shoot me, Dmitry!” Zack raised his hands. “You shoot me. I shoot you. Ivan here gets the girl and the money.”
There was a long pause. Wind brushed the trees. Ivan shifted his feet. Zack stood firm on the pavement.
Zack turned to Rebecca. “Go around to the passenger’s-side door. I’ll stay here with this man and we’ll work things out.”
Her head shook. Tears were forming in her eyes. “If I get into their van, they’ll kill me.”
Firm gray eyes cut at Rebecca. “Passenger side. Go.”
* * *
Zack could feel his heart beating in his chest, slow and steady.
He could sense Rebecca beside him without even looking her way. He knew how she was standing and how her limbs were moving. He knew exactly how much space was between their two bodies. He could feel the fear rolling off her shoulders like waves. He could hear the ragged, desperate sound of her breathing and wished there was a way he could still it.
Trust me, Becs. Please. I know what I’m doing. I know who these men are, how they
