his accent so thick the words were hard to comprehend.
The driver hesitated yet, his car idling in the lot. He must have realized what Ash had—that the situation wasn’t right. At the very least it wasn’t what the man claimed. Ash had only seen Claire take one sip of her wine and no more. Had it been drugged?
Maybe that was why she had rushed off the way she had. But she had been clear-eyed and coherent then. Whatever had happened to her had happened after she’d stepped through the doors of the hotel and out of Ash’s sight. It had happened so damn quickly that he’d nearly lost her—and still might.
“Why don’t we call hotel security?” the driver suggested.
The man slung Claire over one arm and pulled a gun with his other. He pointed the barrel through the open window of the car. “Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”
Chivalry forgotten now, the driver sped off—tires squealing as the car careened out of the lot. The car had drawn the attention of other agents, who ran across the lot toward the man.
Ash stepped from the shadows, the barrel of his gun pointing at the man’s heart. Claire was slung over his other shoulder, and so small that Ash wouldn’t hit her if he fired. Or at least he hoped he wouldn’t...
“She is my business,” Ash said. “So you can put her down now or you can take a bullet.”
The big man scoffed. “You will shoot me?”
Ash shrugged. “Either I will shoot you or one of the other FBI agents will.”
All around them, guns cocked. Ash hoped all of those guns belonged to fellow agents. But some could have belonged to this man’s associates. Would he have attempted this abduction alone? Which country or group might they be from?
“Put her down,” Ash said.
“I could kill her,” the man threatened.
“If that was the plan,” Ash said, “she would already be dead. But then she wouldn’t be worth anything.”
The threat she posed would have been eliminated, though. Ash’s assignment accomplished. But that gave him no sense of relief—only regret. Anger surged through him, heating his blood despite the cool night air. He had no intention of letting this man, or anyone else, kill Claire Molenski.
The man turned his weapon on Ash, pointing the barrel at him. “Then I will kill you—”
Before he could fire, someone else took the shot, and the big man crumpled to the asphalt. Ash lunged forward and caught Claire before she could hit the ground, too. She was incredibly light and small, more like the weight and size of a child than a woman. But there was nothing innocent or vulnerable about her. He had to remind himself of that; he had to remind himself that she was the danger.
But because of what she knew—and how many nefarious groups and governments wanted that knowledge—she was also in danger. Some people or countries weren’t able or willing to pay for the information she had; instead they would torture her for it.
Ash had seen men three times her size break. Claire Molenski wouldn’t survive. So just watching her wasn’t going to be enough to keep her safe. But protecting her, like she needed protection, would make it harder to gather enough evidence for her arrest.
* * *
HER HEART POUNDING WILDLY, Claire awoke in a panic. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, if it had been minutes or hours since she’d been chloroformed.
Where had she been taken? She blinked her eyes wide, trying to clear her fuzzy vision and her fuzzy head. But the room was dark.
She reached out and breathed a sigh of relief that her hands weren’t bound. Her fingers skimmed across silky material, and she recognized the soft surface on which she was lying. She had been carried to a bed. She skimmed her hands down her body and breathed another sigh of relief that she still wore her dress. Maybe nobody had hurt her.
Yet.
But then a lamp snapped on, and she blinked against the brightness of the light shining in her eyes. “What—where am I?”
“Your room,” a deep voice replied.
She couldn’t see him—not with the light filling her vision field with spots. Who was he?
And why was he lying to her?
This wasn’t her room. Her bed wasn’t this soft and smooth. Her mattress was old and lumpy, but since she was rarely home, she hadn’t seen the reason to replace it. Or to make the bed, either. Her sheets were never smooth. They were always rumpled, usually kicked to a tangled mess at the foot of the bed, as she rushed to get to the office. She was pretty much always at work—before the sun rose in the morning until after it set again at night.
“Why did you grab me?” she asked, her pulse still racing. While she wasn’t bound, she had been abducted.
He replied matter-of-factly, “So you wouldn’t hit the ground.”
“I wasn’t going to fall...” She blinked again, and her eyes adjusted to the light enough that she could make him out standing over the bed.
He was tall—taller than she had even realized when she’d talked to him across the table earlier. And he was so broad. No wonder he had overpowered her so easily in the parking lot in the dark. If only she’d seen him coming, maybe she could have outrun him.
Then she remembered the heels she’d been wearing; he would have caught her and easily once she had twisted her ankle. She wiggled her toes, grateful that her shoes were gone. Maybe she could run now.
“Why?” she asked, her fears growing even more. “Why would you bring me here?”
“This is your room,” he repeated. “The one you rented at the hotel.”
“Oh...” She had rented a room. But she had changed her mind about using it. Obviously he’d had other plans.
“Why did you drug me?” she asked, although she was afraid that she knew the answer.
Was he the kind of man who didn’t take rejection well? With the way he looked, he probably wasn’t often rejected. Did he intend to take what she hadn’t been willing to offer him?
“I didn’t drug you,” he said.
“Someone grabbed me in the parking lot,” she said, “and put something over my mouth and nose...”
“Chloroform,” he replied again so matter-of-factly.
“So you admit to using it on me?” she asked, and anger joined her fear. And again she was grateful her hands weren’t bound because she would fight him. She would hurt him as badly as he intended to hurt her.
“No,” he said. “I recognized the smell. That’s why I brought you back to your room, so you could regain consciousness.”
“What do you intend to do to me?” she asked, her heart continuing to pound wildly with fear.
He sighed
