Bad Boy Savior (Bad Boy 4)

I nodded my head. "There must be some connection and Spencer was silenced when the connection was in danger of being exposed."

"Hunter said he'd kill Spencer if he ever hurt you again. Spencer hurt you again, remember? I'm not so sure he didn’t do it. He had a motive."

"He didn’t mean he'd really kill Spencer. That was just something he said in anger."

"Hunter was a soldier. He killed people in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"He was a soldier," I said firmly. "He isn’t one now. He didn't do it."

I said it, but of course, I wasn't entirely sure myself. I only knew I wanted him to be released and to come back to the warehouse and stay with me.

I said goodbye, kissing Graham on the cheek, and went to find James waiting besides the SUV. He opened the door for me and squeezed my arm softly as he helped me in.

"How are you?" James asked, glancing at me as he drove off.

"Tired. Any news on the Hunter front?"

"I got a text from George. Nothing new. Grand jury meets on Wednesday. I guess we'll have to wait for them to hear the evidence."

As we drove through the quiet backstreets to the warehouse, I leaned my head back and hoped against hope that Hunter was innocent, and that the grand jury would send him home and back to me.

I slept most of the next day, rising only to have a shower.

That night, I finally felt like getting up. My stomach grumbled – I had barely eaten anything, wondering about Hunter and when he'd be released. I rose from the bed and went to the bathroom. George was at the door when I finished.

"You're feeling better?"

I nodded. "I'm hungry. Have you heard anything about Hunter?"

"Nothing. Come, I get you some food." George went to the kitchen and waved me to the island. "Lawyer will call tomorrow after grand jury."

I sat at the kitchen island and watched as George opened the fridge and looked through the items inside.

"I bought some borscht. Maybe you like, heated up with some good black bread."

"Whatever you fix will be fine."

George poured the container of borsht into a pot and put it on the stove. Next, he took a round loaf of black bread – caraway pumpernickel – and started slicing it up.

Suddenly I heard an explosion of automatic gunfire outside the apartment door.

"What was that?"

George stopped what he was doing and drew his gun. He motioned to me. "Go hide in bedroom under bed."

I complied, watching as George slid along the wall to the doorway. I hurried to the bedroom and turned to watch as George peered at the video feed. "Go!" he said, waving his gun at me. But before I could, the door exploded open and several men in SWAT uniforms entered, throwing in a grenade of some kind.

"Hide!" George shouted. He fired his weapon and leapt behind the desk. I turned away, but was unable to go far. A blast knocked me off my feet and into the wall. As I lay on the ground, sparkles of light dancing before my eyes and my hearing dulled, I wondered if I'd die.

My vision cleared and I watched as a dark figure entered. One of the uniformed men grabbed the gun from George’s hand and knocked him in the head, and then in the neck. George collapsed once more to the ground.

One of the black-uniformed men ran to me and knelt. Before I could say anything, he pulled out a roll of duct tape and covered my mouth. Next, he pulled out a black hood and covered my head, then he fastened my hands behind my back with plastic ties.

"You're coming with me."

Ivan had treated me with respect when he brought me to his club, but Sergei Romanov was completely different. His men were rough, handling me like I was nothing, throwing me into the back of a van, where I lay on my side, my face pressed against a filthy carpet on the van's floor. Every bump in the road jarred me, knocking me around. My arms ached from the position I was in and I felt my lip swell from where I'd hit it when I fell.

We drove for what felt like an hour, but I heard traffic all around us when we stopped at lights and so I wondered if we were driving around Boston. Maybe throwing someone – Hunter's people? – off the track.