“We got in here,” Joe said.
“Good point. I’ll arrange hotel rooms for us until we know my home and the office are secure.” Rachel picked up her phone from the coffee table, leaving the room as she dialled.
“I’m running a programme that will let me know if he hacked the phone or accessed the GPS,” Elle said without looking up from her laptop screen. “We’ll know in a couple of minutes if he has this physical location.”
“We need tea.” Julia scurried into the kitchen and put on the kettle. She was still wrapped in a towel.
“I got your clothes,” Megan told her and Dimitri could almost feel the relief that was visible on Julia’s face.
Julia hurried back across the room, nabbed her clothes and headed out of the room, all under Joe’s watchful eye.
Dimitri watched Megan as she pulled on the red dress she’d worn to Rudi’s house, over the bikini she’d borrowed from Rachel. Dimitri wanted to tear the dress from her body and rip it into tiny shreds, just because he knew Rudi Abramovich must have lusted after her while she was wearing it. The thought of her in that house alone with that monster made him want to pummel something until his knuckles bled.
He’d shut down when he heard her story. There was too much to process. He’d never been so close to panic as when she’d gone off on her own. Twin fears had assaulted him, ripping him in two. Anxiety over missing an opportunity to find out where Katrina was being held and terror over what Rudi might do to Megan. The complete and utter helplessness he’d felt had almost brought him to his knees. Only the ability to fall back on his training kept him standing.
Megan pulled her hair back into a messy bun, securing it with an elastic band she’d found in the desk. Delicate, she was delicate. Sure, she might be fearless and have skills that could help her in a crisis, but physically she was delicate. Soft skin, so easily marred. Long limbs, so easily broken. Damn it, he didn’t know how he would have survived if something had happened to her. The thought made everything within him still—Megan Donaldson was important to him. Important in a way no other wom
an had ever been. She’d wormed her way into the heart of him. Sneaking under his crusty shell with her wit, intelligence and insanity. No. He couldn’t lose Megan. His hands suddenly felt empty because he wasn’t touching her.
“Tell me how Durand managed to get your number and why he’s texting you.” Callum perched on the edge of the armchair. He’d sent Ryan down to update the building’s security team about the possible threat. Ryan would stay down there until Callum decided he was needed elsewhere.
“I saw him at the house. He didn’t see me. I’m sure of it. He probably saw me on security footage after I left.” Megan fluttered around the room while she spoke. Nerves keeping her on the move. She was worried about Durand. She should be—the guy was a grade A nutjob.
“By the sounds of it, they’ve discovered Rudi,” Joe said. “That’s the only way they’d know to check the security footage.”
Callum nodded his agreement. “How’d he get your number, Megan?”
She cast a nervous glance at Dimitri that had his chest tightening. What the hell had she done now?
“My phone was confiscated. I flirted with one of the guards—as part of my cover,” she hastily added. “Before I left he said he put his number in my phone. I assume he took my number too. Durand could have gotten the information from the guy.”
There was a pause. Dimitri groaned and Joe exploded. “You took your personal phone on an op? Are you nuts?”
Megan’s cheeks turned red. “It was an accident. I intended to take the cell from the car, but they got mixed up when I was dealing with Dimitri.”
“You mean when you tied me up and stashed me in the trunk of the car.” There was a good chance, even if they lived to a hundred, that he was never going to let that go.
“Sorry?” she said with a nervous smile.
“I want to know how you got him in the boot,” Elle said. “He’s almost twice your size.”
“When I Tasered him he was standing at the boot, I just threw it opened and toppled him into it.” She shrugged like it was nothing. At least that explained the lump on the top of his head and the crick in his neck.
Callum pinched the bridge of his nose. It was his go-to move when the stress was getting to him. Dimitri thought it was also what he did when he had the urge to shoot everyone around him.
Megan paced the room, unable to sit still. It was like trying to interrogate Tinker Bell. Dimitri couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to touch her. He needed the solid reassurance that she was in one piece. As she walked past his perch on the arm of the sofa, he grabbed her. Pulling her into the V between his knees, he clamped his arms around her. Better. Much better. She wasn’t making him dizzy anymore and he felt much more relaxed knowing he had a hold of her.
Dimitri caught sight of Joe smothering a smile as Megan squirmed in his hold.
“Stop it,” he ordered against her ear.
The shiver that coursed through her body made him want to purr.
“Let go of me.” She bit out the words, but he noticed she wasn’t fighting that hard to get free.
“No.” He nipped at her earlobe and felt justified when her jaw dropped in outrage.
“I can’t believe,” Elle grumbled, “that after all the planning we put into the tech side of the op, you blew it by taking your phone?”