A Terrible Misunderstanding (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 6)

“I am merely – borrowing – you for a while. You shall go home soon enough.”

“Alive?” Clara had no idea why she felt compelled to ask that, but the word was out before she could hold it back.

The man smirked.

“You are a murderer,” she whispered.

“The women we have taken have been looked after,” he growled.

“Until they could no longer be used then you murdered them,” Clara snapped. “It’s heinous.”

“You know nothing,” the man snorted.

“Really? I know you used the women for prostitution.”

The man froze. He stared hard at her and frowned just a little. Rather than answer, he ambled over to the bed. Slowly, he ran his gaze over the length of her. Clara couldn’t move. She had to lie there and let him leer at her.

“Not all of them. Just the ones who are prettier than you. The rest have their uses,” he growled.

“Get away from me.”

“My, aren’t you feisty? I would have taken great pleasure in bre

aking you, but I have had better.” His gaze lingered on her cleavage. “My friends can have you instead.”

“None of you are having me,” Clara growled.

“Oh, not for prostitution. They are not that desperate. You will do rather well as a servant, I think. It would be rather humiliating for you, though, to have to be a maid to people who can control your father. Yes, I think I should like that,” he drawled smoothly.

He opened his mouth to speak only to be interrupted by the loud blast of gunfire from directly beneath the window. Clara instantly forgotten, he raced across the room and peered outside. Whatever he saw made him panic. He jerked back and slammed the shutters closed. When he turned back to run a frantic look around the room, he seemed to have forgotten Clara. He paused as if trying to decide what to do about her. For a moment, he looked down at his gun.

Clara waited for him to lift it and pull the trigger. She didn’t doubt he would. He was that kind of ruthless cretin who wouldn’t feel sorry about any loss of life he was responsible for. When the sound of shattering glass reached them, he bolted for the door and disappeared instead.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Niall charged into the house and slammed into every room he stumbled across. Will did the same until he met Niall at the bottom of the main flight of stairs in the house’s large entrance hall.

“Target sighted out here,” Phillip bellowed. His exclamation was followed by the thundering of booted feet giving chase.

“Clara has to be here.” Niall was physically shaking with fear driven by the possibility that she might not be.

He had no idea what he was going to do if she wasn’t anywhere to be found. His entire life would draw to a halt, of that there could be no doubt, not least because he would have failed. Not only in his job as an operative of the Star Elite, but as a man in protecting a woman who was in danger. While he had been distracted, the woman he had been tasked with protecting had been snatched, just like Smidgley had threatened would happen. Now, Niall was faced with the very real possibility that Clara had become one of the missing kidnap victims, never to be seen alive again.

“God, I will kill the blackguard myself if he has hurt her.”

“You care about her,” Will replied. “But don’t forget you are here to do a job.”

“I know that,” Niall snapped.

When they reached the attic, Niall and Will looked at each other. The solemnity on Will’s face said it all. The news was not good. Clara was not in the house.

“Where is she? He cannot have gone too far.”

“She has to be in one of the outbuildings,” Will growled. “She has to be here.”

Together, the men made their way downstairs and met with Oliver, who was rounding up the last of the now wounded guards.

“She isn’t here,” Niall grunted.