“You’re trying to get at Luther Bates?” Like he didn’t already know that. “Then answer that phone. My brother has something that Bates wants very, very badly.”
Hugh’s eyes turned to slits.
“Bates took out a hit on the Ward family years ago. Maryann Ward is the lawyer who gave the DA all the evidence on Bates. She’s the one who sent him to prison.”
“Maryann Ward.” Hugh smiled. “Oh, I do remember her name.”
“Then maybe you remember that the hitman took out Maryann and her husband, but he missed the daughter, Elizabeth Ward.”
Hugh’s smile stretched even more. “Elizabeth.”
He didn’t like the way the guy said Elizabeth’s name. With such smug satisfaction. Victor started backpedaling with his plan because…something is off here. Some shit is really off.
Other than the bomb and the woman who’d been held hostage and—
Hugh answered the ringing phone. “Do you have Elizabeth Ward?”
“No!” Victor shouted because maybe Saxon would hear him. “Don’t give her up! Send the FBI here—I’m in South Carolina, with Zoe—”
Hugh sighed and lifted the bomb trigger.
“Don’t say another word,” Zoe whispered. “I don’t want to die like this.”
Victor stopped talking.
Hugh held his stare. “I ask again…” he said into the phone. “Do you have Elizabeth Ward? Because your brother just brought her to my attention…and I have to think that he wouldn’t have said her name unless you really did have her with you.” And the guy looked as if he’d just been given some amazing-ass Christmas present.
***
Do you have Elizabeth Ward?
Saxon had to loosen his hold on the phone because he was close to splintering the thing. “Who is this?”
“We covered this already,” he was told, “I’m the man who shot your brother, and I can be the man who kills him, too.”
Not Victor. “What do you want?”
“I want Elizabeth Ward, if you have her.”
His jaw locked. “I don’t.” Lying was easy.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” The voice was mocking. “Because now I’m going to put a bullet right between your brother’s eyes.”
“No!” Saxon shouted.
The guy demanded once more, “Do you have Elizabeth Ward?”
“Yes,” he growled. Elizabeth’s image flashed in his mind. Beautiful, sensual Elizabeth. The woman who could make him feel so much, who could make him need so much.
“I want her.”
Too fucking bad. She’s mine.
“I’ll let your brother go, if you bring Elizabeth Ward to me.”
That wasn’t going to happen. “Tell me where you are.”
“Your brother already told you…South Carolina.” Now the guy’s voice was annoyed.
“I’m nowhere near South Carolina.”
“Then you’d better get here, fast, and when you do, we’ll talk again.”
“Don’t you hurt him, do you understand me?” Before he could fly to South Carolina, the guy might decide to sink a bullet into Victor’s brain.
“If you don’t bring Elizabeth to me, I’ll do more than hurt him.”
Shit, shit, shit! “Why do you want her? What are you going to do?” Because you won’t—
“Elizabeth Ward and I share an enemy. I need her. You bring her to me, and you and the FBI agent can just walk away.” There was a pause. “He says he’s your brother. Surely your brother is worth more to you than she is?” Then he laughed again. “Maybe you think you know the woman, but you don’t. I know her secrets. I know all about Elizabeth…now bring her to South Carolina.”
The guy knew her secrets? That didn’t make a bit of sense to Saxon. Elizabeth didn’t have any secrets. She was good and kind and the best thing that had come into his life in so long.
The best thing…since I met Victor and Jasmine. They’d been my only family until I found her.
“Call again when you’re in South Carolina. If I don’t hear from you in four hours, the FBI agent is—”
“I’m on the West Coast,” Saxon rushed to say. “I need more time.”
“What you need…is to get on a freaking plane. Get on a plane and head to Charleston.” The line went dead.
Saxon stood there a moment, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do.
Trade one life, for another?
He looked down at his phone. Victor had always been there for him. His brother needed him right now. If Victor was already shot, if that bastard on the line hadn’t been lying…
I can’t let Vic die.
He dialed the FBI. Used the contact number that Victor had given him. Within minutes, he had Tracy Adams on the line. Before he’d left Miami, Victor had told him that Tracy had been cleared through the FBI channels. The suits in power had put her back in the field.
/> “Saxon?” Tracy asked, voice confused. “What’s going on? I-I thought you were gone…”
He had been gone from the game, but his brother’s life was on the line now. “I need you to help me find Victor.”
“What?”
“Victor’s in trouble. I know he’s somewhere in South Carolina, but I need a specific location. He’s…his life is on the line here.”
“But he’s not on any sanctioned FBI case.” Her voice lowered, became hushed as if she didn’t want anyone to overhear her as she said, “The Brass is pretty pissed at him because he went off radar. He was supposed to come in for an interrogation, but he didn’t. Said he was working something on his own.”
My fault. “He’s working for me. He’s trying to get Luther Bates to take the hit off Elizabeth Ward.”
“What?” Now her voice sharpened. “But—but she’s gone. The last I heard, the US Marshalls were supposed to be putting her into protective custody.”
“She’s with me.” And I won’t risk her, but I will save Vic. “I’ll be flying in to the Charleston airport, and Tracy I’m going to need help.”
“You have it.” Now her voice was soft again. “I’ll get there before you do.”
“You can track his phone, right? Find him that way?”
“I’ll find him,” she promised. “You just look for me when you land.”
He ended the call. Exhaled. For a minute, he stared down at the scars on his hands and he remembered the past. Once, he’d fought Victor. Now, he’d fight for him.
Just as Victor had fought for him.
***
Elizabeth glanced around the tasting room once more. She had plans for a kick-off gala to be held in that room. She’d already started making arrangements with a local caterer so that they could be ready—
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She whirled at Saxon’s voice, a wide smile on her face.
But he wasn’t smiling back at her. His face was hard, so very tense. Just as it had been the first time I saw him.
He stalked toward her, an air of menace hanging around him. “Do you know what I would do…” Saxon asked quietly. “To someone who threatened your life?”