Selling Scarlett (Love Inc 1)

I’m freaking out now, too, so I struggle to stand up, but Cross grabs me and shoves me under the bed. Right before my face mashes into the dirty tile floor, I notice Cross’s ankles are still bound, and he’s balancing on the outside of his soles.

Then there’s a gunshot...but it’s not Cross firing. He’s in the process of crouching down behind me. I can feel him moving, and then the sensation of him pulling on the rope around my wrists. Oh my God, he cut it! Then he frees my ankles. I turn to find Cross freeing his own feet. Then he stands and whirls toward the door, where the sound of footsteps echoes.

He mutters a confused-sounding curse. “Hunter West?”

I jump up and there is Hunter leaning in the doorway. I know the exact moment he sees me, because his eyes widen and his mouth falls open in relief. His gaze flies over me, and he rushes toward me. I’m already anticipating his arms around me. But before he reaches me, a loud boom wrenches the air, and Hunter flies into the wall.

“OH MY GOD!”

I watch in horror as he crumples in a heap on the floor, his face twisting in agony as his right hand fumbles toward his bright red shoulder. He lifts his head, and his wild eyes search the room until they land on my face.

“Hunter!” I rush to him, noting dimly as I fly across the room that Cross is on top of Lockwood, pummeling his face.

Within seconds, Hunter’s torso is covered with blood. Blood is pooling on the floor around his shoulder, and I’m moaning, “NO, no, please!” I grab his good arm, stunned by how sheet-white his face is.

“Libby.” His hands grab at me as he starts panting, which quickly turns to horrible choking. “Libby...” he gasps. “You...okay?”

That’s the last thing he says before his eyes close.

Somewhere far away, I hear one of my would-be kidnappers cry: “Chota!”

Chapter 35

Hunter

I MUST HAVE died and gone to hell, because I’m burning. The fire spreads through my upper body, blowing out my senses. Then I’m dragged down into darkness. How many layers of hell are there supposed to be? I can’t remember but I must be going deep.

The burning is—oh fuck—going deeper. I hear someone moaning and wonder dimly if it’s me. I hear a woman crying, too, and I’m afraid the woman might be Libby. I scream her name over and over, but I don’t get an answer. Libby’s not here. Michael Lockwood took her.

I relive the moments after she disappeared from the vineyard. I’m outside screaming her name, and Dave is there almost immediately. By chance he’d picked up Lockwood’s trail late the night before and eventually followed him to my home.

Dave was at the side of the house when he heard two cars pull up, and he got to the front just in time to see a silver Audi he didn’t recognize spirit Cross and Libby away.

We jump on Dave’s bike and give chase, but we haven’t caught them by the time we leave the neighborhood. Dave has an idea. A terrible one. Lockwood spent two hours at a tiny airstrip before coming to my house.

We arrive just as a Lear Jet goes airborne. I call the FBI, and it takes them almost an hour to give the local cops the clearance to examine the flight records. They arrive in time to spend another hour figuring out the records have been falsified. The plane claimed to be headed north, toward Redding, California, but tracking shows it actually went south.

The FBI has to wait for orders, but I don’t. Hal and I get on my plane. It’s several hellish hours before the plane we’re chasing lands—in a rural area outside San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico. My pilot, Victor, lands in a field, and Hal and I start trying to trace a path from the empty plane to Libby. Fifty bucks gets us a hotel name, and two hundred gets us a dinged up dirt bike. We pull out just as another plane—the FBI, Hal says—flies low overhead.

I’m moaning again, and just like before, the woman is crying. There’s something clutching my hand. Someone—and I feel pretty sure it’s her.

I squeeze her hand as hard as I can, and the crying stops. “It’s okay, Libby.”

I have the strange suspicion that I’m only speaking in a whisper. She’s crying again. I mean, she is really going at it. I squeeze her hand, and the crying turns to breathless sobbing.

Damnit, Libby.

Her sobs make the burn hurt worse. Darkness starts to fade, and I can see white flames. I feel like I’m choking and I start to struggle against the invisible hands that hold me.

Oh fuck. I don’t like this. There are so many voices rising up around me. Someone slaps my face, and then there’s light. Fluorescent light.