"Is that right?"
"It is utterly and completely correct."
"Then I think we should go elsewhere."
Angelo was driving, his expression grim as they staged a last-minute evacuation.
Willow had not been bluffing. Consultation with security and surveillance indicated that the house he'd become rather fond of was in the process of being descended on by teams of goons with government IDs and permission to break any and all laws they could think of. The woman was connected in ways her brother was not.
She was dangerous, too, in ways her brother was not. Angelo felt his cock stirring, not out of physical attraction, but out of twisted respect for the Lady Spencer and her machinations, which were clearly not over. If she had intended on being rescued and seeing him captured, she would not have mentioned the special forces.
She was toying with him, pulling strings even he could not see. It was the first time in a very long time Angelo had felt even remotely close to being in danger of being bested. He liked the way it felt. There was real danger. Real consequences. Traps littered every path and choice he might make. He would have to be careful. The kind of careful which would paralyze a weaker man, yet made Angelo feel ever more alive.
He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her pretty, enigmatic eyes gazing back at him. There it was again, that attraction which would not be sated by mere sex. Someone was going to be conquered. Someone was going to be not just broken but absolutely shattered.
Next to him, Bobby was glowering with barely restrained fury. When they quit a residence, they left nothing behind. Or rather, they left everything behind in a controlled incineration. That meant all the possessions they'd built up over the last few months that could not be fitted in the trunk of the car or on their person, were at that very moment, burning.
Angelo glanced over at Bobby and flickered a reassuring wink at him. They had been through this before. They would go through it again, in all likelihood.
Their three captives were cable-tied ankle and foot in the back seat. They'd also been gagged because Angelo did not want to allow any communication between the three of them. He and Bobby were outnumbered, and that was an undesirable situation for a whole host of reasons.
Even gagged, their respective personalities still shone through. Willow was commendably calm. Gemma would not stop giggling for some reason best known to herself. Nerves, probably. Only Digby was silent and sullen, having the best understanding of what might become of them all.
The reserve location was three hours away by car, but it would take more than four because of the necessity of losing satellite tracking. This was achieved by driving into a private warehouse, changing cars, and leaving amid a fleet of twenty waiting vehicles.
"You spent some real money on this," Bobby noted.
"No dollar spent on security is a dollar wasted," Angelo smiled as they eased out of the warehouse, six cars back from the front.
Other than that, they were quiet. Speaking in front of the captives only served to give them information to leverage.
A remote farmhouse was their final destination, one of more than a dozen backup homes Angelo had purchased through various holding companies and financial institutions. He liked houses at a distance from other dwellings. It made it much more obvious when someone tried to sneak upon him. Like a fake electrician who may as well have put a false mustache on for how believable her cover had been.
He found the ineptitude as suspicious as anything else. Willow's happening to be right behind Gemma was dubious too, as was the casual information about the armed teams. It was all far too convenient. But it was also rather amusing. To a man like Angelo, whose life was made up of layers of games upon games, finding himself confronted with two new players both trying to dupe him was something of a pleasant distraction.
Angelo drove past the house, elegant as it was with all its old-world charm, and pulled around inside the barn. It was a large red structure, weathered and shoddy from the outside. On the inside, however, it had been thoroughly rebuilt and insulated. It also contained several cells in place of stalls.
"Human stables," Bobby smirked. "Nice."
"Glad you approve, boy. I doubt their inhabitants will. Let's get them out of the car."
Digby accepted his prison cell with resignation. Willow maintained her elegance as she was escorted in, even though she was obviously appalled. Gemma, on the other hand, put up a fight. A screaming, crying, wailing, flailing fight.
"Enough," Bobby growled, gripping her curls, wrapping one arm around her waist, and hauling her off her feet.
"NO! LET ME GO! STOP! Aiiiegghhh!"
The sounds coming out of her mouth were those which might emerge from a feral kitten being scruffed. To her credit, she managed to wedge her hands and feet against the iron bars and actually push back with enough strength to keep from going inside.