It was wide open, and a woman was speaking. Not Jenny. An older woman with an aristocratic English accent. Measured, controlled and icy with contempt.
“You’re coming with me, my dear. Now! If you believe I’ll allow my grandchild to be born here, then you’re even sillier than I think you are.”
Michael frowned. There was real venom behind the words.
“I’m not coming with you, Gloria.” That was Jenny. Her breathing was too fast, and it was all he could do not to rush in. “You can take your thugs and leave. I’m staying right here.”
Thugs!
Wait… Force yourself to wait, he told himself harshly. Rushing could do more harm than good.
The thugs wouldn’t be doing any physical harm, he figured, his thoughts racing. If it was Gloria, she wouldn’t allow Jenny to be hurt-not while Jenny was carrying the baby she wanted so much. Somehow Michael forced himself to keep still, straining all the time to hear.
“You’re not staying here.” Gloria’s voice lowered, became silky smooth. Michael slid silently along the wall until he was beside the doorway. He could hear but not see. Thugs, Jenny had said. How many? “It’s time this nonsense was over. I have a plane waiting to leave. The immigration people were ready to escort you there for me, and then you had to be so foolish as to take such drastic measures to avoid them. You might have known it wouldn’t work. What did you pay to have someone marry you?”
“I didn’t pay Michael. He wanted-”
“Of course you had to pay. No one would want you like this.” The woman’s voice was disdainful. “Look at you. This place is a disgrace, you’re fat and unattractive, and your breeding’s appalling. What my son saw in you-”
“Peter wanted me.”
That stopped her for a moment. “Oh, yes,” Gloria said at last, her voice an angry hiss. “My esteemed son. He wanted you. For about five minutes. You know very well the only reason he married you was that you were so low-class he knew it would upset me. You were a grubby bit of boyish rebellion, nothing more.”
“Get out,” Jenny whispered, and Michael could hear fear mixed with her anger. “Get out now, this minute, or I’ll call the police.”
“You just try it, my dear.” There was a pause, then Jenny’s breath rasped inward, as if something dreadful had been placed before her. “This is for you, my sweet daughter-in-law. We need to be sure you come quietly. Unless you agree to accompany me like the meek, quiet mother of my son’s heir.”
“No.”
“But yes, my dear.”
He’d heard enough. Michael spun into the doorway and faced them.
There were two thugs, men built like stud bulls. They were dressed in immaculate suits, but the image of civility stopped right there. They looked like bouncers at some seedy nightclub, and he thought he recognized one of them from his days on the force. They were thick-necked and heavy-jowled, and seemed to have been squeezed into their suits. With one glance Michael understood Jenny’s fear. One of the men had a syringe, and he was holding it toward Jenny like a gun.
What the hell? Michael’s mind raced. He’d seen syringes in his time, held by drug addicts and wielded like weapons. This one was different, though. These people wanted Jenny’s baby. At worst the syringe would contain an anesthetic and, unless Gloria was a complete fool, it wouldn’t be harmful to an unborn child. Or its mother.
There was no sign of any gun, and why should there be? They wouldn’t need one. Two large men and one woman against a very pregnant Jenny? What were the odds?
Jenny would be no match at all.
Nor was there any guarantee Michael could do better, he thought grimly. He wasn’t carrying his gun. He was fit and well trained, but he wasn’t as tall or as heavy as either of these guys. He moved into the room and stepped aside, leaving the doorway clear. Then he stood still, loose-limbed and watchful.
Unnecessary violence wasn’t his style. Besides which, there was a really good chance he could lose. What he needed here was logic.
“That’s enough,” he said flatly. “You’re scaring the lady, and she’d like you to leave.” His voice was soft, with just the faintest undertone of menace. “Now.”
“Who-” He’d caught them by surprise. Gloria wheeled to face him. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jenny’s husband,” Michael told her. “I’m asking you to go.”
There was a long, drawn-out moment of absolute silence in which it seemed the whole world stood still. Jenny’s face was drained of all color. She’d backed away from the men and stood with her hands behind her to hold the table, as though she had need of its support.
Her eyes had flickered once to Michael as he entered, but her gaze returned to the first thug’s hand. They were fixed on the syringe.
She wouldn’t be thinking the way he was, Michael knew. She’d be terrified of the syringe for her baby’s sake.
But the threat was fading. The guy wielding the syringe hadn’t moved. He was the one Michael had recognized, and there was a trace of uncertainty in his eyes.
“Bruno,” Michael said. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Bruno’s hand dropped to his side. “He’s a cop,” he said into the stillness. “I know him.” It obviously made a difference. Bruno would do a lot for money, Michael thought grimly, but violence-kidnapping and assault-in front of cops was out of his league. Michael had arrested him in a drug bust years back. Just as well Bruno didn’t know he had left the force.
Bruno’s eyes were on Gloria, and Gloria was obviously thinking fast. The lady was diminutive and beautifully groomed, dressed in an immaculate soft gray suit that must have set the estate back thousands. Her dark hair was perfectly coiffed, her eyebrows penciled into lines of permanent astonishment, and her pearls looked to be worth a king’s ransom.
She had the appearance of a woman in charge of her world.
She wasn’t in charge now. Michael could see a whole gamut of emotions race across her features as her sharp, intelligent eyes summed him up. She cast a quick glance at Bruno and saw his uncertainty. It added to her own.
He saw her other henchman’s muscles tense and involuntarily tensed his own. He had to deflect the violence fast. Michael was superbly muscled and trained to use his body to good effect, but there were two against one here, and he was no Superman.
“Yeah, I’m a cop, and I wouldn’t do anything stupid,” he said into the silence. “It’s not worth it. It will achieve nothing and get you into so much trouble your heads will spin. All the money in the world won’t get you out of it.”
And then he waited.
While Gloria thought.
What were her options? he asked himself, his eyes not leaving her face. Keep going? Make her men bash him-if they would-and take Jenny by force?
“Even if you hurt me,” he said pleasantly, “I have a large extended family who will move to protect Jenny, plus the police force. She’s not alone. She has me-her husband-and she has in-laws and connections. If you succeed in taking Jenny out of the country, we’d invoke the full force of the law in having her and her baby returned. The Lords and the Maitlands are a powerful force in Austin. This is our territory, and you’re not welcome.”
Silence. The woman’s face contorted in fury.
“What are you being paid?” she demanded at last, her voice furious.
“I’m sorry?” Michael showed polite surprise, nothing more. His eyebrows arched as if he couldn’t make any sense of what he was hearing.
“What has the girl promised you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You won’t get any of it. The child stands to inherit, but the girl herself… She’s as poor as a churchmouse.”