It was quiet inside.
The television wasn’t on. There was no sound of water running from the bathroom and no sound of Raine collecting laundry in the bedroom.
“Raine?”
I was answered by complete silence.
The cold, debilitating fear that crept over me was like nothing I had ever experienced before. All the blood in my body felt as if it had dropped to my feet, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t take a step forward or backward, and I couldn’t utter a sound as my eyes took in my surroundings.
Raine’s textbook on Everglades conservation was on the floor, face down, with its pages creased against the carpet. There was a highlighter on the couch, cap off, and pressed against the back cushion as if it had rolled there. There was a paper beside it with a faint yellow streak across the margin.
They weren’t exactly signs of a struggle, but they were enough. It was plenty of evidence to leave me no doubt. She had been studying on the couch. No one had buzzed the condo or knocked on the door. If they had, she would have at least set her book down right-side up, not dropped it on the floor, and she would have capped the highlighter.
Someone had surprised her. She’d dropped everything she was holding. Now she was gone. She had been taken.
Arden.
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck! Is she dead? Did he fucking kill her?
“RAINE!” I screamed her name as I found the ability to move again. I knew she was gone, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking every little place in the condo, even the closets. Every time I put my hand on a door, I was sure I’d find her curled up in a ball with a bullet in her head.
I wasn’t here… I wasn’t here for her… When she fucking needed me, I wasn’t here…
I had promised to keep her safe. “I’ve got you,” I had told her. Now someone else had her, and I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. The possible scene unfolded in my head as I came back to the living room and looked at her scattered items, and my gut summersaulted. She had to have been so fucking scared, and I wasn’t here for her.
I’d failed her.
I didn’t even put my shoes on as I ran at full speed down the stairs to the parking garage. I jumped on the bike and topped one-twenty on the short trek to Landon’s hotel. Not giving a shit what happened to it, I dropped the bike on its side, keys still in the ignition, and ran inside to pound on the elevator button until it arrived.
The button to the fourteenth floor glowed passively at me as I mentally noted Landon was really only thirteen stories up. I rocked back and forth on my feet as adrenaline pumped through me, and as soon as the doors opened, I was running down the hall to his room.
The door was propped open by a little metal bar attached to the frame, and I didn’t think about what it might mean as I burst into the room where Landon sat at the round table just inside, sipping from a glass.
“They fucking took Raine!”
Landon just stared at me, his eyes filled with disappointment. I was expecting a bigger reaction out of him, considering fucking around like this was definitely something that could affect the outcome of the games.
Then I realized why he wasn’t surprised.
I also saw the gun in his hand.
It wasn’t pointed at me, but he was gripping it lightly in his right hand as he sipped from his glass with his left. He was so calm; my words had not surprised him in the least.
If Evan Arden or anyone in any of the organizations had taken Raine, he would have been pissed off. It fucked with the odds of the game when tournament players screwed with each other prior to the match, which influenced the odds of which player would win. It was the death match equivalent to counting cards and simply not tolerated. If Landon knew and wasn’t upset about it, then he also knew she wasn’t abducted by one of the other families.
There was only one other answer.
“You have her,” I said quietly.
He nodded, and I felt a trickle of cold sweat run down the back of my neck. I glanced toward the closed door to the bedroom of the suite.
“Is she here?”
“No.”
I looked back to him. His finger still rested on the trigger of the Glock in his hand, but he didn’t raise it. It was nothing more than an insurance policy in case I decided to be unreasonable.
“Why?” I asked.
“You pissed him off,” Landon said with a shrug. “You embarrassed him by not being able to control yourself in an official meeting.”
He leaned forward and pointed one of his fingers at me.
“Do you know how much he wanted you dead?” Landon asked.
“The other day or from the beginning?”
“Not in the beginning,” Landon said as he shook his head. “He loved you back then. You made him a shitload of money and never got yourself into too much trouble outside the tournaments. That bullshit with Jillian was the start, and then you turned on him in the worst possible way. Now he’s decided to give you another chance, and you fuck it up.”
Franks has Raine.
It occurred to me that in his hands, she might actually be worse off than in Arden’s.
Holy shit.
“I’ll apologize,” I said, barely able to form words in my tightened throat.
“I don’t think he’s interested in your apologies,” Landon said simply. “He wants your mind on the game. He wants to make sure you’re going to win and not let other shit get in your way.
“She’s not in the way.”
“She’s not now.” He continued to stare at me. It was a challenge and a warning. He wasn’t going to hesitate to shoot me if he needed to, but he also knew at this point that I wouldn’t make a move on him. Not when I didn’t even know where she was.
“I want to see her.” My words came out with a low growl.
“No.” Landon sat back in his chair and waited.
This was it. This was the impasse I couldn’t overcome. I could feel my heart pumping in my chest, and the start of the anger and fear inside of me threatened to block all my sensibilities. I took a step forward as I curled my hands into fists.
“If you touch me, you know what will happen.”
To emphasize his point, he laid the gun on the table and picked up his drink with his right hand. That action alone was enough for me to realize how fucking helpless I was when it came to him, Franks, and their conniving.
I’ll have to kill them both but not now.
“She’s alive?” I asked. I knew she was; I just needed to hear him say it.
“Very much so,” Landon said with a nod. “Sit down a minute, and let me tell you how things have changed.”
In the interest of keeping my head free of holes, I dropped my ass to the plush chair several feet away in the room. I lowered my head to my hands and attempted to breathe normally.
“Trying to keep tabs on her is a distraction,” he said. “I can’t let you have any distractions, so I removed that one from the equation. Franks’ ordering it just made it happen a little sooner than I had planned. Regardless, she’s perfectly safe—safer than she would be under your care—and actually providing a bit of a service to Franks himself.”
Service?
All the worst possibilities threatened to send me into a blinding rage.
“He…he’d better not...”
“No, no,” Landon said quickly as he realized how I had taken his words, “nothing like that. She’s doing a little babysitting, actually.”
Babysitting?