Did she?
Did Colleen have a boyfriend?
Tristan was definitely something. They’d definitely somethinged a whole heck of a lot since they’d met eight days before. They’d somethinged more than she’d ever somethinged before in her life.
With better results, too.
And then Tristan had called himself the man who loved her, but they’d both agreed that it was just an excellent comeback when her father was being a jerk.
But Tristan wrapped himself around her at night like a protective cocoon, and he’d written the Anonymity Plus program just for her, and he’d bought her a cup of coffee exactly the way she liked it every morning.
As Eian Summerhays crushed Colleen against his chest, she said, “I mean, I think he’s my boyfriend.”
Eian held her around the waist and shoved his hand between them. Two crisp clicks tugged at her harness near her belly button and sternum, and Eian waltzed her backward so that a rope swung right beside her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He reached around her, grabbing the rope and hooking it to both of their harnesses in several places, and then he hitched a device with two handles to the rope above their heads.
“What the hell!” she yelled.
Eian grinned down at her, his smile and teeth visible below his NVGs. “Hang on to my waist.”
With a yank on her harness at her chest, waist, and under her seat, Colleen zipped into the air, tethered to Eian the mercenary and the rope.
Floors of the hotel careened past.
Colleen grabbed Eian’s torso with both arms and both legs and clung to him because her soul was trying to leave her body.
She screamed with her teeth clenched together and her lips clamped shut, so her own scream echoed in her ears and nose as they were sucked up the rope to the top.
Eian said, “Lift your feet,” and they sailed over the parapet and onto the balcony.
The ropes were not secured by a grappling hook on the rail but to a support jammed between the roof and the deck.
Eian landed on his feet.
Colleen clung to him like a frightened squid, her fingers cramping from holding onto fistfuls of the black fabric he wore.
The male body she was vining around as hard as she could, with her arms and legs clamped around him rather than plummet to the boulders and cacti below, was stonelike firm and whipcord strong.
Not that she noticed.
Well, of course she noticed. That muscular beefcake was the only thing available for her to hold on to while she’d flown through the air and nearly plummeted to her death, so she’d plastered herself to him with every last bit of strength she had.
But Colleen had a boyfriend.
Maybe.
They should get that sorted out.
Eian shout-whispered, “Get off. Get off! We aren’t secure yet.”
Colleen pried her fingers off the fabric and tried to swallow the horrified squeals in her throat.
Her body was hanging from the two places their harnesses were latched together.
Eian unclipped them.
Colleen fell on her butt on the balcony.
She swiveled and scrambled to her feet. “Where’s Anjali?”
Eian said, “Front room is clear.” He led her inside, both of them stepping gingerly on the slippery gravel of the broken glass on the floor.
“Where is she?” Colleen scanned the living room of the suite.
Four Russian men who were clearly not as athletic as the commandos she’d come in with were lying facedown on the carpeting, their fingers interlaced behind their heads.
Tendrils of blue smoke drifted through the air. The noxious vapors stung Colleen’s nose and were bitter in the back of her throat.
“Where is she?” Colleen asked Eian.
Eian said, “Bedroom is secure. The female target is unaccounted for.”
“Unaccounted for? What the hell does that mean? What do you mean Anjali is unaccounted for?”
39
Looking for Anjali
Colleen
Colleen sprinted through the shattered sliding glass doors and into the presidential suite, running between the Rogue Security commandos who stood with their short rifles pointing at the heads of the men lying on the ground. She slid on the broken glass like skidding over marbles but recovered.
In the front room, the only people were the defeated Russians and the Rogue Security personnel training their guns on them. Colleen ducked around furniture as she hunted for her friend, trying to figure out if Anjali had taken cover when the floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows had exploded into the room and was still hiding.
Unaccounted for.
But even as Colleen scrambled around the room, she knew that Anjali wasn’t in there. The shapes were wrong. There was no place for Anjali to hide, even curled up. Anjali was a tall girl. Colleen yanked open the closets and grabbed at the hotel robes and garment bags hanging there, wrenching them off the hangers and chucking them onto the ground as she called her friend’s name.
She ducked to peer under the dining room table, but there was a single pedestal underneath and nothing to hide behind.
In the kitchen, Colleen searched the cabinets and even opened the refrigerator, but nothing.
Nothing.
Colleen screamed her name, “Anjali!” as she ran into an unoccupied bedroom. She dropped to her knees and looked under the bed, but the box springs was placed on a wooden pedestal that wouldn’t have allowed someone to crawl under the space.
The closets were empty.
She shoved the shower curtain aside in the bathroom, but no one was hiding in the dry tub.
“Anjali!”
She barreled into the primary bedroom where, again, Rogue Security personnel were standing over men wearing cheap suits and cowering on the floor. Some of the commandos had begun tying the hands of the Russian bratva’s goons behind their back with plastic handcuffs that looked like six-pack rings.
Jian was sitting up on the bed, rubbing his wrist while a redheaded Rogue Security guy flashed a penlight in his eyes.
“Where’s Anjali?”
40
Watching
Tristan
Tristan was gripping his knees, trying to hold himself in place as he watched the computer screens where Colleen started walking.
The Rogue Security mercenaries were tying up the last remaining Russian bratva kidnappers, but one swiped an arm at Colleen’s foot as she flitted by.
Watching her narrowly evade danger roiled Tristan’s stomach.
While the mercenaries seemed to be looking out for her, their primary objective was to strike quickly and rescue the hostages.
One of the mercenaries had already cut Jian free. He was sitting on the bed, rubbing his wrists, when Colleen dashed in and spoke to him.
Anjali wasn’t in the bedroom with him.
Thinking back, he wasn’t sure he’d heard Anjali’s voice over Jian’s hijacked phone for the past several hours.
Oh, no.
If anything had happened to Anjali, Colleen was going to fall apart.
Tristan was running before he knew he’d made the decision.
The field where Rogue Security had set up their base of operations was near the back side of the resort where there were many more fields and much less reflected light.