“Because we’re given detailed information on everyone we deal with.”
“Deal with? Is that your nice way of saying ‘kidnap’?”
So much for my flirting idea.
Dominic cleared his throat. “We’re given detailed information, and neither of you had any drug allergies listed.”
“Was Colin’s gluten allergy listed?” I asked sarcastically.
Colin looked up. “It’s not an actual allergy, and I don’t have celiac disease, to my knowledge. I just can’t eat it. Not since…”
“Tom?” I asked.
He nodded, looking down at the naked pizza crust on his plate. He’d eaten the toppings, as I’d suggested.
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press it. I guessed he’d probably had only stale bread or something like that to eat, and now it didn’t agree with him. Or maybe it was psychological. That was more likely.
Whatever it was, even the toppings didn’t agree with him.
Colin retched, turning his head. At least he hit the floor instead of the table.
Chapter Nine
Bryce
Dying.
Clearly, I was dying.
Tears poured from my eyes, and vision eluded me.
My sweet little son.
My mother.
Marjorie. Precious Marjorie.
I’d never see any of their faces again.
“Got you,” a gruff voice said.
I was moving now, lying down and moving. Still coughing, choking, gasping.
Joe? Where was Joe?
Somehow I’d always known we’d die together. It was no less than we deserved for unwillingly letting a friend die and keeping a dirty secret for my father.
I deserved this…
I deserved death…
“Pepper spray,” the blur in white said to me.
“Pepper spray?” I rasped out. But all that actually came out was a choking gasp.
“Don’t try to talk, Mr. Simpson,” the same voice said. “It’ll take another hour or so for the effects to wear off, but nothing will be permanent. Your vision and voice will be normal again.”
Pepper spray? That bastard attacked us with pepper spray?
Who the hell armed himself with three weapons and rigged his desk with streams of pepper spray? What other booby traps did he have hidden?
“Joe?” I said.
But it sounded like another gasp.
“Please,” the man said.
Was he a doctor? A nurse? I had no idea.
I didn’t care. Relief swept through me at the knowledge I’d recover. Pepper spray was considered innocuous. Didn’t feel very innocuous at the moment.
Talon had been tased once. I remembered him telling his brothers and me about it. He’d been immobile, frightened, nearly lost control of his bladder and bowels.
I hadn’t been tased, but I could relate. The sensation of not being able to breathe was something I didn’t want to experience again anytime soon.
“Mr. Steel is in the next room,” the person said. “He’s recovering as well.”
The bastard had gotten both of us. How many streams had he released? It probably didn’t matter. One was probably enough to incapacitate us both.
We’d disarmed him.
He’d bested us anyway.
Who the hell was Cade Booker?
An ex-FBI agent.
An attorney in Grand Junction.
A man who was into BDSM.
Interesting, to say the least, but none were reasons to be so heavily armed.
Joe knew him, had trusted him. I trusted Joe. But I’d seen something dark in Cade Booker, something Joe hadn’t seen. Maybe because everyone at a leather club exhibited a little darkness.
I tried to speak once more, but instead of words, gasps emerged.
“Rest, please, Mr. Simpson,” the white blur said once more. “I’ve given you a mild sedative. When you wake up, you’ll feel much better.”
I jolted awake.
Where was I?
Panic set in. I opened—
Shit! My eyes wouldn’t open. Damn it! They’d said my vision would return! Frantically I felt around for a call button. I found something at the side of the bed and pushed frantically.
Voices broke into my thoughts.
A television. I’d turned on a television. Quickly I moved my hand over the control, pressing every button. The voices became wretchedly loud.
Within seconds, I heard the door to the room open.
“Yes, Mr. Simpson?” said a female voice. She took the remote from me and turned off the TV.
“I can’t see. What’s going on?”
“Your eyes are swollen shut,” she said. “Here. Let me help you.”
A few seconds later, something cold and gelatinous soothed my eyes. Heaven.
“It’ll take about twenty-four hours for the swelling to go completely down. Right now they’re crusted shut. I’m cleaning them out for you. This will only take a minute.”
She could take forever, as far as I was concerned. The coolness on my eyes was nirvana.
“Okay. Try opening.”
I forced my eyes open into slits. Her face was fuzzy in front of me. “Still blurry,” I said.
“That’s from the tears and mucus. It’s your body healing the inflammation from the capsaicin. It will pass.”
I nodded. What else could I do? “Joe?” I said.
“Mr. Steel refused the sedative,” she said. “His wife is with him.”
Of course. They would have called Melanie. I had no one for them to call. Marjorie was missing, and my mother and son were in Florida. I had no emergency contact.
No one had come for me.
I was isolated. Alone.
Just like always.
Joe and I were crack shots. We also knew how to fight like pros. And fucking pepper spray had taken us down.
Whoever Cade Booker was, I would personally destroy him.
After I destroyed whoever had stolen Marjorie from me.
I had a sneaking suspicion they might be one and the same.
Chapter Ten
Marjorie
“Seriously?” Alex scoffed. “Now I have to clean up vomit?”
“Stop your whining,” Dave said. “I’ll do it. Isn’t that what I’m for, anyway? The grunt work?”
I touched Colin’s arm. “You going to be okay?”
“Of course I’m not okay, Marj. I’ve been kidnapped again. I’m not going to be okay.”
I nodded. What could I say? He was right.
“He needs something to soothe his stomach,” I said to Dominic. “Do you have any Pepto Bismol? Peppermint tea?”
“Do we look like an apothecary?” Alex said snidely.
“Sorry,” Dominic said. “We don’t have any of that stuff.”
“Yeah? What if one of us gets sick? Oh! Looks like that already happened.”
“He probably had a reaction to the drug.”
“No, he had a reaction to the fact that he was drugged and kidnapped for the second time in his young life.”
“We haven’t abused him.”
“You don’t think so? Drugging and kidnapping don’t constitute abuse to you?”