“Too much,” she said, voice shaky. “Someone kidnapped Gia?”
“Maybe.” Looks that way. “We don’t know exactly what’s happening yet. But we’re going to find out.” He caught her hand in his. Threaded his fingers with hers and turned for the door. He kept his hold on her as they hurried down the hallway, then toward Harrison’s office.
When they entered, Harrison spun around. He seemed pale. Nervous.
His attention immediately focused on Evie. His gaze swept over her, then…stopped at Evie and Cole’s joined hands.
“Yes, deal with that shit,” Cole told him flatly. “We’ve got other issues right now—”
Harrison’s phone rang.
He ignored it. “What issues?”
“Who is on the phone?”
“What?”
The phone was still ringing. Harrison was still not answering it.
“Who is on the phone?” Cole asked again. “Look at it. Now.”
Harrison scooped it off his desk. “Unknown number. Probably some damn telemarketer.”
“Answer it.”
Harrison’s expression clearly said he thought Cole had lost his mind, but he answered the phone. His finger swiped across the screen, and he lifted the device to his ear. “Yes, hello—”
He stopped. His eyes widened.
Aw, hell.
“Who is this?” Harrison demanded.
Cole surged toward him. “Put it on speaker.”
Harrison nodded quickly and put the call on speaker.
“We have Gia Eastman.”
“Why?” Harrison asked. His face showed his confusion and shock. “Why the hell would you take her?”
“Because we could. Want her back? Then you’ll have to pay.”
Cole heard Evie suck in a sharp breath.
Shit. It was looking like his suspicions from a few moments before might have been right. The kidnappers hadn’t been able to get Evie, so they’d taken the next person who was closest to Harrison. The woman who’d once told her friends she was going to marry him.
“What do you want?” Harrison’s voice was low.
“You.”
“What?”
“Want her to live? Then you’ll pay us what we want. And we want you. Trade yourself for her or Gia Eastman dies.”
Chapter Thirteen
Or…desperate times mean I kick some ass.
“Are they going to kill Gia?” Evie turned as soon as the door closed behind Cole. They’d gone back to her place, and she hadn’t been particularly surprised to see the two Wilde agents at her building. One stationed outside, and one on her floor.
The Wilde team seemed to be everywhere.
“She’s not going to die.” Cole reset her security system. “We’re going to get her back.”
Because even though her brother had tried to fire Cole that morning, he’d also turned around and begged him to help before they’d left his penthouse.
Harrison had staggered after he’d gotten that phone call.
Trade yourself for her or Gia Eastman dies.
After dropping that chilling demand, the caller had then said he’d be contacting Harrison that night. Told Harrison to be ready.
The call had disconnected.
Harrison had asked Cole to get her back. He’d pleaded with Cole to use his connections and return Gia safely.
So now Wilde was on that case, too. Except it wasn’t really a different case, was it? More like the same one. Only the kidnappers had turned their attention away from Evie and focused on Gia.
“Will you be able to get her back?” Evie asked softly.
“Wilde will get her back. I’ve got my buddy James running point. He has connections in this city you wouldn’t believe. We will find her.”
Evie nodded. Then headed into her bedroom. Dropped her bag. Put her phone on the nightstand. She took a moment to suck in a few deep breaths as she tried to steady herself. The attempt wasn’t exactly successful. Evie hurried back into the den, and Cole glanced up at her approach.
Her arms wrapped around her stomach. “I feel helpless.”
“Baby…”
“I want to do something. What can I do?”
He strode toward her. Looked as if he wanted to touch her, but he didn’t. “You can stay safe, that’s what you can do. We’re going to find her, and when we do, we’ll catch the bastards who took her, too.”
“We thought she was a suspect.” Shame burned inside of her.
“I thought that, you didn’t.”
Evie looked away. “No, I thought it, too. When I saw her last night in the bathroom, she was just so angry with me. I suspected her, too.”
“Wait, she talked to you last night?”
“Well, yes, we were in the ladies’ room together.” She shrugged. “Women talk in there. It’s a thing.”
“Evie, what did she say?”
“Just, um, she was surprised that Harrison had let you within five feet of me.”
“What?”
“That’s what she said. That she was surprised Harrison had let you near me.”
His eyes widened. “She knew I was a bodyguard. She knew exactly who I was.”
“I don’t think so.” Evie shook her head. “It was more like she was saying she was surprised Harrison was letting any guy get close to me." But maybe Evie was wrong. Maybe Gia had known who Cole really was.
Cole didn’t speak.
“She also told me to give Harrison a message.” Which she hadn’t done because considering the current situation, the timing had just been way, way not right. “She said he’d been avoiding her. Asked me if I knew why. When I told her no, Gia said there had been a mistake. That everyone made mistakes. Even Harrison.”
“Yeah, your brother makes plenty of those. So the fuck do I.”
Evie wet her lips. “She told me to remind him that everyone makes mistakes. I didn’t tell him, though, because he was hurting enough as it was. I saw the pain in his eyes. He was wrecked because she’d been taken.” No matter what was happening between them, Evie hated his pain. “I think he might still love her.”
“Guess this is the test for that, isn’t it? The ultimate test. If he loves Gia, he trades his life for hers. If he doesn’t, then the kidnappers get nothing.”
Evie felt an ache in her heart. “That’s not the way it should work. In order to prove that you care about someone, you shouldn’t have to risk your life.” She paced a few feet and turned away as she swallowed down the lump in her throat. “That’s not a price anyone should ever have to pay.”
“No, it’s not.” His voice was low and rough. “But it’s a price I’d pay for you in an instant.”
She whirled back toward him. “Don’t say that.” Anger churned through her, sharp and hot. “Don’t put something like that out there in the universe! Do not ever say—”
“What, Evie?” Cole cut through her words as he walked toward her.
She instinctively backed up, but, dammit, there was a wall behind her. Nowhere for her to go. Not that she was running. She wasn’t running.
“What don’t you want me to say? Is it that you don’t want me to say that I’d trade my life for yours, if you were the one who had been taken?”