Screaming girls. A popping sound to his left. He had pushed a young woman out of the way before what felt like five hundred pounds fell on top of him. He fought against the three or four men pounding on him till he couldn’t move anymore.
Someone turned him over. A fist landed a punch on his jaw. Another.
Amber pulled on her shoes, her mind racing a hundred miles an hour. She must keep calm. She had never felt so afraid for someone in her whole life. Shemustkeep calm. Hawk had been compromised somehow, and not by Thomas, at least not from what Brad told her.
She snatched from the bed the black lycra hood that she used to cover her head and face and stuffed it into the little tool bag attached to her utility belt. Her mind quickly went through the list of things she might have forgotten. There wasn’t any time to double-check.
When he’d called, Brad had been on the way to the department from his house. She could hear his attached emergency siren in the background while he gave her a rundown of the night’s events. Apparently Thomas and his friend had been already there and they had seen Hawk milling around, talking to some people. They had moved around for an hour or two, secretly photographing the place, taking notes. Hawk had been heading in their direction when someone tapped him on the shoulder and he had changed course.
From that point on, Thomas wasn’t sure what actually happened. Dilaver had been there. At least, he thought he was, based on the photographs Brad had provided. Hawk was at some big table and then hell broke loose. All of a sudden, a bunch of men started rushing at Hawk with weapons.
“It didn’t seem like they wanted to kill him, if that’s any comfort,” Brad had said.
No, that wasn’t much of a comfort. She glanced at her clock on the way out. Time was of the essence.
Brad was taking his men to thekafena.A raid. That was all he could do. But Thomas had reported that Hawk had been dragged out the back door and taken somewhere. So raiding the brothel wasn’t going to save Hawk.
“Thomas said Hawk fought like no one he’d ever seen. Took down a whole bunch of them with his bare hands. But the girls and customers around impeded his ability to escape or use some other means of saving himself. Where could they have taken him?”
“To Dilaver’s compound just at the edge of town,” Amber had replied grimly. “Can you send a force there?”
“Are you sure? Thomas said they went out the back way. Is there another building behind there that he could use to interrogate Hawk?”
There was, but Amber didn’t think Dilaver would take Hawk there. “It’s possible,” she had said, “but I just have a feeling Dilaver would choose his compound. I could be wrong.”
“I’m going to that building behind thekafena,since it’s in town and closest to us. It’s the most likely place, anyway. It’ll look like a standard raid in the reports. If I can’t find him there, I’ll direct a group of my men to the compound, but Amber, it’s going to take time, with all of Dilaver’s guards. Be patient, okay?”
That was why she was going off to the compound. Dilaver needed time to interrogate Hawk and his heavily guarded place would give him a lot more security. She knew she couldn’t tell Brad what her plans were. Besides, if he went there and engaged Dilaver in a firefight, Hawk might be used as a hostage, or worse, be killed off. She felt sick to her stomach at the thought.
“All right,” she had lied.
“I’ll call you.”
“Be careful.”
She had called Lily, but there was no answer. Left a quick message about her plans. No time to wait for her anyway. She had to save Hawk somehow.
“Stay alive, Hot Stuff,” she muttered, backing the car out of the driveway, tires squealing.
Coming to consciousness after being beaten up was a very nasty experience. Hawk felt like a train had run over him. The back of his head throbbed violently and he swallowed the nausea rising in his throat.
Eyes closed, he assessed his situation. Sitting slumped over in the most uncomfortable way. Hands and feet secured tightly. He heard the familiar rumbling of a car. Okay, they were taking him somewhere. Back to the compound, he guessed.
He had escaped death many times before, but he was aware that he might not be so lucky this time. He had been outnumbered back there. The blows to his body and face took their toll after a while, and something had come down hard on his head during the fight.
That was the last thing Hawk remembered. He didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t worried about a concussion. There were worse things coming up in his immediate future. Right now, lying here inside Dilaver’s vehicle, he could buy a little bit of time by pretending to still be out of it. Not that any good ideas were floating in his addled brain at the moment.
Death. Well, that was one thing he could deal with. The part between now and his demise was what he was worried about. Dilaver would want to extract information from him in the most painful ways available and Hawk didn’t need his imagination. He had seen some of the thug’s methods with his very own eyes.
Hell, the Slav cut off fingers from a whole gang just to make a point. Hawk flexed his own. Fuck. He hoped he wouldn’t die before sticking the middle one in the air at Dilaver. If it was still attached to him by that time.
He wasn’t going to think about death. That felt like giving up already and that wasn’t how he had been trained. As long as he was breathing, there was always a chance. The sound of his name penetrated the fuzzy haze of his thoughts and he struggled to concentrate on the conversation in the vehicle. To his surprise, it was in English, not Serbian.
“Are you sure, Aunt Greta? He’s been a good friend.”
“Of course I’m sure.” That was the voice belonging to the woman at the table. She sounded very American. “There was a Steve McMillan in the States who came in and out of the office I was in who looked like this man. Unmistakable—tall, dark, good-looking, just like him. Same last name, Dragan. Coincidence?”
“No.”
