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When he’d set out to seduce her into both his cause and his bed, he’d been all sweet words and charm. But from the very night he’d first had her, he’d lost interest. She felt like a discarded plaything, and he hadn’t bothered to try and make it any easier on her. In fact, he’d become intentionally vicious, teasing her about giving her to his men, telling her that she hadn’t satisfied him, that he shouldn’t have wasted his time on a virgin.
She’d been a fool to ever have believed he cared about her. She’d been so stupid about so many things.
“I can’t do this,” she said, shaking her head, looking across the room to where a dozen other Committee members were laughing and drinking toasts to their plan. Perhaps she was being even more foolish to defy him, but she couldn’t continue on this way. She had to escape this life before it caused her to lose more than her virginity. “You can find someone else. Someone who would be better at seducing Blackstone. You told me yourself that I’m lacking in that area. And perhaps I’m no longer a virgin, but I’m also not the kind of woman who would seduce a man just to get some information.”
What he’d originally asked—that she cozy up to the man and pretend to be a victim herself—had been bad enough. But this... Now he wanted her to prostitute herself for his cause. His threats terrified her, but she did have a little pride left, a few morals that he hadn’t destroyed.
He suddenly grabbed a hank of her dark hair, twisting it around his wrist until she felt as though he were going to pull it out by the roots. “You little bitch,” he hissed, dragging her out of the main room and toward the stairs that led to the dank, cavernous cellar. “Do you think I give a fuck what you want?”
She stumbled to keep up just so that he wouldn’t literally scalp her, but her terror intensified when he started shoving her down the stairs that led to the storage room where some of the men slept when they were hiding out. She was pretty sure that was where they meant to imprison Blackstone.
“Please, Jacob,” she begged, trying to appeal to some shred of goodness in him. “Please, don’t do this.”
He stopped in front of the thick, oak door at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re lucky I’m giving you this opportunity to redeem yourself, Heather. The rest of the boys think I should get rid of you.”
Opening the door, he shoved her inside, finally releasing her hair as she fell in a heap on the dirt floor. The room was deep and dark, a windowless cell with several cots, a table with two chairs, and a chamber pot behind a screen in the corner.
“If you tell him anything, anything at all, about our organization, I’ll kill you both,” he told her coldly. Then he shut the door, trapping her in the darkness.
* * *
MANDRAKE BLACKSTONEstepped out of the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, better known as Scotland Yard, and pulled his coat up around his ears as an icy blast of wintry air hit him. Spring seemed to be taking forever to arrive this year, but perhaps that had more to do with his mood than the actual weather.
With a sigh, he looked around for his carriage, surprised his driver hadn’t already arrived. Drake was nothing if not punctual, and he expected those who worked for him to be the same. He thought longingly of the shiny red motorcar his friend Lucien Strathmore, the Earl of Hawkesmere, owned. Perhaps he should get one of his own. He couldn’t imagine the freedom of being able to drive oneself at the precise moment one wanted to leave, instead of waiting endlessly for others.
Muttering under his breath, he turned around to head back inside, intending to phone home and demand to know why there’d been a delay. Before he’d taken more than a few steps, however, his carriage finally arrived, his coachman huddled on the box, covered head to toe to keep out the cold.
“You’re late,” Drake snapped, reaching for the door.
He’d swung halfway inside before he realized it was already occupied. Two hulking forms waited ominously in the dark interior. Confused and alarmed, wondering if he’d gotten into the wrong carriage, he tried to step back down, but the men inside lunged toward him, looping their arms around his shoulders and dragging him fully into the vehicle.
He sprawled across the coach floor as one of the men sat squarely on his back, knocking the breath out of him. The other wrenched his arms behind him, tying his wrists together. Before he could cry out, they shoved an acrid-smelling piece of cloth into his mouth.
The whole incident had lasted only a few seconds, but as the coach rocked into motion, he realized that he, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was being kidnapped from in front of Scotland Yard. How the hell could this be happening?
He stopped fighting, knowing that for the moment at least, he was well and truly caught. Whoever was behind this had planned it well, giving him no chance to fight back or raise an alarm. But a time would come when he had an opportunity to escape, and he had to be ready for it.
Taking a few deep breaths through his nose, he tried to focus his mind, clear the panic, and figure out who the hell had taken him.
He hated that his first thoughts went to his brother.
Mortimer, Viscount Danbury, definitely had the resources to hire someone to do this. And it was in his nature to take the coward’s way out of every situation. Had he found out that Drake was investigating him? Would this carriage ride end with a bullet to Drake’s head so that he could never expose Danbury for the murderous bastard he was?
The mere thought made him wild with impotent rage. Inspector Sebastian Ness and retired Inspector Quinn O’Brien also knew of his brother’s foul deeds, and he knew they’d do their best to bring Danbury to justice, but without him, they wouldn’t have a chance. Even from his lofty position, it was proving to be incredibly difficult to bring a case against a peer.
Truth be told, he still wasn’t certain he could find a magistrate to sign off on a warrant. So much rested on which one was assigned to the case. Some were more easily influenced by a title than others. But either way, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
Of course, there was always the possibility that Danbury had nothing to do with this. God knows Drake had plenty of other enemies out there. The men he could hear breathing heavily above him could belong to any of a dozen organizations who’d like to see him dead.
Craning his head, he tried to see the men who’d so handily immobilized him, but they’d planned well. The window shades inside the carriage had been pulled shut, so when he’d entered it had been too dark to make out the men’s features. They’d immediately planted him face-first on the floor, tying his hands and feet. Their positions on the seats above him made it impossible to see their faces, and the foot planted squarely in the small of his back kept him from moving.
Since there seemed to be no way to see them or escape, he tried to focus on figuring out where the carriage was headed. He was pretty sure they were still heading east, but it was impossible to say for certain. The driver, who was obviously not his man Edgar, could have made a turn while he was still struggling and not paying attention. He hoped that they hadn’t harmed Edgar when they’d stolen his coach but feared the worst.
If only they hadn’t gagged him. These men seemed to be hired thugs, and men like that were susceptible to bribes or leaking information. Drake had always been very good at using his quick wit and silver tongue to find out what he needed to know. So if he could just talk to them, ask some questions...
A huge pothole made his face leave the floor then slam against it again, and the men above him laughed uproariously.
Cheek stinging and ear ringing, he ignored them. He couldn’t let bastards like these—nor his brother, for that matter—get the best of him.
