Under Pressure (Body Armor #1)(98)

“I’m glad you’re finally coming to your senses.” His voice dropped. “You realize there’s nowhere you could have gone. That’s why you’re here now?”

Again Sahara nodded.

“And a show of deference? Of meekness?” The senator narrowed his eyes. “I suppose better late than never.”

When the guard smirked, Leese wanted to destroy him.

These were the people terrorizing Cat, chasing her, threatening her. He could gladly kill them with his bare hands. Having to hide, hearing Platt berate her, it took a herculean amount of effort to stick to the plan and wait.

“You and I will come to an agreement,” Platt promised without an ounce of sincerity. “But only if you go home tonight. Do you understand me?”

Hidden, Leese watched as Sahara ducked her head as if cowed. She didn’t face the senator, didn’t speak.

“Answer me, damn you!”

That tone pushed Sahara a little too far. Her shoulders slowly drew back and a new crispness entered her tone. “Will you promise not to hurt me?”

The senator was apparently too lost in his own power trip to realize it wasn’t Cat. “I won’t promise you anything.” Breathing harder, he demanded, “Be at Webb’s, tomorrow, one o’clock. That’s your last chance. Now do you understand me?”

Sahara sighed with frustration. “Not really, no. Care to spell it out?”

After a lengthy pause filled with electric rage, Platt muttered, “You’ve wasted enough of my time.” The door opened, and he said to the guard in the room, “Take care of her.”

Leese stiffened. Son of a bitch. That could mean anything from actually “help her” to “kill her.” He’d bet on the latter.

More than ready, Leese moved out of the shadows, inching up behind the man.

The guard was so bent on following orders, he never realized, even after getting face-to-face with her, that Sahara wasn’t Catalina.

The idiot reached for her, and Leese locked an arm around his neck in a rear naked choke, squeezing to cut off the blood flow from the guard’s heart to his brain.

It was an effective way for Leese to immobilize the bastard. It was a very different matter than the way Enoch had been choked, and worked as a temporary means for Leese to quietly get the upper hand.

While Leese tightened his hold, Sahara took advantage and nutted the guard, hard. A squeaky sound of pain escaped him before he passed out, going limp in Leese’s hold.

“Well,” Leese muttered, “that ought to teach him.”

Seething, Sahara said, “We need the senator to come back. Maybe if you hold the guard—”

“Fine by me,” Leese said, lowering the big man to the floor and relieving him of his weapons. “But I want Catalina out of here.”

“Justice can get her.” She withdrew the phone from her purse, gave Justice instructions and then knelt by Leese. “He’ll take her to one of the upstairs offices and stay with her behind a locked door.”

“No sign of Tesh?” Leese asked as he fastened the guard’s hands and feet with the nylon restraints he’d brought along in his suit pocket.

“He said not.”

Justice opened the door, looking a little confused. “You get her already?”

Sahara asked, “Who?”

A drumming of dread brought Leese upright.

“Cat,” Justice said, looking around and then drawing a breath of alarm. “Fuck. She’s not in the room.”

Leese strode across the floor. “She has to be. You checked the bathroom—”

“Yeah.” Justice followed on Leese’s heels. “The door was unlocked and open, and she’s not there.”

Running now, Leese surged up to the open bathroom door, and like a knife to the heart, he saw Cat’s discarded shoes, not set neatly on the floor, but flung, as if she’d been kicking.

“Listen to me,” Sahara said from behind him. “It’s going to be okay.”

But even Sahara didn’t sound convinced.

“We’ll find her, I promise. But first—”

“How?” Leese demanded. For him, there was no other first. He looked toward the boardroom where he’d cuffed the guard, and his eyes narrowed. If necessary, he’d beat the bastard to death to get the answers he needed. He started forward.

Sahara got in his way. “We have to talk to the guard. Talk, Leese. If it was Tesh—”

“You know it was.” Leese easily lifted her and set her aside.

Justice, ever protective of his boss, said, “Umm,” his loyalties divided.

Leese got two steps closer to the boardroom before Sahara was in front of him again, and this time she had that pissed-off look he recognized as gritty determination.

She grabbed him by the lapels and hissed, “You will listen to me if you want to get Catalina back.”

Hell, yes, he wanted her back. “Then tell me. Now.”

“I put a chip in her dress,” she said quickly, “just in case something like this happened. It’s why I didn’t ask her to change, to just pull on the coat. We can track her using GPS.”

Leese drew a breath. He could still reach her. “We have to hurry.”

“I agree. But for Catalina’s sake, we need to know what we’re up against.” She turned to Justice. “Grab the guard. Drag him somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t care. Find out from him how Tesh got in, who he has with him and where he might be going. Then let me know. I’m going with Leese.”