Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(99)
“No food,” Darya confirmed. “Even if I ate it, I’m not sure I’d keep it down.”
“Not me,” Gia said. “I’m a stress eater. The higher the anxiety, the bigger the caloric content.”
Knox’s voice cut through the headset. “Ruslan’s men just exited Park Lane and are circling back around to the mall.”
“Gia?” Beckett said.
“Right.” Gia stood, draped her purse over her shoulder and pointed down the mall’s long corridor behind them. “Time to wrap this up.”
Darya stood, though how she managed it with her legs shaking as much as they did was a miracle. Not even when she’d fled to the States with no idea if her false identification would work had she been this terrified.
Gia smoothed a comforting hand down Darya’s back and stayed close to her side, but her words were for the men watching their backs. “Headed to the parking garage.”
The trek was a short one that felt like a lifetime. They crossed out of the store into the mall’s main corridor and a rush of chilled air slicked beneath her loose hair to kiss her sweat-slicked nape. A few stores ahead of them, Axel meandered across one of the wide bridges that connected the two walkways, his focus seemingly centered on his phone instead of where he was going.
From the murmured updates in her headset, she knew better. Knew that everyone else was in place ready to do their part as well. Every scrap of information registered clearly in her ear, but not a bit of it made a difference. Her brain couldn’t process it. Couldn’t do anything better than stay on damage control with her over-stimulated senses and ensure she kept pace with Gia.
The parking garage doors whooshed open and the oppressive August heat slammed against her with twice as much weight as before. This was it. No more running. No more hiding. Not from Ruslan or anyone else.
Ever.
Five cars into their row, the sound of low masculine voices drew closer, their Russian accents unmistakable but the words not quite carrying enough clarity to give her direction.
Up ahead a black SUV with blacked out windows neared their row.
“Black SUV dead ahead,” Gia whispered.
Beckett’s voice was crisp and loaded with purpose. “We have visual. Plans are a go.”
Gia wrapped her arm around Darya’s waist and gave a friendly squeeze. To anyone else, they’d look like two women drunk on overcharged credit cards with an evening of shopping afterglow to indulge in, but the sharpness in Gia’s tone as she leaned in was total focus. “Remember the plan. Grab on to me like you’re terrified. They won’t have a choice but to take us both without causing a scene.”
Darya managed a jerky nod and kept walking.
The SUV made its turn headed directly toward them.
Behind them the men grew closer, their quick footsteps ricocheting off the low ceiling and cement pillars around them.
Gia glanced back and a mask of fear that in no way matched the confident grip she kept around Darya’s waist slipped across her face just as the SUV screeched to a halt in front of them. Three men jumped from the car’s interior, leaving them sandwiched.
“Five,” Gia muttered so low Darya barely caught it even through her headpiece, but it was enough to let the team know what they were dealing with.
From there the scrambling came natural, fear and a very real need to escape pummeling Darya at all sides. With one arm she fought, slinging her bags with all she had in her and keeping her other banded tight to Gia. One man barked out a command in Russian, directing the others to take them both. The next thing she knew she was part dragged, part carried to the SUV’s hatchback and tossed alongside Gia onto the cargo area.
Gia rolled, taking Darya with her so Darya’s back was plastered against the rear seat and covered her with her body, but one of the men crawled in the cargo area, slammed the hatchback shut behind him and whipped a zip tie from his pocket.
The car doors upfront slammed shut and a voice yelled back, “Blondinka yego. Ushibla, i on budet imet’ golovu.” The blonde is his. Hurt her and he’ll have your head.
Meaning, for now, she was safe, but Gia wasn’t. Not until their own men made a move and she could engage with her gun.
Zip tie clenched between his teeth, the man with them in the back jerked Gia away and tried to roll her to her belly.
The car moved into motion, the smooth glide completely belying the struggle going on between Gia and their captor. She elbowed him in the jaw hard enough to earn a backhand across her cheek. It stunned her long enough the man flipped her to her stomach and wrenched both hands to her back.
Oh, hell no. No way was Darya letting that happen. Not when they were this close. She launched forward with everything she had, knocking the man off balance and filling the car’s interior with an infuriated roar.
Unlike his brutal attack on Gia, he merely banded his arms around Darya’s, holding her in an unforgiving grip as he tried to wrestle her to the floorboard. No easy task, considering Gia had teamed up and wrapped her arm around the guy’s throat.
“In place.” Sergei’s voice sounded in her headset, thick with his accent and loaded with grim determination. A quick glance out the back window confirmed not only the black Mercedes that had followed them to the mall behind their SUV, but an industrial air-conditioning service van pulling out of a reserved spot.
Done with playing nice, their captor released Darya and threw Gia across the cargo space so hard her head snapped against the glass. She slumped, and for a second, Darya thought he’d knocked her new friend unconscious.