Forged in Steele (KGI #7)(98)

“It isn’t your child and you know it!” she screeched.

Steele put his hand on her arm and then put a finger to his mouth to signal her not to do anything to anger him. As if! She was bloody furious. If she could reach through the phone and wrap her hands around the bastard’s neck, she’d do it and squeeze the life right out of him.

“You are mine. The baby is mine,” Caldwell said. “And I want you both back. You have a choice, Maren. You come back to me and I let your parents go. You refuse and they’ll die while you listen on the phone.”

In the background her mother’s scream rose, and every hair on Maren’s neck stood up.

“Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t you hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t hurt her or my father. Tell me what you want. Just stop it!”

“That’s more like it,” he said smoothly. “I want you here, Maren. You have exactly twelve hours to arrive or they both die.”

“Where?” she asked desperately. “You want me to just walk into their house and I’m supposed to believe you’ll leave them and take me?”

“You won’t meet me at their house. They won’t be at their house. I’ll give you the location once you’ve landed in Florida. As for you believing me, I don’t see that you have an alternative. It’s your choice, Maren. Get on a plane and get here. I’ll call this number in eleven hours and tell you where to meet me. Once you arrive, I’ll make the call for your parents to be released. If I don’t place that call in exactly twelve hours and fifteen minutes? They die. So don’t even think about f**king me on this. If anything happens to me and I don’t make that call, they will die a horrible death. I’m not bluffing, so don’t try to call me on it.”

“How do I know you won’t kill them anyway?” Maren asked, her voice rising with hysteria.

“I have no reason to kill the grandparents of my child. Not unless you continue to keep my child from me. I want you and I want our child. I see no need to have their murder between us for the rest of our lives. And if you prove cooperative and don’t fight me, I’ll even allow you to see them on occasion.”

“I’ll be there,” she choked out.

The phone went dead and Maren fell to her knees, sobs erupting from her chest in painful bursts. Steele’s arms came around her, pulling her up and against him as he held her firmly, stroking her hair, kissing the side of her head.

“Shhh, Maren,” he whispered. “You have to be calm. We have to think this through. I need you with me on this. You have to be strong for your parents. Do you understand? Pull yourself together so we can figure this out.”

“He’s crazy!” she said, her voice rising precariously. “Oh my God, you heard him, Steele. He actually expects me to just leave with him and if I’m a good girl, he’ll let me see my family every once in a while. As if we’re some married couple visiting relatives.”

“I told you, he’s unhinged,” Hancock interjected. “Completely lost his shit. I admit, I never saw this coming. I knew he had a thing for Maren, but he’s focused on business. He’s ruthless. I would have never imagined that he’d f**k over Maksimov. He’s signed his death warrant. When I got Maren out of there, he just lost it. She became his obsession. Getting her back. That became his single-minded goal. Nothing else mattered. And the hell of it is, I think he’s actually in love with her. He’s pissed that she got away, no doubt. But this isn’t about a power play and him seeking revenge for being thwarted. The f**ker is actually in love with her and he’ll do anything to get her back, not even realizing that even if he’s successful and even if there were no KGI or Titan to take him down, Maksimov would take him and Maren both out. He’s living on borrowed time and he’s f**ked from all directions.”

“Jesus,” Steele muttered. “Goddamn it.”

“Call in your team,” Hancock said to Steele. “We’re going to have to move fast.”

“We?” Steele demanded. “There is no we here, Hancock. You stay the f**k out of this.”

Hancock regarded Steele with a steady gaze. “I’m going in too. You need all the manpower you can get.”

“Just stop the arguing!” Maren said, anguish tearing at her insides. “We don’t have time for this. We have to go!”

Steele strode to the living room, picked up the radio and barked a terse order for his team to return to the house on the double. Then he came back to Maren and gripped her shoulders.

“There is no way in hell you’re going with that bastard, Maren.”

“What choice do I have? You heard him. We can’t trick him and send in KGI with me to take him down. If he doesn’t make that phone call, my parents die. And I believe him! He’s just crazy enough to do it.”

Steele’s team poured in from the back door and the front and within seconds they’d congregated in the kitchen, their stances rigid, completely alert and awaiting Steele’s orders.

“I’ll keep this brief because we have to hit the road. I’ll put a call in to Sam on the way to the airport and have him pull in whoever he has. We don’t have time to pull in Rio and his team. They all flew out yesterday, so Sam, Garrett, Donovan and the new team are going to have to be it.”