Changing the Rules (Richter Book 1)(90)

Tony inched forward, yelling, “Do I look like I was fucking born yesterday? Behind your back.”

Shit. Keep it cool, Claire. You’ve practiced hands-tied defense before.

“Claire,” Elsie said.

Claire turned around and backed up slowly. “It’s okay. Just do what he says.”

Tony smiled as the cuffs clicked around her wrists. “Let me see,” he said.

She shifted on her feet, lifted her arms behind her, and pulled at the cuffs. Much too tight to slip out of.

Claire stood in front of Elsie.

“You’re so tough, aren’t you?” Tony growled.

Claire kept quiet.

“Stand over there.”

Claire walked several yards away from Elsie, hating the distance.

“Sit down,” he yelled at Elsie. “Move a muscle and I’ll pop you. You understand?”

Tony walked over to Claire, waved his gun around. “Face the wall.”

Handcuffed with a hostage and a pissed-off cop with a gun.

She turned toward the wall.

“Spread your legs.”

She steadied herself, feet at hip distance apart.

He moved in fast, kicked her legs wider, and shoved her head into the concrete wall. Her head buzzed with the impact.

She felt the gun on the base of her skull as his other hand ran up the inside of her shirt. “What else are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

She ignored his hand as he grabbed at her chest and ran the length of her bra.

Bile rose when he ran his fingers over her tight shorts. Groping her was a fear tactic. A successful one.

Claire did everything she could to hide any emotion. Showing fear would only encourage him.

“You like that, bitch?”

Tony squeezed the most private part of her body until it hurt.

She bit her tongue.

He wouldn’t be searching her if he planned on just killing her, so she kept quiet and prayed to God the team had found the third tracking device disguised as a clip in her hair.

“Stop fucking the girl.”

Claire turned her head to see the face behind the voice, was rewarded with a palm pressing her face into the hard surface until she felt her skin break and blood trickle down her cheek.



Cooper stood over Claire’s discarded phone and watch. One in each hand.

She could be anywhere. The residential neighborhood emptied out close to a freeway and they were twenty minutes behind her if they were on the run.

He spun in a circle, looked at the houses. Or she could be feet away and he didn’t know it.

“Tell me you have something,” he said into the phone.

“Her receiver’s offline.”

Eastman . . . or Grant, as it stood, was talking to his people.

“Who is left? Who isn’t in custody other than Tony?”

“Milo and Russell.”

“How the hell did they mess that up?” Cooper asked.

Grant looked over with a shake of the head.

Cooper stared at the broken screen on her phone. “C’mon, Claire.” Damn thing still worked, but he didn’t know the password.

The watch pinged and so did the phone.

“Can you get into Claire’s phone? I need a password.”

“Try Loki,” he heard Jax suggest.

He used the keypad, typed in the numbers associated with the letters.

It opened to a home screen.

“Perfect.”

He found the app they used as a team and opened it.

Sure enough it was a slow signal feed from a noncomputerized tracker. “Are we tracking anyone on the H system?” he asked the team.

“No.”

Clearly Claire had considered the possibility of being without her phone, watch, or car. Each blip on the screen was like her heartbeat. Every beat gave him hope. “God, I love this woman.”

“What do you have?” he heard Neil ask.

Cooper forwarded the information to the team and put the car in drive.



Claire had been shoved on the floor next to Elsie.

The girl clutched onto her as if Claire were a life raft on the Titanic.

Milo knelt down, far enough away to avoid a shoe to the face. “I remember you. The paranoid one with the busty blonde friend.”

Russell stood to one side, his gaze just as awestruck as Elsie’s had been.

“Private investigator. I didn’t see that. What does that make her?” Milo asked.

“A scared little girl,” Claire told him. “Nothing more.”

Elsie’s hands were free, but the girl was too scared to use them.

Russell spoke up. And he did so in Russian. “We should go before anyone comes.”

“We’ll leave,” Milo said, again in Russian. “After we clean up a few loose ends.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Tony asked.

Milo took to his feet, walked back to Tony. “I thought I told you to keep all the cops out of my home.”

“She’s not a cop. Has never been to the station.”

The two of them started shouting at each other, giving Claire an opportunity.

“Elsie?”

The girl was whimpering.

“See the pin in my hair?” Claire watched the men fighting. Felt Elsie’s nod.