Saved By The Enemy (Hacienda Heights Book 3) Read online

  I quickly banished that brief stirring of guilt. Phoebe wasn’t deserving of my pity. She’d lost any sympathy I might have had for her the moment she’d decided to accept her father’s offer of blackmailing me into becoming her husband.

  “Yes,” I said coldly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Now get the fuck out of my office, Phoebe. I have a meeting in five.”

  For a few seconds, I was convinced she’d chuck a paperweight at my head. Instead, she stood, brushed her tight-fitting dress off and flounced toward the door, her hips swaying in an exaggerated manner meant to draw my eye. I pointedly ignored her.

  I had more pressing concerns.

  She tilted her head back in my direction just before ducking out the door. “You’ll regret this, Logan. My daddy will release the blackmail material.”

  “I’m aware,” I hissed. “Now go, Phoebe, before I have security escort you out.”

  Phoebe’s whole body flinched away from the venom in my tone. She stared at me for one protracted second before disappearing—hopefully from my life. A minute later, the elevator dinged, and the tension drained out of my body.

  There. At least that was done. Now to attend to the massive clusterfuck at hand.

  I jabbed a finger down on the call button and Leah’s voice filtered through the crackling speaker. My PA sounded more subdued than usual. Probably because she was the only one with an insider’s knowledge of what was going on. Hard to be chipper when the boss’s girlfriend was in mortal danger.

  “Are you ready for them, Mr. Farraday?”

  “Yes. Send them both up.”

  I scrubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands. I was tired. So damned tired. Sleep had eluded me for the better part of a week, even though hours of exhaustive research had come to nothing.

  No one knew where Isadora Anwick had disappeared to, taking Mina with her. The prevailing theory was kidnap, though the motive was still a mystery. Gideon, Isadora’s once-removed son and trusted employee, had leafed through all the records he could find and had come up with next to nothing. Our working theory was that a third party had forced Isadora into the actions she’d taken. We were searching for any evidence of such a motive in the financial transactions, but hadn’t found anything.

  Gideon flatly refused to believe that his boss and, more importantly, his mother, could do something like this of her own free will. And to that end, he was working to have a judge unseal the records he didn’t have access to. Which would take time. Time that Mina didn’t have. Despite the fact that the police were doing all they could, there was a good chance she’d turn up dead, or even never be found. I knew all too well that the chances of a missing person turning up after the initial forty-eight hours were slim.

  I ground my teeth together. Mina could be dead or dying, and I was forced to sit in my office with my thumb firmly corked in my ass. The need to do something, anything was overpowering. We were almost certain that she’d been taken overseas. Isadora’s vehicle had last been spotted near the docks, and a search of the area had turned up nothing.

  Keenan Blakely didn’t knock. He burst into my office, all bulging muscle and testosterone, face set in hard lines of anger. Mina’s stepbrother was ready to kick someone’s ass, and it didn’t appear to matter whose.

  He was trailed by a slightly shorter but still impressive man. Gideon Harvey and I favored each other, with dark hair and an almost identical profile. Gideon had a softer chin and shorter nose, brown eyes instead of blue. But that was one of the few differences between us in appearance.

  Unsurprising, I’d learned we were half-brothers. I’d seen his name very briefly in the blackmail material Owen Mason had on my father. Isadora Anwick hadn’t been listed by name, but I should have known by her photo. She’d been much younger then—jailbait. Just the thought of my father putting his grubby hands all over an underage young woman made my stomach turn.

  Judging by Gideon’s birth date, my mother had barely been in the grave before he’d had his way with Isadora. Unlike the other multiple wives my father had collected, though, she apparently hadn’t been marriage material. I supposed that explained her animosity toward me, somewhat. I was, after all, one of the cossetted children of Alden Farraday, while her own baby boy had been abandoned, leaving its mother no choice but to put him up for adoption.

  Gideon gave me a sharp nod and settled into the chair across from my executive desk, while Keenan paced the room.

  “What’s going on, Farraday?” Keenan demanded. “Where the fuck is my sister? You said you’d find her by now!”

  I took his anger in stride. Hell, I was angry with myself. After nearly a week, there should have been some sign of her. But even with a dedicated hacktivist on the case, we’d been unable to turn up much useful.

  “Harvey, what do your people have to report?”

  Gideon had hired a detective straight away. The PI was doing the lion’s share of the legwork while Gideon ran Isadora’s company in her stead.

  “Isadora is still away on holiday.” Gideon used air quotes around the word “holiday.” “No change there. She did recently land in Toulouse, France. She used a company card to buy her ticket to France, so I can at least pin her to the wall on misappropriating company money. Do you think she took Mina to France? There wasn’t an accompanying ticket on the books.”

  “France.” I gripped the armrests of my desk chair to keep myself from leaping up and running to the airport, thinking the information through. “Maybe,” I hedged. “Or maybe they were separated when they reached the docks. There’s no telling where Mina is. The trip to Toulouse could be a distraction to keep us looking in the wrong area.”

  “It’s still a lead,” Keenen pressed. “And wouldn’t it be better to go and follow up on that? At the very least we could squeeze Anwick for some answers.”

  Gideon glanced down at his interlocked fingers with a frown. I knew this had to be difficult for him. He’d learned this year that Isadora Anwick was his biological mother. He’d even more recently been informed that my father was the faithless bastard who’d knocked her up and left her. And I’d been the bastard who’d had to tell him that happy news.

  My half-brother was beginning to grow on me, against all odds. I wanted to hate him for having the unmitigated gall to fall for and charm Mina. But he wasn’t all bad. And right now, his work could help us uncover the plot to take Mina and the mastermind behind it. He’d promised to alert us if Isadora returned to LA or her motives became clear.

  “That might lead to something,” I said, shrugging. “And it might lead to nothing. I want to wait until we hear from Mina’s hacker, Tuck. I’ll call him and tell him about the ticket, so he can start searching in France. That will narrow down the field quite a bit. Then, if all points in the direction of France, I’ll head there.”

  Keenan paused in his pacing to spear me with a glare. “Oh no the fuck you don’t.”

  “Pardon?”

  Keenan crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not going to leave me behind, Farraday. It’s bad enough I was kept out of the loop when my baby sister was in danger. You’re not shutting me out this time too. I’m coming with you.”

  I leaned back in my chair, my jaw flexing as I gritted my teeth. “No, you’re staying right here, Keenan. I don’t give a fuck how many times you’ve played a soldier on the silver screen. You’ve got no training. You’ll only slow me down.”

  Keenan’s upper lip curled. “For your information, I’m completely qualified to handle myself around a gun. Do you think they just hand me a prop and leave it at that? I’ve been to more gun ranges in the last few years than I can count. I’m a damn good shot, Logan. If you don’t take me with you, I’ll just follow in my father’s plane. He’s on board, too, you know. We’re willing to buy Mina back if it comes to that. If it’s easier than fighting. He’s not going to let her go, and neither am I.”

  I shook my head. “Where is this coming from, Keenan? Up until now, you and your family all seemed perfect
ly content to hang Mina out to dry. You were even buddy-buddy with the man who tried to kill her, Scott Flemming. What’s the catalyst?”

  Keenan shifted guiltily. “Look, I know I’ve been an asshole, okay? And a poor judge of character. But I’m through treating her like shit. You have my word. My father’s plane is the best bet you have of getting out of the country carrying weapons.” He quirked a brow at me. “So, which will it be? Am I going, or am I going to leapfrog after you?”

  Lending us his personal plane would go a long way to showing how in this the Senator was. Since it was recognizable, people would find out about his involvement sooner or later. Perhaps this was what Mina would need to restore her family.

  I glanced at Gideon, who shrugged. “I’m staying, either way. I think I’m more useful to you here. There’s got to be something buried in Isadora’s files that will shed some light on all of this.”

  I breathed out a heavy sigh. “Fine. We’ll need to meet Graham in Chicago. He’s in the area for his daughter’s wedding. How soon can the plane be fueled?”

  Keenan grinned, a flash of perfect white teeth. “Consider it done. Ready to go, oh fearless leader?”

  On the way to the Senator’s plane at LAX, Mina’s brother was quiet. Keenan had never been one to mince words, though his public persona might have convinced people otherwise. Charming and gregarious in front of a camera, he was actually somewhat subdued in real life.

  Once we boarded, while we were waiting to take off, Keenan dismantled and cleaned a Browning Hi-Power with enough skill to impress even me. He barely took his eyes off of his work.

  “I can’t believe you ever thought I’d do it, you know,” Keenan said finally, breaking the silence.

  “Do what?”

  “Release that tape.” His gaze lifted to meet mine. “I can’t believe you thought I did that to her. I don’t care how big a pain in the ass she can be. She’s still my kid sister.”

  “Be honest,” I said, gripping the armrest of my chair. “You thought it was me. That’s why we quit speaking six years ago.”

  Keenan shifted in his seat and he shrugged. “Maybe. It made the most sense at the time. You and her were on the outs, and that sex tape going public made damn sure that she wouldn’t be able to have a normal dating life again. You could be pretty damn vicious when you were mad.”

  I acknowledged that with a grunt, but said nothing more. For a time, there was silence in the cabin.

  Kennan’s expression remained tight. “I do love her, you know. We all do.”

  “You had a funny way of showing it. You and your family. If you’d supported her after the leak of the tape, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She wouldn’t have been forced to start the Hacienda Hustlers in the first place.”

  Which begged the question, would she still have been the happy, independent women I knew today? If the Senator had rallied around his stepdaughter and portrayed the situation properly, with Mina as a victim of revenge porn, where would she have ended up? She’d have had a career in Hollywood, almost certainly. Keenan’s career proved that the right bribe to the right studio could buy fame.

  Would Mina and I have been married by now? I’d been planning to propose after coming back from my last tour in Iraq. A lot could happen in six years. I might have had a kid or three if things had worked out differently. Instead, I’d spent a lot of time trying to find a woman who lit a fire in me the way Mina did, and had never been successful.

  I shut my eyes on a sudden vision of a dark-haired toddler with Mina’s eyes and my temper. I wanted the picket fence with Mina so badly I could taste it.

  “What if we don’t find her, Logan?” Keenan voiced the fear that had been screaming in the back of my head for a week. He stared soberly out the window and his voice caught on his next words. “What if she’s already gone?”

  “She’s not,” I snapped automatically. She couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t live through that. I refused to believe I might never see her again.

  The door to the cockpit swung open, the pilot stepping out. His face was grim. “We’re delayed. Thunderstorms. I’ll let you know when we’re clear. Could be a couple hours.”

  I had no time for thunderstorms. “Fuck.”

  Chapter Three

  Mina

  There was no time to run at the shipyard in Sete. Though I kept my eyes peeled for any escape opportunity, the customs guards were very attentive. I couldn’t have snuck an ant past without notice, and I had no clue if any of them were on the payroll of Baldy’s boss.

  After the shower, we’d dressed and been forced to don wigs. Kathleen had been separated from us at the docks and led away by a man she’d dubbed Slashface because he had a deep knife scar running down his cheek. He was one of our morning guards.

  Baldy and Pornstache attached us to their arms like we were toy poodles and paraded us through customs without issue. The makeshift shiv Baldy had pointed at my bellybutton on the way through didn’t set off the security alarms but would definitely have hurt had it entered my gut. I’d curbed my impulse to scream or ask for help. There would be other opportunities.

  I clutched the fake passport in one shaking hand as I was forced into a cargo van. The photo depicted a dark-haired beauty with striking features and a stubborn set to her jaw. Hannah Drake. Isadora must have provided the photo and alias, because it was the last false identity I’d used before this whole shitshow began.

  My throat constricted painfully and, as always, my anger was wired straight to my tear ducts. I lowered my eyes to my lap, rather than give Baldy the satisfaction of knowing I was scared. If I ever got out of this mess, I was going to kill Isadora. I still couldn’t fathom what I’d done to deserve this level of backlash. My only contact with Isadora—aside from the ones she’d orchestrated—was almost six years ago, when I’d accepted one of my first deals as a Hustler. Back then, the organization had consisted of only three people. Myself, Luciana and Heather.

  Alastair Anwick, a billionaire tech mogul, and as it turned out, Isadora’s father had been one of my clients. He’d been lonely, a recent divorcee looking for companionship. I’d given it to him twice a month, for a year. The dates had been brief, and I’d had far less physical contact with him than I'd grow accustomed to in other contracts. He’d held my hand perhaps one time. I couldn’t find the reason behind this vicious attack.

  I wiped the tears from my face discreetly on my shoulder, hoping that Baldy wouldn’t notice as he put us in bonds again, using zip ties around our wrists and ankles.

  Only a few minutes later, as the van drove slowly, Baldy nodded off, his head lolling to one side. He was purely American and, judging by the garbled conversation in the showers, not very good at French. I had to do something. In Baldy’s semi-conscious state, he probably wouldn’t notice. The glass partition that separated the back from the cab of the van was thick enough I was satisfied that Pornstache, the French native, wouldn’t be able to hear me.

  It took a few nerve-wracking minutes to wriggle my way over to Julienne. The ties that bound my wrists and ankles bit into my skin viciously. I knew there was a way to break them, but no matter how I wracked my brain, that little factoid I’d learned from Logan wouldn’t come to me.

  Julienne jerked upright when I elbowed her lightly in the ribs.

  “Je suis réveillé,” she mumbled, wincing at her bonds.

  “I can see you’re awake,” I said, a note of wry humor slipping into my tone despite the seriousness of the situation. I began speaking in French, as low as I could manage. It still sounded too loud in the confined space. “I heard them speaking when we left Kathleen at the docks. They’re taking us to Toulouse to be sold to a man named Sylvain Ancel. Do you have any idea who that is?”

  Baldy had been driving slowly through the city, probably afraid of being pulled over while he had two women in the back as cargo. I wasn’t able to see anything, with only the walls of the van surrounding me, and no windows. It might have been a pleasant journey, if I weren't being he
ld against my will and could have seen the sights. I’d always hoped to have a honeymoon in France. But that had been years ago, when I’d been certain Logan was going to marry me. Now, I should just consider myself fortunate if France didn’t end up being my final resting place.

  Julienne paled visibly. “Sylvain is a competitor of my father’s. He runs a film studio out of Paris, and he’s not a nice man. He had a scandal last year when he was found with an underage girl. He barely served time for it. Sylvain has too much influence with the authorities to be kept in prison for long.” Her bound hands flew to her mouth and her eyes went wide. “He must be the one who ordered this. He’s trying to hurt my papa.”

  “Well, they’ll probably demand a ransom for you,” I reasoned. “You might get out of this alive.”

  “You don’t believe they will ransom you?”

  I didn’t. Isadora was rich in her own right, so I didn’t think her plan was to extract money from me. Instead, from the brief vehement exchange I’d had with her before I lost consciousness, I was fairly certain she wanted me to pay with my life. I had a feeling, if she had her way, I’d be defiled before someone finally put a bullet between my eyes.

  “Tell me more about this Sylvain person,” I whispered, trying to keep that grim thought from driving me to further despair. I was not going to lie down like a coward and let that bitch win. “Who was the girl he was caught with?”

  Julienne got a faraway look as she searched her memory. “She looked somewhat like you, actually. Quite pretty with red hair. As bad as that situation was, I would never have imagined him with his hands in something like this.”

  “People always have a way of surprising you,” I muttered. “Listen to me, Julienne. If I’m right, we’re going to stop at least once before we arrive at this man’s house.”