Drake cursed to himself when he saw that every single gun was trained on Evangeline. McDuff stood in front of Evangeline, taunting her. She wouldn’t even meet his gaze. She was pale. Too pale. Her hair was tangled and he saw the red streaks on the side of her head, bold against the golden blond color.
Her head was bowed, her hair falling over her cheeks, and she sagged in the chair. Her chin rested against her chest and it felt as though someone had just driven a knife through Drake’s heart when he saw the damp trails of tears down her pale flesh.
“I’ve got Drake by the balls now,” McDuff crowed. “He’s a stupid man for believing I’d let him off for twenty mil.”
For the first time that he’d seen, Evangeline lifted her head, though her stare was unfocused and bleary looking as she looked in McDuff’s general direction.
“You’re the stupid one,” she said in a monotone, without a trace of emotion. She spoke to McDuff like he was a complete simpleton. And then Drake’s heart nearly stopped when she said the rest. “He cares nothing about me,” she said in a dull voice. “He won’t do anything to rescue me. He won’t give you what you want. He won’t give in to blackmail. When has he ever given in to blackmail? You’re dumber than I thought if you think you’re going to bring him to his knees over one of his whores he already tossed out and made clear he wanted nothing more to do with. Or didn’t you get that memo?” Sarcasm laced the last of her statement, and she stared defiantly at McDuff as if daring him to do his worst because the worst had already been done.
Drake wanted to weep for the hopelessness he heard—felt—in her every word and action.
Uncertainty flashed over McDuff’s face, followed closely by rage. He lashed out, slapping Evangeline’s unprotected face, whipping her head back. Her hair was in disarray all over her head, but Drake saw the blood at her nose and mouth and he surged forward.
Silas and Maddox both jumped on him and held him to the floor. “Stop!” Silas hissed in his ear. “The rest of us want to kill the little bastard for touching her as well, but we have to play this just right and stick to the plan or the asshole will kill Evangeline on the spot. Get it together, man. Think, for God’s sake. Think!”
Drake slowly shook them off, but he was bristling with fury like he’d never known. Waiting the final few minutes for his men to carefully circle and cut off all escape routes and ensure Evangeline’s safety was hell. If that bastard inflicted a single injury, Drake would kill him. Fuck that. Evangeline had been injured. Physically and emotionally. The bastard had hit her, drawn blood, not once, but twice now. And God only knew what she’d been subjected to before he and his men arrived. Drake had to turn it off and stop torturing himself with all that his angel had endured or he’d go insane.
Maddox held up his hand, listened to the receiver a moment and then turned to look at Drake, his eyes flashing, his entire body tense and radiating fearsome rage.
“It’s go time.”
32
Evangeline slouched uncomfortably in the chair, ropes digging into her wrists and ankles. Her face was buzzing with pain and heat from when the man had lashed out and struck her, but her head was what ached the most. She’d taken a brutal hit that rendered her unconscious when she’d struggled and fought back against the man trying to get her into his car.
She was going to die. Grief overwhelmed her because it wasn’t just her who would die. Her precious unborn baby would die with her. Drake would never come for her, would never give a hundred dollars for her, much less twenty million or however much the creep had mentioned.
And since she knew she was going to die, she had no desire to prolong her grief and agony. At first she’d thought only to do whatever it took to stay alive. To fight for her child if for no one else. But realization had sunk in when the man had brought her here, to a place that smelled of blood and death, and smugly informed her that he was going to chop her into tiny pieces so that no one had any hope of ever finding her body, much less identifying it, if Drake didn’t come through with the first wire transfer.
“He threw me out, or didn’t you know that?” she mocked through swollen, throbbing lips. “He thinks I betrayed him and his men by giving the cops information. Now, you tell me. What do you think Drake would do in that situation? Do you honestly think he’d hand over twenty million dollars to someone demanding it in order to spare my life? You’ll probably get a thank-you card from him after I’m dead.”