Bounty Hunter Ransom Read online

  “Hey!” she objected, lashing out with an elbow. The breast grabber pulled away with a gratifying oof! She kicked back with her sharp-heeled boot and managed to dislodge the cheek-fondler, just as another man pressed his face into her chest and tried to put his tongue down her cleavage.

  “Ugh, disgusting!” she said as she pushed him away. “Beau? Beau, where are you?”

  “Aubrey?” She heard him calling her name, but he wasn’t close by. There was no way he’d find her in the dark in this crowd.

  A hand clamped around her upper arm and dragged her determinedly away from the bar. She tried lashing out at her captor, but this one was stronger and far more determined than the others.

  “Let me go, you filthy…slug-slime!” But the insult, which had worked so well on the codpiece man, had no effect on this brute, who seemed to be dragging her with a specific destination in mind.

  Rape wasn’t out of the question in a place like this. She screamed and fought in earnest, dropping to the floor, becoming dead weight. But her screams didn’t elicit any help, as several other people were screaming melodramatically. And all dropping to the floor accomplished was to prompt her caveman to clamp one arm around her ribs and drag her backward. She could feel the leather band around his forearm. Either it was one of the gladiators, or the blond bartender.

  She fought like a wildcat, but her captor had managed to pin one of her arms between their bodies and he was holding her other wrist, so she couldn’t inflict any damage with her artificial nails. Her wig came off in the struggle, her real hair tumbling free from the pins Lori had tamed it with.

  She felt herself being dragged down a flight of stairs and realized where they were heading—The Dungeons. In a private, locked, soundproof room, this Neanderthal could do anything he pleased with her.

  She summoned her strength for one last scream. “Beau! Help me! I’m in The Dun—” A stinging blow to her head, right where she’d been hit earlier that day, stunned her to silence. By the time she had her wits about her again, she’d been shoved through another doorway. The door slammed shut behind her as she fell to what felt like a stone floor, and she prayed she’d be left alone. But no such luck. The horrible man was in here with her. She got up on her haunches, ready to grab his legs and take him down when he came near again. If she could just get him to lose his balance and fall on this stone floor, she might get lucky and he’d hurt himself.

  She heard a match striking and turned in that direction. She saw the face of her attacker briefly illuminated—the bartender. He lit a torch mounted to the wall, and then a couple more. Now she could see she really was in a dungeonlike room, all lined with stone. All around the room were what looked like medieval torture devices—a rack, an egg-shaped cage hanging from a chain, for trapping someone’s head, she imagined, several sizes of whips, and one dangerous-looking machine—she didn’t even dare imagine how it worked.

  There were several sets of manacles chained to the wall, too.

  Was this, then, her fate? To be tortured to death? Her stomach roiled at the prospect. She could hardly stand to get a paper cut. The prospect of pain reduced her to quivering jelly. She knew she would tell this guy whatever he wanted to know, do whatever he asked of her to avoid a leather whip.

  He walked over to stand beside her and look down at her. She couldn’t make herself launch her body at his legs; she was paralyzed with terror, especially when she saw what he held in his hand—a small but wicked-looking whip made up of several narrow strands of leather.

  He caressed the whip. “Stand up.”

  She scrambled to her feet.

  “Go stand against the wall.” When she didn’t move fast enough, he struck lightning-quick with the small whip. It bit into her upper arm. She looked down at her arm, expecting blood, but there was just a faint red mark.

  “It can do a lot worse,” he said, his soft little mouth wearing an obscene smirk.

  She moved to the wall. He manacled first one wrist, then the other, so that her arms were outstretched. But he left her feet free.

  That’s your mistake, you jerk.

  “Now,” he said in a deceptively patient voice, “tell me everything you know about Patti.”

  Instead she kicked forward, catching him right in his red bikini underwear. He crumpled to the floor in a howl of pain, and Aubrey felt the exhilaration of triumph. Only moments earlier she’d imagined she would be a sniveling coward, but from somewhere she’d found the courage to strike back.

  It was a short-lived victory.

  “That,” he said when he could speak, “will cost you.”

  The whip snaked out again and caught her on the thigh. It stung like a burn, even through her stocking. Her eyes watered, but Aubrey forced herself not to cry out. She wouldn’t give this toad the satisfaction.

  BEAU HAD HEARD Aubrey’s scream, and he’d worked his way toward it. But in this half-panicked, writhing crowd, the going wasn’t easy. Then he’d heard Aubrey call out his name, from a different direction, and he realized he’d made no progress at all.

  She’d sounded like she was in trouble, too. He cursed himself for bringing her here. He should have insisted he could do this alone. And he could have—he’d already gotten some information that would help.

  The lights came back on. Some people cheered, some booed. Beau frantically searched the room for some sign of Aubrey, but he saw nothing.

  Then he spotted a black wig lying on the floor. He picked it up and examined it. It was Aubrey’s, all right. Her scent clung to it.

  He was standing right by the staircase that went down to The Dungeons. That must have been where Aubrey was taken. He headed that way, but a shirtless man in a centurion helmet holding an ax barred his way. “Can’t go down there. It costs extra.”

  The centurion was huge, probably three hundred pounds. Even in his desperation to find Aubrey, Beau wasn’t crazy enough to think he could get the best of this guy.

  “How much?” Beau demanded, reaching into his pocket for more money.

  “Fifty. Where’s your partner?”

  “Partner?”

  “You can’t go down there alone. That don’t make no sense.”

  Beau looked around wildly. His gaze fell on a blue-eyed Viking woman with blond hair down to her waist, bull’s-eye breastplates and a helmet with horns. She looked back with obvious interest.

  He grabbed her by the arm. “Come downstairs with me.”

  “Sure, but I’m not submissive.”

  “No, I don’t imagine so.” He paid the fee. The centurion informed him he was assigned to room one.

  “Oooh, that’s my favorite,” the Viking cooed to Beau. “Want to be my galley slave?”

  He ignored her. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he found a hallway with four doors. He skipped room one, since he assumed it would be empty. He pushed open the door to room two, which was decked out like a sultan’s harem, with bright silk hangings and pillows on the floor, middle-eastern carpets and a gurgling fountain.

  “This isn’t our room,” the blonde said, pouting.

  Beau pulled out of that room and went for room three. Inside he found a redhead in a French maid’s outfit bent over the knee of a guy dressed like a butler. The woman screamed.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the butler howled in protest.

  “Try locking the door,” Beau said as he withdrew.

  “You are some kind of crazy,” the Viking said, half admiring, half alarmed. “We’re in one, room one!”

  Beau went for the last room, number four. It was locked. Beau beat on it with his fist. “Open up! Police!” Strictly speaking, it was against the law for him to impersonate an officer. But right now he didn’t care. He’d do whatever it took to get that door open and get to Aubrey before she was seriously hurt.

  “Do these rooms have any other way out?” he asked the Viking, since she seemed to be familiar with the place.

  “No, each only has one door. Are you really a cop?” she ask
ed, sounding intrigued.

  “I used to be.”

  “Want to interrogate me? For you, I think I could be submissive.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” Beating on the door produced no results, so he grabbed what looked like a medieval executioner’s ax from the wall and proceeded to tear the door down. The blade wasn’t very sharp; the ax had of course been intended for display, not practical use. Still, it did chew through the wood. He aimed blow after blow near the latch until the wood around it collapsed. Finally, with a couple of slams with his shoulder, he crashed through.

  What he saw brought his heart up into his throat. Aubrey was cuffed spread-eagle to the stone wall. Her arms and legs were marred with angry red stripes.

  “Watch out!” she called, just as a man launched himself at Beau from behind the door. The Viking screamed. Beau fell, but he grabbed a handful of leather as he did. The chaps came off in his hand, and Aubrey’s captor, wearing only a pair of red underwear, was out the door in a flash.

  Beau’s instincts told him to chase the guy down. How far could he get in that half-naked state? But his concern for Aubrey won out, and he went for her instead. She didn’t look as if she was in mortal danger, but she must be terrified.

  He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Aubrey. Honey, are you all right?”

  “Never mind me! Go after him!”

  But Beau didn’t listen. He freed her from the manacles, which fortunately were like the play handcuffs he’d had as a child, requiring only the flip of a lever to get them open.

  As soon as she was free, he held her against him. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Not badly. We should go after him.” But then she crumpled against him and sobbed.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry, Aubrey. I did a lousy job of protecting you. I shouldn’t have let you come here in the first place.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, getting herself under control. “Just more scared than anything. She pulled away. “Look, his silly little whip didn’t even break the skin.”

  “Just who exactly is this?” the Viking demanded. “I don’t go for threesomes, you know.”

  Chapter Six

  “We can’t go to the police, not when we were in an S&M club dressed for action,” Beau reasoned. They were walking back to his car, the rain soaking them through. But Aubrey didn’t care. It was a warm rain, and it felt cleansing, like a shower. She wanted to wash the bartender’s touch off her skin as soon as possible. Unfortunately, she couldn’t wash the memories away.

  “I don’t want to go to the cops,” she said, picturing Lyle Palmer’s disapproving face as he made her go blow-by-blow through the whole humiliating event. “Let’s just get away from here.” Aubrey was still shaking, and her skin stung in dozens of places now that her adrenaline was seeping away. “I suppose technically I couldn’t prove a crime was committed anyway. Just walking into a place like that could be construed as asking for what I got.”

  Beau just growled. They’d reached his car, and he unlocked the door with a button on his key chain. But he gallantly helped her into the passenger seat, making sure she was settled before he closed the door.

  She hadn’t expected him to be so fiercely protective of her. His tenderness, and the way he’d caressed her hair and called her “honey,” stuck with her far more emphatically than the bartender’s less gentle ministrations.

  “His name’s Cory Silvan,” Beau said. “He’s a part-time bartender, full-time drug dealer. He deals mostly with meth-amphetamines.”

  “You’re kidding. That was Patti’s drug of choice. How’d you find that out?”

  “That old guy I was talking to? Former cop.”

  “The one with the huge belly?”

  “Cops have some strange predilections, just like every other group. He’s a regular at Kink. Says he mostly just likes to watch. But he’s had his eye on Cory. Cory’s got that innocent face, and he’s in good with the college crowd. Likes to give away free samples and get them hooked.”

  Aubrey shivered. That was exactly how Patti had gotten started.

  “Want me to turn on the heater?” he asked.

  “No, that’s okay.” Then she blurted out, “Thank you for saving me. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and keep my mouth shut. But the bartender—Cory—kept me talking, and I guess before I knew it, I was the one revealing information instead of him. All I learned was that Patti was still working there and that she earned good tips.”

  “Which she turned over to Cory. She owed him thirteen thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “She’s a heavy user.”

  “No, Beau, that’s not true. I saw what Patti was like when she was using. Skinny, hollow eyes, sallow skin. She’s healthy now.”

  Beau didn’t argue further, but Aubrey could tell he didn’t believe her. “Maybe the debt’s an old one,” he finally conceded. “Anyway, apparently she’d disappeared from the scene, and he lost track of her. He wasn’t happy about being stiffed. But then he found her, and he threatened her somehow if she didn’t go back to work at Kink and pay him back.”

  It somehow made Aubrey feel better to know Patti wasn’t willingly working as a sex-club waitress.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “Right now we take care of you.”

  “I’m fine, now, really. You don’t have to worry about me, I’m tougher than I look.” Never mind that she was still shivering inside from fear and revulsion.

  Beau was quiet for a long time. Finally he said, “You’ve been assaulted twice today. Either time, you could have been killed. I’m not willing to see you in that kind of danger again. So we’re gonna rethink this whole thing.”

  “And where are we going to do that?”

  “My house. It’s the only place I’m sure you’ll be safe.”

  Beau’s house. “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “It’s not up for discussion. If you want my help, you follow my rules.”

  Oh, how she hated that macho attitude. If she was really brave, she would tell him to stuff it, that she could handle this on her own, that he was overreacting to the danger. But she was too damn scared. So she let Beau drive her to his house. Her only hope was that it would be cleaner than the First Strike office.

  Aubrey was surprised when Beau turned the car onto a road leading into Skylark Meadow, one of Payton’s nicer neighborhoods. The subdivision had been built in the ’70s in a wooded, hilly area, and the builders had taken great pains to preserve as many trees as possible. It quickly became the trendy place to live. Many of the University bigwigs had settled here, and the property values were among the highest in town.

  After winding through streets with picturesque names like Yellow Finch Lane and Swansong Place, Beau pulled the Mustang into a driveway of a large, modern-looking house built on the side of a hill. A wrought-iron fence surrounded it, and the front yard was landscaped with huge rocks and ground cover, probably requiring minimum upkeep.

  He reached across her and pulled a garage opener from his glove box. But it wasn’t an ordinary one. He had to push in a numerical code to get it to work. Suddenly the house appeared more like a fortress to her, perched on its hill.

  “You live here?” she asked, unable to keep the shocked tone out of her voice.

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. But not this. I guess the bounty hunter business is pretty profitable.”

  “On average, not really. I got lucky once. A billionaire paid me handsomely to bring back his runaway teenage daughter. That reward bought this house.”

  “How much did you make off my brother?”

  Beau’s expression was pained. “Aubrey, don’t go there. Not tonight. I’m tired, I’m hurt, you’re hurt—”

  “You’re hurt?” She immediately felt contrite. She hadn’t even considered the fact that he might have gotten injured trying to rescue her. He just seemed so invincible. But he’d taken a
tumble on that hard stone floor. She had her own bruises proving how uncomfortable that was.

  “Nothing a soak in the hot tub won’t fix.”

  The thought of Beau naked in a hot tub wasn’t an image she wanted to focus on right now.

  The inside of the house was dramatic and very…male, starting with a monochromatic kitchen—gray, black and white—that looked as if it had never been used. Moving into the living room, there wasn’t a soft color anywhere. Everything was black, white or brown, and the furniture was leather—all of it. She could smell the leather. Kind of like new-car smell, only better.

  And it was clean. No stray beer bottles or laundry or old pizza cartons.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a creek, dramatically illuminated with landscape lighting. Aubrey realized it would take a grappling hook for anyone to approach the house from the back.

  Beau stopped in the middle of the living room and whistled softly. A scrambling sound followed—a dog getting to its feet? That was a surprise.

  A big dog, Aubrey amended, her heart in her throat, as an enormous Rottweiler trotted down the stairs and straight to Beau.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “This is Sophie,” Beau said, scratching the dog behind its ears. He pointed to Aubrey. “Friend.”

  The dog stared at Aubrey for a moment, then trotted over to sniff her. Aubrey stood stock-still. “Does she bite?”

  “She’ll be nice to you, now that I’ve informed her you’re one of the good guys. But she’s trained to attack.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “It’s okay. You can pet her.”

  Aubrey declined. The dog sniffed her up and down, then, apparently not satisfied, stuck its nose under her skirt.

  Aubrey stepped away. “Hey!”

  “Sophie, no,” Beau said in a quiet but authoritative voice. “Go lie down.”

  The dog immediately obeyed, plodding over to a rug by the fireplace and plopping down.

  “Guess you don’t need a security system with her around,” Aubrey said.