All Or Nothing (The Alpha Brotherhood #2)(35)
Author: Catherine Mann

“Thank God. What a relief.” Her eyes closed for an instant, before she scooped up two plates off the counter. “I made us something to eat. We missed lunch. Could you pour us something to drink?”

She walked past him, both plates of food in her hands. He opened a bottle of springwater, poured it into two glasses with ice then followed her into the dining room. Already, she sat at her place, fidgeting with her napkin.

No wonder she was on edge. All the pleasure of their day out, even making love in the shower, had been wrecked with a cold splash of reality. He sat across from her and shoveled in the food more out of habit than any appetite.

Jayne jabbed at the bits of apple in her salad. “Did I ever tell you why I’m such an opera buff?”

He glanced up from his food, wondering where in the world that question had come from. But then he had given up trying to understand this woman. “I don’t believe you did.”

“I always knew my parents didn’t have a great marriage. That doesn’t excuse what my father did to us—or to the family he kept on the side. But my parents’ divorce wasn’t a huge surprise. They argued. A lot.”

He set his fork aside, his full attention on her. “That had to have been tough for you to hear.”

“It was. So I started turning on the radio to drown them out.” She shrugged, pulling her hair back in her fist. “Opera worked the best. By the time they officially split, I knew all the lyrics to everything from Madame Butterfly to Carmen.”

The image of her as a little girl sitting in the middle of her bed singing Madame Butterfly made him want to time travel to take her bike riding the hell away from there. But was he doing any better at protecting her in the present?

She leaned forward on her elbows. “Just so we’re clear, you have absolutely no reason to be jealous of Anthony. Nothing happened with him, and I made sure he understood that when I spoke to him yesterday. I even had a friend from work pick up Mimi. I would never, never betray your trust that way.”

“I believe you.” And he did. He knew how she felt about what her family had been through with her father’s longtime affair.

“What’s wrong then?” She clasped his arms, holding on tight, her eyes confused, hurt and even a little angry. “Why are you so…distant? You know those walls destroyed us last time.”

He shoved away from the table, holding himself in check. Barely. But he wouldn’t be like her father, shouting and scaring the hell out of her. “This whole mess with Zhutov and you having to second-guess every call that comes into your life. Do you expect me to be happy that there are people asking around about you? That I had to take you to a remote corner of the world to make sure no one is after you—because of me?”

“Of course you have a right to be worried, but if Colonel Salvatore says there’s nothing to worry about, I believe him.”

“Nothing to worry about—this time.”

“We don’t always have to assume the worst here.”

A siren split the air like a knife, cutting her off midsentence.

He recognized the sound all too well. Someone had tripped the alarm on the outer edges of his property.

Holy crap. His body went into action, his first and only priority? Securing Jayne.

“Conrad?” Her face paled with panic. “What’s that?”

“The security system has been tripped. Someone’s trying to break into the compound.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and hustled her toward the front steps. “You need to lock yourself in the panic room. Now.”

Eleven

Jayne hugged her knees, sitting on a sofa in the panic room. Her teeth chattered with fear for her husband. She’d barely had time to process Anthony’s confusing call before the alarm had blared. Conrad had hooked an arm around her waist, rushed her indoors and opened the panic room. He ushered her in and passed over a card with instructions for how to leave…

If he didn’t return…

Horror squeezed her heart in an icy fist with each minute that ticked by. She’d already been in here for what felt like hours, but the clock on her cell phone indicated it had only been sixteen minutes.

Someone was trying to break in and there was nothing she could do except sit in this windowless prison while the man she loved faced heaven only knew what kind of danger. Desperately, she wanted to be out there with him, beside him. But Colonel Salvatore had been right. She was Conrad’s Achilles’ heel. If he had to worry about her, he would be distracted.

She understood that problem well.

There wasn’t anything she could do now other than get her bearings and be on guard. Surveying the inside of her “cell,” she took it in, for all the good that did her.

As far as prisons went it wasn’t that bad, much like an efficiency apartment, minus windows and with only two doors—one leading out and the other open to a small bathroom. A bed filled a corner, a kitchenette with a table in another. A table and television rounded out the decor.

A television? She couldn’t envision anyone in a panic room hanging out watching their DVD collection. Angling sideways, she grabbed the remote control off the end table. She turned on the TV. A view of the front yard filled the flat screen.

Oh, my God, she was holding the remote to a surveillance system. She wasn’t isolated after all. Relief melted through her. She could help by monitoring the outside. She yanked her cell phone from her pocket and saw…she still had a signal so the safe room hadn’t blocked her out.

She thumbed through the remote until she figured out how to adjust the views—front yard, sides, the river—all empty. Her eyes glued to this thin connection to Conrad, she clicked again to a view of the outward perimeter including the clinic.

Not empty.

In fact, a small crowd gathered outside, even this late in the day with the sun setting fast. In the middle of the crowd, four lanky figures sat with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

Teenagers.

Probably not more than fifteen.

And if she guessed correctly, they were some of the same kids who’d played soccer with Conrad just that afternoon.

She clicked the remote, the camera scanning the view until she found Conrad standing with Dr. Boothe. Her husband had his phone out, talking to the doctor while thumbing the keypad. She sagged back on the sofa. If there was any danger to her here, Conrad wouldn’t be so far away.

Still, she stayed immobile, waiting for his call. She wouldn’t be the fool in the horror films who walked right into a killer’s path in spite of all the warnings. But how many times in her life had she sat waiting and worrying, unable to connect or help? She couldn’t be a helpless damsel in distress or a passive bystander in her own life.