Читать книгу Rescued By The Billionaire Ceo - Amelia Autin - Страница 11

Chapter 2

Jason walked through the door of his penthouse condo three hours later. He and his men had quickly scoured the tiny apartment where Alana had been held, noting everything and taking copious pictures, but touching nothing that would contaminate the crime scene. Then they’d melted into the darkness when the police sirens could be heard in the distance.

He dropped his keys and iPhone in a large Ming bowl on the credenza by the front door, then headed for the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. He was naked by the time he arrived, and he bundled his clothes into the laundry hamper. Then he grabbed the jar of cold cream from the bathroom counter and proceeded to smear some across the camouflaging face paint. He wiped most of the paint off with a handful of tissues, then stepped into the shower and let soap, hot water and vigorous scrubbing do the rest.

Clean, he pulled on boxer shorts and padded into the kitchen, where he snagged a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator and downed half of it in two gulps. Then he headed for his office, detouring on the way to pick up his smartphone in the vestibule. He took a moment to run one hand over the foot-high statue of Bruce Lee also on the credenza, a replica of the life-size one on the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui.

The statue had cost him an arm and a leg, but like the gold medallion he wore it was a constant reminder, and worth every penny. Bruce Lee was revered in Hong Kong—and in much of the rest of the world, for that matter—both as a proponent of martial arts and as a man whose films always depicted him standing up for what was right, not what was expedient. A man who protected the innocent. Bruce had died before Jason was born, but his legacy would live forever. A legacy Jason tried in his own way to emulate.

He settled into his leather and ebony office chair, flicked on his laptop, then keyed in the complicated encryption password. Tonight was going to be one of those nights...as usual. Sleep, which his adrenaline-sapped body craved, would be elusive. Rescues always wired him to the point where going to bed was useless, so he wouldn’t bother. Besides, he still had work to do.

While he waited patiently for the laptop to power up, he leaned back in the chair with a creak of leather, rehashing tonight’s rescue in his mind.

So many things could have gone wrong. Not the least of which was, he and his men could have picked the wrong apartment. GPS was good, but it wasn’t perfect. The coordinates they had in their possession had indicated that building and a most likely floor, but not which apartment. That had required a little old-fashioned deductive reasoning...and prayer. If they’d guessed wrong, screams from some surprised apartment dweller when Jason broke in would probably have alerted the triads that something was up, possibly even that a rescue was being attempted. And what that would have meant for Alana Richardson didn’t bear thinking about.

Alana Richardson. A tiny slip of a thing, really. Not even as tall as his sister, Mei-li, who wasn’t all that tall, either. But that wasn’t really relevant. No, what really mattered was how she’d handled herself during the rescue. Despite being bound, gagged and blindfolded, she’d been instantly alert when he’d awakened her. And she hadn’t questioned his orders. Hadn’t insisted on any kind of explanation. She’d just done what he’d told her to do...instantaneously.

He laughed softly. It wasn’t blind obedience he’d been hoping for; it was a woman smart enough to instantly grasp that explanations could wait for a more opportune time. Who could make split-second decisions the way he did, and follow through on them. And Alana Richardson fit that description the way she’d fit into his arms. Perfectly.

He sat up abruptly, muttering, “Hold on a minute.” Where the hell had that thought come from?

You shouldn’t even be thinking about how good she felt in your arms, he chastised himself. And you damn well shouldn’t have been aroused when she wrapped her legs around you and held on tight.

It did absolutely no good telling himself what he should have done...because it was too late for that. He had been aroused. Painfully aroused. And now that his mind had gone down that path, it was impossible not to remember slight breasts pressed firmly up against his chest. Impossible not to remember thighs clinging to his hips with unexpected strength. Impossible not to imagine those same thighs holding on tight as he rode her soft and slow and—

His smartphone dinged for an incoming text, an interruption he both blessed and cursed. He swiped a finger over the touchpad and saw it was from his sister.

Thnx, he read. Knew I could count on you. Call me?

He frowned. It was way past midnight, and his sister should be sleeping. But she knows you well enough, he reminded himself. She knows you’re not sleeping.

He pressed speed dial, and when the phone was answered, surprised himself when the first words out of his mouth were, “How is she?”

“Recovering,” Mei-li said. “The police were here. Dirk insisted we file a police report immediately, even though Alana had already been through a lot for one day. And it’s a good thing we did report it, because someone tipped off the police there was an abduction and rescue.” The emphasis on someone conveyed his sister knew exactly who that was, even though she wasn’t saying. “But the police are gone now. Finally. They took scrapings from beneath Alana’s fingernails for DNA analysis—apparently she scratched one of the men, and it looks as if she drew blood.”

He heard the unspoken approval in her voice. “They wanted Alana to go down to the police station to look through some mug shots,” she continued. “But she told them she really didn’t see her abductors’ faces. All three men were wearing full head masks. Black. Balaclavas, I’d bet, by her description.”

She paused for a moment, but Jason didn’t say anything. “After the police left, Dirk and I took her to hospital, over her vehement objections.”

“And?”

“And she’s fine, just as she insisted. A little nausea, but that’s a normal aftereffect of the chloroform they used on her. And she’s still feeling a little shaky from the blow she took.”

“What?”

“She fought them, remember? She said she tried to hold her breath when they placed the cloth over her face, but then one of the men struck her with something and that’s when she lost consciousness.”

Jason’s admiration for Alana rose, and her perfect response during the rescue tonight took on even more luster. If she was still shaky after all this time, that meant she had to have been still suffering from her head injury when he’d woken her and carried her out of the apartment. But she hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t complained.

“They took X-rays, just as a precaution, but no fractures. No subdural hematoma, either. And based on her responses to the doctor’s questions, he wasn’t worried about a concussion. He prescribed rest and lots of it.”

“Which she’s getting now?”

“Yes. For all her protestations that she was fine, Alana fell asleep in the car on the way home. Dirk had to carry her to her bedroom. I don’t think she even knows I tucked her in, so I’ll make an educated guess and say she’s still sound asleep.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Same for me.” Her voice, normally so light and musical, took on a slight strain. “I can never forget—”

“Sean,” he finished for her. His tone roughened. “Neither can I.”

“I know.” Mei-li sighed in his ear. “What did the triads say when you interrogated them?”

“Nothing. They must have gone to check on Miss Richardson shortly after I got her out of there, because by the time my team and I were able to storm the apartment, those men were long gone.”

“Damn!” That wasn’t quite the word Jason had used at the time, but his sister didn’t curse often. A damn from her was equivalent to cursing a blue streak. “At least Alana’s safe. Which means this one goes in the win column anyway.”

They were silent for a few moments, both remembering a day more than twelve years ago and an abduction that had gone heartbreakingly wrong.

“Thank God you had the GPS coordinates of where she was being held,” Jason said, finally breaking the painful silence. “We couldn’t have rescued her without that.”

“Yes, thank God, but also thank Dirk...and you,” Mei-li said, and Jason knew she was referring to the high-tech electronic transmitter. Beacon, actually, but it only transmitted if it was manually set off or activated remotely from the parent server. Highly secret equipment not yet available to the general public, the prototype of which Jason had designed and had his company produce at his brother-in-law’s request. Alana had carried one on her keychain, although she hadn’t known it.

“Don’t forget to give yourself credit for quick thinking while you’re handing out praise,” he said drily. “I’m not sure what that triad gang was waiting for—the cover of darkness, probably. But if you hadn’t mobilized RMM right away...”

“All I did was—”

“—text Miss Richardson when she didn’t come home for dinner the way she said she would. And when you got no response, you called her cell phone. And when she didn’t answer, you activated the beacon.”

“Well, it made no sense to me,” Mei-li explained. “I knew she was going to Mong Kok, but when I activated the transmitter and mapped the location, I knew something bad was going down. She had no business being in that neighborhood—both Dirk and I had warned her where not to go by herself. And there was no ransom demand. If it wasn’t a kidnapping, I knew it was outside my area of expertise. So I called you.” Then she asked, “How did you know which apartment she was being held in?”

“Clutter...that wasn’t there.”

“An empty balcony,” his sister said softly. “Of course.” Admiration was evident in her voice, and he knew she’d made the connection without him having to spell it out. Space was at such a premium in Hong Kong, the vast majority of balconies weren’t used to take the air, but to store things that wouldn’t fit in Hong Kong’s tiny apartments. In addition to that, almost no one dried their clothes in a dryer, even if they had a washing machine in their unit. Even the residents of high-end apartments and condos hung their clothes to dry on their balconies. When you were looking for the slightest aberration, an empty balcony stood out like a red flag for RMM.

“So what did Miss Richardson tell the police?”

His sister laughed unexpectedly. “Based on her description, you’re about ten feet tall, have the strength of a gorilla and can scale walls like a superhero from a comic book.”

He chuckled. “I guess I’m safe, then. The police won’t be searching for me, even though I didn’t break the law. Much.” But he couldn’t help the little thrill of ego-stoking male pride that shot through him at the description. So Alana saw him as a superhero, did she? He liked that idea. No, he loved that idea. Because while the opinions of those he rescued had never been important to him before, Alana’s opinion of him mattered. A lot.

* * *

The High Tiger of the Eight Tigers triad organization—although it had far more than eight members—sat in a hastily called conference with the seven other leaders of the triad. Each of the seven was an enforcer, overseeing a cadre of men. Each cadre was responsible for a different aspect of the criminal endeavors that constituted the backbone of the Eight Tigers: drugs, gun-running, prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, money laundering and pornography. And they all answered to the High Tiger—chairman of the board, as it were.

The Eight Tigers was a radical departure from most Hong Kong triads. Except when it came to women, it was an equal opportunity employer—if they cared about such things, which they didn’t. All they cared about was whether a man had it in him to carry out the dicta of the ruling tribunal...and could keep his mouth shut in the unfortunate event he was arrested. Of the eight men seated around the conference table, three were Chinese, two were British, two were American and one was Australian. And they’d had a secret stranglehold on crime in Hong Kong and Macau for years.

The High Tiger turned to the enforcer in charge of prostitution and demanded, “How did it happen?”

The man on the hot seat nervously cleared his throat. “Unclear.”

“What do the men say?”

“All they know is she was gone when they went to move her to the boat. Then they got the hell out of there.”

The High Tiger’s voice was soft, yet his tone was threatening, when he asked, “Are you aware this was an RMM rescue?”

The other man blanched. Every man at the table knew of RMM. Knew it was more to be feared than the Hong Kong Police Force or the Public Security Police Force of Macau for three reasons: it was a highly secret organization, more secret than their own; its members were impervious to bribes, unlike many on the police forces in the jurisdictions in which the Eight Tigers operated; and it was bankrolled by a man who seemed to have an unending supply of money...even greater than theirs.

“No, I...I was not aware,” the man finally admitted.

The High Tiger then asked the question that held the most importance to the men assembled there. “What trail might lead RMM...or authorities...to us?”

“Nothing.” The man being questioned glanced around the table, reassuring the assemblage. “Nothing at all.”

* * *

Alana woke at her normal time. Dirk had told her as they’d left the hospital last night to take it easy, to sleep in and recuperate from her ordeal, but she wasn’t going to act like an invalid. Okay, her arm and shoulder muscles were stiff and sore from being bound. And yes, her wrists were raw and chafed from the rope she’d tried to wriggle out of. And...

She tentatively touched the back of her head where she’d been hit. Ouch! she thought. It was still tender to the touch. There was a little swelling, too, but her nausea was gone and she felt fine. Energized to jump right back into her job. She didn’t want to lie in bed and remember her close brush with all the bad things that could have happened to her—including rape and death. She needed the distraction of work to take her mind off what had nearly occurred.

She dressed quickly and was brushing her teeth when a good memory surfaced...her miraculous rescue. That was immediately followed by memories of the man who’d rescued her. The way he’d held her so securely she hadn’t been afraid, even dangling from a harness hooked to a cable, with terra firma far below. The incredible hardness of his body plastered against hers. Not to mention the arousal that had intrigued her to the point where she’d almost said something about it.

She wished she knew who he was. Wished she at least had a first name she could use when she thought of him, instead of the slightly blasphemous “savior” that came to mind.

Okay, so maybe she’d exaggerated his physical characteristics when she’d described him to the police last night. And he probably couldn’t walk on water, either, although she had a feeling he would try if it was necessary to save someone. He would have done whatever was necessary to save her, even though he didn’t know her. She couldn’t have said how she knew, but she was absolutely certain that from the minute he’d entered the room where she was imprisoned, he wouldn’t have left without her. Even if her abductors had surprised them, he would have done whatever was necessary to effect their escape. And that was such an incredibly glorious, albeit humbling, feeling, knowing there were still heroes in the world willing to risk their lives for others.

But darn it, she needed a name!

Then she remembered what Mei-li had told her last night, that he worked for an organization called RMM. If Dirk’s wife knew that much, she just might know him. It was worth a shot anyway.

On that thought she made her way downstairs to the kitchen.

Hannah, the DeWinters’ housekeeper, was at the stove, but she turned the fire off and bustled over to Alana when she entered the room, enveloping her in an encouraging hug. “I’m so glad you’re safe!”

“Thanks, Hannah.” She stepped back and looked around. “Where is everyone?”

“The twins are still sleeping, and so is their nanny. Mr. DeWinter had an early call on the set. He said to tell you there’s some fan mail to go through in his office...but only if you feel up to it. Mrs. DeWinter also went out early. She said she might be back for lunch, but she’d let me know.”

“Darn it!” Alana said out loud. “I was hoping to catch her before she left.”

Hannah resumed her cooking. Oatmeal, Alana saw, which both she and the DeWinters’ daughters loved. “Was it something urgent? You could always call or text her.”

“Important to me. But not urgent enough to interrupt whatever she’s doing. If she went out this early, she must be working on a case. I’ll see her at lunch or dinner.”

Hannah took down a bowl from one of the cabinets and served Alana from the pot on the stove. “Here you go, Miss Richardson. Put yourself on the outside of this.”

Alana smiled and accepted the bowl. She’d only been living with the DeWinters for a month, but she adored Hannah almost as much as the twins did. Not just for her quaint expressions and her insistence on addressing Alana with old-fashioned formality, but for the heart of gold that was obvious within minutes of meeting her.

She sprinkled a spoonful of brown sugar on her oatmeal and stirred, then seated herself at the kitchen table with a despondent sigh. She’d tried to love her own mother; she really had. But except for the residual attachment left over from her childhood, it wasn’t possible. How could she love a woman whose outlook on life was totally alien to her? Who judged people by their social status...and more?

She couldn’t help wishing her mother was more like Hannah. For that matter, she couldn’t help wishing her father was different, too. Not like Hannah so much, but like her uncle Julian. She’d never envied Juliana anything except the close relationship she had with her father, a father she could be proud of. If only Uncle Julian had been her father, too, instead of—

Don’t go there, she warned herself. No pity parties. That never does any good. Think of all the people in the world who would change places with you, she reminded herself as she ate her porridge, enumerating all the positives in her life. Your parents never abused you. You never went hungry. You always had a roof over your head and decent clothes to wear.

But...those weren’t the only things that mattered when raising a child.

The fact that her parents were the way they were wasn’t something she could change, either, although she’d tried. Repeatedly. But she’d never made a dent in their prejudices. Wasn’t that one of the reasons she’d run across the world to escape? So she could live her life free from the entitled, superior mentality they’d tried to impose on her?

They would never understand that Alana didn’t see the world the way they did, no matter what she said. So all she could do was distance herself from them, even if it meant taking a job they saw as beneath her.

Living with Dirk and Mei-li had been an eye-opener. Watching them together. So loving. So supportive. So accepting of their differences. No, not just accepting, rejoicing in their differences.

Then seeing how Dirk’s daughters looked upon Mei-li as their mother without question, even though both Mei-li and Dirk made sure the twins knew how much their birth mother had loved them and sacrificed for them before they were born.

Alana knew one thing for sure now. The way she’d been raised wasn’t the way she’d raise her own children...if she was fortunate enough to have any.

And just like that her memory winged to last night and the man who’d rescued her. A man who, as Mei-li had put it, did what he had to do to rescue the innocent, without looking for thanks.

She hadn’t really put a lot of thought into it before, because she was only twenty-six and her biological clock hadn’t yet sounded the warning alarm. But she was deeply attached to the children she knew—Juliana’s little boy, Raoul, and Dirk’s daughters, Linden and Laurel. And she’d always known that when she found the right man she wanted children. Children, plural. Two, maybe three. Not the lonely only child she’d been.

No, she hadn’t given it a lot of thought before. But she was thinking of it now. She was definitely thinking of it now...because that was the kind of man she wanted as the father of her children.

And she didn’t even know his name or what he did for a living.