Caught in the Storm Read online

  Jackson shrugged.

  “Tell me. Please.” She turned over so she was on her back looking up into his tired face.

  “I just thought if I stayed up all night, you wouldn’t disappear on me again.

  Kat closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest. The pain she’d caused him could never be taken back. She didn’t know how to make it up to him. Maybe if she was there for him and could prove to him that she wasn’t going anywhere this time, maybe time could heal his pain.

  Jeremy sat in the hotel room looking at the costume he had picked out for the night. Somehow he thought the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera was perfect. While the Phantom’s face was disfigured and he hid it from the world, Jeremy felt his soul was disfigured and he hid that from everyone. Plus, he needed to hide his face from the world since the authorities were looking for him.

  Walking over to the dresser, he picked up the invitation he was able to get and tapped it against his mouth. Maybe tonight he’d be able to get his hands on one of those bitches who’d escaped him and changed his luck. Alexia, the one who escaped twice. The whore. He had to get her. He had to kill her. He had to make everything right again. He could feel the desperation building inside him. He didn’t like this and didn’t know what to do. Getting down on his hands and knees, he crawled under the bed, curled into a ball like he used to do when he was young, and hid until the feeling passed.

  She spun around in her pretty light blue gown. She had always loved dressing up, but they never had anything this nice while she was growing up. Crossing to the bed, she looked at her weapons; she knew it was going to be hard to sneak anything into the party tonight, but she had thought ahead and had camouflaged them to look like something a woman would typically have in her purse. They wouldn’t be able to do as much damage as she’d like, but maybe enough to have him worried. She smiled at the thought of making him bleed.

  Looking at herself in the mirror, she wished Mama could see her now. But that bastard had taken her away. He had to pay. She had tried to keep her personal emotions out of this; to just take the facts and let them speak for themselves. But knowing she was this close, she couldn’t keep them buried any longer. She missed her mama so much; things would have been so different if she hadn’t been killed.

  Jeremy walked out of his room and down the hall. As he turned the corner he noticed someone coming out of a room. He knew who it was. It was the head of Noah’s security, Bruno.

  He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his knife. He knew he’d have to be careful, but thankfully he was in a black suit, the blood wouldn’t show up as much. Coming up quickly behind him he shoved the knife into his back effectively pushing him back into the room he’d been exiting. Once they were inside he closed and locked the door.

  Sighing he turned the body over, it was too easy. He should have been paying closer attention. Some head of security. Jeremy looked around the room there had to be something he could do. He didn’t want to just leave him there the blood seeping into the carpet. He had to make more of a statement.

  Glancing out the open window he saw the sun was setting. He quickly walked over to the drapes and pulled them open testing their strength. Looking back at the body he moved quickly to suspend him upside down and spread eagle. Once it was complete he stood back and watched as the blood slowly seeped out of the cuts he had made on the body and run down the window. The light coming through the window had a reddish tint to it because of all of the blood. Jeremy thought it looked nice in the mostly white room.

  Kat paced the room. She felt so awkward with the pregnancy bump on her stomach. She fought the urge to rub it, knowing that would be the closest she would ever come to actually being pregnant and having something grow inside her.

  Earlier, when the four of them stood side by side in the mirror, you couldn’t tell the two couples apart. Lexi and Noah were downstairs doing their part of the night and would soon be back up here to change places. Kat felt naked without her gun, but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to take it in there. She also knew the costumes of the men who were there to protect them, and they had guns. They were supposed to be within ten feet of them at all times. All she would need to do was get to them.

  “Come here,” Jackson said as he patted the seat on the couch next to him.

  Sitting down, she turned to him and gave him a look. “How can you sit there so calmly and read? Seriously, it’s not natural.”

  He shrugged, “This is nothing; now playing in the Superbowl that is nerve wracking. This, it’s just a little party where I get to dance the night away with you in my arms. That is easy.” He distracted her by telling her about when the Steelers won against the Cardinals.

  She kept focused on him until she heard the door open and leapt up off the couch, her heart feeling like it was going to beat out of her chest in fear.

  Jackson stood and put his arm around her. “Easy now. It’s going to be okay.”

  Kat closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, Lexi was standing in front of her with her brow furrowed.

  “Are you going to be able to do this?” Lexi ran her hand up and down Kat’s arm.

  “Yes,” she nodded, “I’ll be fine. I can do this.”

  “I don’t know if this helps or not, but it was your typical run of the mill charity event. Nothing unusual has happened,” Noah said as he peeled his mask off and tossed it on the chair.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Kat started walking toward the door. She wanted to get this night behind her. She never thought that she’d be looking forward to being locked behind the walls of Noah’s beach house.

  She turned around and waited for Jackson to catch up. She narrowed her eyes at him while he spoke quietly to Noah. Once he was done, she didn’t wait for him but opened the door and headed toward the elevator.

  Jackson quickly caught up with her and grabbed her hand, leaning close to her ear, he whispered, “Babe, we’re supposed to be Noah and Lexi, you know, all happy and a baby on the way. Chill.”

  Kat knew he was right; she had to get her head in the game, as he would say. She didn’t say anything but leaned into him the way Lexi always did with Noah. It felt both weird and right doing the same with Jackson. They had spent a lot of time mimicking them, almost to the point where it had become second nature.

  Once they were in the elevator, she pulled away from him slightly but was quickly spun back against the wall, her mouth devoured by a man who seemed he hadn’t drunk from her lips in too long. She couldn’t help herself; she melted into him, as much as she could with the fake belly between them. She was a moth to his flame. How had she ever thought she could keep away from him once they found each other again? It was ridiculous. Moaning, she pulled him tighter toward her, opening up for him so his tongue could battle hers.

  She vaguely heard the ding of the elevator door opening and a gasp, but before she knew it, Jackson was slamming his hand over the buttons, never taking his mouth from hers. Feeling the elevator begin its descent again, she spread her legs further apart, and he instantly thrust between them, his hardness nestled against her throbbing pussy. Grinding against him, she was so completely lost and it wasn’t until Jackson pulled away from her, she realized they were on the ground floor, the doors wide open for everyone to see them going at it like a couple of horny teenagers.

  Her face instantly turned red as cameras flashed, taking pictures of them. She tried to gather as much dignity as she could muster as they walked out of the elevator and into the ballroom. She could feel Jackson laughing beside her. “This isn’t funny,” she hissed at him.

  “Oh, yes, yes it is.” He leaned in close to her. “They think we are Noah and Lexi.”

  Kat covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. A small laugh escaped her lips, followed by another, until they both were almost crying in each other’s arms from laughing so hard. Finally, she calmed down enough to say, “I’m going to owe her big time.”

  “Yeah, you are.
” He pulled her onto the dance floor.

  “What about you? You’ll owe Noah.”

  “Mr. Last Man Standing? Hell no, he’s good. In fact, I’m willing to bet he’ll laugh too. It’s you who’s going to have a hard time with Lexi.”

  “Shit.”

  “You said it. Now come here, I want to feel you move in my arms while I think about what I’m going to do to you the next time we’re alone.”

  As they danced across the floor, she started out completely lost in him. When someone would bump her, she’d quickly look around, wondering if Jeremy was there. Once she started looking around, she couldn’t stop. Behind every male mask, she thought it was him. There were a couple of times men tried to cut in, but Jackson would just shake his head and dance them away.

  Kat’s hand became tighter and tighter. She felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. Everything started spinning around; she missed a step and Jackson quickly righted her before she could fall.

  “Come on; let’s go sit down for a bit.”

  “No, I’ll be fine. Besides someone might come up to you to talk. This is better. Let’s just take it a little slower.”

  When they started to dance again, a couple stopped right in front of them. Locking eyes with the man behind the mask, she felt like she knew those eyes. Those eyes that had haunted her dreams for years.

  Just as Kat started to step closer to Jackson, the lights went out. Everything went pitch black. The backup emergency lights didn’t come on.

  Jeremy made his way closer and closer to Alexia. If he could just touch her, smell her, some of this tension would leave him, and he’d be able to concentrate on killing her. He absently danced with some woman in a light blue dress, working his way to his angel.

  There, there she was, so beautiful even with that vile man’s spawn growing inside of her. As he danced by her, he breathed in deeply, ahh… her scent, how he had missed it. In fact, it had been so long he wasn’t sure if he was remembering it correctly. No matter. She was his.

  Moving so he was blocking their path, he stood face to face with Alexia. Staring deeply into her eyes, his cock strained at the seams of his pants. He let go of the woman he had been dancing with and turned towards Alexia. The fates were with him and the lights went out as be plunged his knife deep into her belly twisting it and almost came at the feel of blood flowing over his hand.

  She couldn’t believe her luck. There she was, dancing with Jeremy; the man she spent months tracking down and planning on how to kill him. It was so close; in fact, it was time. She set her plan in motion.

  Kat bent at the waist, the pain surprised her. Clutching her belly she felt something warm flow over her fingers and she felt the hilt of the knife protruding from her belly. Suddenly someone grabbed her, putting their hand over her mouth and pulling her away from Jackson.

  “Kat?” Jackson said. When she didn’t answer, he called out for her louder and louder until he was screaming her name. He tried to reach out for her but couldn’t find her. There was nowhere to go and nothing to see. She was right there.

  The panic built until he felt it clutch around his heart, squeezing the life out of it.

  All of a sudden, the lights came back on. They could only have been off for no more than five minutes. He frantically looked around, desperate to find her. He ran around the room searching before finally reaching the dinner tables, here he grabbed a chair to search from above for Kat. But she was nowhere to be found. She was missing. He was supposed to protect her and now she was gone.

  She smiled to herself that her plans were going as intended. As she walked toward the waiting cab, she shifted her body in order to keep the apparently drunk person, upright. Soon, very soon everything she’d done would all be worthwhile.

  They all stood around the presidential suite in a state of shock. The security team was searching the hotel for any sign of Jeremy; so far, there had been nothing. They knew he had to be behind it, especially since Kat was pretty certain she had come face to face with him before the lights went out, and had the cut on her stomach to prove it.

  “You should lie down,” Kat said to Lexi.

  “No, I’m fine. And hello, I think you are the one who should be laying down. Actually, I’m hoping they will tell us we can go home soon. I just want to be in my own bed.” She sighed and reached her hand out so Noah would stop pacing and hold her hand.

  “Soon, my love, soon.” He kissed the inside of her wrist.

  “Jackson, will you sit down? You’re going to wear the floor out pacing like that, plus you’re making me dizzy,” Lexi said.

  “No, I will not sit down,” Jackson growled. “This is fucking bullshit.”

  “Jackson,” Noah warned.

  “Come on, it is bullshit and if it had been your wife who had been taken away and you couldn’t find her, you’d be pissed too.” Jackson walked over to Noah.

  Noah poked Jackson in the chest. “You don’t think I’m upset about what happened to Kat? You don’t think I wasn’t sitting up here worried about her? That Lexi wasn’t? This isn’t all about you big boy; we’re all in this together.”

  Kat ran over and got between the two of them. “I’m fine. It’s over. Now stop it.”

  Jackson growled at her. “It’s not over. It will never be fucking over until that mother fucking asshole is dead.” He spun around and punched the wall, leaving a hole in the plaster.

  “I’m sure that made everything better,” Lexi said dryly.

  Jackson leaned his head against the wall and looked down. “I thought you were gone, Kat. I was supposed to protect you, but I didn’t. Hell, you’ve been stabbed!”

  Kat put her arm around him and rested her head against his shoulder. “I wasn’t gone. Neither of us knew that security would be that close and pull me away to safety without taking you too. Besides, it’s just a scratch, it’s really not that bad. Lucky for me that belly was full of gel to absorb the impact.”

  He moved his head so he was looking at her. “Lucky for both of us. But you must have been so scared.”

  “I was at first, with everything being so loud, and people screaming in the ballroom. Finally, he was able to tell me who he was. Trust me, I’ll never forget Jeremy’s voice, and this was nothing like it. I tried to get him to stop and go back for you, but it was so dark, there was no way he’d risk it. Once I was safe, he was supposed to tell the others on duty to come get you but you were running around the room and they couldn’t get your attention.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, Jackson, it’s not your fault. Everything’s fine. We’re all okay. Come on; let’s sit down until they tell us we can leave.”

  Noah turned to Jackson, “Have you heard from Bruno?”

  “Nope, I figured he was commanding everything from the other room. Let’s see what’s up, maybe he can tell us we can go home.”

  Jackson called Bruno from his cell phone. He frowned as it went to voice mail. “That’s strange, he always answers.” He stood up and started walking towards the door.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Kat said quietly from the couch, “You aren’t leaving here alone.”

  “She’s got a point.” Noah said and gently moved Lexi’s head off of his lap and stood up. “You shouldn’t be going alone.”

  “Oh and what you two will be like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum trying to find him. I’m going with you.”

  They both turned to her, “No.”

  “What? You forget I’m the one with the training.”

  “And you are also the one who got stabbed tonight. No, besides, there are other security guards around we can have escort us to the other room.” Jackson said.

  Noah walked back to Kat placing his hand on her arm, “Besides, I need you here for Lexi. If she wakes up and all of us were gone she’d completely freak out.”

  “Damnit.”

  “He’s got you there. Now since that’s settled, let’s go.” Jackson headed back towards the door.

  “Hurry back.” Kat sa
id to them.

  “We will, don’t worry.”

  “I’ve got to tell you Jack, I’m a little worried. It’s not like Bruno to not be in contact like this.” Noah said as they rode the elevator down.

  “Yeah, I don’t know him like you do, but once you said something I didn’t have a good feeling about this.” Jackson tried again to reach Bruno on his cell phone, dread filling his gut with every unanswered call.

  They met the hotel security at the room Bruno had rented. Once they made the plan that Noah’s men would go in first, followed by hotel, then Noah and Jackson they acted quickly.

  Jackson couldn’t see much, there was no light on inside the room, hearing the shout coming from inside they all rushed in and someone turned the lights on. There was Bruno strung up and dead. The head of security. No one was safe.

  The following morning Kat awoke to raised voices coming from below. She pulled the pillow over her head, wanting to block it all out, but instead, she got up and put some clothes on. As she descended the stairs, the voices got louder. What a great way to wake up.

  She found Lexi and Evie on one side and the men on the other. Not liking the look of the scene before her, she went over and joined the women. “So it appears everyone is in a Suzy Sunshine mood this morning. Now what’s the argument about?”

  “These,” Evie waved her hand toward the men, “baboons, think it’s too dangerous for us to be out. So from now on, we aren’t to go anywhere, even with security.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding?” Kat asked. “We aren’t to go anywhere?”

  “Oh no, even my Neanderthal is going to have the doctor come here for my checkups. Yeah, the poor little delicate flowers need to be hidden away.” Lexi fumed.

  “Now, come on, love,” Noah started.

  “Oh, don’t you ‘come on, love’ me. You do know what century we are in, right? No, why am I asking; I’m sure you can’t even count!” Lexi folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at Noah, daring him to make a comment.