The hallway inside was dimly lit, and I took the stairs to the second floor, walking past some vending machines and finally getting to the door that Clem was supposed to be behind. My first instinct was to bust it down and go in with my gun raised, but I didn’t want to scare Clem half to death.
Pressing my ear against the door, I couldn’t hear anything and looked around. The other doors were all shut tight, and based on the parking lot, there probably weren’t many other people staying at this less-than-stellar place. But were the ones who were in cahoots with Jordan—and possibly Clem—just waiting for the first sound of trouble to come out and start shooting?
I couldn’t have her get caught in something like that. Not even if she was betraying me. And my heart still refused to believe she was able to fake the feelings she couldn’t hide from me. Swearing quietly to myself, I wished I had told her the truth sooner. Not just about my family, but my own feelings for her.
I loved that woman more than life, and if she was working against me…
A sound down the hall made me turn, and I spotted a little, stooped maid backing out of an emergency stairwell,pulling a cart full of towels toward a supply closet. I waved her over, and she abandoned her cart with a shrug.
“If you’re locked out, I don’t have the master key,” she said. “I’m off duty.”
She rubbed her bent back as if to drive home the point that she was in no mood to do any favors. “Just knock on this door for me,” I said, handing her another of my fifties.
Her old eyes lit up, and she used remarkable strength to push me out of the way to rap on the door. I stayed to the side, waiting to hear Clem’s voice. I needed to hear it and know she was fine.
To my utter shock, Jordan himself answered it, sputtering with outrage at the interruption of whatever he was doing. “Wrong room,” he said. “We don’t need anything. Get lost.”
He clearly wasn’t in his right mind, actually leaning out to take a swipe at the elderly woman. She jumped out of the way with the sudden grace of a cat, and I jumped in. At the same moment, I heard a muffled cry from inside the room. Unmistakably Clem’s voice, and unmistakably under duress.
The maid was already down the hall by the time I kicked Jordan in the stomach, making him stagger back and out of my way. I rushed past him to see my wife, tied up and gagged on the bed, a bruise blooming on her forehead and a bright red mark on her cheek as if she’d recently been slapped.
I whirled around, ready to knock the little shit who did that to her into the next dimension, a feral roar tearing from my throat.
“Not so fast,” the little shit said, now holding a gun on me.
Clem sobbed from behind me, but I held up my hand to keep her from trying anything. I trained my eyes on the gun that was aimed squarely at my face, then looked to Jordan’s wild, bloodshot eyes.
He might have been a violent bastard who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me if he got the chance. He also clearly had no control or training, and I wasn’t going to give him that chance. Before he could blink those crazed eyes of his, I chopped my left hand down on his wrist and wrested the gun from him with my other hand as he yelped in pain and involuntarily loosened his grip on it.
I had my finger on the trigger, and the urge to pull it was strong, but the gun had no silencer on it, and I might need answers from this guy later.
“Damn it,” I groaned, smashing him in the side of the head with the gun instead of splattering his brains on the wall behind him. Not nearly as satisfying, but a lot less messy.
He went down like a bag of rocks, and I finally turned to Clem. She struggled against whatever held her wrists behind her back and was gagging on the wad of cloth in her mouth. I hurried to her and yanked the gag out, then tore through the pillowcase that tied her hands.
She curled into a ball, sobbing, and I gathered her into my arms.
“It’s over,” I said. “He’s out cold.”
As I patted her back, I sent a message to my guards outside to get up there to deal with Jordan before he woke up. I couldn’t count on my own self-control now that I saw her bruises up close. “What did he do to you?” I asked, my hand tightening on the gun.
“You’re really here?” she said, barely intelligible through the rising hysteria. “Is this real?”
“Of course it’s real,” I said, lifting her off the bed and cradling her in my arms. “Nobody takes what’s mine.”
Flinging her arms around my neck, she held on as I hustled her down the stairs while my guys hurried past me to deal with Jordan. I shushed her babbled gratitude as tears soaked my neck.
“You don’t have to thank me for doing my job,” I said.
She calmed down a little and asked me to let her walk, but I couldn’t make my arms release their hold on her. She was a little dinged up, but she was fine. And she wasn’t working against me. I still didn’t know why she was with Jordan or if he was working with the gang that plagued us, but she was safe now, no longer in danger.
Her grip on me loosened, and she melted into the front seat of my car, flinching when I pulled the seatbelt across her.
“You’re okay now,” I said.
“Am I?” she asked.
Was she still just in shock from her ordeal, or was this question aimed at me? It killed me that she didn’t trust me, but why should she with the secrets I had been keeping? She remained silent as I pulled out of the motel parking lot and aimed us toward home. With her arms curled around herself and pressed against the door, it almost looked like she was cowering from me now that her initial happiness at being rescued was spent.