Rules In Blackmail. Nichole Severn
of her throat, she fought to focus on him. She lifted one hand toward her face, but he wrapped his fingers around her small wrist. “What...happened? My head—” She locked her fuzzy gaze on him. “Did you just call me Jane instead of Captain Reise?”
He swallowed. She’d heard that? “You hit your head pretty hard against the window when the truck slammed into us. Must’ve heard me wrong.”
Sullivan shoved a strand of her hair out of her face to see her wound better. Her features softened as she closed her eyes. She was okay as far as he could tell, but the spike of adrenaline had yet to drain from his system. Whoever had been driving that truck had made a very dangerous enemy. Not only had he gone after an unarmed woman, he’d tried killing the CEO of the government’s most resourced private security contractor. No way Sullivan was going to turn Jane’s case over to Anchorage PD now. That bastard was his.
“What happened?” Those brilliant hazel eyes swept over the embankment, and he noted exactly when Jane caught sight of the totaled SUV. Every muscle down her spine tightened as she dug her heels into the snow to sit up. “Somebody tried to kill us.”
No point in denying the facts. Her stalker had gone from hunting Jane in her own home to outright attempted murder. “Looks that way. Can you stand?”
She nodded, rolling her upper body off the ground, but grabbed for his arm. Stinging heat splintered through his muscles where she touched him, his bare skin exposed to the dropping temperatures.
“It’ll be light soon.” Sullivan tugged his arm from her grasp as he scanned their surroundings. They hadn’t made it too far from downtown, but he couldn’t take the chance of taking her back to the office. Her stalker had known exactly where to find them, as if he’d been waiting. Might’ve been on her tail when Jane had broken into Blackhawk Security. Whoever it was, the guy was willing to kill bystanders to get to her, which meant they couldn’t go to her town house either. “We don’t want to be caught out here overnight.”
“There’s nowhere we can hide.” Her teeth chattered together as she wrapped her arms around her midsection. She stared at the half-sunken SUV, shaking her head. “I was careful. I made sure no one was following me when I went to your office. I made sure...” Her words left her mouth quick and breathless as she finally looked at him. “He wants me dead.”
His insides flipped, and Sullivan reached for her without thinking. He pulled her into his chest. At about five foot three, Jane barely came to his sternum, but she fitted. Fragile, vulnerable, but strong. His back molars clamped together, jaw straining. She’d ripped apart his family. She was even blackmailing him into protecting her, but the fear darkening those eyes had urged him to lock her body against his automatically. Her job might’ve made her a few enemies, but not even the army’s most revered prosecutor deserved to be hunted like an animal. No one did.
Tremors racked through her—most likely shock—but he dropped his hold. Wisps of her sweet scent replaced the smell of exhaust and burned rubber seared into his memory, and he inhaled deeply to clear his system. They had to get moving. “Whoever this guy is, we’ll find him.”
The shivers simmered. Sliding her hands between their bodies, she placed them above his heart and tilted her head back to look up at him. “Thank you.”
Heat worked through his chest, a combination of dropping temperatures and the rage he held for her fighting for his attention. Her nearly dying at the hands of a crazed psychopath wouldn’t change the past between them. Nothing could.
“For getting me out of the SUV, I mean.” Cuts, scrapes and dried blood marred her otherwise flawless skin, a small bruise forming on the right side of her face. A strand of short black hair slid along the curve of her cheek, but he wouldn’t brush it away. “You could’ve left me there to take care of your blackmail problem, but you didn’t. I appreciate that.”
He kept his expression tight. Right. Jane Reise had the power to bring down his entire company with one phone call and had made it perfectly clear she was willing to use it. How could he have forgotten?
“Yeah, well, whoever you pissed off tried to kill me, and you’re the only lead I have to hunt him down.” Sullivan put some much-needed space between them. She’d most certainly lived up to her reputation in the last hour they’d been forced together. He curled his fingers into his palms to douse the urge to comfort her. The woman who’d destroyed his family—the woman blackmailing him for his help—didn’t deserve comfort. And she wouldn’t get it from him. He had control. Time to use it.
“Right.” Jane’s throat constricted on a hard swallow. She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and surveyed their surroundings. “I’d say call a tow truck, but I think your SUV is beyond saving.”
Cracking ice pulled his attention toward the river. The SUV was sinking. In less than five minutes, the entire vehicle would be submerged in the icy Gulf of Alaska. Treading through six inches of muddy snow toward the vehicle, Sullivan registered her confident footsteps behind him. He hauled the tailgate above his head and tossed the false bottom of the trunk to his right. “Now we’re on foot. Take this.” He thrust the lighter duffel bag from the trunk at Jane. He grabbed a thick coat and the heavier bag for himself. Boy Scouts, SEALs and Alaskans all had one motto in common: Never Get Caught in the Wilderness Unprepared.
She unzipped the bag he’d handed her. “Food and guns. You’re officially the man of my dreams.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but, hell, the compliment forced him to pause.
“Wait until you see what’s in this bag. Between us, we’ll be able to survive out here for at least three days.” He didn’t bother closing the tailgate. Some civilian would drive past and put a call in to the cops, or the SUV would sink. Either way, he and Jane weren’t sticking around to find out. He couldn’t take the risk of her stalker coming back to the scene to make sure the job was done. “We’re heading northeast.” He pointed toward the thick outcropping of trees as he pulled on his thick coat. “It’s a three-mile hike. We need to leave now in case your stalker realizes he didn’t finish the job.”
“Where are we going?” She brought up the hood on her cargo jacket. Smart move. The Alaskan wilderness wasn’t any place to screw around. They had to stay warm and dry or risk hypothermia.
Sullivan covered his head to conserve body heat. A gust of freezing wind whipped one side of his body as he headed into the forest. “Somewhere no one will find us.”
* * *
HE’D CALLED HER Jane back on the embankment. Not Captain Reise. She’d heard him clear as day. Because even in the midst of suffocating unconsciousness, Jane had locked on to his voice. The man she was blackmailing had brought her out of the darkness. Why? He had no allegiance to her.
Sullivan cleared a path through the thickest parts of the forest with one of the extra blades from his duffel bag a few feet up ahead of her. Shadows cast across his features from the beam from his flashlight. Snow had worked down into her boots, turning to slush. Her jeans were soaked through. How long had they been out here? An hour? Two? Three miles didn’t seem like much until deep snow and freezing temperatures added to the misery. Not to mention it was dark and difficult to see. Her toes had gone numb long ago, fingers following close behind, but Jane kept her mouth shut. They had to be close, right? She swiped away a few drops of water from her cheek, wincing as pain radiated up toward her temple. The sooner they made it to their destination—wherever that was—the better.
Distraction. She had to keep her mind off her frozen limbs. “Bet you’ve never had to walk through the Alaskan wilderness with a client to escape a crazed psychopath before.”
“You’re right.” He laughed, a deep guttural rumble she felt down into her bones. It was real, warming. Swinging his arm out, he held back a large branch so she could pass. He stared down at her while she maneuvered around him, those sea-blue eyes brightening in the muted beam from his flashlight. “I usually reserve these kinds of trips for people I’ve been assigned to hunt down.”
“Is that a nice way of putting