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  Striking out in the direction of the complex, I moved carefully yet swiftly. I could hear the distant sound of music, musing that someone must be having a party. Tonight wasn’t a night for festivities. I had to focus.

  Stopping short, I stared at a large and burly figure guarding the outer exit of the apartment complex. It might have been a setback, but fortunately, I’d not planned to enter through the front door. I circled around the building, keeping an eye out for other guards that might be roaming the premises. There were a few, but most seemed to be gathered towards the front of the building, enjoying a smoke break.

  They were making the job far too easy for me.

  I reflected on my notes, tracing through my mental layout of the apartment complex. I grinned as I reached the proper side of the building, stepping up to the wall and pressing close to it. I could hear the laughter of the burly men towards the front of the building, and idly wondered how Emily managed to get any sleep with those morons roaming night and day.

  A thought for another day, perhaps when I could properly question her. For the moment, I needed to figure out the best way to scale the side of the building. There seemed to be the occasional crack in the brick exterior, places that would make for suitable enough footholds if I could actually reach them. I stepped back, glancing around the corner and sighing with relief upon seeing I’d gone unnoticed.

  Rushing towards the building, I leaped up and grabbed my first perch, the sill of a window which was just in reach of the next crevice. I made short work of scaling the building, pausing as one of the guards circled turned and glanced around curiously.

  “What’s up, Tito?” one of his companions called out, and the guard lingered for a moment longer.

  He looked all around, but fortunately did not look up, allowing me to remain unseen, at least for the moment.

  “Thought I heard something,” he called out, scratching his head before circling back around the building.

  I braced myself against the building, waiting until I was sure he was out of earshot before continuing. It was a close one—far too close for comfort. I needed to get a move on if I planned to get Emily out of there with little fuss, though I was pretty sure the chubby guards would be unable to stop me if it came down to a fight.

  If Randy Madden caught wind of the FBI trying to take his daughter, there was no telling what the man would do. It wasn’t as if he had an average moral compass. I was vaguely aware that he likely had his share of blood on his hands, and was completely sure that he wouldn’t hesitate to add me to his hit list.

  No matter—it was just all the more reason to avoid getting caught.

  I grabbed the final windowsill, pulling myself up on the edge and glancing down to the asphalt below. If I’d been afraid of heights, my stomach likely would have churned at how far above the safety of solid ground I was. As it stood, I got a certain thrill out of the sight.

  Taking a breath, I balanced near the window as I pushed it up, thankful that it had been left unlocked. Seemed like Emily was confident enough that no one would make an attempt on her life.

  Slipping through the window, I touched my feet down on the soft carpet of what I could only assume was the living area. The lights were off, and if I listened closely, I could hear the soft sounds of snoring from the end of the hall. I tried to ignore how adorable her snoring was, instead focusing on scoping out the area nearby. No guards, no cameras, nothing. It was almost as if they wanted me to take her.

  Well, I was all too willing to oblige.

  Carefully walking through the apartment, the only sounds that could be heard were our breathing and the steady thump of my footsteps. I walked lightly, but to me it still sounded as if a war drum was being pounded with every step I took. I frowned as I drew nearer and nearer to the bedroom. The snoring had not ceased, but I still felt as if I was walking into a trap.

  The thought faded as I entered the bedroom, staring at Emily’s small form in the bed. Her chest rose and fell steadily, and I watched her with a sudden surge of protectiveness. If they would fail in keeping her safe, I was certain I would turn the tables.

  I just had to get her out of there first.

  Chapter 7

  Owen

  Creeping closer to the sleeping beauty, I felt as if my entire future were laid out on a platter in front of me. It might have been a bit dramatic, but there was something about this mission that seemed different somehow. More significant, I suppose.

  There was little time to consider the reasoning behind that, as I loomed over the bed in which Emily slept. I reached out carefully, hesitating when I could feel her breath on my hand. She began to stir slightly, and I quickly clapped a hand over her mouth before she could scream.

  “Keep quiet and do as I say; no one has to get hurt,” I whispered.

  She stared at me with a strangely calm expression, seeming nonplussed by the oppressive touch of my hand on her lips. She remained silent for a moment, just as I’d told her, but after some contemplative staring on both of our parts, it seemed she was growing curious.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” she asked, her voice muffled by my hand.

  I hesitated, meeting her gaze and feeling my heart skip a beat. Might as well come out with it. Full disclosure, I don’t think I could have lied to her if I’d tried.

  “I’ve been sent by the U.S. government—” I began, but she seemed pleased enough with that response, as strange as it seemed.

  Her expression turned blatantly mischievous, and she rested her hand atop my own. I froze in place, feeling my confidence waver beneath her warm touch.

  “If I pull my hand away, are you going to scream?” I asked, pleased by the certain shake of her head.

  I hesitated a moment, weighing the risk and deciding I could try to trust her.

  “The government, huh?” she said slyly as I drew away slightly.

  This was the part where she should begin panicking, calling for her guards, throwing me to the wolves, so to speak. That moment didn’t come, however. She sat up in bed, and as much as I wanted to keep her in place, I didn’t trust myself to touch her at the moment.

  “Yes. If you come with little fuss, things will be much easier for everyone involved,” I said carefully, trying to keep my eyes from wandering.

  The tank top she was wearing left very little to the imagination, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her nipples looked tantalizingly hard beneath the fabric of the shirt. If she noticed my observations, she paid little mind, resting her chin in her hand.

  “I wouldn’t dare cause a fuss, sir,” she said with a faint smirk, though her cheeks were obviously dusted with red.

  I hesitated, unsure what direction she was going to take the conversation in. She had me in her grips, it seemed, when just the opposite should have been true. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her pervasive grip, all the same. She watched me with a gentle smile, though her eyes twinkled with mischief.

  “I’d be more than happy to accompany you, Mister…” she trailed off, pausing for me to fill in the blanks.

  “Caldwell. Owen Caldwell,” I said, immediately cursing myself for my transparency.

  What was the point of having a false identity if I didn’t put it to proper use? I couldn’t just go around and tell any pretty girl anything she wanted to know about me. It would have been bad enough to reveal too much of myself even if I weren’t on a mission. In that moment, it seemed almost unfathomable.

  “Nice to meet you, Owen Caldwell. As I’m sure you’re aware, my name is Emily Madden and my father would make the remainder of your life a living hell if he knew you were here,” she said calmly, breaking off into a yawn and rubbing her eyes.

  I was torn between irritation and adoration, raising an eyebrow as she seemed to stare straight into my soul.

  “Well, if you expect me to come along with you, you’ll have to allow me to get changed,” she cooed, tapping her fingertips against her jaw.

  “Happy to oblige,” I chuckled, stepp
ing back to give her room to get out of the bed.

  She hesitated, her cheeks alight with a brilliant shade of pink as she threw the blankets off of herself and climbed out from under her blanket. If I’d been expecting her to be wearing pajamas, I would have been mistaken. All she wore besides the tank top that had tempted me so was a simple pair of cute white panties. She obviously hadn’t been expecting company, but something about it seemed so…innocent.

  “S-sorry for…well, being half-naked. I obviously wasn’t expecting a handsome kidnapper to saunter into my apartment,” she muttered awkwardly, shifting away from me and towards the chest of drawers against the wall.

  I watched her unabashedly as she walked, desperately ignoring the desire that sparked off throughout my body. My eyes followed the none-too-subtle swell of her rear, and I forced my eyes away from her as she grabbed a shirt to wear.

  I expected her to pull it on over the tank top. However, she quickly yanked said shirt off over her head before replacing it with a bra and a blouse. If my mind had not been in R-rated territory already, the very slight glimpse I got of her pink nipples was doing wonders for it.

  It was all I could do to keep from pinning her against the bed, showing her just what I’d been thinking about doing from the moment I’d seen her photo. Her apology struck me belatedly, and she smiled awkwardly at me as she finished getting dressed.

  “Oh, err. No need to apologize, Miss Madden,” I said, looking her up and down.

  She shifted from foot to foot, and I realized with a start that she seemed to be trying to impress me—at least, if the fancy clothes meant anything. It was almost as shocking as the fact that she seemed thrilled by the idea of being kidnapped.

  As much as I wanted to ask her why she was so eager to leave, I knew that it would do little good to get up close and personal with her. I was on a mission, after all.

  “So, you’re taking me back to the States?” she asked, her voice soft and timid. She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, acting as if she’d never had a man in her apartment in her life. Perhaps she hadn’t.

  The thought only stoked the fire burning deep within me. I couldn’t imagine this vision of beauty being a virgin, but the thought of taking her for the first time was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

  “I can’t really get into the details,” I muttered, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand.

  I couldn’t jeopardize the mission by showing just how affected I was by her looks, her subdued charm, her innocence. She exhaled a sigh at my response, but didn’t seem awfully disheartened. Her eyes traced up and down my body, from the tight pants I wore that were growing almost painfully tighter in the groin, to the expanse of my chest that stretched the fabric of the black shirt.

  “Well, it’s just as well,” she managed, wringing her hands.

  There was a look in her eye that I was all too familiar with, one that I was sure I had focused upon her as well. It was obvious that she wanted me, and in spite of what I could do with that knowledge, I tried to distract myself from how absolutely soft and kissable her lips looked.

  “Can I grab a few things first?” she inquired awkwardly, and I was drawn from my reverie.

  I grimaced at the question, knowing full well that I shouldn’t allow her to bring anything along. Her eyes were so wide and pleading that the idea of resisting seemed almost cruel.

  “You can grab a few things, as long as I can keep an eye on you,” I finally relented.

  Emily grinned from ear to ear, stepping towards me and looking as if she would like nothing more than to kiss me. I wasn’t sure I’d have had the willpower to stop her, if she decided to go with her little whim.

  She seemed to settle on saving the kiss for later (a man could dream, at least), instead resting her hand on my chest. Her hand was warm, the heat seeping through my shirt and sending not entirely unwelcome chills through me.

  “All right, just one or two things,” she finally breathed, drawing her hand away and slipping back towards the chest of drawers that sat against her wall.

  She opened the top drawer, rummaging through a sizeable pile of clothes. I could only wonder what exactly she was looking for, and if she planned to take some clothes with her, as ridiculous as that notion was. Surely, if she had asked, it had to have been something important enough to specifically request.

  “Not to rush you, but…” I began, trailing off as she glanced over her shoulder at me.

  She smiled, grabbing a small photo album that seemed to have been tucked at the very bottom of the drawer. I narrowed my eyes curiously, taking a step towards her. I gave her plenty of room to back away if she was uncomfortable with me seeing her little memento, but she only flipped open the front cover and smiled fondly at a photograph of an older woman. Not much older, probably in her early thirties, though she bore a striking resemblance to the young woman before me.

  “I just…I don’t want to stay, but I can’t stand to leave her memory behind, either,” she explained, and it hit me like a freight train.

  The woman in the photo was her mother, the woman that had been killed so many years ago. The catalyst that had precipitated the family’s move to Guam.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother. I can assure you that nothing like that will happen to you—” I began, only for her to interrupt me.

  “Anything is better than this prison,” she said quietly.

  My brows nearly rose to my hairline, and she reddened before turning away from me, easing the drawer shut. The photobook was held tightly in her hand, and I realized that she must have been suffering a lot to put so much trust in a total stranger—especially a stranger who intended to kidnap her.

  “Well, consider yourself freed of your cage,” I assured her, though my heart clenched slightly.

  Truthfully, it was likely that she would just be trading her elaborate and beautiful prison for a slightly more exciting one. I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth, though.

  “There is one last thing I’d like to do, if you’ll allow me,” she said nervously, and I was immediately worried about what she might request.

  Not because it would be an awful request. Just that I wouldn’t be able to resist those eyes, even if it was.

  Chapter 8

  Owen

  “I’d like to write my father a note, telling him I’ve run away,” Emily said, the words running together with how quickly she blurted it out.

  I considered her warily, musing that the note could bode well for my mission. That is, if she didn’t write some hidden message or…well, honestly, she seemed too eager to get out to put either of us in jeopardy. If Randy Madden found a handwritten note from his daughter, explaining that she simply wanted to leave, it could make things that much easier.

  “All right. I get to look over it and approve it first, though,” I said firmly.

  She didn’t seem inclined to argue, simply tilting her head with a rather strange smile as she flipped open the photo album.

  At first, I wasn’t sure what she was doing. When she removed a photograph of her father and herself at around age sixteen, it became clear. I almost felt bad for her father, knowing his story and what had driven him to a life of crime in the first place. Seeing his daughter’s final goodbye on the back of a photograph would likely break what remained of his heart.

  I wasn’t going to argue with Emily’s method of making peace with things, either way.

  Sitting on the bed, she grabbed a pen from her bedside table and carefully jotted down a note in fine and precise handwriting. I watched in silence, feeling as if I were intruding on a deeply personal moment. It wasn’t as if I could leave her alone in the room; she might try to make an escape of her own, or even worse, call her guards.

  Emily seemed deeply saddened by the fact that she was leaving, but I knew she was happy as well. If I were reading the situation right, it seemed that she had been trying to find her own way out for some time.

  I knew how difficult it had to be for the y
oung woman, leaving behind everything she knew for a chance at freedom and a better life. While I wasn’t sure I could provide the freedom, I was certain she’d find a better life in the continental United States, out from under her father’s thumb.

  “Do you mind if I read this out loud? I want to be sure it doesn’t sound too callous,” she asked nervously.

  I nodded, my heart hurting for her.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, looking over the note as if to confirm it was what she had intended to write. “I just…he’s my dad, and I know he’s done some bad things in his life, but I don’t want to leave him hanging, you know?”

  “I understand…well, sort of. My parents and I never got along, exactly. But I can appreciate the sentiment all the same,” I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck.

  I knew it was probably the least inspiring pep talk of all time, but she seemed to accept it.

  “Well, here goes,” she muttered.

  “Dad, I want to start by apologizing. I know I’ve not been the best daughter in the world since Mom died, and I know I probably made you feel lesser more often than I intended. I want you to know that this isn’t because of what you’ve done, but more what I’ve not had a chance to do for myself.

  I’m writing this to say goodbye. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I can only come to one conclusion: there’s a bigger and better world out there for me, somewhere. You’ve made a life for yourself, and since I was a kid, you’ve made a wonderful life for me. There have been bumps in the road, I’ll admit, but I never stopped loving or appreciating you. I never will.

  Please, don’t come looking for me. I promise you that where I’m going, I will be safe. I’ve learned a lot from you, and I know that I’ll be able to survive, no matter what. I’ll visit when I can, but for now, I just need the time to forge my own path.