“What are you doing?” she demanded again.
He rounded on her. “Looking for Maria.”
“I haven’t seen her,” Stephanie said.
Tate’s broad shoulders tensed. “Why are you breaking down the door?”
“Because...” What should she tell him? She was searching Bittman’s house? And what would be a reasonable explanation for that? She had to get Tate to leave. Bittman was clear that no one should know about her father, or there would be deadly consequences. “You’ve got to go, Tate.”
He folded his arms. “Not until you’ve explained why you’re bent on smashing down this door.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “It’s not your concern.”
“There’s a guy coming up the stairs in about another minute to throw me off the property. Bittman knows about my sister, and now I see you’re involved with him somehow, so I’m making it my concern.”
Stephanie’s stomach tightened, and a sense of urgency nearly choked her. She moved to him, putting a hand on his solid chest. “Tate, please. You need to leave.”
He gave her that slow smile, a shadow of the crooked, cocky grin from the time before everything had fallen apart between them. His hand touched hers gently. Then he moved off, sat in a high-backed leather chair and put up his booted feet on the pristine table. “I don’t think so, Steph.” He stretched his arms behind his neck, giving her that grin. “Fuego Demolitions is between contracts right now. I’ve got all the time in the world.”
The outer door began to shudder as someone yanked the knob.
TWO
Stephanie felt a scream building as she ran to him and grabbed his wrist. His hands closed around hers, callused and strong. She knew it was going to be impossible to move him, but panic overrode her common sense. “Tate...”
A fist pounded on the door.
“Open up,” shouted an unfamiliar voice.
She looked wildly at Tate.
He shrugged. “Bittman’s security guy. I guess he made it out of the birdcage.”
She had only moments. Tate or no Tate, she had to get to her father. Stephanie ran to the scarred door and screamed through it again. “Daddy,” she yelled. “Answer me.”
The words electrified Tate. He was on his feet and next to her in a second. “Your father’s in there?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve got to know.”
He grabbed her arm. “Steph, what’s going on?’
“Get out of my way.” She shook him off and picked up the chair again.
He stopped her hand for the second time, pulling a pocketknife from his jeans. “Faster,” he said, applying the blade to the hinge.
The pounding on the door was loud now, then it stopped abruptly. A crash of wood on wood made Stephanie jump. “He’ll be through in a minute.”
“Me, too,” Tate said, popping loose the pin.
Stephanie saw the outer doors to the suite beginning to weaken under the assault of a foot or shoulder. With a crack, a booted foot came through a ragged gap.
Tate lifted the door free, and Stephanie tumbled in with Tate right behind her. There was a king-size master bed in disarray, sheets and blankets twisted. She ran into the adjoining bathroom, where she found a small basin and some bandages. Heart thundering, she returned to the bedroom to find Tate examining something.
He held up a pair of plastic restraints.
Her heart plummeted. The crack of wood in the outer room meant the security guy was nearly through.
She ran to the bed and felt the covers. “They’re still warm.”
His eyes locked on hers. “Got to be another way out.”
Running into a sitting room that adjoined the master bedroom, they found it, a rear door partially ajar.
Stephanie didn’t wait another moment; she slammed through, Tate behind her. She heard him pull the door closed, but there was no way to lock it from the outside. Their pursuer would be right behind them.
She found herself running down a hallway that ended in a split stairwell. “Up or down?” she panted.
Tate pointed to a black scuff on the upper stair. “That way.”
Both of them were breathing hard as they careened upward, finally coming to a door marked Roof.
“Wait,” Tate called to her. “You don’t know what’s on the other side.”
She didn’t wait. She couldn’t. Her father’s life was on the line. She hurtled through and found herself on a flat rooftop, engulfed in a monstrous storm of noise. Wind whipped at her face and threw grit into her eyes.
She forced her head up anyway and saw a helicopter, rotors whirling.
The pilot in the cockpit gave her a startled look. In the back she could just make out a flash of silver hair—Wyatt Gage—and a familiar pale face beside him, an irritated Joshua Bittman.
The helicopter’s engine whined, and it began to lift off.
“You can’t take him!” she screamed over the roar. She took off running for the nearest landing skid.
“Steph!” Tate yelled. “No.”
He made a grab for her, but she was too fast.
She increased speed and prepared to jump at the skid, which was now lifting off the ground.
Tate’s fingers grazed her ankle and she lost her balance, rolling onto the cement roof, banging onto the hard surface, seeing in fleeting glances the helicopter well into the blue sky.
Getting to her feet, she ran to the edge of the roof, watching her father disappear. She whirled on Tate, tears streaming down her face. “You had no right.”
“Would have gotten yourself killed,” Tate said. His gray eyes were soft. “Your father wouldn’t want you to risk it.”
Fury, terror and grief rolled around inside, and she funneled them at Tate. “You shouldn’t have done it!” she screamed. “You are not a part of my life anymore, Tate.”
He flinched, but did not step back. “I know that.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from shrieking, eyes drawn to her watch. Three fifty-nine. Thirty seconds until Bittman was supposed to have called. She’d blown it by coming here. She’d let her father down, let Victor down. She should have told Luca, let the cops know.
She struggled to breathe.
The door to the rooftop slammed open. The panting security guard stood there, gun drawn.
Tate raised his own hands and positioned himself in front of Stephanie. His face was hard, and she knew he’d lost, too—lost the chance to find his sister, if Bittman really was involved in her disappearance.
The man with the gun drew closer and she looked into the barrel, just as the phone in her pocket rang.
* * *
Tate watched the guard as indecision crept across his face.
“No phones,” he barked. “Get inside.”
Stephanie nodded obediently and started toward the roof access.
Obedient? Stephanie? He tried and failed to recall a time when Stephanie genially obeyed a directive. Something was up, and he didn’t have to wait long to see what she had in mind. She