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And so Ice made another choice, one that he knew was dangerous, was rolling the dice with Indy’s broken mind, was risking her sanity if he overestimated her resilience.
But hell, Ice himself was barely holding it together, and if they got picked up by the Mumbai police, it was game over. They’d be connected to that hotel room, linked with the dead Scarlet—all of it while Indy was in this out-of-control state of mind and body.
That would be a hundred times worse for her sanity.
Which meant Ice had to take the chance she was strong enough to handle what he was about to do.
So he hurried around to the backdoor, Indy still captive in his arms, just barely restrained as she clawed and kicked.
“You’re going to hate me for this,” he said as he shoved her somewhat ungracefully into the backseat, then reached across her squirming body for his black duffel. “But it’s the best I can do. We have to get the hell out of here now, and I need to make sure you don’t hurt yourself—or anyone else—while I’m driving.”
Indy’s only response was another savage attempt to kick him in the face and scramble out of the car, presumably to keep running. Ice managed to hold her down with one hand while he unzipped the duffel’s side-pocket, reached inside and felt around for one of his trusty plastic ties.
The pocket was empty.
“Shit,” he growled, remembering that Indy had used up all his plastic ties to hog-tie him to the bathroom fixtures. He was about to slide out the canvas utility belt from his pants when he remembered the roll of black duct-tape he always carried.
Within seconds he found the tape, and just in time too, because Indy kicked him in the gut as her body flailed itself back into a furious frenzy. Ice tightened his ab-muscles, turned his hips to protect his balls, then rolled out a length of tape and wound it swiftly around her ankles.
He grabbed her wrists and bound them together, but not before Indy connected with a side-swipe to the face that got him on his already throbbing nose, bringing tears to his eyes, almost bringing a bloody sneeze along with it.
Ice was able to hold back the sneeze long enough to get a strip of duct-tape over Indy’s mouth. Her eyes bulged as she screamed into the tape, then tried to buck her bound body like a rocking horse attempting to escape someone’s playroom.
“It’s for your own safety,” Ice assured her, stroking her hair clumsily in a useless attempt to soothe her. He pulled his hand quickly away from her head to defend his balls once more from a vicious two-legged attempt. “Fuck, and my safety too.”
Indy thrashed her head side to side, her eyes manic and wild, her body still bucking like that rocking-horse. Ice held her body down, wondering how the hell he was going to drive with her going nuts in the backseat. She might seriously hurt herself like this, and once they were in traffic, it would be unmanageable.
And so Ice made another dangerous but necessary decision.
“OK, if you don’t already hate me for dragging you back to this stuffy car, tying you up and gagging you with duct-tape, this should seal the deal.” Ice shrugged out an apology, then grabbed her bound ankles and dragged her out of the car like a writhing thrashing piece of lumber, sliding one arm beneath her torso and lifting her so she wouldn’t thump down onto the pavement.
He managed to get the front door open, somehow got her sitting upright in the front seat, incredibly found a way to hold her in place.
Then Ice took that roll of duct-tape and wound it around her, all the way around her body and the front seat, round and round until she was strait-jacketed and strapped safely to the seat, wrapped like a piggie in a blanket, gagged and gaping, huffing and puffing, struggling and snorting.
But safe and secure.
Physically, at least.
Ice wrapped the roll around her one more time, then tore off the tape, patted the end down over her mummified body, stepped back and examined his handiwork.
“One day we’re going to look back on this and laugh,” he promised her, trying to smile with lighthearted humor but unable to pull it off.
Because this scenario wouldnotbe funny to a sober civilian.
And it sure wasn’t funny to Indy.
Ice shook away a rising dread, reminded himself this was the only way. He leaned in and kissed her gently on the forehead, then hurriedly backed off before she snorted on him with a viciousness that he prayed would fade when she sobered up—ifshe ever sobered up from what was probably not a very calming experience for a woman who’d just had her life turned upside down about forty times in the past day—and that wasbeforegetting dosed with LSD by her assassin-mother,beforebeing confronted with the dark truth about her father, a truth that right now was working its way through her wired body.
And now suddenly Ice staggered back as an overwhelming, bursting, raging, admiring love for this brave, strong, special, completely incredible, absolutely amazing woman burned through his heart. The sensation almost knocked him off his feet, but once it worked through from his heart to his brain, it suddenly brought Ice back under control, snapping his mind back into focus, his need to protect her overcoming every other consideration, forcing him to zero in on a single objective:
Get her to the airport.
Get her on that plane.
Get her home.
Do it now.