Page 70 of Tangled

“Unaccounted for? What the hell does that mean? What do you mean Anjali is unaccounted for?”

39

Looking for Anjali

Colleen

Colleen sprinted through the shattered sliding glass doors and into the presidential suite, running between the Rogue Security commandos who stood with their short rifles pointing at the heads of the men lying on the ground. She slid on the broken glass like skidding over marbles but recovered.

In the front room, the only people were the defeated Russians and the Rogue Security personnel training their guns on them. Colleen ducked around furniture as she hunted for her friend, trying to figure out if Anjali had taken cover when the floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows had exploded into the room and was still hiding.

Unaccounted for.

But even as Colleen scrambled around the room, she knew that Anjali wasn’t in there. The shapes were wrong. There was no place for Anjali to hide, even curled up. Anjali was a tall girl. Colleen yanked open the closets and grabbed at the hotel robes and garment bags hanging there, wrenching them off the hangers and chucking them onto the ground as she called her friend’s name.

She ducked to peer under the dining room table, but there was a single pedestal underneath and nothing to hide behind.

In the kitchen, Colleen searched the cabinets and even opened the refrigerator, but nothing.

Nothing.

Colleen screamed her name, “Anjali!” as she ran into an unoccupied bedroom. She dropped to her knees and looked under the bed, but the box springs was placed on a wooden pedestal that wouldn’t have allowed someone to crawl under the space.

The closets were empty.

She shoved the shower curtain aside in the bathroom, but no one was hiding in the dry tub.

“Anjali!”

She barreled into the primary bedroom where, again, Rogue Security personnel were standing over men wearing cheap suits and cowering on the floor. Some of the commandos had begun tying the hands of the Russian bratva’s goons behind their back with plastic handcuffs that looked like six-pack rings.

Jian was sitting up on the bed, rubbing his wrist while a redheaded Rogue Security guy flashed a penlight in his eyes.

“Where’s Anjali?”

40

Watching

Tristan

Tristan was gripping his knees, trying to hold himself in place as he watched the computer screens where Colleen started walking.

The Rogue Security mercenaries were tying up the last remaining Russian bratva kidnappers, but one swiped an arm at Colleen’s foot as she flitted by.

Watching her narrowly evade danger roiled Tristan’s stomach.

While the mercenaries seemed to be looking out for her, their primary objective was to strike quickly and rescue the hostages.

One of the mercenaries had already cut Jian free. He was sitting on the bed, rubbing his wrists, when Colleen dashed in and spoke to him.

Anjali wasn’t in the bedroom with him.

Thinking back, he wasn’t sure he’d heard Anjali’s voice over Jian’s hijacked phone for the past several hours.

Oh, no.

If anything had happened to Anjali, Colleen was going to fall apart.