Page 3 of The Captive (The Kelley Legacy #5)

Protect it, she repeated in her mind, as her eyelids became heavy. She wasn’t sure why the slightly ominous notion rolled inside her head, but she clung to that, too, as sleep slowly crept in.

She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but when her eyes snapped open a while later, it was pitch black inside the cabin, and all she saw out the window was darkness. The train was still moving, the wheels making a metallic click-clack sound as they sped along the rails.

Lana glanced at her watch and saw it was almost five in the morning, a half-hour before her scheduled wake-up call.

Rubbing her tired eyes, she stood up and went to the small sink in the corner of the cabin, where she brushed her teeth and washed her face.

Then she sat down again, wide awake as she waited for the train to reach Milan.

The wake-up knock sounded from the door thirty minutes later, and when the train’s wheels finally screeched to a halt, Lana was more than ready to get off and board the connecting train to Florence.

She should’ve just hopped a flight, it would’ve gotten her home a lot sooner, but she’d always thought traveling through Europe by train was charming.

Now she just found it time-consuming.

She was at the door of the cabin when the train came to a creaky stop, so when the second knock came, she already had her hand on the door handle.

“I’m all ready,” she said as she opened the door. “My suitcase is—”

Her words halted in her throat as she laid eyes on two very large, very menacing-looking men.

The taller of the two had a shaved head and a lethal jagged scar along his left cheekbone.

The second man was shorter, but not lacking in muscle.

He had the shoulders of a linebacker, dark skin the color of rich chocolate and a pair of chilly brown eyes.

There was a third man behind them, but he had his back turned, as if he were scouting the narrow corridor of the train.

A lookout.

The thought flew into her head swiftly, making her hands grow cold. “Can I help you?” she asked cautiously.

Scar Cheek seemed to be smirking, though his lips were snapped together in a rigid line. It was Cold Eyes who responded to her question. “You’re going to need to come with us.”

He spoke in English, and the harsh look on his face brooked no argument.

Lana argued. “I’m sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else. I’m not—”

Her sentence died with a squeak. Cold Eyes had just shifted the bottom of his long black trench coat, revealing the sleek gun in his right hand.

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he said, his voice eerily soft. “You are going to follow us off this train like a good little girl. If you scream, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. If you try to run, I’ll put one in your leg. Understood?”

She nodded dazedly, terror circling her spine like icy fingers. What the hell was going on? Her first thought was that this might be a terrorist attack, that the train had been hijacked, but the corridor remained as silent as a church. No frightened screams, no terrified whimpers.

These men…

They were here for her.

“Now pick up your suitcase,” Cold Eyes ordered, his hand still resting on the butt of his weapon.

As her heart thudded like a bass drum, Lana numbly bent down to grab the handle of her suitcase. Her fingers shook so wildly she could barely get a grip on the bag. Finally, she did, heaving it off the ground.

“Good girl,” Cold Eyes said with mock encouragement. “Now follow us. And remember what I told you.”

Her feet felt cold and heavy, but she forced them to move.

The two men immediately flanked her, keeping her sandwiched between them like bodyguards.

The third man she’d noticed walked in front of them.

He wore a long black coat like his fellow henchmen, and all she saw of him was a head of dark, close-cropped hair and broad shoulders.

But something about his gait, those confident but wary strides… it was very familiar.

Alarm skittered through her as they walked.

Cabin doors were beginning to open, bleary-eyed passengers stepping out into the corridor ready to disembark.

Lana felt a sudden spike of adrenaline. There were people around.

Cold Eyes might be hiding his gun underneath his big coat, but no way would he pull that thing out in front of all of these people.

Would he?

Her palms went damp, sweat coating the handle of her suitcase. Should she call their bluff? Scream like a banshee? They wouldn’t shoot her with so many eyewitnesses. They wouldn’t—

“Don’t even think about it,” Cold Eyes murmured, glancing at her with a pleasant smile.

“You won’t do it,” she murmured back, her voice shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “You won’t shoot me with all these people around.”

“Maybe not,” he replied casually. “But one phone call and your mother dies.”

Panic slammed into her. Mom? No, he was bluffing. Her mother was staying with an old girlfriend at Martha’s Vineyard, according to her brother Dylan. No way could these men know that.

“A friend of mine is staring through the scope of a rifle as we speak, and your mother’s pretty little face is in his sights. The Vineyard is lovely this time of year, don’t you think?”

Her pulse shrieked between her eyes. Oh, God.

They did know where her mom was. She forced herself to stay calm.

Okay, this didn’t mean anything. Just because they knew her mom’s location didn’t mean some sniper was actually situated there.

Cold Eyes could still be bluffing, but…if he wasn’t…

Lord, if he wasn’t, she wasn’t about to endanger her mother’s life by causing a scene.

Better to get off the train with these men. Maybe she could lose them in the terminal. Maybe—

The barrel of a gun jammed into her side. “Keep walking.” Scar Cheek, this time, and he had a deep rumble of a voice. He had a gun, too, and was now using it to make sure she kept to the rapid pace they’d set for her.

They neared the door. Lana’s gaze darted around like that of a scared rabbit, trying to find a way out of this, a person whose eye she could catch. But the other passengers were filing off the train, chatting obliviously to one another, as the purser helped them onto the platform.

The man ahead of them got off first. Again, she experi enced a weird sense of familiarity. She knew him. The hard set of the shoulders, the almost militarily precise walk. It reminded her of her brother Jim, who was a trained Special Forces operative. He moved with that same predatory grace.

Lana was suddenly heaved down the steps, her suitcase thudding onto the floor of the train platform. Cold Eyes stood directly beside her, his brown eyes dark with irritation and impatience. “Faster,” he ordered. “And put a smile on your damn face.”

A smile? She was seconds away from bursting into tears.

Hot moisture painfully pricked her eyelids and her throat was so tight she could barely draw in a breath.

But then she remembered the gun tucked in his coat, and forced her lips to cooperate.

She tugged up the corners of her mouth, trying to look happy, to pretend that she wasn’t being taken hostage by three fierce-looking thugs.

The smile didn’t hold, though. It lasted all of three seconds, until the third man whose face she still hadn’t seen finally turned around.

A shocked gasp flew out of her throat.

Oh, God.

It was Deacon! Deacon, standing right there on the platform, the hem of his trench coat blowing around from the brisk wind in the station.

Their eyes locked. For one brief second, hope shot up her chest, warming her heart. He was here. He was going to save her. He was—

“Keep walking,” Deacon snapped, and all the hope in her body fizzled like a wet candle.

She felt pressure against her hip. Realized Scar Cheek was pressing his gun into her back. Fear spiraled through her. Fear and amazement and pure and utter shock.

Deacon. Was here. He was here, with two other men. With guns.

Oh, God, she was being kidnapped by the father of her baby.