Lethal Consequences by Elisabeth Naughton Read Free Book Online

body went rigid.
    The tall figure dragged the second into the room, then dumped him on the ground. A groan echoed from the floor, and then the man disappeared into the hallway again without a word, slamming the door behind him with a deafening smack.
    Olivia stood stone still for several seconds. The man on the ground feet from her groaned again and tried to move, and in a flash she realized she knew that sound.
    “L-Landon?”
    He rolled to his side, trying to get up. But even through the dim light Olivia could tell he was in pain. “Yeah,” he managed. “It’s me.”
    “Oh my God.” Relief was swift and so all-consuming. She moved without even thinking. Dropping to her knees at his side, she placed her hands on his shoulders, trying to help him sit upright. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine.” He tried to scoot back, but winced and wrapped an arm around his ribs as if they hurt. As carefully as she could, Olivia helped him move so he could lean against the wall.
    He wasn’t fine. She could see that clearly in the moonlight cascading down from the window above, highlighting his split lip, the swelling around his right eye, and a track of blood smeared across his face she definitely hadn’t been responsible for.
    Sickness threatened, but she pushed it down, whipped off her sweater, and then balled it up and pressed it against his bleeding lip. “What happened?”
    “Nothing.” His hand closed over hers, holding the sweater against his lip, halting her movement. “Olivia.” Even in the dim light, the intensity of his gaze cut into hers. “Did they . . . ? Are you . . . ?” He swallowed hard. “Did anyone—”
    She knew what he was going to ask, and she didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to think that could even be a possibility. “No. I’m okay. I’m fine. No one’s said a word to me. They brought me to this room and then left me. You’re the first person I’ve seen in hours.”
    “Thank God,” he whispered. His eyes fell closed, and he relaxed back into the wall, his hand dropping from hers to rest against the dingy floor.
    That didn’t sound all too reassuring. As if he expected they would have done something to her by now. Swallowing the bile sliding up her throat, Olivia went back to wiping the blood from his wound and tried to steady her vibrating nerves. “Who are these people and what do they want?”
    “Information.”
    That didn’t tell her a lot. “About what? I don’t know anything.”
    “Not from you. From me.”
    His eyes were open again, and she could feel his gaze staring into her, but she didn’t want to look. Couldn’t because she didn’t trust her emotions right now.
    She didn’t want to feel. She needed to think. To plan. To figure out what to do next.
    “Livy,” he said softly, “about the woman in my hotel room—”
    Oh no, she wasn’t going there. Not now, not ever. Keeping her eyes on his lip and jaw, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “We need to. She—”
    Needed to? No way in this lifetime or the next. He needed to shut up about that woman before she lost what was left of her sanity.
    Dropping her hand from his face, she leaned back on her heels, putting space between them. “What kind of information?”
    He sighed, and she could tell from the sound that he was frustrated with her. So what? She was frustrated with him too. And ticked and hurt and so mad she could barely see straight. But some tiny part of her brain was keeping her from lashing out because he might be her only way out of this nightmare.
    “About an op,” he said. “An old one. Nothing you were ever a part of.”
    So it didn’t have anything to do with her abduction three months ago, and that meant it had nothing to do with her or her sister, Eve. It also meant if they were after Landon for some kind of information, she’d been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again.
    Yeah, her luck really was that bad.
    She brushed the back of her hand against her