Page 8 of Hideaway

“Everyone at this table knows of your situation, Miss Caine. You’ll find no help or escape here,”Cade addressed her unkindly, his tone seeming to chastise the extent of Kara’s naivety.“Sit,”he commanded shortly, gesturing toward the empty seat beside him.

Kara bit her lip as she considered her next course of action. Clearly, the offer of a seat at the table had been an order rather than a suggestion, but there was no way in hell she was sitting beside the man who kidnapped her. Deciding upon partial obedience, Kara walked past the open chair beside Cade, past all the other useless assholes who would make no move to help her, down the row of empty chairs, until she came to the foot of the table. Loudly scraping the legs of the chair against the floor—the room echoing with the cacophony of her irritation—Kara sat down directly in front of Cade, a mere twenty feet down the table. Cade scowled at her furiously, his eyes alit with an anger that might have scared her if she wasn’t so fucking over all of his shit. She was sitting, as he’dcommanded, and that was the most compliance he was getting out of her at the moment.

“Eat,”Cade barked at her, the single word sounding more like a threat than a courteous invitation.

Practically starving, Kara was quick to obey, her annoyance at being commanded like a dog soothed by the thought of food filling her empty stomach. And everything smelled so delicious, Kara could almost forget the presence of Cade and the five other accessories to kidnapping sitting around staring at her. That was, until Cade opened his stupid fucking mouth and ruined the delectable taste of a warm, buttery scone on her tongue.

“I suppose introductions are in order,”Cade announced, his mask of gentility firmly in place once again.

Kara blanched as the piece of bacon she was holding fell to her plate, her hands trembling in trepidation. Everything that she knew from films and fiction told her that learning the identities of her captors was never a good sign. The more incriminating information you knew, the less likely you were to be set free. Had Cade already decided that this was where her life would end? Amongst cold strangers in a house that was too garish and grand to ever be welcoming? She had been prepared to die at the library last night, her life a not too begrudging sacrifice for the sake of preserving literary history. However, when directly faced with demise in the bright light of day, Kara couldn’t suppress the quickening pulse of panic within her chest. Cade paused, a flicker of what might have been remorse crossing his face for a brief second before his mask was carefully in place once again.

“This is a matter of business, Miss Caine, nothing more,”Cade offered as a consolation.“Once our transaction is concluded and I take possession of the book, you are free to go. You have my word.”

Kara arched her eyebrow dubiously at his words, wondering what, exactly, the word of a criminal was worth.Once he had the book, she would be free. Unfortunately for both their sakes, that would never happen. In spite of her fear, in spite of being in a room full of terrifying men who would do absolutely nothing to aid an innocent captive, Kara’s resolve held firm. She would protect the Chaucer text at all costs. Even if the cost was her life.

Deciding to at least get a final meal in before invoking her own destruction, Kara allowed Cade his assumptions about her agreement on the matter and began stuffing another scone into her mouth. And fuck, it was delicious. Not such a terrible way to die, all things considered.

“You’ll remember Jace and Declan from last night,”Cade said with a gesture in their direction. Jace winked in greeting and Declan offered a small, apologetic wave. Kara granted the latter a tight smile of acknowledgment and the former no acknowledgement at all other than an innate shiver of revulsion.“This is Braxton, our tech guy.”Cade pointed to the younger man.“Ortega, the head of security.”Cade waved to the monolith of a man.“And perhaps you already know of Manfred Randall?”Cade gestured to the last man with the cold eyes and too wide smile.“Randall is our legal counsel. Business and private matters.”

Now that he mentioned it, Kara did know of Manfred Randall. He looked familiar because she passed his obnoxiously large face pasted on a billboard on her drive to the university every day. Certainly a man of the law wouldn’t approve of a woman being kidnapped and held hostage?

“Before you get any grand ideas, he and I are very close, so you’ll understand that attorney-client privilege is more important in this situation than any pleas you might make in favor of your escape,”Cade stated bluntly as soon as he noticed the spark of hope in Kara’s eyes; he enjoyed watching that spark fizzle and die.

“As much as I sympathize with your unusual predicament, Dr. Caine, Ashford is right,”Randall addressed Kara in between sips of coffee as though commenting on something as trivial as the weather.“Legally speaking, my hands are tied.”

“Unusual predicament?”Kara spoke for the first time since sitting down, her face contorted with fury and disbelief.“Is that what you call being kidnapped and imprisoned by a bunch of lowlife thugs?”

“Well, it isn’t exactly a usual occurrence, now is it Dr. Caine?”Randall responded in a patronizing tone.“Unless you’re accustomed to kidnappings in your daily life, which would be a surprising, not to mention troubling, admission if you were,”he finished with a laugh as he continued with his breakfast unperturbed.

Fucking hell, he’s as bad as Caden Ashford.

“What I findtroublingis Chicago’s most glorified representative of the law aiding and abetting criminals,”Kara admonished through gritted teeth, but trying to draw remorse from a lawyer was a bit like trying to draw blood from a stone. Impossible.

“What are lawyers for, my dear, if not to assist the common man in understanding our nation’s laws and regulations—and how to circumvent them,”Randall explained with a smug gleam in his eye.

Left speechless by the level of depravity and weakness exhibited by the repulsive representatives of the male species surrounding the table, Kara rolled her eyes dramatically and revisited her plate of breakfast.

“So, now that the formalities are out of the way, we can move on to business. When would be a convenient time for you to accompany us to the university today?”

“Why? Are you running low on good reading material?”Kara inquired obtusely.

“We would like to conclude the Chaucer transferral as quickly as possible, Miss Caine,”Cade commented evenly, ignoring Kara’s quip entirely.

“For the last fucking time, it’sDr. Caine, and that’s a rather elegant way to demand the theft of monumental text from a hostage librarian.”

“I would like to think I’m an elegant man, Miss Caine,”Cade offered with a smile that would have been absolutely pussy-obliterating if Kara didn’t consider him to be such a reprehensible human being.

“If charm is your only weapon, you’ve come to this negotiation horribly underarmed, Mr. Ashford.”

“Trust me, Miss Caine, you don’t want to be acquainted with my other methods of persuasion. You’ll find they are primitive, but effective.”Cade fixed her with an intimidating stare, his fists flexing against the table, but Kara didn’t flinch or cower, in spite of the danger laced with his words.“Certainly an educated girl such as yourself would appreciate the chance to reach a resolution with reason rather than violence.”

Kara fidgeted in her seat, the tension of the moment relieving her of the last of her appetite, the food on her mostly full plate suddenly unappealing. Though she put on a brave front, she really had no idea how to handle the demands of a dangerous—and regrettably attractive—rogue and his band of merry miscreants. It wasn’t a fair fight, and Caden Ashford seemed keenly aware of that fact. The best Kara could do was even the playing field, however insignificantly.

“I have questions,”Kara announced finally, trying her very best to keep her voice firm and steady. She hoped she might gain some useful information, or, at the very least, stall the inevitable.

“I suppose that’s not unreasonable,”Cade responded thoughtfully, stroking the slight stubble of his jaw.“You may ask three.”

“Where am I?”Kara asked almost immediately. Their location seemed like the most important piece of information in understanding her position, her vulnerability, and her chances of escape.

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