Page 117 of Crossing the Line
Her spine went rigid at his voice. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Gee, thanks for that assessment.”
“Listen, smart ass, if you’re not feeling well, we can go. Just say the word, and I’ll call the car.”
“I just have a headache.” She took a shaky breath, and he wondered if she was about to lose her dinner. Then he realized he hadn’t bothered to feed her and cursed himself. “How about another fifteen minutes and you call the car?” she decided.
“I’ll have some food brought over to the condo for you,” he said, his tone gruff. “Do you want anything here?”
She shook her head, shook him off, and ordered another club soda from the server, who looked annoyed that she wouldn’t be seeing any tips from Waverly on the open bottles of Champagne and vodka that sat on the table in front of her.
He decided to follow the server so he could take the drink directly to Waverly. She didn’t need to wait while Miss Attitude took her time plugging in a notebook full of orders. Xavier nodded at Darius, one of his undercovers, to take over on Angel Watch for him. He followed the server to the bar and watched her ring in the order. The ticket spit out instantaneously, and the bar back ripped it. He was pierced and tatted and wore his black Thirteen shirt a size too small. A furtive glance around was Xavier’s first hint that there was trouble. The sweat beading on his forehead was the second.
He watched the bar back fill a fresh glass with ice, and then, a second before he reached for the soda gun, the guy pulled a small vial from his pocket. He poured a few drops of the clear liquid over the ice and then topped it with club soda. He wrapped the ticket around the glass so there was no mistaking who it went to.
The fucker was drugging Waverly’s drink,Xavier realized.He’d probably drugged the first one, too. It was his last coherent thought before his vision went red.There was no good reason that he could think of to control the rage that filled him.
The bar back looked around again, eyes skimming over Xavier and flashing through the crowd. Before he could set the glass on the service bar, Xavier was hauling him over the bar knocking over stools.
Two women in sequined dresses that barely covered their crotches screamed next to him, and the whole place erupted.
Xavier tossed the bar back down on the cement floor. His anger didn’t dissipate with the first punch or the second. Someone grabbed his arm on the third, and he took a swing at them too. All hell broke loose. Someone got in a lucky shot to his ribs and another to his face, but Xavier wasn’t going down. He swung with all his fury.
The other bartender jumped to the aide of his friend. The bouncer for the VIP section waded into the fray and called for backup. Five undercovers, guns in hand, jumped in from their respective spots around the club.
VIPs hid under tables or ran for the exits. Everyone was screaming over the beat of the music.
It took two precious minutes before Hansen and Travers’ badges convinced club security to let Xavier up off the floor. And in those two minutes it had gone down. Waverly was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Video surveillance showed Waverly slumping over at her table just as the fight broke out. While everyone else was distracted by the brawl, a man in a baseball cap slunk in, slipped her arm around his neck and half walked, half dragged her into the hallway near the restrooms. The fire exit’s alarm had been disabled.
Ganim had her, and Xavier knew it was his fault. He’d allowed himself to be distracted. He should have stayed with Waverly and let someone else go to the bar. But he hadn’t. They’d been pissed at each other, and he’d miscalculated.
The VIP section of the now-empty club had been turned into command central with Travers, Hansen, and fifteen men and women from their respective law enforcement branches and Invictus. People were yelling into phones everywhere.
The bar back, now with a broken nose, was sobbing in a booth as he answered questions.
His answers barely registered with Xavier.He’d walked up to him in the parking lot before his shift. Just a skinny guy in a black cap. Showed him a gun and said if he didn’t do what he was told, he’d shoot up the whole club.
They needed video surveillance of the entire block. They needed the car.
Ganim had gotten through the net.
Xavier’s head spun. Years of instinct and the need to act warred with the memories of what he’d said to her on the plane. Those wouldn’t be his last words with her. Not what she meant to him. No, their last conversation would be him accusing her of selfishly putting his people in danger.
“I need to find her!” Xavier railed. He fisted his hands at his side, ignoring the zing of pain from his split knuckles.
“You need to calm down, Saint. You’re no good to her like this,” Micah said calmly, laying his hands on Xavier’s shoulders. His partner had arrived just as the fight had broken out and had been the one to pull Xavier off the bar back.
Xavier knew Micah was right. It was his emotions that had put Waverly in danger in the first place. He hadn’t seen it, hadn’t felt it, until it was too late. That buzz of danger, he’d attributed it to something being off at the bar. Being pissed off at her, wanting her so fiercely, had dulled his instincts. And now his Angel was going to pay the price.
“Fuck.” He tried to get a hold of himself. But standing around with his thumb up his ass wasn’t going to save her. He had a window, a very small window, and he needed to find her. He needed to stop feeling and just think.Think.
He looked around them at the clumps of cops and agents who were following their painful, methodical protocols. “We need to be out there looking.”
