Never Gonna Happen - Cynthia Eden Page 0,14
champagne bucket.
He grabbed the phone. His heart raced as he answered the call. “Hello?” He got ready for a message, an order, something that would change his life. Not like it was the first time his handler had left a burner phone for him to use on a mission.
“Sebastian?”
Alyssa’s voice. Most definitely not his handler.
“Sebastian? Did you just call me?”
No, he damn well had not called her.
“You called…and said you missed me?”
Ice filled his veins. “Baby, did you just get a phone call from this number?”
A pause. Then…“Did you call me baby?”
Fuck. Yes. “Answer the question.”
Another pause. “Yes.” Her voice was low. “Someone called me but…his voice wasn’t yours. It wasn’t Antony’s, either.”
“What did he say?” Sebastian was searching the limo. Then leaping out. His gaze swept the crowd. His driver was near the front of the vehicle and currently talking to a cop.
“He said that he missed me. But that he wouldn’t miss the next time.”
Sebastian’s gaze jumped to the street sign—the one with three bullet holes in it.
The bastard is here. He’s watching me.
No, he wasn’t just watching. The bastard was taunting Sebastian. He’d called Alyssa, then deliberately left the phone in Sebastian’s limo as a message.
I can get to her. I can get to you.
Except the SOB was wrong. You will not hurt her.
“Are the guards there?” Sebastian demanded.
“Yes, they’re downstairs, they—”
“Are they in the damn room with you? Can they see you?”
“No, I’m upstairs in a guest room.”
Breathe. She’s safe. Breathe. “I want you to go back downstairs. Stay where the guards can see you. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Sebastian?” Fear slid into her voice. “What’s happening?”
He hated her fear. “Everything is going to be all right. I’ll be there before you know it.”
He hung up.
Winston hurried toward him. “I thought you were leaving.”
“New evidence.” Sebastian held up the phone. “Though my prints are now all over it.”
The detective frowned at the phone even as he pulled out a small bag from his back pocket. “Learned to keep a spare or two on me, just in case.”
“Bastard called Alyssa on this phone. Told her that he was sorry he’d missed her, but that he wouldn’t again.”
Winston’s eyes widened.
“Then he left the phone in the back of my ride. Alyssa called me on it, and I found the phone on the floorboard.”
His buddy cursed, low and creatively. Winston’s stare cut around the scene. “He’s here.”
Sebastian looked at the crowd once more. So many people. So many eyes. “He’s here now, or at least, he was, a few minutes ago.” If the guy was smart, he would have left right after he dropped the phone.
But then again, if the bastard was really smart, he never, ever would have made the mistake of coming after Alyssa.
Because now I’m coming after you.
“I’ll get a check on every camera in the area,” Winston told him even as his stare assessed the people hovering nearby. “Maybe one of them caught the guy slipping the phone into your limo.”
Maybe. Maybe not. The jerk had avoided the cameras before. “I have to get back to her.”
A grim nod from Winston. He’d bagged the phone. “I’ll see if we can trace this back to the owner, and we’ll go from there.” His gaze slid back to Sebastian. “You sure you have Alyssa? Because I can give her police protection. I mean, the phone call pretty much seals the deal, doesn’t it? This was no random attack. Someone is after her.”
“I have Alyssa.” She won’t be hurt.
He turned away, but didn’t make the mistake of getting back in the limo. Winston would want to search the vehicle, Sebastian knew that. He spoke quickly with the driver, telling him to cooperate fully with the cops, then Sebastian jumped in a taxi.
He wouldn’t take the taxi straight back to Alyssa because there was a chance he was being watched. Instead, he gave orders to be deposited at his corporate headquarters. Sebastian kept an extra vehicle there.
Then he sat back and his gaze took in the thick crowd as the taxi drove away.
Was someone in that crowd targeting Alyssa? Was someone trying to hurt her?
If so, the person had made a truly fatal mistake.
Sebastian worked hard not to let the world see who he really was. Beneath the surface, he was cold, hard, and deadly. He didn’t mind getting his hands bloody. Hell, he’d done that plenty of times. He could break every rule in the book and smile while he did it.
He wasn’t some safe