Page 7 of Icebound

“I was getting to it,” Flambeau said, and he ripped the duct tape off her face with brutal force. Spitting out the gag, she glared at him for a moment before turning to her husband.

“Bastien!” she said, her voice thick with tears.

The man didn’t react. “Answer his questions.”

“Who are you?” Flambeau demanded. “Who do you work for?”

She ignored him. “Bastien, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! What’s happened? Why are you…”

The slap across her face knocked her head sideways, and the chair rattled with the force of his blow. “Answer my questions!”

Bastien hadn’t moved, and his eyes were back on the schematics in front of him, barely paying attention to them.

Her face felt numb, and the man looked ready to hit her again. She swallowed her fury, glaring at him. “My name is Chloe Toussaint. That man over there is my husband Bastien Toussaint, and I don’t work for anybody.”

He slapped her again, on the other side of her face, and she felt her lip split. “There’s no one named Bastien here. What do you want?”

I want my husband back, she wanted to wail, but she bit back the words. She could taste her own blood, and her entire face felt numb, and yet the man who’d sworn to love and protect her was paying no attention.

She’d been a fool. Bastien must have a reason for pretending he didn’t know her. He must have gotten involved in something from the Committee, and Peter had been lying to her when he said he didn’t know anything. She had to somehow play along with him, wait till they were alone and he could explain what the hell was going on.

But she was going to have to hide her complicity. “He looks like my husband,” she said sullenly. “You’ve seen the picture—they’re very much alike. But now that I’ve seen him I know he’s not Bastien.”

Flambeau’s laugh was unpleasant. “So just like that, you’ve figured you were wrong, and you think I’m going to let you go, is that it?”

“Why wouldn’t you let me go?” she countered. “I’m no threat to you.”

“She’s lying.” Bastien’s voice was cool and distracted.

“I know that,” Flambeau said irritably, while Chloe tried to deal with the fact that Bastien was selling her out. “You want me to get rid of her?”

Bastien lifted his dark eyes to look at her, and they were completely expressionless. “Find out what she wants. Then we’ll see.”

“What’s going on here?” A new voice entered the fray, and Chloe jerked around to see another man stride into the dark room.

“She’s been looking for Jean-Marc. Insists he’s her husband and that his name is Bastien.”

“Maddelena wouldn’t like to hear that,” the man said with a twist of humor. “What’s taking you so long?”

Flambeau hit her again, without any warning, and she spat blood on the floor. “Keep your fucking hands off me,” she snapped.

“Oh, she’s a feisty one,” Luc said. “Who do you think she’s working for?”

Flambeau shrugged his massive shoulders. “If I knew, I wouldn’t still be dealing with her. Until we find out, we’re going to have to keep her alive. Unless you think you can do a better job?”

The man called Luc was young, somewhere in his thirties, lean and aesthetic-looking, and he shuddered dramatically. “That’s more up your street than mine. You sure you don’t know her, Jean-Marc?”

Bastien lifted his head. “Never seen her before in my life,” he said flatly, and his voice was so impervious that Chloe could almost believe him.

“I’ll get rid of her, assuming I can do it without anyone finding the body. Dead American tourists cause too much of a fuss.” Flambeau hauled her out of the chair, and disbelieving panic swept over her. Bastien must have some plan, some way to rescue her, but he simply went back to his papers as Flambeau began to drag her from the room.

“I’d wait if I were you,” Luc offered. “I doubt she’s in this on her own, and you can’t get information from a corpse.”

“Mind your own business,” Flambeau snapped, and his small black eyes were alight with anticipation.

Bastien rose, stretching six foot two of lean muscle, every inch she knew so well. “You’ve got a point. Leave her be, Flambeau, at least for the time being, while I go out and see what I can discover. One thing we know—she hasn’t been around for more than a couple of days, and she hasn’t been seen with anyone, but that doesn’t mean she’s on her own. Tie her up and put her in the back room and we’ll question her later.”

Chloe wanted to throw up at his casual words, and Flambeau looked sulky. “Why do I have to wait?”