He stopped and glanced at the ice on my face.

A muscle in his cheek jumped.

Uh-oh.

He cut his eyes to Wilcox.

“I thought we had an understanding,” Lee said.

Wilcox had come to his feet. He put his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Lee, it was a mistake. I just wanted to have a talk with your girl here and things got out of hand.”

“Coxy, things are gettin’ out of hand a lot these days. Who hit her?” Lee’s pissed off glance slid to Goon Gary.

Wilcox looked to Gary and I looked to Gary.

Gary looked a little pale.

“Let me take care of it,” Wilcox said.

“You don’t tell me, I’ll go through every one of your men, that way, I’ll be sure to get the f**k.”

Holy shit.

I nearly wet myself.

The way Lee said that made me shiver and not in the usual way Lee made me shiver.

Wilcox sighed, obviously overwhelmed by the stupidity of his workforce. Clearly, sometimes it’s tough being the leader of the bad guys.

“It was Teddy,” Wilcox answered.

Lee nodded, walked toward me and pulled me off the couch.

“It was nice to meet you,” Wilcox said calmly as Lee escorted me out of the room, his hand curled around my upper arm.

I looked over my shoulder and said (perhaps feeling a bit tougher now that Scary Lee was with me). “The pleasure was all yours.”

I heard him laugh as we left.

Lee did not laugh, Lee ignored the whole exchange.

Lee put me into the passenger seat of his silver Crossfire and got in the driver’s side, started the car and we shot from the curb. Before I could say a word, he grabbed his cell and punched a number.

“Pick up Teddy and take him to the office,” he paused, “Coxy’s boy.”

Then he hit a button and tossed the cell on the console.

Yep, angry.

“Ally...” I started to say.

“She’s fine.”

I took in a breath.

“How did you know where I was?”

“I’ve got a man at Rosie’s. He saw the whole thing.”

Uh, say what?

“Why didn’t he do something?” I asked, somewhat loudly.

“He didn’t know who you were,” Lee paused, “now he knows.”

Yikes.

I decided not to talk loudly anymore.

“You have a man?”

His eyes moved to me, his face was blank, he was still angry. He turned back to the road.

“I have a lot of men.”

“Oh.”

I found that surprising but I decided that maybe it was not the time to give Lee the third degree about his secret life, such as how many men he had and how he knew lowlife kidnapping scum like “Coxy”. I wasn’t even certain I wanted to know about his secret life, in fact, I think I was more certain I didn’t want to know.

Maybe it was the time to begin planning how to avoid Lee again. However, I didn’t know how to accomplish that when I was actually with Lee.

The house I was taken to was in the Denver Country Club area, very ritzy, very wealthy. Lee hit Speer Boulevard and drove faster than was allowed or safe, changing lanes on the three lane road deftly and often. I decided it was probably best not to say anything about this as Lee’s energy wasn’t exactly inviting conversation and definitely not admonishments about driving safety.

He passed the turn to Broadway.

“I need to go back to the store,” I informed him.

He ignored me.

“Lee, I need to get back to the store,” I repeated.

He continued to ignore me and headed downtown, toward his condo.

Damn.

I sat back and crossed one arm on my stomach, still holding the ice to my cheek and I evaluated my situation.

Firstly, I clearly was not in any position of power here. Lee was driving, Lee was angry and Lee was, as per usual, going to do whatever he damn well wanted to do.

Secondly, I’d been kidnapped. I tried to ignore that.

Thirdly, I’d been kidnapped. I couldn’t ignore that.

Big, bad, steroid-fuelled guys dragged me out of my car, made me go unconscious somehow and took me someplace I didn’t want to go.

Post-traumatic stress settled in and my hands started shaking.

Lee drove into the underground garage, parked and came around to open my door. We walked to the elevator, Lee’s hand at the small of my back.

We stood together in the elevator. Curiosity and a desire to end the frightening silence made me say, “They did something to make me black out.”

“Stun gun,” Lee replied shortly, his features showing his thoughts were grim.

I started shaking some more. Someone had stun-gunned me.

Holy crap.

I’d never even seen a stun gun before, now one had been used on me.

He let us into his apartment and I followed him into the kitchen. I was mildly surprised when he took a gun out of the back waistband of his jeans and set it on the kitchen counter.

Being the daughter of a cop, guns didn’t scare me. Dad taught me years ago how to respect a firearm. He did this by showing me how to use them, taking me to the shooting range a couple of times a year and lecturing a lot. He was always careful with his guns in the house, what with me, Ally and all of our friends running around. Nevertheless, Lee casually setting a gun on the kitchen counter like it was a pizza cutter was a trifle frightening.

Then he turned and opened his mouth to speak.

Or, by the look on his face, perhaps roar.

Before he could get a word in, I threw up both of my hands, waving around the ice bag.

“Don’t start!” I yelled and let the trembling take over my body just as I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes.

Definitely delayed reaction.

To keep from crying, or collapsing, I started shouting.

“Oh. My. God! I’ve just been stun-gunned and kidnapped and hit in the face by a guy! And it hurt!” Lee closed his mouth and started toward me but I threw out my arm to ward him off. “No, no, no! Don’t come near me!” He stopped and crossed his arms on his chest.

I paced to the sink, and then back, then to the sink, and so on, holding the ice to my cheek with one hand and waving the other one around in the air, the whole time babbling.

“I mean, this is unreal! Rosie’s disappeared and he’s half-idiot so who knows where he is. I’ve been shot at, stun-gunned, pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by my ankle! There’s a million dollars worth of diamonds out there and that dude wanted to have a chat with me about them. I don’t know anything about them. I haven’t even seen them! What’s worse, I think Grandpa Munster has the hots for me and I think you’ve just done something that makes me owe you another favor, which does not make me happy.” I took a breath and continued. “Not to mention, I’m dog-tired. I’ve not been able to have my nap yet today and last, but definitely not least, I’m starving because I had cupcakes for lunch! Cupcakes!”