"My nose. You've broken my G.o.dd.a.m.n nose."

A body banged against the door and it opened. A sliver of light shafted into the stairwell and Liv crept down two more steps.

"It was Livvie," Blaine whined. "I couldn't have gotten those d.a.m.n files if she hadn't hacked into your company's system."

"You're a G.o.dd.a.m.n liar. Olivia had nothing to do with it."

She cringed, shrinking against the wall, unable to move at Dominic's staunch defense of her.

"She lied to you about her age, didn't she? Told you she was twenty-five when she was twenty-one."

The door flew open, slamming against the concrete wall so hard Liv feared it had been cracked. Dominic stood on the landing, his eyes burning with fury. His gaze fell to her. Something in her features must've given away her guilt. She'd never forget the exact moment he realized what she'd done.

She'd never seen that type of rage contorting a man's face in her entire life.

Dominic stared at Olivia, seeing the truth of Blaine's words in her huge eyes and pale face. All along he'd had the enemy in his house. In his bed. In his head.

He glowered at her, took a step forward, unsure of what he intended to do. He couldn't believe her duplicity. In a haze of fury and betrayal, he reached her. Instead of running as a sane person would do, she stared at him.

"Why?" His voice was soft, lethal, and he restrained himself from grabbing her.

"Let me explain," she began.

"Explain?" Dominic's laughter was cold. "Explain how you allowed me to implicate your brother when you were as guilty as he was? Or explain how I allowed you to play me? What would you like to explain?"

"My situation," she shouted. "My desperation."

Anger blinded him and he did grab her and shake her. "Bulls.h.i.t. There's not a desperate bone in your body. You're full of deceit and duplicity."

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell as she puffed out short bursts of air. Color suffused her cheeks. She glanced over his shoulder and Dominic followed the direction of her gaze. Blaine stood behind Dominic, her brother's face and eyes swelling, nose still bleeding.

"If that's what you believe, just go," Olivia cried, jerking herself out of his grasp and grabbing hold of the steel banister just in time to prevent herself from careening down the stairs. "Go. I don't need you. I don't need anyone."

With one final look at him, she turned and continued down the staircase, slower now since no one gave chase. Dominic was too angry to stop her. Weary, he brushed past Blaine and stepped into the deserted corridor of the fifteenth floor. He shoved his hands through his hair, trying to control his temper.

"I'll thank you to leave my building," Blaine said.

His bored tone snapped Dominic's control and he turned and slammed his fist in the man's face again. "In case you've forgotten, I own part of this company." He picked Blaine up by the lapels and whacked him again. "It wasn't enough I was saving your sorry family from ruin, was it? Or was this Olivia's idea?"

"Livvie?" he slurred. "The only thing Livvie ever wanted was an easier life for her mother and a college degree."

The huge bodyguard who'd attempted to paw Olivia shoved a chair toward Blaine. Dominic released Bradford. He dropped into the chair and leaned his head back, pulling his red handkerchief from his front pocket.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me, d.a.m.n it, Luca." Blaine sighed. "Dad only sent Olivia a new laptop every year whenever Connie-her mother-forwarded a new address. They never stayed in one place for long."

Dominic started for Blaine and the giant bodyguard stepped between them.

"Move," Dominic ordered the man.

The fool just shook his head.

Dominic crashed a backhanded fist into the big man's jaw before elbowing him in the nose, gratified at his scream. He'd wanted to do that since the man had put his hands on Olivia.

"Get him out of here," Dominic ordered the other men.

They looked to Blaine, and Dominic growled an obscenity that obviously convinced them he was in charge for the moment. Howie lurked in the shadows and Dominic gestured for him.

"Find some ice for Bradford."

Blaine grimaced. "A doctor would be better."

"You get to suffer a few moments," Dominic returned without remorse as Howie departed via the stairwell.

Dominic wondered if Olivia had made it to the ground floor yet. As if he cared.

"You had to know your actions would be traced. You have to be brilliant not to have your hacking discovered," Dominic told Bradford.

"That's what Livvie said," Blaine admitted. "I needed the money I'd make off the information in those files. Sue me! Livvie is d.a.m.n good with computers. It was her escape. She can figure out LINUX and all sorts of code."

A muscle pulsed in Dominic's jaw. "Using her skills, the two of you intended to bleed me dry?"

"No! I swear. It wasn't like that. I told you I would give you credit when I released the plans."

"You're a f.u.c.king a.s.shole."

Blaine raised his head to glare out of the eye not swollen shut.

"Enough about Olivia. You had to have had inside help to crack into my computer system. Who a.s.sisted you? Felicia? Preston? Who?"

Darting his eyes away, Blaine blew out a breath. "Neither."

Dominic narrowed his eyes, giving the other man to the count of three.

"It was Albert."

The words came like a blow to Dominic and he reeled back, unable to do anything more than blink. Albert? "My bodyguard?"

One terse nod served as the answer.

"Did Olivia know that?"

"No. Livvie didn't know who my contact was."

Dominic paused and looked around, going through the events of the past half hour in his head. The last time he'd seen Albert, the man had been standing upstairs in Blaine's office, holding the suitcase full of money. In all the scuffling since, Dominic didn't remember glimpsing Albert once.

Olivia ran across his mind. The hurt in her eyes when he'd pushed her away after she'd asked him to let her explain. Her defiance when she'd shouted she didn't need anyone. Her complete dislike of Albert...

Dominic sucked in a breath and pulled out his cell phone. Not bothering to explain to Blaine, he headed toward the stairwell, hoping his instincts were wrong.

Hoping Olivia hadn't fallen into the bodyguard's clutches.

Liv covered her ears to drown out the sound of the sirens, taking in deep gulps of air. Exhaustion threatened to bring her to her knees so she leaned against the smooth stone of the building. She refused to cry and feel sorry for herself. She'd known Dominic would be furious if he discovered her role in this entire affair.

She needed to get to Karen's house and ask if she could stay there for a few days. Otherwise, she'd be on the streets and- The barrel of a gun jammed into her forehead and she raised her gaze to the unfriendly face of Dominic's bodyguard, Albert, inches from hers.

"Any funny moves and you're dead," he warned. "Come with me and walk as if nothing is wrong."

He put his arm around her as if holding her in a lover's embrace. The gun pressed into her side and without a word, Liv suppressed a shudder. Albert didn't like her and she'd always gotten the creeps from him, sensing he wouldn't hesitate to cross the line into lawless activities. She wasn't sure who was the bigger a.s.shole-Blaine, who apparently had no qualms about turning her over to his bodyguards, or Dominic, who wanted her dead.

One might argue that it was possible to recover from forced s.e.x but death was permanent. Neither appealed to Liv. It was hard for her to process that Dominic sent his bodyguard after her to kill her. She didn't think what she'd done warranted her life to make amends. Though she knew what she'd done at Blaine's directive was both wrong and illegal, she hadn't realized how much her ambition and the prospect of the Bradford money paying her way through college blinded her to morality. She'd acquired the same sense of ent.i.tlement Blaine had, and her actions shamed her.

"Smile," Albert commanded in a whisper. "Can't have people thinking something's not right. Like maybe you're being kidnapped or something."

Kidnapped? No, not again. She laughed at the irony. "That's me. Whenever you have to kidnap someone..." She pointed to herself.

"Don't overdo it. Too much happy can also draw unwanted attention." He jiggled the pistol against her side. "This pistol has a hair trigger."

Liv flinched, aware he wanted to frighten her by speaking the ominous words, disturbing the gun. "Duly noted. Where are you taking me?"

"Around this corner we're coming up on, I have a rented sedan."

A moment later, Olivia found herself at the driver's side door of a newer model Toyota. Albert unlocked the doors with the remote keyless entry fob and transferred the gun to the back of Liv's head.

"Get in."

That was the absolute last thing she wanted to do because her chances of survival would decrease substantially. She mightn't have learned much in Tai Chi but she knew it was less about resisting and more about yielding to the attack so she could focus all her energy in her self-defense movements and redirect the violence toward the perpetrator.

Albert pressed her against the car, pinning her body to the warm metal. "Get in," he repeated.

The single whip technique called for a shoulder strike to the opponent's ribs, an elbow hit to the torso, finger jabs to the throat or eyes. She wiggled, trying to separate herself from Albert.

"Try anything and I shoot."

Liv gritted her teeth, her brain sifting through endless possibilities. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Get in."

Besides that, she thought with frustration and aggravation. Yield, Liv. She'd get in, lull him into believing she was cooperating. She thought about running in the time it took him to walk around the front b.u.mper and slide next to her in the pa.s.senger seat, but she didn't trust Albert not to fire.

"Start the G.o.dd.a.m.n car and drive the f.u.c.k off," Albert yelled, the gun now at her temple.

He turned the key and the motor revved to life. He slid his foot over to the accelerator and pressed down hard. With one hand on the gun and the other on the steering wheel, he sped away from the curb, barely avoiding oncoming traffic. Liv screamed and covered her eyes, preparing herself for impact. It never came.

"Take the f.u.c.king wheel," he snarled.

She gripped the wheel with both hands, the car weaving. "I don't know how to drive!"

Albert maneuvered the car onto a deserted side street and pulled to a stop. He stared at her as though he were trying to decide his next move. "f.u.c.k! I'll drive. Slide over to this side, you little idiot."

He stepped out and slammed the pa.s.senger-side door, starting around the automobile to get to the driver's side. She didn't want to kill the man, so the moment he cleared the path of the car, Olivia floored the accelerator, propelling the car to a high rate of speed in a few seconds. She prayed Albert realized gunfire might draw attention and decided against taking aim at her. Then again, he might be so p.i.s.sed off that she'd lied about not knowing how to drive, he wouldn't care what happened after he fired the gun. The man took pleasure in pleasing Dominic and his latest order to get rid of Olivia was an epic fail.

Liv's heart pounded with fear and she gripped the steering wheel, drawing in deep breaths to calm her racing pulse. It took her a moment to realize Albert hadn't fired and she'd reached the relative safety of Ca.n.a.l Street, a major thoroughfare in the city.

She drove around, heading lake-bound on Ca.n.a.l until she reached Carrollton Avenue and awareness seeped in. She was heading toward Blaine's house, a habit she'd formed from her months of living there.

Sighing, she turned into the parking lot of a grocery store. She wasn't sure she could trust Karen, but as a woman, perhaps her friend would understand her predicament. Liv drew her phone from the pocket of her jeans and pressed the speed dial for Karen's number.

"Livvie!" Karen answered on the third ring. "Blaine and Dominic Luca have been here looking for you. What did you do? Where are you?"

Karen's voice sounded breathless, almost cautious, so unlike her carefree tone, Liv decided her friend asked the questions for information rather than concern.

"Karen, I...haven't done...um, what did they say?"

"That you'd run away." Karen's silence lasted a heartbeat then she cleared her throat and continued. "Er, I don't think they'll return. Why don't you come here and we can get to the bottom of this."

"Sounds like a plan," Olivia responded, over-bright. Dominic hunting for her would fill Karen with curiosity, even as she offered advice on, and shelter from, everything else.

"Um, Liv?"

"I'm here."

"Um...how long will it take you to get here?"

Liv scowled and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. "Why?"

"Er, no reason. Just can't wait to see you."

"Right. I'll see you in a bit," she promised, flipping her phone closed, thankful her mother hadn't raised a fool.

Karen was anxious to betray her to those a.s.sholes. Thanks but no thanks.

Dominic never would've guessed on the flight from Charleston that he would end up in Blaine Bradford's house, worried senseless about Olivia and zeroing in on a trusted bodyguard as the person who'd betrayed Dominic.

And yet here he was, pacing Bradford's study, frowning at Olivia's friend, Karen, who'd just arrived after waiting for Olivia's arrival at her house for over two hours. When Karen realized Olivia wouldn't show, she'd called Blaine and he'd ordered her over. Now Karen sat, tears slipping down her cheeks as she voiced her concern for her friend.

Blaine scowled. "Olivia isn't stupid, Karen. If the conversation you relayed to me is the exact one you had with Livvie, then she would've been suspicious. Your normal nosiness was glaringly absent."

Karen flipped her bone-straight hair over her shoulder and swiped at her eyes. She glared at Blaine. "If you were a better brother, she would've found you. Now she's out there all alone."

"And? Livvie knows how to take care of herself. She's used to being alone. What do you think she did when her mother was out whoring to earn money for food?"

Karen squeaked and her mouth fell open.

"That's right. Not only isn't she rich, but she's my b.a.s.t.a.r.d half sister, whose mother was one of the maids in the household." He shrugged. "She ended up having to turn tricks just to keep Liv fed."

"Shut up, Bradford," Dominic growled. "For the entire night, you've been h.e.l.l-bent on humiliating Olivia and turning everyone against her."