Free Enemy Lover by Karin Harlow Page A

known of his existence in the apartment.
    Marcus carefully unwound the cord from around her neck, then grabbed her shirt from the floor and placed what little there was of it over her bare chest. He growled when he picked her up. She didn’t weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet. He stepped into the bathroom on the way out, grabbed a grimy towel, then wrapped her in it. Once she was secured, he yanked open the door and headed for the stairwell.
    She shivered hard in his arms. He didn’t want to look down at her, but he couldn’t help himself. Wide-eyed, blinking back tears, she stared at him. He felt like someone had kicked him in the balls.
    “Wh-where are you taking me?” she croaked.
    “Someplace safe,” he said, knowing he would regret it.

EIGHT

    Thirty minutes later
    Senator Rowland.”
    At the deep, arrogant voice, the senator stopped in his tracks. The colonel stood behind him, so close that he could feel the warmth of the man’s breath and smell the rich tobacco on it. Rowland’s skin chilled, and every hair on his body stood straight up.
    “That’s it,” the colonel murmured. “Keep still and keep quiet. What I have to say will take only a moment of your valuable time.”
    Rowland slid his hands into his trouser pockets and fisted them. His gaze darted around the lightly populated private dining room in the ultraexclusive D.C. gentleman’s club, Partisan.
    “How did you get in here?” Rowland quietly demanded as he made to turn.
    The hard nose of a pistol pressed against his back. “Ah, ah, follow orders, soldier, or pay the price.”
    Rowland stiffened but remained still.
    “Now, listen to me very carefully. I’m guessing that in the not-too-distant future, you’ re going to get a call from DCPD informing you that your press secretary jumped out of a ghetto apartment building because he couldn’tlive with himself after he killed the twelve-year-old prostitute he had delivered earlier tonight.”
    Icy foreboding dug into the senator’s gut. “You bastard!”
    The barrel of the gun dug deeper into his back. “Ah, ah.” When Rowland stilled, the colonel continued. “The reality is, Blalock was thrown from the window. And the girl?” The colonel
tsk
ed
tsk
ed. “Unfortunate collateral damage.”
    “You don’t know who you’ re up against, Colonel,” the senator bit out.
    The colonel chuckled. “No, my friend, it’s you who has no clue who you’ re
up
against.” To accentuate his point, the colonel shoved the pistol harder into Rowland’s back.
    Rowland moved to turn around, but the colonel dug the barrel deeper.
    “Don’t turn around. I’m here to give you a friendly heads-up so that when the cops call, you have the real facts. And you know how those vultures at the
Post
like to twist everyone’s dirty laundry into a shit pile. It’s going to be very interesting to see how your PR team spins this little, ah, sexcapade slash suicide. Especially since you’ re running such a tight race against that incompetent Democrat.”
    Rowland remained still, too angry, too terrified to breathe. This would topple him. It didn’t matter that Blalock liked young whores. Rowland was a California conservative, a virtual unheard-of in that great state. His opponent would pull out all the stops when they got wind of this. “What good am I to The Solution if I lose my seat?”
    The colonel laughed low. “I like the way you’ re thinking now, Senator.” Colonel Lazarus relieved the pressure at his back. “It’s simple, really. Reinstate our preferred contractor status, we go back to business as usual, and I’ ll make sure you not only retain your senate seat but you’ ll be hailed a hero as well.”
    Rowland spun around and faced his nemesis. The pacemaker in his chest was working overtime to keep his erratic heart rate from fibrillating. His gut gnarled in such a severe contortion that the Maryland crab cakes he’d eaten an hour ago rose in his throat. He was damned either way.