Ransom by Callie Rhodes

Chapter Seven

The moment Ransom pulled her out of the ditch, Gretchen shook off his touch. But when her gaze fell on the fresh carnage strewn across the field, she wished she hadn't been so hasty. A strange mixture of horror and relief swept through her, making her knees wobble.

These men may have died quickly, but their deaths had been gruesome—torn apart, gore spilling from their wounds, bones snapped like tinder. The only thing keeping her upright was the knowledge that they'd come here with every intention of doing the same to her.

Without the alpha's intervention, she'd already be dead. He'd done all this to save her. Ransom had made no bones about the fact that she could expect his protection as long as it took to get his story out to the world. After that—

After thatwould have to wait. Right now, Gretchen had her hands full just trying to make it to sundown alive.

Ransom was already striding toward the men's abandoned jeep, and Gretchen jogged to keep up. When he surprised her by getting in the driver's seat, she kept her mouth shut. She's seen the alpha's handiwork up close twice now, and it didn't strike her as a good idea to get in an argument over who was the more experienced driver.

So she climbed in the passenger seat, strapped on her seatbelt, and turned her face away from the bloodbath.

Five dead—six if she counted the one still inside her car. The fact that all of them had been tasked with killing her didn't make it any easier to look at their remains.

If her mother was still alive, she'd be so disappointed in her daughter's weak resolve. Not only had "Mad Dog" Conrad covered worse massacres, she'd interviewed warlords, documented mass graves, and nearly been hit by carpet bombs—never once backing down. "When you're covering a story, there's no room for fear," she used to say. "You just have to turn off your emotions until you get the job done."

If Gretchen had an 'off' switch for her emotions, she'd be more than happy to use it. But thinking of her mother made her realize she had to gather some hard evidence of what had taken place here. So she forced herself to swivel back around and pulled out her phone.

Her hands were shaking so hard that it took several tries to snap a few photographs of the scene, and by the time she was done, Ransom was already gunning the engine. The gears made a terrible grinding sound as he forced the jeep into reverse. A second later, she was slammed against the dashboard when he made the sudden transition to first.

"Shit." Ransom didn't look at her, making it seem as though he was apologizing to the car. "It's been a while since I've driven."

"I could…" Gretchen started, but the sentence died on her lips as Ransom shifted gears with a frown of concentration. Then he put his foot on the gas, and the vehicle shot forward.

Gretchen was impressed that he could drive a manual transmission at all since he'd only been seventeen when he'd been dragged to Fulmer's facility. Given that he hadn't touched a car since then, the skill came back to him at lighting speed. After only a minute or two, he had mastered the vehicle's handling and was pushing it over the rough terrain at a speed that bordered on reckless.

Gretchen braced her arms against the dash as the vehicle bounced wildly. Ransom didn't seem to be making any effort to miss the ruts and hillocks, slamming down hard on the former after taking the latter too fast. By the time they reached the road, every bone in her body felt as though it had taken a beating.

But at least the jeep seemed to have been designed to take it. Once they were on the somewhat more solid ground of the dirt road, Gretchen twisted in her seat to check behind them and saw no one in pursuit. She didn't doubt for a second that as soon as the next round of reinforcements discovered they were gone, Fulmer would send every available vehicle after them, but Ransom seemed to have bought them a little time.

Which meant that Gretchen could take a breath.

But she'd barely turned back around when Ransom floored the gas at the crest of a slight rise, and the SUV caught some serious air, then slammed down again with such force that the breath was knocked out of her chest. But the military-grade jeep didn't seem to mind, and Ransom appeared positively giddy, like a kid on a dirt bike landing his first jump.

It was the first time she'd ever seen an alpha grin, even in pictures—and the effect was dazzling, lighting up his face in a much too gorgeous and all too human way. So much so that, for a moment, Gretchen almost forgot they were fighting for survival.

One look in the side mirror brought reality rushing back. The smoking ruin of the mysterious facility might be receding behind them, but she was running for her life with a stranger who'd killed six armed men without breaking a sweat.

For a moment there, he had been…well, just a guy. A super-hot guy, it was true. Unapologetically masculine in a way that stirred Gretchen's lady parts to life and took up every available bit of space in the vehicle with the force of his presence.

Shit—she was in trouble in more ways than one.

"I'm glad one of us is having a good time," she said sarcastically in an attempt to drown out the unhelpful voice inside her head. The one that was suggesting they ought to slip into something more comfortable.

That did the trick. The grin vanished from Ransom's face as he shot her a glance. He slowed to a speed a notch below breakneck and tightened his hands on the steering wheel, the tension returning to his muscles. "Just trying to get us out of here," he muttered.

"Where are we going?" Gretchen asked, resisting the urge to apologize for being a buzzkill. Yeah, it was too bad that Ransom didn't get to enjoy his freedom right away, but he wasn't the only one trying to save their asses.

"I'm not sure yet. I'll know a safe place when I see it."

Gretchen held back a snort. The view in every direction was of grass, grass, and more grass, all the way to the mountains in one direction and the horizon in the rest. Besides, she was the one who'd lived in this part of the country…well, above ground, at least. This was the first time Ransom was laying eyes on the landscape.

She supposed that was the downside of teaming up with an alpha. Sure, he'd take a bullet for her—but forget about asking for directions.

"You could take me back to Omaha," she suggested.

Ransom gave her an incredulous look. "You're kidding, right? That's the first place they'll go."

"You don't have to come." Gretchen imagined getting stuck in traffic downtown at rush hour, passersby gaping at the alpha at the wheel, and reconsidered. "Or just get me close. You can drop me off in the suburbs, and I'll get a ride from there."

He shook his head impatiently. "You won't be safe."

Gretchen rolled her eyes. She'd grown up in Chicago, after all. She'd been riding the el by herself since she was ten. "It's Omaha. The Register offices are in a new building right downtown. It's got tons of security. Even if Fulmer followed me there, he wouldn't even be able to get into the parking lot."

A low growl emanated from Ransom's chest again, and the look he gave her was lethal. His eyes were like smoldering coals, making it impossible to forget that he was an alpha. Gretchen could approach him, even admire him, but like any wild creature, she'd never be able to tame him, and she'd be foolish to forget it.

Yes, he'd saved her life, but he'd taken half a dozen others without apparently thinking twice. There was no reason to think he wouldn't bite her damn hand off if she got too close.

"You don't know the first thing about Fulmer." Ransom spat out the words in a voice like a rusty blade. "He has already killed hundreds of people, nearly all of them innocent. He doesn't care about anyone. He'd take out the whole damn city if it got him closer to what he wants."

Gretchen swallowed hard, wondering if she was really in denial. It just didn't make sense. Even if Ransom was right—that human life meant nothing to Fulmer—why go to the trouble of coming after her? There'd been dozens of other journalists present, and all of them had seen what she had.

But none of them had singled out the man in the black suit.

None of them had accused him of a coverup.

And none of them had photographic evidence of his brutal tactics.

And now it was too late to take it all back. Even if Gretchen offered to turn over her phone to Fulmer, if she swore to forget what she'd seen and quit the paper on the spot, he had made it pretty darn clear that there was only one endgame...and it involved her being silenced for good.

And as if she wasn't in enough trouble already, she'd gone and left the scene with Fulmer's most ardent enemy, leaving no doubt where her loyalties lay. Good one, Gretchen.

This was what she got for chasing her mother's shadow. For trying to be something she wasn't. Why the hell had she fought so hard to stay on this story? Jeremy was right—for all her education and ambition, Gretchen didn't have what it took to deliver hard news. She should never have tried to fight her way out of fashion news and bridal expos.

If what Ransom said was true, even that was probably out of the question. She could never risk another byline or identify herself to ask questions at a press conference. The best she could hope for was to vanish until things blew over, then start a new and anonymous life somewhere far from here and even farther from Washington.

"I have some friends over in Lincoln," she mumbled. "Maybe if I stay with them for a while…I'll just lay low until this blows over."

"'Lay low'?" Ransom gave a bitter laugh. "Fuck, woman. What part of this are you having trouble understanding? I have seen Fulmer order multiple murders in a single day, then polish off a sandwich. I watched him inject a woman with an experimental serum and then stand there watching while she screamed and convulsed and choked to death on her own vomit without doing anything to save her. I watched my own alpha brothers pound at their cages until their hands were raw, and all he did was laugh. But in all that time, I've never seen him show any sign of fear…until today. Until you showed up."

"That can't be right," Gretchen stammered. "It doesn't make any sense."

"I've spent eight years watching Fulmer," Ransom said coldly. "At this point, I know him better than my own mother. But I've never heard him sound so desperate as when he was talking about you. He's never going to stop coming after you. Not until he's dead, or you are."

The hurricane of emotion inside Gretchen whipped into a force she couldn't fight any longer, and the next thing she knew, she was screaming. "This is ridiculous! No one is scared of me. Not the people I work with or interview or pass on the streets. I've never even had a parking ticket. I'm nobody. Why can't you understand that?"

Ransom was unmoved. "He's sent a total of six men to kill you so far. You think he'd spare that kind of manpower on someone who wasn't a threat to him? He needs every soldier he can get just to keep that scene locked down, so why would he waste so much time and effort on a nobody?"

Gretchen knew there was something to what Ransom was saying, but she still couldn't wrap her head around it. "I'm a third-string reporter out of Omaha, for God's sake. Before my editor sent me here, I spent three days at a bridal convention covering wedding trends. I'm a far cry from Woodward and Bernstein…or even my mother."

Ransom gave her a cautious look. "Who's your mother?"

"Maggie Conrad," Gretchen said. "She worked for the Chicago Tribune and the London Times, and she built a hell of a reputation. She never backed down from a story. She was tough enough to make someone like Fulmer shake in his boots."

"And you're not." Something in Ransom's tone made Gretchen regret bringing the subject up.

"Like I said—I just spent three days writing about the return of the cathedral train and the pros and cons of the groom's cake."

The hard lines around Ransom's mouth eased slightly. "I don't know what the fuck a cathedral train is, but you shouldn't sell yourself short. You could have escaped, but instead, you came back to interview an alpha with blood on his hands. That takes guts."

Gretchen tried to ignore the tiny surge of pride his words brought. "Yeah…and look where it got me."

"Following your instincts back there—that's the reason you're still alive. If you'd done the logical thing and stayed on the main road, Fulmer would have killed you by now."

Gretchen said nothing for a moment, weighing Ransom's words. She really wanted to believe them.

But since it was looking like her time was almost up, she opted for the truth. "I wasn't following my instincts," she admitted in a whisper. "I was following my mom's. Ever since she died, I've been trying to live up to her legacy, but…I don't think I have it in me. There was only one Mad Dog Conrad, and it's not me."

To Gretchen's surprise, the look Ransom gave her was laced with sympathy. "Look, Gretchen, I understand what it means to try to honor the life of someone you loved. Ryan was a better man than I'll ever be—smarter, stronger, tougher. I should have been the one who died, not him. If there was any fairness in the world…but there isn't. And you just have to accept that and do the best you can."

Gretchen felt her feelings shift once again and wondered if every alpha was as full of contradictions and unexpected depth as Ransom. He was capable of fury one moment and gentle understanding the next. She was beginning to think that everything she'd been taught about alphas had been wrong.

Then her phone rang. She seized it with a pounding heart and pressed it to her ear.

Jeremy's voice already in mid-rant. "Conrad! Where the hell are you?"

Gretchen held the phone away slightly, rolling her eyes. After what she'd been through in the last few hours, his temper tantrum no longer packed a punch.

"I don't know," she said flatly. "In the middle of a field somewhere."

"Well, get your ass back to the office now. I knew I should've never sent you out on a story like this. How the hell did I let you talk me into it?"

Gretchen wasn't in the mood. For a moment, she considered hanging up on him, but if he had any information, she needed to hear it. "Jeremy, calm down and tell me what's going on."

There was a slight, startled pause. "That's what I was about to ask you. What the hell did you do out there? It was a simple assignment. How did you manage to fuck things up so badly that both the Department of the Interior and the Pentagon are calling me and demanding to know your location?"

Gretchen's heart plummeted. Jeremy was yelling so loudly that she was sure Ransom could hear every word. Oh mom, how the hell did you handle this kind of stress? "You didn't tell them, did you?"

"Now, how the hell am I supposed to tell them something I don't know, you stupid cow?"

Ransom abruptly reached over and grabbed the phone out of her hand. "Listen to me, you pathetic little worm," he thundered. "You want to know where your reporter is? She's with me, and I'm going to do the one thing you're apparently incapable of—protect her so she can do her damn job."

"Who the fuck are you?" Jeremy's tinny voice bleated out of the phone.

"Ransom Forester. Go ahead and mention my name to the Pentagon and see what they say. And one more thing—if you ever talk to her like that again, if you call her anything other than 'Ms. Conrad,' I will yank the tongue out of your mouth and shove it up your ass."

Gretchen didn't learn what Jeremy had to say to that because the call disconnected when Ransom chucked the phone down at her feet.