She woke sometime later with her heart pounding. She knew instantly she wasn’t alone. Someone was in her warehouse and it wasn’t Ridley. He had brushed another kiss across her forehead and left her already drifting off. She’d been wrapped in a cocoon of safety, of something close to love, and now she felt threatened on every level.

Her hand went under her pillow to get the gun just as she turned toward the monitor to check the cameras. The monitor was dark. There was no gun. Cursing softly, she slipped off the bed and felt around on the floor for her weapon. She’d more than once knocked it off the bed when she was moving around in her sleep. Before she could find it, lights burst through the warehouse, nearly every bulb turned on.

She leapt to her feet as men poured into her room. Guns pointed. Vests on. Grim faces. She was caught by the lead man and thrown facedown on her bed. She fought, trying to turn over, but he jammed a knee into her back and dragged first one and then the other hand behind her. She felt the bite of the handcuffs. He put them on tight. Still, the adrenaline coursed through her body and that monster inside of her woke.

Catarina lay facedown as the men went through her warehouse, tearing it apart, throwing her things, tossing clothes from her drawers.

“Catarina Benoit? We have a search warrant for this warehouse and your car. We’re taking you downtown for questioning.”

She recognized the voice. Frank Tuttle. Of course. She’d made him as a cop. They couldn’t have anything on her.

“What am I being charged with?” Her voice was muffled against the mattress. Her hair was everywhere. She couldn’t see him through the masses of strands falling into her eyes so she forced herself to lie still. Her skin itched horribly and panic was close. She couldn’t stop the movement of her hands, trying to find a way out of the cuffs.

Tuttle caught her arm and yanked her to her feet. “Were you going somewhere?”

“To visit my mother,” she snapped. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Your mother’s dead,” he snapped back, and shoved her toward the door.

Catarina deliberately stumbled and went down. She didn’t have hands to break her fall and she landed hard. The side of her face hit so hard that for a moment she saw stars and her cheek felt like she broke something. But her handcuffed hand found the small pen lying on the floor beside her overturned bag. She closed her fist around it.

“Damn it,” Tuttle said. He crouched beside her. “Are you all right?”