Page 2 of Reset

He’d been drugged and abducted.

His team were never going to let him live this down.

Assuming he managed to get back to them.

The kidnapping made no sense. It wasn’t like he had a rich family that’d fork out a ransom for him. And he hadn’t been involved in any of Benson Security’s recent cases either. In the six months since he’d woken from a coma, he’d worked on building up his muscle mass, regaining control of his body, and trying to put together the parts of his past that he remembered. There were still gaps. Some that’d never fill. Including the month or so before he’d been shot. According to his doc, that was gone forever, which meant it was possible he’d pissed someone off enough to kidnap him, and equally possible he couldn’t remember who.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have enemies. He’d been in the military and then he’d worked all over the world with a specialist security team. They’d taken on the South American cartels, Russian mafia, and London gangs, leaving him with a pretty long suspect list.

Running a hand down his face, he sighed. There was no point in trying to figure out the why and who of the situation. His priority was getting out of there. He’d work out the rest later.

Taking a couple of steps, he tested his equilibrium. Better. At least the room wasn’t moving anymore. Time to explore.

As he reached for the candle nearest to him, a faint noise made him freeze. It sounded like a moan. Cocking his head, as though that would help him hear better, he waited.

There it was again.

He spun, regretting the action instantly, as the room kept spinning after he’d stopped. Closing his eyes tight against the moving walls, he fought the nausea that assailed him and strained to listen.

Another moan.

Louder this time.

And it was coming from the far corner.

Ryan’s eyes snapped open while everything within him became laser focused. Instantly the nausea disappeared, or maybe he just wasn’t aware of it anymore, as he willed his gaze to penetrate the darkness beyond the platform bed.

Movement. Slight but definite.

He grabbed the nearest candle stub and inched his way across the room. With each stiff step, the dim glow of the candle shifted, illuminating the hidden corner in agonizingly small increments. His breath hitched when he realized what he was seeing.

A shoe.

A leg.

A skirt.

A woman.

“Crap!” He slapped the candle down onto the platform and bent over the crumpled form. She was breathing steadily and her pulse was strong. “Okay, okay. That’s good…”

He let out a shaky breath as he reached for his phone, needing something brighter than candlelight to check her for injuries. The sharp white beam of the flashlight app was startling after the faint glow from the candles, but it easily illuminated the woman at his feet.

No blood.

No obvious injury.

Except a telltale circular mark on her neck that told him she’d been drugged and taken, just like him. Automatically, he cataloged everything about her that he could see: average height, dark bronze hair in a tight bun at her nape, large round glasses, conservative pale blue blouse, straight navy skirt, sensible heels. And curves. The kind of curves women called fat, but men called lush.

There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her or how he knew her. Tearing his eyes from his mystery companion, he spotted a discarded handbag sitting beside her hip.

As she moaned again, fighting off the effects of the drug in her system, Ryan reached for the bag. It was navy leather, good quality, and obviously expensive. A sensible work bag for a businesswoman. The interior was neat and organized, not the jumble he’d seen fall out of other women’s bags, making her wallet easy to locate.

“Time to find out who my fellow victim is,” he muttered.

The wallet held her driver’s license, the photo showing wide hazel eyes and full lips on a heart-shaped face. She’d obviously posed on a workday because she was buttoned-up with tied-back hair. The clothes did nothing for her. This was a woman who should have been wearing diamanté-encrusted jeans and a glitter top. Sarah Jean Davidson was a fifties’ pinup girl hiding in drab work clothes.

Another glance at the license told him she was twenty-seven years old, an organ donor, and didn’t have any penalties for reckless driving. A gym card told him that she either worked or lived in South London, and a work ID revealed she was an actuary with Steele-Shepherd Insurance.