Drake Sisters 05 - Safe Harbor

because she didn't want to be like Jonas, afraid for them, angry with them, wanting them to stay home and be safe.
    Maybe she'd known all along it was like this, so many nutcases, attracted by the glamour of Hannah's job and her flawless beauty.
    "Oh, Jonas, what that man did to her." Sarah pressed both hands over her face. "I can't bear it. Even if she lives…"
    "She will live," Jonas said. "That's all that matters. You can't think about anything else." Because he couldn't. He couldn't allow his mind to go there again. He didn't know what he'd do if the worst happened.
    "Hannah is so different, though. Fragile and gentle. How will she ever get over the trauma of this kind of an attack?"
    Damon wrapped his arms around her. "Hannah is stronger than you think. She'll rise above it. You wait and see. She's a Drake through and through and she has all of us to help her. She'll get through this."
    Sarah looked at Jonas. Instinctively she knew, if anyone was going to get Hannah through this, it would be Jonas—but who was going to get him through it? She'd never seen him so strained. Nothing to date had ever shaken Jonas's confidence in himself, but he'd been a wild man, out of control, scaring the hell out of her in the aftermath of Hannah's attack. He'd been crazy, tearing up the room, smashing things, his face so twisted with anguish she'd managed to set aside her own unrestrained grief to help Jackson rein him in. And she could still see—and feel—the wild rage smoldering in him now. He had once again brought it under control, but it could erupt with any provocation.

    There was no doubt Jonas loved Hannah. There had never been a doubt in anyone's mind except Hannah's—but no one had known the force of that love, the deep, ingrained need he had of her. Sarah still found it hard to look at him—he was so ravaged. Jonas. Their rock. Shattered into so many shards. Holding himself together through sheer force of will.
    "We need your sisters. Libby has to get here fast." Jonas raked both hands through his hair. "She's coming home, right?"
    Sarah nodded. Libby was a healer. Jonas knew she could perform what virtually amounted to miracles. She'd saved his life with the help of all the other Drake sisters, but they weren't going to arrive in time for this one. None of them. If Ilya Prakenskii couldn't hold Hannah, she was lost to them. Jonas desperately needed to believe Sarah and her sisters could save Hannah, but she needed to believe Prakenskii could.
    "Tell me what you know about the bodyguard. Who is Sergei Nikitin and what exactly does Prakenskii do for him? And Jonas, this time, tell me the truth. I know you know more about him than you're letting on. I don't care if he's some big government secret, I have to know who he is. He's all we've got right now."
    "It might take Abbey to get to anything of value on Prakenskii," Jonas said. "I'm telling you, I ran into a stone wall when I tried to find out about him. I used every connection I had in the defense department as well as the Army Rangers, and I got zilch on him. The guy isn't what he appears to be, and he's got layers of protection built in around his file."
    Sarah was silent, her small teeth chewing on her bottom lip as she turned the information over in her mind. "What about Sergei Nikitin? What do you have on him?"
    "He's an altogether different kind of fish—big fish. No one has ever been able to pin anything on him, not in his country or ours or in Europe. Interpol has been trying for several years. He emerged strong from a rather bloody turf war. The spoils were divided several ways until he suddenly came on the scene, and then after a very nasty battle between factions, Sergei Nikitin and Boris and Petr Tarasov were left standing.
    There are others, but not like them. The leftovers were divided between the two families and the rest is history. Both families are extremely violent, willing to kill and torture to prove their point, which basically is that no one had better mess with them—and no one does."
    "Are they friends?"
    "They do business together, but no, they posture at each other. There have been a few killings between the two factions, but for the most part, they leave one another alone."
    "Do any of the models run drugs?" Jackson asked Sarah. "Has she ever mentioned she was worried about someone? She would pick that up working so close to them. Or maybe one of the designers. They're bringing in clothes and props from all over the