by Skye Warren
Worthy even after what had happened to her.
She circled the building, expecting to search through trash bins to find anything. But then, this was her work. It wasn’t always glamorous, but at least no one shot at her.
Voices drifted to her over the sound of her own breath.
She froze. Part of her wanted it to be a trick of the wind. Another part of her knew that this was where something would happen. This was the link he was hiding. Now she would find out why.
Quietly, quietly, she crept closer, still tucked behind dense foliage that surrounded the building, part of the design’s tribute to nature that would have been the focal point of her article on the groundbreaking, if she hadn’t changed it.
More voices. Her stomach formed a tight knot.
The person speaking wasn’t Mark Dawson.
It wasn’t even Stephen Moreland.
Oh God, it almost sounded like…Remy. Her friend. Her fellow reporter. How was this possible? Horror crept into her veins, and the gentle hillside breeze felt like zero degrees.
“I told you to take care of him,” said a male voice. Moreland?
“And I did,” Remy said. “He’s not going to talk until the shipment is gone.”
“If you’d done what you were supposed to, he wouldn’t talk ever again.”
Who were they talking about? Dawson? They spoke faster and harder, as if in anger. An argument? Damn it, she needed to know. Sofia crept closer, heart beating so loud she could barely hear anything.
“She’s still out there,” came another male voice.
“Don’t worry about her.” Remy.
“I’m not worried,” Moreland said. “This is the end of the line. No more shipments. No more bullshit. No more nosy little reporters who don’t know when to quit.”
“And the last job,” Remy said.
“Of course.” That sounded like it was said with a smile.
Sofia’s chest constricted with pain, with betrayal. There had been fear that Remy had been hurt. And there’d been a sliver of hope that she’d actually uncovered some clue, on the trail as one of the best reporters Sofia knew. But the fear and the hope had turned into anger.
Remy was working for them.
She needed to call Nate. She should call Andre.
She had to—
A click from behind her. Something hard pressed against her head. “End of the line,” came a voice she distantly recognized as Mark Dawson. “Guess you really don’t know when to quit.”
Chapter Twenty One
Sofia had a lot more sympathy for Nate as she twisted her hands. Her wrists ached from pulling them against the tight ropes, her skin on fire, rubbed raw. They had left her in some kind of large shed with equipment that was hard to make out in the dark. Maybe riding lawn mowers. Which meant there might be clipping shears somewhere in here, but she couldn’t move an inch. Her hands were tied behind her, so tight she already felt pins in her shoulders as they went numb. More black rope tied her ankles to the chair legs.
Remy hadn’t been able to meet her eyes.
How long had she been here? An hour. Maybe two.
Oh Nate, I’m sorry. Sofia wasn’t sorry that she’d left him tied up. She had no doubt that if he’d come with her, he would be tied up too. Or maybe they’d just have shot him on sight. There had been more men with Dawson, hired guns like the ones who had invaded her apartment.
No, she was sorry that she’d ever walked away from him.
It had only been a few months apart, but they could have spent that time together. It would have been worth it, even knowing there’d be heartache at the end. He hadn’t liked her job, but she would have stood her ground. She would have, if she hadn’t been so determined to prove something to herself, to the world, after what had happened to her. Not just another broken girl. Not a victim. And now she was tied up in a warehouse, so she’d lost that fight.
And she’d lost Nate.
A scratch came from behind her. Oh God, that was all she needed, some kind of possum or rat who wanted to nibble at her feet. It could be something worse, something bigger. Like a coyote. The Hill Country was still largely wooded out here, with deer crossings commonplace. And where there were deer…
That was kind of the point of the ultra-natural landscaping. How ironic that she’d ended up in a place to care for those native shrubs, the ones she was supposed to write about.
The sound came again, louder this time. More of a long drag against the cement floor. It seemed to drag along her spine. Her heart pounded, beating up into her throat, almost pulsing in her eyelids. She’d already been held at gunpoint, threatened, tied up—nothing else should make her afraid, but she still felt like a teenaged girl hiding in the closet.
Her gaze darted over the bulky shadows until a slender silhouette formed.
“Remy,” she gasped, part in relief, part in anger.
“I’m so sorry,” Remy whispered. “I never wanted you to be hurt.”
Maybe she’d wanted Remy to deny her involvement, despite what she’d heard before, because Sofia’s gut clenched in disappointment. “How could you?”
Something glinted in the dark—a knife?
Remy knelt in front of her and tugged at the rope around her ankles. “I told you not to go after Moreland.”
“And you knew that I couldn’t stop.”
The other ankle now. “Well, you have to now. They won’t tie you up next time.”
Sofia waited while Remy circled to cut her hands free. Then she stood and backed up. “You have to know I won’t. How did you get involved with them, Remy? Is this about money?”
Remy made a dismayed sound, maybe insulted. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.” Especially since Moreland had taken her phone.
A sigh, and Remy’s shadow sat down on a box of undetermined contents. “My sister.”
The image of Diego’s face flashed through Sofia’s mind, that red bandanna he wore until the very end. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Allison was older than me. We were close when we were little. Then she got older, got messed up with a fucked-up crowd. Drugs. Sex. That kind of thing.”
A sick feeling settled into her stomach. This sounded too close to Sofia’s story, a parallel. She sat down beside Remy. “What happened?”
“Spring break. Cancun. And she never came back.”
“Oh my God.”
“My parents pretended that she’d run away, maybe met a boy and lived a life of sin and alcohol. That way they could judge her, while still believing she had chosen that. But I knew something worse had happened to her.”
“That’s horrible, Remy. I’m so sorry.”
Remy shook her head. “You don’t understand. I told her to go. She had wanted us to spend time together that week. But I’d been pissed at her for spending so much time with her friends lately. I told her that if she loved her friends so much, she should go with them.”
And so Remy blamed herself for what had happened to her sister.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sofia said softly.
“I told her I didn’t care about her!”
Sofia looked down, swallowing hard. She had always felt guilty for the way her brother had died, even though he’d done it to protect her. And he’d felt guilty for what his gang brothers had done to her, even though it wasn’t really his fault. They were all just adrift, at the mercy of the dark forces around them.
Except that Remy was helping them.
“Moreland is mixed up with human trafficking,” Sofia said, putting the pieces together.
“I started tracking her down as soon as I got into college. Spent every break in Mexico, learning the language, making contacts.” A rough laugh. “Part of me wanted them to take me too, because then at least I’d know what happened to her.”
Sofia knew how the guilt could make you reckless, how you could almost want the pain, believe you deserve it. Maybe that was how she’d ended up in this warehouse, after al
l.
“Then I tracked it to Moreland,” Remy said. “I was already graduated by then, working at the Daily. I begged Andre to give me the story, but he thought it would seem like favoritism.”
Sofia gasped softly. “Because you were together.”
Remy looked away. “Together. I guess you could say that. Not that it helped me in the end. Not that it helped him either. He was hurt in the blast, did you know that?”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. And it’s my fault, because I should have nailed Moreland when I had the chance. Should have shot him in the fucking heart.”
“Why didn’t you?” Sofia had always wanted to play by the rules, had believed in them like Nate had once believed in them—with an idealism that was destined to break. But Remy had always had a dark streak in her eyes, a determination that Sofia knew to take seriously.
“He has my sister,” Remy said softly. “He has Allison.”
Her throat tightened. “Are you sure?”
“There were…pictures.” A rough sound. “He said if I did things for him, I could get her back. I thought I could do it, that I could keep everyone safe and save her too. That I could still nail him when it was over.”
Sofia ached with the knowledge that her friend had been up against so much, facing it alone. There was anger still, a sense of betrayal. But she knew that she’d have done the same to save the people she loved.
“Where are they now?”
“I don’t know,” Remy said, her voice dull. “They think I’m on my way to the Daily to spin some bullshit story about Moreland’s wonderful speech. Every time he says this is the last job, but it never ends.”
“He’ll never give her back,” Sofia said softly, gently, but her friend had to know. Allison would be the smoking gun that would put Moreland away forever.
“I know that, but there’s a shipment coming through tonight. I don’t know where it is, but if I can find it, if I can get the girls away from him, that might be the leverage I need to get her back.”
And to expose him as a monster. “Do you have a car?”
“Why?”
“I have a few places we can check. Some warehouses owned by the same shell corporation that owns that mansion in Austin.”
Remy gasped. “You didn’t tell me there were warehouses too.”
“I didn’t realize we were working on the same story,” Sofia said in a dry voice. “I checked them out, but they were empty. I bet they aren’t empty now.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Nate cracked the last piece of wood on the metal door. The bedpost split in half, splintering across the thin carpet. That gave him enough slack to wrench one hand from the loop. He’d managed to split the cheap frame in two before using the door as a reverse hammer.
The rope fell onto the floor.
Fuck, he had taught her that knot.
He grabbed the hotel phone and made a call to Ford’s secure line. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” his friend asked. “They took her.”
Nate grimaced. “She left. Tied me to the bed. Took off with my phone. I need you to track it. And send a motherfucking car for me.”
Only the sound of quiet laughter answered him. “Tied you…to the bed…”
He waited, furious that he’d let her get away. Or maybe he was more furious that she had sprung the L-word when she’d been about to leave him. Again. “She could be in danger,” he ground out. “So if you could pull your head out of your ass, maybe?”
“Sorry,” Ford said, not sounding sorry. “I’ll send a car for you. And clothes?”
“I have clothes,” Nate growled out before hanging up the phone.
Then he packed his gear and headed out the door. Someone from the next room peeked out their blinds. Clearly they’d heard him rip apart the bed frame like the fucking Hulk.
He stalked the nearest bus route until he found the driver who’d picked her up, though he couldn’t remember her stop. It had taken him long enough that her trail was cold.
Hopefully Ford came through with the fucking trace.
Ford didn’t just send a car. He came himself, pulling up alongside where Nate had started walking toward campus. The tinted window rolled down, revealing the grinning bastard. “I think I’m in love,” the bastard said.
Nate opened the door and slung his body inside. “She’s taken.”
He might be pissed at her, but that didn’t mean he was giving her up.
Even if his friend was fucking kidding. But he couldn’t be sure, because anyone with half a brain could see how amazing Sofia was. He could still feel her body above him, breasts hanging with dark nipples, hair spilling around her shoulders. Her eyes had been a fucking siren’s, calling to him. He’d almost come just looking at her. And when she’d left him there, her determination like goddamn armor around her slender body, he hadn’t been any less turned on.
Ford handed over a new phone. “They turned your phone off, probably thinking we can’t track it that way. But since it’s yours, it’s got a separate signal.”
“So where the fuck is she?” He was having a hard time ignoring the black panic, imagining Sofia in danger, in enemy hands. Hurt, abused. The way she had been before.
“Some warehouses on the east side. My intel doesn’t show anything, but we’ll go directly there. I have two other teams en route, but they’re farther away than us.”
At least Ford knew how to run a fucking op. “I’m going in.”
He couldn’t risk waiting for the woman he loved. I think I love you.
He was going to make her pay for that in the most delicious, depraved ways he could think up.
Ford gave him a sideways glance. “You’re too close to this.”
“I’m going in,” he ground out.
At least Ford stopped arguing, communicating with his teams via radio. He’d pulled them back from other cities when he realized shit was going down tonight, but they were still an hour out. Too long.
“Fine,” Ford finally said. “We’ll go in together.”
“No.” He couldn’t risk his friend getting killed, especially without backup. He knew the risks when he went in, but that didn’t mean Ford had to take them. “You wait for your team.”
Ford snorted. “You can’t have it both ways. Either we both wait or we go in together.”
This was the part Nate hated most about black ops. At least with his cover, the PI gig, he got to work alone. Relying on his teammates, having them rely on him, took him back to that fucking hut every time.
He imagined her tortured body. All that gorgeous tan skin he’d seen just hours ago—broken, violated. They couldn’t wait, not for any reason. If it took him back to the hut, so fucking what.
They parked two miles away and armed themselves to the teeth.
Anyone who got between him and Sofia was going down. Anyone who laid a finger on her? Down. Simple as that. Ford communicated their plans to the rest of the teams before going dark, so they could go in silent.
The warehouses were long abandoned, signs faded and fallen, the alleys strewn with old debris. That was the point, for someone as dirty as Moreland.
Seclusion. Secrecy. This was how he operated.
The first guard Nate came across didn’t see him coming. Nate had him in a headlock, knocked out, then gagged and tied, before he could let out a shout.
Ford gave a curt nod and left to repeat the procedure as many times as necessary.
A window clouded with grit gave them a clear view of exactly why Moreland needed that secrecy. Women, just like Sofia had said. Nate had always known she was a fucking amazing reporter, but the fact that she’d blown open such a dark operation was a new level. And it might have gotten her killed.
He scanned the bodies huddled along a wall, most naked, some with dirty rags.
She wasn’t there.
“No visual,” he murmured, barely a breath, as Ford joined him from his perimeter check.
“Four down,” For
d murmured back, meaning he’d taken out four guards patrolling the outside.
“I’m counting five more inside. Plus a guy I don’t recognize.”
Ford took in the girls against the wall with a curse. “Looks like, what? Thirty of them? Jesus fuck.”
It complicated things because they couldn’t allow them to be hurt. Sofia was the most important things in Nate’s mind, but he knew the captive women had just become the priority. Without a visual on Sofia, they had to act on what they could see.
He sent up a small prayer to the God he had long ago turned away from that she would be safe in the meantime. “Should we wait for your teams?”
Ford ran a hand over his face, clearly shaken by the sight of those women tied up. “We don’t know what could happen in the meantime. What they’ve already been through.”
Extracting one woman would have been risky enough, but thirty? “They’ll be safer with backup.”
Ford studied them, his expression grim in the dim glow of the grimy window. “You’d have gone in for Sofia. We don’t know these women, but they don’t deserve anything less. We go in.”
Nate nodded, knowing he would back up his friend regardless of his decision. The same way that Ford had been willing to back him up. There were some benefits to having a team.
In a matter of minutes, they worked through a takeover strategy. Nate would enter through the front, taking down two of the men and drawing fire away from the women. He’d have the element of surprise, but he’d be vulnerable that way.
Ford would use the back entrance, taking down the remaining guards with stealth. Then he’d usher the women out of the building and attempt to secure them near the SUV until backup arrived.
“Ready,” Nate said, his mind focused on his task.
He couldn’t think about Sofia, couldn’t worry what was happening to her.
Ford deliberated for one second. Then he nodded. “Five seconds.”
He disappeared around the corner, and Nate took his position near the front entrance.