“And what if they’re waiting and watching? Doubt they’d be happy if we got cops involved. That could put their lives, in addition to Ellie’s, on the line,” Walker murmured. “So no, we need to keep them out of it and handle this ourselves. We can handle this mission better than any doughnut-bellied uni.”
“Good call,” Mercy said with a sharp nod, keeping his eyes on the road since he was pushing his mini tank as fast as it could go.
“Don’t want them calling in their SERT team, either, if they have one. That could create a SNAFU for us,” Steel said. “Let’s just get in there and get ‘er done. No long hours of questioning by them, or even the FBI, afterward. Best to keep it off their radar.”
Walker agreed with that, too, as long as Ellie was safe. As long as two and a half more hours wouldn’t make the difference in whether she lived or died. She might be scared as fuck during that time, but at least she’d be breathing.
She’d better be at that restaurant and she’d better be fucking alive.
“Keep it together, brother,” Mercy ordered quietly. “Know how you feel right now. You wanna kill everyone involved. Go on a rampage. I get it. You’re also thinking life might not be worth living if they’ve already done what they planned on doing before we made the call.”
“We should’ve asked for proof of life,” he murmured, turning away from Mercy and staring out of the passenger side window, not seeing anything but Ellie scared, alone and with dangerous men who couldn’t give a shit about her.
“Yeah, we should’ve. I screwed the pooch on that one. Just gotta have faith that things will go as we expect them.”
“Great,” he muttered, turning to look at his teammate. “We always plan for a clusterfuck, brother.”
One side of Mercy’s mouth, the side without the scar, pulled up. “Not this time. Plan on smooth sailing this time.”
“Hope to fuck you’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
Steel snorted loudly in the back seat.
They didn’t gag her, so she had pleaded with them to call Trace.
They didn’t blindfold her. Because of that, she figured she was going to die no matter if they contacted Trace or not, since she could identify them.
She sat alone in a chair in a restaurant that appeared to have been shut down years ago. Two men stood behind her, one to her left, one to her right, while the third man, who seemed to be their leader had gone outside with her cell phone when it rang.
It wasn’t long before he’d returned and began to speak Spanish to the two other men.
She cried out when each of the men abruptly grabbed one of her elbows and pulled her to her feet.
“Please, call Trace. I have the number in my phone. He’ll get you the money. I swear.”
The man in charge gave her a look but said nothing. Maybe he didn’t speak English. Maybe she had pleaded with them for nothing that whole time because he hadn’t understood a word.
Why the hell didn’t she take Spanish in high school?
Fuck!
“Please. I know who has your money. It’s not me. It’s George’s father. He has it all.”
The dark-eyed, darker-skinned man jerked his chin toward the back of the restaurant and gave a sharp order in Spanish. Both men pulled her in that direction.
Why were they moving her from the chair? The chair had been set up just like in the picture of George. Why would they take her elsewhere if they were going to do the same thing?
“Where are you taking me?”
She was dragged through the swinging double doors to the kitchen and then through the kitchen itself.
The kitchen was in the same disarray as the dining area out front. Once the restaurant closed its doors, it didn’t look like anyone ever entered it again. That meant if these men left her there, no one would ever find her.
She was going to die alone.
“Please!” She didn’t even know what she was pleading for anymore. They hadn’t listened to even one of her requests. It was pointless. But she couldn’t give up. “I’m sorry my husband did this to your boss. I didn’t know. I would’ve told him to stop. I would have reported him. I would have—”
They stopped in front of a thick silver door. One that had an outer latch and no window.
A walk-in freezer.
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
One of the men unlatched the door and shoved her through the thick plastic strips that hung just inside. She stumbled and, unable to catch herself with her hands still bound, she fell to her knees, nearly smacking her head on a nearby shelf.
The thick, heavy door slammed shut and the interior went black. She heard the latch lock. Then nothing.
Fuck.
She wouldn’t freeze to death because the walk-in probably hadn’t worked in years. But still, there had to be a way to escape. Even with her wrists tied, she had her fingers free.
Using the shelf to help, she pushed to her feet and shuffled slowly through the dark, keeping her hands out in front of her until she figured she was near the door. There had to be a way to open it from the inside. Commercial freezers should have some sort of safety feature, right? To keep people from freezing or suffocating to death?
She needed to stay calm. Freaking out wasn’t going to help.
Her fingers brushed against metal and she began to feel all around the edge of the door. Finally, she found something that might be a release. She pulled it and stumbled back a step when it disconnected from the door.
“No! Damn it! NO!”
She ran her shaky fingers over the area where the emergency release had been. She tried to attach the metal piece back in the hole, but it was useless. It wouldn’t catch and slid right back out. It was fucking broken!
She was stuck. In the dark. In a freezer. In an abandoned restaurant. In an unknown location.
She was screwed.
They might end up killing her after all. She had no idea how long the oxygen would last in the sealed walk-in.
She turned around, put her back to the door and slid down until she landed on her ass.
She only had one thing left to do.
No, two.
Wait. And hope Trace was searching for her.
Actually, three.
Hope he got there in time.
Walker was about to not only jump out of his skin, but out of the RPV while it was still moving. He’d already released his seatbelt in anticipation of getting to Ellie as fast as he could.
As the headlights of the utility vehicle on steroids slid over the run-down, pitch-dark restaurant, he had his fingers wrapped around the door handle. A long arm reached out and snagged him before he could bail out as the RPV came to a rolling stop.
“Don’t lose your head, brother,” Mercy warned. “Know you wanna rush in there. Know you’re worried. Been through this, know how you’re feeling. But use your fucking head.”
Walker stared at the building, anxiety wanting to overtake common sense, as he hoped Ellie was in there. Hoped she was alive and unharmed.
Hoped the cartel didn’t go back on their word. Because a fucking cartel’s word was goddamn shit.
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep breath, then pushed it back out of his mouth.
“No vehicles,” Steel murmured as his gaze swept the empty lot.
“Doesn’t mean they don’t have eyes,” Mercy responded back. “We’re gonna approach like we always do. Using caution and our fucking heads. Stick to cover as much as we can but keep in visual contact. Hand signals until we know it’s clear. Let’s search the perimeter first, see if we can get some eyes inside.”
Walker heard everything Mercy said, but his attention was glued to the building at least thirty meters away.
Way too fucking far for his liking.
“Ready?” Steel asked him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“Never more,” Walker forced past his lips.
“At least we have the cover of darkness,” Steel gru
mbled.
Mercy must have shut the overhead light off in his vehicle because the interior remained dark when the three of them opened the doors and climbed out.
They spread out, approaching with caution, heads on swivels, weapons drawn. Keeping low, they moved along the overgrown brush that circled the perimeter of the parking lot. Until Mercy held up his fist, bringing them all to a halt.
Each of them listened carefully while visually searching the area.
So far, all clear.
Mercy made the motion to approach. As a team, they circled the outer perimeter of the restaurant staying away from the glass entry doors, even though they were covered in some sort of brown Kraft paper. Glass doors didn’t provide cover if someone tried to plug a few rounds into you center mass. And especially center noggin.
Again, the perimeter was all clear.
The rear steel door was rusted, and the deadbolt missing, the outer clasp and padlock broken and hanging.
Point of entry for the cartel.
Mercy and Steel had their backs pinned to the brick wall to the right of the door, Walker to the left. Mercy reached down to the old metal door knob and turned it slowly.
The door’s hinges squealed eerily as he pushed it open with excruciating slowness. All three made eye contact, nodded, then Mercy gave the signal to breach the building.
As much as Walker wanted to go first that was not how they trained. Mercy always took point if he was on scene. Steel followed Mercy nut to butt, his gun pointed to the right. Walker followed Steel the same way, his gun pointed to the left.
They moved as a unit down a short dark hallway and at the end of it, they stopped, assessed, then Mercy had them continue through the unlit kitchen. Their eyes had adjusted to the dark once they had left the RPV, which helped them make out the larger equipment and objects in the kitchen, but they took care not to knock into anything smaller that would make a noise and draw attention.
Still, they heard nothing. Saw nothing.
The kitchen was clear.
And Walker wanted to scream.
He dug deep, using his training to keep his shit together. The same way he had when he’d been pinned under the Little Bird all those years ago.
That was how he survived that situation.
That was how he was going to survive this one.
They would not fail at this mission.
Because, for fuck’s sake, he could not fail Ellie.
At the double doors, Mercy rose enough to peer through the dirty plastic windows into the front of the restaurant. He slowly scanned the area and crouched back down. “Clear. But too many blind spots,” he said so softly it could’ve been a whisper on the wind.
As one, they moved through one side of the double swinging doors, wincing when it was just as noisy as the back door.
If anyone was in the restaurant they were made.
Mercy halted them and they waited, ducked down behind the main service counter.
They waited for any signs of Castellano’s men. Gun shots. Voices. Footsteps. Whispers of fabric.
Nothing.
Not even the click of a scurrying rat’s nails.
The place was empty.
“One at a time,” Mercy ordered under his breath.
Steel stood first. And since no one took a shot at him, Walker stood next, followed by Mercy.
The restaurant was clear. The cartel gone.
But what wasn’t gone was a lone chair sitting in the middle of the empty restaurant. All other tables and chairs were tossed out of the way to make room for that single chair.
Next to it on the floor were several sets of flex cuffs. And beneath the chair and flex cuffs were large sheets of thick plastic. Enough to capture blood splatter for when someone was making a mess.
Someone like Mercy.
Walker had seen the same setup at their warehouse when Mercy questioned the former DAMC prospect, Squirrel. That setup meant someone was going to die and it wasn’t going to be an easy death.
It didn’t matter what answers that person gave to the questions they were asked, the result would be the same.
The memory of McMaster being bound to a similar chair with flex cuffs and his blood spilled all over plastic sheeting flashed through his brain.
However, not a spot of blood dotted those sheets now. Not one.
Thank fuck.
Even so, his relief was short lived. Ellie was still nowhere to be found.
If the cartel took her with them...
He would burn every one of their grow houses to the ground and he would slice Castellano’s throat himself.
What happened to him after that, he wouldn’t give a fuck. If he had to die to dole out revenge, it would be worth it.
He lived without Ellie for nineteen fucking years. Nineteen fucking years were stolen from him.
And he wasn’t going to ever let that happen again.
Steel spoke up, breaking the silence, as if he’d read Walker’s mind. “They got their money, to take her with them would be a burden.”
“Right,” Mercy grunted. “Check every corner, every cabinet, every closet. Every fucking container. Anywhere a bo— Ellie could be.”
“Let’s start out here and work our way back toward the rear entrance,” Steel suggested.
And that’s what they did. They checked every inch using their tactical flashlights.
When they found nothing toward the front of the building, all three of them moved into the kitchen and, fuck him, that’s when he heard it.
They all heard it.
A muffled scream that sounded like his name and a pounding.
With all three frozen in place, Walker twisted his head and listened carefully to pinpoint where the noise was coming from.
“Ellie!” he called out.
“Trace!” It was faint, but he could hear it.
They rushed to the freezer. The cartel’s soldiers had jammed a block of wood in the latch and Walker knocked it out with his boot heel, almost landing on his ass.
As soon as the block was free, Mercy ripped the door practically off its hinges to get it open.
Jesus, that man was a monster.
But that thought disappeared as Ellie rushed out, coming full bore toward him, and then bounced off his chest, falling backward onto her ass into a heap on the floor.
He dropped to his knees at her hip and grabbed her face, searching it to make sure she was unharmed.
“You okay?”
She nodded, her bottom lip trembling, tears welling in her eyes.
“Talk to me!” he yelled, trying not to shake her. He needed to hear her say it.
“Yes. I’m okay.” Her voice was rough. Probably from screaming for help.
His gaze raked down her body. “They didn’t touch you?”
Her eyes widened and a tear tipped over, slipping down her already streaked cheeks. “Not like that.”
Thank fuck.
He brushed the tear off her skin and then shoved her face into his neck, holding her close.
He had no idea how long he sat there holding her. But eventually, a hand squeezed his shoulder.
He glanced up to see Mercy standing over him, his tactical knife in his hand.
Walker reluctantly moved back just enough for Mercy to cut the plastic cuffs. As soon as her wrists were free, he lifted them. There were marks left behind in her skin, but no bleeding. He pressed his lips to each wrist and then helped her up and into his arms.
Steel pushed through the long plastic strips hanging in the doorway as he stepped out of the freezer. “Fuck. Dark and musty for sure. Air was at a premium. Glad we hit the road when we did.”
What Steel didn’t say out loud was if she’d been in there too long, she might have eventually run out and suffocated.
But she was alive.
She wasn’t injured.
Besides the marks on her wrists, the only other evidence of her ordeal was her clothes being dirty from sitting on the floor and the tear stains on her
face.
She tipped that beautiful face up to him. “Is it over? Please tell me, is it all finally over? Am I free from all of this now?”
“Cartel’s got their money and a bonus. Said the debt is paid.”
“How? George’s father—”
“We handled it.”
And Brick was about to handle McMaster, too.
Walker’s phone vibrated and he dropped a hand from Ellie’s back to grab it from his side pocket.
He read the text. Any last words? Speak now or forever hold UR peace.
Yeah, he had plenty to give that asshole.
He lifted his chin to Mercy. “Take her out. I have a call to make.”
Mercy’s gray eyes got even icier as his gaze slid from the phone in Walker’s hand to Ellie, then to his face. He gave Walker an answering chin lift.
“I got her,” Steel said with a knowing look and wrapped an arm around Ellie’s shoulders and guided her toward the rear exit.
“Be out in a minute, El,” he called to her. “There’s water and some protein bars in the vehicle.”
As soon as Steel and Ellie got out of sight, Mercy asked, “Brick?”
“Yeah. He must be setting up.”
The side of Mercy’s mouth where the scar lifted the corner, curled slightly higher. “Good. Bastard’s gonna get what he deserves.”
“Too bad Castellano won’t.”
“Gotta pick our battles, brother,” Mercy said as he headed toward the back door. “Gonna go check on your woman.”
Walker dialed McMaster’s number.
“First Ellie. Now you. Is there a reason you two are harassing me?” was the old man’s first words as soon as he answered.
“Yeah. Got a good reason. Just want to tell you, no thanks to you, Ellie is alive and well. You stole five million of scratch that didn’t belong to you. And by doing so, you risked Ellie’s life. I see where your son learned his greedy fucking ways. You would’ve let her die and not paid that debt even though there was more than enough to do so.”
“You’re right, Walker, I wouldn’t have. She wasn’t worth a dime.”
“Karma, old man, when you least expect it, that bitch will be coming for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a guarantee.”
Guts & Glory: Walker (In the Shadows Security Book 4) Page 21