by A. K. Evans
I wasn’t sure how long we’d been driving when the van finally stopped. Riley began trembling harder the moment she heard Grant’s door open and shut. We sat in the van for a good five minutes before the back door opened.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Grant was standing there with Shaun, the guy who came into the center weeks ago looking for help to cope with his girlfriend’s recent sexual assault. I couldn’t understand what was going on.
Shaun grabbed Riley while Grant pulled me out of the back of the vehicle.
“Why are you doing this, Grant? My brother trusted you.”
“It’s nothing personal, Lexi. You weren’t supposed to get caught up in this, but you sealed your fate when you made that phone call. Besides, we need to make up for the one that got away a few weeks ago. You’re cute enough; you can take her place.”
He had to have been referring to the attempted abduction of the girl Cruz and his team rescued.
“I don’t understand,” I pushed for more information to stall him, knowing I’d probably lose if I tried to physically fight. “I thought you were married and had daughters. How could you do this?”
“Shut up,” he ordered.
I ignored his demand and continued, “I’m someone’s daughter, too. I’m a sister, a friend, and a girlfriend. What if your wife were here? What about your daughters?”
“Shut up,” he roared, grabbing me by my hair and yanking.
As Grant and Shaun began dragging us across the lot, I took in my surroundings for the first time. We were in an industrial complex heading toward a huge warehouse. I remembered that Grant worked for Glazier’s Supply. This had to be one of the company’s warehouses.
Once inside, we were taken through an empty, but finished, office space down a hall through a set of double-wide steel doors. Beyond the doors, we stepped inside the massive warehouse. Rows upon rows of metal warehouse shelving lined the floors. There were a few shelves that had been used, but most were bare. Down the middle of the warehouse separating the shelves were shrink-wrapped pallets that lined more than half the length of the entire space.
Even with the things that were in the warehouse, it was evident that this was a relatively new space that wasn’t officially being used. I started worrying that if Cruz and his team didn’t find us, it would be a long time before anyone came here.
Grant walked over to the side of the warehouse, where I found that one of the empty shelves was not completely empty.
Duct tape.
Swiping the tape off the shelf he turned back toward me and pulled my wrists together.
No way.
I struggled against his hold, determined to get away somehow. His grip was strong, but I managed to get myself free. No sooner did I get away from him when I heard, “You move and she’s dead.”
I turned to see Shaun standing with his forearm draped across the front of Riley’s chest and a gun pointed at her temple. The look of sheer panic and terror on her face was heartbreaking. I remained there, motionless. Grant seized that opportunity and began wrapping the tape around my ankles. I guess he figured it might be better if I couldn’t run. I kept my eyes focused on Riley, until Grant was standing in front of me blocking my view. Even if he hadn’t been, I’m not sure I could have held her gaze any longer. This was because he began wrapping the tape around one of my wrists.
The emotions came bubbling to the surface. I was terrified and panicking. I had tried to fight back, but I was frozen once again seeing the gun at Riley’s head. My breathing grew quick and shallow as I was turned and my wrists were bound behind my back. The painful memories of the time when I was restrained at my wrists, unable to move, rushed back to haunt me. Suddenly, I was back in that dorm room. It took everything in me to keep breathing and not be overcome by the flood of dread threatening to consume me.
Once Grant finished binding my wrists, he turned me back around and moved to Riley. Thankfully, Shaun lowered the gun from her head and tucked it into the back of his pants.
“You’re never going to get away with this,” I warned. “People are going to be searching for us.”
“By the time anyone realizes you’re missing, you’ll already be in Colorado with the rest of them. Nobody will even know I was involved.”
“Why would you do this? I thought you set up the center because you cared about survivors of sexual assault. Now you’re facilitating a sex-trafficking ring? What if this happened to one of your daughters?”
“I’m doing this for my daughters,” he shot back, agitated with me. “I do what I’ve got to do and they stay safe.”
This made no sense.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep pushing for more information because Grant was tired of listening to me. He took duct tape and covered my mouth. Then, he did the same with Riley. As he lifted me up over his shoulder, Shaun got Riley. I couldn’t see where we were going, but I listened as they spoke.
“You contacted Gomez and let him know we’re ready for transport?” Grant asked.
“He’s on his way. I expect he’ll be here in less than ten. We’ve got to get the rig pulled around and the container loaded.”
I tried to tell myself that being upside down over his shoulder is the reason I felt the bile creep up my throat, but I knew that wasn’t the reason why.
Riley and I were running out of time.
We eventually stopped moving and I heard a door open.
The next thing I knew Riley and I were being tossed to the cold, cement floor. I looked up and saw Grant and Shaun’s retreating backs go through the double doors we’d just walked through. I looked to my left at Riley. She was terrified, but she wasn’t focused on me. Her wide eyes were directed at something behind me.
When I turned around, I saw that we weren’t alone.
Sitting on the opposite side of the room, bound and silenced the same as Riley and me, were eight other women. One of those women was Violet.
It was then I realized why she never came back to another meeting. There were three other familiar faces from WAAR, but I couldn’t recall their names.
I had to do something.
But there was nothing in that room, nothing but ten women who were petrified. That’s when some of this suddenly began making sense. Taking women from a rape crisis center was perfect. These guys, whoever they were, prayed on women who were already beaten down and vulnerable. I remembered Cruz telling me about the woman he and Dom rescued. She had been down on her luck. Someone saw that and used it to their advantage. I had no doubts that the women in this room that weren’t from WAAR were, in some way, already broken.
I wasn’t going down.
I had already overcome too much to let my power be taken away again. I just needed to figure out how I could buy us more time.
There were ten of us and two of them. Perhaps it would soon be three of them considering Grant and Shaun were talking about someone named Gomez.
As I sat there trying to come up with an idea, the rumble of a vehicle outside interrupted my thoughts. It was then I noticed what was behind the group of women.
A garage door.
They were planning to load us into the rig Grant and Shaun were discussing.
It was only a matter of minutes before the sound of the engine was cut off. Sure enough, Grant and Shaun reentered the room. They walked over toward the garage door and opened it. Then, we were staring down the back of an empty trailer.
A few seconds passed before I realized that empty trailer was actually an empty shipping container.
We watched from the parking lot across the street from the Glazier’s warehouse as they moved an eighteen-wheeler around the building to one of the loading docks. The white van we assumed was the one Lexi told Levi she was thrown into was parked in the lot at the front of the warehouse.
“I’m not sitting here any longer,” I announced. “She’s in there and the only way she’s leaving is with me.”
“Dom, Pierce, and Holden are two minutes out,” Lorenzo
tried reasoning with me. “Tyson is another three minutes behind them. Our chances are better with the rest of the team. We don’t know how many people we’re up against.”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. “I’m not waiting.”
Getting out of the truck, I started moving toward the warehouse. I had no doubts that Lorenzo would follow behind me. No sooner did I cross the street when I glanced to my right and saw Dom’s truck coming down the road.
He pulled up along the curb and the guys quickly filed out.
“What’s the situation?” Dom asked.
“We know Lexi and her friend, Riley, are in there. At minimum, there’s the guy who transported her and one other. We saw them moving the rig around the building. No idea what we’ll find when we get inside,” Lorenzo explained.
“My priority is Lexi,” I declared as I turned my attention to Lorenzo. “De Luca, Riley is your priority. All I’m going to say is that she was at the rape crisis center for a reason. Be as sensitive to that as you can.”
At that, I turned and made my way toward the building, doing my best to remain hidden behind the landscaping. When I was close to the building, I looked in through the windows. It was empty in the front office. Considering there were no other cars in the lot, I had expected as much, but didn’t know if I’d find a fully furnished interior.
“The office is vacant,” I called to the guys behind me.
“I’ve got the lock,” Pierce declared, moving ahead of us to pick the lock.
Once he successfully opened the lock, we filed in. I had no doubts they had to be in the warehouse. Seeing the truck pulled up at the loading dock, I knew that’s where I’d find my warrior. Unfortunately, the space was so big, we needed to check behind every door to find the one that led to the warehouse.
I finally made my way to a hallway, where I found a set of double-wide steel doors.
“That’s it,” Holden said from beside me.
The guys followed me down the hall.
“Lexi and Riley,” I reminded them just before I pushed the door open.
We walked through, keeping ourselves as hidden as possible, but it was difficult considering the warehouse had a bunch of empty shelving. Other than the row of pallets down the center of the room, there was nothing.
We continued moving through the space toward the back of the building where the loading dock was.
“Cruz,” Dom hissed.
I turned back and saw him pointing in the opposite direction.
He continued, “Open doors…over there.”
When I looked in the direction he was indicating, I saw the open doors.
“Let’s move,” I ordered.
The closer we got, I heard the panicked whimpers. Dom and I stepped inside, while the rest of the guys stayed back out of view and assessed the situation.
There was only one guy. He was carrying a girl, who was not Lexi, over his shoulder out of the room to the shipping container. She was struggling against him when she looked up and saw us. Just as I put my finger to my mouth to tell her to stay quiet and not alert him to our presence, her whole body tensed. The guy felt it and turned around.
Pulling out my gun, I pointed it at him and ordered, “Put her down.”
He wasted no time in reaching behind to pull out his own gun. Setting her down in front of him and putting the gun to her head, he countered, “No. You’re going to put your weapon down and slide it over this way.”
I lifted my hands and said, “Alright, just relax.”
I lowered my gun to the ground and slid it toward him.
“You too!” he yelled at Dom.
Dom pulled his gun out and slid it across the floor.
“Shaun? What’s going on?” we heard from inside the trailer.
At that moment, there was movement behind the guy I could only presume was Shaun. I looked behind him and just barely saw Grant climbing out the top of a shipping container.
“Who are you?” he asked us as he walked up beside Shaun.
“I believe you have something that doesn’t belong to you,” I responded.
He walked over to the guns Dom and I surrendered, picked them up, and instructed, “Shaun, put her in the container.”
Keeping one of the guns pointed at us, Grant then continued, “Perhaps I should call the police and report trespassers.”
“Something tells me that container you just put that girl in will be of interest to the police,” Dom goaded as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll wait while you call them.”
The truck started.
Grant smirked.
“Looks like my third guy is here,” he started. “This truck is going to be long gone by the time the police get here.”
Dom kept provoking Grant, but he was doing it on purpose because we saw Tyson hop up on the ledge of the loading dock. Lorenzo had hoisted himself up on the other side. Tyson moved quick and came up behind Grant as Lorenzo went toward the container where Shaun was climbing down the side of it.
I trusted my guys to do what they needed to do and didn’t pay attention to another thing other than to shout out as Pierce and Holden came into the room to assist Tyson and Lorenzo, “We’ve got a guy in cab!”
“Got him already,” Tyson yelled back.
With Dom by my side, we took off toward the shipping container. I climbed up the side of it and looked in.
“Lexi,” I shouted in the dark.
I heard whimpering, but no response.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight. Shining it into the container, I realized there were a bunch of women inside. I moved the light over each of the women until finally I locked eyes with her. There was no response because every woman’s mouth had been taped shut.
Passing my phone to Dom, I turned back and shouted, “I need hands!”
I climbed inside the container and the women all huddled together and shifted themselves away from me. It wasn’t easy considering they all had their wrists and ankles bound together.
Fuck, they were all terrified.
“I’m one of the good guys,” I assured them. “You’re all safe. The police are on the way.”
Muffled cries came from group as more light filtered into the container. I walked over to Lexi and saw nothing but relief in her eyes.
“Princess,” I said softly.
Tears filled her eyes.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
She nodded.
I put my hand up to the corner of the duct tape covering her mouth and gently started peeling it back. The moment I removed it she fell forward into me and quietly cried, “Cruz.”
I wrapped her in my arms and insisted, “You’re safe, Lexi. I’ve got you.”
I held her a minute before I urged, “Let me free your hands and legs.”
Reaching in my pocket, I pulled out my knife. I cut through the tape at her wrists before moving to her ankles.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” I suggested.
She shook her head and demanded, “No. Get the girls out first. I’m ok now.”
“My warrior,” I began. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
I kissed her on her forehead. After, she looked around the container and said, “Ladies, this is my boyfriend, Cruz, and these are his friends. They work for a private investigations company and they are here to take us home. It’s ok to let them help you. They won’t hurt you and you’re no longer in any danger”
I smiled down at Lexi. She jerked her head to the side and said, “Cruz, this is Riley.”
My eyes moved to Riley. “It’s nice to meet you, Riley. Are you alright with me taking the tape off your mouth?”
She jerked her head up and down furiously, indicating that she wanted the tape off. I removed the tape from her mouth the same as I did Lexi’s. The second it was off, she let out a sob. Her knees buckled, but I caught her before she fell. I pulled Riley toward my chest and said, “You’re alright, darling.”
I gave he
r a minute to collect herself. “I’m going to free your wrists, ok?”
She pulled back and allowed me to cut through the tape at her wrists. I moved to her ankles and freed them next.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the guys and I worked to get all of the girls out of the container. Sadly, we had to carry them up and over the side of the container. In preparation for transporting the girls, Grant and Shaun had locked and chained the doors on the open-top container. Our options were to either keep the girls waiting in the container until we could locate something to open the chains or pick them up and hoist them out. Of course, we confirmed with all of them that they were ok with being carried out. For the most part, they all handled it well.
Not long after we had them all out and back in the warehouse, the Windsor Police Department showed up along with the local authorities. We spent the next several hours at the warehouse while the police questioned the women and took Shaun and Grant into custody.
Having Lexi in the well-lit space inside, I noticed some redness and bruising on her cheek. Lexi saw my inspection of her face and quickly lifted her hand to cover it.
“Did one of them hit you?” I asked, trying to control my budding rage.
“Grant,” she answered with a nod. “When I tried to fight back.”
I looked back in the direction of where I knew Grant and Shaun were and I knew instantly Lexi understood where my mind was. She placed her hand on my forearm and silently pleaded with me to let it go.
I gave in because as much satisfaction as I know I’d get from giving him what he deserved, I didn’t want to do anything that would upset Lexi any more than she already was from this entire ordeal.
As soon as we could leave, I got Lexi in my truck and we made our way back to Windsor. Lorenzo, Riley, and another one of the girls named Violet rode back with Tyson. The remainder were spilt among the police officers.
Once we were on the road heading home, I handed my phone to Lexi.
“Here,” I started. “Call Logan.”
“Logan?” she asked.
“He’s the reason we knew where to find you,” I explained. “I hated having to do it and worry him, but we lost the signal on the cell phone we were using to track you. I had no choice but to call him.”