Running Scared

by Velvet Vaughn

  He valiantly fought off unconsciousness, his vision blurry and unfocused, and because of the blood loss, he was shivering. He was thankful when a nurse covered most of his body with a warmed blanket, leaving only his damaged arm free. She made sure the IV stayed in his hand before dodging his coworkers and leaving. He tried not to show any symptoms so as not to worry Jamal, who looked ready to crack at the slightest provocation.

  Kenzie leaned close to whisper in his ear and he inhaled her scent. It calmed him. “Before you say anything to Gage, this is all on me. I was coming with or without him. He finally relented, knowing I wasn’t bluffing—and I wasn’t.”

  Gage glanced over as if he heard, but Declan knew that wasn’t possible. Besides the chatter going on around him, there were beeping machines, loudspeaker pages and other sounds that would’ve made it impossible to overhear her soft-spoken words. Guilt flashed in his coworker’s eyes. Declan gave him a nod, hoping to convey that he was forgiven. He had no doubt Kenzie would follow through on her threat. Jamal, too. He’d have done the same thing in Gage’s shoes.

  A doctor arrived to stitch up his arm and ordered everyone to the waiting room except for Jamal and Kenzie. Jamal chattered non-stop, a result of his nerves, no doubt. Declan didn’t feel the doctor working on his arm, and he hoped it was because he’d numbed the area while he stitched, and not that he’d lost all feeling in his appendage.

  Once he finished, he read off a list of instructions that Declan tuned out. It wasn’t as if he’d never been shot before or suffered through stitches. He knew the drill. His attention focused on something the man said. “Excuse me?”

  “I said I’d like to keep you overnight for observation and to replenish the fluids you’ve lost.”

  Declan was already tossing off the cover and sitting up. “No.” He started to rip the needle from the back of his hand, but a nurse stopped him.

  “I certainly can’t keep you here against your will,” the doctor drawled. “But leaving is against my recommendation.”

  “Duly noted.”

  The doctor tried working on Kenzie, giving her the spiel about infections and blood levels, blah, blah, blah. He could’ve kissed her when she told the doctor that it was Declan’s decision and that she’d look after him.

  It was another forty-five minutes before they were allowed to leave. He and Kenzie signed mountains of paperwork. He accepted the prescription for painkillers the doctor prescribed but ripped it up as soon as he left. He couldn’t afford to have his senses dulled. Until they rounded up the remaining Daggers, the case wasn’t closed.

  They met his coworkers in the waiting room. “Any word from Alex or Dorian?”

  “Not yet,” Noah said. “Let’s head back to the house and I’ll call for an update.”

  Gage drove Declan, Kenzie and Jamal back in his truck, with Noah, Ethan and Kayla following in Alex’s SUV. Kenzie and Jamal had climbed in the back of the crew cab while he eased into the passenger seat. It was a different view from his usual spot behind the wheel. His phone rang as Gage pulled out of the parking lot. Tugging it from his pocket, he read the screen. Tyler Redmond, the COBRA Securities technology genius. “Hey, Tyler. What’s up?”

  “Where are you guys?”

  “I’m with Gage heading back to the safe house. Noah, Ethan and Kayla are following.”

  “Put me on speaker so Gage can hear this.”

  He clicked the button. “Go ahead, Tyler.”

  “A message just came through the website email. I’m going to read it to you.” He relayed the note from Scarlett Harmon.

  “The man we dragged from the car indicated that he put a tracker on Kayla when she and I were at the hospital to visit my brother. She found a small sticker in the groove of her boot.”

  “Whatever he tagged her with, they were able to follow you to the safe house and then any time you left. Tell her not to throw it out. I want to dissect that sucker.”

  That would explain how they knew when they visited at Jamal’s apartment and then the storage unit.

  “How come our scanners didn’t pick up on the tracker?” Gage asked.

  “I did some quick research on Scarlett Harmon and she’s developed state of the art technology that can’t be traced. The government is interested in purchasing it from her and holy circuit breakers, I want to meet her. It burns me up that she’s better than I am,” he groused.

  Declan ignored his pity party. “Did she leave a way to contact her?”

  Tyler snapped out of his funk quickly. “No, but she said she was in a warehouse. I was able to ping her computer. It’s the same area where Kenzie was held. Call me when you get there. I’ll cut the power to the entire building, so you’ll need your NVG’s.”

  “Got it.”

  “I don’t have to remind you that they’re holding her younger sister, too, so this has to be done stealthily.”

  “No, you don’t,” Declan confirmed. “We’ll be careful, and we’ll call you when we arrive.”

  “Roger, that.”

  Declan disconnected and turned to Gage. “I’ll call Noah and have them head over there now. We’ll drop Kenzie and Jamal at the safe house and then head over.”

  “Declan, no,” Kenzie protested, leaning through the opening between the seats. “Those two women are in trouble. It’ll take an hour to drop us off and then head over there. They might not have that much time. Go now. Jamal and I will stay in the truck.”

  “Promise,” Jamal chimed in.

  Declan hesitated. Scarlett and her sister obviously needed help. He had no doubt the Daggers would harm them, especially since their plan had been thwarted. They had to be desperate that they’d lost the cash, drugs and a large chunk of members. They might take their revenge out on the women. Praying he wasn’t making a mistake, he keyed in the coordinates to his GPS and called Ethan to relay the information from Tyler.

  “I’ll give Alex and Dorian a head’s up,” Ethan said as Gage turned at the next light, following the directions from the GPS. “We’ll meet you there.”

  He turned in his seat to face Kenzie and Jamal. “When we get there, I want you two to stay in Alex’s SUV where it’s safe.” He didn’t know if it had the same hidden compartment as Noah’s Escalade, but it was a COBRA Securities vehicle. It’d be safe.

  Jamal’s face was creased with worry. “You were just shot. You should stay there with us,” he insisted.

  “It was just a scratch. I’ll be fine.”

  #

  Scarlett stared at the concrete ceiling as she rested on the threadbare mattress. It’d been a close call and Leo almost caught her sending the message, but she was able to close the window and open one with a traffic camera feed. She’d convinced him she was trying to locate footage around the storage buildings so he would know exactly what happened. Dunderhead actually believed her.

  Though he didn’t divulge details, she knew it was bad. He’d left her door open a crack and she’d crept close enough to hear him talking to one of the other gang members. The operation had been a colossal failure. All the men at the storage facility had been killed. Counting two that died yesterday, they’d lost eight of their remaining gang members. They were down to less than ten counting Leo.

  It would be the best time to escape while they were distracted by their failure, but she wasn’t leaving without her little sister.

  Had her message gone through to the security company? And if so, would they believe her? She wished she had her computer with her right now so she could dig into their background. She had no doubt she could hack their website, though they seemed extremely cautious and she probably wouldn’t find anything they didn’t expect her to discover.

  Her heart had thumped in anticipation when Leo and the other man left with her door ajar. She’d started to leap off the bed when footsteps sounded and then her door was jerked closed with a solid slam. She felt like it was a door slamming on her chances of leaving the warehouse alive.

  Her only hope was that someone at COBRA Se
curities read her plea, believed her, and came riding in on white horses to rescue Ruby first and then her. Hey, a girl could dream.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Noah and the others arrived a few minutes after Gage parked Declan’s truck far enough from the warehouse so they wouldn’t be noticed, but close enough to grab two women and carry them to safety.

  Declan ushered Kenzie and Jamal inside the SUV and was upset to realize the hidden compartment beneath Alex’s middle seat was stuffed with supplies and weapons. There was no way they’d be able to clear it out, find somewhere to stash the items and arrange Jamal and Kenzie inside within a reasonable time. He had to settle for having them huddle in the floorboard. He wished they were back at the safe house, but they didn’t have time to waste. A sudden image of the rocket-propelled grenade slamming into Noah’s SUV flashed through his head and he stumbled.

  Kayla was instantly at this side. “Are you okay, Declan? If you need to set this one out, we can handle it.”

  Noah placed a hand on his shoulder. “You can keep an eye on the outside of the building.”

  “You did lose a lot of blood,” Ethan pointed out.

  He shook off their concern. “I’m fine and I’m going in.” He didn’t tell them the reason for his unsteadiness was because he pictured Alex’s Escalade bursting into flames with Jamal and Kenzie inside. He needed to focus on the mission. Any misstep could get him or one of his teammates killed and he’d never get over being responsible for their injuries—or worse.

  He didn’t give them a chance to stop him as he geared up from the supplies in the back of the SUV. They fell in beside him. He assumed that meant they were going to take his word and let him continue.

  Ethan tucked extra clips in his pocket. “Alex and Dorian are on their way. ETA ten minutes barring any traffic problems.”

  Noah opened a padded box and withdrew three small objects. Tyler’s bug drones. He couldn’t wait to learn how to fly them himself. The woman’s untraceable tracking device was stellar, but Declan thought Tyler’s flying insects were about the coolest things he’d ever seen.

  Ethan crept to the warehouse and unleashed the bugs inside the rundown building. The open space where they held Kenzie was empty, so they had to search throughout the structure to locate the two women being held captive. The back half of the warehouse was in better shape than the front, but barely. It consisted of a mishmash of rooms on three separate floors.

  They found the younger sister locked in a room on the bottom level. She was alone and didn’t look to be in imminent danger, but there were two men not far away.

  The bugs searched the rooms until they located heat signatures on the second and third floors. Noah switched to the camera view and found the woman who had to be Scarlett locked in a room on the third floor, but there were two men right outside her door.

  The Daggers were down numbers first from the shootout with the Eighty-Sixers, and then with the crew they’d taken down at the storage facility. They counted six men inside.

  “I thought there were eight left,” Declan said.

  “Alex said the numbers were a rough estimate, so maybe the count was off,” Ethan rationalized.

  Five against six was much better odds, especially since they had experience and the element of surprise on their side. It would take one agent to grab the youngest girl and another to transport Scarlett to safety. That left three experienced warriors up against the Daggers.

  “Kayla, you lead Gage and Declan here.” Noah pointed to where the youngest girl was being held. “One of you get her to safety while the other two handle the guards. Ethan and I will clear the second floor. Then we’ll met up and storm the third floor together. Try not to make any sound so we don’t alert the men outside of Scarlett’s room.”

  Ethan dialed a number on his phone and then all the lights inside the building were extinguished. They slid their night-vision goggles into place and entered the warehouse, splitting up in two groups.

  Declan followed Kayla’s lead with Gage picking up the rear. They reached the door where the young girl was being held without running into any guards. Kayla dropped down and went to work on the lock.

  #

  Scarlett couldn’t sit still. She had a bad feeling that things were about to get so much worse. What if the message she sent landed in a spam folder or they didn’t check it for a few days? She didn’t think they had a few days. She was deathly afraid that Leo would make good on his promise to “show her a good time”.

  The Daggers had to be reeling from their losses. Maybe she could sneak out and find Ruby. Her sister had to be close. Tiptoeing to the door, she checked the knob, shocked when it turned in her hand. She experienced another spurt of surprise when she realized the door to the computer room stood wide open. After making sure the hallway was clear, she crept closer and peered inside. Empty. And there was her computer. Grabbing it off the table, she ripped the cord from the wall. Spinning around, she looked for something to carry it in since she might need her hands free to fight. Her backpack was lying against a wall. Rushing to it, she swiped it and checked the compartments for her phone, disappointed when her search came up empty, but she didn’t have time to waste. Stuffing her computer inside, she slipped the straps over her shoulders and headed for the exit.

  Suddenly, everything went black. The wall of computers whizzed off, leaving her in silence. Voices rang out but she couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Sticking her head out the door, she couldn’t see anything. There were no windows in the area to provide outside light. With a deep breath, she stepped out and gasped when one arm snaked around her stomach, the other covering her mouth. She knew without sight it was Leo.

  #

  Kenzie tried to stay calm for Jamal’s sake, but her heart was racing in fear for Declan and the others. Lightning flashed and then a clap of thunder sounded, making them jump. Headlights cut through the night and she hoped Alex and Dorian had arrived. A long black sedan cruised by with windows so dark it was impossible to see inside. She sat up straight. She was afraid it wasn’t Declan’s coworkers.

  Panic almost had her running inside the building to warn the others. Why hadn’t she insisted they provide her with a comm unit to communicate with them? She couldn’t risk calling their cell phones for fear of tipping off the bad guys. What was she supposed to do?

  “Kenzie?”

  Jamal’s low voice distracted her from her thoughts. “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “Do you think there are more bad guys in that car?”

  He was too smart and observant, and she couldn’t lie. “Possibly.”

  His small hand slid into hers. “What if Declan gets shot again?”

  The thought almost made her pass out. “He won’t,” she said with a conviction she didn’t feel. “He’s good at his job and heck, he was a marine. They’re practically indestructible.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That he’ll get the job done.”

  “Okay. I believe you.”

  The driver’s side door opened, and a man stepped out. From this distance, he looked enormous, with a thick neck and legs like tree trunks. A bandanna was tied around his bald brown head and if she wasn’t mistaken, he was holding an AK-47.

  She had to warn the others. She reached for the handle when the door to the building opened and someone came rushing out.

  #

  Gage’s head rotated on a continuous swivel as Kayla led the way down a narrow corridor. Excitement pumped through him. A thrill-seeker, he craved action and adventure. That was what led him to the Navy and pushed him to become a SEAL. It was also what had him leaving the military to join his former teammate Dorian Demarchis and accept a job with COBRA Securities.

  Though he’d have liked to be in on the takedown at the storage facility, he was a team player and he’d accept whatever role they asked of him. Guarding a beautiful woman and a young boy being targeted by ruthless gangs was important work, too. He had no problem staying behind.

>   Kayla picked the lock with expertise and it popped open easily. Small whimpers sounded from the girl huddled in the corner.

  “Ruby? My name’s Kayla. Your sister Scarlett sent us to take you home.”

  “I can’t see anything.”

  There was shouting from behind them as the Daggers stumbled around in the dark. Voices drew closer.

  “I’ve got her.” Gage dropped down to where the young girl was crouched against the wall. “I’ll get her to the car.”

  “Declan and I will clear the hallway,” Kayla said as they turned and disappeared.

  “Ruby, my name is Gage. I’m going to turn on a flashlight and make sure you’re okay before I move you.” He clicked the light on.

  “What’s that funny thing on your face?”

  He tugged off the goggles and held it to her face. “They’re special glasses that allow me to see in the dark.”

  “Cool!”

  “Once I get you out of here, I’ll let you wear them.”

  “Okay.”

  Ruby looked scared but uninjured. There were no visible tripwires, so it should be safe to move her. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Ruby.”

  She giggled as he intended, and he scooped her in his arms. “I’ve got Ruby and we’re heading out,” he informed his teammates as he headed for the door.

  “Turn to the right,” Declan told him through the comms, the sounds of a scuffle coming through. He’d drop Ruby with Kenzie and then come back to help.

  He navigated the hallways, pausing to peer around the corners before he continued to the exit.

  “Two tangos down on first level,” Kayla reported.

  “Two neutralized on the second level,” Noah conveyed.

  “Declan and I are heading your way now,” Kayla replied.

  Gage reached the door and visually searched the surrounding area before aiming for the black SUV. Rain came down in sheets. They’d be soaked before they reached the SUV.

  Kenzie jumped out of the vehicle and waved her arms just as a voice yelled behind him.