by Imogen Wells
“Arrrgh…arrgh, fuck. Rick, Rick…” My cry trails off as Rick’s own release crashes over him, and he lets out a wild roar full of a million different emotions. And I feel them all.
“Fuck, JJ, I lo—” I slam my lips against his, cutting off his words. Those three little words that break hearts. Destroy souls. Shatter dreams.
“I feel the same, but please don’t say it yet. I’m so fucking scared of what those words mean—for me, for you, for us,” I whisper against his lips. Kissing him again quickly and gripping his face in my hands, I pour every syllable, every word, into that kiss until it’s tattooed into his heart and the devil himself felt it.
When we break apart, I search Rick’s eyes for a sign that he misunderstood, but there’s none. He got it. He understands it.
“I don’t want a cloud hanging over us when we say those words, Rick. I want them to be free, to tear away every bad thing that we’ve been through and to give a big fuck you to death, danger and even the devil himself. They’ll shatter the darkness that haunts us, and instead be the glue that binds us, rebuilds us better and stronger than ever before.”
“What did I do to deserve you, JJ? How the fuck am I being given another chance after I fucked up so bad last time?”
“You didn’t fuck up, Rick. You were dealt a shitty hand by God, by fate, by the evil that runs beneath the beauty of this world. It digs its claws in deeper and deeper, hoping to one day own us all. But it’s people like you, like Ryder and Seb and even Christian and Sam that keep us out of its grip.” I slant my lips across his again. “But you have to promise me one thing, Rick. You have to promise that no matter what happens, you’ll never give up, never stop fighting. Even in your darkest hour, you have to fight. Always fight.”
He tries to shake his head, but I hold him steady, eyes boring into his, until eventually he nods.
“Okay, but you have to do the same.”
“Always. I’ll never stop while there’s breath in my lungs and my heart beats,” I promise, just as the sky lights up and rain comes down harder than before. It’s like the universe is angry with us for our promise we made to each other.
“Shit. Let’s get out of here,” he says, doing his jeans back up. There’s no rescuing his shirt though, and it flaps wildly as the wind picks up and rain lashes at his skin.
I grab my shorts, which are hanging from one leg, and shove the other through before sliding down the bonnet, landing with a squelch and dragging them up my legs, which is nigh on impossible given how saturated they are. I finally get them up as Rick calls out that he’s going to grab the hamper, which he dropped when he started chasing me.
The rain starts to slow, the wind drops and the clouds brighten, casting an eerie silence over the woods.
I’m just about to open the car door when a flock of birds scatter, fleeing into the sky with a screech and clap of wings that startles me.
Shaking my head and laughing at my jumpiness, I clutch the handle, but I don’t get the chance to pull it. My body lurches as something hits me in the neck, and I spin round, hand coming to my neck to feel a small dart there. My vision sways, and my legs weaken as whatever I’ve just been shot with begins to take hold.
Pushing the blurriness away, I let out a cry barely above a whisper. Trying again and knowing if I don’t do something, I’ll be gone, I use every ounce of strength I have left to force a gut-wrenching scream from my lips at the same time as two men emerge from the tree line.
Taking a breath, I call out again, “Ricccc….” My yell trails off as my legs give out, and my throat closes as paralysis grips me.
“Get her and let’s get out of here before he comes back,” one says, as the other slings me over his shoulder, and I bounce like a rag doll as he repositions me before jogging back to the trees. I watch, unable to move, as the car gets further and further away before disappearing altogether as we cut between two large trees.
I can hear the guy ahead as he tramps over the undergrowth, snapping twigs under foot.
In the distance, I hear the faint yell of my name, and I know it’s Rick.
“Jess! Jess! I’m coming, JJ!”
I can see and hear everything, and it’s like I’m trapped in my own body with no way out.
It’s the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had. Even being held down while another violated me didn’t feel this helpless because I fought, I struggled with my whole body, but this time, my body has deserted me.
I can still hear Rick calling me, and inside I’m crying with desperation to call back to him. Suddenly, I’m dumped in the back of a van, and as the doors close, Rick’s voice fades away.
Thirty-Seven
Rick
I’m soaked to the bone and there’s a chill there too, but it can’t touch the warmth that’s currently strumming through my veins thanks to one woman.
One woman that burst into my life in a spray of blood and full of fight.
One woman who has broken down my walls and surreptitiously burrowed under my skin, replaced the blood that flows through my veins and now holds my heart in her iron fist.
If I were a girl, I’d be skipping as I hurry to get the hamper I dropped when Jess pushed me in the lake.
I wasn’t surprised those three little words tried to make their way out of my mouth just now. If I’m honest, they’ve been on the tip of my tongue on more than one occasion in the last week.
I am surprised at how easy they were to say considering I always believed that I’d never say them to another woman again. Especially not to another woman who couldn’t be more opposite from Sam. They are a complete contrast to one another; black and white, Heaven and Hell, day and night, light and dark. And that’s it. Sam spoke to a Rick before he was a battle scared and tormented soul, and Jess speaks to the Rick I have become.
Jess is reconnecting the old pieces of me—the happy, loving and carefree me—and stitching them together with the new jaded, harder, angrier and broken pieces of me.
Leaning down to pick up the hamper, which is wedged between the first and second steppingstones, I look up as a flock of birds take flight from the trees to the left, flying over my head. As my hand wraps around the handle of the hamper, an ear-splitting scream reverberates all around and is quickly followed by a terrified shout of my name, which cuts off as quick as it came.
Jess.
My feet pound the ground as I call out to her, but there’s no reply. My heart almost damn near stops as a fear I’ve not felt in a long time seizes me.
“Jess! Jess! I’m coming, JJ!” I yell, hoping she can hear me.
Before I even reach the car, I know she’s gone. Reaching the passenger side, I scan the floor and discover two sets of footprints in the freshly wet ground leading into the trees to my right.
Quickly opening the door, I snatch my phone from where I left it sitting in the hands-free cradle and slam the door closed before sprinting into the trees.
I’ve run several feet through the trees when the sound of a car door slamming shut reaches me, and I increase my pace, bursting out the other side of the trees onto the road we turned off on our way here to see a black van wheel-spinning away down the road.
I access the camera on my phone, snapping several shots and hoping they are clear enough to see the number plate.
Spinning on my heels, I run back to the car, and just as I slip in the driver’s side, jamming the phone back into the cradle and begin reversing down the dirt track, my phone rings.
“Ryder, I need you—”
“Rick, I need you here now, man,” he says, cutting me off, and a thread of panic travels up my spine at his tone.
“Ryder?”
“Max is missing, Rick. I’m so fuc—” I screech to a halt, the seat belt locking with the force of my stop.
“They took them both,” I mutter, as a very real fear both for my son and the woman I love runs riot through my body.
“What? What do you mean, they took them both, Rick? What the fuck happened?”
<
br /> Taking a deep, calming breath, I begin to drive again. “They took Jess too, Ryder. They took them both to punish me.”
“Fuck!” he roars, as a loud bang echoes down the phone. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Heavy breaths and anger, which practically vibrates down the line, fill the silence as I race to catch up with the black van.
“Tell me what happened?” I ask, attempting to keep focused and calm instead of allowing the fear to overrun me.
Ryder explains that he and Cam had taken the boys to the aquarium for the day, but as Cam was putting Jamison back in the car, his car seat jammed. With both their attention inside the car, Max had been trying to help by putting their bags back in the boot when a car had pulled up and snatched him.
I can hear the pain and guilt in his voice, and I immediately shut him down.
“This is not your fault, Ry. This is not Cam’s fault either. So, don’t you dare even think to blame your fucking selves.” I take a sharp bend a little too fast and have to pull it back. I spot the van just ahead, but I maintain my distance. “I’m sending some pictures of the van that took Jess, get them sent to Dean and Jay. Call Ray and send them to him. I know this is not his jurisdiction, but he’ll have a contact here. Give them everything you have on the car that took Max too. I’ll be in touch soon.” I end the call, quickly sending the pictures I took to Ryder.
Up ahead, the van rounds another bend, and as I do the same a couple of minutes behind, I almost plough into a damn tractor that has pulled out and is blocking the road.
I slam my breaks on, coming to halt a foot away, beeping my horn and waving for them to move. I curse and swear in the car because I know if I get out, I’m liable to kill someone.
When the tractor and its trailer are finally clear enough for me to pass, the van is gone, as I knew it would be.
I race down the road, but when I come to a crossroads, there’s no sign anywhere, and I have no idea which way they went.
“Fucking hell!” I roar, slamming my hand on the steering wheel. After a couple of deep breaths, I turn left and head back to the barn.
Rage is like a wildfire running through me, suffocating and burning hot, and it will not be put out until I have my son and the woman I love back.
As soon as I turn into the drive, I know something isn’t right. Passing the main house everything looks as it should, but as the barn comes into view, there’s a car parked off to the left, and I see a figure slumped outside the front door. Their head is dropped forward, hiding their face, but I can tell it’s a man. And based on their size and hair, I have a pretty good fucking idea who it is.
The knot in my stomach twists, growing larger with every step I take. If he’s here, that means they have been too. It means they’ve been watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike, bidding their time to finally take everything from me. I thought they had last time, but I was wrong. I had plenty to live for, and Jess coming into my life made me realise that. It’s the perfect plan. They dangled the carrot, and I swallowed it fucking whole. I ate the fucking bunch and more.
Dark red pools around the man propped up against my door, heavy, wheezing breaths are like a death toll chiming the end of the line.
I crouch in front of the man I respected, I trusted, a man who I fought alongside.
“Major?” I scan his body, checking his injuries, as he slowly raises his head.
“R-R-Rick, I…” He coughs and blood spills from his lips. I watch as it trickles down the side of his mouth, and my eyes fall to his open shirt. The once white shirt is now a bright, rich red, undone down to his navel. My breath catches as I realise there’s something carved into his chest.
“They…got me…good and proper, son.”
Tearing my own shirt from my body, I reach out a hand, and with two fingers, I peel back one side to get a better look. Using my shirt, I apply pressure to the wounds. When I remove it, I can see the crudely carved words in Richard’s chest; ‘For the wages of sin is death’. It’s a quote from the bible, and even though I’m not particularly religious, I know exactly what it means. This is the price I must pay.
Screw that! This isn’t on me. None of it is.
I rein in my anger. If Richard wasn’t already on his way to meet our maker, I’d send him myself for his involvement.
Raising his head with a finger under his chin, it flops back against the door, and I see I don’t have long to get what I need from him as blood pumps from the small puncture wounds on his body. They are designed to cause maximum pain and suffering. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.
“Richard, where did they take them?”
“Who?” he croaks.
“Jessica and my son. They took them. Who has them, Richard?” He shakes his head like he doesn’t understand. My patience is waning, but I hold onto it. If I don’t get answers now, getting Jess and Max back will take a lot fucking longer, and time is definitely not on my side. I grip his chin, focusing his eyes on me, which are half closed and rolling into the back of his head. “Fucking tell me who has my son and Jess.”
“I don’t know, Rick. Garcia was pissed that someone beat him to it. He planned to take your son as payment for his brother. I’m just the messenger.”
“Garcia? Brother?” Something doesn’t add up here. “Who the fuck is Garcia, Richard?” I demand, giving his face a little tap to keep him awake.
“Luca Garcia…” He coughs, and I watch as the motion forces blood from a stab wound in his abdomen. “Second in command of the Salcido cartel…” I shove his shirt aside, seeking the other wounds on his body. Finding a deeper puncture wound just below his ribcage, I cover it, applying pressure.
He sucks in a harsh breath, eyes pinched tight. “They were the men…behind the guns in Afghan.”
“I don’t understand. If Garcia hasn’t got Jess and my son, then who the fuck does?”
“Someone Garcia was working with. I don’t know—” Richard’s voice trails off as his eyes close again. His breathing slows, becoming shallow. After a couple of minutes, he takes his last breath, his chest falling for the last time.
I pull my phone from my pocket as I rise and send Ryder a message and one to Dean about Luca Garcia, then I open the front door, stepping inside passed Richard’s slumped body.
In the bedroom, I throw on a clean t-shirt and begin packing our stuff up. Do I have time for this with my son and Jess missing? No, I fucking don’t. But I need the control, and my mind needs time to sort through my jumbled thoughts.
The Garcia that Marcus and Travis mentioned and this one has to be one and the same. Salcido cartel are also the cartel Natalia claimed Marcus was in bed with. Although, we know Marcus had his own agenda too.
As I load the last few bits into a bag, I remember something Jamie mentioned about the Salcido cartel and their gun trafficking ring in Afghanistan before 2015 at which point it collapsed… Fuck! That’s the connection. The Salcido cartel’s gun running collapsed, so they found a more profitable income.
I scramble from the house, chucking everything in the car. I run to Richard’s car and do a quick sweep. I find his phone, and something even better in his boot. I already called in a favour to get Richard’s body back to his family and a clean-up crew too. Although, at this point, I’m not sure he deserves it.
Spinning out of the drive, I hit dial on Roxy’s number.
“Sullivan, I’m a little busy right now, so you better make it quick,” she barks down the line. Her words are followed by the sound of groaning, and not the pleasurable kind either.
I feel kind of bad for whoever she’s clearly interrogating because when she hears why I’m calling they’re going to be in a whole world of pain.
“They have my son and JJ.” I don’t beat around.
“I know,” she replies casually as a scream rattles down the phone. “Hence the slightly unorthodox interrogation methods. Of course, I do enjoy inflicting a little pain now and again.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so glad to be hu
ndreds of miles away from a woman. The fact she’s a detective is ever so slightly concerning, but I won’t complain while her rage is focused elsewhere.
“I have pictures of the van that took her, and Ryder will send you details of the car that took my son. But I need information, everything you can give me, on the Salcido cartel and any connections in the UK. I’m particularly interested in Luca Garcia—”
“Luca Garcia is dead, Rick. Died back in 2015 in an operation I believe you are only too familiar with.”
Her words strike me just like the cat o nine tails used on me and Kuffs, and as the images flash through my mind so do words and conversations I’ve not remembered before or blocked out.
I stop the car, jumping out as my stomach heaves with remembrance. With my hands on my knees, I can hear Roxy yelling down the phone at me.
“Give me a fucking minute,” I yell back.
Getting myself under control, I climb back into the car. “How the fuck do you know that, Roxy? That’s classified information.”
“Yeah, well, me and classified have an understanding.” I hear a door slam in the background. “From what I know, you killed Luca when you escaped, and I’m guessing you didn’t know who he was?”
“No, I didn’t fucking know, and I don’t give two shits either. For what that bastard did to Kuffs, he deserved it all.”
“I hear you, believe me, I do. Luca had a younger brother, Julio, who was being groomed to take Luca’s place when their father, the capo, stepped down and Luca took his place. Either way, with Luca dead, the baby of the family would get his opportunity, but their cartel fell apart before he got the chance. I don’t know all the details, but I heard their father was killed and their gun running business collapsed after your op. And as you well know, they are now trading in skin.”
“So, you’re telling me this is revenge for his brother? Because whilst I’d like to believe that, it doesn’t explain Jess’ involvement or the part her dad is playing.”