by Sybil Bartel
“No shit,” Luna muttered.
“I am not here to argue with you. I am here for Emily, and I am getting her back.” It was not a statement, it was a warning. He had access to resources I did not, but I had a bank account full of money, and money got results. “What is the plan when we get to Mexico?” The clock was ticking.
“If we’re lucky, a hot extraction.”
I did not respond. I was not going to ask again what his words meant.
A minute later, he sighed. “There’ll be armed guards waiting to offload the women. If we’re lucky, that’s all there’ll be. If you can shoot worth a damn, or have any kind of sniper skills, we’ll easily take out a few men and get the women out. That’ll be the straightforward part. Then we’ve got to either talk our way through customs at the airport or worse, we’ll have about a five-hour drive to the US border through territory owned by cartels, on the deadliest highway in the world. Unless we kill all of Estevez’s men, they’ll be on our six and they’ll know exactly where we’re heading.”
I was no stranger to guns or being shot at. “I can shoot.”
“Close range or distance?”
“Both. I am a hunter.”
“Then let’s hunt these fuckers.”
MINUTES, HOURS, DAYS. I didn’t know how much time had passed.
Every second was torture.
My heart raced, making the heat unbearable as precious moisture sweat from my body. Thirstier than I’d ever been, panic making me tremble, I prayed to God Phoebe was looking for me. Or Callan.
Oh God, I missed him.
Why did I let him leave my apartment? Why didn’t I tell Phoebe to leave?
I bit back a sob.
The breaths of I don’t know how many women sounded like a symphony of doom. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew what this was. Women were taken all the time. That asshole in the club had drugged me. He must have. The last thing I remembered was ordering a Coke, and him. Brown eyes, a too-smooth voice, his blue shirt. Rage seeped in, and I tried to embrace it, because the fear was killing me.
Fuck what that woman had told me. I wanted to talk. “Hello? Who’s here?”
No one answered.
I heard multiple breaths. Four at least. One was quietly trying not to cry. I’d heard the telltale sniffle a dozen times already.
Leaning against the metal wall that was no longer cold, I tried again. “They can’t force us not to talk when we’re alone.”
Silence.
“I’m Emily.” I waited a beat. “Who else is in here?”
Sniffle stifled another quiet cry.
“Hey, the one crying.” I held my bottle of water in a death grip. “You have water? You want a sip of mine?”
“Shut up,” the female voice from before hissed. “She doesn’t want your water.”
Fuck her. “Why don’t you let her answer that?” I challenged, feeling like I had nothing more to lose at this point.
“Stupid bitch,” the voice muttered. “Why don’t you rattle the door again and get us all killed.”
I cut her some slack and didn’t tell her off for calling me a bitch, because she was probably as terrified as me. At least she was talking. “What’s your name?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay, Shut-Up it is. You, the one crying, what’s your name?”
“Don’t answer her,” Shut-Up hissed. “She’ll get you in trouble.”
“What trouble?” She’d never said. And I wasn’t sure I cared. Anxiety making me feel like I was having a heart attack, I needed to talk.
“They said not to talk.” A quiet, young voice drifted across the darkness.
“Why?” I prodded. “They can’t hear us now.”
“You don’t know that,” Shut-Up snapped.
I ignored her. “You, the one who just spoke, what’s your name?”
No answer.
Shut-up snorted.
“Fine.” My hands behind me on the wall for equilibrium in the dark, I pushed up. “I’ll do a head count.” Slow, my hands as my eyes, I inched across the ridged wall and shuffled my feet a few inches at a time.
Going in the opposite direction as before, my feet touched something much sooner than I was expecting, and I sucked in a shocked breath.
Crawling my hands down the wall, I encountered a head just below waist height. “Hi.” I gently patted hair that felt matted and dirty. “I’m Emily.”
“Serena,” the quiet voice from before barely whispered.
“Hi, Serena.” Grabbing her shoulder, I squatted. “I’m scared too,” I whispered. “But we can help each other out, okay?”
Her shoulder relaxed a fraction under my grip. “Okay,” she whispered back.
Pushing back up, I moved around her and kept going. My hands hit a corner, and the quiet crying came closer as I reached out with my toe. “I can hear you.” I touched the softness of flesh and reached down. “It’s okay, I want to cry too.”
A hand hit my leg.
“Hi.” I reached down and grabbed it. “I’m Emily.”
The small hand squeezed mine, and a tiny childlike voice spoke. “I’m not supposed to cry.”
At the sound of her young voice, my heart dropped to my stomach. “How old are you, sweetheart?”
“Twelve.”
Oh my God, no. NO. I pulled her into a hug but another arm came with us. “Oh!” Blindly reaching out, I found the little girl’s hand entwined with another. “There’s two of you right here. What are your names?”
“Three,” the twelve-year-old corrected.
Oh dear God. “Are you—” My voice cracked. Horrified, appalled, enraged, I couldn’t finish the question. I just grabbed the arm of the girl next to us and pulled her into the hug.
“We’re sisters.” The twelve-year-old clung to me. “Me, Rachel and Renata.”
“Renee, shush!” a third voice scolded. “No talking.”
“She’s right.” Renee’s tone turned blissfully from fear to petulance. “He can’t hear us. No one can.”
“It’s not going to do any harm to know each other’s names. In fact, it may help,” I added. Then keeping my tone as neutral as possible, I asked what I didn’t want to. “How old are all of you?” Please, please let them be older than Renee.
“Renata is fifteen,” Renee answered. “But Rachel, she’s the oldest. She’s seventeen.”
“Renee,” Rachel whisper barked. “You heard what the man said. No talking.”
I reached past Renee and Renata to where Rachel’s voice was coming from, and prayed I wasn’t lying. “It’s okay. No one is here right now. I banged on that door and no one came. They can’t hear us right now.”
As the last word left my mouth, fate mocked me.
A loud metal clank, followed by a screech, split the relative silence in the container and the door creaked opened.
Moonlight silhouetted a man a split second before a flashlight blinded me. “I heard every fucking word, bitch.” His voice much more gravelly than the smooth voice of the man who had taken me in the club, his heavy boots sounded on the metal floor as he stomped toward me. “Get up.”
I dropped Renee’s hand faster than I could blink against the blinding light and stood. “We’re allowed to talk.” Brave, stupid, I stepped in front of Renee and her sisters. “You can’t silence us.”
Before the last word left my mouth, pain shot across my cheek and my head whipped to the side as he backhanded me.
“How about I fucking gag you, and then we’ll see how much you talk?”
The smell of his acrid sweat filled my nostrils as blood pooled in my mouth. I spit on the floor because it was better than crying. “Go ahead and try, asshole.”
The flashlight still in my eyes, he gripped a handful of my hair and forced me to my knees. “I got a better use for your mouth, bitch.”
His voice angry, rough, I barely registered this wasn’t the man from the club before my knees hit the floor and red-hot anger burst through my veins faster than the pain from i
mpact. Maybe it was a little twelve-year-old girl, maybe it was the thought of my own sister, or maybe it was the memory of Callan’s lips on mine, but I wasn’t afraid.
I was enraged.
And singularly focused.
If he forced his dick in my mouth, I was going to fucking bite it off.
“Whatsa matter?” His hand left my hair, and his huge palm slapped my other cheek. Grabbing my breast, he squeezed my nipple mind-crushingly hard. “Don’t got nothing to say now?”
Tears of pain stung my eyes, and all the air left my lungs.
“What’s that?” He twisted my nipple even harder, then let go to cup his ear. “I can’t hear you.”
I forced my bloody mouth into a grin. “Eat shit, asshole.”
The cold barrel of a gun landed on my forehead.
“YOU EXPECTING A PROBLEM?”
I dragged my gaze from the window and glanced at Luna in the driver seat as the sun set. “No.” The day had come and gone, and we were still not in Mexico.
“Then why are you nervous?” He pulled into a parking spot at Emily’s apartment complex.
I was not nervous, I was enraged. It had been twenty hours since she had been taken, fifteen since the ship with her on it had left the port, and we were still in Miami. “We should have left by now.”
“You needed a passport, I needed intel, we needed time to put together an exit strategy, and an emergency backup plan. I’m not gonna be left hanging if shit goes FUBAR in Mexico.” Luna cut the engine.
I fought for patience. “What is FUBAR?”
“Fucked up beyond all repair. Let’s go get her passport then get in the air.” Luna got out of the SUV.
I led us to her apartment where the sister was supposed to be waiting, but before we got close enough to knock, the front door flew open.
Theodore glared at me. “What the hell is going on? Where is she?” He glanced at Luna. “Who the hell is this?”
Luna scanned the neighboring apartments then gave Theodore a warning look. “Take it inside.”
I walked straight at Theodore, and he stepped back to let us in. The sister stood by the kitchen counter, twisting her hands.
“Where is it?” I demanded.
She pulled Angel’s passport out of her back pocket. “I also did what you asked.” She grabbed a bag off the counter and handed both items over.
“Son,” Theodore warned, “you better start talking.”
“I am not your son. You stopped being a father when you let a woman walk away with your children.”
He scowled. “You don’t know the circumstances, and now isn’t the time to get into a pissing match. Where’s Emily, damn it?”
I had hated River Stephens. I hated everything he had represented. But one thing I could say about him, he never gave up any of his children willingly. Not without a fight. “You seem to have a pattern of losing the ones closest to you.”
Taking two steps, he got in my face. “You tell us what the hell is going on, or I’m going to the police.”
“The police won’t do anything for forty-eight hours,” Luna interjected.
Theodore whipped around to face him. “Bullshit. Not if foul play is involved.”
Luna’s hand settled on his 9mm in a holster at the side of his waist. “Step back, Mr. Anders.” His eyes on Theodore, he waited.
Theodore glared at him, but then took a step back.
Luna’s ice-cold gaze on Theodore, he tipped his chin toward me. “We tracked Emily from her last known location at Club Frenzy. Viewing the security camera footage from last night, we believe your stepdaughter was drugged and abducted from the club. We were able to track her as far as Tampa where she was put on a container ship heading for Altamira, Mexico. We’re on our way to intercept the ship and extract her. I can’t give you any more details at this time. Feel free to call the authorities. Her abductor is Javier Estevez. The FBI is well aware of his criminal activity. Any other questions before we leave?”
“Jesus.” Theodore sank down into a chair. “Drugged? Abducted?” He looked up at us with tear-welled eyes. “Mexico?”
Luna nodded. “We need to go. Callan will be in touch.”
“I don’t even have a way to get in touch with him,” Theodore complained to Luna.
I glanced at the sister. “She has my number.”
Theodore wouldn’t let it go. “When will you have news?”
“Eighteen to twenty-four hours.” Luna gave me a look that said we were done here.
I followed him out the door.
“Callan?” the sister called.
I looked over my shoulder.
Clinging to the door, her eyes wet, she looked at me with desperation. “Please, bring my sister back.”
I did not make promises. Life was nothing except uncertainty. “I will call when I have news.”
Luna and I walked back to his SUV. He was silent as he drove through the city, and I had nothing to say. We would not be able to form a concrete plan until we saw exactly where the ship would dock at the port and how many men would be waiting for it. The satellite images Luna had shown me earlier meant next to nothing to me. I needed to feel the ground under my feet. Hear the movements of the port. See the sightlines from a rifle’s scope. Hunting was about becoming one with your environment. I could not do that from a computer image.
Luna’s cell phone rang, and he answered through the speaker system. “Luna.”
“I hear we’re goin’ to Mexico with Cult Boy to shoot some shit up so he can get his stepsister bride-wife back,” the accented man, Talerco, that had been with Luna and Decima at River Ranch drawled.
“You’re on speaker.” Luna rubbed a hand over his chin. “Talon Talerco, Callan Anders. Now you’ve officially met.” Luna glanced at me. “Don’t let his immature bullshit fool you. He’s got good aim, great instincts, and he’s a medic if any of the girls need help.”
“Hey,” Talon interrupted. “You callin’ my aim shit? For the record, I can shoot with the best of ’em. I saved your ass a time or two.”
“The body count’s still not in your favor,” Luna deadpanned. “You get with Neil on the plan? We solid?”
“Yeah, Vikin’ told me all about the trafficker fuck and potential hot extraction. He said you called in the cavalry, and Cult Boy footed the bill for a jet big enough to bring us all home in one piece.”
“This isn’t without risk,” Luna warned Talon.
Talon scoffed. “Who the hell do you think you’re talkin’ to, Patrol?”
Talon seemed to nickname everyone, including me.
“Just making sure,” Luna countered. “You close?”
“Five minutes out. See you at the airport. And hey, Cult Boy?”
My jaw ticked. “I have a given name.”
“Yeah, but mine’s much more fun.” Talon chuckled. “So, for real, you bangin’ your stepsister?”
I reached over to the steering wheel and pressed the button I had seen Luna use to disconnect calls.
Luna shook his head, but smiled. “He’s an acquired taste.”
“I will take your word for it.” I had no intention of finding out. All I cared about was his skill with a weapon. He was a better shot than all of the other hunters on the compound had been.
Luna stopped at a light. “You know, you look like him.”
“Who?” I knew who.
“Ted Anders.”
The casualness in his tone irritated me. “That does not make him a father.”
“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.
“Twenty-seven.” I had taken my twenty-seventh turn around the sun much like I had taken all the others—in the woods with my rifle. But unlike every other turn, I had come back after hunting to an empty, bulldozed compound. Without the mess hall I had left standing, one would never know there used to be hundreds of men, women and children living there at one time.
“Ted Anders is forty-seven.” Luna continued in his casual tone.
“I am aware.” You
could find a lot of information with a cell phone and a data plan. I had purchased both five months ago when the lawyer for River’s estate had said he needed a way to get in touch with me without having to drive out to the compound.
Luna looked pointedly at me. “Would you have taken River Stephens on by yourself as a twenty-year-old?”
The light turned green, and Luna stepped on the gas. I knew what he was implying. I had considered the same thought. But no matter how I looked at it, I would not have made the same choices.
“You got an answer to that question?” Luna turned into a small, noncommercial airport.
“I would not have left my kin. I would not have let a man like River Stephens influence my wife, and I would not have stopped until I had my family back. At any age.”
For the second time that day, Luna drove into an airport. But this time he pulled up in front of a large private jet.
“For the record, I wouldn’t have left mi familia either.” Luna cut the engine and got out.
Neil Christensen and the pilot, Roark McAllen, who I had met earlier, were standing in front of the plane.
Roark held his hand out. “Thanks for the bird. Can’t wait to fly her.”
I shook his hand. “Thank you for being here.”
Roark nodded once, and Neil spoke up.
“Did you get your passport?”
Neil had called in a favor to help expedite my passport. I had shown up at the passport office and was ushered through the line. I was not sure how a man not born in this country had such connections, and I did not ask. Neil Christensen was not a man you questioned. “Yes, thank you.”
A black SUV identical to the one Luna and I were in pulled up. Three men got out, two of whom I had seen at the compound with Luna.