After several seconds of fumbling around in the near dark he answered back just as quietly, “If there is, it’s not readily accessible.”
Marco spoke into his mic. “Kirby, Sanchez. Anyone copy? This is DeWinter, I repeat, anyone copy?”
“The signal may be blocked.”
“We’ll try again in a minute. Let’s keep moving.”
The staircase led into a hallway that was about four feet wide. Ten paces farther the hall split in two directions.
Marco gestured with his head. “You go left. I’ll take right.”
“We go together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll cover more ground.”
“With all due respect, Cap, but the last time we separated, I had to have your carcass scraped off the asphalt. You need backup.”
“We need to cover more ground,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Three. Story. Fall.”
“Cass—”
“Marco.” Coulter leaned in so close, Marco could smell the man’s toothpaste. In the dim light, his gaze narrowed and his blue eyes sparked like a struck match. “You’re too close. If you go alone, either you or Smithwick is going to end up dead. I’m going with you.”
Marco drew in one breath, then another. “That might have been true before, but not now. I’ve worked too hard to let anything jeopardize this case. I can keep my cool. Besides, there’s a pretty lady waiting for me that is damn good with a whip. She’ll hand me my ass if I fuck this up.”
Coulter shook his head. “I don’t like it, Cap.”
“I don’t either. Every few feet, try to make contact with Kirby. In fifteen minutes, we’ll turn around and come back here. If you don’t hear from me, or I you, we’ll go after each other. Don’t make me order you, Lieutenant.”
Coulter drew back and looked him in the eye for several seconds they didn’t have, then nodded. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Good luck.” Marco clapped him on the back then set off down the dark hallway.
He couldn’t find fault with Coulter’s worry that once he had Smithwick in his crosshairs, he’d go off half-cocked. If the situation were reversed, he’d have the same questions, and be more vocal about his objections to boot. Funny how having once stared death in the face changed a man’s perspective.
Another hundred paces and the tunnel split off again. To the left was the same line of lights along the ground that disappeared around a corner, but to the right the darkness wasn’t so black, and a cool breeze bathed his heated cheeks. His arm ached from having held his weapon aloft for so long, but he didn’t dare drop his hand as he made his way toward the source of light.
This end of the tunnel also turned a corner. As he drew near, he heard the murmur of voices. He paused at the bend then slowly eased his head around for a peek.
Fuck, yeah.
At the end of the tunnel was a big, solid door, complete with a cross barricade and keypad that required a passcode to unlock. Just the thing to slow a criminal in his path.
Smithwick stood before the door in all of his sleep-interrupted glory. Barefoot, rumpled and dressed in pajama bottoms and an untied bathrobe, he stood still as stone as one of his guards set the heavy crossbeam to the side.
The crime boss was a classic example of why you not underestimate a person based on their size. Smithwick was a small man. About five-foot-seven, and he couldn’t weigh more than one-seventy soaking wet. He didn’t look like a man who inspired an army of crooks and thugs to follow his orders, until you looked into his eyes. The man was as cold and brutal as an Arctic winter. Rumor had it he had sold his own family to a group of Islamic extremists in exchange for passage to England and enough cash to go to school. The leader was willing to listen to the then-fourteen-year-old because he had taken a cue from their textbook and walked into their encampment with a bomb strapped to his chest and his siblings chained like a prison work crew. Man, woman or child, it didn’t matter whom he had to crush to obtain what he wanted.
To Smithwick’s right, he held a woman by the back of her neck. Draping her shoulders was the matching top to his pajama set. Beneath the hem, her knees shook as she attempted to stifle her whimpers.
Along each side of the tunnel stood three sets of jail-cell-type doors. Several hands gripped the metal bars, yet no one inside the cells made a sound. One would expect at least a little excitement or murmurs of interest, but it was as if the occupants had been trained to remain silent in even the most extreme circumstances.
Marco’s vision narrowed down to high-def focus. This was it. The moment he had been dreaming about, obsessing over, imagined too many times than was mentally healthy, over the last three years. There was nothing but air between him and his prey, and this time triumph was his destiny.
Before he overthought his course of action, he stepped out into the tunnel. “Stop! Police. Hands in the air. Hands in the air.”
The silence of before was like a drum line competition in comparison to the lack of sound that followed his command. All movement stopped and Smithwick’s shoulders tensed beneath the silk of his robe. Even the curls on his female companion’s head stopped their sway.
Smithwick glanced at him over his shoulder. The corner of his mouth turned up into a smirk. “Captain DeWinter, I presume?”
“Turn around slowly and put your hands in the air.” He crept closer with each word.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll make you.”
“Will you?” He chuckled. “I don’t think so. I’ve done my research on you, Captain. You’re too much of a cop to shoot a man in the back.”
Smithwick’s man shifted ever so slightly. His eyes flicked to his boss’s then he blinked twice. The fool reached for his sidearm as Smithwick pulled the woman in front of him as a shield. Marco reacted with reflexes born from years of training.
He fired off two quick rounds, straight into the bodyguard’s chest. The woman jumped with a scream as the goon slid to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the wall behind him.
“I said hands in the air. Who taught your men to be such idiots, Smithwick?”
The light shimmered off his bald head as he turned and faced Marco with a blindingly white smile. “Stanislov was my quickest draw. It appears you are faster.”
“And obviously smarter.” He nodded to the woman. “Honey, run back down the hall. You’ll run into my partner. He’ll get you out.”
She didn’t need to be told twice and raced past him while her compatriots trapped in their cells cheered in her wake.
Smithwick raised his hands. “What now, Captain?”
“First, you’re going to stand in that corner and face the wall. Hands on your shiny head and move slow.”
He snickered and did as he was told. “You can arrest me, Captain, but know that I will be free before the sunrise. There isn’t a cage strong enough, or a man I can’t buy, that will keep me behind bars.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see,” he replied and stepped forward to secure Smithwick’s hands in a set of cuffs. He cinched the metal with an extra-vicious pinch, then let out a sigh. His ears popped as if he just breached the ocean’s surface and his lungs filled with clean air.
He got him. Fuck yeah, he got him.
Sure, the little shit was probably telling the truth and he’d buy his way out of prison and be back in business before the ink dried on the police report, but nothing was going to take away this moment when DeWinter caught his man.
“Tell me, Captain. How is your lady friend, the doctor?”
Marco’s spine straightened with a snap.
“Lovely creature,” Smithwick continued with a snake oil salesman’s grin. “Strong. Sexy. I bet she’s even more beautiful when broken and submissive.”
The implied threat hit him as real as a fist to the gut. Maybe he was bluffing, but Marco wasn’t dumb enough to ignore the warning. Smithwick wasn’t sitting at the top of the food chain because he lacked initiative. Even if only out of spite,
Smithwick might burn through all his resources just to get back at him.
“I’m listening,” was all he said and crouched down to rifle through the guard’s pockets in search of any other weapons the man might have stashed upon his person. A ring with several shiny keys in all shapes and sizes was attached to his belt.
Smithwick’s smile grew. “You’re a smart man. I’m sure you’ve already put it all together. Let me free. In fact, come with me. I can use a man with your skills. And as a gift, I’ll give you your woman. You can teach her how to behave like a proper whore. I can give you all the women you want. Take any here if you wish.”
It took all of Marco’s strength to not burst into laughter. The man was certifiable. “And if I refuse?”
His expression fell into a mask of ice and malice. “Then the good doctor pays.”
“You seem to think I’ll care about what happens to her.”
“I know you care, Captain. My man filmed you at that club she frequents. I saw the video, how she brought you to your knees. And how you loved it. You care.”
Fuck it all. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What options did he have, really?
“Well, then.” He spun the key ring around his forefinger once, then clasped the keys tight in his grip. “I guess you’ve made my decision easier to make.”
He glanced to the cell on his left. Five girls crammed into the tight space behind the door, watching their exchange with a mixture of hope, hatred and fear on their faces. They were all young, dirty, and barely dressed in short gowns or underwear. To his right he met more gazes that flicked between the keys in his hand and the door that stood slightly open with the promise of freedom. He swore he could hear their thoughts. Would he take the offer or set them free?
He glanced at Smithwick with a raised brow and asked, “Any woman I want?”
Smithwick rocked back on his heels with a chuckle. “Any woman.”
As he approached the cell door, the women shrank back. Well, all but one. With her blonde, wavy hair, pink cheeks and bruises on her arms and legs, she reminded him a bit of Jenny. A snarl flirted with her upper lip and her narrowed glare dared him to try take her. She didn’t say a word as he unlocked the door and looked her in the eye, but her chest rose and fell with her escalated breathing, and he knew if he took one more step, she’d fight him for survival. Freedom was too close not to at least make an attempt. It was an outcome he was counting on.
For several seconds he held her gaze, then gave her a slow wink. She blinked in surprise as he backed away from the doorway.
“You do drive a hard bargain.” He withdrew the key for the handcuffs from his pocket and stepped behind Smithwick. As he unlocked the cuffs, he leaned forward to speak into his ear, “I choose option three. Justice dealt by the hands of those you have wronged.”
He shoved Smithwick into the cell. The blonde released a battle cry then jumped upon the man’s back, driving him to the ground. Emboldened by their cellmate, the other girls dove into the melee with fists and feet flying at Smithwick’s huddled body.
Pandemonium erupted as the women in the other cells shouted and banged against the walls with their encouragement, drowning out the sound of their tormentor’s screams of pain.
Marco unlocked the next cell and the moment the door swung open, the women inside rushed into the adjoining cell to aid in the punishment.
“Marco! Marco!” Jasmine’s voice echoed above the din.
He turned to see her round the corner with Coulter and Kirby leading the way.
The moment she was within reaching distance he pulled her into his arms. “What are you doing down here?”
“Did you really think I’d stay away if I heard you were involved in a shooting? No one knows how to save your ass better than me.”
He smoothed his thumb over her cheek, then looked over her head at Coulter. “Took you long enough to get here. How far down the hall were you?”
“I came as soon as I heard the shots fired. A brunette ran into me saying you had shot a man, then collapsed at my feet in hysterics. I had to pass her off to someone else before I could continue.”
“Where’s Smithwick?” Kirby asked.
“In there.” He pointed to the pile of writhing bodies. “I was just about to pull him out.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” he shouted.
“What? Oh…right. Coulter, let’s get in there.”
Coulter shook his head with his lips pinched together then joined him in the fray, pulling girl after girl away to get to the mass at the bottom of the pile. Kirby released the rest of the women from their cells while Jasmine directed them down the hall to waiting officers.
When the last girl was dragged away with blood staining her hands, Jasmine fell to her knees besides the quivering form and began assessing Smithwick’s injuries.
The once elegant and dapper man looked as if he had been stung by a million bees as his face swelled to the size of a pumpkin, and one of his arms was bent at an odd angle.
“Holy shit.” Coulter ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Is he alive?”
“Well, he has a pulse,” Jasmine replied and searched for a vein to prep for an IV. “We need to get him out of here now, and that staircase is going to be impossible to traverse. What’s on the other side of that door?”
“I’ll go check.” Coulter disappeared through the doorway.
Marco watched as the woman he wanted to protect from the horrors of the world worked to save the life of one of the vilest humans on the planet. His hands clenched in an effort to withhold the urge to spirit her away to someplace safe. She’d break his legs if he tried to stop her, and he really wished it were any doctor other than Jasmine covered in the slime bag’s blood. For that alone, he’d feed Smithwick to the angry masses all over again.
A better man might have felt sorry for being the instigator of an act that caused so much physical damage. But the only thought running through his mind was that it was about fucking time.
Kirby clapped him on the shoulder. “Care to explain how our suspect was found in the middle of a donnybrook?”
“Donnybrook?” Marco snorted. “You’re showing your age there, Lieutenant.”
The SWAT lieutenant folded his arms over his Kevlar-covered chest and encroached on Marco’s personal space.
Marco shrugged. “While I was cuffing Smithwick, one of the girls reached through the bars and took the keys from the victim’s belt. By the time I saw the movement, the girls rushed us.”
Kirby’s brow made a slow glide to his hairline. “That’s your story?”
“That’s my story.”
“Good luck explaining that one.” He scoffed and continued to secure the scene.
All around him controlled chaos swirled with men, woman and equipment battling for space. The calm in the center of the storm was Jasmine working away calmly, efficiently, as if she were in the middle of an operating room and not in the dungeon of a mansion, doing what she did best. Giving people exactly what they needed.
She looked up and caught his gaze. With a soft smile and a tiny nod, she stood and bellowed, “Where’s my transport? We need to move.”
Marco wanted to laugh. As with everything, Jasmine was rock solid with her laser-like focus. Completely in control while he felt his emotions wavering like strips of tattered cloth in a hurricane.
More medics arrived from the doorway Coulter had gone through to explore, and assisted her in strapping Smithwick to a stretcher. His lieutenant appeared right after the medics and joined him.
“The tunnel leads to a boathouse about a hundred yards away. We found a vessel ready to depart. The driver’s detained. Captain? Captain? Hey.” He waved his hand in front of Marco’s face. “Are you all right?”
“What?” He blinked. “Yeah. Just comprehending that it’s all over.”
“Phase one anyway. Next comes the cleanup.”
He mumbled an agreement and kept his gaze on Smithwick’s body as the
medics wheeled the stretcher past him. Only Jasmine’s tug on his hands garnered his attention.
She cupped his face between her palms. “I’ll keep you posted on his condition. As soon as I’m able, I’ll come to you. Promise you’ll do the same?”
He placed his hands over hers and absorbed her ability to focus through her touch. With her as his beacon, he’d always be able to find his way home.
“Promise.” He risked delaying her for the second or two it took to brush a kiss to her lips then sent her on her way.
“Right.” He slapped his hands together and turned toward the men left in the hall. “Let’s wrap this up, boys. Our work has just begun.”
Chapter Fifteen
The scent of beef and rosemary stopped Marco in his tracks as he entered his home. “Abby? Are you here?”
“It’s just me.” Jasmine’s voice came from the kitchen, and a smile spread across his tired face. He dropped his bag and coat on the floor and made a beeline toward the delicious smell.
Jasmine stood before the sink looking like a domestic wet dream dressed in a purple bustier and his favorite black miniskirt. Steam rose from the rushing tap water and formed a halo above her head in defiance of her devilish attire.
He sighed and leaned against the doorjamb, weakened by her beauty. “Are you really here or am I dreaming?”
“You did give me a house key. Or was that only for emergencies?” She laughed and turned off the water to dry her hands on a dish towel. “Do you have to hurry back to work?”
“I’m officially on administrative leave for at least three days. You?”
“Me too.” Her smile grew and she crossed to his side to hug him around the waist. “How ever shall we spend the time?”
“Trust me, darlin’, I can think of lots of things.” He nodded at the project she had going on the stove. “Can that wait?”
“Those are dirty pots I was about to wash. I put everything in a slow cooker, so it will be ready when you are.”
Could she be any more perfect? “Holy hell, woman. Are you really mine?”
She stepped back and the cool, in control dominatrix mask fell over her features. “Am I yours, Captain?”
Only at The Cavern Page 22