“Trina, take Ophelia to the bathroom, and help her fix her make-up, then both of you go to the kitchen and get something to eat. At eleven, find Drake here on the patio. Do not be late, or I will be very angry.”
They both nodded and left.
“You’re good with them, even when you’re pretending to be the Ice Queen.”
“I know what it is like to have younger sisters. I need to ask you a question. Finn said everyone would be armed. But I don’t see any sign of the wait staff carrying weapons.” Aiden gave her a wolfish grin.
“Rylie, first every man and woman can easily kill a man in less than five seconds with their bare hands. Second, they’re armed, trust me.”
“You know something will go wrong. Some way, somehow.” Again, Aiden gave a satisfied smile.
“God, I hope so. Prison is too good for some of these fuckers.” Somehow when Aiden said it, it didn’t seem as scary as when Finn had said it.
Just then one of the other buyers waved to him, and he left to go talk to the man. Rylie had to agree, prison was too good for some of these people. She knew many of these men had bought women and young girls in the past who had vanished from the face of the Earth. She was positive they had killed them.
“Sylvia?” Coco said loudly.
“Yes?”
“I need some help.” Rylie went over to the woman and immediately saw the problem. She had somehow gotten her hair extensions caught in the zipper of her dress. She tried to undo the zipper but realized scissors were going to be required.
“Come upstairs with me,” Rylie suggested.
“Okay.”
They went up the main staircase slowly so that Coco’s hair didn’t tug any further. Rylie looked at her watch. She wanted to make sure she was downstairs to watch over the girls when the toast happened.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” Coco asked.
“You know how big events are, always trying to coordinate something.”
“I appreciate you helping me. I didn’t want to ask any of the servants or the product, even though they are delectable.” Coco licked her lips. Rylie opened the door to the master suite.
“Here, sit on the bed. I think there are some scissors in the bathroom. I should be able to cut a half inch of your hair, and then work the zipper, and you’ll be good to go.” Rylie left her sitting there and went to the bathroom and started rifling through all of the supplies left by the girls. When she went back into the bedroom, she stopped short.
“Hello, Sylvia,” Barney said. “Drop the scissors.”
“What flower do you think she should be, honey bear?”
“Ours, Coco, she should be ours.”
Their bodyguard was beside him, and he hauled Rylie over his shoulder and dumped her onto the bed. He tore open her dress, and her breasts were bare to their avid gazes.
“I knew she would be gorgeous,” Barney breathed.
“You love variety. I have to admit, her tiny titties are pretty.” Coco slapped her right breast, and Rylie screamed.
“Rance!” The big man’s hand clamped over her mouth. She was in a horror movie. She was back in time, back when she had no power, and she was going to be taken against her will. Terror threatened to overwhelm her, but she fought it with every fiber of her being. Her mind is what would save her. She bucked and twisted, supposedly in no random way, but her dress hiked up, and she was able to get to the sheath that held her knife. It wasn’t much, but it might buy her a second of time.
“I want her first.” Coco breathed. She caressed the breast that she had just hit. Rylie shuddered.
“Rance, for the next few minutes we’re going to have a bit of fun. Have you scouted the way out the back?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great. While we’re making the final bids, take this one out to our car. She’s the real prize.” Coco started to unzip her dress, apparently the bitch had always been able to get out of it. Barney smiled. “Are you going to put on a show, doll face?”
“Oh yeah.” Coco smiled.
Rylie clutched her knife and waited. Coco was naked, and she crawled on top of her, that was when she struck. She thrust upwards, not wanting to kill, just to wound the bitch. Coco screamed as the knife cut into her side. Rylie bit at Rance’s hand and let out a scream of her own. Barney clutched his wife, and Rylie rolled off the bed, with Rance following. Coco continued to scream, it was shrill, like the tornado warning siren back home in Oklahoma. Rance tackled Rylie, and she was crushed under him. She tried to push up. She tried to scream. She couldn’t do anything but lie there and hope she wasn’t dead under three hundred pounds of muscle.
Finally, Rance stood up, and grabbed her by the arm, she screamed in pain.
The bedroom door flew open. Rance pulled his gun out and shot. Another shot went off, and Rance fell to the floor. Rylie saw Finn standing there. Shots rang out from downstairs.
“Oh God, the girls,” Rylie cried. She staggered towards the door.
Finn’s gaze swung around the room, then zeroed in on Barney and Coco. Coco was lying in Barney’s arms, she was cut and covered in blood. Rylie couldn’t tell whether her knife wound was life-threatening or not.
“You two, onto the balcony!” Finn yelled, gesturing with his gun.
Barney helped his wife and took her out onto the master suite balcony. Finn locked the door. Then snagged a robe off a chair and thrust it to Rylie. “Put this on.” Rylie realized she was all but naked, and pulled on the robe, then followed him down the hall towards the stairs. Before they could get to the top landing, he shoved her to the ground.
A bullet slammed into the wall right where her head had been.
“Stay here. We’ve got this.”
“I have to get to the girls, they need me.”
“Rylie, they need you alive. Let us get this shit under control, then you can do your mama bear impression.” He was down the stairs, and she was left lying on the floor.
***
“It looks like something out of a Walt Disney movie,” Mason said as they made their way up the driveway.
Once again Darius was amazed so much beauty covered so much filth. He saw two people who looked to be working as valets. They had to be military. It helped him to breathe easier. He and Mason were getting out of the car when the first shot rang out.
Fuck! That was not how this was supposed to go down.
They looked at one another across the hood of the car and took off at a dead run for the entrance of the estate, easily passing the two parking valets.
Darius noted the main area contained a gigantic staircase that opened up to an area filled with stone, marble and people with guns. Mason went low and left, he went high and right. Almost all of the people in the room were men, which meant that the plan to separate the girls from the bidders must have worked.
One of the parking valets came up to him.
“Sir, the black slacks, white shirts are our people.”
“Got it.” Not that he really needed to be told, he would have recognized his military brothers and sisters anywhere. He watched as one of them was shot, and he sprang into action, crossing the room, and pumping a bullet into the bodyguard who had just shot the undercover soldier.
Now that he was in the thick of things, he looked around the room. He saw Drake—he was hard to miss. He had a group of men and one woman on the floor with their hands behind their heads. He was happy to see one of them was Brandon. Then he spotted Finn, and he saw a problem. A big fucking problem.
Finn had Albert Liu spread-eagle on the armoire that had broken vases and flowers strewn about on it, with the muzzle of his gun nestled against the man’s crotch.
“Finn!” he shouted.
“Hey, Dare.” He smiled. Bullets were flying, people were screaming, and Finn was calling him over like he was offering him a beer. Houston, we have a problem.
“Whatchya doing?”
“I’ve decided to shoot his dick off and watch him bleed out. Then I’m doing to do the
same to this one.” He motioned to the man huddled at his feet next to two corpses. It was Jiang Liu.
“You can’t do that, partner.” Darius looked around for Mason, but he had his hands full. So did Drake.
“Do you know how many bruises Rylie has because of him?” Darius jerked. This man laid hands on Rylie? “I know about the baby farm. He’s the cause of this mess. Look around, people have died tonight. Did you know women were thrown overboard off of the cargo ship? He needs to die, and die badly.”
Finn had a point. Darius relaxed. He heard things begin to quiet, the good guys must be winning.
“Finn, you can’t do this!” Darius turned at the sound of Rylie’s voice.
“Dammit Rylie, I told you to stay upstairs to stay safe.”
“Well you shouldn’t have decided to commit murder,” she said as she pointed to Little Liu. The three of them looked at where he had his gun next to his penis.
“It’s not murder. I’m taking out the garbage. I’m saving the state some money. Call it what you will, it’s not murder.”
“Isn’t it enough you already killed Mike and Howard?” she said gesturing to the two men on the floor?
Finn’s eyes turned flat. “I didn’t have the pleasure; they were dead when I got here. However, I can kill these two.”
Rylie turned to Darius. “You have to stop him.”
“I don’t.”
“He’ll go to prison.”
“Nah, this’ll be an unfortunate accident during a shootout. Two accidents, when he gets done with the sick old fuck of an uncle.” Jiang let out a whimper.
“Please Finn, I care about you. I don’t want you to feel bad about this for the rest of your life.”
Jiang screamed, and a shot went wild and hit a vase near Albert’s head. Darius spun and saw a large Asian man with a gun. He shot and killed him. Jiang screamed again, and pushed at Finn, and another shot was fired. Albert screamed. Darius turned in time to see Rylie looking like she was going to throw up, he turned and saw that part of Albert’s crotch was missing, and he would soon be dead. Finn was smiling with satisfaction.
Darius wanted to get to Rylie and offer her comfort, but Jiang was crawling across the floor, scrambling for the gun that had just been dropped. What a stupid motherfucker.
“Jiang, don’t make me kill you.” He grabbed for it and turned slowly trying to aim at Darius. Darius shook his head in disgust and shot the sick old fuck in the head.
He heard a scream from the patio, and he saw Rylie rouse herself. She started towards the backdoor, but she wasn’t going without him. He gave one last look at Finn, who was now staring blindly at the two dead men.
When he and Rylie got outside, they stopped and stared at the cluster of girls who were being given aid and comfort by the military personnel.
Darius had thought they she would go to them immediately, but instead she just stopped and stared at them, a faraway look in her eyes. He watched as she started to sign. He almost missed the words.
I love you, Pam.
I miss you, Pam.
We got them.
I hope you can rest easy now.
“Can you tell me about that night?” Darius asked.
“You know the term ‘dead man walking?’ Well, that was Pam when she came home that night. I don’t know how she managed to get to my bedroom window with so many drugs in her system, but she did.”
Darius put his arm around Rylie, and she snuggled closer.
“I went to the kitchen to get her something to eat. She looked like a skeleton. She could barely keep any of the food down.” Darius watched as Rylie had to breathe through her own nose at the memory.
“Finally, Pammy could talk. I asked her where she had been. She told me that the fucker Edwards had sold her to a Mr. Guzman. It was the first time I ever heard of people being sold.” She clutched at him, and he stroked her hair.
“Guzman used her for a while, but she said it wasn’t any worse than living with Edwards. But then that bastard sold her to a whorehouse. It was a trailer in the desert. They made her start doing drugs. She escaped. It took her a month to get home. Then Pammy started crying so hard, I couldn’t understand her.” So did Rylie, and Darius was having trouble understanding her as well.
“Pam eventually got loud. Mr. Edwards heard her and came storming into the bedroom. He demanded ‘the whore’ get out of his house. And Pam said he’d made her a whore. That’s when Mrs. Edwards came into the room.”
“Pam told her everything. Mrs. Edwards went crazy. Said she couldn’t live in a house of sin. She stormed out of the room. Mr. Edwards tried to hit Pam, but I fought him. Then the fire alarm went off. Mrs. Edwards had set a fire. I didn’t know fires could burn so bright or so fast. Mr. Edwards ran out of my room. When I turned around, Pam was just sitting in the corner with a smile on her face, shooting up. She actually had a cord around her arm and a needle in her arm. She told me goodbye, and then gave herself a shot.”
Rylie told him everything in a monotone voice. It was clear it was a story she had relived many times in her head.
“But you saved them,” he said, gesturing to the girls on the patio. “And Ursula was one of the girls on the island.”
“She was?” Rylie’s eyes gleamed with happiness.
“She was.” Darius hugged Rylie even closer. “I hope that can give you some sense of peace.”
“It helps, Dare, it really helps.”
A beautiful brunette ran to Rylie and threw her arms around her.
“You saved us!”
Rylie looked at him helplessly. “How could they know it was me?” she asked.
“They’re like me; they know a good person when they see one.”
They heard the sound of a helicopter. Mason came running up to them.
“It’s the Canadian police and military,” he said. He looked at Rylie. “Do you want to be part of the debrief?”
“Oh God, I’ve got to get out of here!” she exclaimed.
“I can help,” Mason said.
That was when it all started to unwind for Darius.
Epilogue
Darius was relieved to have the two-hour drive from the airport to her house in Oklahoma. He needed the time to get all of his thoughts arranged. He had actually typed everything out. It had been seven weeks since he left Vancouver. Rylie had begged him not to keep in touch. She said a clean break was best.
Darius had Lydia keeping track of all of Rylie’s online activities. She was doing nothing except working her old job. The only things that seemed to capture Rylie’s attention were her kids and the girls. Lydia kept her informed of their whereabouts. Unfortunately, many of them could not go home. Some, like Penelope, had actually been sold into slavery by their families. Others were orphans. Rylie was using the money stolen from Liu to help the girls get a start at new lives in the United States
The Midnight Delta team had taken heat for all of twenty-four hours before the brass had spun things to make them heroes. Because Rylie wanted her involvement to remain anonymous, his SEAL team was considered responsible for taking down Liu’s entire operation single-handedly. More medals for them. Darius couldn’t give less of a shit. The only thing on his mind for the last seven weeks was a petite blonde with a southern accent. A woman who thought she wasn’t meant for a happily ever after.
He continued driving through the flat brown landscape and thought back to the first Skype session he had with Sawyer Jones. The young man had reached out to Lydia and basically asked what the hell had gone on with his sister. Darius had already been chomping at the bit to talk to him, but hadn’t known how to do it without Rylie knowing, so this had been the perfect opportunity. Lydia had coordinated a time for the two of them to talk.
As soon as Sawyer realized Darius wanted a relationship with Rylie, he was grilled to within an inch of his life. Darius loved the kid already. He explained his plan, and Sawyer immediately got onboard, explained the obstacles, and Darius got to work on his end in San Diego, which
is what took him so damn long. Plus, Mason was getting married, and he needed his soon to be wife’s help to accomplish the project he wanted to put in place.
Sophia was a fucking Godsend. She knew the school district because of her little brother Billy, and she figured out everything he would require for a special needs child in San Diego. Like he had told Rylie, he was a saver, so after he figured out the school district, he rented a house. He would have bought a house, but he wanted Rylie to decide what she wanted. Sawyer said Charlotte really didn’t have a lot of ties to the kids in her school, so moving would be easy for her, that the only real problem would be Georgie’s connection to Mrs. Whitehawk. Oh yeah, then there was the fact Rylie could tell him to piss up a rope. Darius’ hands were sweaty on the steering wheel as he pulled up to the small house. Sawyer was on the porch.
Darius got out of the car.
“Rylie, you have a visitor,” Sawyer shouted. “I’m taking Georgie for ice cream.” Sawyer went inside and came out carrying a young boy who stared at Darius. The boy was holding a tyrannosaurus rex.
“I like your dinosaur,” Darius said to the boy, who didn’t meet his eyes.
“His name is Rylie. He’s pretty and strong.” He then tucked his face into Sawyer’s chest.
“Charlotte isn’t home.” Sawyer went to a dilapidated station wagon in the front driveway and drove off.
“Sawyer, who is it?” Rylie came out and stopped short. She stared at Darius.
***
“Hi baby,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears. “I told you to stay away from me.”
“Why? Rylie, why did you say that? You broke my heart.” He walked up the stairs and tugged her into his arms. “Did you really want me to stay away?”
She pulled away and walked into the house, it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. In the back of her head she realized Sawyer had known about this, he was in on this. She took a deep breath. She walked through the living room, into the kitchen. It was where all things in the Jones household were handled. She heard Darius following her.
Her Daring SEAL (Midnight Delta Book 5) Page 20