by Claire Adams
It was very exciting to watch the girls from PJ’s glasses. I felt like we hardly had to be there at all. PJ and Roxanne seemed to have everything taken care of. There was only one guard left to deal with. I hadn’t seen the other one at all when PJ walked through the main living area of the basement.
“He’s out. There’s a guard at the bottom of the stairs, I think if you went to him and said you thought I told you something was wrong with Stephano, then he would follow you upstairs and I could get the rest of the girls out of the house,” PJ said in a whisper.
“Oh, shit, they are doing this now. We need to get to the shore. George, quietly get us over there,” I said as I pointed to the spot next to Stephano’s house that I wanted him to park us at.
There was a dock in front of his house that had a boat attached to it, but we could slide right up to the end of it and tie ourselves off. It was dark out, but there was plenty of lighting on the grounds so we would still need to be careful.
We had no idea if Stephano had any other guys outside the house at all. For all we knew, he could have had pit bulls out there ready to eat us alive. We needed to be prepared for anything that might go down.
“Yes, I can distract him and get him upstairs, I think,” Roxanne said as she made her way out of the room.
“Wait,” PJ said as she jumped up off the floor and handed Roxanne her glasses. “Wear these, you will be upstairs and Jackson will need to see what is going on. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to start getting the girls out the back door as soon as you get up the stairs.”
Roxanne grabbed the glasses from PJ and put them on her face as she made her way out to the security guard. Roxanne glanced behind her and I could see PJ there, too.
“I think something might have happened to Stephano. Ilsa doesn’t speak English, but she keeps doing this,” Roxanne said as she made some sort of movement.
“Did he die?” the guard asked PJ.
“She doesn’t speak English. I think one of us should go check on him.”
The guard looked at Roxanne and then at PJ as he tried to decide what he should do. Stephano was his boss and if something was wrong with him, then he needed to get help for the man. But he also didn’t want to leave the girls alone, either.
“I can stay here with the girls, if you’d like,” Roxanne said. “Or I can go check on Stephano, whatever you’d like.”
“You go check on him, but I’m coming to the top of the stairs with you. I don’t want any funny business going on,” the guard said.
The three of us looked at each other as we watched the monitor. We were almost to the dock and we prepared to make our way up to the house so we could do our part in getting the girls out.
“That sounds fine with me. We better hurry, though. I’m really worried about him,” Roxanne said.
As the boat pulled up to the dock, Chase, Nate, and I ran up the grass toward the house. We moved quickly and didn’t see anything too out of the ordinary. There were a couple motion sensor lights that flipped on, but other than that, we were in the clear.
I stood outside the glass doors to the basement and watched as Roxanne walked up the stairs with the security guard right behind her. PJ looked over at me, but she didn’t move until she saw that the pair had made it all the way up the stairs.
Then she ran as fast as she could to the back room, I gently tried to open the back door, but it was locked. Within a few seconds, PJ was standing at the back door with one of the girls. She unlocked it and opened it.
“Where’s Ana?” I asked.
“She won’t wake up. These girls are all drugged up and passed out,” PJ said.
“It’s all right. I’ll get her,” Nate said as he moved into the building.
I stood guard at the door as Nate came out carried Ana in his arms. She looked so frail. She certainly didn’t look like a grown woman; instead, she looked like a fragile child in his arms.
“We will each need to just grab the girls. If they can walk let them walk, otherwise just carry them,” I told the guys. “You stand guard at the stairs,” I said quietly to PJ.
She grabbed my gun from me and moved over toward the stairs, just out of sight if someone looked down them. Chase, Nate, and I each grabbed a girl and took her out to the boat where George was left to try and care for them.
Most of the girls just went right back to sleep, but a few of them woke up and seemed disoriented. I hated to leave George out there all by himself, but we needed to get the girls out of the house as fast as possible.
“What’s going on up there, is he all right?” the guard yelled up at Roxanne.
We couldn’t see the video of what was going on, so I had no idea what she was doing or how she was stalling him so well. But she was doing a great job. Within the span of about five minutes, we had almost all of the girls out.
I carried my third girl to the boat and then took a minute to look at the monitor to see what was going on. I heard Roxanne talking and stopped dead in my tracks.
“He’s fine. You don’t need to go in there,” she said as she stood in front of Stephano’s door and talked to the guard.
I didn’t wait to see what was said next and started to sprint up to the house.
“This is the last girl,” Chase said as he helped a wobbly girl down the grass toward the boat.
“Get PJ and get out,” I said to Nate as he ran up behind me after dropping off the girl he had been carrying.
“I’m not leaving without Roxanne,” PJ said.
“Get the fuck down stairs. I don’t know what the hell the two of you are up to, but I’m not going to have any more of this,” the guard said as he led Roxanne back down the stairs with the gun held to her back.
Nate and I ducked down behind the couch as PJ stood by the kitchen and waited for them.
“What are you doing? Why are you out here?” the guard said as he looked at PJ.
Then out of the blue, Roxanne ducked down and PJ swung her leg in the air and landed her foot right square on the jaw of the guard. I expected him to go down to the ground after a hit like that, but he didn’t. Instead, he raised his gun and shot PJ.
I hesitated as I watched the scene, but luckily, Nate didn’t hesitate at all. He shot the security guard in the head. We both moved quickly over to PJ to assess what had happened.
“Where did it hit you?” I asked.
“Shoulder, I’m good. Is Roxanne okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“We need to get out of here,” I said as I looked at Nate. “I’ve got her. You check the rooms to make sure we didn’t miss anyone.”
I wrapped PJ’s arm around my shoulder and Roxanne held onto her other side as we made our way down to the boat. I could feel PJ’s blood as it poured from her body onto mine and I knew we needed to get her medical attention right away.
“What’s your gunshot protocol? Where can we take you?” I asked.
“Anywhere is fine, we will figure out the logistics of it later,” she said with a smile.
We were getting ready to leave when we saw Nate carrying another girl down the grass toward the boat.
“She was hiding under a bed,” he said.
The girl was crying uncontrollably. As Nate set the girl down in the boat, Ana went over to her and tried to calm the girl. Then, Roxanne joined her as they both tried to calm the girl and soothe her crying.
“Let’s get out of here, George,” I said as I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I’m damn glad you were here.”
“Best night of my life. I can’t wait to explain to my partners why there is blood all over our boat.”
“You can’t tell them the truth,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry, they wouldn’t believe me if I did tell them the truth. I think of some outlandish story to tell them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
ROXANNE
I couldn’t believe we were in the boat and we had made it out of Stephano’s alive. I was worried, though, and I moved from the girl tha
t was crying over to PJ. Nate was holding pressure on her wound and I sat down beside her and held her hand.
“You’re pretty damn good at your job,” I said as I squeezed her hand.
“You know if you ever want a job with the agency, I can put a good word in for you,” she said.
I was shocked and looked up at Jackson to see if he had heard the same thing I had just heard. He raised one of his eyebrows and smiled in agreement. It was a sweet offer, but I was pretty sure the CIA wasn’t looking for girls like me to work for them.
“Thanks, PJ,” I said. “Can I get you anything?”
“Yeah, can you call my husband and tell him I’m all right? His number is in my things at the hotel.”
Nate, Jackson, and I all looked at each other in total shock. We had absolutely no idea she was married. The way she had handled herself throughout our whole job it was impossible to have known she had a husband. She was really good at keeping secrets I thought to myself. But I figured that was part of her job with the CIA.
“I did not see that coming,” Nate said as he laughed.
Jackson and I also laughed until we looked down and saw that PJ wasn’t doing very well. She looked like she was having a hard time staying conscious. I held onto her hand while Nate continued to put pressure on the wound. We weren’t going to let anything bad happen to her. There was no way she was going to die on our watch, that was for sure.
“I’ve got this, guys,” the guy driving the boat said as he drove the boat out of the water and turned it into the vehicle again. “We are only five minutes away from the hospital. Keep her awake,” he said like he knew exactly what he was talking about.
By the time we reached the hospital, Nate and Jackson had PJ up in their arms and were ready to get out of the vehicle the second we stopped. The boat driver opened the door hinged at the back of the boat and lowered the stairs so the guys could get her out of the boat.
The rest of us waited patiently as we tried to decide what we should do. I looked at Chase as he sat next to Ana and I could tell that he didn’t know what to do next, either. Ana was rocking back and forth and didn’t seem to even know we were there with her.
Many of the girls were rocking and talking to themselves in languages that I didn’t understand. It was then that I started to realize these girls were not going to be all right. At least, not right away they weren’t.
What were we supposed to do with all these girls? Where were we supposed to take them? Some of them looked really sick and probably should have stayed at the hospital, but I didn’t know what the rules were about people being in the country illegally. We really needed PJ to tell us what to do, she was the one who worked with these girls all the time. She was the one that could tell us.
After about five minutes, Nate came out of the hospital. He raised the stairs in the back of the boat and gave an address to the driver. The duck boat wasn’t the most inconspicuous of vehicles in the world, but it would do well enough to get us where we needed to go.
“PJ gave me the location of their safe house. There will be agents there ready to greet us and take the girls off our hands. They will be tied up in red tape for a while, but they will be taken care of.”
I felt a sense of relief at the news the girls were going to be taken care of. Although our goal was to get Ana out of Stephano’s grip, there were so many other girls who were also there. It was exciting to know that we were going to help them, as well. I couldn’t imagine what these women were going to have to go through as they started to put their lives back together. But no matter what they went through, I knew it would be better than continuing to live with Stephano.
When we pulled up to the warehouse, the girls started to line up and get off the vehicle to go inside. But when I looked over at Ana, she was sitting on the floor by the back of the boat and refused to move. She continued to rock and was curled up in a ball with her arms around her legs. It was clear that she was out of it and wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
“I don’t know what to do. She’s not going to get up,” Chase said to Nate.
“Does she have to go in there? Jordan is going to want to see her,” Nate said.
I agreed with Nate. I didn’t think that Ana belonged in that building with the rest of the girls. Chase and Jordan had money and they could get Ana a good lawyer to help figure out her citizen stuff. They could also get her into a treatment program so she could get the help she needed to recover from all the drugs she had been taken and the counseling she would need form everything else she endured. There was no doubt in my mind that Ana needed to go with us to see Jordan.
“I don’t want to do anything illegal,” Chase said as both of the men looked at her.
I walked over to the steps and started to pull them up. I didn’t care if it was illegal or not. We hadn’t worked that hard to get Ana just to force her into some warehouse with people who didn’t know her or care about her. We weren’t turning her over to the government and that was the end of the story.
After everything had been completed at the warehouse, we drove back to the boat tour place and there was a van there that the guys had left. Since Ana wouldn’t move, Nate picked her up and carried her off the boat and into the van. She seemed comfortable with him and I saw him whispering to her and trying to comfort her as he made his way into the back of the van. She held on tight to him and looked up at him like he was her one and only savior.
Ana seemed to like Nate and held onto him tightly as Chase drove us back to the hotel. I didn’t know what all Ana had been through over the last few weeks, but I suspected it was pretty horrible. I also suspected that things were going to get really bad for her once her body started to withdraw from the drugs she had been taking.
When we reached the hotel, Nate again carried Ana as we went in the back entrance. The guys decided we shouldn’t use the elevator, so we took the stairs up to the third floor where our rooms were located.
I kept looking back at Nate as he carried Ana up the three flights of stairs. He was being sweet to her and whispering something in her ear again as he carried her. She had her arms wrapped around his neck and her head resting on his chest. It was a sweet sight to see Nate being so kind.
Since I had met Nate originally, he seemed so much like a jerk. He was flirting with me and PJ so much on that first night and acting like a bit of a chauvinist pig. I was surprised to see how kind he was with Ana and just how good of a guy he really was. He obviously had been showing off and trying to play the ladies man before. But there, with Ana, he was a perfect gentleman.
When we got to the third floor we knocked on Chase and Jordan’s room. The anticipation was killing me as we waited for Jordan to open the door. When Jordan opened the door, she was already crying as she reached out to Ana and grabbed her. Jordan was crying so hard that it was hard to understand what she was saying.
“Ana, Ana, you’re okay. Oh, my God. You’re okay,” she said as she wrapped her arms around Ana and pulled her out of Nate’s arms.
Nate let Ana go, but he stayed close to make sure she was strong enough to stand up by herself. Ana looked confused and out of it, but as she stood up, she looked at Nate and then toward me and back to Jordan. It took her some time to figure out that Jordan was real. The moment was real. Then Ana wrapped her arms around Jordan and the two girls collapsed to the ground in tears.
I couldn’t understand what they were saying to each other, it sounded like they were speaking in German, but I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that the day had ended happily and we had just delivered Ana to her friend who had been worried and looking for her for months.
“Should we give them space?” Chase said as he looked at Nate and I.
“Yep,” Nate said. “See, Ana, I promised you it would be worth it.”
Ana looked up from her tears and smiled at Nate. She had a beautiful smile that I couldn’t remember seeing since the time when she had first arrived at my apartment. There was a new light in her eyes and it
looked like she actually recognized me.
“Roxanne, you’re here?” Ana said as she looked at me and suddenly realized I was there.
“Yep, I’m glad you are all right,” I said as we turned to leave the two women so they could have some time.
“Thank you,” Ana said as she looked at me, then Nate and Chase.
As Nate let the door close, we could hear the girls talking and crying. It felt good to do something so outrageous like we had done that night. It felt better than I ever imagined something could feel.
“We’ll catch a plane back to Atlanta in the morning if you want to come and get your dog,” Chase said as I opened my hotel room door.
“Oh, yes, that would be great.”
“And I’ll wire the rest of the money to your account. Thank you so much for being here with us. I don’t think we could have done this without you,” he said.
It made me feel good to hear that he appreciated me. I felt pretty damn good for the work I had done, too. I couldn’t wait to sleep all night long and then start my new life in the morning. I was ready to leave absolutely everything about my past behind me and move forward.
“Thank you, Chase,” I said as I hugged him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“By the way, I have a text from Jackson and he says he’ll see you in the morning, as well. He’s staying with PJ to make sure her boss arrives. PJ is stable and doing well.”
“Oh, great. I’m so glad she is doing all right. I was worried with all that blood.”
“Have a good night. Sleep well,” Chase said as he walked with Nate down to his room.
I jumped up and down with excitement after I closed the door to my room. Jackson had made a point to get a message to me. Jackson was thinking about me, just like I was thinking about him.
I had been so worried he was angry with me for going to Stephano’s house. I knew it was a bad decision and I should have talked to Jackson first, but everything had worked out all right now. I couldn’t wait to see Jackson in the morning.