Clint returned to his side. A quick look at the watch on his wrist that was set in stopwatch mode showed him two and a half minutes had passed since they’d entered the elevator.
“My property has been stolen, by you. I even understand your reasoning, you stupid piece of shit. You thought since you couldn’t find any way to control me, you’d use someone smaller and weaker as a pawn for that purpose. Guess what? From the moment I bought that property from you, it was all a test, a test you have now failed. You should have stayed where you were a couple of decades ago, Emilio.” Ramón was in the zone. He was the badass he’d played for the last couple of years. Derision dripped from his words. “You’re better suited to be a goon than a patrón. Pretending to be a man of real power and influence was an overreach.”
Ramón saw something come and go in the man’s eyes.
“So, what are you going to do? Arrest me? I know you’re both cops.” He put down his fork and held out his wrists. “Go ahead. Read me my rights. Handcuff me and take me down to your headquarters like you did Kramer. I’ll be out in under an hour, and you will be fired for your incompetence.”
“You think I’m a cop?” Ramón felt his eyebrow raise as he spat the word. He looked over at Clint. Clint shrugged. Ramón looked back at Torres and then fired a shot into that man’s right arm.
Sérgio Torres screamed, his left hand going straight to his arm, a natural human response to coddle an injury, to try and staunch the bleeding. His eyes went wide with shock.
Ramón knew the shot had been a through and through, and through the fat part of his arm at that. It would hurt like hell and bleed like a son-of-a-bitch. But there’d be no lasting damage.
“Dios! Are you crazy? Ahh, the pain, the pain! Call an ambulance! You have shot me. I am bleeding! I will have your badges for this!”
Clint shook his head. “What a pussy.” He holstered his gun again, pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, and put them on. He approached Torres and, after a quick frisk, found the man’s own handgun—a Glock 22, one of the .40 caliber handguns favored by some law enforcement agencies—tucked into a holster on his left shoulder, under his jacket.
Ramón’s partner moved fast, and before Torres could understand what was happening, Clint had placed the gun in the wounded man’s right hand, his own hand over it and in control. Torres screamed in pain as Clint manipulated Torres’ limb and his finger and aimed and fired off two shots in quick succession, well wide of Ramón. Then he tossed the gun on the floor.
He wiggled his fingers at Torres, showing him the gloves. Ramón nearly smiled. It was a signal even Torres would understand—that only the criminal’s prints would be on the weapon.
“You just fired two shots at me, Torres. My first shot that I returned was to wound you, to make you drop your gun. But you, fierce strong hombre that you are, held on and fired a second shot! Now, do I merely wound you again? Or do I kill you? The answer to that question depends on you telling me within the next few seconds where I can find my property.”
“Quickly, amigo,” Clint said. “The clock is ticking.” He pointed at his watch for emphasis. Ramón didn’t know why Clint didn’t offer to work undercover for the DPS. He was damn good at roleplaying. Then he reached up, subtly, and turned on his mic.
Torres’s bravado deserted him as Ramón lifted his gun and aimed, mid-chest. He saw it in the man’s eyes…and was almost sorry he was going to get what he wanted.
“All right. Don’t shoot! I will tell you. They are unharmed, both your property and the other whore with her. My men are expecting me in about half an hour.” And then he gave them the address, and in the next heartbeat, that address was echoed in his ear as Joe announced they’d found where the women were being held.
Clint put his gun away, turned on his own communications bud, and called up the HPD detectives. Then he grinned at Torres.
“We’re going to tell Daisy’s Master that you called her a whore. If I were you, I’d begin to say good-bye to my nuts. He’ll likely tear them off you and either shove them down your throat—or up your ass.”
The instant the cops arrived, accompanied by Tim Plant, Ramón and Clint raced for the elevator. They’d worry about tying up the loose ends and taking care of procedure later. For now, Sérgio Torres would be arrested and placed into the custody of the FBI—in the person of Plant—and would be held quietly at the HPD Central Patrol Station.
* * * *
Marcia had never been so frightened in all her life. Not even that time when she’d awakened naked in that cage. No, then she’d been drugged so much that the edge of fear hadn’t touched her. No amount of medication, however, could have blocked the black hole of despair that had swallowed her then.
She didn’t have anything left to lose that last time. Now she had everything to lose. She was not jonesing to go all G.I. Jane on these bastards. She just wanted to survive the coming war.
“This is crazy,” Daisy said.
“It is. It’s also our only chance.” Marcia looked down at her chest and nodded. Setting aside the paintbrush, she dipped the scissors they’d found into the same can of paint.
“Do you think he’ll fall for it?”
“The lighting in here is shit, which will help. But I think that people more or less see what they expect to see or, rather, don’t always see what is. So yeah. I think the goon out there will definitely fall for it.”
While Marcia set the can out of sight, Daisy picked up the big book on import tax law they’d found. This she set on the edge of the shelf and held it there with the large pipe wrench they’d also unearthed, holding it in place. Those, with the twine, were the full sum of weapons in their secret weapons cache.
With any luck, they’d be better armed shortly. “Ready?”
Daisy met her gaze and nodded.
Marcia lay down on the floor, and arranged herself just so. She grasped the scissors in her right hand and, with her left, gave her best friend the thumbs-up sign. Then she closed her eyes—almost.
So much could go wrong, but to her way of thinking, doing nothing wasn’t an option. There was one person on guard on the other side of this door. Neither she nor Daisy had any idea how long they’d been held here, but it had to be coming up on an hour, which told her they could be running out of time.
And an hour seemed liked a reasonable window to have to wait for rescue. It had to be now. Even if all they managed to do was to give themselves a better hiding spot of their own choosing, they’d be better off than they were sitting here where all of Torres’s men—she would testify they had been his because she had recognized some of them—knew where they were.
Daisy agreed with her. Neither of them wanted to be held at gunpoint in front of their Doms.
Daisy let the large tome fall to the cement. A satisfying thud resulted.
“Oh, my God, Marcia, no! What did you do? Oh, help! Help! She’s dying!”
Daisy was backed up against the wall so that when the guard burst through the door she was well out of his way. He turned his gaze to Marcia, on the floor, unconscious and seeming to be covered in red blood—bloody scissors in her hand. He swore, bent over her, and reached for the pulse in her neck.
Marcia swung up with her right arm, burying the scissors in the man’s side at the same time Daisy brandished the pipe wrench like a baseball bat against his head.
Their prison guard fell over, unconscious.
Marcia got up and reached for the twine. It likely wouldn’t hold him long, but it really didn’t have to. They bound him up like a Christmas turkey and then searched him.
“Bonus!” Marcia held up a second handgun, one that had been in an ankle holster. Daisy had already picked up the one the brute had brandished when he’d come into the room.
“I’d like to gag him, but I’m afraid he might choke.”
“I admire your restraint. If I’d been through what you’ve been through, I’d want to gut every last one of these bastards.”
Marcia smi
led. “There’s a pull. I have to admit it. But I have something far better than revenge waiting for me at the end of this adventure. Ready?”
Daisy nodded.
Marcia went first—she’d insisted on that because this was, after all, her fault or, at least, her shit they were dealing with. She eased open the door. There hadn’t been a key lock, which likely was why they’d been given a guard. She looked out, quickly, but the hall was empty.
She remembered this warehouse from before and had a rough idea of where they could go. “Bastard has an office down there and to the left. If he’s here, he might be there. If not, that’s where he’ll go when he gets here. Plus, there’s a phone in there.”
“I can call Christopher!”
Marcia heard in her friend’s voice the same yearning she felt inside herself. She wanted nothing more than for this to be over so she could be with her men.
Then a sound blared from somewhere up ahead of them. “Federal Agents! Freeze!”
Gunfire erupted ahead, and the sound of running feet coming from behind them made both women turn and raise their guns. Three men were charging toward them, likely wanting to join their partners in crime on the battle line.
“Grab them. We can use them as shields!”
Oh hell no! Marcia planted her feet and raised her gun.
The trio stopped a few feet away from them, and the man who’d spoken spoke again. “You’re just a cunt. You won’t shoot us!”
Marcia didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger. She’d aimed, as she’d been shown, for center mass. Beside her, Daisy also fired. Two men went down, but the third nearly got the jump on them.
Marcia kicked out, her jujitsu training kicking in. She ignored the mental pun, grateful when she kicked the bastard’s gun out of his hand.
Daisy stepped back and let her have her fun.
Her moves were more brutal than the ones she’d used on Christopher in their sparring practice. She put every bit of training to good use. She imagined Torres in the place of this, his minion, and one she recalled assaulting her when she’d been naked and drugged.
“Dios! Mi ángel, drop!”
Marcia didn’t even think. She instantly obeyed the command of her Dom. The explosion of the gunshot, so close, made her ears ring.
Before she could think, Ramón was there, his hands gentle as he turned her from prone to supine. His gaze flashed, horror and fear so deep it hurt to look. Running steps announced more people. At some point the gunfire had ceased.
“Daisy!”
“Oh God! Marcia!” Clint’s anguished cry kicked her in the conscience.
“I’m okay. It’s paint!”
Ramón met her gaze then reached out and touched the spot on her blouse. Clint sank to his knees on the other side of her.
“You’re going to get the spanking of your life for scaring the shit out of us,” Clint said.
“It’ll be a tag-team event,” Ramón agreed.
“Yes, please.” She’d kept it together as long as she had to. What a blessing that she didn’t have to be strong another minute. “Yes, please, there’s nothing I want more.”
“Hush.” She found herself scooped off the floor and in Ramón’s arms. “Hush, mi ángel. It’s over. It’s finally over.” He held her close, and the sensation of Clint right there beside her, too, gave her the sensation of being cocooned between them.
Between them was a place she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
“Daisy.” Christopher was running his hands over his wife, hands that even Marcia could see were shaking.
“I’m okay, too. We stayed together and helped each other.” She bit her lip. “Is Rory okay?”
“A bit banged up, but yes, he’s fine—and anxiously waiting for us at home.”
“Tell the SAC that the hostages aren’t here! Just a big dude, out cold and tied up…with twine?”
The voice came from the vicinity of the office they’d been held in. Despite being on the verge of tears, Marcia smiled.
“We’re to assume that was the two of you?” Christopher asked. He tucked Daisy in close and looked down at Marcia.
“It was a crazy plan,” Marcia said.
“We knew help would eventually come.” Daisy nodded and looked at Marcia.
“We decided to find a better hiding space, one where the bad guys didn’t know where we were.”
“And from the way you were tearing into that asshole, it looked as if you both damn near rescued yourselves.” Clint nodded toward the man Ramón had shot.
Ramón gently smoothed the hair from Marcia’s face and used his thumb to brush away a tear. “You didn’t need us at all.”
Respect shone from his eyes, and his voice held admiration—and love. Too bad he was dead wrong about that conclusion.
“I did so, and I’m going to need you—both of you—every day for the rest of my life.” Exhausted, adrenaline spent, she laid her head against his shoulder. “Can we get out of here soon, please, Sir?”
Ramón tightened his hold on her. “It’s the adrenaline crash, querida.” He kissed the top of her head.
“I don’t see why you can’t leave now,” a familiar voice said. Joe Grant, a man Marcia had met weeks before at Lusty Appetites, smiled down at her. “I’m very happy you women are safe and unharmed. We still want to speak to you, but it can be after you’ve settled a bit. We used Mr. Lyons’s apartment as a temporary base. Why don’t you all head back there?”
“I’m hungry,” Daisy said. “Can we order in?”
Marcia wiped her eyes and sat up a bit straighter. “I could eat.”
The Doms shook their heads and traded looks. She figured they’d been through hell in the last hour or so. They deserved to wear those expressions of masculine superiority.
“I’ll call Rory and get him working on it. I think we’ll open a bottle of something strong, too, for your Doms to sip on while you recount your tale of derring-do.”
Marcia didn’t have to guess. She knew the Master of the Lyon’s Den had included her in that statement.
She just hoped they’d be willing to share the hooch. She had a feeling that she and Daisy were both going to need it.
Chapter 21
Clint figured it for a miracle that he wasn’t having a heart attack.
Six people sat around the dining room table in Christopher Lyons’s penthouse apartment while various others—a couple of HPD cops, one of his colleagues from the DPS, and Special Agent Brenda Freeman with the FBI—one of Ramón’s team members—all hung out close enough to hear the story being told.
It had been a hell of a night, all the way around.
He personally felt much better when, once here, Daisy had loaned Marcia an oversized tee shirt to wear in place of her own “painted” blouse.
Seeing the large red stain over her heart, even knowing it had been paint, was disconcerting. But not nearly so disconcerting as listening as the women explained how that stain had come to be there.
“Then Daisy let the book fall, cried out in horror, and stepped back, so as not to appear threatening.” Marcia told her story in a very straightforward, matter-of-fact way. “Asshole rushes in, sees me on the floor, gets down to see if I’m still alive. I jab him with the scissors, and Daisy coshes him with the pipe wrench.”
“And then you tied him up with twine.” Joe Grant came into the dining room. He leaned against the wall, an amused smile on his face. “Marcia, are you sure you aren’t from Lusty, Texas?”
Clint had a bit of an inkling what Joe meant. When he’d been a guest of the Kendalls in that small town, Adam and Jake had regaled him with tales of what some of the women had been involved in over the last few years, their brushes with danger having made the men’s hair turn prematurely gray—or so they said.
Clint had thought their stories had to have been, if not fantasy, then at least highly embellished. He was revising that opinion.
Daisy quickly covered her mouth, likely in a bid not to laugh out loud. Marsha l
ooked over at the SAC. Clint saw the confusion in her expression. She couldn’t possibly know what he meant. “No, sir, I’m originally from Georgia.”
Ramón stared at Marcia. “May I please ask…why you did all that?”
Clint thought Ramón should win an Oscar for the quality of that one question, alone. He’d been with him when they’d come upon Marcia and Daisy with two would-be assailants on the floor and the other one attacking their woman in hand-to-hand combat. Then when Ramón turned her over and they’d seen that ghastly red…Clint knew Ramón, like him, would very likely have nightmares of that moment for days, weeks, maybe even years to come.
Marcia reached out one hand to Ramón and the other to him. Clint understood, with that simple gesture, that their woman knew them both very well.
“Not to take any more risks than we had to and not for pride or ego, or anything like that. We knew we had to get out of that room and find another hiding place. All of Torres’s people knew where we were because they’d stashed us there. We knew it was only a matter of time before help arrived. I knew you’d be able to find us anywhere in that building because of that chip, but I…we…” She lifted her hands and swallowed hard. Her hands shook, just a little, and tears sheened her eyes. “We didn’t want them using us as shields against you. We didn’t want to do that to our Doms.” She looked around the table. “I knew what you must already be going through, with us taken…” She stopped and inhaled deeply. Clint saw the emotion, and the sincerity. This hadn’t been a case of deliberately putting herself in danger but one of trying to take herself out of the line of fire, completely. “But our timing was off because those other three intercepted us when y’all charged the building. We never had the chance to find that better hiding spot.”
Ramón reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. He used his thumb to rub his kiss in. “I remember telling you if you got to a certain point, to kill your tormentor. I guess I worried…”
“They never touched us. They were afraid of Torres enough that they didn’t dare. That fact was why our silly ruse worked. The goon guarding us didn’t see me dead on the floor. He saw himself being executed by Sérgio Torres.”
Avenging Angel [Tales from the Lyon's Den 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 19