by B. B. Hamel
“Logan,” Anton says. “Don’t screw up. Be fast. We’ll be waiting with your girl when you get back.”
I raise an eyebrow at him and he grins at me, but I don’t have a chance to say anything. His phone rings and he turns away. I have to walk fast to catch up to Mikhail and his two goons.
I don’t know what the deal is with this. I know this can’t be some straightforward job, but if they wanted to kill me, I don’t know why they just don’t do it here.
Maybe I’m protected somehow. Maybe command has a deal with the Russians. But if I got popped on a mission to the local cartel ...
I put that thought out of my mind. Concentrate on the here and now, that’s all I can do. I follow Mikhail into a waiting truck. I sit in the passenger seat and the other two get in the back. Mikhail starts the engine and we pull out.
I’ll find out what this mission is soon enough. In the meantime, I put my bag on the ground and reach inside of it, making sure I have my weapon ready.
25
Riley
The morning after our walk on the beach, Logan brings me breakfast, but he doesn’t stick around. He kisses me quickly on the lips and then leaves me alone to eat.
I’m so relieved. It’s hard to even explain what it means to me knowing that Logan is here to keep me safe. I suspected that he’d protect me, or that he was protecting me already, but now it’s just confirmed. Logan isn’t some bad guy asshole like everyone else. He infiltrated this group to try and save me.
All because my father sent him. A chill runs down my spine at the thought of my father.
I don’t want to go back to him. That’s like going from one prison right into another. I don’t want to be a part of that man’s life anymore, even if he’s the one that’s trying to save me. I don’t know what I’ll do at the end of this, but I’m not staying with my father. No matter what.
This experience taught me something important about myself. I’m not as weak as I think I am. I can handle a lot more than I ever imagined. Living out on my own and making my own life won’t be nearly as hard as surviving what I’ve gone through already.
I’ll run from my father. I don’t need his help or his money. I’ll make my own life outside of his reach.
There’s also Logan to think about. I don’t know what we’re going to be once we get away from here. Can we really have something beyond these walls? I feel in my heart that we could, but I don’t know what he thinks. It’s impossible to talk about it here, since they’re listening, but I need to know.
I can’t help but picture what life might be like outside of this place with Logan. I want to know how he lives, what he does on a normal day. I want to know everything about him. I’m not afraid of him, not anymore. There’s no question in my mind that he’s here to help me.
And I know my feelings are justified. Even if they came about in some strange and impossible way, they’re real and for a person that deserves them. That’s all that matters to me in this moment.
Despite Logan’s warning about something being off, I feel good all day. I can’t help myself. I just keep smiling, even though there’s nothing to smile about. I’m still locked alone in my cage, held by a bunch of psychotic bastards that want to sell me into sex slavery.
At least I know now that Logan will never let that happen. I don’t have to be afraid anymore, because I have him. And that’s like an enormous weight lifted from my body. I feel like I can breathe, really breathe, for the first time since I was taken.
The morning passes quickly, and soon I can hardly contain my excitement. I know Logan is coming again, and although we can’t talk, at least I’ll get to see him. Maybe even touch him. It seems silly now, but I can’t wait for him to get here.
He’s the man that I wait for. He’s the one that’s getting me through this nightmare. I didn’t even know it, but this whole time he’s been like my guardian angel or something like that, working to protect me from the other bastards that are keeping me here.
But soon lunch rolls around, and Logan is nowhere to be seen. I feel antsy, anxious, and can’t understand where he is. He’s almost never late for lunch, and I’m sure he wants to see me right now as much as I want to see him.
My heart swells around the time the sun is highest in the sky. I can hear footsteps outside of my door, and I’m sure that it’s Logan. I sit up when the latch switches open and the door slides inward.
But it’s not Logan. A man I don’t recognize walks into the room followed by another man, this one I feel like I’ve seen before, but can’t place him. He’s fat and bald with a wicked grin on his face.
“On your feet,” he orders.
“What?” I ask.
He walks up to me and backhands me across the jaw. I see lights flash across my vision.
“You’ve had it easy, bitch. That ends now.” He’s crouched down in front of me, his breath like rotten garbage on my face.
I whimper and nod, biting back the tears.
“On your feet,” he says again.
I stand up. The man nods at the guard, who proceeds to come into my room and take away every comfort Logan gave me. No more books, magazines, pillows, or blankets. When the guard is finished, I’m standing in a bare cell again, and the bald man smiles at me.
“I’m sure you’ve enjoyed yourself with Logan, but that’s over now.” He steps toward me, his smile morphing into something lewd as he looks at my body. I shiver and look away. “My name is Anton, and you’re mine, bitch.”
I nod but don’t look at him. I can smell his breath again as he chuckles.
“You’ll learn to like it,” he says. “For now, be quiet and be good.” He turns and leaves. The door closes and locks behind him.
I collapse into the corner, sinking down to the hard floor, trying not to cry, but the tears rip from me with convulsive suddenness. I sob into my hands as my jaw aches like crazy where Anton hit me.
What the hell just happened? Ten minutes ago, I couldn’t wait to see Logan again and things were okay. But now, suddenly this horrible, disgusting man says he owns me and they take away everything Logan gave to me.
I can’t help but think about Logan’s warning. He said things were getting bad and that I need to be careful, but I didn’t really know what he meant at the time. Clearly, these people are beginning to see through whatever cover he was using.
Terror strikes me in the stomach, sudden and fierce.
He knew this was a possibility. He told me about him because he was afraid that they were going to take him away.
He could be dead.
The thought devastates me. There’s no other way to put it.
Logan could be dead. He’s probably dead. I can’t imagine any other reason why they’d take all of that away from me. He’s no longer in charge of me, and that means he’s probably dead.
My sobbing intensifies, although I know that’s not what he’d want for me. And I can’t be sure that he’s dead. Logan clearly knows what he’s doing if he’s been able to survive this long. He was a Navy SEAL, after all. He’s probably the hardest, most capable man I’ve ever met.
I can’t give up hope, but it’s hard to hold on. Everything I thought was torn away from me in seconds. I thought Logan was going to appear and things were going to be okay, but maybe that’s just not my fate. Maybe I’m just fated to be a slave for the rest of my life, to be kicked around and abused forever.
What else can there be for me?
I was born into abuse. My father was a piece of shit that controlled me for as long as I can remember. And now I’m a slave to these people, and they’re going to use me however they want to. The only person to ever seem to give a shit about me, to actually go out of his way to try and help me, is probably gone now.
This is it. This is all that I mean.
I suck in a sharp breath and raise my head up from my hands. I wipe the tears from my eyes and release a large breath.
This is what I am now, and so it’s time to survive. I have to get thr
ough this. I can’t rely on Logan. If he’s really gone, I have to keep going, at least for him. He wouldn’t want me to roll over and take it from these bastards.
But as soon as I build up the confidence to resist, I remember his warning. He wants me to do whatever they say. How long can I do that for, though? A few days maybe. If he’s still alive, a few days is enough for him to try and get back to me. Afterwards, I’ll fight them with every ounce of my energy.
And then I’ll probably die. They’ll kill me somehow. Dying won’t be easy, but it’s all I have left.
I’m nothing already. It can’t get worse than this. At least now I can resist them. If Logan is out there somewhere, he’ll come back to me. And if he’s not, I’ll fight until I’m dead.
I stand and walk over to my cot. I lie back down and stare up at the ceiling, wondering how I’ll fight and what comes next. But I’m down for maybe five minutes before I hear more steps and the door flies open again.
It’s the guard from earlier. He walks in and grabs my arm.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He grunts and yanks me from the cot. I go along with him as he shoves me into the hallway and slams the door behind him.
“Where—“
I don’t get the sentence out before he slaps me in the face.
“Move,” he says, and shoves me down the hall.
I obey silently, fuming and angry, but doing what I’m told. He hustles me down a series of halls until he opens a door and shoves me into a cell identical to the one I just left.
“You’re close to your new master now,” the guard says, leering at me, and then leaves.
I stand in the middle of the room before dropping down onto the unfamiliar bed.
New room, same situation. Logan can find me. He will if he’s around.
Otherwise, I’ll resist soon.
As I lie there on my bed, looking around my new room, I notice one big difference. It’s surprising, completely surprising, to see a mirror on the far wall.
I stand, curious, and walk over to it. I look at myself and frown, almost unable to recognize the girl staring back at me. She’s gaunt, tired, and dirty looking. My hair is a mess. I need a shower. I need to get rid of the bags under my eyes.
It’s me and it’s not me. Going so long without a mirror has been an interesting exercise. I don’t know how I feel about having one suddenly. I turn my back to it and walk away, trying not to think about the mirror.
I just need to focus on one thing at a time. Just one foot in front of the other, so to speak. I have to take it minute by minute until the end comes, otherwise I’m going to go inside.
I can’t think about Logan. I can’t let myself. He might be dead or maybe he’s not, I don’t know, I can’t know. I’m just a prisoner in my cage, praying that someone takes me away.
I’m in an impossible situation, but all things considered, I think I’ve done a great job so far. I’ve survived, despite everything going against me. I don’t even know what happened to my friend back at the club. Maybe she’s dead or maybe they have her. All I know is that I’m still alive.
I’ll keep on being alive until I know Logan is gone.
26
Logan
It is not the most comfortable car ride I’ve ever been on.
I could have used a little chatter. Maybe even some light banter, but that’s probably too much to expect. The two guys in the back are stone-silent, and probably don’t speak much English. Mikhail comments on the landscape around us and says one vaguely racist thing about Mexicans, but otherwise we drive on in silence.
This is the first time I’ve really been out of the compound since coming, not counting the few trips to the surrounding beach area. We move through a small town, barely more than a collection of lean-tos and shanties. The people in the town are poor, incredibly poor, and I suspect that many of the guards actually live there. It would make sense, because as soon as we get out of that town, there’s nothing for miles.
I mean nothing. There are stereotypes about the Mexican landscape being all desert, and of course there are huge swaths of that all over, but Mexico is actually a beautiful country.
However, we are not in the beautiful part. We’re deep in the stereotypical Mexico, all cactuses and arid, red, sunbaked clay land. The road is barely a road, more like hard packed dirt with tire marks in it, and I’m pretty sure we’re driving in circles.
“What’s the plan again?” I ask Mikhail after we’d been driving for about a half hour.
“We go. We meet cartel. We give money. We go home.”
“Eloquently said,” I respond.
“Don’t be funny. Nobody likes a funny man.”
I grin at him. “You think I’m funny? Thanks, Mikhail. You’re sweet.”
He ignores me and keeps driving. I glance back at the guards but neither of them return my gaze.
So, we’re going to deliver cash to the cartel. “How much, exactly?” I ask Mikhail.
He pauses. “A lot,” he says after a second.
Okay, we’re going to deliver a lot of cash to the cartel.
But there’s something conspicuously missing.
There’s no cash in this car. Or at least there’s no bag large enough to be holding a lot of cash. The thing with cash is, it takes up space. And the more cash there is, the more space it takes up. Maybe it was already loaded in the back before we got in, but I really doubt that. I didn’t get a glimpse of any bags back there, and I did make a point of looking as we walked past.
So, no cash, or at least no obviously visible cash. Which means Mikhail here is lying about something.
I can guess what he’s lying about. This whole fucking mission stinks of a setup.
For one, why would they send me along? That makes no sense, I’m a stranger and it’s my understanding that drug cartels tend not to like strangers. If Anton is trying to maintain a good relationship with a cartel, he wouldn’t send some random fucking gringo along on the drop.
Then of course there’s the fact that Anton has been souring on me for a while now. Probably never liked me to begin with. He thinks my methods are bullshit and probably thinks I’m some kind of saboteur, which of course I am.
Anton isn’t stupid. I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. He’s been in this business for a long time and this is not the sort of industry that allows fools to thrive. The idiot human traffickers are all dead or rotting in jail. Meanwhile, Anton toils on and is even thriving.
That means he has to have some kind of instincts for this. And the way I walked into his life is for sure fishy at best. Clearly I’m not what he expected and he thinks my methods are bullshit, because clearly they are.
What I’m not sure about is why the Russians are okay with my firm taking Anton down. He probably shorted them, or has been shorting them, or they found some new supplier and they figure it’s easier to get Anton out of the way. It’s hard to really know what the Russians actually want when so much of this shit is so complicated.
I’m not an expert on any of it, and frankly don’t want to be. But if I can see that there’s probably some reason that the Russians want to get rid of Anton, it’s almost definite that he can see it too.
He’s probably paranoid as hell right now, and my company just dropped me into the heart of a dangerous, violent, paranoid psycho’s house. And he sniffed me out.
This is a fucking setup. We’re not driving out into the desert to meet with some cartel, we’re driving out into the desert so that these three men can kill me and then get rid of my body.
They’ll go back and tell the Russians and, by extension, my people that I died in a firefight with the cartel, no doubt. Although that’s a lie, of course. But it’ll take the blame from Anton, and then he can work to get back into their good graces. Or maybe he can work to kill his competition. I don’t know what his long-term plan is and it doesn’t really matter.
All that matters is he’s trying to kill me.
“What’s t
he plan here, boss?” I ask Mikhail.
“The plan is for you to shut your mouth,” he says.
I smile slightly at him. “If we’re making a drop with the cartel, it makes more sense to tell me what’s going down, right? That way I don’t screw it up by mistake.”
I watch him as he reasons that out. He probably doesn’t think all this subterfuge is necessary, which is good. He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, which is even better. He probably thinks I’m just some regular guy.
“We meet them in the desert, not much farther. We give them money, they leave, we leave. That’s plan.”
I sigh. “Okay, boss. Sure. Sounds good.” We drive in silence for a few more minutes. “So tell me, you’re ex-military, right?”
He glances at me. “Maybe,” he says.
“Spetsnaz?”
His eyes narrow. “Could be.”
“Which branch?”
“The fuck you care?”
I just shrug and look out the window. “Just making small talk. Those guys back there aren’t much to talk to.”
“Their English is bad.”
“No kidding.” I look back at Mikhail. “Come on, now. You intelligence? Paratrooper? Some shit like that?”
“Chechen,” he says. “Vostok.”
I blink, surprised. I know what that is, though he probably didn’t think I’d recognize it. The Vostok is an elite branch of the Russian military and a special Chechen force. They’re known to be particularly fucking brutal and dangerous.
I underestimated Mikhail, and I’m glad I asked him. Now I know who and what he is, but I still have the advantage. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of.
We crest a nearby ridge and begin down the far side. Ahead, there’s a small outcropping of cactuses and Mikhail heads over toward it.
“That’s spot,” he says.
“Did you fight in Chechnya?” I ask him.
“Of course.”
“See much action?”
“In Chechnya, back then, everything was action.”