The Battlefield Series 5: Breaking Through the Pain (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Dixie Lynn Dwyer

  “If you don’t want me to hurt the woman and the two kids, you’ll follow me nice and quietly out of here,” the man said to her. When she tried to look at him he pressed the gun more firmly against her back.

  “Okay,” she said, voice cracking. She was shaking, fear beginning to course through her system. She thought about what to do, but the priority was to get away so Marlena and the kids wouldn’t get hurt.

  As they exited the store she made eye contact with one of the cashiers. All too soon they were in the parking lot in the back. A car door opened to a vehicle with tinted windows. She saw the man inside, and doing one of the moves she learned in the dojo, she ducked down, slid back, and kicked the man with the gun in the knees before she took off running.

  Cali ran down the street but her worry was for anyone she stopped to ask for help. She would be putting them into danger. She needed to get to the police station. She ran across the road and started to head down the block as the car swerved out in front of her and she slammed against the hood. She heard cars squeal and horns honk as her body hit the hard ground with a thump. She got the wind knocked out of her and couldn’t catch her breath as two men lifted her up, shoved her into the car, and sped off, hitting a car on the way out of town. She was gasping, her focus on breathing, but when she finally could catch a full breath, she felt a prick to her neck. She looked back over her shoulder to see who was holding her steady.

  The shock hit her system as her father stared back at her.

  * * * *

  “What the hell do you mean she was taken? Right outside in town, a block from the department?” Dominick yelled into the phone. He told his brothers to head to town. Someone had taken Cali.

  When they arrived on the scene there was a mess. Multiple cars had been hit, ambulances were there attending to a few people nearby, and Cesar was on his phone. He motioned them over and they all headed over to him. He got off the phone.

  “A black four-door sedan, four men in the vehicle. One took her from the store at gunpoint. The cashier said she locked gazes with Cali and knew something was up. She had seen her with Marlena and the boys. It appears Cali was trying to take the danger away from Marlena and the kids. Lief is in the store watching the surveillance and just told me what he saw. We have a license plate and make of the vehicle. The state police and the Texas Rangers are being notified.”

  “It was the men who took her the first time?” Warren asked, pacing.

  “We have to assume it is. It’s a damn mess,” Cesar told them.

  “What do we do first?” Shimmy asked, sounding desperate to physically help and find them.

  “We have an APB out on the vehicle and the state police on board, thanks to Wayde. We have to track that vehicle. They could be taking her anywhere.”

  Cesar’s cell phone went off again.

  “It’s Wayde,” he said to them.

  They waited and saw his eyes widen.

  “Any idea of who they were and what car they switched to?” he asked.

  “Fuck. They switched vehicles,” Culhane said and when Cesar hung up, he told them exactly that.

  “So now we don’t know where they took her or who they were,” Dominick stated. He looked at Culhane.

  “Call Burner and I’ll call Kyran. We can’t sit here and do nothing. They’ll kill her this time.”

  “What are you going to do?” Cesar asked.

  “Find out who took Cali, then hunt them down and kill them once we know Cali is safe and sound,” Culhane responded, and Dominick looked at Shimmy.

  “We’ll find her in time and save her. We’re all she has left to count on. You know that, right?”

  “I know, and I’m ready. Let’s grab our things. Something tells me we’ll be heading north,” Shimmy said as radios went off around them and people all talked about Cali getting taken and wondering who they were and whether or not they would kill her.

  * * * *

  “How the hell did we get away with that? That town was fucking loaded with vets and cops,” Lucien said as one of the other men lifted Cali up and carried her from the vehicle.

  “I told you it would work out fine. They’re a bunch of country bumpkins. We got this,” Jack said and got out of the car in the warehouse. They heard the tires squeal and when they looked toward the garage bay doors, multiple SUVs were surrounding the place and coming right through the door that had begun to close.

  A vehicle came to a halt and shots were fired. The other men, their security, were hit and both men went down. The one carrying Cali remained still. The doors opened and Matel and his soldiers got out, guns drawn.

  “You fucked me over. After all I did for you,” Matel said to Jack.

  Lucian looked at Jack, and Matel’s men grabbed them and brought them to one of the SUVs. Then he looked at Cali and the guard holding her. He spoke to one of his men.

  “Get the girl, bring her in here. Take care of the mess.”

  Jack heard the shot a few seconds later and turned to see one of his men down on the ground dead and one of Matel’s men carrying Cali to his SUV. Everything was working out just fine. Within a few hours he would be a free man and Matel wouldn’t know what hit him.

  * * * *

  “This is the biggest fucking mess I’ve seen in a long fucking time,” Damon said as he looked through the binoculars at the large warehouse down by the factory and the river.

  “You’re telling me. When we got your call we were going nowhere on this case. Jack Walsh disappeared and all our evidence on the Cuban is circumstantial. We didn’t even know about Jack’s daughter being abducted and assaulted a year ago. Your friends here have been a huge help,” Detective Wallhermer said to them.

  “We’re here to save Cali and nothing else matters. What’s the damn plan? We know they’re all in there, including this Cuban asshole you’ve been trying to track,” Culhane said to him.

  “Well, it seems you uncovered more shit than we were able to. We didn’t know that Jack Walsh was a crooked cop. Now we do,” Wallhermer replied and then looked at the other detectives.

  “We need to get closer so we can hear and see what is going on. Get Leif, Mateo, Marco, Shimmy, and Dominick in place on the back entrance and the two sides. Me, Warren, Jared, and Kye will take the front,” Culhane gave the orders and everyone checked their weapons.

  “We should really wait for SWAT to get here and for backup,” Detective Wallhermer said to them.

  “This is backup,” Culhane said and he made the hand signal and they began to move in. Each small group of friends took out any security guards and made their way inside the warehouse. As Culhane got close enough to hear what the men were saying and to see what was happening, he pointed his gun and waited to take the shot.

  * * * *

  Cali awoke to the sound of screams and what sounded like a large engine running. She opened her eyes and there was her father and another man tied to chairs, beaten and bloody. Then she saw that the other man had a bullet to his head. He was dead.

  “Tell me where my money and jewelry are,” the other man yelled at her father. Her vision was still fuzzy, her head throbbed, and she was tied to a metal chair, her feet to the bottom and her wrists behind her.

  “What do you want from me? Let me go. I don’t even know what this is about,” Cali said and the other man with the gun walked closer to her. He reached out and gripped her hair.

  “Such a beautiful, young daughter you have. She’s pretty damn tough though. Killed three of my men, and even took a shot to her shoulder,” he said to her and ripped open her blouse. She screamed out and tried to pull away. He backhanded her across the mouth.

  “Where’s my fucking money, Jack? The jewelry, everything you stole from me, you corrupt pig,” he said and spat at her father.

  “It’s mine,” her father said and she was shocked.

  The guy shoved the barrel of the gun to her head. “Where?” he demanded to know. Her father didn’t say anything. The man pulled back and smacked her on t
he head with the butt of the gun. She cried out and felt the blood drip from her head near her temple. She was crying.

  “Tell him, Dad. Give him what he wants,” she cried out, feeling shocked that he wasn’t telling this guy with the accent where the damn money he stole was. She didn’t even care that her father was an apparent thief. She wanted to be free and let go.

  The Cuban guy grabbed her hair and yelled at her father.

  “Tell me where the fucking money and jewelry is. Tell me and she lives.”

  “Fuck you,” her father said and the Cuban released her head hard and then he came around to face her and struck her again across the mouth. He then lowered down and tore her skirt from her body and she screamed.

  “How ’bout I take her right here in front of you, and then I slit her fucking throat,” he said and pulled out a knife and clicked it open.

  Her father laughed and the Cuban got up, walked over to him, and struck her father.

  “What’s so funny? You think I won’t kill her to find out where my stuff is? Tell me where it is.”

  “No. Let me go and I’ll let you in on a little secret, Matel,” her father said to him. She was crying, her face throbbed, and now she was tied to this chair, only wearing panties as this madman threatened to rape and kill her and her father did nothing.

  “Tell him! Tell him, goddamn you,” she yelled.

  “He can rot in hell,” her father said and the Cuban lifted the gun and shot her father in the chest.

  Cali jumped and screamed out and then he pointed the gun and shot at her, hitting her in the arm. She screamed.

  “I’ll keep doing it. I’ll make her suffer. Know that as she sits here and you watch her suffer while I shoot you piece by piece,” the Cuban said.

  “Go ahead,” her father stated.

  “Help me,” she said as the pain radiated through her arm and she started to feel herself lose strength.

  Matel shot her father again, in the stomach this time.

  “She can die with you then. Father and daughter,” Matel yelled and went to point the gun at Cali, ready to kill her.

  “Except one thing, Matel. She isn’t my daughter,” Jack said.

  Suddenly a shot was fired and Matel fell to his knees.

  “She’s your daughter,” Jack said and then his eyes closed and he didn’t move. Dogs were barking and growling, and she looked up to see Smith and Wesson in a full throttle run toward them. Smith jumped one of Matel’s men and Wesson jumped Matel.

  The man looked at her, eyes wide, with his hand over his chest where he was shot. Culhane, Shimmy, Warren, Dominick, and a bunch of other men from Repose came running toward them. Matel was yelling in pain as Wesson growled and pinned him to the floor. It was Warren who got the dog off of him.

  “Cali,” Culhane said and fell to his knees to cut the bindings.

  Matel fell to the floor but kept his eyes on her.

  “I should put a bullet in your fucking head for what you’ve done to her,” Shimmy yelled at the man.

  “No, Shimmy. Leave him,” she said and she locked gazes with the man.

  “My daughter. Maria was pregnant with my child, not Jack’s. You’re mine. You’re my blood,” the man said and tears rolled from her eyes and sickness filled her heart.

  It was too much to think about. Too much to handle right now.

  Culhane cupped her cheeks. “Focus on me, nothing else but me,” he said to her very seriously. She blinked her eyes, heard the low whimpers, and then felt the dogs licking her skin and Wesson nudging her good arm. She reached out and held on to him while staring into Culhane’s eyes.

  “I love you,” she said to him.

  He gave a small smirk. “Baby, I love you, too. We’ll take care of you,” he said to her.

  “You saved me. He was going to shoot me again.”

  “I know, baby, but he didn’t. We got to you.” Smith and Wesson both put their heads on her lap.

  “Yes, you sure do,” she whispered and the others were by her side as Shimmy and Dominick went into medic mode. She could hardly see between them, but caught sight of Matel’s eyes. He was shocked and his expression daunting, intense. He didn’t fight as they cuffed his hands in front of him. He lay there just looking at her with remorse, and more than likely the same questions she now had.

  She felt the hand on her cheek and looked up to see Shimmy.

  “Don’t look at him. We’ll figure it out. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  She gave a nod as the paramedics took over. She closed her eyes and just breathed through the pain, yet she was sort of numb to it. Her mind was on Matel and what in the world had gone down, and her heart grateful for her three Green Berets and a Marine, and their two military dogs Smith and Wesson. She could hear Warren and Culhane giving the dogs orders, but it seemed they weren’t happy about leaving her side. She absorbed Dominick’s kiss to her forehead, and Warren’s caress of her hand as they rolled her on the gurney out of the building. It was over. The danger, the fear, the need to stay closed up and on guard was over. Finally.

  Epilogue

  Cali lay in the bed with her arm in a sling. She had been pretty depressed and didn’t want to talk to anyone. The men told her what they found out when they took it upon themselves to investigate Matel and Jack. Jack hadn’t been lying. She was indeed the daughter of a Cuban businessman who owned numerous jewelry stores across the United States. Matel willingly took all the required DNA tests to prove for sure that Cali was his daughter. When Culhane and Warren visited him in prison, he begged forgiveness. He explained that back when he was in love with Maria, Cali’s mother, he learned that what he had felt for her, she had felt for Jack, and he was furious. His anger and hatred built up over the years, and he soon came to feel Maria was exposing secrets.

  The men had also discovered that Matel also had connections to the Cuban drug syndicate and had been under surveillance for the last several months. Jack had truly been a dirty cop. Through further digging, they found that Maria had been working for Matel and fell in love with him, but Matel wasn’t faithful and Maria left him and met Jack. Jack had been a conniving liar and thought he could get information from Maria about Matel when she was pregnant. She knew the child was not Jack’s but Jack hadn’t realized until Cali was born and he had a paternity test done. Fast forward years later when temptation and money became too hard to ignore and Jack took his first bribe.

  Her mother was killed on her way home from work one night. It was labeled as suspicious, but the detectives never solved the case and it had remained unsolved. Cali had a feeling that Matel did it or issued the order. He was jealous of Jack and the fact he’d gotten his hands on Maria.

  From what her men found out, Jack started with small things, small drug deals, illegally selling bullets and firearms, and then robbing jewelry stores. He chose the wrong store to hit one night, not knowing that Matel was involved with that business as well. He hid the money and the jewelry, but Matel found out it was Jack and he went after Cali. In Jack’s sick head he thought he could give her to Matel and get the money and jewelry to keep. Matel had seemed enraged at hearing the police’s theory. A trip by Culhane to ask Matel in person what had happened left Cali feeling numb.

  Matel was making his way out of the business of drugs. His focus was on the jewelry stores and independent boutiques. He was making a fortune when he found out that it was Jack who’d robbed his store. Turned out that Matel had gone to see Maria to ask her to be part of his life. He was willing to accept Cali as well. He was turning over a new leaf and going legit. Maria was scared, said that Jack was crazy and he wouldn’t let her go. Matel told Culhane that he believed Jack killed Maria that night when she said she was going to leave him for good.

  It was a total, sick mess. The man she thought was her father wasn’t. Jack had raised her, even went through all the emotions and connections until he started having other people raise her. It had her thinking of comments he made that she hadn’t understand and had ass
umed meant she was more like her mother.

  Jack reprimanded her for being so headstrong, determined to be a businesswoman and own her own company. When she disagreed with him on different subjects he said she was defiant and needed to be more submissive and reserved. What father told their daughter to be submissive and to retreat instead of excel and fight? His anger stemmed from knowing the truth. She was Matel’s biological daughter. He was a headstrong Cuban businessman. Jack was a conniving, crooked cop who was looking for the easy way out, the fast buck, who murdered her mother in revenge.

  Her mother didn’t get to love the man she really wanted to be with. She probably felt trapped, like she had no choice but to be with Jack so at least Cali had a father. Where did that leave her and Matel? She just didn’t know. Would he want to contact her after he served time in prison? Would she want to get to know him despite his criminal past? She didn’t know and she really wasn’t too concerned about it. She was her own woman, could lead her own life, and especially with the support of her four men.

  She heard the knock on the door and Shimmy, Culhane, Dominick, and Warren all entered. Shimmy caressed her cheek and lay down on the bed with her. She snuggled up next to him as the others gathered around.

  “How are you feeling?” Dominick asked her.

  “Tired and overwhelmed,” she said.

  “It was a lot of information to take in,” Shimmy said to her.

  “We understand if you’ll want to speak with Matel sometime in the future. We’ll support you, but you won’t be in physical contact with him,” Culhane said.

  She gave a small smile.

  “I really don’t know what I’ll do. It’s like some crazy love story gone badly.”