Texas Takedown

by Barb Han

  What the heck was he up to?

  Dylan coiled into a tight ball to protect his organs. There wasn’t much he could do about his head being exposed. But he could salvage other important things. He hadn’t been able to work the binding—what he figured was duct tape—around his wrists enough to free himself. With his knees at his chin, he could buck and take out at least one of them, maybe two.

  As he waited for the right moment to strike, he was suddenly hauled up to a sitting position from behind. Something was shoved over his head, plunging him into complete blackness again. A canvas bag? The next thing he knew, there was pressure against his larynx. He could feel anxiety tightening inside his chest. Count backward from ten...nine...eight...seven... The object pressed harder against his throat... Six...five...four... A few more seconds and he’d be fine... Three...two...one. There—his pulse returned to normal. The military had taught Dylan to adjust his body’s response to stress. He took in a deep breath. The pressure around his neck eased. Whatever they’d used was too soft and too thick to be a cord. He was most likely dealing with a rope of some sort. And that was about the best news he’d gotten so far. He continued working his hands against the tape, trying to break free.

  Still no luck there.

  The next thing he knew, he was being pushed off the table and onto his feet. His knees buckled. Hands on his elbows righted him and kept him upright. With a bag over his head and his arms bound behind his back, he immediately thought that he was being prepared for execution. Nothing Dylan hadn’t been exposed to before. Dylan walked through the scenario in his mind to prep himself for it. They’d most likely take him out to the field and then force him onto his knees. There’d be bright lights in his face once the bag came off again, loud cursing and threats.

  His adrenaline spiked thinking about it. Good. He’d rather have that happen now while he was being forced to walk than once the bag was off. They’d probably get in a few more jabs, especially if Bearded had anything to say about it.

  He pictured himself being calm, watching for an opportunity to fight back. If any one of them got too close with a gun, Dylan could disarm the guy in two seconds flat. If there were still only three of them, the odds were decent that he’d be able to take them down.

  Without the free use of his arms and hands, that would be tricky but not impossible. He tried to move his hands again. Nothing. His wrists were wrapped up too tightly.

  Most likely, this was all a big bluff. Dylan had to consider every possibility. He had to prepare for the scenario that they were actually going to execute him, as well. He thought about why they’d shoot, and his muscles coiled as anger burned through him. They would have to have Samantha. That would be the only reason they no longer needed him. Plus, since he’d seen their faces, they’d have no choice but to do away with him. He’d committed all three to memory. Bearded was the tallest and scruffiest. The other two looked as though they could be brothers. There was only an inch of height difference between them. Both had bright red hair and blue eyes. Bright Guy One had tattoo arm sleeves and his theme seemed musical. There were staffs filled with notes running up his right forearm. On his left were instruments linked together. The other Bright Guy had a snake eating a bird while wrapped around a tree.

  Dylan could identify all three men and testify against each one. If a smart prosecutor did enough digging, it couldn’t be that difficult to tie them to their boss.

  So, basically, whatever was about to happen wasn’t looking good for Dylan. He needed to think his way out of this situation. Based on the grip they had on his arms and the fact that no one had said anything yet, he didn’t figure these guys would be much on conversation.

  With one on either side of him, flanking him, he guessed the third was walking behind and had his gun pointed at Dylan’s head. If that man happened to be Bearded, then he wouldn’t need much encouragement to pull the trigger.

  But they’d said they had orders. Great.

  He’d given up on the chance that he’d be taken to the guy in charge.

  A door opened and then shut behind them.

  The ground underneath his shoes was forgiving, which told him that he was no longer walking on concrete. So they’d taken him outside and not into another room. Okay, this was bad, but Dylan had been in precarious situations before and managed to get out alive.

  “On your knees,” one of the guys shouted. “Where is she?”

  Yeah, this was about to be a picnic for four.

  Dylan shrugged.

  “Boss just wants to have a conversation with her.”

  “He ever hear of a cell phone?” Dylan shot back.

  Any second now they’d be jerking off his head covering and then he’d be blinking his eyes to adjust to the bright light. Guns would be pointed at him, so he needed to ready himself for that.

  Since they hadn’t shot him already, he held on to the hope that Samantha was still at the barn and didn’t answer.

  He didn’t want to think about how much he missed her. Or the fact that he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. Maribel was already his kryptonite, so he didn’t want to have to worry about another human being. Bel was enough to think about.

  Dylan tensed and relaxed, trying to get his muscles to stop from knotting up on him. His arms were already cramping. Even if he could get the bindings off, he doubted it would do any good. Then again, adrenaline did funny things to the body. And just thinking about Samantha’s and Maribel’s safety had his pumping.

  “You think you’re funny?” The toe of a boot nailed Dylan in the ribs.

  “I’m a freakin’ comedian.”

  “I bet she’s gone. He doesn’t know anything,” one of the men said.

  Ready for the bag to be pulled off, he tensed when hands gripped his biceps and he was hauled up and then tossed onto hard metal. A latch clicked, like a gate.

  The sound of doors opening and then closing came next. Car? Truck?

  He couldn’t be sure until the engine roared to life. Then he was certain that he was in the back of a Bright Guy’s truck.

  Excitement trilled through Dylan’s body. There were two scenarios possible here. Either he was being taken out of town for a body drop or he was going to meet the guy in charge. He kept working the bindings against his wrists, trying to get a little wiggle room.

  Nothing was happening there.

  Dang. Whatever material they’d used was unyielding. It was wide, covering at least three inches of his wrists. It was sticky, so his earlier assumption that it was duct tape was probably spot-on.

  So far, the roads were bumpy. The truck had kicked up dust, so the warehouse he’d been taken to had to be on the outskirts of town.

  Dylan made mental notes about everything he remembered. Didn’t help that his head was still splitting from one helluva headache. Everything might be riding on what he thought, heard or felt.

  So he shoved his pain to the back burner and listened. They were traveling fast down the rutty road. Air cooled his skin. Even though it was the hot part of summer—eighty degrees when he went to bed, eighty degrees when he woke the next morning—the draft was nice.

  He counted in order to track how long they’d been driving.

  By the time they stopped, they’d been on the road at least thirty-five minutes. The roads had smoothed and then gotten bumpy again.

  They could’ve been anywhere. He hadn’t heard anything to distinguish the area they were taking him to. No noises typical of a city at night either, so they must’ve stuck with the country.

  His shoulder hurt from being bounced around. It battled with his head for the body-part-in-the-most-pain award.

  The gate opened and he was suddenly being dragged out by his ankles. Damn.

  A set of hands gripped his body, pulling him by his shirt, but he bounced on the hard dirt anyway.

&n
bsp; Someone stepped over him.

  “Boss says you have twenty-four hours to find and bring the lady to the drop spot and then he’ll give your daughter back. Time’s ticking.”

  “He hurts my child and it’ll be the last thing he does,” Dylan ground out.

  “There are other ways to take care of your daughter without putting a hand on her.”

  The noose loosened around Dylan’s neck and the canvas bag was jerked off. Dylan blinked, trying to gain his bearings as he lay on his side in the dirt. Not exactly the best vantage point. The pickup truck was behind him. It’d be all too easy for one of the guys to put the gearshift in Reverse and back right over him.

  A cell phone was shoved in his face.

  There was a picture of Maribel standing in the corner, arms folded, with a copy of the day’s newspaper. Her stubborn streak could get her in trouble with these bastards. Rage boiled through Dylan. He reminded himself to stay calm. She was healthy, alive and it didn’t look as if anyone had laid a hand on her. As long as they kept it that way, they were cool. None of those men wanted to see the hell Dylan would bring forth if anything happened to Maribel.

  “You want her back in one piece. Do as the boss says,” Bearded said.

  Dylan surveyed the guys. Two were to his right. Bearded was to the left. He was the only one looking away. The big man didn’t seem to like the idea of a little girl getting hurt. Did he have kids of his own?

  “Let me tell you something and, please, do me a favor and take this back to whoever’s in charge. If anything happens to my daughter, if she so much as snags a fingernail while in your boss’s care, then every last one of you had better sleep with your eyes open for the rest of your lives, because there is no length to which I will not go to personally destroy you and everything you love. And if anything happens to me, I have half a dozen friends who will see the job through on my behalf. That you can count on,” Dylan ground out.

  Something flashed behind Bearded’s eyes. Since it didn’t faze him to beat the heck out of Dylan, the man had to have a family.

  The other two didn’t flinch.

  “Forgive me if I’m not scared,” one said, making his body tremble in order to mock Dylan. “You’re not exactly in a position to dish out threats.”

  “My name is Dylan Jacobs. Remember it. Because if this goes down wrong, I’m the man who will put you in your grave.”

  One of the men reared his foot, ready to kick, but Bearded stepped in between the guy and Dylan, putting his hand against the guy’s chest. “Let’s go. Like you said before, this dude is all talk. He’s not worth it. We did what we were supposed to. Now let’s grab some food.”

  “Whatever.” The guy blew out a sharp breath, turned and moved to the passenger side of the truck. The other one took the driver’s side.

  “Where are you keeping the old man?” Dylan shouted toward them. He couldn’t go back without news about Samantha’s father.

  Bearded turned his back to Dylan and started toward the truck. The big guy paused, and then a small shiny metal object landed near Dylan’s head.

  Out of the side of his mouth, Bearded said, “The old guy is with your daughter.”

  Dylan was already scooting toward the ditch. He managed to palm the object as he rolled out of the way. Giving those guys an easy target wasn’t in the plan today. Besides, the driver would’ve been all too happy to put some tire treads on Dylan’s chest.

  Feeling the oblong object with grooves down the side, Dylan realized he’d been given a pocketknife.

  He had no idea why Bearded was being so generous. The other two seemed intent on making things as difficult as possible. As it was, Dylan was stranded on the side of the road with no idea where he was or how to get back to Samantha. He had no phone and no way to get word to Samantha that he was safe. She had to be worried sick by now, and his biggest fear was that she’d go out looking for him. Based on the position of the moon and the time of the year, he figured it was before midnight. He opened the knife and cut his hands free. Then he sat up, rubbing his sore wrists to get the blood going again.

  If it was close to midnight, he’d been knocked out in that warehouse for a couple of hours.

  There were two things saving his sanity right now. Maribel’s picture, for one. She might not be happy, but she was fine. They seemed to be taking good care of her. They’d better be.

  And he knew Samantha was safe as long as she stayed put. They still wanted her and they were willing to do pretty much anything to get her, including set him free.

  Dylan hoped like the dickens that she’d stayed inside the barn, where she was safe. It would be just like Samantha to take off looking for him, and he’d been gone too long already.

  * * *

  SAMANTHA WOKE TO the sound of the door opening. She bolted upright. “Dylan?”

  It was late and she’d almost gone looking for him. A foreboding feeling had returned her to the office. No way did she want to jeopardize the innocent lives tangled in this web.

  “I’m here.” His voice was gruff.

  All she could see was his silhouette with the light streaming in from behind him. He was limping.

  She pushed off the sofa and was at his side in a second. “You’re hurt. What happened to you?”

  “Get me to the couch.” He put a little of his weight on her for the rest of the walk. There was so much blood on his shirt.

  In the soft light, she could see bruises on his face. There was a cut over his right eye.

  “What did they do to you?” She pushed back the tears threatening, grabbed the first-aid kit and bent down in front of him. She immediately went to work on his injuries.

  First she cleaned the cut with fresh water and a wipe. He flinched at her touch.

  “I ran into a few of his guys.” He sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down.

  “What did they put you through?” She blotted antibiotic ointment on the cut, fighting the panic that he was truly hurt.

  He pulled back and caught her wrist in his hand. It was then that she saw how red his were.

  “I let them take me, thinking I’d end up wherever Maribel was.” He loosened his grip on her wrist and pulled it to his lips, placing a kiss on the soft skin. “Sorry. Keep going.”

  Then he released her hand altogether.

  She ignored the sensations pinging through her body and instead focused on the degree of his injuries. He was back, safe. She could only imagine what had happened to him.

  “Does this hurt?” She gently blotted his cut again.

  He sucked in a burst of air but shook his head.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” she said, placing gauze over the wound, then taping it to hold it in place. She wiped his face with a clean cloth, being extracareful on the spots where bruises were beginning to form.

  His hands closed on the sides of her waist, and he bent forward until his head rested on her stomach.

  “They’re going to hurt her if I don’t figure out a way to find them in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “What did they say, exactly?” She ran her hands through his dark hair.

  He lifted his gaze to hers. “First of all, she’s with your dad.”

  Relief washed through her. “They’re both safe?”

  “As far as I know.” He caught her eye and she knew he was being completely honest. Besides, it wasn’t like Dylan to sugarcoat things. She could trust what he said. “They want a trade.”

  “That could work. Same meet-up location?”

  “No way. I’m not having it. They kill you and she’s dead. So is your father.”

  “And what will they do if I don’t show?”

  “You don’t come and they’ll kill one of them, or both, which might just be a threat. We can’t be sure they’ll follow through.”
/>   “You really want to take that chance?”

  “No. Of course not. But we’re not exactly dealing in ideal circumstances right now.” He bowed his head for a second. “The other choice is that we get evidence against Charles Alcorn and force his hand. We have to bring the fight to his doorstep.”

  “It sounds too risky. What if it’s not Alcorn? Then we have nothing.”

  He slanted a look at her.

  “Did they give you any way to contact them?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Would you tell me if they had?” she asked, guessing she already knew the answer to that question.

  He just stared at her, didn’t speak, didn’t make a move to speak.

  “I thought as much.”

  “They didn’t, though. I’m being honest about that, which reminds me—I have to call Jorge.”

  She watched as Dylan moved to the desk and called his friend, explaining that they’d gotten his cell phone and he’d had to pick up a pay-as-you-go phone from the convenience store. She couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end of the line, but Dylan nodded his head and thanked his contact before returning to his spot on the couch.

  “Dylan, listen to me. I would do anything to get your little girl back. If they want me, let them take me. I’ll go alone. I’ll tell them that I told you everything and that you’re going to the police if I don’t walk out of there with your daughter.”

  He didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he seemed to carefully consider it. “No.”

  “Not so fast. This could work.”

  “I won’t trade one life for another.” There was so much torment in his gaze that it momentarily robbed her breath. “Besides, we don’t know if it will work. I’ve thought through every scenario, and every single one carries too much risk. I won’t allow anything to happen to you.”

  He might not be able to choose between her and his daughter, but she certainly could. Nothing was worth that little girl’s life. Samantha would figure out a way to make the trade on her own if she had to.

  “I know where they’ll be in twenty-four hours. That’s more than we’ve managed to figure out so far.”