by Peyton Banks
“And that’s exactly why Sergeant MacArthur should sit this one out,” a voice said as the door swung open.
FBI.
“Who the hell are you?” Captain Spooks snapped, his eyes narrowed on the men who’d entered the room with their FBI-marked blue jackets.
“Special Agent Rhett Gamble.” The FBI officer brandished his badge.
They all knew that sooner or later, the FBI would be showing up and trying to take control.
“Special Agent Gamble, my men are the best in the state, and we can handle this. My SWAT team does it all the time,” Captain Spooks replied, striding across the room and taking the agent’s badge.
“No disrespect to you and your team. I said I didn’t think Sergeant MacArthur should be leading the team. He has a personal relationship with the victim,” Gamble remarked, his gaze landing on Mac.
Zain and Iker had to hold Mac back when he flew forward with a growl. Chaos erupted as Mac moved across the room. It took three of his men to contain Mac and keep him from reaching the FBI agent. The two agents who were behind Gamble bounded inside as if to stop Mac as well.
“I’m not going anywhere. I will lead my team,” he snarled, narrowing his eyes on Gamble.
His men tightened their hold on him. He’d like to see the agent try to prevent him from going after Sarena. No one would keep him from going after his woman.
No one.
“That is a prime example why he should sit this one out,” Gamble yelled, trying to hide behind the captain.
“You don’t get to decide what my men do,” Captain Spook announced, moving away from the FBI agent. “And Sergeant MacArthur will lead his team. Sergeant Owen will be right at his side. I’d rather have Mac somewhere his team can keep an eye on him, otherwise, I’d have to lock his ass up to keep him from going after his woman.”
“Captain, I think this would be best discussed in your office,” Gamble said, straightening his jacket. He eyed Mac warily, his men releasing his arms.
Mac kept his eyes locked on the agent, his lip curled up in disgust.
“Sergeant MacArthur is the best SWAT officer on the force. He works best under pressure. I can vouch for him since we served in the Navy together. There is no one I trust more than Mac,” Declan assured, coming to stand next to Mac.
The other members of the team surrounded them, and they glared at the FBI agent.
“Mac leads,” Ashton asserted with murmurs of agreement floating around them.
“Fine. But if anything goes wrong, it’s your department’s ass that will go down,” Gamble stated. “Now let’s talk about strategy.”
Everyone in the room remained tense as the meeting resumed with Declan and Sergeant Kaur laying out the plans. Gamble refused to turn toward Mac whose attention remained on him the whole time. He knew Declan had devised a well-thought-out plan. By the end of the meeting, everyone knew their role. Since they were targeting one of the largest known hangouts of the Demon Lords, the ATF and DEA were being brought in. There was no telling what they would find. This was the largest raid being planned in the state’s history and it was being put together in less than twenty-four hours.
“Any questions?” Declan asked the room from his position in front of the dry erase board. “All right then. SWAT, get your gear and let’s roll.”
The room hummed with tension while people filed out. Mac felt the vibrations of his phone from his pocket. He pulled it out and saw a blocked number was calling.
“What?” he snapped into the phone. He knew it wouldn’t be Sarena’s parents. He had ensured they had his number and he’d programmed theirs into his phone before leaving their house last night.
“MacArthur, you better be doing everything in your power to ensure that my sister is unscathed,” a deep baritone voice growled.
No introductions were needed. Mac knew exactly who was barking orders at him through the phone.
The infamous Harland Rucker.
“I will bring her home,” he promised Sarena’s elder brother.
“I just reached stateside and should be in Columbia by nightfall. If you don’t find my sister, I will break every known law to go after her,” Harlan threatened.
“That won’t be necessary,” Mac announced, moving out of the room with Declan at his side.
“Make sure it won’t be. If something happens to Sarena, you’ll have me to deal with.”
The line went dead.
Sarena swallowed hard and looked around the room. She had awoken to find herself chained to a wall that was filled with women of all ages. Without even asking, she knew why the women were all chained up.
Sex slave trade.
She’d heard about it in the news and never thought she’d be a witness to it, much less be chained up and possibly sold into slavery.
It had been almost two days since she’d woken up to the horror. All of the women had been kidnapped. In her short time there, some women had already been taken away and never returned to the room.
She knew she had to stay strong. Marcas would come for her. But then doubt crept into the back of her mind as she thought of their conversation at dinner when he’d refuted her hero comment.
She released a curse as she tried to push down that doubt.
Marcas was a good man. He would come for her. She knew they hadn’t reached the point in their relationship where they discussed their feelings. They had been too busy learning and discovering each other’s bodies. They were good in bed.
Her heart ached to see him again. She kept the image of him laughing and the intense look he’d given her as he’d guided his cock into her close to her heart.
She knew she loved the intense, possessive man and wished she had taken the time to tell him, even if he didn’t want to hear it. She had thought they would have had more time together. Now, she didn’t even know if she would live to see tomorrow.
Sarena fought back tears when her thoughts turned to her parents and her brother. She knew what Harden would say.
Fight. Fight with every breath you have until you can’t fight anymore.
She was strong.
She would survive this.
She looked around the room again, taking in the young women that filled the space. There had to be about twenty girls ranging in age from teenage up to mid-twenties. They all were tired, dirty, and barely holding on to their sanity.
Cries filled the air as the door flew open. Whenever men came in, a girl was usually taken. Everyone braced themselves to see who they would take this time. The two men, dressed in jeans and hoodies, looked every bit of a street thug. They moved inside, and their gazes landed on Sarena.
She swallowed hard.
They were coming for her.
“Where are you taking me?” she cried out, struggling against them.
They gripped her chains and brought her to her feet.
“Shut the hell up,” one growled.
Another clocked her on the back of the head with his fist. She let loose a cry, and stars filled her sight. Her arms were snatched behind her, and tears slid down her face. They handcuffed her and dragged her from the room.
Cries filled the room again as she disappeared. The women knew she wouldn’t be back and they would be chosen soon.
“Stand up, bitch,” the other one snapped, pulling her arms to where she could get her legs underneath her. Tears continued to flow down her face, and a sharp twinge radiated through her arm. She bit her lip, trying not to show pain or weakness.
They walked down a dark hallway littered with gang members yelling out lewd remarks as they passed them.
“Where are you taking me?” she mumbled, holding her head down.
“I said—”
She braced for another blow, but it never came.
“It’s all right, Taser. She wants to know, then we’ll tell her,” the smaller one cut off the one who had hit her.
Taser’s hand gripped her arm tighter, and she winced. She was sure there was some damage done to her s
houlder. Pain pulsated from it, and she was convinced it had been pulled out of the socket.
“We are taking you to, Silas.”
Confusion filled her, and the image of Silas came to mind. Why would he kidnap her? They’d only had the one run-in before. She bit her lip thinking of what would become of her.
They led her through a door and into a makeshift office. They threw her to the floor. She released a cry, her knees meeting the cold hard slab.
“Here she is, Silas.”
Sarena glanced up and froze in place. A chill slid down her spine as she met the cold eyes of the man who sneered at her.
This was not the Silas she’d met.
No, this was not him at all.
Chapter 17
Sarena’s heart raced as she watched the man in front of her move toward her.
“I’m sure you are wondering why you are here,” he began, his goons stepping away from her.
“Who are you?” she questioned him. She watched him pace the floor in front of her. “Where am I?”
“I am Silas Tyree.” He paused and leveled his cold eyes on her.
“What do you want with me?” she asked.
A smirk appeared on the gangster’s face as he turned to her.
“You have Marcas MacArthur to thank for you being here. Because of you, I will be able to get my revenge on your dear boyfriend,” Silas snarled.
She shifted her body, kneeling before him. He continued to pace back and forth.
“It was his bullet that killed my cousin, Trevor. Not only did he and the SWAT team cause me to lose almost a million dollars in weapons and cocaine, but he snuffed my cousin.”
Horror filled Sarena. She stared at the gangster and had to bite her tongue to keep from defending Mac. She was sure that if he had to pull his trigger on a suspect, he probably did it to save his own life. She dared not verbalized her thoughts by the looks of the crazed gangster in front of her.
She needed to stay alive until Marcas could rescue her.
“He took my cousin’s life, and I will take his woman. An eye for an eye. It’s such a shame that you would have to pay for the sins of your boyfriend. You are such a pretty little thang,” Silas snapped. He leaned in and gripped her chin.
She tried to wrench her face from his hand, but he just laughed.
“Such spunk.”
“I know how to break them.” Taser chuckled from his corner of the room. “Give me thirty minutes with her and I’ll knock the fight out of her.”
She cringed with the thought of being alone with the huge gang member.
“I don’t think she’d liked that.” Silas threw back his head and laughed again before he turned serious. “But I don’t give a fuck what she doesn’t like. I will give you to my men and let them have their way with you.”
“No.”
She shook her head as his menacing chuckle filled the air. His eyes narrowed on her, and she knew there was no way she would allow any of his men to come near her. She would fight until there was no breath left in her body. She would rather die than lie down with his goons.
He snatched her face back in his hand and forced her to look into his cold, calculating eyes.
“They wouldn’t be loving and kind either like your tough boyfriend. They will fill you with their cocks. You will beg for a bullet after my men are done with you, and you know what? Even then as you are begging for me to kill you, I’ll give you to them again,” he spat.
The goons in the room laughed and called out lewd remarks of where they’d like to put their cocks.
“You will suffer, Miss Rucker. All because of Marcas MacArthur killing my cousin Trevor Tyree.”
He pushed her face away, and she fell backwards. Silas and his goons shared a deep hearty laugh at her fear.
She struggled to right herself on the floor, turning her body on her side and resting on her uninjured shoulder.
She glared at him and prayed Marcas and his men would be arriving soon. Fear gripped her that she may not live to see him again, but she did wish for one thing.
That Marcas would be sending Silas straight to Hell.
The air in the BEAR was tense as the team was driven to the location that they hoped the Demon Lords would be holed up in.
Mac was focused. A strange calming feeling came over him, one that washed through him every time he and his team were dispatched. He would channel his anger into finding Sarena, and the moment he got the chance, his trigger finger would be only too happy to send Silas to the depths of Hell to join his cousin.
Intelligence was coming in that Silas was at the location they were on their way to and this raid would be the ‘big one’. It was suspected that there were underage girls being stashed at this warehouse as part of the sex trade. It was also suspected that the gang had gone deep into the sex slave trade. But where there were Demon Lords, there would also be weapons and drugs.
The plan was for them to attack the building under the cover of night. This had to have been the fastest coordination of this kind of raid that Mac had ever seen. All agencies were on board and involved. Not only would they be rescuing Sarena but they would cripple the Demon Lords.
Silence filled the air of the BEAR. The team was deadly and focused.
Declan began going over the plan. “Mac is still in charge. ATF and the DEA will allow us to take the lead in infiltrating the building. They will be right on our asses as we head in. You take down any targets, zip tie them, and keep moving. We have one target to acquire.” Declan paused, his eyes meeting every man’s in the armored vehicle. “Sarena Rucker.”
“We’ll get her back, Mac,” Ashton announced.
Mac’s eyes met his lead negotiator’s, and murmurs of agreement went around the vehicle.
“Don’t worry, Mac,” Brodie said, pulling his mask over his face. “We’ll get your woman back safe and sound.”
“Just no funny stuff, Mac,” Myles’s deep voice spoke up. “Grab Sarena and we get out. No rogue bullshit.”
Mac turned his eyes to Myles, and his entire team had the same look on their faces. They had read him. His men knew him too well.
“If Silas has harmed one hair on Sarena’s head, I can’t make any promises,” he growled, turning his eyes on his team. He had to beat down the rage festering in his chest at the thought that Sarena had been harmed. “Take her and leave.”
Silas Tyree was his.
If the gangster wanted to come after him, for retribution for Mac killing his cousin, he should have been a man and faced Mac. Instead, the gangster had played dirty and grabbed a woman—Mac’s woman.
“Fuck, no. Don’t stoop to his level, Mac,” Zain advised, shaking his head. “It won’t be worth it. Sarena will need you. Let the justice system work. The Feds have plenty on him to send him away for a long time.”
“We’re here,” Iker called out from the driver’s seat.
The BEAR would be parked a block away with the other law enforcement. They didn’t want to alert the Demon Lords that they were near. They would infiltrate the warehouse and take the gang members into custody. The plan was always to do this without loss of life, but in situations like these, the shit could hit the fans quick. Mac and his team were trained for scenarios such as this and were damn good at it.
The Feds had set up in the area and would wait on their signal. Once Mac and his team gave the signal, the other agencies would swoop in and take over.
“SWAT, let’s roll,” Mac growled as the vehicle came to a halt.
He stood and pushed open the door. Jumping out, he took in their surroundings. His men filed out behind him, grabbing what they needed from the armored vehicle. The other law enforcement agencies were in the area, hidden away, but Mac was able to spot them.
“You good?” Declan asked, coming to stand beside Mac.
Mac jerked his head in a nod. They pulled their ski masks over their faces to protect their identity. He had never been more ready for anything in his entire life.
Mac moved
to step away, but a firm hand grabbed his arm. He turned and found Declan’s eyes boring holes into him.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Declan murmured, keeping his voice low as Iker and Brodie walked by them. “But then again, I know you all too well. Just know I got your six.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be anywhere else,” he replied, pulling away from his longtime friend. He knew Declan would go to Hell and back with him, but tonight, this was something he had to do alone. He knew how men like Silas worked. Even if he went to prison, he would still run the gang from the inside of his jail cell. If he was gunning for Mac so bad by kidnapping a woman to use her against Mac, then she would never be safe. Anyone Mac loved and held dear would not be safe.
Sarena’s smile flashed before his eyes, and he knew without a doubt he wouldn’t be able to live without her ray of sunshine in his life.
“Sync up your communicators,” Mac barked, signaling it was time for SWAT to get ready to move.
They each knew their job and would be trusted to execute them perfectly. He grabbed his MP5 from the BEAR and checked it. His body was littered with weapons and ammunition.
This was war.
He turned and found his men waiting for him. They were all decked out in their black fatigues with SWAT brandished across their chests in bright white, weapons in their hands.
“SWAT, time to hunt,” he ordered.
Chapter 18
Mac let loose a curse as bullets flew past him. It seemed as if their cover had been blown the minute they’d entered the building. With their carefully laid plans going to Hell, Declan had called in the other law enforcement agencies to breech the building.
There was no way the Demon Lords would be getting away tonight.
Mac slowed his gait and paused at the end of the hallway and held up his hand. Declan arrived at his side and motioned for the team to hold. Ashton, Zain, Iker, and Brodie lined up behind him with their guns poised ready.
They were deep in the building having made their way beneath the earth’s surface. According to their intelligence, the females being held against their will would be in the lower level of the building.