by Cara Dee
Stranded
Auctioned Series, #2
Cara Dee
Stranded
Copyright © 2019 by Cara Dee
All rights reserved
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment and may not be reproduced in any way without documented permission of the author, not including brief quotes with links and/or credit to the source. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction and all references to historical events, persons living or dead, and locations are used in a fictional manner. Any other names, characters, incidents, and places are derived from the author’s imagination. The author acknowledges the trademark status and owners of any wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction. Characters portrayed in sexual situations are 18 or older.
Edited by Silently Correcting Your Grammar, LLC.
Formatted by Eliza Rae Services.
Proofread by Tanja.
Contents
Auctioned
Dedication
Book 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Gray and Darius are back in Deserted
More from Cara Dee
About Cara
Auctioned
A series within the Camassia Cove universe
Book #1, Auctioned.
Book #2, Stranded.
Camassia Cove is a town in northern Washington created to be the home of some exciting love stories. Each novel taking place here is a standalone, with the exception of sequels, and they will vary in genre and pairing. What they all have in common is the town in which they live. Some are friends and family. Others are complete strangers. Some have vastly different backgrounds. Some grew up together. It's a small world, and many characters will cross over and pay a visit or two in several books. But, again, each novel stands on its own, and spoilers will be avoided as much as possible.
Stranded is the second book of the Auctioned series, following the first book, Auctioned. The main characters call Camassia Cove their home, and all five books will center around Gray and Darius. It is not required to read previous Camassia novels to get the full enjoyment of this one, but if you're interested in keeping up with secondary characters, the town, the timeline, and future novels, check out Camassia Cove's own page www.caradeewrites.com. There you will also see which characters have gotten their own books already as well as which books are in the works.
Dedication
To my own Darius.
Book 2
One
In all the years Darius had brought people home from hostile environments, whether they’d been kidnapped or they’d worked there and needed protection, the assignment had been over as soon as they landed on American soil. He’d never had to deal with any aftermath or ramifications of the rescue. He’d had his own issues to deal with, not to mention his next gig in sight.
Gray Nolan was different. Granted, Darius hadn’t brought him home yet. They were still on the yacht. The despicable men and one demon of a woman from the slave organization had been killed, but there was more work to do—a few more dangers to face.
More blood to wash off.
Either way, after understanding that Gray didn’t believe he was free yet, Darius knew he was in deep shit. He found himself wondering how he could convince the kid he’d been released. Gray wasn’t a slave. His body was his own. He’d been treated worse than cattle, and he’d been sold off like an object, and it was over. Except…Darius had never thought in those terms before. It was someone else’s job to play head doctor and heal wounds on the inside.
Gut feeling told Darius this was far from over. Even when they got away from this godforsaken yacht and they’d eliminated their next threat, he could picture himself following Gray’s journey, well past their return home.
Darius grumbled to himself. How quickly his plan had been shot straight to hell. One of the first things he’d told Gray after explaining he was there to rescue the kid was that Gray was only a job. It’d been a way to set boundaries for himself. Bringing Gray back to his family was a payment, a gig, nothing else.
Lying to himself had worked for about five fucking minutes.
“Well—okay, then.” Ryan’s voice cut through the thoughts spinning in Darius’s head and came to an abrupt stop in the doorway to the bathroom. He raised his brows at the floor.
Darius frowned, paused the redressing of the wound along his bicep, and followed Ry’s gaze. Had his brother adopted a civilian state of mind or something? Seeing a dead guy shouldn’t cause any reaction whatsoever.
“What’s up?” He went back to wrapping a new bandage around his arm. “Don’t faint on me, little brother.”
Ryan snapped out of it and rolled his eyes. “When the past year has revolved around shitty diapers, it takes a minute before stepping over dead bodies becomes normal.” He paused. “I thought we were gathering all the bodies in the dungeon, though.”
“I gave that a second thought,” Darius replied. With the bandage in place, he tore off a strip of tape with his teeth and secured the wrapping. “Regardless of the state it’s in, the authorities will eventually recover the boat. We might wanna have the bodies scattered about. Keeping them all in one place indicates less of a battle and more of an annihilation.”
Ryan accepted that with a firm nod, then extended—ah, fucking finally. Darius gave an almost inaudible sigh of approval at the sight of his regular everyday gear. His brother knew him well enough to bring it.
“Thanks, buddy.” He tucked his old, trusted gun—scratches and signature and all—into his jeans at the base of his spine. His combat knife got strapped to his calf, and the folding knife was slipped into his back pocket. A gift for his fortieth birthday a few years ago from their father.
“May this folder never see a war zone, son.”
Darius ignored the slight twinge in his chest and put on a new beater. The other shirt, along with his old bandage, had gotten ripped less than twenty minutes ago when one of the boys had suffered a panic attack while they were removing the trackers from the staff kids’ necks. The boy had freaked out from the pain, and he’d latched on to the nearest person, who’d happened to be Darius.
It was yet another reminder how unprepared he and his brother were to bring everyone to safety, all while successfully removing any trace that they were the ones who’d brought down Valerie and her merry band slave owners.
“Did you eat?” Ry asked.
Darius inclined his head. He wasn’t about to take on drug dealers on an empty stomach.
Sweet Jesus, this day could piss off. They’d handled the slavers, the owners, and now they were moving on to drug dealers. What was next, aliens?
“How’s the kid doing? Gray?” Ryan went on, presumably to pass time. They were expecting a call from their baby sister on the satphone, and there wasn’t a whole lot to do while they waited.
“He’s in and out of it. He’s…” Darius trailed off and exited the bathroom with a pensive frown, trying to come up with the right word. “Quiet, I guess. Restless and numb.” Refusing to believe he’s free. But mostly, he was quiet. The knucklehead had needed something to do earlier, so Darius had told him and whoever was up to it to load the tender with supplies they probably wouldn’t need in th
e end, because rescue was hopefully not far off. Food, medical supplies, a raft, whatever could be useful.
The plan was to hide out on one of the little islands for a day or two before rescue arrived, but as Darius had told Gray more than once, no plan survived the first contact with the enemy. It was better to cover their asses and bring everything they could carry.
Ryan started to say something else, only to get interrupted by the phone in his hand. So he excused himself to go up to the upper deck where the reception was at least decent.
Darius ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. He couldn’t fucking wait to be off this goddamn yacht, even if it meant babysitting a group of traumatized boys on a deserted island.
They had lowered anchor outside the biggest of the five islands, and despite the fact that the region was popular for tourists, not to mention heavily trafficked by fishermen, they hadn’t spotted a single sign of life.
In other words, it was the perfect location to deal in drugs and who knew what else. Weapons, probably.
Darius had studied the area enough before boarding the yacht, and he’d memorized the privately owned islands. Joulter Cays didn’t belong in that category, so even if they couldn’t secure a rescue plan, it was unlikely they’d have to wait very long. The only problem was if they were spotted by the wrong people.
Jonas… Nikolaj, was that guy’s name… And Owen, the kid who’d been hiding out by the pool when Ryan got here earlier. Darius scratched the side of his head and tried to remember all the names. He’d made it to the bridge after doing another check of all the staterooms, just in case they’d forgotten something. And now he was standing back, watching Jonas and Nikolaj stare tirelessly at the communication devices. Ryan must’ve given them the job. Maybe they’d been restless too.
Owen, who was upset on and off, was sitting on the floor with a stack of maps.
That was three out of the thirteen boys—thirteen fucking boys. Darius groaned internally and scrubbed at his face. How the hell had this happened? A quick in-and-out gig to get a twenty-one-year-old guy named Gray Nolan…yeah, fucking right.
Static came from one of the com-radios, and Nikolaj quickly grabbed it and responded. Ryan’s voice filtered through, and he requested Darius to head down to the bottom deck.
“Be right there,” Darius answered. But before he left the bridge, he had a difficult task for Jonas and Nikolaj. He stepped closer and found a notepad lying to the side, and he located a pen shortly after. “I need a list of names.” He kept his voice down so Owen wouldn’t hear. “There are eight of you from the staff, and I gotta know who the weak links are.”
Jonas got defensive. “We can all be trusted.”
“That’s not what he meant,” Nikolaj responded stoically. The two guys were as similar as they were different. Both had, at one point, been ripped away from the lives they’d known, and they’d been hardened by their experiences. The difference was the hint of innocence in Jonas’s eyes. It was completely absent in Nikolaj’s pale green ones. His features could cut glass, and his posture spoke of how guarded he was. Alert and ready.
He’d been forced to kill, Darius knew that much. Nikolaj had been one of the winners in the cage fights.
Nikolaj and Owen wouldn’t go in the same column on that sheet of paper.
Jonas was able-bodied and sufficiently strong mentally.
Darius needed to know if there was anyone else from the staff he could count on, if it came to that.
“We’ll make the list,” Nikolaj said.
Darius nodded once and left them alone. He descended the decks one by one until he found his brother on the lowest deck of the yacht. Ryan was still on the phone, and he was pacing in the narrow hallway, a scowl on his face. It looked like more than shitty reception was wrong.
“Repeat that?” Ryan grunted.
“You’ll probably hear her better upstairs,” Darius told him.
Ryan’s scowl deepened, and he turned away slightly. “But can you be sure? I don’t know the market value of seventy-five bricks of coke.”
Darius lifted his brows. Ryan’d found coke onboard? Stepping closer to the nearest door, Darius pushed it open and flipped on the light. Fuck. He ran a hand through his hair and eyed the stash. A closet stood open in the small cabin, and bricks upon bricks had tumbled out in a high slope of powdered money. He walked over and retrieved the folder from his pocket, then cut into one of the duct-taped bricks.
As he thumbed through the white dust that was tightly packed inside the plastic, he noticed Ryan had already opened a couple of the bricks.
Darius straightened again and turned to Ry as he ended the call with their sister. The look on Ryan’s face said it all, and Darius became just as grim.
“Valerie wasn’t here to buy. She was here to sell,” he stated flatly.
Ryan nodded. “And Squeezy thinks it’s already been paid for. She’s managed to hack a bank account with a list of transactions that match the auctions that went through, but one amount stood out. So she told me to do another search.”
Darius cursed and pinched his bottom lip, eyes trained on the pile of drugs. “I suppose that transaction matches the value of seventy-five bricks of cocaine.”
“Aye.”
Fucking hell, couldn’t they catch a break? Okay, so it was paid for already, which indicated an established trust between buyer and seller. It would be more difficult to cause a rift between the two now, but they had no choice. It was their only option at this point. In order to give the boys a fair chance to live their lives in peace, all evidence of the struggle that had taken place earlier had to be erased.
That Darius and Ryan were facing another battle today was no news, but the enemy would likely be more persistent now. They’d paid a fuckton of money for the coke on the floor. One way or another, they’d want their hands on it. To them, it was no longer a trade. It was a done deal, which…hmm.
Darius cocked his head, pensive.
“What’re you thinking?” Ry asked.
“The buyers have obviously made deals with these people before,” Darius stated. “So, here’s what we know. There’s trust and understanding, but at the same time, people get fucked over in that industry all the time. A breeze can start a war.”
“True.”
“And with the merchandise already paid for, it might not matter as much that they have a good relationship, ’cause they’ll be on edge until they have their product no matter what.”
“Ah. You’re worried that it wouldn’t be easy to start a war between the two.”
Darius frowned. “Well, yeah. What’s your worry?”
“With the payment completed, they’ll pack a lot more heat,” Ryan replied. “A situation that can easily get infected will mean more resistance for us. We’re looking at…what would you guess—six, seven guys with militia training?”
Darius scratched his neck and winced at the sting in his arm. Flesh wound or not, being grazed by a bullet fucking hurt. “We have means to defend ourselves, buddy.”
Ryan widened his eyes. “Not against seven motherfuckers with AR-15s. You of all people know the kinds of weapons these people run with—and where the guns come from. I’m not looking to be the next Fast and Furious casualty.”
A chuckle slipped out; Darius couldn’t help it. In their field of work, even as veterans and formers, no one had missed the ATF scandals over the years, where American guns had ended up in the wrong hands as bait—and without positive outcomes. Operation Fast and Furious was just one of them, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t fucking matter where the guns came from or how many there were. Okay, the last part mattered, and he estimated Ryan was pretty close with his guess. Six, seven, maybe eight men would be armed to the teeth, but they would’ve been regardless.
“We can take half of them out before they even know something’s wrong,” Darius pointed out. “If we get started right away, we can find you a hiding spot on the top deck.” He gestured toward the rifle on Ryan’s back. �
��Or did you buy a new M4 carbine to use it as a decoration?”
A pinch of dark excitement lit up Ryan’s eyes. “You noticed it’s new, huh? Check it out, it’s the A1.” He lifted the strap over his head and handed over the carbine to Darius, whose brows rose in admiration. It was a nice upgrade.
His thumb ghosted over the safety along the side of the rifle, and he smiled faintly. “Then what the fuck’re you bitching for? Unless they’ve got a grenade launcher ready, we’ve got this. There will be plenty of sniper bait for you. I’ll be there when they dock, and you start taking them out from your spot. Soon as I join in, you cover me.”
It wasn’t anything they hadn’t done before.
Ryan accepted his weapon again, mulling over what Darius had said, and eventually offered a nod. “We’re gonna have to be quick, though. You greeting them without backup or security won’t look good—or realistic.”
Yeah, well.
While Ryan headed upstairs to find a good spot to be invisible, Darius went to check in on the boys. Gray, mainly. It was a need that seemed to grow rather than decrease, which knotted Darius’s stomach. He’d grown attached to clients before, sometimes in unhealthy ways, and Gray wasn’t gonna be the next person to hold Darius’s faith in humanity in his hands.
It was a vicious cycle, one that began every fucking time Darius took it upon himself to save a life. He clung to innocence and begged it to show him that the human race was worth rescuing.