“Roxie, the baby,” Valentina said to her.
“Valentina.” Tye and Lana ran to her and hugged her tight. They were crying hysterically now, and she tried to calm them despite the fear she had.
“Why are you taking them? Just leave them here. Let them have a good life, with people who care about them,” Valentina said to her.
“They’re my kids. They’re coming with me. You’re going to die here.”
“Stop! Police!” She jumped at the sound of J.R.’s voice from down the pathway. In a flash, two shots echoed next to her and she covered the kids.
“Get her in the fucking van. Move.” Samuel yelled at them. The guy grabbed her and shoved her into the van with the kids. Valentina looked past the van and saw J.R. on the ground. He wasn’t moving.
“Oh, God, you shot him? You shot a police officer,” she yelled at him. He struck her in the mouth and she jumped forward, wanting to hit him back, when Tye covered her and hugged her neck crying. “Don’t fight him, Valentina. Don’t. We need you,” he said, and she held him tight, feeling her jaw ache as Lena crawled up next to her, too, and Roxie sat down with the crying baby in her arms. She didn’t even look at the baby. She didn’t care that Grace was crying, that they were all scaring her kids.
The van sped off and they all fell over as he made a sharp turn. One of the heavy boxes slid to the right and was about to hit Lena and Valentina stuck her arm out to stop it. The pain struck her so fiercely she cried out.
“What the fuck are we going to do with her?” one of the guys asked.
“I don’t know yet. She’s pretty hot, though. Could provide us some entertainment while we wait this out,” Samuel stated.
“What?” Roxie asked, seemingly shocked and upset that her boyfriend was saying something like that to Valentina.
Samuel shoved at Roxie’s head. “Shut up,” he said, and the kids tightened their hands on Valentina as she held them tightly and locked gazes with Roxie. Valentina stared at her with such hatred in her eyes until she saw a spark of emotion. Was she just embarrassed? Was she insulted, or maybe realizing that Samuel had used her?
Valentina didn’t know, but then Roxie gave her a dirty look and pulled the baby a little closer to her chest. At least she hadn’t dropped her.
She caressed Lena’s and Tye’s hair, comforting them as Samuel started talking to the other guy and about where the safe house was. As Valentina shifted, feeling the pain in her cheek as well as her throbbing arm, she remembered her cell phone, and the pocket knife she always carried with her.
She slid her hand backward and tried to think about the face of a cell phone and then remembered speaking to Gus last. If she hit 911 then they wouldn’t understand what was happening. Gus would know. Maybe J.R. called the situation in? She didn’t know, so she hit redial and she hoped the call went through as she slid the phone back behind her and over to the right, closer to where Samuel and the guy were talking. She prayed that Gus could hear them clearly. She felt the twinge of hope when they mentioned a place called Moonclove, and a thick area of woods and a secure, armed perimeter. It was the location of their main dealer and operator, Gabe West. He was the reason why the police were hunting for Samuel. She was right in the middle of the shit, and if Gus got this call right now, this was going to be one hell of an operation, or a fuck-up. They could all wind up dead—even the babies she was trying so hard to protect.
* * * *
“Holy fuck,” Gunner said to Gus as they met with other members of the Rangers to organize a search-and-infiltrate mission.
“I know. We need to work quickly. This is the third cop they shot, and we don’t know why they went for the kids,” Gus stated.
“Maybe because it’s as simple as we thought it is. Samuel likes to be in charge. He’s narcissistic and self-centered. Those kids are his. Roxie is obsessed with pleasing him, and from what Valentina discovered, as well as the social workers at the shelter Roxie was living in, she only has the kids to keep Samuel coming back to her.”
“So she’s not going to be any help to Valentina,” Teddy Warner said aloud.
Jim Warner exhaled.
“We got a lot of people volunteering to help with this. We need to do this right,” Gus said to them.
“It’s a huge area, and they could be anywhere. I don’t think time is on our side here. He’ll think nothing of taking out Valentina. He really doesn’t need her,” Gunny added as the other rangers placed the maps of the location down onto the large meeting table. Gus knew that Valentina’s boyfriends, the Brazos brothers, were waiting with Helena outside along with their cousins. They were all former Green Berets, hunters, men who were well trained. This could go ugly fast if they didn’t plan this right. As Gus looked at the maps of the land surrounding what was considered Moonclove, he felt sick.
“That’s hundreds, if not a thousand, acres of land, trees, hidden houses, and cabins. We won’t have enough manpower to start winding our way through this brush and the valleys and shit. Never mind the many cabins and houses set up,” Jim said to them. It wasn’t looking like such an easy mission.
“Gunny, we’re going to need some serious help. Not civilians. Men and women who are well trained to travel through this type of area, and quickly, without being detected. Especially if what the men on the phone were saying about security,” Gus said to him.
Gunny exhaled. With his hands on his hips, he looked around the room, then at the map.
“We lost Valentina’s signal from her cell around this area.” He pointed to it.
“Let’s assume they got past there and moved further through. If we have five sets of teams, and I mean military guys who know their shit mixed in with some of our men, then we could squeeze them out and find exactly where they are. It’s our only choice.”
“That’s still a lot of land to cover. We can’t come in with SUVs or off-terrain vehicles,” Jim added.
“It will take us days if we don’t use ATVs or other means to get to the spot where we lost her signal. We’ll have to take the chance and hope they don’t spot us,” one of the rangers said to them.
“Unless we drop in from the sky,” said Dash, one of the Texas Rangers. Gus looked at Dash as his brother Hopper nodded his head.
“We could come in from above. Doesn’t matter if there are trees and shit, we can maneuver through anything. We case out a half-mile perimeter all around as other teams make their way on the ATVs. Our brothers would be more than willing to help do recon to catch where these people are holding Valentina,” Hopper continued.
“Pretty fucking crazy,” Jim stated. “I like crazy. We can all do crazy. She’s one of ours. A fellow cop and a friend, never mind a good-hearted person. She’ll do anything to save those kids, but she won’t be able to do it alone. I say we go for it, and I’ll grab the men for the additional teams,” Gunner said to them.
“Looks like we’re doing this a little unorthodox, but as long as it works, I’m willing to sign off on it. Dash, Hopper, meet with Gunner and the other teams and get this organized. Time is of the essence,” Gus said to them.
* * * *
It was not a shithole but a pretty nice cabin-style house in the middle of the damn woods. As they’d gotten out of the van hours ago, Valentina noticed it was so isolated she couldn’t hear a sound. She wondered if the cell phone had even worked or lost service. There was no way they could get service up here.
The kids were exhausted and hungry. It wasn’t until Valentina mentioned that to Samuel that Gabe West, the owner of the house and the leader of these morons, ordered some food for the kids. Roxie didn’t do anything. She didn’t even care.
Valentina took care of the baby and the kids, and as night fell, her hope of anyone coming was growing less and less. She didn’t know what their plans were for her, and she didn’t like how Samuel and his men watched her closely, especially when they permitted her to use the bathroom. It was bare in there. There was nothing to even use as a weapon, but she had her pocket-knife,
and worse-case scenario, she would use that to do what was needed to survive.
She was exhausted as she held all three babies against her and tried to figure out what she could do to escape. It didn’t seem possible with a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. The kids looked thin. She could feel their little bones as they lay against her. They were suffering, and that suffering needed to stop.
She heard whispering and then a deeper tone of voice. Looking to the right of the living room, she saw Samuel sitting in a chair talking to Gabe West and two other men. She could hear what they were saying.
She listened for any details as to what they were planning. Her eyes landed on Roxie, who was sitting on the floor next to Samuel’s leg. She rubbed her hand up and down his thigh, and when her hand moved closer to his crotch he gave her head a shove. Valentina gasped and then swallowed hard, clenching her teeth. Roxie laid her head against his leg as he continued to ignore her while he spoke to the men.
“If you’re not in the mood for her, I’ll keep her busy. Unless it’s okay to take the cop to the back room,” the one guy said and looked right at Valentina. She saw that evil expression in his eyes. She could feel the pocket knife practically burning a hole in her pocket as her anger flared. Come near me and I’ll slit your throat.
“The cop stays untouched. We might need her in one piece,” Gabe said and glanced at her.
“I promise to keep her in one piece. She looks tough enough to handle what I have in mind,” the guy said and licked his lips, leaning forward.
“Try to resist, will ya? We need to finalize our plans,” Gabe said to him.
“Look at her, though. She’s got a sexy body. I can tell she’s big up top with her blouse ripped right now. It’s giving me a hard-on.”
Valentina couldn’t help but to shake and be fearful. She was tired, weak, and he was a big guy.
“Roxie’s good for a blowjob. Now focus,” Samuel said as he shoved Roxie toward the guy’s crotch. It shocked Valentina. She watched as Roxie looked at Samuel and he gave her head a shove again. He gave her a look and she smiled at the guy and then began to rub her hands up and down his thighs before unzipping his pants.
Valentina looked away and turned her body so if the kids woke up they wouldn’t see what was going on. She felt sick, angry, and she wanted to cry for these kids. These poor babies weren’t loved or even considered in anything their parents did. They really were a tool for Roxie to get Samuel to keep her around. He had no respect for her, and she had no respect for herself.
Valentina wanted to cry, but she knew she needed to be strong for the babies and for herself, too. She may be fighting these men off sooner than later. She looked at the babies. I’ll protect you. With my life, if necessary.
The thought of dying had her thinking of her men. God knows what torture they were going through right now worrying about her. The town and the Texas Rangers she worked for were resourceful men and women. Yet, they hadn’t been able to track down Samuel, Roxie, or this main guy, Gabe West. The likelihood they would find them now, in the middle of some woods in God knows where, was pretty damn unlikely.
She wasn’t giving up hope that she could stop them. Stop this all right here and get the kids to safety. She wanted to cover her ears as the man moaned and then came. She tightened up and then felt the anger filter through her system. She wasn’t going to die here, and neither were these babies.
* * * *
The sound of the rotors was smooth and not as loud as a normal helicopter. A few favors had been called in by their new friends, Dash and Hopper, Hunter and Sharp, Airborne Rangers ready to kick ass and take names later.
Gunny, Sparrow, Jace, Ridge, Beck, Ghost, Evan, Laverty, and Ford all prepared to jump from the helicopter and parachute into a small clearing. Through satellite images, they’d located a medium-sized cabin in the woods that contained a separate garage with a van that matched the one they were looking for. Sparrow looked at his brothers and his cousins. They were all there when they heard how the witnesses said Roxie, Samuel, and another man held them all at gun point and locked them into the basement of the house. Not before Roxie had shoved around the babies, taken a screaming one-year-old from another mother helping the baby, and then slugged the woman in charge of the shelter. J.R. said he saw Valentina pull her gun and he went to help when he was shot—but he’d seen the babies, Samuel, and Roxie.
Sparrow’s gut tightened. Here their woman was, trying to help these babies, fighting the last couple of weeks to prove she would be a great mother and be able to provide for them, and the social workers, the judge, the system in general would rather sit and do nothing and allow those babies to be around people like this. People who abused kids, showed no respect for police, for the law, shot cops and innocent people, beat them up and left them for dead? This is where those babies belonged? He was feeling more and more compelled to kill these men and to save his woman and those kids. He prayed they hadn’t hurt Valentina, or the children. She already had scars from saving her sister and nephew. What would they find when they finally got to her?
“Okay, we’re coming up to the spot. Try not to hit a fucking tree. We won’t be able to get your ass out of here, and we will leave you to get to the target,” Dash stared firmly. They chuckled.
“I may not have jumped out of a plane in a couple of years, but I bet I’ll land better than you,” Ridge egged Dash on.
Dash chuckled. “Never gonna happen, old man.”
“Oh, shit,” Sharp said and laughed.
“Let’s do this,” Gunner said as Hunter slid the door open. The darkness of the night gave them no view of where they were jumping.
“Night vision on, now,” Hopper ordered. They shifted their head gear into position and they began to jump into the abyss.
When Sparrow looked out, he made a leap of faith based on Hopper’s knowledge, the pilot’s hopefully accurate stop hovering above, and all the military training he’d ever had.
We’re coming for you, Valentina. Hold on, baby. Hold on.
* * * *
Valentina thought she heard a noise. A quick glance around and she saw that Gabe was gone, probably to the bedroom. She didn’t see Roxie or Samuel. Maybe they were together. She eased the baby down to the couch and tucked her next to Tye so she was secure and wouldn’t roll off the couch. Lena was curled up against her brother’s legs and she shifted her slightly.
Valentina eased herself up to her feet.
“Can’t sleep, cop?” She heard the voice and squinted, and then the guy who worked for Gabe was there. She swallowed hard.
He stepped closer. He had no shirt on and his pants were undone. She had flashbacks of Roxie pleasuring him. That sick, angry feeling began to simmer in her gut.
He closed the space between them and she glanced at the babies, making sure they were still asleep. He shoved her up against the wall, his face next to her neck and ear. His hands held her hips and one smoothed up to her breast. “Oh, yeah, even better than I thought.”
“Get off of me,” she said through clenched teeth, trying not to wake the babies.
His forearm came up hard against her throat. She gasped and felt the instant pain to her windpipe. She also felt his hard erection against her belly and his thick thighs pressed between her legs.
“Don’t want to wake those babies, do you?” he asked and licked her cheek. She clenched her eyes closed, wanting to vomit. He pinched her breast and she gasped. “Shhh,” he warned, applying more pressure to her throat. She could hardly breathe and she started to panic.
She saw something to the right, through the window. She didn’t know if she was seeing things—shadows in the darkness, perhaps more of the bad guys showing up to make matters worse. She slid her hand into her pocket and gripped the knife. Her knuckles made contact with his crotch and his eyes widened and then he smiled. He chuckled. “So you’ve been checking me out, too, huh? I knew it. You made me this hard, and you’re going to fix it, right now.”
&nbs
p; He released her throat and tore open her blouse as he thrust against her body, slamming her hard against the wall behind her. She gasped and the sound of glass breaking and then footsteps gave her the opportunity she needed. She stuck him in the gut. He grunted and she kicked him then shoved him forward. He struck her in the face and she screamed out as she slashed the knife, hitting his face. He hollered and yelled as the room lit up and chaos erupted around her. Shots were fired. She felt them whiz by her and she lowered as he came at her again and tackled her to the ground. She used her training and rolled him again until he slammed against the cabinet and she struck him with the knife in the shoulder. She got up quickly, heard the babies crying, and looked at them to make sure they hadn’t gotten hit by any bullets. Then the guy struck her hard and shoved her from him.
She saw men in black, and then shots went past her and hit the guy, taking him down. She covered the babies with her body and hushed them, as she glanced upward, not knowing who these men were. She saw Samuel and Roxie. He pulled Roxie in front of him, using her as cover from the bullets, and she took two shots to her body, falling. Samuel kept firing an automatic weapon, but the shots came back at him until he slumped down to the floor.
“Valentina!” She heard her name, recognized the voice, and then looked up to see her men. All four of them pulled off their masks and their faces came into view. She smiled and then cried out, lifting up off the babies, pulling Grace up with her as Tye and Lena held onto her, crying hard.
“You came. Oh, my God,” she said. She saw their angry expressions as they took in the sight of her bruises and cuts. She had no blouse on, either, but she didn’t care. She saw Gunner and two other men come closer.
“Anyone else around?” one guy asked.
“Gabe West is here. In the bedroom,” she said, and they hurried that way.
“Let’s get these kids out of here,” Jace said and went to reach for Lena as Ridge reached for Tye. The kids clung tight to Valentina.
The American Soldier Collection 16: Seeking Love in Salvation (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 15