by Reina Torres
“Is that all?”
“The news? Yeah. Sure. No one seems to have any idea that your witness survived the bullet. Need anything else?”
Vicente met Cruz’s eyes and shook his head. “No, I think we’re good. Call me if anything changes.”
“Absolutely, Bravo. You know I’m here for you. These bastards are just that and need to be stopped.”
“Thanks.” The call ended moments later and he shared the news with Cruz. “Everything looks good. No word from our informants about our witness.”
Cruz shook his head. “And our informants have been good in the past, so here’s hoping.”
“Yeah, because that’s about all we have left.”
Sloane found a parking spot along one side of the rundown park, two blocks away from Pilar’s location. The playground structure was half-wrapped up in CAUTION tape and had been that way for a few months, but Sloane pulled her thoughts away from that problem to examine the one right in front of her.
Or rather, two blocks ahead and one to the right.
Silencing her phone, she dropped it into her pants pocket and stripped everything from Hildie’s keychain except for the car key and the alarm fob. After all, the least she could do for her friend was hope that setting the alarm would deter anyone from stealing the car.
Leaving everything else behind, Sloane shut the door and set the alarm. Crossing over into the shadows, she started to walk with strides a little longer and a little faster from her normal pace.
She didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
Sure, she had put on the largest sweater in the box, but she wasn’t sure that would disguise her completely. She still had hips that a man wouldn’t, but it was dark.
But she wasn’t going to run and draw too much attention to herself. As her sister used to tell her on a regular basis, “You run like a girl.”
She forced Kimberly out of her mind. There wasn’t enough room in her head for old memories if she was going to concentrate on the present.
Turning the corner, she put her hand out and braced it against the wall. She sucked in a few breaths to fill her lungs. She hadn’t been running but she’d move fast enough to put a little ache in her lungs and the muscles in her thighs.
Up ahead, a figure moved through the light from a wall fixture and Sloane focused her eyes on their form. Short in stature, curvy hips with a sassy sway.
Pilar.
“Oh, thank God.”
One last replenishing breath and Sloane was on her way again. She crossed over a small side street, staying just out of the light from the streetlights in the intersection.
She turned her head as a car on the other side of the street started to move forward.
Keeping her hands at her side, but a good distance from her sides, she continued to move. The car was likely one of the backup cars with law enforcement officers inside. She didn’t want them to think she was a threat to Pilar.
That would only complicate things.
A quick flash of color drew her eyes and she recognized the color for what it was. Deputy Hayden Hatcher was in the car. Lifting her chin a little, Sloane gave a low wave at the car and saw Hayden’s stunned expression.
“Here goes nothing,” she mumbled to herself. As soon as she stepped onto the curb she called out softly. “Pilar!”
The woman ahead stopped instantly and turned around, peering into the dark. “Sloane? What the hell are you doing?”
Sloane caught up to her friend and stopped short, trying to catch her breath again. Having her heart tied up in knots with her worried stomach didn’t help matters. “I had to come and find you. You’re not supposed to be working this operation.”
“I know. I had to fill in for another officer. It’s just fine.” Pilar’s smile was supposed to reassure her, but all Sloane could think about was how wrong all of this was.
“No,” Sloane felt everything inside of her tense and twist with worry, “it’s not, we have to get you out of here. Let’s flag down Hayden and get you back to Vicente.”
Pilar gently took hold of Sloane’s arms and leaned closer. “Well we have to now. ‘Cente is going to flip when he finds out you’re here. He’s going to want to-”
The world shook and the ground beneath their feet rolled like a wave, lapping at them as if they were standing in the tide. It was only at that moment that Slone realized that her ears were ringing. “What… what happened?”
Chapter 14
Sloane tried to shake her head to clear it of the overwhelming echo that banged around inside of her head.
Someone touched her face, cradling both cheeks.
She looked up and saw Pilar staring at her.
Blinking at her, Sloane heard vague sounds as Pilar moved her lips so she had to narrow her eyes to read her lips.
EXPLOSION
Sloane nodded and together they turned to look for Hayden’s car. They saw them making the turn in the street to head their way. Sloane took Pilar’s arm and together they started toward Hayden’s car hoping to close the distance.
All Sloane wanted to do was get Pilar to her brother. From there, she’d deal with the rest.
She had a vague impression of Hayden’s expression, stone serious… her jaw set in a hard line, her hands crawling over each other to turn the wheel in as tight a turn as she could. The person in the passenger seat was a stranger to her, but she saw him speaking into something, a phone or a radio. The car was almost facing in the right direction to pull up on their side of the street when bright lights flashed in her eyes.
Sloane held onto Pilar with one hand and managed to throw her other hand over her eyes, but the lights were so bright and intense, she couldn’t see beyond the splotchy shadows that swam before her. Her momentary panic turned into horror as she heard a collision.
Forcing her hand down she stared into the street and watched as Hayden’s follow car came to a screeching stop on its roof, pushed into a parked car on the opposite side of the street.
She couldn’t see the man in the passenger seat well, but Sloane saw Hayden, still restrained by her seatbelt, upside down and her arms hanging beside her head.
She’s okay. Please let her be okay. She’s stunned. She’s only stunned.
Sloane kept up her rambling thoughts as she and Pilar rushed into the street. She heard Pilar on her phone calling for the EMTs and other law enforcement assistance.
Getting down on her knees, Sloane approached the car and tried to reach in through a broken window.
She felt a scratch along her arm, but that was the least of her worries. “Hayden?”
The deputy was out.
“Damn it, Hayden… you promised your husband!” Sloane reached further and managed to get her fingers along the side of Hayden’s neck. A little more of a stretch and she felt a faint, but steady pulse. “She’s alive!”
Turning slightly, she was reaching for the passenger when she heard a vehicle slam on its breaks behind her she let out a sigh of relief. “Help’s here, guys. I-”
“Sloane, run!”
She heard the rough bark of command in Pilar’s voice and her first instinct was to obey, but the instant she stood up, she heard the rolling scrape of a side door.
Sloane turned back and saw Pilar struggling with one man and another rounding the side of the van heading toward the struggle. She ran straight into the fray.
The world had erupted into chaos. Vicente, Cruz, and the Director were all on their phones. The Director had two calls going, switching back and forth, looking for answers and solutions at the same time.
Vicente was back and forth for a few minutes and then sent a message out to all of the groups on the sting. Four groups answered right away, the last one… ominously silent.
Two groups headed for the blast to discover its source and provide assistance, the other two were sent to the last location for the remaining group. The one including his sister.
The two men managed to toss Pilar into the van, but not without a pr
ice.
One man was nearly doubled over from a well-placed mule-kick and the other had lost his mask and a few tracts of skin across his face when Sloane attacked him from behind.
Sloane didn’t give up, pushing forward as she dropped the mask to the ground.
For a second, she regretted wearing her flats. If she’d had a heel, she could have done more damage when she nailed him in the back of the knee to stop him from crawling into the van.
He turned around and grabbed a hold of Sloane’s arm with one hand, pulling the other back in a fist.
She focused her eyes on his face. If she was going to take the punch, she was going to have some useful information to go with it, but her ‘badass’ only lasted so long. As his fist descended toward her face, she flinched and found herself untouched by the blow.
“Take the King woman.”
Pilar planted an elbow in the side of the man holding her, but that only made him grip her harder, making her wince.
Sloane felt the man lift her off the ground, his arms holding her like iron bands, trapping her arms between them. All she could do as he turned toward the van was kick. She managed to stumble him once, but her victory was short and painful.
He knocked his forehead into hers and the world went black.
With all the emergency personnel descending on the area, it made sense for Vicente to travel on foot. There were already two groups at the scene and two ambulances there as well. It also gave him alternative excuses for the rough scratch in his throat and the thundering rhythm of his heart as he arrived there.
He took a moment to catch his breath and get the lay of the land.
The EMTs were working on Deputy Hatcher and Agent Langston.
Langston looked like he took the worst of the hit. The deputy was conscious and cradling her arm to her chest. Awake was good, for now.
Agent Chu and Deputy Hardwicke jogged over to him with their reports.
“Deputy Bravo and Miss King were both taken-”
“King?” Vicente turned on the Agent with a hard look. “Sloane?”
The two LEOs exchanged looks before Agent Chu continued to speak. “The dash cam shows Miss King with your sister when the van pulled up.”
Deputy Hardwicke took up the narrative. “Both of them fought with the men. They grabbed your sister first, but both ladies made sure they had to work for it. At one point Miss King pulled the mask off one of the men.”
Vicente started to speak but Agent Chu cut in.
“We already called in to have TARU to use their facial recognition software to get a name on the assailant.”
Vicente nodded. He didn’t mind the interruption if it cut to the chase. “And the vehicle?”
Apparently, Hardwicke had drawn the short straw.
“Gone. There’s a serious lack of security cameras in this neighborhood.”
“I bet they’ve mapped out routes that don’t put them past any cameras at all. These men aren’t just smart, they’re experienced.”
Chu continued. “TARU is putting a trace on both women’s cell phones. We’re waiting to hear back now.”
Sloane was only beginning to regain consciousness when the van stopped and the door scraped open. When someone picked her up, she bit into her lip to keep from making a sound. She knew they were in deep trouble and the least she could do was keep her head together even though her heart was pounding like a drumline in her chest.
The only positive thing in their favor was that Pilar Bravo was pissed and swearing in fairly colorful Spanish. If they hadn’t been in the middle of hell, she would have asked Pilar to clarify a few of her phrases.
While Sloane had learned and used a fair amount of Spanish language in her life, the majority of it had come out of ‘conversational’ textbooks. Some of Pilar’s vocabulary was way beyond her knowledge.
She felt the change in her captor’s body and did her best to remain limp when he set her down. It wasn’t until her head hit the ground that she groaned.
So much for being badass.
“Looks like you didn’t hit her too hard.”
Sloane opened her eyes and saw one of the men approaching the van, carefully. He was just another man in a mask, but he seemed bulky enough to carry a lot of muscle. She watched as Pilar let the man help her up onto her feet.
Pilar watched him carefully, looking at him from head to toe as if she could somehow decipher his identity from looking at him. She was likely measuring his height and weight and other pertinent facts.
It gave Sloane a little time to gather her nerves. She was dangerously close to sobbing for no other reason than she’d done something that might be epically stupid.
And there was more than a chance… likely a sure thing… that she’d never see Vicente again. Never tell him that she really wanted more with him.
That she was willing to put her heart on the line for him.
That if she had the chance she’d hold on tight to what they had, because she was tired of being closed off to love.
When they sat Pilar down on the floor beside her, Sloane sat up and squeezed she eyes shut for a moment to stave off the vertigo, but it didn’t help much.
Pilar sent her a sideways look but didn’t speak to her.
That was completely fine with Sloane who seemed to hear even the silence in aching stereo.
Pulling off his hood, the man who originally grabbed Pilar straddled a chair and looked at them. “No hysterics? No begging? Pleading?” He laughed and the stocky man joined in, but the third, the man Sloane had a scratched, remained silent as he pressed a cloth to his cheek.
Sloane took her cue from Pilar.
While she was sure there was no rule book for Kidnapees issued by the San Antonio Police Department, she figured that Pilar should run this particular show.
The man straddling the chair folded his arms on the top and gave them both a slow look. “Interesting.”
The injured man chose that moment to break his silence. “He knows they’re here, right?”
His compatriot’s glare said he didn’t like the interruption. “He knows.”
The third man, just barely a foot taller than his sitting friend, stalked over to lean on the table a few feet behind the chair. “Why’d you take off your mask. You know he ain’t gonna like that.”
“He,” spat the man in the chair, “is just going to have to deal with it. Besides, it doesn’t really matter. Does it, Miss Bravo?”
Even bound with her hands behind her, Pilar didn’t give an inch. She glared at the man with her eyes, but her lips curled into a smile.
“Smart woman, aren’t you?”
Sloane looked over at Pilar and saw the steely determination in her eyes and the strong line of her jaw. She saw so much or Vicente’s strength and reticence in that moment that it gave her a taste of hope even as she understood the hidden meaning in the man’s words.
Her eyes turned to look at him and she saw his own knowing smile.
“So the princess gets it.”
Sloane nodded and sat up a little straighter.
The man in the mask was curious. “What are you doing?”
“Mind your own business, go fix your face. You were ugly enough before.”
He turned on Sloane, lowering the cloth that he’d pressed to his cheek. The scratch closest to his nose started to bleed freely.
“Bitch. You’re going to pay for this before I put a bullet in your head.”
“Now, I don’t recall giving you any such instructions, Thomas.”
They all turned toward the new voice, but Sloane would have bet money that the only person who didn’t know who the voice belonged to was Pilar.
“Hello, Uncle Glen.”
“My dear niece, I’d like to say I’m shocked to see you.” He sighed and stepped inside the building with a ridiculously happy grin on his face. “But then again, you always seem to be exactly where you shouldn’t. And sticking your nose in the same places.”
As he strode into the room wit
h a man on either side, Sloane saw more of where they were being held.
She’d been in enough old abandoned buildings to know that they were in the old industrial section of town. She’d sold off quite a few buildings to get funds for her foundation, so she’d probably driven by this very building a time or two.
“Go ahead,” he gestured at the nearly empty room, “try to figure it out. It doesn’t matter either way. No one’s going to help you.”
Sloane nodded and gave him her own smile.
Why was she poking the bear?
Well, when you had nothing left to lose, what’s a little grizzly baiting between family?
“You’re right, Uncle, but I’m not the same person anymore.”
“Really?” His tone was full of laughter. “Then what are you? You were a mouse… now… a kitty cat? Thomas’ face shows that much.”
“Don’t mock me,” Thomas’ expression darkened.
“If you can’t protect yourself,” her uncle answered back, “don’t expect me to defend you.”
With a gesture, her uncle called up a man with a heavy leather briefcase.
“So, why don’t we get things started.”
“Get what started?” Pilar spoke up, easing herself closer to Sloane.
“Nothing to do with you, deputy. You were only going to be bait for Sloane.” He looked at the man sitting in the chair, who got up under Glen McKinnon’s glare. “You could have just left her behind if you had Sloane.”
The man shrugged. “She saw my face,” he admitted, “and you never know when you’ll need a human shield with things like this.” He got up from his chair in the way a cowboy swung his leg to dismount from a horse. “And if there’s time, I wouldn’t mind a little up-close and personal time to see how rough she likes it.”
“You touch me again,” Pilar hissed at him, “and you’ll have to count on your fingers and toes to get to ten.”
He gave her uncle a big smile. “Let me have her and you don’t have to pay me.”
Glen shrugged. “When I’m done, Alan.” He gestured to the table. “Sloane should know that if she fails to sign the contracts that she won’t be the one to suffer.”