by Elle James
One of the men grabbed the back of her jacket. She let him have it. He ripped it from her arms as she kept running. Layla didn’t get far before the other one tackled her. She crashed to the ground, her head bouncing off the pavement.
Pain stabbed through her forehead, the streetlights dimmed, and she lost consciousness.
Chapter 10
What should have taken only five minutes, ended up taking ten. Bull had spent the better part of that time looking for tools to disassemble the lock on the bathroom door.
The ambassador tried to be helpful by telling him where the tools could be located. It would’ve been a lot faster if he’d have just kicked the door in, but the door was one of those heavy kinds, solid wood and old. He figured the doorjamb was probably just as solid as the wood of the door. After a few cuss words, scraping his knuckles at least twice, and more or less dismantling the handle on the door, he got it open.
“Thank you, son,” the ambassador said, “I’ve had a work order out on that lock for at least two weeks. Until they get it fixed, I’ll have them put up a sign that this restroom is out of service.”
“That would be a good idea, sir,” Bull said, anxious to get back to his fiancée. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“Thank you for rescuing me yet again tonight,” the ambassador said. “You don’t know how much it means to me that you’re taking care of my daughter.”
A stab of guilt hit Bull square in the gut. Hopefully, the ambassador didn’t know the extent to which he was taking care of his daughter. He really didn’t want to stand around talking when he could be upstairs attending to her.
“Sir, it’s my pleasure,” and that was an understatement. The ambassador didn’t need to know just much of an understatement it was.
“I need to send my daughter back to the States. She should have a life of her own apart from me. I’d get along fine without her. Granted, I’d be a little lonely. But I don’t want her to miss out on what I had with her mother. She deserves the chance to find somebody, fall in love and have a family and children of her own.” The ambassador smiled. “After all, I want grandchildren.”
“She’d make a good mother,” Bull said. “I got to see her in action with the orphans. They loved her.” And Bull had found himself loving her as well. She was everything he could ever want in a woman. Beautiful, compassionate, understanding.
Still, it wouldn’t be fair to her if she gave up her life with her father to be with him. He was Delta Force. Deltas were never home. If they had children together, Layla would raise them alone. He’d miss every birthday party. He’d miss her birthdays. More often than not, he wouldn’t be home for anniversaries or Christmas. He wouldn’t be there to fix the pipes when they broke or to mow the lawn. She’d have to carry the burden for both of them, and that wasn’t fair.
“She would do well to marry a man like you,” the ambassador said.
Bull shook his head. “Sir, I’m Delta Force. I wouldn’t wish that on any woman.”
The older man clapped his hand on his shoulder. “Don’t sell yourself short. If a woman loves you enough and understands the nature of your work, she’d be willing to wait for you and be there to welcome you with open arms. You’re a good man, Bull. If anything were to develop between you and my daughter, you’d have my blessing.”
His heart squeezed tightly at the man’s words. “Thank you, Ambassador Grey. Now, if you’d excuse me, I’d like to get back to her. I’ve left her alone long enough.”
The ambassador nodded. “By all means.”
He hurried to the elevator and up to the floor where Layla would be waiting in her quarters. His feet carried him faster. The thought of Layla lying in the bed naked had his groin tightening in anticipation. He slid the key in, turned the knob and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. When he faced the room, he frowned. The bed was empty.
“Layla,” he called out. No response. He pushed open the door to the bathroom. It too was empty. A bad feeling pinched his chest. Where would she have gone without him? He glanced at her nightstand where she kept her cellphone.
It was gone.
He crossed to the bed and felt the sheets. They were still warm. She hadn’t been gone long.
Then he noticed the note on the pillow. He unfolded it and read, his heart sinking to his knees.
Dear Mr. Smith, I’m off to see a friend in trouble. I have to do this alone. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, I’ll have my cellphone and my watch with me.
I think I love you, Layla
Bull’s heart squeezed so hard in his chest, he couldn’t breathe. She’d left without him, and he didn’t know where to go look. He read the note again, pulled out his cellphone and dialed hers. It rang at least seven times before it went to her voicemail. Why wasn’t she answering? And why had she mentioned her watch? She wouldn’t have mentioned those if she didn’t have a reason.
And then he thought, perhaps she had a tracker on her phone. He grabbed his radio headset, stuck the earbuds in his ears and ran for the elevator.
On the way down in the elevator, he texted Rucker.
Bull: Have a situation here.
Rucker: Need the team?
Bull: Yes. Be on standby.
He had to get to the ambassador before he went to bed. Bull had no idea where the man slept.
The elevator door opened.
The ambassador stood there, waiting to step in. “Did you forget something, Mr. Smith?”
“Ambassador Grey, do you have a tracking app on your phone for your daughter’s phone?”
He frowned. “I believe I do. She put an app on my phone so that she could keep track of me, and she said that I could use it to keep track of her.” He grimaced. “If I could just get her to carry her phone. But I think it will also track her watch.”
“Sir, I need your phone and that app. Now.”
Ambassador Grey frowned. “What’s the problem? Where’s my daughter?”
“That seems to be the question. When I got back to her room, she was gone. She’d left a note that said she was going out to help a friend.”
The older man’s frown deepened. “What friend?”
“I think I have an idea of who that might be,” Bull said, “but I need that app.”
“I left my phone in the study, follow me.” The ambassador led the way to his study. His phone was on his desk on the charger. He unlocked the screen, clicked on an app, and handed it over to Bull.
When he glanced down at the map, Bull’s gut clenched.
The ambassador leaned over his shoulder. “Her phone shows that she’s right outside of the back of the embassy.”
“I know where that is. Come with me,” Bull said. He grabbed the ambassador’s arm, pulled him into the elevator and went up to the floor where the library was located. He led him to the back wall of the library and pulled the sconce. The bookshelf door opened.
“So, this is where it is,” the ambassador said. “I’d heard there was a secret passage in the building, but no one seemed to know where it was or how to access it. You think my daughter went through here?”
Bull nodded. “I’d bet my annual pay she did.” He led the way through the narrow passage, down the stairs, through the tunnel and out onto the street. Using the ambassador’s phone, he followed the GPS tracking on it.
Bull squinted into the darkness. “This shows that she should be just right up the street.” The street appeared empty.
“I don’t see her,” the ambassador said.
Bull ran to the spot the GPS indicated. Layla was nowhere in sight. He dialed her number again and heard the ringing of a cellphone. He followed the sound and found her phone lying face down on the ground. He lifted it and turned it over. The screen was cracked as if it had fallen or been thrown.
“Oh, baby,” the ambassador said. “Where are you?”
Bull’s cellphone buzzed with an incoming text. He glanced down, hoping it would be Layla, texting from someone else’s phone. It was Rucker.
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br /> Rucker: We’re on standby, what’s happening?
Bull glanced at the locater app on the ambassador’s phone.
“You should be able to see where her watch is as well,” the ambassador said.
He looked at the screen, studied it closely, then enlarged it so he could see it better in the dark. The watch was moving, headed toward the edge of the city.
Bull called Rucker on his cellphone. “Pick me up in front of the embassy as soon as possible.”
“What’s going on?” Rucker asked.
A hollow feeling settled in Bull’s chest. “Ms. Grey is gone.”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Rucker asked. “I thought you were keeping an eye on her.”
Bull was still kicking himself. He should’ve had her come with him when he went to help her father get out of the bathroom. He shouldn’t have left her for even a second. Never mind that the door was locked to her bedroom, and they were supposedly secure inside the embassy. The woman hadn’t been taken. She’d left of her own free will.
The very reason why he loved her was also the reason she was now missing. She was too empathetic and compassionate. She responded when other people needed her, even if it put her in danger. And he suspected, right now, that she was in danger. If she had gone because a friend was in trouble, then she was putting herself in the same amount of trouble. And the rate that she was moving toward the edge of the city, it wouldn’t be long before they left Ankara altogether.
“I have a way to track her,” he told Rucker, “but I need wheels. Can you get here soon?”
“On our way now.”
Bull turned to the ambassador. “Ambassador Grey, I know you’ll want to come with me, but I think it would be best if you stay here at the embassy in case she returns before I get back.”
“But she’s my daughter,” he said, “I want to be there.”
“Sir, you’ll only slow us down.” He squared off with the ambassador. “Sir, if she’s helping who I think she is, and you’re caught with that person, it could compromise your duties here as the ambassador.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly is my daughter up to?”
“I’ll have her explain it when we get back. Right now, I need to get you inside where you’re safe. And we need to put a guard on this escape tunnel.”
The ambassador hurried back with Bull through the secret tunnel and into the embassy. Bull left the diplomat in his study and walked out the front entrance of the embassy as Rucker and the team pulled to a stop in the two vehicles they had rented.
Bull climbed into the front passenger side of the lead vehicle, gave them directions toward the edge of the city and leaned forward in his seat as if that would get him there faster. While Rucker drove, Bull filled them in on what Layla had been involved in.
When he was done Rucker whistled. “Sex trafficking is big business,” he said. “Sounds like this underground network has really cut into that. The mafia handling it has to be really pissed off.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, and if they get a hold of Layla there’s no telling what they’ll do with her.”
Rucker shook his head. “We can hope that they just want to ransom her, and that they’ll keep her alive and healthy until they get what they demand.”
“We don’t even know if they have her,” Bull said. “She could be with her contact, and I could be worried for nothing.”
Rucker shot a glance his direction. “And what does your gut tell you?”
His gut was knotted. “It tells me that she’s in big trouble, and she’s headed out of the city but not on her own steam.”
“Why did she leave without you in the first place?” Rucker asked.
“She knows I don’t approve of her actions, but mostly, I wasn’t with her when she got whatever communication from her friend. I was helping her father. I’d left her in her room for just a few minutes, and that’s all it took. Now, she’s gone.” Bull shook his head. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
Rucker shot another glance his direction. “You like her, don’t you?”
Bull nodded. “More than I should.”
Blade leaned over the back of the seat. “What’s not to like? She was a knockout in that dress tonight.”
Bull glared back at Blade. “It’s not all about the looks.”
“Maybe not,” Blade said with a grin, “but it helps.”
“She really cares about her family, about her friends and people who aren’t as fortunate as she is. She helps the orphans, and she wanted to help the women who were being trafficked. She has a good heart.”
Rucker chuckled. “You’re falling for her.”
“I can’t,” Bull said. “I’m a Delta.”
Rucker laughed. “Even Deltas can fall in love. I mean, look at me. I did with someone who knew exactly what kind of job I had, understood it and could deal with it. Nora is the best thing that could ever have happened to me. She gets me.”
“And look at Dash,” Blade said. “That lucky bastard landed Sunny Day. And those two are so in love, it almost makes my teeth hurt.”
Bull glanced across at Rucker. “But do you think it’ll last?”
Rucker nodded. “Relationships are like anything worthwhile, you have to work at it.”
“And how do you do that,” Bull said, “when you’re deployed nearly three-hundred and sixty-five days a year?”
Rucker shook his head. “We’re not deployed that often. You just have to make up for it with the time you have together. And she has to be strong enough to manage on her own when you’re not there. Sounds to me like Ms. Grey is a strong-minded woman. She didn’t fall apart during the demonstration this afternoon nor during the shooting this evening.”
Bull smiled. “And you should’ve seen her getting Yara out of her situation. She didn’t hesitate. She jumped right in.”
“That’s the kind of woman a Delta needs,” Rucker said.
Blade leaned forward again. “So, does this Layla have a sister?”
“No,” Bull said, “and if she did, I sure as hell wouldn’t introduce her to you.”
Blade sat back. “That’s cold, brother. That’s cold.”
“Where are they now?” Rucker asked.
“They appear to be headed east into the mountains. No, wait, I think they’ve stopped on the edge of the city.”
Rucker slowed at the corner and sped up after the turn. “How far are we from them?”
“I can only guess, maybe eight, ten miles,” Bull said.
“Moving through city streets, that could take us anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes.”
“I hope we get there soon enough,” Bull said.
“Me, too.” Rucker pressed his foot harder to the accelerator, moving as quickly as he could through the streets.
Bull alternated between staring at the phone app and the road ahead. He prayed that Layla was okay, and that they reached her in time.
Chapter 11
Layla awoke in complete darkness, her body cramped into a tight space. The rumbling and vibration beneath her cheek and the hard metal above her quickly made it clear to her that she was in the trunk of a vehicle. She could tell when it slowed, and when it sped up. Based on the number of times they did, and the turns they made, she could only guess that they were still somewhere in the city. She had no idea how long she’d been out.
Trapped in a trunk, her only saving grace was that her captors hadn’t taken the time to tie her up. She couldn’t open the trunk from inside, so she’d have to wait until they opened the trunk to get her out. At that point, she’d have to make a break for it. Before they tied her up.
Seconds passed into minutes, minutes passed into…how long, she didn’t know. The longer they drove, the farther away they took her from Bull, the embassy and her father. She felt in her back pocket for her phone. It was gone. Thankfully, they hadn’t removed her watch from her wrist. Not only did her watch have a tracking device on it, but she could also make calls from it if sh
e had enough of a signal. Whatever she did she had to conserve the battery on the watch. It was the only way Bull and his team could find her. It had to stay on. She raised the phone to her mouth and spoke quietly.
“Call Bull.”
She waited while it connected and held the device up to her ear.
It rang once, and Bull’s voice came over on the line. “Layla, are you all right?”
She pressed a hand to the tender spot on her forehead. “Other than a bump on my head, I’m okay.”
“I found your phone,” he said. “I assume that you’re not traveling on your free will.”
“No,” she said, “I’m not. I need to keep this brief so that I can conserve my battery.”
“We’re coming for you. We’re following you on your father’s phone app.”
She smiled. “Thank God,” she said.
“What’s your situation?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m in the trunk of a car. I don’t know where we’re heading. All I know about my captors is that two guys got out of the car that tried to run me down. At least one other had to be driving. I’m not sure why they grabbed me or what their intentions are.”
“Can you breathe?”
The inside of the trunk smelled of tire rubber and dust, but there was enough air to sustain her for a while. “I can breathe.”
“We’re ten to fifteen minutes behind you.”
She gulped. “Okay. Could you improve that time a little?”
“We’ll do the best we can,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’re coming.”
The car was slowing, and it came to a stop. “Gotta go, they’re stopping.”
“Hang in there, sweetheart. I think I love you, too.”
Her heart fluttered at his words. He might just be saying them because she’d included them in her note. But hearing him say he thought he loved her made hope swell inside her, giving her the strength she needed to attempt an escape.
Ten to fifteen minutes wasn’t terrible, but she didn’t really know how long she had before the people who had her decided what they wanted to do with her. Ten to fifteen minutes might be the difference between life and death, depending on what these guys had in mind. But then, wouldn’t they have killed her if they wanted her dead? Why load her alive in the back of a vehicle unless they wanted her to stay alive?