The Principle (Legacy Book 2)

by Rain Carrington

  “Hey,” Steve grunted. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Great. You?”

  “She made me watch another rom/com. I swear, if I start wearing perfume and mascara, you can blame her.”

  Matt chuckled quietly as Steve slid down next to him.

  “I have popcorn in my teeth.”

  “You had it all over the remote too.”

  As he blushed, he reached for the popcorn again. “Yeah, well, butter happens.”

  “I…I got your note.”

  Without glancing his way, Steve tossed a kernel into his mouth and whispered, “Oh?”

  “I loved it. When all this is over, I’m going to give you a proper proposal, but call me insecure. What might your answer be?”

  Steve did look at him then, smirking. “Duh. What do you think?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Stacy woke up then, sitting up and glaring at them. “Can’t let a girl get any sleep? Of course, he’s gonna marry you. That’s all he’s talked about, and that’s why I put the damn rom/com on, to let him know how pretty, pretty princess he’s been acting, planning the damn thing.”

  They both watched her leave the room, and as soon as she was gone, Matt looked back to Steve, jaw dropping.

  “Well! I can’t help it. I’m crazy in love with you, and now that I’m contemplating marriage, I’m getting into the idea.”

  Warmth spread over him when he thought of it too. “You want it big?”

  Rattling off, he explained, “Well, it would be, would have to be, if your family was there, but I don’t know if that’s possible, so I was thinking up the mountain there, there’s a spot next to the lake that is just beautiful. A few friends, my family, if that won’t make you feel bad.”

  He set his hand on Steve’s leg and squeezed, stopping his words. “You’d keep your family away because it might make me feel bad?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, that shouldn’t make you feel bad that I’d do that. It just doesn’t seem fair, me having mine. Anything you want, honey, that’s all I want. Plus, well, a lot of flowers and stuff,” he laughed.

  The thoughts spun around his mind. “I can see it. You in a nice suit, some kind of arch, maybe. And yeah, flowers and Stacy and Charlie. Maybe even Pat.” He pinched Steve’s chin and asserted, “And your family. Every single one of them. Whether any of mine show up or not.”

  “Really?”

  “I’d be pissed if they weren’t there.”

  Walking hand in hand, Steve led Matt to the kitchen. Stacy sat in a kitchen chair, smiling at her phone. Steve ventured a guess, “Charlie call?”

  “Yeah. He’s almost wrapped up with his assignment. If we’re still here, he could be coming as soon as next week.”

  Matt sat next to her, feeling like he should say something. “I know Mac and his boyfriend got you into this, and you are all about your job and whatever, but I’m okay now. You can go, Stacy.”

  Her face was a field of emotion, mostly anger. “If you think you’re only a job to me now, you’ve gone completely around the bend.”

  Steve chuckled at them as he sat across from her. “Yeah, we’ve rubbed off on her.”

  “Well, then, as a friend, I’m telling you, go to your man. You got me to mine and I should repay the favor.”

  Her hand was over his and her anger wiped away in an instant. “Oh, honey, I will, when I’m one hundred percent certain you’re going to be okay.”

  “Steve’s here, and the feds are coming. Not much more for any of us to do.”

  He didn’t know how wrong he was.

  They’d decided on pizza and a movie, one that wasn’t a rom/com. There’d been a lively discussion as they ran to town for the pizza, and finally settled on a phycological thriller. Steve sat in the backseat, though they’d made Matt wear sunglasses and a baseball cap. He’d argued those never fooled anyone, but they made him wear them regardless.

  Settled in on the couch, the clock on the wall chimed nine when Matt took his final bite of pizza. The peppers, onions, and sausage were the perfect balance and he moaned as he chewed.

  “I think the pizza is a hit,” Stacy said, brushing her hands over her plate. “Get the damn movie going.”

  “Dang, if you have to say it,” Matt scolded. “Do not befoul Steve’s home with that language.”

  He was smiling, but Stacy glared anyway. “I cuss, okay?”

  “I’m mostly kidding. See, my father used to say that all the time, if one of the kids or wives came close or said a bad word. He was big on dang and fudge, you know, coming close but never really going there. Befoul…that word. I hated it. It just sounded awful, you know?”

  Steve agreed, “It’s like vomit or moist. Just words you don’t want to hear.”

  Matt kissed him for agreeing, then laughed and told them, “Well, my mother said ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’ If he was going to come close to saying them, say them. If not, then don’t substitute.”

  “I agree, so instead of substituting, I say, fuck that, get the damn movie going and shut the hell up.”

  Steve threw his pizza crust at her, which she blocked perfectly. While Steve was picking it up from the floor, Matt grabbed the remote to start the movie, but he never got that far. His phone rang and he took it from his pocket to see it was Aaron calling.

  “Hello?”

  “Matt, thank goodness. I don’t know what else to do. That fed left that you said was going to help us, and your daddy decided to get started right back up.”

  Matt got back on the couch while the other two watched him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, he’s got five girls headed to the office right now. Their daddies are bringing them. Rachel just told me there’s a big meeting and then the girls are leaving.”

  Matt’s other hand went into a fist and he yelled, “The other feds are coming! They won’t be here until tomorrow, though. Can you stall it, somehow?”

  “How? Your daddy has been waitin’ for this, Matt. He probably wants to get things done now, before you can cause any more trouble.”

  Matt looked to Stacy, then to Steve, pleading with them wordlessly, and both, like the amazing people they were, nodded to him. “We’ll be there, Aaron. Keep my sister and the others safe. I don’t know how but keep everyone safe.”

  “I will. They’re taking the big van. Matt…Matt, one of the girls I saw, it’s…it’s Jackie Page. Matt, she’s only eleven.”

  As his stomach clenched, he ended the call, standing and asked them, “Will you do this with me?”

  He didn’t see hesitation from either of them. Stacy stood and set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m in.”

  He looked to Steve, who was standing as well. “I told you, by your side for the rest of our lives.”

  “That might be kinda short if my daddy has his way tonight.”

  “Then it’s short. But we’re gonna be together.”

  Matt started for the door, ready to head outside and get in the car to go, but Steve stopped him with a heavy grip to his arm. “Not yet.”

  “We have to go now!”

  “No, we have to be armed and ready. And there’s something I’d like you to wear.”

  He hurried to follow Steve to the bedroom, Stacy right on his heels. Once inside, he watched Steve open his closet, then was surprised when he threw his shoes, tennis racket and other things out of the bottom, pulling back a piece of carpet to reveal a handle laid in the floor.

  He pulled it out and gave a yank, and Matt saw there was a compartment there.

  Steve explained as he started to pull out rifles and handguns, “After I left the marshals, I was scared all the time. I wanted to live here, alone, but even secluded, I had this intense fear that someone was going to come and try to kill me again. Irrational, I know, but still. Anyway, I started hoarding guns. When I came to my senses, I sold a good many of them, but I kept a few.”

  Out of the compartment, which was a lot deeper than it looked, Steve pulled out ten rifles, all semi-au
tomatic, fifteen handguns, a stack of Kevlar vests, scopes, magazines, knives…

  “Steve, you’re armed like the damn compound.”

  “Yeah, well, I was scared, like I said. This is nothing compared to what I did have.”

  Matt had never quite known the depths of Steve’s fear until he saw the array on the floor around him. Once everything was all over, he’d deal with it, help him through it. If he could figure out how to do that.

  He checked the weapons, got a few of them loaded while Stacy searched through the vests. “None for tits, huh?”

  “Sorry, they were for me. I got a deal on them.”

  “Well, when mine are squashed, I’ll tell Charlie to take it up with you.”

  She donned one, and Steve held one out to him. “Put it on. In fact, put two on.”

  “One’s fine.”

  They loaded as many into the trunk of Steve’s car as would fit, then placed the rest in the back seat with Matt.

  He stared at them as Steve pulled out, wondering if he’d have to kill his father or one of the other men he’d grown up with on the compound. The prospect didn’t sit well with him, but he knew he could if he had to.

  “You know how to shoot these, right?”

  He looked up at Steve, seeing his eyes in the rearview mirror. “I learned to shoot before I knew my ABCs. Literally.”

  Steve looked away, shaking his head. “That’s just messed up.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but it’ll come in handy,” Stacy commented as she held her phone to her ear. “Yeah, Pat, they waited just long enough to watch you leave. They’re on the move with as many as five girls. Intel says they are using a large cargo van and are about to load up. When is your team going to be ready?”

  Matt waited impatiently while Pat spoke on the other end of the line.

  “Good, get them to the compound, but be stealth. We want to catch them in the act.”

  When she ended the call, Matt barraged her with questions. The first being, “Wait? What if we lose them, or whatever? Those girls will be gone!”

  “If we don’t catch them in the act, they walk free again, and you see what they do when they’re free.”

  “If we have to wait, aren’t we having to go up against the people that are buying the girls too?”

  “Yeah, but Pat’s team is already here, set up in the motel. Like he said, they could be here in three hours and they were. He sent them the minute he got on the plane. They’re going to try to meet us there, but they are behind us. We’ll be confronting first if we get the chance.”

  Matt’s stomach knotted, his throat tightening. The thought of it was sickening, but he didn’t waver. He had to save the girls and get his father to stop.

  Steve drove fast, taking each curve with skill and certainty. He’d been driving the winding roads for years, so he knew them well, and that made Matt wonder if the feds would be able to catch up anytime soon.

  Aaron texted him that the van left. There was only one road to the compound except for a dirt road that went to a neighboring ranch. The rancher hated the people from the compound, so they wouldn’t take that one.

  As Steve drove, Stacy loaded more weapons. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing that you have two experienced former federal officers, but it’s the former part that worries me. If we get caught with all this machinery, we’re toast, no matter who might stick up for us.”

  “And I’m driving ninety, I get it, but I also know the cops around here. They’re off duty until seven in the morning, unless they’re called. They never get called out at night.”

  “That’s probably why Daddy does all the runs at night. I think all the cops in this part of the state do that.”

  “Assholes,” Stacy whispered.

  Steve got to the main road that the van would be on in less than a half an hour, twenty minutes after the text from Aaron. “Wait here. It’s going to take a little while for them to get to this crossroads.”

  Steve pulled off the road and into the trees near the corner, turning off the lights and letting the engine idle. When he took off his seatbelt and turned his body, his eyes searched Matt’s face. “Let us handle most of this, Matt. If…if it comes down to shooting people, we should be the ones to do it. You don’t want that on you.”

  “Yeah, honey. It’s enough to kill a person, but if that person is someone you know or love, or even once loved, it’s not going to go away. It would stay with you, eat at you until you go crazy.”

  “Sounds like you are speaking from experience.”

  Steve and he both looked over to her as she squirmed in her seat, avoiding their stares. “Uh, yeah. My first undercover, I got to know a woman well. I liked her. I had no idea she was in on the crimes I was undercover investigating. We became good friends, well, as good as it can get when you’re on the job.”

  She stopped there with her explanation, and neither pushed her for more.

  When the van passed, Matt pointed, shouting, “There it is!”

  “Give me a minute or two, babe,” Steve told him, gripping the wheel so tight, his knuckles turned ashen. “If I follow right off, on this road where hardly anyone drives it after dark, they’ll know in a heartbeat it’s for them.”

  That didn’t help him not to tremble with anxiety. He wanted to stop them, right then and there, grab the girls out of the van and make them pay for all they’d done.

  He was right, though. Another vehicle passed them, going fast to keep up with the van. “Who is that, Matt?”

  “It’s the goons,” he said as he saw the truck with three men in the front and two in the bed. “The ones that hurt me and probably the ones that killed Dean.”

  “Give me a couple more seconds,” Steve warned, getting the car out of park. “Couple more…”

  Matt knew it was for the best that they watch and find out who the men from the compound were selling off the girls to, but that didn’t help. He imagined them all in the van, afraid, obedient, wondering what their new husbands would be like. They likely had no idea as of yet what was really happening to them. That was the only saving grace of it.

  When Steve pulled out, he was in no hurry. When Matt complained, Steve soothed, “I know this road, honey. Let me work.”

  “He’s good at this, Matt.”

  Matt had never surveilled anyone in his life, so he had to trust Steve and Stacy.

  They followed at least a mile behind them for ten minutes or so, and then Steve sped up, knowing the highway would be coming soon. Matt was without his seatbelt, leaning between the seats and staring out of the front. “What if we lose them?”

  “We won’t. The highway is right up the road. If they would have turned on it, we would have seen them through those trees. They’re staying on this road.”

  “How far does this road go?”

  Steve laughed sadistically. “As far as they’d like to go, and I know every inch of it. The time when I was paranoid as hell, I went up and down nothing but this road to go south. It kept me from seeing a lot of people, and better still, I didn’t have to handle traffic.”

  “You were really messed up,” Stacy commented, placing a soft hand on his arm.

  “Yeah, but that’s over. I’m ready to get back in the thick of things if I have to, and it looks like I have to. I’m ready. Don’t worry about me, Stacy.”

  “I’m not. All I have to do is see that look in your eye.”

  It was true. His eyes were cold steel and set ahead of him. Matt didn’t fear it either, Steve choking at the wrong second. He feared that more from himself.

  Steve pulled over suddenly, surprising Matt and Stacy alike. “They’re right up there.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  Steve laughed in Stacy’s direction. “I’m that good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Steve pointed to the trees right in front of the car. “When I would drive this road at night, I memorized every light in the distance. It helps to see shadows in the dark, things that could be i
n front of them, therefore, knowing where people that may want to hide are hiding.”

  “What’s up there?”

  Matt wanted to know the same and Steve answered in a low voice. “An old school house. Closed probably fifty years ago. Perfect and darkly ironic.”

  Steve’s eyes didn’t move from where they suspected the men with the girls could be. His hands were clenched into fists, and Matt realized he was the same, tense, focused, feeding off Stacy and Steve.

  Stacy had her hand on the dash but moved it to the door. “I’m going up and around. My phone has a good camera, but I’m hoping it’ll record in the dark.”

  Steve shook his head and got out of the car himself after shutting off the dome light. They heard him get into the trunk and he came back with three things. One was a handgun, Ruger 9mm, a Sig Sauer semiautomatic rifle, and the other was a contraption unlike Matt had ever seen.

  “What’s that?”

  Steve handed it over to Stacy, who was grinning as she started checking it out while she answered Matt, “This is state of the art! How much severance did they give you?”

  “State of the art what?”

  Steve finally told him, “It’s night vision. One side is just a goggle, the other is a monocular with camera attached. It can record up to eight full hours. It cost a pretty penny, a good chunk of my severance, yeah.”

  Unlike a normal pair of goggles, it didn’t have ear rests. It was more like a helmet, hard plastic straps that went over Stacy’s head as she donned it. When she turned it on, Matt expected to hear a whirring motor, but it was silent.

  “Stealth,” Steve bragged. “Fully stealth and adjusts for movement, so any movement won’t automatically blur.”

  “I’ll be back,” she promised, then got out of the car, slipped the rifle’s strap over her shoulder and moved the rifle around to her back, gripped the handgun, and disappeared into the dark before Matt could protest.

  “Shouldn’t one of us go with her?”

  “She’s better trained than I am, I’d bet, Matt. Don’t worry. I’m following her.” He turned around, grabbing Matt’s hand and pleading, “I need you to stay here.”