by Wade, Maddie
“Someone’s hangry.”
Liam glared. “Fuck off, Deck.”
Decker just laughed but he drove the two minutes to a fast-food joint so Liam could get food. They all ordered something and were on the way home when they got a call from Laverne.
Waggs put it through the car audio. “Hey, Laverne.”
“They took them. I couldn’t stop them. There were too many.”
Waggs sat up straighter, his mind clearing, his body tensing as he glanced at Decker and Liam who mirrored his posture. “Explain.”
“Five heavily armed men stormed Willow’s home ten minutes ago and took her and Bebe.”
Waggs’ blood turned to ice, the sounds around him becoming white noise as the realisation that the woman he loved was in the hands of sex traffickers. “Where are you now?”
“I’m following them in the car but trying to stay right back so they don’t spot me.”
That was clever and probably her best call, seeing as she couldn’t have taken out five armed men alone without getting Bebe and Willow killed. His gut clenched at the thought that if he hadn’t stormed off, neither woman would have been there.
Decker glanced at him and shook his head, seemingly knowing what he was thinking. “Where are they headed, Laverne?”
“Trucking yard.”
Decker swung the car around and headed toward the house they’d been using opposite Willow’s. “We need ammunition and to check the footage.” He glanced at Waggs who was clenching his fists, every muscle tense. “I know you want to go rushing off to save them, but we need to be smart.”
“I need to check on AJ. I wouldn’t put it past them to use him.”
“Already on it.” Liam had the phone to his ear but handed it to Waggs through the seats.
Waggs closed his eyes not sure how he’d explain this to his mother or AJ if anything happened to Willow because of him.
“Hello.”
“Mom, it’s me. Is AJ okay?”
His mother must have heard the strain in his voice. “Yes, why? What’s wrong?”
Closing his eyes, he had to make the second worst admission of his life. “They took her, Mom, they have Willow.”
The gasp on the other end was audible. “Well, we’re fine, and everything is quiet here. You go and get our girl back, son, and then we can make our plans for the future. I’m thinking I might like to live in this Hereford place.”
Waggs bit back the emotion he felt, knowing there would be time for that later. Now he needed to do what was needed of him to make this right. “Will do, and, Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“Bye, son.”
He knew the fear must be killing her, but his mother never let him see her doubt in him or the circumstances but just gave her unfailing support.
Arriving at the house, they heard from Laverne that Bebe and Willow had been taken to the trucking yard and into a warehouse at the back. Decker called Lopez and had him monitor the area from the sky with a remote drone Will had built them that had exceptional range. Waggs never got involved in that side of it more than he had to. He knew the basics and that was all he needed.
He, Liam, and Decker moved through the house. As he watched the images of an unconscious and bleeding Willow being carried out of the house, he felt his ears ring with fury. He stepped forward as he saw Ralph walk out of the house dragging Bebe, who was also injured but conscious.
“Freeze the frame.” Waggs peered closer and saw a face he didn’t want to see. “That’s Nick Green and those two men with him served with Aaron and I.”
Liam looked up at him. “You telling me we have at least three Green Berets involved in this shit storm?”
“Yes.”
“Well, fuck. I guess we best call in some support.”
Waggs shook his head as he paced the small front bedroom. “No time. Even if Jack can get us support, they won’t be here in time. They’re gonna move those girls tonight.”
“What if I can get us some help that’s around three or four hours away?” Decker asked.
“That could work. Who are they?” Waggs’ trust level right now wasn’t high given what he’d just witnessed.
“An FBI serial killer task force set up in Texas.”
“You mean Reid’s friend Clay’s lot?”
“Yes. I’ve worked with one of them, Scott ‘Sandstorm’ Silverman. He worked the violent crimes unit with me for a while.”
“Good enough for me. Give him a call.”
Decker moved away and Waggs watched the footage again to see if he could pick up on anything but didn’t see anything else of importance.
“They’re catching a flight in the next thirty minutes and good news. They’re in Atlanta wrapping up a case so it should be much less time.”
“Good. Let’s go over what we know. Laverne will keep us updated on what’s going down and Lopez has the drone.” Waggs needed to be productive until they could go in or he’d lose his mind thinking about what those sick fuckers were doing to Willow. She was strong, much stronger than he was, but he knew the kind of horror she could be facing, and his gut rebelled against it.
“Tell me what Green said when you met him again?”
The first meeting with Decker and Green had been a waste of time, he’d denied everything and had Decker escorted from the barracks, which was what they’d expected. When Decker went to his home, it had been a different conversation.
“He says he’s being blackmailed and so are two members of his team. Ralph set him up with the girl and has video and images that will ruin his career and probably his life.”
“Is that the same with his two men?”
“He wouldn’t say but if he’s telling the truth, and I think he is, then yes. My guess it’s a similar scenario.”
“Do we have the identity of the girl yet?”
“Yes. She’s fifteen-year-old Casey Logan, and she’s the daughter of a Police Captain from New York.”
Waggs crossed his arms. “Do we think Nick will warn them we visited him?” He trusted Decker’s word on this more than his own.
“I don’t think so. He wants out of this as quietly as he can. My guess is he wants us to take Ralph and his operation out and then he’ll try and take us out so there are no witnesses.”
Liam snorted. “Yeah, not happening.”
Waggs agreed, this ended tonight and not with any of them dead, that was for fucking sure. They also had an ace in the fox’s den that they had no idea about—Bebe.
Chapter 20
Willow came awake with a start, her heart hammering in her chest, her body flinching into a sitting position, her wrists snagging on the plastic of the zip ties that bound her. She remembered instantly what had happened and the bloom of pain in her cheek would have reminded her if she hadn’t anyway.
“Hey.”
Willow turned from her position on the floor to the sound of Bebe’s voice. “Bebe, are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a few bruises. How about you?”
Willow couldn’t see a lot in the low light of what looked like a warehouse office. “Yeah, fine, just a face ache.”
“Did you recognise any of the men?” Bebe didn’t sound the least bit frightened and Willow used that to keep herself from freaking out.
“Yes, actually, three of them. Ralph Edwards, Nick Green, who was Aaron and Aiden’s CO in the Army, and Jerry Edwards, Ralph’s father. I thought he was sweet but apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“They’re waiting for a delivery of six other girls and then they’ll move us. We can’t allow that to happen.”
“Okay. What do you need me to do?”
“I’m not sure yet, just be ready to move when I say, okay?”
“Sure, I can do that, but these zip ties will slow me down.”
“Does that dress have a removable belt?”
Willow thought for a second and nodded and remembered Bebe couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
“No. Its tied at the front.”
Willow heard shuffling and then felt Bebe right next to her. “Lay back, I’m going to use my teeth to get this undone.”
Willow lay back and felt Bebe’s head against her middle and muffled the hysterical giggle. “This isn’t the action I was hoping for tonight.”
Bebe snorted. “Me either, babe.”
The leather cord belt soon hung lose and Bebe pulled it free. Willow heard Bebe moving around and figured she was using the belt to cut the ties somehow. In minutes she heard a grunt. “Got ya, you little fucker.” Bebe moved closer to her, now free of the bonds and, using something she produced from her hand, cut the ties before she scooted back to where she’d been before.
“Umm, if you had that knife, why did you use my belt?”
“Because, genius, it was in my ear.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s an earring. I couldn’t get it out without my hands.”
“Oh, so what now?” Willow figured she should be more afraid than she was, with Ralph wanting her dead and men with guns just outside the door.
“Now we wait. These men are trained, and I can’t take them on my own, but when Waggs gets here, we need to be able to help ourselves.”
Willow shivered and a flicker of hope wound through her at the mention of the man she loved. The fight they’d had seemed like light years ago now, and yet the look of anger and betrayal on his face was embedded in her mind. She’d hurt him badly but as time went on, and as she’d talked it over with Bebe, she’d come to realise this wasn’t all her fault.
Aiden wasn’t an idiot and he’d never even asked if there was a possibility of AJ being his son. He’d deliberately been obtuse and hidden from the questions he should have asked. It in no way absolved her, she knew that, but she wouldn’t shoulder the blame alone. She’d done things alone for too long and she was tired of it. Willow loved him more than anything in this world apart from AJ, but she wouldn’t be a doormat and she wouldn’t continue to pay for the mistake of her silence forever.
Even with all that doubt between them she still had no doubt whatsoever in her mind that he’d come for her. His love for her was the one thing she didn’t question after all this time. Whether it would be enough—time would tell.
The door opened and she and Bebe looked up but kept their hands behind their backs so the man who faced them didn’t see they were free. Her gaze locked on Ralph as he strode in the room like he was the fucking king of the world and they were his minions. Two men stood behind him with military issue weapons in their traitorous hands.
“Willow, Willow, Willow. What a pain in the ass you’ve been.” He stopped, his polished Italian shoes next to her knees as he crouched beside her, his designer wool suit in a gorgeous French navy pulled over his legs as he looked at her. It would’ve been easier if he was ugly, but Ralph had the smooth, preppy good looks of a man climbing his way to power in politics. Not a blond hair out of place, his blue eyes cold and disinterested unless there was something in it for him.
“I’ve chased you all over the world and now my contract killer has gone missing. Do you know anything about that?”
“Oh, yeah. I had him arrested and thrown in the tower of London.”
Ralph found her words funny, but she wondered if he would if he knew how close it was to the truth. Aiden had explained exactly what Eidolon did—and for whom—after Jack gave him permission and she signed a non-disclosure agreement. They needn’t have bothered. She’d never tell a soul what she knew about the team who’d helped her.
“You’re funny. Perhaps I should have fucked you and not Emma.”
Willow never would’ve looked twice at Ralph. He was everything she didn’t want in a man. She should know, she’d had perfection not once but twice.
“Did you kill her?” Willow hadn’t meant to ask or give him any kind of power, but she felt guilty for dragging her friend into it.
Ralph gripped her chin in a cruel grip and brough his mouth close to her ear. “No, I fucked her raw in every hole, until she couldn’t walk straight, and then my trusty team here took out the trash.”
Willow refused to look at Ralph, looking away towards the man at his back. The same man who’d offered her his deepest condolences at Aaron’s funeral. Who had folded the American flag and handed it to her with a look of grief on his face and she’d thanked him. Yet, now, she knew he was nothing but scum, a traitor to his country and his president.
She also now knew he’d been the one to orchestrate Aaron’s death. Nick Green had the contacts and the access to the men who’d blown up a small child to hide his dirty secrets and appetites. In some ways, she hated him more than she hated Ralph. He’d promised to protect and serve, and he’d ended up killing for his own end. She put every ounce of her hatred for him into her eyes and saw the slightest wince.
Bile roiled in her gut as she asked the question in her heart she knew she already had the answer to, but she wanted to understand. “Did you kill Aaron?”
“He was nosey and I knew I couldn’t control him or tempt the perfect Aaron Wagner to join me, so he had to die. Nick tried to warn him, to encourage him to join us but he wouldn’t listen. The only reason his brother lived is because Nick assured me he didn’t know anything.”
“Why? Why are you doing this? You have money and a good life.” Willow blinked to clear her vision of tears that blinded her.
Ralph leaned against the desk and crossed his ankles as he looked down on her. “Because I can and because a political career is expensive, and women are lucrative.”
“We aren’t pawns for your game, Ralph.”
“Don’t be naive, Willow. Everyone is a pawn in this world. It’s survival of the fittest and the strongest. Aaron was weak and short sighted. He valued the wrong things and he died in pain.”
Willow felt the burn of tears at the backs of her eyes as her throat closed, trying to hold herself together and stop herself from reacting and flying at him, scratching his eyes out. Only Bebe behind her and the promise of the retribution she knew Aiden would bring kept her from acting on it. Willow spat on Ralph’s shiny shoe in disgust. “You’ll all pay.”
Ralph reacted, gripping her hair before raising his hand and back-handing her. She tasted blood but bit back the cry of pain. She’d never let him see her pain again, not any of them.
Green jumped forward pulling him away. “Leave it. The delivery will be here soon.”
Ralph shook off the hand that had grabbed him and Green stepped back as Ralph turned to her again. “I’m going to fuck you in every hole and maybe even make some new ones and then I’m going to let you watch while I do the same to your friend. When you’re both begging for death, you can watch me kill Aiden. Just like I had Aaron killed.”
Chapter 21
The team had agreed to meet Clay—code name Condor—and his team five clicks out from the trucking yard. Waggs had worked with Clay to rescue Callie, Reid’s girlfriend and Clay’s sister, and remembered him to be a cool-headed operator. As former hostage rescue team member for the FBI, he had a lot of experience with this kind of retrieval too which would come in handy for any insights.
Waggs shook the man’s hand firmly. “Clay, thanks for coming.”
“No, problem. After what you guys did for Callie, I’m always going to be in your debt.” He turned to the three men who stood with him. “This is Sandstorm, former FBI Violent Crimes.”
Waggs shook his hand. “Aiden Wagner, but my friends call me Waggs.” The man was his height, with dark hair and a beard, with a middle eastern look to his features.
“Nice to meet you, Waggs.”
“This is Hawk, a former Texas Ranger, and Lyric, who is also FBI.”
Waggs and Liam shook their hands. “Good to meet you.”
Waggs was feeling antsy now and ready to get moving. Willow had been a hostage for three hours already and he didn’t like it one bit. Th
e thoughts of what could happen to her in that time was like ice cold tendrils of fear up his spine.
“So, bring us up to speed.”
He liked the fact Clay didn’t mess around.
In the dark parking lot of a local convenience store, Liam pulled up the overhead drone images from the trucking yard on an iPad and the group gathered around. Waggs had been watching it vigilantly since they’d arrived, making sure there was no movement at the trucking yard. Had there been, they would’ve gone in without back up. He’d watched Ralph, Green, and one of the other Special Ops soldiers working with them, walk across the yard twenty minutes earlier and move into the warehouse where they were holding Willow and Bebe.
A sick feeling churned in his gut as each second ticked by and they remained inside, doing god knew what. He didn’t think Green would hurt Willow and Bebe without reason, just for cruelties’ sake, but he’d follow Ralph’s orders and he was a nasty fucker.
“They’re holding Willow and Bebe in here. We know they’re waiting for a shipment to come in with more girls. From what we can tell, they have two men inside the warehouse, two on the gate, and four more including Ralph and Jerry Edwards in the main office.” Waggs laid it out as if his heart wasn’t in danger of breaking and buried any emotion so he could do his job and get them out safe.
“Any idea if they’re injured?” Condor asked.
Waggs folded his arms across his chest to stop the shake and leaned his hip against the vehicle. “Willow was unconscious when they brought her out of the house and to the warehouse. Bebe was walking wounded.” Waggs paused, not wanting to give Bebe’s cover away as working for Zenobi. The all-female agency didn’t exactly play well with the alphabet agencies. “Bebe has some training, so provided she hasn’t received any further injuries, she’ll be able to help us out when we go in. Her friend Laverne is also on over-watch and can provide sniper support.”
Sandstorm quirked an eyebrow. “Some interesting friends you got here, Deck.”
“Yeah, and loyal,” Decker responded.
