Theirs to Ransom

by Stasia Black

  By sundown, Jagger felt confident they’d made it at least twenty-five of that sixty. They watered the horses and made camp.

  Everyone was exhausted from the day’s ride and too tired to make trouble if they’d had a mind to.

  Sophia cooked a couple of hares Jagger’d found this morning in the traps he’d set out the night before.

  Finn slept on one side of her and Mario, who’d apparently designated himself her bodyguard, took the other.

  Jagger didn’t know what to make of that and he was too tired to consider it much before he dropped off to sleep with the rest of their makeshift camp.

  The next day was more of the same.

  Long empty stretches of knee-high scrub brush and horizon in all directions as far as the eye could see.

  Jagger imagined it was like being at sea. He’d liked books about the sea when he was a kid. Old historical ones about the British and pirates and long endless days of doldrums where a crew might be trapped in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the nonexistent wind and their prayers to save them.

  In the books, salvation always came one way or another but now Jagger imagined the reality of the many crews that slowly dehydrated and starved to death.

  Reality was always so much less pleasant than the fictions men told themselves so they could sleep at night.

  But Jagger was a man and no longer a boy.

  So as nice as it might be to lay with Sophia, as pleasant as her kisses might feel and her mouth on his cock, by the time they got where they were going, it all had to come to an end.

  On his terms, not the goddamned fickle wind’s.

  Because fuck knew there was no God.

  Chapter Fifteen

  TOBY

  That uppity bitch got to ride like the queen of fucking Sheba no matter that Toby was the one really suffering.

  Toby glared at the trailer and the orange nylon that reflected the late afternoon sun so bright he winced and looked back ahead as his horse continued plodding along.

  Toby was her fucking husband and he had fucking rights. Literally. He had the right to fuck her. Any time he wanted. Any way he pleased.

  Not that he’d got to assert them since the wedding night, and he couldn’t even fuckin’ remember that.

  Well fuck that shit.

  Tonight he was gonna take that little cunt. She was gonna ride in that fuckin’ carriage? Fine. He’d give her somethin’ to be sore about. He’d ride her good and hard tonight.

  Maybe even give Joey and Tom a spin.

  Then Toby glared at Jagger. If that moody motherfucker wasn’t in his way every fuckin’ time he turned around.

  Toby would have been Governor of Carlsbad ten times over by now if it wasn’t for Jagger fuckin’ Kincaid.

  Though if Toby had his way, him and his boys would take care of that smug motherfucker before this trip was done.

  They’d get the money and then put a bullet straight between his eyes.

  Toby’s hands gripped the reins tighter just at the thought. Jag thought he was so slick, always a step ahead of everybody else.

  Toby’d show him who was really in charge.

  Three hours later, they came upon Jal just as the sun was setting. Jagger held up his hand. “Hold up. Let me go ahead alone. Don’t any of you move till I come back with the go ahead.”

  Toby rolled his eyes. “Why the fuck not? Place’s a ghost town.” He gestured at the empty streets in the distance, pistol in hand.

  “Put the gun away,” Jagger hissed. “They’re watching us right now.”

  Toby wanted so bad to lift his piece and land that bullet in Jagger’s forehead this very second. But fuck, he’d waited this long. Wait till the payment’s in hand—that’d been his motto for years now and there was a reason he’d lasted this long and had it as good as he did.

  Jagger rode out in front of them about twenty feet, then raised both his hands high overhead. “The moon rises high over the desert in the winter,” he shouted. “Jagger Kincaid here, at your service, with a small party, humbly begging passage.”

  Toby sneered. Dumb fuck was plain out of his damn mind. Desert heat had finally got to him, that was clear as day.

  Toby was about to pull his gun again and ride forward toward town when all of the sudden a whistle came—first one, then another, then another and another.

  And with the sound, men popped up out of nowhere, right out of the ground like they were gophers. Except for the fact that they all held machine guns pointed at Toby and everyone else.

  Motherfuckers! Where the fuck did they come from?

  Toby looked a little closer at the one nearest him and saw that shit, there was a little human sized hidey hole that had been dug into the otherwise flat landscape.

  And the bastards had them surrounded.

  Chapter Sixteen

  SOPHIA

  Sophia peeked her head over the edge of the trailer at Jagger’s shouting, lifting the nylon up so she could see. Her eyes shot wide open when she saw the men appear out of nowhere with guns pointed at them

  At first she ducked back down again, her heart thumping a mile a minute.

  But then after another long moment of quiet, she lifted up and peeked out again. Jagger had ridden out to one of the men with a machine gun and was talking calmly to him.

  The man hadn’t dropped his gun but he nodded at something Jagger said and gestured him forward.

  “I’ll be back in five,” Jagger called. “Don’t make a move. Any of you.”

  Sophia dropped back to the bed of the trailer. Don’t make a move. Not a problem. She was on it.

  She thought she might have held her breath the whole time he was gone. But far sooner than she was prepared for, the nylon on the trailer was whipped back.

  She shrieked at being exposed.

  But it was Jagger.

  Beside him were Finn and Mario, and a man Sophia had never seen before. He was young, maybe her and Finn’s age, and he looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

  “You didn’t say you had a—”

  “This is our wife,” Jagger said, reaching out a hand for Sophia. She took it and sat up, letting him pull her to the edge of the trailer. She quickly pulled on her socks and the soft leather boots Jagger had given her back in Carlsbad. Her blisters had mostly healed up since she’d barely worn shoes since the wedding, so it didn’t hurt to pull the boots on.

  Jagger helped her down from the trailer once she got them on. It felt good to be on solid ground, especially since Finn and Mario immediately flanked her. “She’s under our protection,” Finn made sure to say.

  The man nodded. “Fair enough.” Then he looked to Jagger. “If you’re friends with Grandpa Bill then you know his ways. You don’t fuck with us, we won’t fuck with you.”

  “Words to live by,” Jagger quipped. “Come on, let’s get out of the open.”

  The man nodded and they all started forward.

  Jagger took Sophia up on the back of his horse for the last of the ride into town. She clung to his waist. She wasn’t sore anymore. After two days being stuck in the trailer, it felt a little surreal to be up on horseback and well, for things to be happening again.

  Now that they were, though, she wasn’t sure she shouldn’t have been happy with the boredom of the trailer.

  They were obviously walking into a settlement of some kind.

  But as they got closer to town, it looked just as dead and abandoned as it had from the outskirts. The landscape was as flat as ever and Sophia couldn’t see any signs of life. Anywhere.

  “Where are—” she started to ask but Jagger cut her off.

  “Jal is the last stop before you hit Texas and it was hit hard in the war,” Jagger spoke quietly so only she could hear. “All the border towns were. The Queen of the Colorado territories was determined to end her war at our borders.”

  Queen?!

  But Sophia didn’t have a chance to think more on his shocking words because he was hurrying on, obviou
sly intent on passing along the basics before they got where they were going.

  “She didn’t want word of her resources ever reaching the Texans because she didn’t want another war on her hands. So her solution was to absolutely decimate the populations of the border towns even after she’d won the war and taken all the women. Her armies slaughtered every man living in Jal.”

  Sophia looked around her at the empty streets and swallowed hard, suddenly imagining the streets filled with bloody fighting.

  Now that she looked closer, she could see bullet holes in buildings. Everywhere. She shuddered and held on tighter to Jagger.

  “So who are these men? They came in afterwards and occupied what was left?”

  “No,” Jagger said, his voice still hushed. “Bill and his family were here the whole time. They hid. Bill was a wealthy man and one of the few men in towns with a basement. He stuffed all the men of his family—and he had a large one, sons and grandsons and cousins and cousins’ cousins—all into the basement of one of his businesses and they rode out the storm. Legend goes that they stayed down there for three days and three nights. And when they came out, every single person they’d ever known was dead and left to bloat in the heat where they’d fallen.”

  Sophia gasped in horror.

  “It took them weeks to bury everybody.”

  There was no time to say more because apparently, they’d arrived. Sophia looked around as Jagger brought the horse to a standstill outside a huge warehouse. Just like the rest of the town, there was nothing around. No people. No sign of life. Nothing.

  The men with machine guns had walked with them, escorting them through town. One knocked on the door of the warehouse, with a unique knocking pattern of several quick raps followed by silences of varying lengths and more rapping.

  Jagger swung down from the horse and then helped Sophia down. Mario was by her side in an instant, Finn quickly following. They were her shadows. Not that she minded, especially on a day like today, heading into the unknown. She reached out a hand to both of them and gave them a quick squeeze to show her appreciation.

  The warehouse door opened to a man in his late forties or early fifties. He looked them all over and then motioned them in. As every person entered, they were patted down.

  Finn stepped in front of Sophia. “Don’t you even think about laying your hands on her.”

  Jagger put a hand on his arm. “Finnigan. It’s fine. Let him, or she can’t come in.”

  “It’s fine, Finn,” Sophia echoed but Finn just jerked his arm out of Jagger’s grasp.

  Finn only marched up to the man patting them down and put his finger in his face. “You touch her inappropriately and he—” Finn pointed back behind him to Mario, “—will rip your head off.”

  The guy’s eyes followed Finn’s gesture and Mario slammed his fist into his other hand menacingly.

  “Hey man, if you’re a friend of Bill’s, we won’t disrespect your woman.”

  The way he’d worded that didn’t exactly inspire the most confidence in Sophia, but when she got to the man, he patted her down the same way he had everyone else and didn’t try to cop a feel even though she was just wearing a sundress. She thought she got off easier than everyone else, actually, because when Mario growled from behind her as the guy skimmed the back of his hands up her legs, he backed off.

  “Okay, you’re fine,” he said quickly, gesturing her inside.

  She blinked in surprise as she stepped through the door. She hadn’t seen any windows from outside so she’d expected it to be dark—but there were lights. Electric lights.

  Not a ton of them, but they hung from the ceiling in regular enough intervals to be able to see. The large space wasn’t all open, parts of it were portioned off by hanging sheets to make smaller rooms, others by stronger wooden partitions that had been set up, even a few made of metal, but there was a large open space where people gathered in the center of the warehouse. Several large couches were set up around the space, along with a few loungers.

  Sophia started to do a quick headcount when she froze in place.

  “There are women!” she whispered in shock, hurrying forward even ahead of Jagger.

  “Sophia, wait,” Finn said but Sophia was already off. These people were friendly with Jagger and they had women among them, so they couldn’t be that bad.

  Frankly, after not setting eyes on another woman in almost two weeks, the sight of not just one, but four was so welcome, Sophia’s grin was bursting on her face as she hurried up to the group of about fifteen people.

  “Hello,” Sophia said, holding her hand out to the first woman she came to. She had stringy blonde hair and a pale face, and looked maybe five years older than Sophia. It was hot in the warehouse and all the women wore skirts and tank tops, no doubt to stay cool. “I’m Sophia. You have no idea how good it is to see another feminine face.”

  The woman jerked back from Sophia, not just like she was startled, but like she was scared. She had large, fearful blue eyes.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Sophia dropped her hand, feeling terrible for scaring the girl. “I shouldn’t have just come barging in like that. I’m with Jagger. He’s a friend of Bill’s.” That seemed to be the magic phrase around here but the girl only backed away more.

  “Don’t go running off like that, dear,” Jagger said, coming up beside Sophia right as a big man with a white beard and a red face pushed through the crowd and held out his arms wide. He wore a soiled tank top that might have once been white but was now an indeterminate grayish brown.

  “Jagger, my boy!”

  “Bill,” Jagger said, walking forward and embracing the man.

  This was Bill? He looked like a homeless, half-deranged desert Santa.

  He pulled Jagger into a tight embrace, clapping him hard on the back several times before letting him go.

  “And who is this vision at your side?”

  “Of course, sir. Where are my manners? This is Sophia Kincaid, my wife.”

  Sophia’s head shot to Jagger. It was the first time he’d called her by his name.

  Kincaid.

  It was stupid to get caught up about something so inconsequential when she was face to face with so many strangers.

  Especially when desert Santa smiled her way. Sophia was about to smile back but then he looked her up and down appraisingly, stopping and staring at her chest.

  Was he seriously just ogling her right in front of Jagger, even though he’d just said she was his wife?

  She was wearing one of her sundresses because she hadn’t wanted to put back on her dirty jeans, and it got hot in the trailer under the tarp, but now she was regretting it. She crossed her arms over her chest in an effort to cover the scooped neck of the dress.

  “You sure about that?” Bill looked back to Jagger. “We could use another good earner. Gorgeous girl like her, she’d earn us a pretty penny every night. You know I’d give you a fair price for her.”

  What?!

  Sophia about choked on her own tongue. Her eyes shot to the other girls in the group and sure enough, one of the men from outside had sat down on the wide couch and pulled her down into his lap. At least Sophia thought he was pulling her onto his lap.

  Really he was just midway to pushing her onto the floor. Then he unbuckled himself and pulled her by the hair until she was up on her knees and sucking his—

  The sight was blocked by Finn stepping up beside her.

  A growl came from her left and Sophia looked over to see Mario beside Jagger. Jagger, though, just laughed and slung his arm across Sophia’s shoulders.

  “Alas, it’s true love. And, as you can see, my men are partial to her, too. We couldn’t bear to lose her.”

  Bill eyed Mario and Finn for a tense moment, and then let out a hearty laugh. “Well I had to ask. I’m a businessman after all.”

  “That you are,” Jagger agreed with an easy smile.

  “Come, there’s stew on,” Bill said. “Get off your feet. Food before business anywa
y.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  How could Jagger smile at the man? Sophia fumed, her hands fisted as he led her across the concrete floor of the warehouse to the furthest wall where several picnic tables had been set up end to end. And as much as he’d detailed about the settlement on the way over, how could he have forgotten to mention this little detail?

  She wasn’t an idiot. She knew in theory this kind of thing happened in the world. And much worse. Did these men use these women like those monsters who’d brutalized her mother? How could Jagger treat this man like a friend when he— when he—

  Sophia’s attention was distracted by another of the women, older, maybe in her late thirties but also wearing a mini-skirt and tank top, who moved between a make-shift kitchen and the tables.

  They’d broken up the concrete in the corner—Sophia couldn’t imagine how long it had taken, and had a recessed fire with what looked like a tunnel that had been dug to carry the smoke out underneath the warehouse walls.

  But Sophia was far more focused on the woman herself. She didn’t have the blank, scared expression of the first woman. She introduced herself as Meredith, but didn’t say anything beyond that. She had a pleasant but aloof smile, and if she was surprised to see Sophia among their company, she didn’t show it.

  “So that man,” Sophia said to Jagger as they sat down. “He owns these women? And he— He prostitutes them to his men here?”

  Please, please tell her she’d misunderstood.

  Toby must have been standing closer than she’d realized because though she’d been whispering, he sneered behind her.

  “Not these men. They get it for free cause they’re family. Bill takes the girls round to settlements nearby. Why didn’t you just say this was Bill’s place, Jag? Shit, if I knew Bill and his girls lived this close, I’d be out here every other week spendin’ my scratch on these bitches. You only have ‘em out to Carlsbad a few times a year.”

  Sophia jerked back from Jagger. He had them out to… As in Jagger arranged for these poor girls to be used as prostitutes in the township he governed?