Theirs to Ransom

by Stasia Black

  Sophia’s head snapped in the man’s direction. Badass bitch? Did he mean Drea?

  “So he and a bunch of his friends deserted when they realized they weren’t going to get nothing they’d been promised and ran west.”

  “Where’d he last see the army?” Sophia asked.

  “Ask him yourselves.”

  As they came around the last of the steel barriers, the man gestured toward the end of the warehouse opposite of the kitchens. In the distance, Sophia could see a crowd of men circled and hear shouting.

  “But you’ll have to hurry, before they tear him apart.”

  Sophia looked to Jagger, horrified, but he just steeled his jaw and took her arm, urging her quicker down the makeshift hallway created from the rooms of hanging sheets on either side of them.

  “And who else knew you were coming this way?” she heard Bill ask as they got closer. “Eh? Who else did you tell?”

  “No one. No one, I swear!”

  Jagger pushed through the crowd until they got to the front. A man who looked like a younger version of Bill raised his fist but the skinny man on the floor whose face was already bloody held up pleading hands.

  “I swear I’m telling the truth! Why would I lie? Everyone I know is dead.” He started to weep. “They’re all dead. There’s no one left.”

  Bill stepped back, his face pinched like he smelled something distasteful. “This sniveling idiot isn’t lying. There’s no one else coming. Go ahead and take him out back and—”

  “Wait!” Sophia said, jumping forward.

  The man on the floor looked up at her and begged, “Please. Angel, save me! Don’t let them kill me!”

  Sophia swallowed hard. He was already beaten so badly he could barely open his left eye. “All right,” she forced herself to whisper. “I might be able to save you. But only if you tell me the truth.”

  She crouched down so she was at his level, but still far enough away so he couldn’t jump forward to touch her.

  “Anything,” he said. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Tell me more about the war,” Sophia said. “Is the army you left marching on Fort Worth? What do you know of their numbers versus Colonel Travis’s numbers?”

  The man looked down and Sophia’s stomach sank. What didn’t he want to tell her?

  “Look at me,” she ordered with steel in her voice. “I can save you. But only if you tell me the truth. The whole truth.”

  Someone behind her moved like they might protest her words but she lifted a hand to silence them. She knew the men of this settlement would do whatever they wanted to do to this man regardless of her promises—but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Well, Miss,” the man finally looked up at her, and it was only then that she realized how young he was. Maybe only sixteen or seventeen. “That’s part of why we bugged out. We knew that army’s doomed.”

  Sophia felt the air whoosh out of her chest but she strove to keep her facial expression pleasant and calm. “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “Cause Colonel Travis has twice as many troops and before all the sat phones went down, he’d just got another whole army of mercenaries to fight for him from the old Southern States Alliance. I’m good at sneakin’ and I was huntin’ for some extra bread when I overheard it with my own ears. Travis was talkin’ to Army command. So that lady’s army is walking right into a trap.”

  Sophia stood back up again, her back snapping straight.

  She had to get this information to her father and Drea. They had no idea what they’d be facing when they got to Fort Worth.

  They’d be outnumbered three to one.

  Hired mercenaries against rebels plucked from the countryside. Yeah, there were some trained forces on their side in the Army that Drea apparently led now. If she’d taken San Antonio, then she had more professional fighters. But a large part of the Army was still men like those from Jacob’s Well—farmers and Scrappers and construction workers—men who hadn’t picked up a weapon since the War for Independence eight years ago, if then.

  “And the woman’s Army—when were they planning to march north for Fort Worth?”

  “They’re already headed there, Miss. We bugged out the third night but they’re probably nearabouts Austin by now.”

  “Thank you for your honesty,” Sophia said to the man. To the boy.

  “So you’ll spare me?” He looked at her so earnestly.

  Sophia bit her lip as the men holding his arms behind his back hauled him to his feet and then began to drag him to the warehouse door.

  “No,” he shouted. “No, she promised! I told the truth. You promised!”

  Sophia shrank back as the warehouse door slammed behind them, hands going to her face. They were going to kill him. Oh God, they were going to kill him. Maybe if she ran after them and tried to argue for his life, that he had been helpful, that maybe his words could help them win the war—

  Bang.

  The dull sound of a gunshot stopped her in her tracks.

  Yet another person to add to the tally marks against her soul.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Jagger said, taking her arm.

  Sophia wrenched her arm away from him. And then she looked around, remembering. “Where’s Finn? And Mario and Leo?”

  Her stomach sank to the floor. “Oh God,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “They were fine last I saw,” Jagger said quickly. “Leo was with his brother where we left them and Finn’s probably just helping clean up.”

  But Sophia knew in her guts that the first thing Finn would do once the fighting stopped was to come looking for her.

  “Where was Finn when you saw him?”

  “Other side of the warehouse.”

  “Show me.”

  Jagger nodded and when he didn’t move fast enough, Sophia started running.

  She didn’t make it to the end of the warehouse though. In the center where the couches were, a makeshift triage center had been set up.

  “I’m fine,” Finn argued. “Just put a bandage on it and I’ll be—”

  Finn. He was safe. Oh thank God.

  “Sit still,” said one of the women, a brunette who looked only a little younger than Meredith, as she urged Finn to lay back on a long couch. He was shirtless and his shoulder was bleeding copiously down his chest. “We’ve only just got the bullet out. We still have to stitch it up.”

  “Finn!” Sophia yelled and ran over to where he sat, his face pale and features pinched with pain. “Oh my God.”

  She crouched at his feet and looked up at him.

  His face relaxed as soon as he saw her. “Thank Christ you’re okay.”

  He grimaced in pain right after though, as the brunette started to sew his shoulder up. She looked like she knew what she was doing at least. She even used one of those circular doctor’s sewing needles and she made quick, tight stitches.

  Sophia looked around. “Have you seen Leo or Mari—” But even as she asked it, she saw Leo leading Mario toward them, Mario holding a hand to the side of his head where Toby had clocked him.

  Toby.

  Even thinking his name sent a sick shiver through her stomach.

  He’s gone now. And Finn and Leo and Mario and Jagger are here. That’s all that matters.

  Except that wasn’t true.

  Her Dad. And Drea and everyone she’d ever loved were all in danger. She thought she could be such a hero, coming out and getting them the extra troops they’d need.

  But even if Jagger was telling the truth about men from New Mexico coming to fight if they got their brides, which she beginning to doubt, they’d never get there in time. Even feeding and providing enough water for the seven of them plus their horses had been tricky and Jagger was one of the wealthiest New Mexico had to offer.

  But hundreds of troops—much less thousands?

  The logistics alone involved in moving that many men across a desert landscape were mind-boggling. Sophia hadn’t really unders
tood it until she’d gotten here.

  She shook her head. It had been a fool’s dream, all of it.

  She looked over to Jagger, who watched the whole scene coolly.

  Jagger wasn’t a fool.

  So what was his agenda? His real agenda?

  Because she was done being the helpless maiden who got everyone around her injured or killed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  JAGGER

  “Why did you marry me?”

  Jagger turned around in surprise at Sophia’s voice.

  It was nighttime after the battle and he’d slipped outside for some fresh air and, frankly, to get away from the stifling humanity in that fucking warehouse. So many fucking people, every time you turned around.

  Privacy was one of his most prized privileges. He’d fought hard for it. To have plenty but also to be able to close the door and be alone whenever he wanted? That was the definition of living like a king to him.

  He’d had his priorities in life. He knew exactly what he wanted and where he was going.

  Until he’d picked up the sat phone off that bastard, called that stupid fucking number, and her breathy, angel-sweet voice came over the line. Promising heaven and dooming him to hell.

  “So?” Sophia pressed. “Why’d you do it? Because you and I both know it’s not to help me raise some stupid army.”

  Ah. He knew it was only a matter of time before she saw the truth of things. She was too smart not to, not once she saw how life was out here.

  But by that time, he’d thought it wouldn’t matter. They’d be well on their way and whether she was willing or not wouldn’t have mattered. Like he’d told Toby, willing was easier to deal with but only marginally. They already had the trailer. Tying her up and tossing her inside it wouldn’t make much difference either way.

  Except for the fact that his priorities had suddenly shifted underneath him like quicksand and he didn’t know what the fuck he wanted anymore.

  No, that wasn’t true.

  In the second he saw Toby lying over her struggling body, he knew very clearly what he wanted.

  He wanted to kill Toby, firstly, and then, no matter the cost, he wanted to protect her.

  Protect her?

  What the fuck?

  Jagger didn’t protect people. He took advantage of them. He used them and then threw them away like wadded up tissue, without another thought.

  But this girl. This fucking girl. She’d gotten underneath his skin from the very moment he’d met her, walking the desert in those ridiculous socks and house slippers. That was the perfect word for her—ridiculous. She was a china doll running around recklessly in a world full of hammers.

  Jagger knew better than to care about anything so fragile. He’d already had his heart shredded by another china doll.

  “Say something!” Sophia shoved him in the chest and it barely even rocked his center of gravity.

  He grabbed her by her forearms. They were covered in goosebumps and he didn’t think it was just from the chill of the night air. “What do you want me to say?” he hissed. “You’ve already guessed it.”

  Sophia blinked like she didn’t want to believe it even as she gasped, “You were going to trick me?”

  Going to? Didn’t she see how deep in she already was?

  Apparently understanding was dawning because the next thing she said was, “You did trick me.”

  She tried to pull away from him but he didn’t let her. “Sophia,” he warned, “I’m going to let you go, but we’re going to talk about this.”

  “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.

  He released her arms and she took several steps back from him. There was a three-quarters moon out, so he could make out most of the features of her face. And she looked pissed.

  “I still don’t understand. What were you trying to trick me into doing?”

  Jagger threw his hands up. “Coming to New Mexico? Marrying me so I’d have a woman to warm my bed? Maybe getting us a few more women for our community? Take your pick.”

  Sophia sucked in a sharp breath. He watched something crumble in her. The last of her innocence maybe—between what had happened to her earlier in the warehouse and now this revelation.

  It made him glad he hadn’t told her the entire truth about what he and Toby had planned. Because he hated to see that look on her face. As much as he’d given up on hope or goodness himself, the fact that there was someone out there like Sophia who’d still been able to believe for so long, to embody so much beauty, so much goodness, who’d managed to remain so unspoiled…

  He stepped forward and grabbed her face, pulling her into a bruising kiss.

  She smacked at his chest and he was about to pull back when, for one sweet, perfect moment, her lips gave against his and she was kissing him back.

  He pushed her back against the warehouse and lifted both her arms above her head, then fit a knee between her legs.

  But just as he reached down to lift up her skirt, she yanked her arms back down and shoved him away from her.

  “Get the fuck off me,” she spat, stomping the heel of her shoe on his toe for good measure.

  Jagger stepped back both in surprise and pain but Sophia took the opportunity to shove him again, and he was already a little off balance so he ended up stumbling several more steps backwards.

  “How dare you, you bastard?”

  She followed right on his heels. “You tell me you lied to me, that you brought me and Finn all the way out here for nothing, married me under false pretenses, and then have the gall to think you can maul me and I’ll just let you?”

  Jagger smirked. “I don’t know, seemed like you were enjoying yourself, little dove.”

  She made a noise of outrage and then went to slam him in the chest again but he caught her arms before she could.

  “Let go of me, you fucking bastard.”

  “Look, I get this might not be the fairytale you thought you were signing up for, but this is real life.” He shook her by her arms. “This is what happens in the real world.”

  “That is such an excuse!”

  “Fine!” He said, his every last nerve raw where his skin contacted hers. “I’m a bad man. You’ve caught me out. I’m a bad man who’s done bad things. I planned to do bad things to you. But then I met you… and things changed.”

  “Oh bull shit.” She swung her forearms around from underneath, breaking his hold on her and stepping back, feet shoulder-width apart, features furious as she faced him down.

  “Will you stop fucking cursing? It only makes me want to take you over my goddamned knee.”

  She looked about three seconds away from steam pouring out her ears. “I won’t be going over your knee or anyone else’s. I’m my own woman and I make my destiny from here on out. I don’t need any fucking man telling me what I can and cannot do. I’m perfectly capable of—”

  “Capable? Yeah, coming out completely unprepared into the desert and almost getting yourself killed really showed how capable you are.”

  Her eyes lit like she wanted to murder him. Fuck but it made him hard. He hadn’t been kidding about wanting to spank her. He didn’t know what it was about this girl but she drove him fucking insane. She made him forget all the other bullshit. She made him care.

  “So what now?” She threw her hands out. “Why even tell me the truth? Why kill Toby if your plan was just to abduct me and keep me as your sex slave?”

  He raised a finger sharply. “Don’t lump me in with that bastard.”

  “You think you’re so different? You thought I’d still welcome you in my bed once I learned the truth? Then you would’ve been the same as him. A rapist pig.”

  “I’ve never taken a woman by force in my life.” Every word made the vein in his temple pulse more furiously.

  “And what about the women you were hoping to dupe into coming back with us? You were hoping to turn them into slaves, too?”

  “Actually I was just hoping to come home with a sack full of gold
after ransoming you back to your father.”

  Fuck knew he hadn’t meant to confess it, but there it was.

  The truth.

  Sophia’s mouth dropped open in shock, and out of everything that had been revealed in the last fifteen minutes, it was this that made her look the most appalled and betrayed.

  Fucking women.

  “And I’m telling you all this because I’m a fucking idiot.” He threw his hands out. “You’ve made a fucking idiot out of me. Normally Leo and his brother would be on my side no matter what but you’ve got them both wrapped around your little finger, and then I went and killed the only other man on my crew who would have backed my play.” Toby’s men were gone too. One killed in the skirmish earlier, and the other seriously wounded.

  “And now I’m telling you everything like even more of a fucking idiot but it doesn’t matter because I wouldn’t have been able to go through with the plan because again,” he thumped his chest, “you’ve made me a fucking idiot.”

  “What does that mean?” Sophia cried, only sounding half as exasperated as Jagger felt.

  “It means I care about you.” He shook his head. “And I don’t care about anybody.”

  “Great. Don’t I feel special.”

  Why did she have to twist everything he said? He was trying to tell her something important but she just threw everything back in his face. He was trying here, didn’t that count for anything?

  “Hey, what’s going on out here?” Leo’s voice split the quiet night as he pushed open the warehouse door and a rectangle of light spilled onto the dark ground. “Sophia?”

  Mario was right behind Leo, pushing the door out, his head swinging around until his eyes landed on Sophia.

  Once he zeroed in on her, he barreled toward her, glaring at Jagger. “Sophia?” he asked, his giant’s voice rough and rumbling. It was the second time in as many days that Jagger heard it after years of only silence from the big man.