Theirs to Ransom

by Stasia Black

  But while she might be naïve, Sophia wasn’t an idiot. And she’d told herself she could handle it. No matter what. No matter what.

  “You think I’d show up at this gate if I was lying? I know Colonel Travis takes only the best. Me and my men found her hiding out in a bunker with her brother, along with another sister. She was untouched. I know we coulda got even more if we’d left her that way,” Jagger smirked, “but what can I say? My men hadn’t seen pussy in an age. Boys will be boys. If Travis likes this one, I’ll bring the other sister next week.”

  The supposed ‘second sister’ was a little bit of insurance, so they didn’t just kill Jagger and take her without letting him go. Sophia knew it was cruel to ask Jagger to bring her here, especially after they’d discovered what they meant to each other. But she couldn’t think of another way into the city. And at least she’d know Jagger would walk out of it alive.

  The guard holding Sophia’s face let go and shook his head. “I still say he’s full of shit.” He reached for the door handle and jerked it open. “But I ain’t had me any sorta bitch in weeks so let’s have at it.”

  Jagger growled and grabbed Sophia’s arm, jerking her close. “Say the word, I jack these two up and we get the hell out of here.”

  She shook her head. “Make it look good,” was all she whispered in the second before the guard got the door open. “They have to believe I’m struggling.”

  She saw in Jagger’s eyes how what she was asking killed him. And she didn’t look away as she started pretending to struggle in his hold and shouted, “No! Let me go!”

  He clenched his teeth as he grabbed her other arm and swiveled her so she faced toward the door the guard now had open.

  “Only an inspection,” Jagger barked. “Travis wouldn’t be fucking happy if his 4 became a 5 or 6 just because his guards couldn’t keep it in their pants.”

  The guard glared at Jagger before grinning lecherously at Sophia. “She really is a looker. Course it hardly matters if her cunt’s as used up as old chewing gum.”

  He whipped up the skirt of her sundress and yanked her legs open. She’d taken off her underwear and put on another of her sundresses—wanting to look as authentic as possible—a decision she wasn’t sure if she regretted now or not. She’d certainly never felt more exposed in her life as the hot autumn wind slid across her nether bits.

  But all of this had been so much simpler in theory than reality, hadn’t it?

  Because when she felt thick fingers on her, roughly pushing inside her when she wasn’t even the littlest bit wet, her cry of pain wasn’t just for show.

  “Fuck me,” the guard said, looking past Sophia to Jagger. “She’s tighter than fuck.”

  “No fuckin’ way. Lemme feel.”

  Sophia squeezed her eyes shut as the second guard came around and the entire thing was repeated.

  I’m not here, she chanted to herself. This is not my body. I am not here. I am not here. I am not here. I am not here. I am not—

  “Sophia.” Jagger shook her and she looked up, only realizing then that the guards had stepped back to talk. No one but Jagger was touching her. She shoved her skirt down and yanked the car door shut.

  “Soph—” Jagger started to say but she just shook her head violently back and forth. No. She couldn’t handle him being sweet or worried or anything else right now.

  Jagger swore under his breath and slammed the steering wheel. Sophia ducked her head. It was unfair to ask this of him. It was all unfair and maybe she couldn’t do this and he was right, she should have told him to turn around and drive, drive—

  “Okay,” the first guard said, coming around to Jagger’s side. “Both of you, out of the vehicle. I’ll be driving you into town.” He pointed to a van beside their makeshift guard tent.

  The second guard opened Sophia’s door. She closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer as she let herself be dragged out of the Jeep and over to the van.

  There were four more ‘inspections’ and an hour and a half wait locked in a room that Sophia was pretty sure had been a closet in a former life.

  It was the longest hour and a half of her life since the last time she was locked in a closet, waiting, waiting, waiting to find out her fate while her mother was downstairs being tortured and murdered.

  Oh, and she was gagged, so there was that, too.

  Where was Jagger? Were they treating him alright? It was true that Jagger had been smart and mentioned that made-up other sister, as a protection against getting killed right on the spot. He, unlike her, was very familiar with this world.

  Trust nobody. Finn told her that and it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it. Henry had said it to her once, too. Henry, the older man she’d had a dumb, girlish crush on after she saw Finn go in to see Ana Martinez. Henry was a friend of her father’s, a man who could do no wrong in Sophia’s eyes. But then he’d betrayed his family, even his wife.

  Sophia had been shocked when she learned the truth. She’d looked up to Henry and admired him from afar for so long. He was always well-dressed and well-mannered, so civilized.

  But people weren’t always what they seemed. Jagger, for instance. He was rough, gruff, and lived like an outlaw, but underneath—okay so it might be really really far underneath—he was good and kind.

  And Sophia could be the opposite of what she seemed, too. So she looked like some sweet, naïve, scared little thing? Fine. She’d use it to her advantage.

  Of course, it would help if she didn’t actually feel quite so terrified.

  The door to the closet opened and Sophia blinked against the sudden light, lifting a hand to shield her eyes.

  Someone just grabbed the arm she’d raised, though, and dragged her to her feet out of the closet.

  “Ow,” she cried, stumbling along after the man. He wasn’t anyone she’d seen before. She looked left and right, surprised to see she was in a… hotel room? They’d put a bag over her head at the last guard station before coming into the city proper.

  But as the guard dragged her out of the hotel room and down the hall, she recognized where they were. All the lights were working, which meant the electricity was on.

  This was the Omni Hotel. The same place where the former President used to live before Travis had him killed and took his place.

  Of course he lived here, he probably considers it a status symbol that validates his Presidency.

  There wasn’t much more time for thinking, though, because the guard who had her was soon knocking on a door down the hall.

  “No!” Sophia shrieked around the gag in her mouth. “Let me go!” Though it sounded more like. “Eh ee o!”

  The guard just shook her roughly, rattling her brain, it felt like. “Don’t give the President any lip now.”

  Then the door opened and there was Arnold Travis, sitting on a couch with a glass of bourbon, chatting and smiling with Jagger, who was doing the same.

  “And here she is,” Jagger said, standing when the guard dragged Sophia in the room.

  Sophia remembered to struggle, but only barely.

  Arnold Travis, in the flesh. She’d heard so much about this man he’d become mythic in her mind. She’d expected an eight-foot giant.

  But he was just a man. Shorter than she expected. Shorter than her father. And his shoulders weren’t even very broad.

  She’d spent a lot of time looking at men, daydreaming about her would-be husband, cataloguing every man she came across as a potential.

  And everything she saw in Arnold Travis was… lacking. How could this be the man who had an entire nation on its knees?

  Jagger suddenly sprang to his feet, taking her attention. His gaze kept shuttling back and forth between her and Travis and she frowned before remembering to school her features into distress and hate.

  “I lied to your guardsmen, your excellency,” Jagger suddenly said. “While this woman is a 4, that was true, I concealed her identity until I was speaking to you face to face. The girl before you is Sophia Wo
lford, only daughter of your greatest enemy, Eric Wolford.”

  Sophia felt all the blood drain from her face.

  No.

  Why?

  The confusion was followed quickly by fury, especially when Jagger continued. “I hope there might be some small compensation to be gotten for bringing her to you?”

  Jagger had betrayed her. It had all been a lie. She’d loved him and he’d—

  “You’ll get your money,” Travis growled as he shot to his feet and stalked toward her.

  Tears squeezed from her eyes as she looked past him to Jagger, who wouldn’t look at her. “How could you?” she shouted into the gag, but it was unintelligible.

  She started to fight like a wildcat against the men holding her arms from behind and Arnold Travis smiled a cold, reptilian smile.

  And then he punched her so hard the world went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ARNOLD TRAVIS

  “Well that felt good,” Travis chuckled as he stretched out his hand and looked at the bitch laid out on the floor at his feet.

  Eric’s little girl, huh? Looked like she’d grown up since Travis had last seen her. He wouldn’t have recognized her if he hadn’t had his spies watching everything Eric did for years. It was clear the little tart thought she could sneak in undetected and what—kill him?

  He smirked down at her, then looked up at the man who was with her, the smile falling from his face. “Start talking. Quick, if you don’t want one of my fine guards,” he gestured around the room and his five men all stepped forward, “to put a bullet in your forehead.”

  “It’s a long story,” the man said, hands up. “We confiscated a sat phone of a man headed west into New Mexico. That’s where I’m from. He was some sort of diplomat on the run after you’d taken over. There were all sorts of numbers programmed in the phone, so I started calling them.”

  The man, Jagger, pointed at Sophia, still passed out on the floor. “That one answered and we convinced her to come to New Mexico.”

  Travis scoffed but the man continued, telling a story about a naïve girl and a group of men only too happy to take advantage of her.

  “She actually married you?”

  Jagger smirked and nodded.

  “We were going to ransom her back to her father, but then I realized she’d probably be worth much more to you, considering all she told us about you and her father.”

  “What did she say about me and him?” Travis’s jaw locked even thinking about Eric. His one-time best friend turned longtime enemy.

  Nine years ago, Travis had called Eric a brother. He was the only person Travis had ever let close. But Eric had stuck a knife in Travis’s back the first chance he’d had, no matter all Travis had done for him. Poetic now that Eric’s daughter got to experience the same thing.

  Travis would never forget the day Eric betrayed him. They’d gone to that army base in San Antonio to get troops and supplies after D-Day. They were going to remake the nation together, as brothers.

  Travis only did what needed doing that day—what anyone would have done—but Eric, always the Boy Scout, was too perfect and precious to get any blood on his hands. But if anyone else did, well Eric was only too happy to judge them.

  Because he considered such things beneath him.

  Travis knew Eric had always secretly felt that way about him. Eric with his happy family and their fancy fucking house. Travis had been an idiot to think Eric had ever given a fuck about him. No, Eric had never been able to see past the trailer park and the endless string of foster parents and the secondhand clothes.

  Eric had everything handed to him on a silver fucking platter while Travis had to fight for every goddamned inch.

  And then for Eric to have the fucking gall to stand there that day on that army base and look at Travis like he was a stranger…

  “For fuck’s sake!” Eric shouted. “You’re covered in blood. What the fuck happened?”

  Travis blinked and wiped his face, only then looking down and realizing he was covered in blood. “It’s not mine,” he said, stupidly thinking that was why his best friend was upset.

  But Eric only took a step back at his words.

  Still, Travis was riding the high of whooping ass in his first battle and he was eager to share it with Eric. “I ran into a little trouble over at the Commissary. Nothing me and my men couldn’t handle. And look, we got a helicopter. Supplies too. And a bunch of guys wanna join up. They’re tired of this bullshit. They see that if they want shit in this life, they gotta take it. It’s gonna be true now more than ever. We just gotta make sure we take it first.”

  Eric stumbled back a step but Travis just kept nodding. “You should’ve seen me, man. I just started talking, and they were all totally with me from word one. The system’s been rigged for years. But now’s our chance. We can finally take what’s rightfully ours. We can be kings.”

  It was the first time Travis had been able to really see it and believe it—all the potential of this brave new fucking world. For the first time, there would be an equal playing field, no more deck stacked against him, and he could have the life he’d always deserved.

  “Jesus.” Eric shook his head, then ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus.”

  Eric looked freaked out and he was pacing back and forth. Which pissed Travis the fuck off. Why wasn’t he celebrating with him? But no, Eric always had to obsess about morality and doing the right thing.

  Travis liked to believe Eric had invited him to live at his house during high school after he found him sleeping in the janitor’s closet—his foster dad had kicked him out of the house again—because they were best friends.

  But sometimes Travis wondered if Eric hadn’t just done it because it was the right thing to do. And fuck knew Eric Wolford couldn’t live one day of his goddamned life without doing the right fucking thing.

  When they’d gotten to college and Eric had found Connie he’d certainly ditched Travis quick enough in exchange for the family life. Not that it had lasted long. Soon it was just Travis and Eric again, joining the army and getting deployed together for a tour. They went their separate ways in their next deployment but now they were back together again, like it was always supposed to be. If Eric would just—

  “How many?” Eric choked out.

  “What?” Travis asked.

  “How many men? Did you kill just now?”

  Travis looked at him like he was from a different planet. “Are you serious with this bullshit?” He’d looked forward to this day his whole life, and now Eric was squabbling about—

  “Bullshit?” Eric exploded. “These are people’s lives we’re talking about!”

  “Yeah and it was either them or me,” Travis shouted right back, thumping his chest. “Would you rather it was me back there dead?”

  “So it was self-defense?” Eric looked at him like he was pleading for him to say yes. Which pissed Travis off even more. “Did they start firing first?”

  Travis just shook his head. Eric was really doing this. He was really fucking doing this. Over a decade of friendship and he was willing to sacrifice it over what? A couple of dead fucking kids guarding a commissary, after the goddamned apocalypse had happened?

  “I cannot believe this fucking bullshit. After all the years we’ve known each other? After all I’ve fucking done for you?” Travis shoved Eric hard in the chest. “You’d be rotting in a fucking prison right now if it wasn’t for me!”

  Eric recovered from stumbling backwards right before he fell and stood back up again. His eyes were swollen from crying all week like a little bitch over his dead wife. “Just tell me who fired first,” he begged.

  “Your daughter would be dead if it wasn’t for me!”

  “Who shot fir—”

  “I DID!” Travis screamed right in Eric’s face, spittle flying. “I fucking did! I went into that commissary and saw some fuckers with guns guarding the supplies and I ordered all my men to fire. And I pulled out this gun right fu
cking here,” Travis whipped out his gun from the back of his pants and pointed it right at Eric’s forehead, “and when they were on the ground, begging for their fucking lives, I ended them. Just like I did to the fuckers who got in the way of my smuggling operations in Nigeria, Syria, and Lebanon.”

  “Why the fuck do you think I kept getting promoted so much quicker than you? Think.” He banged the barrel of the gun against Eric’s forehead. “I knew how to play the fucking game. Something Eric the Boy Scout always refused to fucking do.”

  Travis finally pulled the gun back, waving it around them, to the soldiers who’d lined up behind him, along with the ones who’d grouped behind Eric.

  Travis could feel the tension mounting between his soldiers and those Eric had managed to recruit and he fucking reveled in it. This was what it was all about. Men being real men. Barely leashing the animal inside them that wanted to tear each other to fucking pieces.

  “This is the real world, Eric. Wake the fuck up.”

  Eric just shook his head and took a step back from Travis’s gun at his forehead. His voice was choked, “I loved you like a brother.” He swallowed and stood up straighter. “Let me and my men pass. I’ll go collect my daughter, and then we never have to see each other ever again.”

  Just like that, Eric thought he could write Travis off. Eric just got to say the word and poof, Travis no longer existed to him.

  Privileged fucking bastard. Did he think he wouldn’t have to pay for this? That there wouldn’t be a reckoning?

  Not that day, but someday.

  Someday.

  A day like today.

  Travis had let two people close in his whole fucking life, and both of them had betrayed him. Eric Wolford, and Travis’s own bitch, Shay, the mother of his kids.

  He’d deal with Eric first, and then he’d go after Shay.

  Eric’s daughter groaned at Travis’s feet, shifting and grabbing for her head as she came back to consciousness.