But then Collin was there, snatching at my shirt. He missed the first time, but he got a solid hold on my collar and yanked me back, breaking most of the buttons holding my blouse together. The broken buttons made my blouse blow open and that loosened his hold on me. I nearly got free again, but the blouse was tucked into my skirt and by the time he pulled it loose from the damn tight waist, it got tangled in my tied hands and he was able to pull me back and wrap an arm around my neck.
He jerked me back again, holding me in a police-style chokehold as he swung me around by my neck and dragged me into the shadows at the center of the empty storefront. He let me go unexpectedly, and because my wrists were still tied behind my back, I couldn’t brace myself. I landed hard on my chest, the air rushing out of my lungs. For a long minute, I couldn’t breathe. Panic rushed through my body as much from the lack of air as from him jerking me around onto my back as he knelt over me.
“You’re going to pay for this, bitch!” he cried, gesturing to his face. Blood was still dripping from his broken nose, but it had slowed and some of it was beginning to congeal around his mouth and on his throat. It was disgusting to look at, so I turned my head. He didn’t like that.
He slammed his fist into the side of my head, then grabbed me by the jaw and forced me to look up at him before he punched me in the nose. I felt my own cartilage shatter as stars burst through my vision. He hit me again and again, but he turned his attention to my ribs rather than my face. Maybe he couldn’t get it up for a woman who was battered beyond recognition.
I tried to roll sideways again to avoid the worst of the blows, but he climbed on top of me and held me in place. He grew bored with the violence after a few minutes and turned his attention to the fact that my blouse was now just a rag wrapped around my wrists.
“If you weren’t so damn beautiful,” he muttered softly, pulling a knife from his jeans pocket. He snapped it open and slid the blade under the top strap of my bra. I turned my head away as he jerked the knife, slicing the sharp blade cleanly through the thick material. He moved the knife blade to the other strap and was about to slice it as well when Zaki’s voice cried out.
“Collin! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Despite his earlier bravado, Collin stiffened. “They said you wanted her disposed of.”
“I didn’t say I wanted her blood all over the damn building that just happens to have a deed in my name! Christ, Collin! Why do you always have to fuck everything up?”
“I don’t. I’m just—”
“Get off of her.”
“You have to get rid of her. If he finds out that you didn’t have her disposed of—”
“That’s my problem. Get off of her and get some people in here to clean up this mess! If anyone tracks her to me because of something you did, your death will not be pleasant, my friend.”
Collin hesitated. But, slowly, he climbed off of me and snapped his knife closed. “You’re going to regret this. And then I’ll have to take care of it all, just like I’ve always done.”
“We’ll see. Right now, we need to get her out of here before someone calls the police. You made enough damn noise!”
“I didn’t…”
But he had and we both knew it. The man screamed like a woman!
Zaki came over and jerked me to my feet, pulling me away from Collin before lifting my blouse back up around my shoulders. It was shredded down the front from Collin’s backward grip, but it was better than nothing. Zaki looked at me for a moment, then barked more orders at Collin, telling him to bring in a cleaning crew rather than trying to clean the place himself, and to make sure they used plenty of bleach. Then he pulled me out to his car by my arm.
The chauffeur held open the back door and I slid inside, moving as far to the left as I could get. Zaki followed, barely looking at me as he ordered his chauffeur to get us out of there. Once we were on the road, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders. I glanced at him, wondering why he would do that.
“Did he hurt you badly?”
What did he think?
I turned toward the window, watching the city whir past as we drove at a good seventy miles per hour.
Zaki tossed a collection of glossy photographs at me. Most of them fell to the floor at my feet, but a few landed on my lap, face up. They were black-and-white photos of me and Max in that alley, pics of our arguing and then of us kissing.
“Who is he?” Zaki demanded.
I didn’t answer.
“We studied your social media, went to the university and talked to the registrar, followed you outside your apartment. There was no hint that you had anyone in your life and then this guy shows up just after I speak to you. My people… they say he said things that suggest you’re a plant, that you’re investigating me. Is that true?”
I glanced at him, but I didn’t say anything.
“I knew you were too sophisticated to be what you were saying you were. There was just something… worldly about you.”
I turned back to the window, wondering if Max was out there, if he was looking for me. I knew he had to be, but there was that little voice making me wonder if Collin had sent someone to deal with him before Collin came to deal with me. But Max was smart. He knew how to take care of himself. I was sure he was fine.
I had to believe that he was fine.
“We will find out who you are. For your sake, I hope it turns out he’s just some boyfriend you didn’t bother to mention to anyone.”
Silence fell between us. Another fifteen minutes, and the car slowed, moving at a turtle’s rate through a residential neighborhood. Finally, it slowed and turned into a driveway in front of a nice colonial-style brick house with a lovely yard out front. It was the kind of home where happy homemakers raise their children, not where a sex trafficker would hide his wares. Yet…
“Come on.”
The chauffeur opened my door and reached in for me, dragging me up to the front door. My blouse fell off one shoulder and my bra drooped from the cut strap. The chauffeur didn’t bother to do anything about it, but once he’d dumped me into what looked like a man’s study, Zaki came inside and cut my ties with a kitchen knife. I immediately rubbed my hands, working the blood back into them.
“I’ll find you a clean shirt. Stay here and be quiet, all right?”
“What happens now?”
“That depends on who you are and what you might have to tell me.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
His expression darkened. He tossed me a wet rag. “Clean yourself up. I’ll be back.”
He disappeared through the door. I could hear voices, but I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. I absently rubbed at the blood on my face as I stood and looked around the room. I needed a weapon, but there wasn’t so much as a letter opener on the desktop. Didn’t people still use letter openers? The drawers were empty, and the décor was all cheap plastic. I moved to the window, thinking maybe there might be a housewife out in her yard whom I could signal, but the house next door looked abandoned. That probably had a lot to do with why they felt safe bringing me into the house from that side of the drive. The car would have blocked any view of me from the houses on that side.
I dropped back into the chair. I was encouraged by the fact that they didn’t seem to know that I was a security operative. If they thought I was still just a confused teen who’d lied about having a boyfriend, maybe they’d be more willing to let me go. I doubted it, though. They’d probably just put me on the next plane to Bahrain with the other boys and girls they’d gathered these last few weeks. But they might not kill me, and if they waited long enough to give Ox and the others time to find us, there might be hope.
Hope. That was something I rarely clung to, but I realized that I had to if I was going to get through this. Hope and trust, two of the hardest things I’d been able to believe in since coming back from Afghanistan.
Please, Max, find me!
Chapt
er 20
Max
The top floor of Caballo was a buzz of activity. Cheryl was in a conference room with a team of investigators, the phone constantly stuck to the side of her face as she spoke quickly to whoever was on the line with her, or to the people around her. Another conference room was filled with a team of combat operatives, waiting to be put into action. In yet another conference room, Ox had pictures and reports and maps taped to all the walls and was openly brainstorming options with Oliver and Prescott. Prescott had come in specifically for this after Skylar had called him and informed him of what was happening. The man was on leave for a month and he’d given up his time off for this.
I was grateful for the activity. It was heartening to see how many people had rallied for James. But I felt a heavy burden of guilt for causing the situation that had forced Prescott to give up his time off, that had caused all these people to be here planning a rescue attempt that might, or might not, be successful.
If not for me, James would be safe.
“Max,” Ox said when he spotted me. He quickly crossed the room and offered a hand. “I’m sure Akker’s told you, but we’ve got people watching Ahsan’s house and we have teams heading out to keep an eye on the other two properties that we’ve linked to him. If he’s taken her to one of those places, we will know quickly enough.”
“Thank you.”
Ox lowered his head in acknowledgement. “We’ve decided to go ahead with a raid on the residential home. While we don’t have law enforcement backing at this point, it seems the most likely place for Ahsan to hide captives. There’s been a lot of activity at the house, his guards going in and out, and he’s been there off and on most of the day. It seems like our best option. If we can’t find his captives, at least we can bring him here and maybe get a little information out of him.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Ox nodded, taking my arm and leading me over to the whiteboard where he’d been working a moment before. “We have it set up like this: Brock’s going to lead a team in through the back of the property. Akker will have another group go through the front. We anticipate three security guards, maybe four. They will most likely be on the bottom floor. Brock’s team will neutralize this threat and then Akker will search the house with his team. Once it’s clear, we’ll bring Ahsan and his people back here.”
“What if they find captives?”
“Then I’ll call my contact with the police department.”
It wasn’t unlike other raids we’d run. When they panned out, we called the cops and they often took credit for it with the press. When they didn’t, well, no one needed to know—right? But that didn’t happen often. Ox was smart with the way he ran his firm. He wasn’t about to put any of us on the wrong side of the law without good reason.
Details were still being hashed out as Cheryl burst into the room with more information. She’d found another building in town that might be owned by Ahsan. It was an empty field on the outskirts of Round Rock, but she thought there was once a house on the land and there might be a basement there. If so, it would be an ideal place to hold kidnap victims.
Then someone else came in with information that Collin McFadden had brought a team to the strip mall Ahsan owned and was using them to clean it up. Pictures showed that McFadden was sporting a broken nose.
“Wonder who did that to him?” Trey asked aloud. “I bet it was an unhappy woman!”
I picked a photograph up and studied it, in particular the bloodstains on the front of his shirt. It was a recent injury. Had James done it? If so, why had Collin allowed her to get that close to him? A memory flashed through my mind: him with his hands up the back of her skirt. Fear flashed through me as I thought of one good reason why a man with a long sexual assault arrest record would allow a woman that close to him.
If he’d laid a single finger on her…
“We’ve got a sighting!” One of Cheryl’s people burst in the door holding a handful of pictures above his head. He rushed to the head of the table and scattered the photographs.
My heart shuddered to a stop in my chest as I picked one up and recognized James’s face. It was bloody, swelling changing the shape of her nose and one cheek. Her blouse was torn and hanging open, one bra strap cleanly cut.
“Shit!” Trey muttered as he came up behind me to look at the photograph. “What the hell happened to her?”
She was walking. She was moving of her own volition. That had to be a good sign—right?
“Looks like that fellow got as good as he gave.”
I grabbed Trey by the front of his shirt and shoved him back until he slammed into the whiteboard.
“Watch your damn mouth!”
“I was just—”
I shook him, not caring what he had to say. “James is one of us. You will not even make the suggestion that anything untoward has gone on. You understand me?”
“Max,” Ox said, coming up behind me and touching my shoulder gently, “he didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Yeah, well, he should watch his mouth!”
“He should. But he’s not our enemy today.”
I nodded slowly, aware that I was going just a bit overboard. But my anger needed an outlet and Trey had just rubbed me the wrong way. I shook him again, but then I let him go. Akker immediately pulled him out of the room, muttering to him as they left my general area.
“This shows that she’s at the residential home,” Ox said. “Now we can go in with law enforcement behind us.”
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here!”
Chapter 21
James
I was rubbing my wrists again, my hands tingling terribly as the blood rushed back to my nerves. I could hear more voices outside the door, and then it grew quiet. Ahsan came back, carefully closing the door behind him, his expression a little tense.
“Trouble with the employees? Or is it the captives you have hiding upstairs?”
He looked sharply at me, staring into my face as though he was trying to figure me out still. “What makes you think there’s anyone upstairs?”
“Just a wild guess. I don’t suppose I’m the first person you ever kidnapped. You were too smooth about it.”
“Was I? I don’t normally do it that way. It’s usually done with a little sedative slipped into a drink.”
“Yeah? Was that the plan the other night at the diner?”
“It was—until our little friend came to tell me that Collin was getting himself into trouble with a pretty blonde back at the rave. Idiot. I spend more time putting out his fires than he’s ever spent earning his keep.”
“Why do you keep him around?”
“Not really my choice.”
Ahsan walked behind the desk and settled in the chair, resting his head in his hands on top of the desk for a long minute. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice slightly muffled. “I know you’re not a college student. Do you work for the police? Are you with the FBI?”
“Which would you prefer? I can be anything you want.”
He sat up, his eyes narrowed as he studied me. “This isn’t a game, Ms. Widdowes. You’re in a great deal of trouble here.”
“I don’t know. I think the trouble was back there with Collin. Did you see what he was planning to do to me?”
Ahsan shuddered. “I’ve never understood men who feel like they need to take it by force. Don’t they ever learn to enjoy a beautiful woman who’s willing to give as good as she takes?”
“Not a man like Collin McFadden. He gets off on the power of it.”
“Yes, well, I don’t get it.”
“Because you’re a gentleman. Because you know what it means to care for and respect a woman.” I leaned forward a little, watching his reaction to my words carefully. “How did someone like you get caught up in a trafficking ring? Was it some sort of debt you needed to pay back? Or a family thing?”
“My family knows nothing of this.” He sat up straighter, shame marking his features. “They would be
horrified if they knew the truth.”
“Then what is it?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that things are getting too hot here. We have to move on.”
“Why do you say that?”
He tilted his head slightly as he shot me a look that said he knew I was playing dumb again. “I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re not just some innocent girl. You’ve been planted in my path. And if someone knows enough to plant you at my raves, then there’s enough information out there that there are probably others.”
“When did you find out about me?”
“This morning.”
“Yeah? You didn’t hear something last night? After you left me in that diner?”
He shook his head, looking slightly confused by the question. “Why do you ask?”
“Who else knows about me?”
“Why?”
“I can help you, Zaki. I can get you out of this situation.”
He seemed to hesitate a moment, but before he could say anything, the door burst open. A slender man with a buzz cut stormed in. He wasn’t wearing the simple black attire of Ahsan’s security detail, so I knew immediately he was something different. That, coupled with the air of authority that seemed to swirl around him, made me wonder if he was the real force behind all this.
“Who fucked up her face?”
“Collin.”
The man nodded, as though that answer was the obvious one. “Doesn’t matter. We have to get rid of her.”
“Why?”
The man looked at me, his blue eyes narrowing a little. “Because she’s not just some innocent college kid. She’s an operative for Caballo Security. Someone with a lot of money has figured you out, Zaki.”
“A security company? She’s not a cop?”
“No, but she might as well be.” The stranger grabbed my jaw and forced my head up so that he could look at me. “Her name is Jamison Duncan. She served with the army until five years ago when she came home to deal with a medical emergency with her father. She got drunk one night and took her sidearm and shot out the windows on the guard house at Randolf. If she hadn’t been so highly decorated, she would have been court-martialed. As it was, they forced her into rehab and discharged her before she could plead her case.”
Caballo Security Box Set Page 74
