by B. J Daniels
But this was something. God, something to do. Something real. Something that wasn’t just pointless fighting but actually working toward a goal.
Freedom.
She settled herself at that word. It had come to mean something different in eight years. Or maybe it had come to mean nothing at all.
She shook those oddly uncomfortable thoughts away and looked around for a place to create her makeshift map. “I can’t explain it without props,” she said, setting a brush on the center of the floor.
“Let’s do it on the bed instead of the floor, so if anyone comes in we can...” He rubbed a hand over his unkempt if short beard. “Well, cover it up.”
Right. Because to The Stallion she was a gift. No, that was too generous. She was a thing to be traded for services. She shuddered at the thought but...the man kneeled at the bed. The man who hadn’t used her as payment but was using her as an informant.
The man whose name she didn’t know.
“What should I call you?” she asked suddenly. Because she was working with this man to free—no, not to free anything, but to bring down The Stallion—and she hadn’t a clue as to what to call him.
He glanced at her and she must be dreaming the panic she saw in his expression because it disappeared in only a second.
“They call me Rodriguez,” he said carefully. “But my name is Jaime A—I...” He shook his head as he focused, as he seemed to push away whatever was plaguing him. “Call me Rodriguez. It’s safest.”
She knelt next to him, biting back the urge to repeat Jaime. Just to feel what his name would sound like in her mouth.
Silly. “All right, Rodriguez.” She placed the brush at the center of the bed. “This is Austin. The bed is Texas. I don’t have a clue...” She trailed off, realizing this man would know where they were. He hadn’t been blindfolded or hooded. He actually knew if they were still in Texas, if they were close to home.
She breathed through the emotion swamping her. “Where are we?” she whispered.
“An hour east of El Paso. Middle of nowhere, basically. Only a few small towns around.”
She blinked. El Paso. She’d had theories about where they could be, and El Paso had factored into them, but theories and truths were...
“Take your time,” Jaime said gently.
“But we don’t have much time, do we?” she returned, staring into compassionate eyes for the first time in eight years. Because as much as all the girls felt sorry for each other, they felt sorry for themselves first and foremost.
Jaime nodded toward the bed. “Technically, I don’t know how much time we have. I only know the quicker we figure it out, the less chance he has of hurting people. More people.”
She took a deep breath and returned her focus to the bed. “The brush is Austin. I get the feeling that’s something like...the center. I don’t know if it’s a headquarters or...”
“Technically, he lives in Austin. His public persona, anyway.”
His public persona. Though it fit everything she knew or had theorized, it was hard to believe The Stallion went about a normal life in Austin and people didn’t see something was wrong with the man. Warped and broken beyond comprehension.
“So, we’ve got his personal center at Austin,” Jaime continued for her, taking one of the rubber bands she’d piled next to her. He reached past her, his long, muscular arm brushing against her shoulder. “And this is the compound close to El Paso.”
“Right. Right.” She picked up another rubber band. “He seems to work by seasons, sort of. I started wondering if he had a place in each direction. If this is west, he has a compound in the north, the south and the east. Unless Austin is his east.” She placed rubber bands in general spots that represented each direction, creating a diamond with Austin at the somewhat center.
“He has a compound in the Panhandle. Though I haven’t been there, he’s talked of it. I’ve been to the one on the Louisiana border. I didn’t think he had women there, but... Now that I’ve seen this setup, maybe he did and I just didn’t know about it.”
The idea that there’d been women to help and he hadn’t helped them clearly bothered him, but he kept talking. “But south... He’s never mentioned any kind of holdings in the south of Texas.” He tapped the lower portion of her bed. “It has to be south.”
“It would make sense. The access to drugs, people.”
“It would make all the sense in the world, and you, Gabriella, are something of a miracle.” He grinned over at her.
“It’s... Gabby. Everyone, except him, calls me Gabby.”
His grin didn’t fade so much as morph into something else, something considering or...
The door swung open and the next thing Gabby knew, she was being thrust onto the bed and under a very large man.
* * *
Jaime hadn’t had a woman underneath him in over two years, and that should not at all be the thought in his head right now. But she was soft underneath him, no matter how strong she was...soft breasts, soft hair.
And a kidnapping victim, jackass.
“Rodriguez. Boss wants you.” Layne’s cruel mouth was twisted into a smirk, clearly having no compunction about interrupting...well, what this looked like, not so much what it was.
Damn these men and their interruptions. He was getting somewhere, and he didn’t mean on top of Gabriella.
Gabby.
He couldn’t call her that. Couldn’t think of her like that. She was a tool, and a victim. Any slipups and they could both end up dead. He glanced down at her, completely still underneath him, and it was enough of a distraction that he was having trouble deciding how to play things in front of Layne.
She blinked up at him, eyes wide, and though she wasn’t fighting him, he’d scared her. No matter that she understood him, his role here, he didn’t think she’d be trusting him any time soon. How could he blame her for that?
Wordlessly he got off Gabby and the bed and straightened his clothes in an effort to make Layne think he was more rumpled than he really was.
“We’ll finish this later,” he said offhandedly to Gabby, hoping it sounded to Layne like a hideous threat.
Jaime sauntered over to the door, not looking back at Gabby to see what she was doing, though that’s desperately what he wanted to do. He grabbed his sunglasses from his pocket and slipped them on his face as he stepped out into the hallway with Layne.
“Awfully clothed, aren’t you?” Layne asked.
Jaime closed the door behind him before he answered. “Still trying to knock the fight out of her. Wouldn’t want to intimidate her with what’s coming.” Jaime smirked as if pleased with himself instead of disgusted.
“It’s a hell of a lot better when there’s still a little fight in them,” Layne said, glancing back at Gabby’s door as they walked down the hall.
Jaime’s body went cold, but he reined in his temper, curling his fingers into fists, his only—and most necessary—reaction.
“Do you think senor would be pleased with that world view?” he asked as blandly as he could manage.
Layne’s gaze snapped to Jaime and his threat. The man sneered. “Not every idiot believes your Pepe Le Pew act, buddy.”
Jaime flashed his most intimidating grin, one devoid of any of the humanity he was desperate to believe he still had. “Pepe Le Pew is French, culo.”
“Whatever,” the man said with a disinterested wave. “You know what I mean.”
“I know a lot of things about you, amigo,” Jaime said, enjoying the way the man rolled his eyes at every Spanish word he threw into the conversation.
Layne didn’t take the hint. “Maybe you want to pass her around a bit. Boss man’s been pretty strict about us getting anything out of these girls but you—”
Jaime stopped and shoved Layne into the wall. What he really wanted to do was punch the man, but he kn
ew that would put his credibility in jeopardy, no matter how much dirt he had on Layne. He wrestled with the impulse, with the beating violence inside him.
No matter what this man might deserve, he was not Jaime’s end goal. The end goal was to make this all moot.
So, he held Layne there, against the wall, one fist bunched in the man’s T-shirt to keep him exactly where he wanted him. He stared down at the man with all the menace he felt. “You will not touch what is mine,” Jaime threatened, making his intent clear.
“You’ve already stepped all over what’s mine,” Layne returned, but Jaime noted he didn’t fight back against Jaime’s hold—intelligence or strategy, Jaime wasn’t sure.
“I ran this show before he brought you in,” Layne growled.
“Well, now you answer to me. So, I’d watch your step, amigo. I know things about you I don’t think The Stallion would particularly care to hear about. A hooker in El Paso, for starters.”
Layne blustered, but underneath it the man had paled. This was why Jaime preferred everyone think of him as muscle who could barely understand English. They underestimated him. But Jaime hadn’t walked in here blindly. He knew The Stallion’s previous head honchos wouldn’t take the power share easily. So he’d collected leverage.
Thank God.
“Now, are you ready to keep your disgusting tongue and hands to yourself?” Jaime asked with an almost pleasant smile. “Or do I have to make your life difficult?”
Layne ground his teeth together, a sneer marring his features, but he gave a sharp nod.
“Muy bueno,” Jaime said, pretending it was great news as he released the piece of garbage. “Let’s proceed, then.” He gestured grandly down the hall to the back door.
Layne grumbled something, but Jaime was relieved to see concern and fear on the man’s face. He could only hope it would keep the man in line.
They exited the house and Jaime waited while Layne chained everything up. The late summer sun shimmered in the green of the trees, and if Jaime didn’t know what lurked in the shed across the grass, he might have relaxed.
As it was, relaxing wasn’t happening any time soon.
Jaime let Layne lead the way to the shed. He preferred to touch as little as possible in that little house of horrors.
Both men stepped in to find The Stallion pacing, hands clutched behind his back, and Wallace looking wary in the far corner.
The Stallion looked up distractedly. “Good. Good. We’ve gotten news of Herman before Wallace even got anywhere.” The man’s hands shook as he brought them in front of him in fists, fury stamped across his face. The usual calm calculation in his eyes something darker and more frenzied. “With the Texas Rangers and a hypnotist.” The Stallion slammed a fist to the desk that made the creepy-ass dolls on the shelf above shake, their dead lifeless eyes fluttering at the vibration.
Jaime forced himself to look away and stare flatly at his boss. Fake boss, he amended.
“Luckily, Mr. Herman doesn’t know enough to give them much of a lead, but he certainly represents a loose end.” The Stallion took a deep breath, plucking one of the brunette dolls from the shelf. He cradled it like a child.
It took every ounce of Jaime’s control and training to keep the horror off his face. Grown men capable of murder cradling a doll was not...comforting in the least.
“I’ve sent a team to get rid of Herman. Scare the hypnotist. I don’t think I want to extinguish her yet. She might be valuable. But I want her scared.” He squeezed the doll so tight it was a wonder one of its plastic limbs didn’t break off.
“There we are, pretty girl,” The Stallion cooed, resettling the doll on the shelf and brushing a hand over its fake hair.
Jaime shuddered and looked away.
“Until this mess is taken care of, you are all on lockdown. No one is leaving the premises until Herman is taken care of.”
“Then, boss?” Layne asked a little too hopefully.
The Stallion smiled pleasantly. “And then we’ll decide what to do about the hypnotist.”
Lockdown and death threats. Jaime tried to breathe through the urgency, the failure, the impossibility of saving this man’s life.
He’d try. Somehow, he’d try. But he had the sinking suspicion Herman was already gone.
Chapter 5
Gabby couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t an uncommon affliction. Even in the past two years, exercising herself to exhaustion, giving up on things ever being different, avoiding figuring out the pieces of The Stallion puzzle, insomnia still plagued her.
Because no matter how she tried to accept her lot in life, she’d always known this wasn’t home.
But what would be home? Her father was dead. Her sister would be an adult woman with a life of her own. Would Mom and Grandma still live in the little house on East Avenue or would they have moved?
Did they assume she was dead? Would they have kept all her things or gotten rid of them? The blue teddy bear Daddy had given her on her sixth birthday. The bulletin board of pictures of friends and Ricky and her and Nattie.
Her heart absolutely ached at the thought of her sister. Two years apart, they hadn’t always gotten along, but they had been friends. Sisters. They’d shared things, laughed together, cried together, fought together.
Tears pricked Gabby’s eyes. She hadn’t had this kind of sad nostalgia swamp her in years, because it led nowhere good. She couldn’t change her circumstances. She was stuck in this prison and there was no way out.
Except maybe Jaime.
That was not an acceptable thought. She could work with him to take down The Stallion, and she would, but actually thinking she could get out of there was... It was another thing altogether.
She froze completely at the telltale if faint sound of her door opening. And then closing. She closed her hands into fists, ready to fight. She couldn’t drown that reaction out of herself, no matter how often she wondered if giving in was simply easier.
“Gabby.”
A hushed whisper, but even if she didn’t remember people’s voices so easily, she would have known it was Jaime—Rodriguez—from a man calling her Gabby.
Gabby. She swallowed against all of the fuzzy feelings inside her. Home and Gabby and what did either even mean anymore. She didn’t have a home. The Gabby she’d been was dead.
It didn’t matter. Taking The Stallion down was the only thing that mattered. She sat up in the dark, watched Jaime’s shadow get closer.
The initial fear hadn’t totally subsided. She wasn’t afraid of him per se or, maybe more accurately, she wasn’t afraid he would harm her. But that didn’t mean there weren’t other things to be afraid of.
She had sat up on the bed, but he still loomed over her from his standing position. She banked the edgy nerves fluttering inside her chest.
He kneeled, much like he had earlier today when they’d been putting together her map. Except she was on the bed instead of her makeshift markers.
“Do you have any more ideas about the locations? Aside from directions?” he asked, everything about him sounding grave and...tired.
“I have a few theories. Do we...do we need to go over all that tonight?”
“I’m sorry. You were sleeping.”
“Well, no.” She had the oddest urge to offer her hand to him. He’d taken her hand earlier today and there had been something... “Is something wrong?”
He laughed, caustic and bitter, and she didn’t know this man. He could be lying to her. He could be anyone. Then there was her, cut off from normal human contact for eight years. The only place she had to practice any kind of compassion or reading of people was with the other girls, and she’d been keeping her distance lately.
So she was probably way off base to think something was wrong, to feel like he was off somehow.
But he stood, pacing away from the bed, a dark, agitated shadow. �
�It doesn’t get any easier to know someone’s going to die. I tried...” He shook his head grimly. “We should focus on what we can do.”
“You tried what?” Gabby asked, undeterred.
“I tried to get a message to the Rangers, but...” He kneeled again and she couldn’t see him in the dark, found it odd she wanted to.
“But?”
“I think it was too late.”
Gabby inhaled sharply. Whether she knew him or not, whether she’d lost all ability to gauge people’s emotions, she could all but feel his guilt and regret as though it were her own.
She didn’t know what the answer to that was...what he might have endured in pretending to be the kind of man who worked for The Stallion. Gabby couldn’t begin to imagine... Though she’d ostensibly worked for the man, she’d never had to pretend she liked it.
“If we’re an hour west of El Paso, I would imagine each spot would be likely the same distance from the city in its sector,” she said, because the only answer she knew was bringing The Stallion down.
It couldn’t bring dead people back, including herself, but it could stop the spread. They had to stop the spread.
She kept going when he said nothing. “He’s very methodical. Things are the same. He stays here the same weeks every year. He eats the same things, does the same things. I would imagine whatever other places he has are like this one. Possibly identical.”
In the dark she couldn’t see what Jaime’s face might be reflecting and he was completely and utterly still.
“Jaime...”
“Rodriguez. We have to...we can’t be too complacent. There’s too much at stake. I am Rodriguez.”
“Okay,” she returned, and she supposed he was right, no matter how much she preferred to call him something—anything—other than what The Stallion called him.
“But you’re right. The eastern compound was around an hour west of Houston. I wonder... He is methodical, you’re right about that. I wonder if the mileage would be exactly the same.”
