by Susan Stoker
“So . . . where are your parents?” Gray asked when the kid took a breath. He had no doubt the youngster could babble on forever, but he really wasn’t in the mood, and he figured he’d been polite long enough.
“My mom’s shopping. She loves to shop. No matter where we go, my dad says she could find someplace to spend money. My dad’s in the Army. He’s currently overseas being brave.”
“He is, huh?”
“Yup. He didn’t want to go. I heard him and my mom arguing the night before he left. She didn’t want him to go neither. She said she was scared he was going to die and leave us alone.”
“What did he say in reply?” Gray asked, interested now in spite of himself.
“He said that he was kinda scared too. But that serving his country was more important in the big picture. That he never wanted to leave us, but if something happened, he knew we’d be okay. Mom asked him how did he know, and he said because he married the most amazing woman on the planet, and if the shit hit the fan, he trusted her to do the right thing.”
Gray froze and stared at the little boy, who was still looking out at the view. He kept talking.
“Mom cried, and Dad hugged her and told her not to cry, that she rarely cried and she shouldn’t waste her tears on him. Then they started kissing, which was gross, so I went back to my room. When I grow up, I want to be in the Army too. I want to serve my country just like my dad.” He looked up at Gray then. “Were you in the Army?”
Gray shook his head. “Navy,” he croaked.
“Oh. My dad says sailors aren’t as brave as soldiers because they stay out on their boats while the real fighting is on land.”
Gray could’ve set the boy straight, but he was still thinking about his earlier words.
A woman called the boy’s name, and he stood. “It was nice meeting you, mister.”
“Same,” Gray said absently, and didn’t look back as the boy climbed up the rocks to his mom.
He thought back to his argument with Allye earlier that morning. It hadn’t penetrated through his anger then, but now it did.
She’d been crying. He’d made her cry.
She hadn’t shed a single tear when they’d been in the middle of the ocean. She hadn’t cried when she’d heard about Jessie or Melany. She hadn’t even cried when she’d found out that Robin had been taken. She’d flat-out told him that she hadn’t cried since she was a little kid. That she’d realized it did no good and no one cared.
But he’d made her cry.
He could still see her standing in front of him with rivulets of tears coursing down her cheeks, dripping off her chin.
Gray scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to banish the image from his mind, but he couldn’t.
How could she ask him to let her not only go back to California, but to go with her? He wouldn’t be able to go on if something happened to her. Especially knowing what a sadistic son of a bitch Nightingale was.
How could he go while knowing she was purposely putting her life in danger?
But how could he not?
Gray sighed. The bottom line was that this wasn’t Afghanistan. She wasn’t one of those nameless women who had been used to break him. She was Allye. Tough, smart, resilient. And she’d said it several times—if he was there with her, they’d be stronger as a team. Just like they’d been in the ocean.
Knowing he was going to have to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life—namely, watch the woman he loved put herself in danger—Gray stood. He wasn’t happy about it, but it was the right decision. She could no more sit back and allow her friends to be hurt and killed than he could.
Allye might be walking into the lion’s den, but he’d make damn sure he was right there with her. He and the rest of the team would figure out something so they could keep tabs on her no matter where she went.
If Nightingale got his hands on her, which honestly seemed pretty likely, they could follow him and get to her before he did anything. Which, he knew, was what Allye had been proposing all along. She wasn’t stupid. Far from it.
As he hurried back to his car to make the long drive back down the mountain, Gray thought about the argument from a different standpoint. What if it was one of the guys who was missing? Ro or Black or Ball? Would the rest of the team sit back and do nothing if the threat of them acting would increase the likelihood of their friend being tortured? Would he refuse to go because it would remind him of that long-ago incident? Of course not. He wouldn’t let one of them die because he wanted to stay safe.
But that’s exactly what he’d asked Allye to do. And that wasn’t fair.
He picked up his phone to call her, to apologize and tell her he’d changed his mind and they’d talk when he got home, but he didn’t have any service. Swearing, he started his Audi and turned toward the exit. He’d wait until he got home. Then grovel as he asked for her forgiveness.
He should’ve come to his senses when he saw her tears. Should’ve known this wasn’t something she’d propose lightly. He’d fucked up. Huge. And he needed to fix it. He just hoped Allye would forgive him.
Allye chewed on her lip as she sat stiffly in her seat on the private jet. She’d texted Rex the second Gray had left, and within twenty minutes, Ro had been at the door, ready to take her to the airport. Ball and Meat had met them there, and they’d taken off almost as soon as the plane’s door had been secured.
She was scared to death to be headed back to San Francisco, but she had to go.
“Any word on Robin?” she asked Meat.
“Not yet.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, love?” Ro asked.
Allye nodded but said, “No. But Rex promised that no matter what happened, you guys would have my back.”
“He’s right,” Ball said. “Gray might have his head up his ass, but we aren’t going to lead you to the wolves and leave you on your own.”
“It’s too close to what happened to him before,” Allye said, defending Gray even though he’d broken her heart. “I don’t blame him for not wanting to come.”
“Well, I do,” Ro complained. “Damn wanker.”
Meat’s laptop rang with an incoming email. He read it, then looked up at her. “Okay, here’s the deal. Rex talked with someone out in California who will meet us when we land. He’s going to put a tracking device just under your skin. So no matter where you go, we can find you.”
Allye stared at him in confusion. “What, like a microchip in a dog?”
Meat nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Seriously?” Allye asked.
“Seriously. Rex thought about giving you an external tracker. He’s got a friend who’s outfitted several women with them, just in case, but they’ve had some issues because they’re removable. If Nightingale strips you all the way down, even removes your jewelry, then it won’t work. So the best thing is to make you trackable in a way that can’t be removed or disabled. Unless he cuts a chunk out of your skin or something.”
Allye winced.
Ball leaned over and smacked Meat on the back of the head.
“Ow! What was that for?” Meat complained, rubbing the spot.
“I don’t think she needed to hear that,” Ball said, indicating Allye with a tilt of his head.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, swallowing the bile that had risen up in her throat. “I mean, it’s good I know what could happen, right?”
“It’s not going to happen, love,” Ro said calmly. “What’s the plan?” he asked Meat.
“Oh, well, Black and Arrow will meet us at the plane with the guy. The chip is still in its trial phase, and he agreed to let us use it as long as he could help monitor the data. Rex thought it best to insert it in the back of her thigh. It shouldn’t be obvious there, and it’s not a place Nightingale would think to look. It’s got a GPS transmitter, so we can track her using a handheld device. In fact, I think Rex is looking into getting some for us. Think about it. If something happens like what happened to Allye and Gray, we
could go right to them in the middle of hundreds of miles of ocean.”
As Meat continued to extol the virtues of the internal GPS tracker, Allye tuned him out. She gazed out the window and tried to control the shaking of her hands. She didn’t know what the plan was yet, besides being injected with a microchip-like thing as if she really was an animal, but she couldn’t complain about that. It made her feel better knowing they’d be able to find her no matter what.
She just wished Gray was here. This whole thing would be easier with him by her side. He probably would’ve made some sort of joke about the tracker and made her laugh. But she certainly wasn’t laughing now.
Unbidden, a tear fell out of her eye. Then another. Before she knew it, she was crying once again. Damn it all to hell.
“Allye?” Gray called when he finally got home two hours later. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the house was eerily silent. “Allye?” he called again, flicking on a few lights. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. He took the stairs up to the second floor two at a time. He needed to find her. To apologize and explain where his head was at.
He opened the master bedroom door quietly, in case she was sleeping . . . and stared at the empty bed.
The sheets were still mussed from their lovemaking that morning, and seeing them made his heart hurt.
Staring at the empty room for a heartbeat, he went to the guest room she’d almost slept in that first night. If she was mad at him, she was probably sleeping in there.
He opened the door and saw that it, too, was empty.
He blinked and turned in a circle. She wasn’t there. Where the hell was she?
Gray went back into the master bedroom and glanced around the space. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Some clue as to where she might have gone, maybe. He looked in the closet—and swore long and low when he realized her suitcase was missing. Flinging open the dresser drawers, he saw that her clothes were gone as well.
“No, no, no,” he muttered as he reached for his phone. He dialed her number, and it immediately went to voice mail. He left a quick message. “Kitten, it’s me. Please call me back as soon as you get this. I’m sorry. I was an ass. Let me explain. I love you.”
As soon as he clicked the button to hang up, Gray dialed his handler’s number.
“Rex.”
“Rex, it’s Gray. Allye’s missing.”
“She’s not missing,” Rex said calmly.
A shiver ran up Gray’s spine. “What do you mean?”
“She called me hours ago. Said she wanted to go back to California and asked for my help. I asked where you were, and she said you’d left. That you didn’t want to go with her.”
“Fuck! What did you do?” Gray accused.
“Exactly what she asked me to. I helped her.”
“So help me God, Rex . . . Where is she?”
“San Francisco.”
“How could you do that to her?” Gray shouted. “You know as well as I do that Nightingale will grab her before she’s even there a full day!”
“I know.”
Gray grit his teeth at the calmness of his handler’s voice. “Do you not care?”
“Of course I fucking care,” Rex ground out. “I cared about the two women he already killed. I care about the hundreds more he’s most certainly kidnapped and killed in the past and will in the future, if he’s not stopped.”
“Allye’s mine. You had no right!” Gray said, furious now.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I had every right—because you turned your back on her. Besides, Allye doesn’t belong to anyone. She’s a smart woman who’s concerned about her friends. And she’s fucking brave. She’s scared, but she’s doing it anyway. You know why?” He didn’t wait for Gray to answer. “Because she trusts me, and your friends, to keep her safe. She’s not stupid. She knows full well that he’ll probably nab her, but she’s counting on us to come and find her when he does.”
Gray’s heart hurt. He collapsed on the edge of the mattress, Allye’s scent wafting from the sheets up to his nose as he did.
“I know why you said the things you said to her,” Rex continued, his voice lowering a bit.
“She told you?”
“No. There’s no way that woman would ever say one bad thing about you, no matter how much you hurt her. She loves you too much. She just said that because of what happened to you in the past, you couldn’t go with her to San Francisco, and that she understood. But I know about Afghanistan, so I know exactly what your argument with Allye would be. Gray—this is not the same situation. Not even close.”
He knew it. He’d come to the same conclusion on top of Pikes Peak. “I know, Rex. I came home to tell Allye that.”
“She needs you,” Rex said quietly. “She’s as brave as anyone I’ve ever known, but she’s still scared out of her mind. Having you there would go a long way toward making her able to think more clearly.”
Gray sighed. “What’s the plan?”
And with those three words, Gray was committed. He could no more sit at home and wait to find out what was happening in California than Allye could. He needed to get there. Now. Needed to be a part of whatever was going to happen to Allye so he could do whatever it took to bring her home, to Colorado, safely.
Nightingale smiled at the older woman in front of him. She wasn’t his original target—he much preferred the younger, more beautiful women—but she’d practically walked right into his clutches.
She was quaking with fear, and he loved every second of her distress. He reached out and wrenched off the band of cloth wrapped around her head and eyes, wanting her to see who her new master was. Wanted to see the knowledge in her eyes that she would live or die based on whatever he wanted.
He’d dismissed the escort with a flick of his wrist earlier. Having his escorts pose as taxi drivers had been a stroke of genius. Once the women were in the customized cabs, there was no escaping. It was much less risky than snatching them off the streets, as they’d been doing. He’d gotten the idea while watching one of those crime shows one night. It was amazing the things one could learn while watching television.
He walked around his latest acquisition with a serious look on his face. He was having the time of his life, but his pets seemed to obey him better when he looked mean and wasn’t smiling.
“Where is Mystic?”
“Who?” the woman asked, her voice trembling. He’d handcuffed her inside one of the vacant cages—one of the twins hadn’t made it through her punishment the other night, so he had a free room. The woman was spread-eagle, with her hands cuffed to a beam above her head and her ankles shackled to chains protruding from either side of the wall.
He hadn’t stripped her . . . yet. He was saving that for later. He liked to see his pets’ terror increase the longer they were with him.
“Allyson Mystic.” Nightingale enunciated as if she were a half-wit.
“I-I don’t know. She left, took a leave of absence, and hasn’t returned.”
Nightingale stepped into her personal space and put his hand around her neck, lifting her chin as he did.
“I want her,” he said evenly. “And if I don’t get her, you’ll pay the price. So the more you can tell me about her, the easier your time here will be. Got it?”
He loved watching her pupils dilate with fear. He couldn’t wait to see Mystic’s do the same thing. One blue eye and one brown, the irises almost disappearing when her pupils enlarged. He wouldn’t bother trying to make this woman look like his Mystic because she was way too old to pass for her, even in the dark. But he could still have fun. She was a dancer too; maybe he’d see exactly how flexible she was. He’d start with the splits. Every dancer worth her salt could do the splits, right?
Nightingale let her neck go and walked over to where the chain attached to her right ankle was connected to the wall. It had a handy crank, and he smiled to himself as he slowly turned it.
Wiping the smile off his face, he turned to face his new
pet. “Can you do the splits?”
“Wh-What?” she asked, her eyes huge in her wrinkled face.
“The splits. How flexible are you?” He cranked the wheel once more, and her foot slid out three more inches. Nightingale saw the second she realized what he was doing. The blood drained from her face, leaving her a nice shade of white.
“Please don’t! I’ll do whatever you want.”
“What I want is Mystic.”
“I don’t know where she is!” the woman cried as he turned the crank another full rotation.
“Then I guess you’ll be doing the splits today, won’t you?” Nightingale said. “The more you can tell me what I want to know, the better off you’ll be.”
The woman started crying then, trying to turn her hips so she was facing the direction her leg was being pulled, but no matter how she moved, nothing stopped the relentless stretching of her leg.
Nightingale loved this part. Loved hearing their screams of pain. Loved knowing he was in charge of whatever happened to them. He turned the crank again and couldn’t keep the smile from his face as she screamed. She wasn’t even close to doing the splits yet. What fun!
“Sir?” a voice asked from the speaker in the corner.
Nightingale frowned. He didn’t like to be interrupted. “What?” he barked.
“You asked to be notified if there were any sightings.”
All irritation left. “And have there been?”
“Yes, sir. She just entered the theatre.”
Nightingale secured the chain, leaving the woman standing with her legs way too far apart to be comfortable. Good. He’d let her think about what was to come. He walked up to her and leaned close, smacking her cheek. “Today’s your lucky day. Looks like my Mystic has come home. Soon you’ll have company.”
“So you’ll let me go?” the woman asked hopefully.
Nightingale laughed. “Let you go? Oh no, you’re way more useful to me here. I know my Mystic is a tender soul. She won’t want to see you get hurt. But you will if she doesn’t obey my every command. Anything that happens to you, know that it’s your precious lead dancer’s fault.”
The woman started blubbering again, begging to stand up straight, begging to be let go, but Nightingale had already tuned her out. He didn’t want her. Didn’t care about her. He had better, more important things to do. He needed to bring his unique pet home. And this was something he had to do himself. She was too valuable to trust to anyone else.
