There were no bags on desktops, no coffee cups, no coats tossed in the corner. Ian hadn’t been able to get in touch with the team, but had they managed to get out before Thug One and Thug Two arrived?
Our backpacks lay against the wall behind Ian, unopened. I prayed that our laptops and Gil’s journal were still tucked inside.
I rolled to my stomach then pushed myself onto my knees. Ian gave me a stern look.
“There’s a hidden panel in the closet of the back room—”
“I’m not leaving you, Ian,” I declared.
“I’ll be fine,” he argued.
“Oh yeah, because you’re so comfortable hanging there? We’re in this shitty situation because of me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let those assholes come back and use you for a punching bag and then do only God knows what with me.”
“It’s not your fault, Victoria,” Ian said.
“I had a gun. I could have shot the guy standing over you, but I froze.” I looked down, ashamed. I also couldn’t stomach Ian’s abused body. It broke my heart to see him like that, especially since I knew I was to blame.
“Look at me, Victoria,” he said. He wouldn’t speak again until my eyes met his. “Things happen. We both entered an unknown situation. You’ll recall I was the one lying unconscious on the floor when you walked in.” Even in his battered state, Ian had an uncanny ability to make me feel better. While I didn’t think I’d ever relinquish responsibility, his words took the edge off.
“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly.
“Now, they left about twenty minutes ago and could be back any minute,” he said.
“Then I guess I’d better hurry.”
Ian opened his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off before he could utter a single syllable.
“I already told you I’m not leaving you here. I’m our only hope of getting out of here, Ian, so let me do everything I can to make that happen.” Here was my chance to make things right, and I hoped I could figure out and execute a plan before our attackers came back.
I pushed myself to my feet and hopped over to Adam’s station. The secret panel to the weapons arsenal was voice-activated by Adam. I turned to Ian, who just shook his head and looked apologetically at me.
Frustrated, I shoved my body as hard as I could against the wall. It didn’t budge. As if my 130-pound frame would somehow open Adam’s military-grade secret panel. Every weapon we needed to defeat our attackers was just out of reach, made completely useless by the impossible wall. At least I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get to Adam’s weapons. I didn’t want to imagine what our attackers would do with this arsenal at their disposal.
I sat in Adam’s chair and searched his drawers. They were empty. Of course they were. In high-tech, digital, and heavily armed headquarters, who needs scissors?
I lifted my hands to my eyes and rubbed them as best I could. Suddenly, I remembered a YouTube self-defense video Tiffany and I had found one night.
I raised my hands as high as I could and said a quick prayer that these guys used cheap duct tape. With as much force as I could muster, I thrust my hands down and sharply twisted my wrists.
With a rewarding shearing sound, the tape snapped in half. My hands were free!
Ian raised an eyebrow. “Impressive,” he said.
I shrugged. “I told you. I live in a gritty neighborhood. A girl’s got to have survival skills.”
Ian looked at my ankles, then back at me, tilting his head skeptically.
Good point. That move wasn’t going to work down there.
I hopped over to Claudia’s desk, praying that someone would have a pair of scissors. Her drawers looked similarly empty. But as I started to close her top drawer, something glinted in the light.
“Thank you, Claudia, for caring about your manicure!”
Office supplies? Nada. Beauty products? Better bet. A metal nail file was wedged at the back of the drawer.
It seemed to take forever, but I was able to use the nail file to start enough of a tear in the duct tape around my ankles to rip the rest away.
“All right!” I said, starting toward Ian. Then I froze, and Ian and I locked eyes. We both could hear it. The sound of someone coming up the steps.
“Victoria, go,” Ian said. “The other exit—”
“No way,” I said, surprising myself, because frankly, all I wanted to do was to run and never look back. I grabbed Ian’s legs and tried to push him up so he could free his wrists from the hook. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Ian struggled with the rope, but it was caught on the edge of the hook. The sound of footsteps reached the door.
“Victoria!” Ian hissed.
We were out of time. “Pretend you’re unconscious!” I said.
“What?”
“Just do it!” I locked eyes with Ian. I had a desperate idea, but this was a desperate moment. It was time to put all that self-defense training to the test.
Ian glanced at the door, closed his eyes, and let his head hang.
I dropped my arms and kept my back to the door as it swung open. I heard Thug One or Thug Two come through the door and stop.
He said something short and harsh in Italian. He either swore or told me not to move. I decided to take it as the latter and stayed right where I was. My plan would only work if I didn’t turn around.
“I don’t speak Italian,” I said, willing him to close the distance between us. Meanwhile, I was rehearsing in my mind what I was about to do. A cold sweat rolled slowly down my back.
The man said something else and crossed the room quickly. I felt a hard grip on my shoulder—right out of the assailant handbook. That was my cue.
I pivoted hard and jabbed an elbow into the man’s ribs, then immediately swung that fist down and into his crotch.
It was Thug One, the guy who I’d seen standing over Ian. He crumpled to the ground, both hands cradling his groin.
“Quickly now!” Ian hissed.
I grabbed Ian’s legs and lifted again. Ian struggled with the rope on the hook.
I stepped back, and he dropped to the ground.
“Get his gun,” Ian said as he tried to free his wrists.
I glanced down at Thug One, who had gotten his knees under him but was still facedown, writhing in pain. There, tucked into his belt at the small of his back, was a pistol.
I reached down and pulled it free.
“Keep it on him,” Ian said, pulling his wrists apart.
Then Thug Two burst through the door, gun up and blazing. Bullets whistled through the air around us as Ian grabbed the gun from me. He pushed me to the ground and fired in the same moment.
I saw Thug Two stagger and drop his gun. Had he been hit in the arm? He spun and kept coming. Ian got off one more shot before Thug Two tackled him, and they both went to the ground.
Before I could think about my next move, I felt a steely grip on my calf. It was Thug One, leering at me.
I did what was only natural. I lifted my free foot and stamped it as hard as I could into that ugly face. I wanted to break his teeth. I succeeded in breaking his nose. I think. Blood was everywhere as Thug One’s body went limp.
That’s when I realized I’d heard another gunshot. My stomach dropped. Ian?
He was up and walking toward me, the gun in his hand. Thug Two lay motionless behind him.
I stood up on rickety legs and grabbed our bags and Ian’s shirt, then followed Ian to a back room that looked like it had once been a walk-in storage closet. He dropped an old-fashioned beam across the door, locking it, before pulling a panel from the wall. From inside the hidden space, he pulled a gun, a cell phone, and some cash.
“Is everything there?” Ian asked. I checked the bags. Our laptops and Gil’s journal were still inside. I passed him his backpack, and he threw it over his shoulders.
&nb
sp; I suddenly realized I was trembling and gasping. Ian looked as cool as a cucumber—he was a trained soldier. I, on the other hand, was a waitress from Miami who had barely survived by implementing YouTube self-defense training.
Ian cupped the back of my head and looked me in the eye. “Breathe with me, Victoria,” he said. It took two long, deep breaths before I was able to synchronize our breathing.
Ian smiled ruefully and gave a slight shake of his head. “That was very well done.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Did I kill the other guy?” I wasn’t actually sure if I wanted to know the answer.
He paused before replying. “No. But what you need to remember is that unless you defend yourself and your team, whoever it is that is coming for us will kill us once they get what they want.”
Ian was right, and I knew it. I couldn’t focus on the condition of that man out there. My only objective was to find Gil, and I couldn’t let anything get in my way.
I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. “And you said I was going to need more than self-defense moves to survive.”
Ian smiled again. “I stand corrected.”
“I’ll be sure to alert the team to your confession.” I smiled bravely back. “So, what now? Unless we’re going to play Seven Minutes in Heaven, we have to get out of this closet.”
“As tempting as that sounds, I’d like to get as far away from this place as possible.” Ian cocked his head at me. “How good are you with a pole?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to need a little more information before answering that.”
Ian grinned and reached behind the panels again. With a click, the wall at the back of the room indented, then slid aside to reveal a long silver pole that stretched to the ground floor.
I stared at it for a moment, then turned to Ian. “Just one? We don’t each get a pole, Batman?”
“I’ll go first,” he said. “It’s a long way through the dark, but there are motion-sensor lights once you near the bottom, and they’ll click on for you once I’ve made it down.”
“How far are we talking?”
“We’ll be going down the equivalent of four stories,” he answered.
“Well, we haven’t got all day. Let’s go.”
Ian nodded. He wrapped himself around the pole and slid out of sight.
Trying to breathe steadily, I reached out over the dark abyss, grabbed the pole, and looked down. After a few moments, the lights Ian had promised clicked on. Forty feet down, Ian stepped away from the pole and looked up at me.
I repositioned my backpack and took a long breath, focusing on Gil.
It’s now or never, I told myself. I jumped onto the pole and began to slide.
Ian had a big smile on his face when he caught me at the bottom. “Tell me that wasn’t fun.”
I twisted my mouth before I answered. “Okay, yeah. That was pretty badass.”
Ian laughed and led me down a long tunnel. All the lights were on motion sensors, and sections clicked on and off as we progressed. I could tell Ian was hurt, but he never winced or said a word about it.
“Do we have any idea who those guys were?” I asked. “What about the ones at the hotel?”
“I didn’t recognize any of them,” Ian said. “It’s hard to say who they work for, but we’ve made a lot of enemies over the years.”
The floor was uneven in some areas, and there were random rocks and pebbles that I kept stumbling over.
“But those two were part of the same crew that were at the hotel,” Ian continued. “I heard them say that their boss had to clean up the mess we left there.”
We walked for another few minutes before Ian noticed my silence.
“Do you feel okay? Want to stop for a moment?” he asked gently. It was nice of him to be sensitive to my unconditioned body, and I had no doubt I was still in shock from my first fight, but it was the vision of Ian’s body, unconscious, bleeding, and hanging from the ceiling, that was bothering me.
“I’m so sorry, Ian. You counted on me to back you up, and I let you down,” I blurted.
“Stop it, Victoria. We’ve been over this.” He moved to face me, bringing us to a halt. I couldn’t lift my head to look at him in fear of opening the emotional floodgates.
“I just can’t get the image of you hanging there out of my head,” I told him.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“I know, I know. I’m being weak.”
Ian took my face in his hands and forced me to look at him. “You are not weak. You are human. And you’re . . .
you. I would be concerned if seeing me like that hadn’t upset you.” He studied my face for a moment before he spoke again. “You saved us in there. You followed your gut and were incredibly brave, and I will be forever grateful for that.”
“So my stubbornness came in handy, huh?” I gave him a crooked smile.
“Yes. It most certainly did.” Ian brushed my hair out of my face and sighed. “Now, are you okay to continue? It’s not much farther.”
“Yes, I’m good. Thank you, Ian.” We mirrored tight-lipped smiles at each other and kept walking.
We climbed two flights of stairs at the end of the tunnel and emerged inside an old, abandoned house—completely empty and all kinds of creepy—before continuing outside to a barn. A keypad was hidden in the paneling, and Ian flipped the cover open and entered a six-digit code.
As we passed through the door, it became clear that the barn was just a shell hiding the true interior. We had entered a showroom with two cars parked with space for a third car between them.
Ian entered another code into a different keypad. Suddenly, the floor shifted, revealing that each car was parked on a massive plate. The car on the left lowered, and the middle plate moved into its place. The car on the right moved left. As each car replaced the previous one’s place in line, a new one appeared from below on the right. A hydraulic, Ferris wheel–type system rotated several cars until a black SUV arrived.
Ian moved to the driver’s side door.
“That. Was. Crazy,” I said.
“Get in,” Ian said, ignoring my amazement. More whiplash. Sweet to sour in the blink of an eye.
Once we were on the road, Ian pulled out the new cell phone and dialed. I saw relief flood his face when someone answered. “Claudia! What the hell is going on?”
I heard the muffled sounds of Claudia talking. Ian nodded a couple of times, told her to stay put in the new safe house, and then hung up.
I looked at Ian expectantly, but it appeared that he had no intention of filling me in. “What did she say?” I asked.
“Not now,” he said tersely. He kept his eyes on the road, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“What did she say, Ian?” Did my friendship with the team suddenly not matter?
“I said, not now, Victoria!” He brought the car to a screeching halt in the middle of the road, jerking me forward into my seatbelt.
I looked at Ian in shock.
He calmed himself, but not before his nostrils flared with frustration. “Now that I know everyone is fine, I am trying to figure out the next move. I can’t do that if you’re asking questions incessantly.”
“I’m sorry if I want to know what’s going on! Two gunmen just chased me down a hallway, I was knocked out and tied up, you were hanging from the ceiling, I kicked a guy in the face and broke his nose, you just killed a man, and the team has gone MIA. Now we’re driving toward I don’t know what, and all you’re doing is telling me to shut up!”
“Your job is to take orders and do as I say. I’ll give you information when it’s time for you to have information.” His face was hard and steady. That was when I understood what it was really like to be a part of this team.
I realized that to be around Ian
was to be around two different people. When it came to his team or the mission, he was one person. And, for whatever reason, when he was alone with me, he was someone else. A guy who didn’t want to be that other guy all the time.
I turned my body to face the windshield and steeled myself. I wasn’t going to become the two-faced machine Ian had become, but I could become the good little agent he needed me to be.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. You’ll give me information as I need it,” I said coldly.
“Victoria,” he began apologetically.
I had to let Ian work the way he worked. That was my only hope of finding Gil.
“It’s fine, Ian.”
Ian nodded once and turned to face the road. He took the car out of park and took us from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds.
Chapter 12
We drove for a long time. We passed farmhouse after farmhouse with nothing much in between. While he drove us to undisclosed location number two, I combed through the journal and came to a familiar story at the end of the book. The names had been changed, but I recognized the people and the events.
In the journal, the girlfriend of a man who Gil identified as a distant cousin had to leave Miami and go home to Indiana with her family. Weeks went by, and the cousin received no replies to his almost-daily emails. The cousin became consumed with worry, until one night, his worry turned into a nightmare.
Watching the evening news, he saw a story about the body of an unidentified young girl found inside a brothel in Miami. When a sketch of the girl’s face appeared on the screen, the cousin fell apart. It was his lost girlfriend.
Gil’s lost girlfriend.
We never got any clear answers about what happened to Maria or how she ended up in that brothel. All we knew was what Maria had told Gil: Her family was being deported back to Cuba. It was such a hard time for Gil. They had dated for two years and when he found out that she’d been murdered, it nearly killed him. He didn’t eat and he barely slept for days. He snapped out of it, though, when he realized that I needed him. Dad and Mom had already been gone for more than two years by then. So it was just the two of us, and he couldn’t check out on me. It was after her death that he became so laser-focused on school and research.
Oxblood Page 13
