by Ts McKinney
My decision made, I slipped out of the bed as quietly as possible, snatched up the scrubs I’d worn home from the hospital, grabbed a T—shirt and crept out of the bedroom. Inside the living room, I put the clothes on, moved to the kitchen and fixed my sandwich, then grabbed some paper so I could tell Seth how I truly felt about him and what we’d shared. I didn’t want to push myself on him, but still wanted him to know how I felt. As it turned out, I wasn’t much of a romantic scholar, so the words turned out to be nothing more than a jumbled mess. Feeling frustrated, I assured myself I’d make the time to do a better job expressing my feelings. As I chewed my sandwich, I looked around the room for a place to tuck the letter until I was ready to give it to him or where he could easily find it if something went wrong. Seth’ cell started ringing before I was able to find a spot. I dropped the paper on the countertop and quickly scooped up the phone, making sure to turn my body away from the window so whoever was watching wouldn’t be able to see I was on the phone.
“Baker,” I answered quietly. Yeah…like they could hear me from the other building.
“Ready to be some bait?” Landon asked. “There’s movement and flashing from the apartment across the way. There may not be a connection, but I’m thinking there is. I want to try and lure them out. How do you feel about a nice, lonely walk on the beach?”
I felt sick to my stomach. I needed more time with Seth. I also knew now wasn’t the time to be worried about my needs. “Walk on the beach. Got it. What do I tell Seth?” I’d been pacing back and forth in the living room, but then started in the direction of the bedroom.
Landon answered with a string of curse words. “He’s going to be a problem, I’m afraid. He won’t be comfortable with sending you down by yourself. He can be an overprotective bastard at times.” After a few seconds, Landon said, “Take his phone into the bedroom and put it on the nightstand next to him. I’m going to send you down first and have him follow within fifteen minutes. Trust me; Seth won’t let anything happen to you.”
Standing outside the bedroom door, I countered with, “Yeah, well maybe I won’t let anything happen to Seth. Ever think about that?” Seth was going to be so angry that I went down without him, but I knew Landon was in charge of our mission.
“No, not really,” Landon answered dryly. “Just put the phone on the nightstand and keep your cute ass safe. I don’t need Seth gunning for me if something goes wrong and you end up scraping your knee or something as equally tragic. You’ve got this, kid. Everything’s good.”
Not feeling good about the situation at all, I still gently placed the phone on the nightstand, took a few seconds to soak up every beautiful detail of my lover’s face, and then left the bedroom. Was the mission really about to be over? More importantly, was there a chance Seth might want me the way I wanted him. As I opened the apartment door, I thought about the note I’d left on the counter. Suddenly, I wished I’d said more.
Knowing there wasn’t time to make things better, I exited the apartment and headed for the elevator. Landon would kick my ass if I did something to screw up a job as simple as being bait. As I rode the elevator to the ground floor, I tried to work out some sort of believable plan to use once I reached the lobby. I had no idea who was friend or foe…or where they were spying from.
A quick plan formed in my mind—something that would look believable to anybody who just spent the last three hours watching Seth and me making love like a real couple…like the couple I wanted us to be. When the elevator doors slid open to the lobby of the apartment building, the doorman was waiting there, a friendly but sleepy smile on his face.
“Good evening, Mr. Solomon,” the man greeted. It was weird, being called by the wrong name, but I kept my face relaxed and friendly. “Unable to sleep, Sir?”
“You could say that,” I answered. It was then that I noticed I’d forgotten to put shoes on my feet. Oops. “Which is the fastest way to the beach? I need to hear the waves tonight.”
“Of course, sir,” he answered pleasantly. “Straight down that hall.” He pointed to a long hall to my left. “You’ll be able to exit the building but in order to re-enter, you’ll need the access code. I assume you have it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Excellent. When you exit the door at the end of the hall, the path will lead you directly to our private beach.” He gave me a grandfatherly smile. “The waves soothe my soul, as well. Be careful, though. I wouldn’t recommend any night swimming, that’s when the sharks are the most dangerous.”
I nodded. “Definitely no night swimming, then. I’m terrified of sharks, so no need to put myself on their buffet. Thanks for your help, Henri. Have a good evening.”
His smile brightened when I called him by his name. It was sad. I’d noticed a lot of the residents were uppity and I hated to imagine how many of them made the staff feel like they weren’t appreciated. Hell, half of them had looked at me like I resembled something they scraped off their shoes and I should be viewed as one of their equals…financially, at least. I guessed it could have been their distaste of mine and Seth’s lifestyle. I smiled as I walked down the hallway. I hoped that was something I needed to get used to because I wanted to keep Seth in my life, living this particular lifestyle.
Once I reached the end of the hall, I took a deep, calming breath, pulled the door open, and stepped out into the late night/early morning world of Miami. My feet followed the path, taking my time and trying to pretend that I wasn’t terrified of every shadow I crossed. After of few minutes, and with nothing suspicious happening, I finally reached the boardwalk that led to the beach area. I followed it until my feet hit the cool sand. Twenty or thirty more steps led me to the shoreline. Calm waves slapped against each other and then rushed forward to dance around my feet. The bottoms of my scrubs were soaking wet within seconds.
I’d left the safety of Seth’s arms to act as bait, but the sound of the ocean truly was soothing. Maybe I could buy us a beach house—not in Miami, but someplace more secluded. My family owned an estate in Barbados and it was gorgeous. Would Seth enjoy that?
Lost in my fantasies of how Seth would feel about making love to me on our own private beach, I never realized I was no longer alone until it was too late. The sound of a gun cocking and then being shoved against my head let me know that our man had taken my bait. Now, hopefully, Landon’s men were reporting the news that I’d made contact and Seth was already on the elevator, charging to my rescue.
“Well, well. I would have thought you’d be exhausted after how long you just allowed that man to defile your body.” A very familiar voice spat at me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and alarms sounded in my head. First of all, I suddenly remembered that Landon’s men weren’t watching us tonight—they were going through the security tapes. Secondly, I knew that voice.
Slowly, I raised my hands into the air, trying not to look aggressive, and turned to face my abductor. My eyes met the strangely colored violet orbs that belonged to someone I considered to be on our team. “Javier? Why?” I asked, not understanding.
He swung his arm back and punched my jaw with a serious left hook. “Don’t dare call me that! You’re nothing but a sinful sodomite. You don’t deserve to say my name!”
Worried about what this new fact meant to our assignment, I wrapped my hand around my watch, and squeezed tightly. It was the last thing I remembered.
Chapter 11
Seth
I was so content in my comfy sexual cocoon, my mind begged me to ignore the screeching of my cell. I didn’t want to wake up. A part of me feared what had just happened was nothing more than a dream…my biggest fantasy actually coming true…and being even better than the fantasy. Seconds later, my brain registered it was my 911 ring from Landon. I jerked awake and wildly reached for the phone, trying to be careful and not disturb Baker.
At the same time I answered the call, I realized I was alone in the bed. His scent lingered, but Baker was nowhere to be seen. Coldness washed over me
.
“What’s happened?” I demanded.
“Calm down, Seth. I’ve sent Baker down to the beach…as bait. There’s been a flurry of movement from the apartment across the way. Try to be as discreet as possible, but you need to throw on some clothes and head for the beach. Before you panic or threaten to take my head off, he’s only about ten minutes ahead of you. He’s perfectly safe. Now, get moving,” Landon ordered.
Baker went to the beach? Without me? What the fuck had he been thinking?
“Fuck! Okay, forget discreet, Seth. I need you to start moving. Now!”
I was moving within seconds, hopping clumsily as I forced my legs into the jeans I’d stripped off earlier. Baker was in danger. My heart felt…wrong. As I ran toward the door, I screamed, “What in the hell were you thinking, Landon? You sent him down there alone?” My heart thundered like a racehorse as I punched the button to send the elevator to our floor. If anything happened to Baker…
“He’s activated the alarm on his watch, so we have GPS activated. Where are you, Seth? We have time, but I don’t want to take any chances. I need you and the rest of the men on site as quickly as possible.”
Landon was being so fucking calm, and it was quickly pissing me off. If I understood him correctly, Baker was in the very hands of danger while I’d been in fucking bed!
I punched the elevator button again, and screamed into the phone, “Are you telling me they have Baker and you’re on the fucking telephone with me, sounding all calm and shit? If something happens to him, Landon….”
“Agent Wilkinson! Get your game face on and do your fucking job! You’re the professional here, Baker’s the rookie. Yet, he’s doing his job, just the way we planned it, and you’re falling to pieces on me.” His voice softened. “Fuck, I knew this would happen the second I laid eyes on him. He’s your walking wet dream. I get it. You’ve fallen for him.”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” I growled furiously. “Send the coordinates to my phone.” I hand-patted the weapon in my shoulder holster. . “How many men do I have with me and how many are already on site?” What was wrong with the goddamned elevator? No sooner had I’d asked myself that question when I noticed a red message flashing across the elevator panel. Out of order. That wasn’t fucking possible!
“The other men are in route, Seth, but you know I pulled them off last night to review the surveillance videos from the businesses surrounding the club. They are a bit further out than you, but will be there in less than six minutes. Game face, Seth, I’m serious. Baker is depending on you to get him out safely.”
Fuck! Nobody had eyes on him? I raced toward the stairway, knowing this was going to take time that Landon hadn’t calculated…time Baker might not have. “Do I even have a driver or am I going to have to carjack somebody?” This assignment was turning into a clusterfuck…the most important one of my life and everything was going wrong. Why hadn’t he woken me up? Why? “The elevators are down, Landon. Fucking out of order,” I snapped.
There was a long pause before Landon answered, and I knew my mentor hadn’t been prepared for the loss of the elevators. How much time would that cause me to lose? I raced down the stairs, jumping down the bottom four steps on every floor.
“No need for a driver. The tracking device on his watch shows him in the building across the street. We were correct with our first assumptions on telescope man. He’s in the basement of the building. I have the blueprints in front of me and can talk you through it. We’ve got this, Seth. Baker is going to be completely safe. Using him as bait was always part of the plan. You were well aware and signed off on it.”
That was before I fell in love with him, I wanted to scream.
I punched the stairwell door open as Landon spoke into the phone, “Follow the hallway to your left and exit the building through the door at the end of the hall. Outside that door, make another left and there’s a walkway that leads to the neighboring building. We aren’t going to go in through the front door, so don’t barrel straight in. Let me know when you reach the end of the walkway. ETA on the rest of the team is four minutes.”
It took everything in me to not sprint in the direction of the building, but I knew I didn’t need to do anything to draw attention to myself. No doubt whoever it was behind this had people watching the building…just like we’d been watching them. Then it dawned on me. “Are you telling me that Javier’s involved with this?” Landon had told me his family owned both properties. Why in the hell would the man do something that could ruin his own business and then hire us to catch the fucker?
More importantly, did this mean Baker was in even more danger? Javier wouldn’t know about the GPS tracker in Baker’s watch, but he would be waiting for other members of the team to come to Baker’s rescue.
“No, not Javier. Javier is estranged from the rest of his family due to his homosexuality. His father, mother, sister, and twin brother are extreme right wing, Bible-thumping, fanatics. Who knows what their entire plan is, but it’s clear they are on a vendetta to destroy Javier and they don’t concern themselves with collateral damage, like the poor men they’ve abducted and abused. It’s the twin brother, Jericho, who’s taken Baker.”
My anger and fear were reaching a boiling point. “I’m at the end of the walkway. Which way now?” Every precious second lost could be a moment where the group was torturing Baker. I’d seen pictures of the other victims, it wasn’t pretty. They’d all survived, but would be scarred for life, physically and emotionally.
“Go right and follow the path like you’re headed toward the ocean. At the end of the building, you’ll see a service entrance that will lead to the basement floor. I have the code when you get there. The surveillance tapes were very helpful. It looks like it was Jericho, Javier’s twin brother, driving the SUV, and the other two guys are members of his church. I’m sure they think they’re doing shit to save souls…when they really only need to be worried about their own.”
“Code?” I demanded.
“372468#,” he answered. “The rest of the team is two minutes away. I don’t want you waiting on them, but I don’t need to hear you going in there like a keg of dynamite going off either, Seth. You’ve done this hundreds of times. Baker’s depending on you to keep your head on straight so you can keep him safe. ’Go to the fifth door on the left, there’ll be a staircase that leads down to the soundproof room where they are holding him.”
“I’ve got to go silent, Landon. I’ll keep the phone activated and in my pocket from here on out. Don’t talk unless it’s an emergency,” I growled.
“Seth…try to keep everybody alive—including the bad guys. Once they’re apprehended, the police will step in and take care of the rest. When you kill people, it’s loads of paperwork on my end.”
“Fuck off,” I hissed, too angry and afraid to make any promises. If they hurt Baker, I won’t be able to stop myself from killing every damned one of them.
“Just fucking try,” he answered and then went silent.
There was one guard near the middle of the hallway, probably standing in front of the door that would lead to Baker, and he jerked around to look at me the minute I stepped through the entrance. Plastering a friendly smile on my face, I said, “Hey, man. Do you happen to know where the maintenance department is? I’m new, first day and all, and I’ve gotten myself lost.” I looked down at my watch as I kept walking in his direction. “If I don’t find it in the next four minutes, I’m going to be late on my first day. That won’t look good, will it?”
By the time I’d finished my story, I stood in front of him and knocked him out before he could tell me to get the fuck out of there. The best move would be to hide his body, but I couldn’t risk opening a door that might set off alarms or barge into a room filled with people. I settled for taking his gun and smashing his cell. The door in front of me had a lock alarm on it as well, so I had to get Landon to give me the code. It opened quietly—finally some luck— and I peered down the dark staircase. Unwilling to risk any
type of light, I went into it dark and moved as carefully and silently as possible. Halfway down the stairs, the phone in my pocket vibrated, alerting me that the rest of the team was on site and right behind me. At the bottom of the stairs, there was yet another door with a lock alarm. When I pulled out my cell, the code flashed across my screen. If nothing else, Landon was efficient.
I might kill him when this was over, but at least we could add efficient to his headstone.
Drawing my gun, I punched in the code, and yanked the door open. The first thing I saw was Baker…suspended in the air by chains wrapped around his wrists. Welts and bruises already covered his torso, but he was goading them…laughing at them every time one of them punched him. For the briefest of seconds, his eyes locked with mine and the hugest smile spread across his face. After that, all hell broke loose because the rest of them saw me, too.
Oh well, these men taught about heaven and hell, at least their version of it, who was I to prevent one of them from getting there sooner than they’d expected? Paperwork, be damned.
“Jericho! It’s the other sodomite!” One of them screamed as I charged in his direction.
Seconds before I reached him, I noticed the taser he held in his right hand. Had he used that on Baker? When he thrust his arm in my direction, intent on trying to use his weapon on me, I caught his wrist in a tight grip and then used my body’s momentum to twist the motherfucker in a direction the bones weren’t supposed to go. His wail of pain and horror only lasted for the briefest of seconds because my other hand crashed against his skull, knocking him unconscious immediately.
