Take

by Pam Godwin

  The man had a filthy dark sense of chivalry.

  “We need to consider the possibility he’ll never resurface.” Tate paced to the window and stared out at the moonlit landscape of the rain forest. “We can’t hide here forever.”

  “He won’t harm you,” Kate murmured.

  Tate pivoted and tilted his head to the side, regarding her. “Have you seen my back, Kate?”

  “Yes.” She glided a hand over her thigh, seeking comfort in the scars that lay beneath her borrowed jeans. “He and I made a deal. He promised me he would never hurt you again.”

  “His promises mean nothing to me.”

  Her chest was empty, drained of tears and breath. It felt as though she’d left her insides in that fire. Everything under her skin was simply gone. Except the hum of determination. That was still there, rising up from the chasm where her soul once lived, where he used to be.

  “He’s alive, and I’ll find him.” She met Tate’s eyes. “Unless he finds me first.”

  He pressed his lips together, biting back a retort.

  Every hour that passed reinforced her belief that Tiago was alive. That meant she wasn’t the only one hurting. He had vulnerabilities that could only be comforted and healed by her. He needed her, missed her, feared for her as much as she did for him. They were two halves of a whole.

  Since arriving here, she’d heard the term Stockholm syndrome from every mouth in every conversation. It didn’t upset her or make her defensive. Because honestly, how many times had she thrown those very words at Tiago?

  How sad that she had to lose him in order to see what had been right in front of her all along.

  She knew what she felt was love—not coercion, not lust, not Stockholm syndrome—because it had become an artery that ran through the deepest part of her heart. She felt it beating and knew if she severed it, she would bleed out. She wouldn’t survive.

  The night she reunited with Tate, she sat down with him and explained this. Since he was so utterly wrapped up in Lucia, he understood the madness that came with love. He couldn’t fully comprehend her position with regard to Tiago, but he listened. He was trying.

  Then she had a heart-to-heart with everyone else, individually, paired off with couples, and together as a group. It’d been four days of discussing, soul-searching, and analyzing until her emotional shields were eradicated and there was nowhere to hide from their hard questions.

  It felt like a form of group therapy. She endured it because she appreciated their life experiences, valued their opinions, and trusted their intentions.

  Josh and Amber related to her the most. They’d both fallen in love with their captors, so they understood her on the darkest, most vulnerable level. Their journeys hadn’t been pretty, and look at them now. They fucking glowed with happiness.

  There was comfort in that. Validation. Hope.

  So here they all were, the whole gang sitting together in Matias’ estate, talking, monitoring the news, and waiting. Because the man she loved was missing, and that made him a threat to everyone.

  On the bright side, she had her friends back. Thanks to Van Quiso, they shared a remarkable bond, one born in shackles and strengthened in survival.

  For the rest of the night, they lounged around in the living room, pouring drinks, sharing stories, enjoying one another’s company, and musing about the future.

  She didn’t know what the future held for her, but she never saw herself as a vigilante warrior. Not like them.

  She told them she wanted to heal people, and maybe someday, she would become the Freedom Fighters’ resident doctor.

  A doctor like Boones.

  If she located the old man, she would find Tiago.

  Maybe Boones had returned to his brothers in his home village? She didn’t know where that was, but through her observations, she’d collected four months of clues, including the unique sounds of his native language.

  A plan started to form, thrumming through her blood and bouncing her leg.

  “I’m going to head to bed.” She rose, said her good-nights, and strolled through the maze of corridors in the sprawling, contemporary estate.

  Verandas and scenic breezeways led her to her suite. The fortress reminded her of an all-inclusive resort, equipped with every amenity. Commercial kitchens, dining rooms filled with dozens of tables, Olympic-sized pool, and full-service staff… With all the surrounding luxury, she could almost overlook the scary, heavily-armed cartel members who roamed the halls.

  When she stepped inside her room, the tread of approaching footsteps sounded behind her.

  “Hey, Kate.” Martin caught the door before it closed. “Can I come in?”

  “Like you have to ask.” She strode past the bed, lowered into the armchair, and pulled Tiago’s tuxedo coat over her lap, instantly finding solace in the crisp feel of the fabric. “Want a drink?”

  Every suite had a fully-stocked wet bar, laptop, sitting area, and private bathroom.

  “Nah. Just wanted to check on you.” He sprawled on the loveseat beside her.

  She grew up with three older brothers, and none of them had been even a fraction as protective as her five alpha roommates.

  As he stared at her, a glint of aggression hardened his green eyes before melting away into the shadows of his handsome face.

  His model-like features, perfectly-combed blond hair, and muscular build fit the requisite mold of beauty and seduction. They all had that in common.

  Over a span of seven years, Van and Liv had captured six beautiful men and two women. Plucked out of the ghettos along the Mexican border, Kate and the others didn’t have families who would miss them.

  Joshua Carter was the exception, the one who shattered Liv’s façade and brought down the entire sex trafficking operation.

  Martin had been slave number five. He was also the pack leader among her male roommates.

  “You sleep with that thing?” He nodded at the tuxedo coat.

  “Maybe.” She pulled it up to her nose and inhaled the scent of fire and masculinity from the collar.

  “You’re a fucking mess.”

  “You should talk. How’s Ricky?”

  His jaw set. “I’m not touching that conversation.”

  She loved to pester him about the sexual tension that vibrated between him and his best friend. Ricky was openly bisexual, flirtatious as hell, and had a very obvious, soul-deep crush on Martin.

  Martin, on the other hand, grunted and growled like a homophobic every time she mentioned the attraction. He claimed to be straight and banged a different woman every night. But there was so much more going on beneath the surface. He carried a freight load of baggage, most of which had compounded during his captivity with Van.

  Everyone knew he wanted to fuck Ricky’s brains out. He just hadn’t come to terms with it.

  “How are you doing with Van?” she asked. “Is it still hard for you to be around him?”

  “If I ever get him alone, I’m going to take him for a ride in the country.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s what my dad used to say. Whenever one of our old dogs needed to be put down, he’d load up the dog in the truck, drive to an isolated field, and shoot it.” A dark smirk twisted his lips. “It’s time for a ride in the country.”

  “Please, don’t.” Her stomach caved in.

  “You’re telling me you’ve forgiven him?”

  “No.” She nodded. “Maybe. I don’t know. Being around him isn’t as hard as it used to be. He doesn’t scare me.”

  There was a bigger, meaner, much more terrifying man in the world, and goddammit, she missed his brutal mouth.

  “That’s good, Kate. It’s great.” He pushed up from his sprawl and leaned forward to grip her hand. “You’re a fucking fighter, you know that?”

  “Can’t shoot a gun or throw a fist to save my life.” She laughed.

  “You fight with this crazy, fathomless inner strength. I’ve never worried about losing you to depressio
n or insanity or…” He squeezed her hand. “A broken heart. It seems you’ve figured out how to survive the emotional shit better than the rest of us. I envy that.”

  “Thank you.” Her throat tightened.

  “You’re not going back to Texas, are you?”

  She hadn’t thought about it, but her answer was certain. “No.”

  “None of us are returning.”

  “You’re all staying here?”

  “I don’t know what Tate and Lucia will do, but the guys and I need to be here, with Camila.”

  It made sense. Camila was their leader in a dangerous fight against human sex trafficking. Most of their missions sent them to South America. There was no reason for them to continue to live in Texas.

  “We should sell the house.” She gave him a sad smile.

  “Agreed.” He cocked his head. “This isn’t a break-up, Kate.”

  “No.” Her smile turned upward, stretching her cheeks. “It’s a merger. The Freedom Fighters and the Restrepo cartel. An unstoppable force to be reckoned with.”

  “Ricky and I are leaving next week. I don’t know when we’ll return.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  “Camila’s planting us in a Mexican prison to gather information on the leader of the inmates. He happens to be the capo of La Rocha cartel. A nasty piece of work. His incarceration hasn’t stopped him from running one of the biggest slave trade operations south of the border.” His gaze lost focus beneath a cloud of barely restrained fury. “He’s trafficking kids, Kate. We have to end that motherfucker.”

  “You’re going into a Mexican prison? Undercover? As inmates?” Her pulse sprinted. “What the fuck, Martin? You can’t—”

  “Ricky and I have been training for this for months. We know what we’re doing.”

  She closed her eyes, released a breath, and met his gaze. “Please, be careful.”

  “Same to you, when you capture your captor.” He winked.

  They talked for a little while longer before she walked him out. Then she took a shower, put on pajamas she’d borrowed from Camila, and slipped her arms into the sleeves of Tiago’s dinner jacket.

  Maybe sleeping in it every night had taken her desperation too far, but she missed him terribly. It had only been four days, and the pain had become more than she could bear.

  To think, he’d been such a dick to her. He’d hurt her, brought her to tears, made her vulnerable, and took away all her defenses.

  He’d also kept every promise, showed genuine regret, protected her, and loved her unconditionally. Through his cruelty and his tenderness, she realized she could trust him at the deepest level. And those defenses and freedoms he’d taken from her? She didn’t need any of it. Not with him.

  She just needed his love.

  As she crawled into bed, his absence hit her in a torrent of tears. She pulled the tuxedo coat around her, breathed him in, and silently wept.

  “Where are you, Tiago?”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  After living with five roommates, she’d grown used to late-night visitors in her room. Someone always needed something, even if it was just conversation.

  Since Martin had just left, she suspected Ricky would be waiting on the other side. But when she opened the door, Lucia’s brown gaze collided with hers.

  “Hi.” Kate wiped her cheeks, certain all the crying had made her eyes red and swollen.

  “Hey, um… I know we don’t know each other, but I thought since we have a mutual…acquaintance…”

  “You mean Tiago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s more than an acquaintance to me.”

  “Poor choice of words. Look, I just…” Lucia rested her hands on her hips and stared at the floor. “I can’t sleep. Tate hogs all your time, and I just really wanted to talk to you alone.”

  “You want me to tell you about Tiago.”

  “Yes.” Her expression softened, her gaze pleading. “I spent eleven years with him, and I… Shit, I know it’s late, so if you want to talk another time—”

  “I can’t sleep, either.” She opened the door wider and motioned for Lucia to enter.

  “Is that his?” Lucia nodded at the dinner jacket that engulfed her shoulders.

  “Yeah.” She ran a hand along the black sleeve.

  “I never saw him wear a tux, but I can picture it.” Lucia perched on the loveseat. “He’s very easy on the eyes.”

  “He looked devastating that night, especially when he danced with me.” Her chin trembled.

  “Tiago danced with you?”

  “Yeah.” She took a seat in the armchair. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  She started at the beginning and walked through every interaction, every fight, every tender moment, the good and ugly, the brutality and rape, the kindness and beautiful acts of devotion.

  By the time she finished, she hadn’t left out a single detail from the past four months. Tears streaked her cheeks. A smile rested on her mouth, and she felt wonderfully copacetic.

  “Damn.” Lucia slumped into the loveseat with her jaw hanging open. “I can’t even comprehend him being like that. He wasn’t like that with me. I mean, the cruelty? Of course. The threats and the control? He ruled my damn life. But I never saw that devoted side of him. No one did. And what the hell? He was married?”

  “Yeah, that took me by surprise, too.”

  “I’m really fucking in awe of you. That man scares the shit out of me. I spent eleven years in fear of my life. But you? You walk in, and within four months, he’s kneeling at your feet. You changed him.”

  “He hasn’t changed, and he certainly doesn’t fucking kneel. Believe me, he’s just as vicious as ever. Don’t forget about the scars on my body, the golden showers, the handcuffs in the jungle. If it hadn’t been for those bombs, I would still be his captive.”

  “True. But he gave up Caracas and the protection it gave him.”

  “I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything to make him—”

  “He loves you. That’s huge, Kate. It’s everything.”

  “Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with him, too. I guess that’s why this hurts so badly. Not knowing where he is or if he’s okay… I can’t even let myself consider the possibility he was injured in that explosion. Or worse…”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She had over six-hundred-thousand dollars sitting in her bank account. The money Van had distributed among his ex-slaves.

  It would take her some time to put all the clues together and pinpoint the location of Boones’ village. She would need travel documents, a passport, and maybe a hired security guard. But once she had all that in place…

  “I’m going to buy a plane ticket to Africa.”

  “Reconsider this trip, Kate.” Liv Reed stood at the center of Kate’s room, arms at her sides and shoulders back. A pillar of grace and dominance.

  “No.” Wrapped in Tiago’s worn tuxedo coat, Kate sat in the corner of the loveseat, buzzing with nervous energy. “You would do the same thing if you lost Josh.”

  It had been one month since she left Tiago on that burning island.

  One long fucking month.

  Cole Hartman had finally acquired the names of the casualties from that night.

  Both Tiago and Arturo were on the list.

  They’d been counted among the dead.

  Deceased.

  Gone.

  When Cole gave her the devastating news, she could’ve let it destroy her. But she wasn’t ready to curl up and die. She couldn’t give up.

  So she decided that Tiago had taken a page from Cole’s book and faked his own death. There was no evidence to support her claim. Nothing to go on but hope.

  Hope was all she had.

  She spent the past month hunting for Boones’ village.

  His scarification, the jewelry and clothing from the photo of his daughter, the sounds of his native tongue, and a thousand oth
er tiny little details led her to Northeast Africa.

  She contacted a linguistic specialist at a university in Texas. Weeks of correspondence with the professor helped her narrow down Boones’ vernacular to Tigre, an Afroasiatic language spoken in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.

  The three countries sat together along the Red Sea. She was getting closer, but not close enough.

  The language had a lot of dialects, and those unique nuances helped her determine that Boones used the patois of the Tigre people in Eritrea.

  That was the break she needed.

  He was Eritrean, and they referred to their language as Tigrayit.

  She had the country of Boones’ home, but nothing more specific. After another week of digging, she hadn’t been able to pinpoint a town or village.

  Impatience dug in its claws.

  Throughout her search, she tried so hard to control the emotions that swarmed inside her. It had been one month. At this point, she didn’t think she could survive another day without him.

  But she would. She would survive as long as it took.

  Her flight departed in four days. Luggage lined the far wall of her room, packed with the essentials for her trip to Eritrea.

  She’d worked with Matias’ staff to purchase everything she needed—clothes, travel documents, fake passport, and ID. She funded every cost and set every demand, all while keeping her destination as secret as possible.

  Those involved knew she was going to Africa. Nothing more. Tiago hadn’t shared the location for a reason, and she wouldn’t, either.

  Liv crossed the room and stood near the window, watching her teenage daughter through the glass.

  Livana sat on the veranda of Kate’s suite, with her nose in a book. She’d grown into a beautiful girl and seemed to be thriving in Colombia. Matias provided her with private tutors and an education far superior than what she received in the States.

  “Have you decided to stay here for good?” Kate asked.

  “We’re working out the details. Van and Amber want to stay and join Camila’s fight. Josh and I are willing to do the same, but the shared custody with Livana’s adoptive mother complicates a permanent move.”

  “You could always fight for full custody.”