He was searching for Kristin.
I murmured into the comm, “Yellow Team. When you take everyone on deck into custody, separate the men from the women. Don’t allow any couples to stay together.”
Without pause, Fowler said, “Acknowledged. Yellow Team out.”
“Orange Team,” I said. “Hold back the K-9s until Yellow Team has secured the deck.”
“Ready on your order,” Quincy said. “Orange Team out.”
“All teams, most of the men are armed.” Donovan said into his comm.
The five team leaders came back with their cool acknowledgments. These agents never made apologies for what they had to do, no matter what it might mean.
“All teams, green light,” Donovan commanded. “Go!”
“Police!” Smithe shouted the universal word for law enforcement as RED agents poured from every hiding place they’d been stationed in.
On the deck of the Sweet Cherry, everything became complete chaos. Screams. Shouts. Cries.
The RED special agents on the other hand performed their jobs with cool efficiency.
Using the high-powered telescope on my M40, I sighted my first target. The asshole was shooting into the darkness with a fierce expression. Not for long. He crumpled the moment my bullet pierced his forehead.
Sharp retorts from weaponry tore through the night as men on board shot at agents converging on the yacht. The bad guys dropped so fast they didn’t get off many rounds.
Screams and shouts came from the former partyers. Why did people run around in random directions when shooting started instead of literally hitting the deck to stay out of the line of fire? How stupid could you get?
My hands remained steady as I took down two more targets. I never missed. I never made mistakes—at least in marksmanship—when it came to my former profession as an assassin. That was one part of my life where I’d had no problem keeping calm and not losing my temper. I’d had to in order to make it through every assignment.
Would the gunfire never end? Would assholes with weapons ever stop appearing from the lower decks?
No sirens pierced a night that was also empty of flashing emergency lights. RED had ways of warning off other law enforcement agencies when we made a bust.
RED agents systematically took care of business. All of the men who’d been guarding the dock were down.
Ah, there. On the deck. One shot of my M40. Former last man standing was history. The rest of the men were cowering on the deck. Believe me, our agents still had weapons trained on every person on board.
I swung my rifle over my shoulder. Time to take care of business.
I kept my Glock in a two-handed grip as I skirted dead men and walked through splatters of blood while I hurried onto the yacht. I had to put bullets into two men who were down but not totally out and who were trying to go for their guns.
Yellow Team was already on deck and they’d had the situation under control, the men and women separated, in moments. Green Team remained in place on the dock, prepared to take out any more armed opponents.
When I gave the signal, Orange Team converged on the deck with the K-9s to start searching for humans in places they didn’t belong—like hidden compartments—just in case.
Red Team started at the top while Blue Team headed below with Orange Team. All team leaders checked in on the comms as they searched the yacht from top to bottom in a predetermined plan, even though we were certain the “merchandise” was right on deck.
Occasionally gunfire would break the silence as our agents covered the yacht. As always, I hoped none of our agents were down, but as professionals we went on. We did our job.
Donovan threw his helmet aside and rushed straight for the women. I’d never seen him look frantic, as he did as he checked every one of the women.
And then I’d never seen him look so vulnerable, so full of anguish, as when he finished.
“She’s not here.” Donovan cleared his throat after he returned to me, and he looked into the distance. “Kristin must have been one of the two domestic—‘sales.’ ” I was sure I heard a crack in his voice.
I rubbed my chest, over the Kevlar that covered the ache in my heart. That meant Kristin’s nightmare had already begun. These others—their buyers were waiting for delivery, and the girls probably hadn’t been touched. I hoped.
But if Kristin had been delivered . . .
Dear God.
Donovan and I stood side by side on the deck, watching Yellow Team finish separating, disarming, and cuffing all of the men who’d been escorting the women. The men who’d survived, that was.
The eleven women looked dazed, yet were still giggling on one end of the yacht.
Donovan and I moved closer to the restrained men. The kidnappers. I could feel Donovan’s rage and desire to kill them all for what they were doing to countless young women—including his sister.
My gaze slid over one of the cuffed men who was staring at Donovan, who’d taken his helmet off. The catch in my breath hurt my throat when I realized it was Schilling.
Did he recognize Donovan? Did he recognize me?
No way he’d ID me. Puff Cheeks wouldn’t know. I was unrecognizable in my gear.
Wasn’t I?
Schilling stared at Donovan.
“So, it’s ‘Sire Dunning.’ ” Then he looked from Donovan to me. “And I’d bet behind that helmet and under those clothes is the supposed ‘slave Alexi.’ ”
Oh, crap.
Donovan made a low growl as he gripped his Beretta in one hand and stepped across the bloody deck. He headed straight for Puff Cheeks, who recoiled.
Donovan clipped Schilling in the head with the grip of the Beretta.
I should have thought of that.
Schilling slumped onto his side.
When Donovan returned to me, I looked at him through my helmet’s shield. “I understand him recognizing you. But me?”
Donovan scowled as he stared at the man he had just knocked the crap out of. “Hate to break it to you, Steele, but you have the kind of body a man doesn’t forget easily.”
My jaw dropped as I looked up at him. Say what?
He folded his arms over his chest. “I think it was a natural guess, judging by your height and the fact that you’re with me.”
I gestured toward the out-cold Puff Cheeks. “We’re in deep, aren’t we?”
“Nah.” Donovan stared at the man. “We can keep him restrained.”
“How about dead?” I tested the weight of my Glock in my hand. “Can’t identify me if he’s in the big porn house on the other side.”
“Bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you, Steele?” Donovan shook his head. “He might just be the break we need to get to the top.”
“Yeah.” I holstered my Glock and immediately missed the feel of it in my palm. “I can put a bullet in his balls, followed by one in his brain, after we get the man we’re really going for.”
I glanced at the women. “Time to do a little interviewing.” I sighed. It was going to be a friggin’ long night. “I’ll take the girls, you go after the dickheads.”
Donovan stared at the women for a moment and I could sense how badly he wished his sister was one of those girls we’d saved.
Then he seemed relieved to not have to talk with the women. Like it would be too painful. He started toward the men. “You got it, Steele.”
The women looked pitiful as they slumped on the deck. I’d bet a box of Dixie’s treats and face the calico cat’s wrath if I was wrong. It wasn’t going to be easy interviewing them when they were so obviously high and dazed. More than likely we’d do our interviewing after they’d been in RED’s infirmary for a while.
I went to a woman who looked like she was coming down from the drug. Her chest rose and fell as she took harsh breaths. Fear sparked in her gaze and she tried to scrabble away until I took off my helmet and she saw I was female.
“You okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low and trying to sound comforting.
The terror in her
brown eyes made me feel like someone had jerked my guts straight through my belly button.
“We’ll get you all someplace safe,” I said, “and then we’ll talk, okay?”
She didn’t say anything. I didn’t expect her to. It wasn’t the drug that had her scared out of her mind. I was positive she’d been threatened with any number of punishments if she talked.
Yeah, we’d have to work on her and the other women later, once they’d had a chance to realize they were okay.
This job really sucked sometimes. Most of the time. Even when we saved the women from captivity, we couldn’t save them from their fear.
One thing that kept me going on this assignment was the fact that I would help countless women once I got to the top of that awful ladder and found out who was the scumbag running the entire show. The major player calling the shots.
The other things that kept the fire burning inside me were finding Kristin Donovan, and killing every asshole involved in murdering Randolph.
CHAPTER 21
Kristin
March 17
Sunday, two weeks ago
The hangover from hell. Usually she was too doped up to feel anything, but right now her head felt like an ice pick was piercing her skull again and again. Hopefully it wasn’t a migraine coming on.
Kristin opened her eyes to dimness, flat on her back, and started to rub her temples. Her heart jerked. She couldn’t move. She went from sleepy to alert as she tried to wiggle her wrists and her ankles. She was spread-eagled on a soft mattress, completely naked. Warm air brushed every part of her exposed body.
These days fear only came to her when she hadn’t been shot up, and right now every organ inside her was twisting so tight it felt like she might die.
She wasn’t in a roach-infested room. She wasn’t shot up. She was in some kind of bedroom, with rose-colored walls and furniture that looked like it might be made of cherry-wood. A feminine-looking room. She was lying on a four-poster bed—which was convenient for her to be chained up. Everything in the room looked rich and luxurious, from what she could see in her spread-eagled position.
Kristin swallowed as goose bumps chilled her skin.
The transaction must have been completed. She’d been delivered to the buyer.
And she was now someone’s slave. Sex slave.
Tears burned her eyes. How long ago had she’d been working on her graduate paper in abnormal psych at Harvard?
Then one mistake. Taking a drink from a stranger. And now she was someone’s property.
Someone owns me.
Kristin startled when the door opened, and her heart raced as a dark figure stood at the threshold. Her owner?
Or maybe a savior? Could she be so lucky?
The figure approached her. A man. Large frame. She couldn’t see his features because the room was too dim.
She wanted to scream as the bed dipped from his weight when he sat on the edge of the bed. Too much shadow on his face to make out who it was.
Kristin flinched as he raised his hand, but he reached for the stained-glass bedside lamp. The moment she saw his face a mass of confusion and hope replaced her headache and fear.
A savior.
“Professor Michaels?” Kristin let out her breath. She didn’t care that she was naked in front of her Harvard professor, she was just so glad to see a familiar face. “How did you find me?”
He smiled and moved his hand to one of her breasts. A chill shot through her as he lightly squeezed her nipple. “I bought you.”
CHAPTER 22
I love little red dresses
April 13
Saturday evening
My sparkly red two-piece outfit didn’t cover a whole lot, which of course was the idea. It had a halter top that revealed my diamond belly piercing, and a little red skirt that barely met the tops of my thighs.
When Georgina and I had gone shopping last weekend, we’d picked up a fragrance that was citrusy yet sexy and enticing. I’d always preferred orange blossom perfumes, but this was on the exotic side and I definitely needed exotic.
I did manage to keep my hands at my sides and resist tugging down on the skirt as I walked to Donovan’s bedroom. I could swear the skirt was climbing up the naked butt cheeks that my thong failed to cover.
“Christ!” The calico cat appeared out of nowhere. I almost tripped over Dixie in my four-inch heels, and would have landed on my backside if I hadn’t caught myself by bracing my hand on the wall.
She gave me a look that told me that as far as she was concerned she couldn’t wait to see the back of me when I wasn’t staying here anymore. “Stupid cat,” I shouted at her as she strutted down the hall, tail twitching high in the air.
After glaring at the calico, I reached Donovan’s room and walked into the room where the door was partially open.
He looked over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Your cat almost killed me,” I grumbled. But then I brightened. “Hey, how about some washing-machine sex again, before we leave? There’s a load of clothes that need to be washed.”
The corner of Donovan’s mouth quirked. “Steele, you are insatiable.”
God, it turned me on big-time when he did that almost-smile.
Then his eyes roved over me in my little “fuck me” dress and shoes, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
Because of our uncontrollable need for each other, I’d started sleeping here. Which meant we now did have sex in bed, as well as every other place we could think of. Once we even did it with the top half of me on the washing machine while it was going. God, the vibrations as Donovan took me from behind—nothing like washing-machine sex.
“How about some war-room sex instead,” he said in a rumbly growl.
The leather was smooth beneath my thighs as I sat in a chair next to him and let my dress hike all the way up my thighs as I crossed my legs at the knees. Even from here his masculine scent called to me and I wanted him for the twentieth time this week.
“Insatiable, huh?” I scooted my chair close to him and rubbed my palm over his cock, which hardened immediately. “And that’s a bad thing?”
He made that low growling sound as he faced me completely, grabbed me by the waist, and jerked me onto his lap.
My dress had gone up around my waist when he grabbed me, and my bottom half was only covered by a leather thong. I unfastened his leather pants, released his erection, and started stroking it. At the same time he drew a condom package out of his back pocket. I took the packet and opened it in slow motion before moving even slower as I rolled the condom down his erection.
“You little tease.” He reached between my thighs and pulled aside the material of my leather thong. I gasped as he rubbed my clit, which got the exact reaction he wanted from me when he raised me and slammed me down on his cock.
“Donovan!” I held onto his shoulders as he grasped my ass cheeks and fucked me while moving me up and down his erection. “You feel so good inside me.” I gasped between words. “So big and full.”
“You’re scrambling my brains, Steele.” He took me harder, slamming us together.
“Good.” I tipped my head back and my breasts jutted out.
“I’m going to rip this goddamned dress off of you.” His breathing was labored. “I want to suck your nipples.”
“Easy.” I reached up, unfastened the neckline of the halter top, and let it drop, baring my breasts.
“You just saved yourself a dress,” he said before he bit one of my nipples.
I cried out as he sucked and bit my nipples, and took me so hard he was scrambling my brains.
My orgasm was a wonderful storm of sensations that shook my whole body. He sucked and bit me harder as my core squeezed his erection.
He came with a combination of a shout and a groan, and his cock throbbed inside me. A couple more strokes, and he brought me close to him and rested his head between my breasts.
“What the hell are you doing to me, Steele?” he mumbled agai
nst my skin as he continued to throb inside me and I shivered with each remaining contraction. “I can barely think around you.”
“Apparently my dastardly plan is working.” I grinned as he looked up at me. “Heh, heh, heh.”
After we got off the chair, Donovan said, “I need my brains back, Steele.” He tossed the condom into a wastebasket, then arranged himself in his pants and fastened them again. I’d already arranged my dress and fastened my halter top so that it covered my breasts again. “You’re going to have to slow down,” he said.
“Not on your life.” I reached for him. “Besides, I know where your brains are.” And I rubbed his cock.
“No thanks to you.” He kissed me hard, then said, “Hold on while I check something out.”
Donovan went back to looking at the monitors while I watched him, my whole body still tingling.
I turned my attention to the monitors and screens, too. Somehow, some way, we’d find something that would connect the dots.
If only Kristin had been one of the girls on the ship, she would be safe now. Instead she had been a “domestic sale,” and was probably already going through a living hell. We’d confirmed with Schilling the fact that Kristin had already been delivered to her buyer.
Fucker.
I clenched my hands and clenched my teeth harder as Donovan’s fingers flew over the touchpad.
Every time I thought of Kristin being a sex slave to some pervert I wanted to hurt something, someone. Who knew what the sonofabitch was doing to her?
The one, the tiniest of bright spots, was that we knew she was somewhere in the greater Boston area and not somewhere across the country.
Puff Cheeks, whose real name was Frederick Schilling, let us know that much after some heavy “persuading.”
“Oh, that little piece.” He’d laughed when I described her and her birthmark. He’d continued with a snort. “She’s right under your noses in the Boston area. Don’t know who owns her, but you can bet you’ll never find the slut.”
One punch and Donovan had knocked the crap out of Schilling. The man was out for a good two hours.
I shifted in my seat as I looked at the monitors that covered various rear doors of nightclubs girls had been taken from. Damn. If only we could get a big break on the whole operation.
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 01] Page 18
