“Yeah,” Mel answered sleepily.
“Hey, I’m sorry for calling so late,” Adrienne said with a sniffle.
“Is something wrong?” Mel asked, sounding as if she were sitting up.
“Yeah, something really bad happened.”
“That asshole didn’t hurt you or anything did he?” she asked.
Adrienne shook her head as if Melody could see her, instantly realizing how silly that was. “No, no, no. Something way worse than that. Two of my students have been kidnapped?”
“What?” she shrieked. Her boyfriend complained in the background and she fussed with him for a few moments before returning back to the phone. “What do you mean kidnapped? Have you called the police? How did this happened?”
Adrienne sighed. “We were all having lunch at the cafe downstairs and they managed to sneak out. I wasn’t paying enough attention and—”
“Okay, breathe, Adrienne,” Melody said. “Have you called the police? Do they have any leads?”
“I called them, but they only took the information from Myles and me and then said that they’d file a missing persons report. Myles went to go look for her.”
“That sounds like it could be dangerous.”
“That’s what I’m worried about too. It would suck if something happens to him just when I’m…” Adrienne stopped. Refusing to speak the words out loud wouldn’t make them any less true. She’d hardly known him for a good enough time to be sure, but she was sure that being with him ignited a part of her that had been dormant since she lost Miguel. He was so easy to talk to and the attention he gave her stroked parts of her heart that she hadn’t intended to reopen. It was hard to deny that she was developing feelings for a man that she’d only just met a couple of days ago and the realization alone scared her greatly.
“Just when you’re what?” Melody asked, breaking into her thoughts.
Adrienne cleared her throat. “Um, just when I’m getting to know him,” she answered.
“Are you sure that’s all?”
“Yeah,” Adrienne said. “Look, I have to go and see if Myles has made any progress. Hopefully they’ll be able to find the girls before nightfall.”
“I hope so. Keep me updated please.”
“I will.”
“And Adrienne?” Melody called just as she was about to end the call.
“Yeah?”
“It’s okay if you like him. It’s about time you move on and find happiness again.”
Adrienne bit the inside of her cheek. “I can’t think about any of that right now until the girls have been found. It’s not safe for either one of us to form any attachments until this nightmare is over.”
“That’s true. Call me later or text me when you guys find them.”
“I will. Good night,” she said and hung up. She grabbed her bag and pulled out a manila folder, flipping through the pages until she found Josephine’s personal contact form. She scanned the information until she landed on the emergency contact information, finding Myle’s phone number. She opened her text messages and punched the number in.
Adrienne: Hi, it’s Adrienne. Any news?
She clutched the phone in her hand, anxious causing her heart to race. The cries of Pia’s mother when she’d called them to inform them of the kidnapping still echoed in her mind. Pia’s father spent at least six minutes berating her for being irresponsible and threatening to sue her if anything happened to his daughter. Fear constricted her lungs at the thought of having to deliver bad news in the event that things made a turn for the worse. Even worse, she wasn’t too sure what she’d do if something were to happen to Myles. This situation was the perfect example of why Melody was right before. Though he was a man in uniform, this situation could possibly get him killed, which doesn’t require a uniform. It didn’t matter what he did or where he went, there was danger everywhere. Perhaps her rule was now a bit obsolete. What did his job matter? He was kind, handsome, and she liked him. She just hoped that any chance of exploring what could be between them wouldn’t be crushed during his personal mission.
She flopped backward onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling with a sigh. “Please stay safe,” she whispered out loud. If not for his own sake, at least for hers and Josephine. She couldn’t bear to lose another person she’d gotten closer to.
Chapter 10
They sat outside of a run down house as Ghost looked down at his phone screen. “The tracker says she’s in here,” he finally said, looking out at his surroundings. The tracker had taken them well out of the city limits of Paris and into the country side, fields of nothing surrounding the house. There were bars on the outside of the windows, as if guaranteeing that no one could get out.
“Looks like they have this place locked down,” Wolf murmured as his eyes scanned the property.
“If they have locks on the windows, I can guarantee the doors are locked while they’re inside as well,” Ghost said. A man walking to a van a few yards away caught his peripheral vision. “Look, there’s the blue van.”
The man puffed on a cigarette as he went to the back of the van and opened the door, yanking out Josephine, her friend, and two other teen girls. The fear and tears on Josephine’s face made Ghost angry, both at her and at the bastards responsible. He’d kill everyone in that house to get her and would deal with the consequences later. No one touched his family.
“We should trail them. Even if they do lock the doors, we need to get inside before they’re locked again. I’m sure the back door is unlocked to bring in the girls, but it’s also probably heavily guarded,” Wolf said.
“Noted,” Ghost replied, watching as the man pushed the frightened girls toward the house, laughing at them as they cried. He made a mental note to put a bullet through the guy’s head when he got the chance.
They got out of the car, quietly closing the door to not alert anyone of their presence. Once the man rounded the corner of the house, the three men quickly moved to the van, pausing when they saw a man in the wing mirror.
“Wait a second,” Ghost whispered, nodding toward the mirror. The two men stepped behind him and waited as Ghost crept closer. The man inside the van bobbed his head along with the music faintly playing on the radio as he smoked what smelled like marijuana. Ghost’s heart pounded in his chest, so loud that he was almost convinced the man could hear him coming. He inched closer to his oblivious target as the man took another drag from his smoke. Ghost yanked the door open and pointed the rifle at him.
“Get out of the van,” he ordered.
The man laughed and held his hands up, but got out of the van, grunting when Ghost threw him to the ground. “Who the hell are you and what’s your problem?” the guy complained in a thick accent.
“Take me to my sister,” Ghost demanded, holding the muzzle of the gun against the guy’s temple.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Ghost pulled out his phone and pulled up a picture of Josephine. “Her” he said, thrusting his phone into the man’s face. He looked at it for a few moments and smiled.
“Ah yes. That beauty is going to make Sebastian so much money,” he said and laughed. Ghost kicked him hard in the ribs, forcing him to turn over onto his back. Ghost put his foot on the man’s throat and pressed down.
“You take me to my sister or I’ll crush your fucking windpipe,” he growled. The man gripped Ghost’s ankle as he gasped for air, but didn’t speak. Ghost pressed down some more until the man coughed.
“Okay,” he gasped. Ghost let up a little.
“How do I get in the house?”
“You’ll never get in—”
“How do I get in?” Ghost asked again, pressing down harder.
“Okay, okay,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “The back door is always unlocked, but you won’t get through the kitchen alive.”
Ghost yanked him up off the ground by his shirt and pushed him forward. “I bet you I will,” he said and motioned for Wolf and Léon to follow.
Th
ey walked to the backdoor with Ghost occasionally pushing the guy forward whenever he’d stall. “I’m not trying to get myself killed,” the man hissed as he walked up the stairs to the porch.
“If I don’t get to my sister, them killing you will be the least of your worries,” Ghost muttered, pushing the guy forward again. The man walked through the door and was greeted with cheers until they saw Ghost, Wolf, and Léon behind him. They all drew their guns and glared at the men.
“Qui sont-ils?” one of the men barked in French. Ghost grabbed the man from the van by the collar and held his gun to his head. The opposing men took a step forward, menacing snarls on their face as they gripped their weapons tighter. Adrenaline coursed through Ghost’s veins. They were greatly outnumbered; getting out of this one situation would be a challenge, but it was nothing he didn’t think he could handle.
“Where is my sister?” Ghost finally asked. The men continued to stare at him without a word, probably unable to understand what he’d said. Léon stepped forward and began speaking to the men in French, which only seemed to agitate them as they cocked their weapon and inched closer.
“How about you let my friend go and we can talk man to man?” a bald man with tattoos on his head said. Ghost looked warily at his hostage and ground his teeth, pushing him away. The man stumbled on his feet before dashing out of the room, leaving Ghost vulnerable. I hope this doesn’t backfire on me.
“So where is she?” Ghost asked again, his tone tight as his impatience grew.
“You shouldn’t have come here, boy,” one of them said as they stepped up to Ghost. “You leave now or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“I’m not leaving without her. So you either tell me where she is or I’ll go look for her myself when I’ve killed every single one of you,” Ghost responded, not flinching when the man pulled out a blade and put it to his throat.
“Tough guy, eh? And how will you kill us? There’s three of you and many of us,” he said, waving his hand around the room. Ghost looked to Wolf, who gave him a subtle nod in response. In a quick movement, Ghost popped the blade from the man’s hand into his own and put him in a choke hold, pressing the blade against the man’s throat.
“Holy shit,” Léon exclaimed as the men around them grew anxious, tightly gripping their weapons.
“I’m not going to ask again,” Ghost murmured. “Where the fuck is my sister?”
“I don’t know where she is,” the man replied, his tone arrogant. “I’ll give you one last chance to walk out of—”
“Go,” Ghost said to Wolf and Léon. Wolf shot two men in the chest before they could react with Léon following suit. With one hand, Ghost shot three men while using his hostage as a human shield. Two men laid injured on the floor, begging not to be killed as Ghost turned his attention back to the man he still held at knife point.
“Are you going to answer my question now?” he asked.
“I don’t even know what the whore looks like,” he sneered. Ghost kicked him in the back of the legs to bring him to his knees.
“She isn’t a fucking whore,” he growled, thrusting his phone into the man’s face. “Where is this girl?”
The man looked at the picture and smirked. “Ah, the new package. There’s no way we can let you walk out of here with her. She’s a gold mine.”
“I’m not asking for fucking permission,” Ghost said, hitting the man at his temple with the butt of his rifle, knocking him out cold. Turning to Wolf and Léon, he nodded. “Let’s go.”
They carefully walked through the house, taking down any target that drew a gun at them as they passed. He fought the urge to call out her name, as he didn’t want to risk being ambushed before he got to her. This mission was already dangerous enough. One wrong move and it was over for all of them.
“Myles!” he heard behind him. He quickly turned at Josephine’s voice to see her and Pia being whisked back out of the house by Sebastian.
“Josephine!” Ghost called out, running to the back out the house and out the back door. They were shoved back into the blue van where a man was already waiting with it running. They peeled out of the yard before Ghost, Wolf, and Léon even hit the ground. “Shit!”
“Get to the car!” Léon exclaimed, making a run for the driver’s side. The men raced to the car and jumped inside, rushing to catch up to the van before they lost it. Ghost’s heart raced in his chest as they tailed the van. They sped down the country roads and headed back to the city, weaving in and out of traffic as the van tried to evade them.
“Maybe we can try to take a shot at one of the tires to get them to stop, eh?” Léon suggested, glancing at Ghost as he accelerated to a speed dangerously too high for street traffic. Ghost’s gaze locked onto the police car sitting in an alley as they zoomed past it, watching it in the car mirror as it peeled out onto the road behind them with its blue lights flashing.
“I can’t risk that. That could be fatal if timed wrong. Pretty sure they’re not strapped to anything. The girls could be killed at impact,” Ghost responded idly. “Looks like we have company.
Léon glanced in the rearview mirror. “Shit.”
“Shit?” Ghost looked at him with a raised brow. “Why shit? At least when we catch this bastard, he’ll pay for what he’s done.”
“I would’ve much rather put a bullet in his forehead, but if you’d rather go about it the legal way after we’ve killed nearly a house full of men, so be it,” he responded in a huff.
They were quickly approaching the Point d’léna bridge, the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance. As much as Ghost wanted to marvel at the famous landmark before them, now wasn’t the time to lose focus. The van suddenly swerved into oncoming traffic in an attempt to pass the car in front of it. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Ghost watched the van crash into another delivery vehicle, sending it skidding across the road and onto the sidewalk where tourists and locals alike stood to look at the river. The pedestrians all screamed as they dodged out of the way. Ghost felt his stomach drop as he continued to watch in horror as the van crashed through the concrete railing and off the bridge into the Siene river.
“No!” Ghost yelled as Léon skid to a stop, barely missing the car in front of him by hair. People gathered at the railing, everyone talking in panicked voices while trying to call for help. Ghost was out of the car in an instant, the police on his tail as he ran to the gaping space in the railing.
“Freeze, sir!” an officer yelled with his gun drawn.
“I can’t!” Ghost exclaimed, already pulling off his shirt.
“Sir, you need to stop what you’re doing!”
“My sister and her friend were kidnapped and they’re in that van!” Ghost yelled back. The officer lowered his weapon slightly and looked over his shoulder toward the other cop, who only looked at him in confusion. “Just get us some help. I’m going to get my sister.”
“Hey, take this!” Léon yelled. Ghost looked over his shoulder to see him running toward him with a hammer.
“I’ll definitely make good use of this,” Ghost mentioned, taking the hammer from him.
“Well, if you don’t end up needing it, at least use it to clock that bloody asshole in the head on my behalf,” Léon said.
Ghost gave him a small smile as he took the hammer. “Will do,” he said, tucking it into his pants with the hook resting on his waistband.
Before the officer could stop him, Ghost ran toward the opening and jumped. Adrenaline coursed through his body, sending his mind into autopilot as soon as he broke through the water. The van sunk a lot quicker than he expected it to, causing anxiety to fill him. He didn’t have much time to get to her and his window of opportunity grew smaller the deeper the van sunk. Diving wasn’t new to him; he’d done it countless of times in missions. But he couldn’t expect the girls to know how to properly handle being in deep depths, especially when they were probably hyperventilating from the crash.
He swam as quickly as he could until he could reach the door han
dle of the back of the truck. He looked into the small window of the back of the door and saw the water was up to Josephine’s and Pia’s waist. Although he couldn’t hear them, he could see them screaming as they jerked at the chains that bound them to the bench they sat on. Ghost jerked on the door, finding it locked from the inside.
His hand brushed against the hammer at his waist. Thank you, Léon, he thought as he pulled it from his pants and began to hit the window. Though the window broke easily, it caused more water to rush into the back, shrinking his time even more. He reached inside and felt around until he felt the door handle and pulled, slightly relieved when the door finally popped open. More water rushed in and the girls screamed, still jerking at their chains.
“Please get me out of here!” Josephine cried with terror in her eyes.
“Calm down and listen to me,” Ghost ordered. “When I get you out of here, go out of the door and just swim up to the surface. Got it?”
They both nodded quickly. Ghost took a deep breath and went under, scanning the bed of the van to see where the chains were attached. Seeing where they were bolted to the floor, he took the hook of the hammer and slid it under the head of the bolt bounding Pia. After a few firm pulls, Pia’s 4 bolts were loose enough for her to pull them out. She swam out of the van as he turned to Josephine, coming up to take a breath of air from the remaining space they had.
“Myles, please!” Josephine sputtered, holding her face above water as best as she could as the remaining space filled up. “I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not dying today,” he said and took a deep breath before the van was completely filled by water, submerging them completely. Josephine held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut as Ghost worked on her bolts. He jerked and jerked, but they didn’t move an inch, sending him into panic mode.
This can’t be happening.
After everything he’d done to try to save her, this couldn’t be how this ended. She looked at him, her eyes begging him to save her and he couldn’t even get her bolts out. He braced his feet on the bottom of the bench, gripped the hammer handle as tight as he could and pulled with all his might, finally getting the bolt to move. Josephine released a stream of air bubbles as her eyelids fluttered, her hand weakly trying to grab onto him as the other held her throat. As much as he wanted to give his air to her, he couldn’t; otherwise he wouldn’t be able produce the energy he needed to get the other three bolts loose. He braced himself to pull out the second and third one, repeating his previous action until that one was out too. By the time he looked up before doing the first one, Josephine had gone still, her eyes closed as her hair waved around her head.
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Going Ghost (Kindle Worlds Novella) (SEALed Brotherhood Book 2) Page 9
