‘You ready to go home, sweet pea?” Adam asked, placing his empty glass on the table with all the others.
Sarah bit her lip, looking at the table. “Someone should stay and clean up this mess,” she murmured.
“Well, certainly not you,” Heather declared, coming out of Sarah’s office, her purse hanging from her shoulder, sunglasses perched on her nose. “Juanita volunteered. You just go home and relax, enjoy your weekend.”
Sarah gave her assistant an impulsive hug. “Thanks, Heather. I know you orchestrated this whole thing.”
Heather just grinned. “Aw, shucks, ma’am, it weren’t nothin’. See you Monday. I’m on my way to buy nipple rouge.”
Sarah nearly choked. Adam watched Heather sashay up the hallway, a bemused look on his face. “Did she just say…?”
“No. Let’s go home.”
Cupping her elbow in his hand, he guided her out of the office. Tom and Kyle were in their usual place on either side of the door, waiting to accompany Adam and Sarah out to the Land Rover. “Did you guys get some cake and champagne?” she asked.
“Cake,” Kyle affirmed. “No champagne.”
“Still on duty,” Tom added.
They accompanied Adam and Sarah out to the parking lot, waited while Adam buckled her in, then stood watching as he got in and drove off.
Adam pulled out onto the main two-lane highway and headed toward home. They’d gone less than a block when Sarah turned and opened her mouth to ask Adam a question. But the only sound that emerged was a blood-curdling scream as a dump truck came barreling out of an alley straight toward them. There was a thunderous crash, followed by the screech of crumpling and rending metal, as the truck slammed into the driver’s side of the Land Rover.
Thrown sharply sideways by the impact, Sarah smashed her head into the side window, nearly blacking out from the sudden sharp shock of pain.
The air bags exploded, propelling a cloud of talcum powder into the Land Rover’s interior. Adam! Oh, my God, Adam! “Adam!” she screamed. “Adam! Adam!”
A hand emerged from the fog, fumbling for the catch to the glove box. It was followed by a face—Adam’s face—little more than a red mask of dripping blood. Oh, God, he’s hurt! He was saying something—his mouth was moving—but, deafened by the din still echoing in her ears, Sarah couldn’t hear a word. God, what’s going on here? What just happened? Spurred on by a sense of desperation, she reached out and grabbed the dashboard to pull herself upright, when the passenger door suddenly ripped open.
Oh, thank God! Help was here!
She barely registered the enormous knife slicing through her seat belt, or the large, grease-stained hands grabbing her shoulders and yanking her out of the car. “No, no, I’m fine,” she protested, struggling against the powerful grip holding her. “Help Adam—he’s been hurt.” Before it even registered that the man was not helping her, a dark green panel van pulled up on the shoulder of the road, alongside the crumpled Land Rover. The side door slid open, and her captor grabbed her around the waist and picked her up bodily. “No! Wait!” she shrieked. “Stop, goddamn it! What the hell are you doing?”
Twisting and kicking frantically, she tried to brace her feet on either side of the opening to keep from being pushed in, but the man shoved her inside, practically falling on top of her as he dove in after her. He slid the door shut and the van took off with a squeal of tires and a plume of acrid smoke.
The entire incident had taken no more than thirty seconds.
“Wait!” she yelled, struggling to sit up. “Stop! Go back! We have to help Adam!”
“Shut up, bitch.” The man pushed her back down to the floor, looming over her supine body. He was an enormous hulk of a man, well over three hundred pounds of pure flab, with a Fu-Manchu mustache and a twisting strand of barbed wire tattooed all over his arms. A man whose first priority in life had not been dental hygiene, if the mouth full of broken and decayed teeth was any indication. A man whose dedication to bodily hygiene hadn’t lagged far behind. Judging from the foul odor emanating from him, he was badly in need of a bath—three days ago.
And he wasn’t the only source of foul odors. The van fairly reeked of stale cigarette smoke and garbage. And no wonder. The floor was littered with crushed-out cigarette butts and old fast food wrappers, and she was lying right in the middle of all that filth. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing?”
“I said, shut up, bitch!” Rummaging around in a large metal toolbox, he pulled out a dirty mechanic’s rag and wadded it up in front of her. Wrinkling her face in disgust, she jerked away from him, but he grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back painfully as he shoved the filthy rag deep into her mouth.
She retched and tried to yank the cloth out, but the man grabbed her hands, wrenching them so hard behind her back, she screamed, the sound effectively muffled by the folds of cloth. The oily taste and smell made her stomach heave, threatening to send bile erupting up into the back of her throat. She tried to push the gag out with her tongue, but that only aggravated her gag reflex, making throwing up an even more distinct possibility, so she stopped. Think, damn it! Think! You have to get out of here. Adam’s hurt, maybe even dead—and Jesse—Oh, God, Jesse. She fought the tears stinging the back of her nose. He’ll never know what happened to me—
“Hey, asshole,” the Hulk called to someone in the front seat. “Tear me off some a that duck tape, will ya?”
She heard a ripping sound from the general direction of the front seat, and within seconds he wrapped a long strip of duct tape around her wrists. Kicking out with both feet, she tried twisting away from her captor, but he quickly and easily subdued her by looming up and jamming his knee into her back.
Terror mounted as the tearing sounds of additional strips of tape reached her ears. He wrapped two long strips around her ankles, tying them together. Several shorter ones went across her face to secure the gag in her mouth. Wheezing with exertion, he flopped back down beside her. “Guess that’ll shut you up, won’t it?” he sneered.
The tape covering her mouth also partially covered her nose, making breathing an effort. In short order, she was gasping audibly, every breath labored. Her heart was pounding so hard, she feared she’d have a stroke, so she concentrated on trying to stay as calm as possible. And on keeping the contents of her stomach where they belonged. Throwing up was something she had to avoid at all costs to keep from choking to death on her own vomit.
As she lay there, bound and gagged on the cold, filthy floor of a van that was speeding her farther and farther away from safety and comfort and everything she loved, she struggled to keep panic at bay. Tears of despair stung her eyes, but she didn’t dare allow herself to give in to them. If she started crying, her nose would stop up and she’d suffocate.
Things had happened so fast, she didn’t even know if Adam was alive or dead, but she had to believe he was alive. The alternative just didn’t bear thinking about. But the vision of his face, covered with blood, emerging from the cloud of powder, kept replaying over and over in her mind. Fear gripped her chest and a cold dread settled into the pit of her stomach.
To distract herself, she tried to memorize her surroundings, such as they were, so her testimony at these men’s trials would put them behind bars for life. There were three of them in the van, two in the front, The Hulk in the back with her. She didn’t recognize any of them, but she knew who’d sent them. Ryder Malone. He had finally succeeded in, as Jesse had so innocuously phrased it, “acquirin’ her”. But she knew there was nothing innocuous in its implication. Because now that he had acquired her, he would never let her go. If Jesse didn’t find her in time, she would either be dead or so damaged her life wouldn’t be worth living.
No! Sobs threatened to rip her chest apart, but she ruthlessly suppressed them. She would not give in to despair. She would not! No matter what happened to her she would not lose hope. She would do whatever it took to keep Ryder Malone from winning.
The guy in the passenger
seat half turned so he could look in the back. “Maybe we should blindfold her,” he suggested.
“What for?” the driver asked. “She ain’t gonna know where she is.”
“No, but she could identify us.”
The driver gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Identify us to who? By the time anyone comes lookin’ for her, she’ll be outta the country. That Russian guy’s takin’ her with him when he leaves tonight.”
Wait, what? What? Out of the country? What Russian guy?
“No shit,” the Hulk interjected. “I thought she was Malone’s bitch.”
The driver shrugged. “He sold her to the Russian. Been braggin’ about what a great price he got for her. Says this asshole’s got a private island somewhere, where he trains—get this—sex slaves! Ain’t that a hoot? Guy thinks bitches need trainin’ to be sex slaves! Just keep ’em tied up, with their legs spread so you can fuck ’em whenever you want. That’s the only kinda sex slave I need. And after he trains ’em? Get this. He auctions ’em off to the highest bidder—mostly members of the Russian mob.”
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God! Panic swept through her, churning up her stomach, snatching the breath from her lungs. I’m going to be sold as a sex slave!
“Hear that, bitch?” Hulk leaned over and chortled in her ear. If she’d been standing, his breath would have knocked her over. As it was, all she could do was cringe and try to turn her head away from him. But he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. Her cry of pain was muffled by the gag.
“Yeah, bitch, go ahead and yell all you want. No one’s gonna hear you. And by midnight tonight, you’re gonna be some rich fucker’s whore-in-training. Man, I’d love to get me a piece a that action.” He chortled again, releasing her head with such force, it slammed against the floor of the van, striking the exact same spot that had initially impacted the Land Rover’s side window.
Sarah let out a muffled howl, curling up into the fetal position as pain knifed through her. She lay there in the semi-darkness, trying not to listen as the three men gleefully discussed all the things they would do to a sex slave. But she couldn’t quiet the voices in her mind. The ones that froze the blood in her veins and had her shivering so hard she feared she’d never be warm again.
Sex slave. I’ve been sold to a human trafficker to be trained as a sex slave! Oh, my God, this can’t be happening!
But as the van carried her farther and farther away from Jesse and Adam—Adam. Oh, God, please don’t let him be dead—and closer and closer to the bleakness of her future, a deep cold settled into the marrow of her bones, freezing her blood into jagged crystals of ice. As despair crept over her, she felt hope trickle away, like water down a sluggish drain.
* * * *
“Adam! Adam!” Frantic, Jesse elbowed his way through the gawking bystanders, only to pull up short at the sight of his best friend lying on a gurney, eyes closed, face tight with pain. He eyed the hanging bags of glucose and plasma slowly dripping their life-giving fluids into Adam through the needles attached to his right arm.
One EMT was wrapping a heavy gauze bandage around his left thigh. The second EMT was Brad, who had treated Sarah’s syncope episode earlier that day. He was trickling an antiseptic solution over a nasty-looking wound on the side of Adam’s head, soaking his bloody shirt in the process. “Oh, my God, Adam,” Jesse cried. “What the hell happened here? Are you all right? Is Sarah all right? Did she—” He broke off, his body going strangely still as he looked around, quietly taking in the scene of the disaster.
The hood of the ancient dump truck that had crashed into them had been knocked askew and one headlight hung from its socket, but otherwise the damage to it was minimal. A CSU tech was busy dusting the door handle and steering wheel for fingerprints. The Land Rover, on the other hand, was totaled, the driver’s door completely caved in, both side windows shattered, the windshield crazed. Half of the left front fender was crumpled into the tire well. The other half had been completely sheered off and was lying on the ground amid chunks of chrome, glass, plastic, and sheet metal. Steam was still hissing from the Rover’s smashed radiator, carrying the unmistakable, chemical odor of anti-freeze, making the very air feel greasy. “Where is Sarah?”
Adam just shook his head helplessly back and forth, tears glistening in his eyes. “I didn’t see the truck coming. He aimed straight at us. He must’ve been just sitting there, waiting for us—”
“Oh, my God.” Heart racing, Jesse ran around to the passenger side of the Rover, staring in horror at the open door, the shattered window, the severed seat belt. He hunkered down, lifting the pieces of the belt from the shards of window glass lying all over the leather seat, fingering the jagged ends thoughtfully. “Malone,” he muttered to himself. “God. Damn. Mother. Fuckin’—” Rising abruptly to his feet, he just stood there, head bowed, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, his jaw muscles working in the effort it was taking to keep himself together. His chest felt like it was being crushed. “You’re dead, motherfucker,” he said quietly through a jaw clenched so tight, he swore he heard his molars crack, “you hear me, Malone? You. Are. Dead!”
Adam watched Jesse as he straightened his back, stiffened his shoulders, and took a few deep, cleansing breaths in an effort to remain calm. When he finally turned back to Adam, the raw agony on his face had been replaced by a glacial coldness and an intensity of focus most men could never achieve. In spite of his inner torment, Jesse was in full SEAL mode. “Okay. Tell me exactly what happened.”
Adam rubbed his forehead. “As soon as the truck hit us, a dark green panel van pulled up along the passenger side. While I was trying to get the goddamn airbag out of my face, a guy jumped out of the van, broke Sarah’s window, sliced through her seat belt, and hauled her out. I tried to get to my Glock, but by the time I got the glove box open, they were gone. I got off a couple of rounds—hence the bullet holes in the rear window—but it was too late. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds, tops. It was well planned, man, and flawlessly executed. Seal Team Fury couldn’t have done it better.”
Jesse looked up as Ned Bellamy approached and nodded at Adam. “Hey, Adam, you okay? Pardon my sayin’ so, but you look like crap.”
Adam grimaced. “Actually, crap looks a lot better.”
The deputy turned to Jesse. “Report just came in, Chief. Dump truck’s stolen.”
Yeah, like that’s a surprise. Jesse just gave a brisk nod and looked at the vehicle in question. Sending a twelve-ton dump truck to take out a two-ton SUV smacked of desperation. Definitely overkill.
He unholstered his cell and punched in a number. Holding it up to his ear, he turned and walked a short distance away, holding his free hand over his other ear to block out all the noise. Adam watched the conversation, glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of that particular phone call. Whoever it was was getting an earful. When Jesse finished and headed back toward Adam, his expression was unchanged. The only outward signs of his inner turmoil were his narrowed eyes and the ticking of his jaw muscles. “You ready?”
Knifing up into a sitting position, Adam ripped the adhesive tape from his forearm and yanked out the needles. “Sorry, Brad,” he said with a faint smile, trying not to sway as he slid off the gurney, hoping no one would notice that he was holding on to it so hard his knuckles were white. “I don’t have time for this. We got work to do.”
“Uh huh.” Brad looked him up and down, not liking what he saw. “If you don’t pass out from blood loss first.”
“Didn’t you use a Gelfoam dressing?”
“Well, duh-h-h.” Brad leveled a look at him, talking to him as if he were a dim-witted child. “But you lost a lot of blood before we even got here. The Gelfoam can only keep more blood from coming out, it can’t put any back in. Face it, Sinclair, you’re in no fit shape to be running around like an airhead teenager. You need to be lying down. Unless you have a death wish.”
Fortunately for Brad, Jesse grabbed Adam’s arm, just as he was ab
out to punch the paramedic in the nose. “I’ll try to keep him from doin’ anythin’ too stupid,” he said, giving Brad a thin-lipped smile, “but I can pretty much guarantee he won’t be doin’ any lyin’ down. Because, like he said, we got work to do.”
“Okay, have it your way. Here.” Brad turned and fished three foil packets from his bag. He held them out for Adam. “Oxy,” he said at Adam’s questioning look. “Take ‘em if you need ‘em, although I highly recommend you take one right now. As soon as the shock wears off, that leg is going to start hurting like a son of a bitch.”
It already does. “Thanks, Brad.” Adam pocketed the packets.
“Good luck, guys. Bring her back safe and sound.”
Levering Adam’s right arm across his shoulders, Jesse put his left arm around his best friend’s waist. “C’mon, Nitro. Let’s go get our woman.”
Jesse led him to the Humvee and assisted him into the passenger seat. Then he opened the back door and rummaged around in a black duffle bag, pulling out a night camouflage track suit. He dropped it in Adam’s lap. “Here. Get outta those bloody clothes and change into this.” He gave Adam an assessing look, taking in the fact that his face was nearly as white as the gauze wrapped around his head. His Sinclair Securities polo shirt was covered with blood and wet from the antiseptic solution Brad had dribbled all over it, and the left leg of his bloodstained khaki pants was sliced open to the top of his thigh.
“You look like shit,” Jesse offered.
“Yeah? Well, you’re no Brad Pitt yourself. I assume that was Wildfire you were talking to—pardon me, screaming at—on the phone.”
“Yeah. We’re gonna rendezvous with him and his team in an hour out by the lake on the old Harriman property. They’re sendin’ us in to do forward recon. I told him you’d provide a diversion—somethin’ that’s sure to get their attention. You up for it?”
Owning Sarah [Sequel to Loving Sarah] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 33
