Beautiful Surrender (Pride and Honor Book 4)

by Ember-Raine Winters

  “She’s lying Kenzie. Tasha can’t get pregnant, remember?”

  “Believe what you want,” she said with steel in her tone, “but if you want a chance of getting your friends back, then you will trust me.”

  She handed me a folder and I took it robotically. My head was spinning as I looked at the pictures of my family in chains. There were exact locations where each of them were being held. The kids were in fucking Somalia in chains, and I was seeing red. Did we trust her? Hell no. She was the queen of hell. Married to the devil himself and her mother was the puppet master. We could get burned trusting her, but at the moment she was the best lead we had. “What’s in it for you?”

  “I don’t want to be tied to that man anymore. I want him to burn,” she said with a sinister glint in her eye, and I was tempted to believe her.

  Kenzie asked, “What about Millie?” Marie flinched; it was the first time we saw a break in her armor.

  “Let me deal with mother,” she replied, cryptic.

  “Okay, we will check this out. How are we supposed to get in touch with you?” I asked casually as if this whole situation didn’t completely suck. When in reality I was totally freaking out.

  “The last page in the file I gave you has my encrypted e-mail address. Use that and I will get back to you as soon as I can.”

  I grabbed Kenzie by the arm and steered her out of the restaurant shooting a quick “thank you” over my shoulder.

  “Get Brock on the damn phone, now,” I growled as I opened the passenger door for her.

  “Easier said than done, but I’ll try,” she replied as I slammed her door shut. Before I reached the other side of the car, she was already dialing.

  Sitting in the driver’s seat I finally let my frustrations out by punching the steering wheel and yelling out my anger. With my extensive tech experience, there was no way that video of the kids hadn’t been faked—it’d been real. Those poor kids had been through more shit in their young lives than the majority of adults ever would.

  “What the fuck, Brock?” I heard Kenzie say over the rushing in my ears.

  “Put that shit on speaker phone,” I growled and started the engine then yelled after she hit speakerphone, “What in the actual fuck?”

  “Hello Trey,” Brock said calmly which only pissed me off more.

  “Marie Barnes? That was your contact? What the fuck? Thanks for warning us,” I raged.

  “What? Marie Barnes was not my contact. What are you talking about? Did you just meet with her?”

  “What do you mean she isn’t your contact?” Kenzie said, horrified.

  “If she’s reaching out to you then it must be big. Roger Barnes must have finally lost it,” Brock replied thoughtfully. “Either that or he got someone else pregnant.”

  “What are you even talking about?” I asked him.

  “She threatened him many years ago that if an incident like Tasha happened again that she would take him down. That she didn’t care what her mother, Millie, said. Seems Marie must have finally cracked.”

  “So she’s legit then? These locations I have for everyone? They’re real? Or is it a carefully laid trap to get the rest of us?”

  “It doesn’t look like we have much choice. The kids are getting sold to a human trafficking ring. They are scheduled to be delivered in three days,” Kenzie said reading the file out loud for us both to hear.

  “Shit. What about Tasha?”

  “Trey.” The way in which she said my name dropped my heart to my stomach. “It looks like Tasha and Kaylee are still stateside—which means-”

  “Fuck! Those kids are alone? They separated them all? What about Twitch?”

  “He’s in the Mohave desert? Why the fuck would he take him there?” Kenzie looked over at me, confusion etched across her features.

  I thought about it for a moment, then almost laughed. “They think they can break him by throwing him in the desert.” Little did they know, Twitch was the least affected by his time in the war. He wouldn’t be broken that easily, and not when his fiancé was missing.

  “You sound as if you think this is funny?” Brock jumped in.

  “Twitch was not only in the military, he went to war. There is no way they’re going to get anything out of him.”

  “So,” Brock then said a moment later, “these rescues are going to have to be extremely strategic. They will have to be done at the same time or you risk him moving them.”

  “We don’t have enough people to put that kind of rescue together,” I said thinking out loud. “They are all in different places thousands of miles away from each other. Could we even get into Somalia without the pirates finding out we’re there?”

  “What about SEAL team six?” Kenzie asked thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know if I trust Tom to deliver on that. Plus, he has a leak. Any information he gets from us is getting back to Barnes somehow.”

  Kenzie looked back over at me. “For all we know, Tom is the leak.”

  We were almost back to the house and even though we were closer than ever to getting our family back, we were still nowhere near close enough.

  “Let’s talk to the others before we make any snap decisions on what to do next.” I threaded my fingers through my hair and groaned.

  It was only a few minutes before we got back to the house and most of the lights were off. I hated waking everyone when I knew they had gotten little to no sleep over the last few weeks, but we needed to start planning. The kids didn’t have time to spare.

  Walking through the back door, I saw Mac sitting in front of the computer wearing headphones. Looking down at the screen, I noticed that he had taken my advice and was watching YouTube videos about hacking. Tapping him on the shoulder was hilarious. He jumped about a foot off the couch and turned and glared at me.

  “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to sneak up behind a war veteran?” he asked angrily, grabbing onto the arm of the chair for support. At least his leg must be getting better, I noted to myself.

  “Sure, but it’s funny as hell,” I laughed. He lunged to throw a punch but missed and winced. “I need to go wake up Griffin and Marcy. We got a lead.”

  “What kind of lead?”

  “I’ll tell you after I get them up. It’s almost too bizarre to believe.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  KENZIE

  Watching Trey leave, I decided to have a seat and watch the video Mac forgot to pause, which was simplistic beginner level hacking. I laughed as I thought about all the different ways I had found to circumvent some of the steps they were showing just to steal someone’s password inside their own network. It didn’t even show how to get into other networks and steal information. But, it was for beginners after all.

  “So, what did you find?” Mac asked after returning to the living room.

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said as he came and sat down across from me. “Let’s just wait for the others.”

  “They were taken by pirates then? Was that part true?”

  “Only the kids,” Trey said as he walked in the room. A sleepy Marcy was trailing behind him, but Griffin looked wide awake.

  “We need to find a way to be in three places at once,” Trey started the discussion off.

  “Explain,” Griffin demanded.

  “The bastard separated them. They are thousands of miles apart, and if we rescue one group, I’d bet every dollar I have that he’ll move the others.”

  “The kids? So that video was real? Pirates do have them?” Marcy nearly broke down.

  I got up off the sofa kneeled in front of Marcy, who was half bent over the chair. “Don’t. Don’t you lose it now. You will be of no use to us or the kids.”

  Trey continued after Marcy pulled herself together, “That’s not the craziest part. The contact we met with… it was Marie Barnes.” The whole room went still for a beat before chaos ensued.

  “What? Why would she help us
?” Marcy yelled and shot up out of the seat.

  “You didn’t leave the minute she showed herself? Are you stupid?” Griffin bellowed at the same time Marcy was yelling, while Mac quietly shook his head and uttered, “What the fuck?”

  Remembering what Marie said that couldn’t possibly be true, I told the group, “She said something strange—that Tasha was pregnant? How can that be?”

  Marcy had a horrified expression on her face and Mac squirmed a bit before confessing. “She is. She found out just before Johnny was kidnapped. That was why she kept throwing up at the safe house.”

  “So, Marie was telling the truth then. Shit. We have to get them all out of there. The kids are being delivered to a human trafficking ring in three days,” Trey informed the group with such sure determination in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.

  We worked late into the night bouncing ideas off of one another, but we still weren’t any closer to coming up with a solid plan. At one point Mac threw up his hands in frustration when Marcy told him for the twelfth time that he couldn’t go in guns a’blazin’.

  “How you gonna do that, Mac? Outfit your crutches with guns?” Trey laughed and Marcy gave him a warning glare.

  “Don’t give him any ideas, you buffoon.”

  “I think I saw that in a movie once.” I added, probably not too helpfully, but seriously, it was fun.

  Griffin, our typical, bring-us-down-from-having-any-type-of-humor leader, interrupted, “Mac, you have to be tech support on this one, bro. You cannot go in with your leg messed up.”

  “Griffin-” Mac started but was cut off.

  “Hear me out. We supported your decision to keep Pix out of the mission to rescue Johnny because of physical limitations.”

  “But she and Tasha are wo-” He stopped, shutting his mouth, realizing his imminent doom.

  “No babe, finish what you were saying.” Marcy smiled sweetly, batting her eyes at him. “I know you weren’t going to say that there is a difference here. Tasha is a detective. I served in the Army with you. We are just as capable even with our physical limitations.”

  “There is a difference-”

  I cut him off this time. Was he just stupid? Maybe there was a head injury that he suffered when he served that I’m not aware of.

  “Yeah, the difference is,” I stalked over to him, standing above him in his wheelchair, and looking down, “that you are way more fucked up then they were. You are unable to walk let alone run. You will do nothing but slow us down and endanger everyone we are trying to save.”

  He hung his head in defeat, finally seeing reason. I gave myself a pat on the back for solving that problem.

  Seeing Mac’s acquiescence, Trey moved on, “The only way I see this working is if we ask for help and try to coordinate the rescues.”

  “That’s a good idea. With Twitch in the Mojave Desert, what if we got a hold of Keller and asked him to coordinate there?” I replied, looking over at Trey. Captain Keller was Tasha’s boss and had helped us out before. He was the only one we trusted outside our little group.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  Griffin interrupted, “What about the women and the kids?”

  “I’m thinking SEAL team six is best for the kids, since they will more than likely be under the heaviest guard. With the sale of them imminent, they’d need more guards to not only protect the kids, but to protect them from the buyers,” I began. “Kaylee and Tasha, I think are up to us.”

  “I’m going to Somalia with the SEALs,” Griffin said adamantly. “They will be terrified if a bunch of military men come in and take them. It will be easier on them if they see me.”

  “I agree,” Mac replied. “The kids have been through enough. They need to know that they are going home, and the only way they will know that for sure is if they see one of us.”

  “So, the rest of us are going where?” Marcy asked.

  “Not far. It looks like the women are right here in Louisiana,” Trey grumbled.

  “What?” I wasn’t the only one whipping her head in Trey’s direction. “They have been here the whole time?”

  “It looks that way. From the notes here, they had planned on taking them down to Mexico to sell them to sex traffickers or the drug cartels as mules, but when they found out they were pregnant they no longer fetched as good a price and decided to hold them for a while. I’m betting they thought that if they held on to them they could lead us to them and take the rest of us out.”

  That made total sense. It was sick and twisted, but still made sense. If they got rid of all their prisoners they would have nothing left to get us out in the open, and we could just fade into obscurity.

  “Well, I think we should all try to get at least a couple hours of sleep. We can’t get the plan into motion tonight, so I say we rest and all come back down here at nine to make the calls,” Griffin said yawning and got up to leave.

  We all nodded and started for the stairs. Trey grabbed my arm once I made it up the stairs and pulled me in the opposite direction from the room I was sleeping in.

  “Where are you taking me?” I whispered to him. He didn’t respond, just kept pulling me down the hall until we got to a door at the end.

  “Trey. What the fuck?” I yelled at him after he pulled me inside his room.

  “What the hell was that earlier?” he asked and backed me against the door.

  “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I tried to sound nonchalant but it fell short. This close to him, and my body heated every time I inhaled. It was intoxicating, and I wanted nothing more than to shove him against the wall and kiss him. No Kenzie! You don’t want to do that… you want to do so much more.

  That stupid little voice was about to get bitch slapped again, but as Trey reached his arms up and leaned over me caging me in, my brain fried. I couldn’t think about anything but him. His lips, his skillful fingers and what they would feel like on my overheated skin. My body was buzzing with anticipation, and I was doing everything in my power to control my overactive hormones.

  “What. Happened?” He dragged out each word and stared patiently into my eyes waiting for a response.

  “Nothing,” I replied pushing him away, but he was like a fucking brick wall. He smirked, the smug bastard. My back was plastered to the wall and my hands were pushing against his pecks as he leaned in slowly.

  “Why are you fighting this, Kenzie? You and I both know you want me.” He skimmed his nose across my cheek. I shuddered. His tongue licked a path up my neck. I groaned.

  Fuck it.

  I pulled him against me roughly.

  “I can’t get close to people, so if we do this, all its ever going to be is sex.” I said, then bit down into his earlobe.

  “It will never be just sex between us.”

  I was about to tell him differently when his mouth came down on mine, shutting me up. This kiss was different from before. It was a lust fueled melding of mouths. My hands left his perfect pecs and traveled down his chiseled abs before making their way under the hem of his shirt. It was his turn to shudder and lose control as I traced each muscle with my fingertips.

  While distracted in sensation, I took the opportunity to turn the tables on him, by flipping us around and pushing him roughly against the door. “This needs to come off, now.”

  He looked at me with a bemused expression but did what I said, and I paused briefly to admire the gorgeous man. His abs and chest were perfection. It didn’t take long before I was on him again. I licked my way down to one pierced nipple and smiled. Oh yes! Those are going to be fun to play with. I grabbed the piercing with my teeth as I sucked his nipple into my mouth. The answering moan had me smiling against his skin. My hand tweaked the other before reaching down and unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. He tried to stop me but I batted his hands away. “No touching.”

  He put his hands up in surrender, and I continued my assault on his senses. I loved the power
of dominating a big well-muscled man. It turned me on like nothing else. “Keep your hands up there.” I smiled. “If you move them, I stop.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he agreed, and then groaned when I bit down on his nipple and tugged it with my teeth. I finally released him from his jeans and grinned at what I saw. He was hard and straining against his boxer briefs. I trailed a finger lazily down the ridge of his cock never taking my eyes off of him. He leaned back against the wall and his eyes rolled back in his head in ecstasy. It was so sexy; I moaned against his nipple and he bucked, practically hitting his head against the door.

  I wanted him desperately. I was soaked. I had never been more wet in my entire life. I gave his nipple ring one final tug then gave another, releasing him from his underwear. He was huge and I couldn’t wait to fuck him with my mouth.

  Dropping to my knees, he looked at me and the heat in his eyes was an aphrodisiac of its own. I licked him from base to tip squeezing his balls in my left hand. The guttural moan came directly from his gut and it was the most primal sound I’d ever heard. I sucked the huge crown into my mouth and swirled my tongue around it. His knees went weak and I thought he would drop. It wasn’t until I stuck my hand down my own pants and started circling my clit with two fingers that he broke our connection.

  Pushing me to the floor, and ripping my pants down my body, he sat there momentarily stunned. He watched as my legs fell open and I stuck my index finger in my pussy and circled my clit with my thumb. His hand was lazily pumping his cock, but I couldn’t look away from his eyes that were transfixed on my hand as I brought myself higher and higher. Moaning, I added another finger and his concentration broke. He leaned down pinning both my hands to my sides as he licked me up and down once before he lost it and started eating me like a starving man. I wrapped my thighs around his head and gyrated my hips to the tempo he was setting on my clit. I couldn’t help it I cried out his name. He moaned into my clit and fireworks lit behind my eyes as I came in the most exquisite orgasm I had ever had in my life. My legs fell away from his head and I lay there in a boneless heap as he reached for his pants and pulled a condom from his wallet and rolled it on.