by Linzi Baxter
Once the men had me strapped to the chair like they wanted, Axmed stepped back. How can he possibly be here? I thought. He’s supposed to be in jail. This has to be a nightmare.
“I told you it was a only a matter of time before I got you back.”
“You better enjoy this while you can. People are looking for me. When I don’t show up, Patty will alert everyone.”
Axmed sat down in the chair next to me. He had aged over the years. His dusty brown hair was now gray, and he had wrinkles next to his eyes. He used to be in shape, but now he had a potbelly. The only positive thing I noticed was that he no longer stank of body odor.
He did that evil villain laugh that grated on my nerves. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. They won’t be looking for you. We had somebody else fly your plane toward Shialia. Your flight won’t make it there, though. It’s going to crash into the ocean.”
Why did I not talk to Brock? I wouldn’t be in this situation if I had. Instead, I let my emotions run high, and I ended kidnapped. Again. And since we were in their plane, nobody would come looking for me.
“Where are you taking me?” Maybe I could figure out a way to alert Brock.
“I’m taking you back to where all of this started.” That was good news. Brock had men stationed in Somalia, watching sex trafficking trade. Maybe they would find me.
“I think that’s enough talking for today.” Before I had time to register what Axmed had said, I felt something hit the side of my head, and everything went black.
19
Brock
The conference room was full. Mia was in her regular spot at the end of the table next to John. They were looking over surveillance video. Neal had flown back in as soon as I called to let him know Jessica was missing. Eric was talking to Sam on a laptop.
“What have we found?”
I took a quick look at the clock. It was seven p.m. The sun was setting, and Jessica had been kidnapped a few hours ago.
John leaned back in his chair. “I followed Jessica when she left here. She went to the airport, which confirms what Patty said. The plane I saw leave wasn’t Jessica’s family’s, nor was it ours. It was another plane.”
I picked up the photos from the airport. “So they want us to assume Jessica was on the family jet and it crashed. Sam, I think the family should come out and act like Jessica died in a plane crash. You need to plan a funeral.”
Sam ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I think that might be too hard on Patty. She’s due any day now, and I don’t—”
Patty’s head popped into the video feed. “I will plan this stupid funeral as long as you promise to get my sister back. This little one will stay put until I get my sister here. I won’t have this baby without Jessica.” She sat down on Sam’s lap, and he wrapped his arms around her body, resting his hands on her stomach. “Get her back soon. I don’t know how many days I can keep this baby inside me.”
“Okay, team. We are going to announce publicly that Jessica died in a plane crash off the Atlantic coast on her way to Shialia.”
Neal jumped up and paced back and forth. “If she would have let us put another tracker inside her arm, we wouldn’t have this problem. And you!” Neal turned toward me. “If you hadn’t fucked up like an idiot, she would still have her GPS on.”
“I know I fucked up. But nevertheless, we need to locate Jessica. Stop pointing fingers, and let’s find her.”
Eric leaned forward and grabbed a donut from the middle of the table. “If I were them, I would take her back to where it all began.”
I looked at the big screen. Sam was shaking his head. “Not possible. The place was demolished a few years ago.”
I needed proof it was in shambles. “We need to take a closer look. Someone pull up the satellite imagery of where Jessica was originally held.”
Eric looked up. “Regarding Axmed, there’s not much information. No siblings. Parents dead. Spent his teenage years bouncing around group homes.”
“That doesn’t help us. Why did he originally kidnap Jessica?” I paced the room. It helped keep my mind running. “Was he after money, or was it something else?”
Mia grabbed a report from the conference room table. “From what it says in Sam’s report, at first, Axmed thought he had Patty. Then it seemed he developed an attraction to Jessica.”
I grabbed a piece of licorice off the table. “He has a funny way of showing attraction,” I grumbled.
“Jessica’s dad didn’t pay the ransom the last time she was kidnapped. Why would these men kidnap her again?” John asked.
Deep down in my bones, I didn’t believe there would be any ransom demand. “He wants Jessica for himself. Her being rescued screwed up some plan he’d hatched.”
I sat back down in my chair, rubbing the space between my eyes to relieve the tension.
“Sam, what reason were you given for not killing Axmed?”
Patty pushed Sam out of the way and appeared on the screen. “In the early years, Dad said he was trying to get information out of him. Over time, we forgot about him, and I stopped asking. Jessica has never been keen on having someone killed. I wanted his head on a stake. Anyway, when we came back, I tried again, but Dad keeps changing the subject every time I ask.”
Patty was a shark when it came to her sister. She would do anything to protect her. “Have you asked since Axmed escaped and Jessica was kidnapped?”
A frown formed on Sam’s face. “William went on vacation about an hour after Axmed escaped, and he is not answering his phone.” Sam had dark circles under his eyes from stress.
“Do we need to worry about him?”
Patty and Sam both replied, “No.”
Sam continued on. “He knows something. I think the information is damning to his image, and he isn’t sure how to tell us. We haven’t been able to tell him Jessica was taken. When we announce the funeral tomorrow, I hope he contacts us.”
The door to the conference room swooshed open. Sophie came storming in with a red-faced Daisy on her heels.
“Master Brock, Daisy tried to stop her. She walked right by me and stormed in here.” I had never seen Daisy so angry before.
Sophie had a stack of papers in her hand. “You’ll want the information I have. There wasn’t time for me to wait.”
“John, lock up Blackwood Security and email the club members that we’re closed for the night.”
Daisy was still fuming at how Sophie had treated her. Neal grabbed her by the hand and led her to his station. On his way to his chair, he grabbed a pillow off the couch, and Daisy kneeled next to him.
Sophie was handing out stacks of papers to the team.
I hoped Sophie had additional information that would help in the case. “Sophie, you want to explain why you burst in here and are taking over the meeting? You do know how to use a cell phone, right?”
Sophie turned on her heels and glared at me. “You are all taking too long to solve the case, so I took matters into my own hands. And I want every one of you to remember that I helped save Jessica.” She eyed each of us before continuing. “The intelligence I gathered will lead back to me, and when it does, people are going to be coming for me. But we’ll cross that bridge in a few weeks.”
She continued to take over the room like she owned the place. Sophie sat down at my computer and zoomed in on the satellite imagery. “They took her to the same place.”
Sam objected. “William told me that place was leveled.”
“Wrong. One facility on the property is gone, but look here.” She zoomed in on a building at the rear of the property.
This was the best lead we’d had in the case. “Let’s go.”
Eric sat back. “This is personal to you. Hell, it’s personal to all of us. But we need to formulate a plan of attack before heading in.”
A couple keystrokes later Sophie had two images up on the screen. One was Axmed. The other looked like his brother.
“Axmed has a brother. A twin, to be exact. He w
as trying to kidnap Jessica so he could exchange her for his brother’s release. Since Axmed is already out, Jessica is now his gift,” Sophie explained.
I hadn’t found this intel anywhere on the dark web. “Where are you getting this information? I need to check the source before we go in.”
She shook her head. “My source will come out in the next few weeks, unless I figure a way to cover my tracks. I also know why King William didn’t kill Axmed.”
The mention of why William didn’t kill Axmed piqued Patty’s interest. “How do you know this information?”
“I’ve read the report of someone who was in the room when William interrogated Axmed.”
Patty leaned in closer to the cameras. “I’ve read the same report.”
“No, you read the report your father wanted you to read.”
“Spit it out,” I prompted. The sooner Sophie spilled the information, the quicker I could rescue Jessica.
“Axmed and his brother, Ashkir, are Patty and Jessica’s half-brother,” Sophie explained.
I glanced at the computer screen to make sure Patty was okay. Her face was pale. Sam had her wrapped in his arms.
Patty recovered a few seconds later. “I don’t care who these men are. Brock, make me one promise. You will kill them both.” Patty closed the video link.
Sophie seemed more stressed now than when she arrived. She rose from my chair. “Abshir is the one behind your sex trafficking case. He puts other people in the light to make them look like the leaders while he sits in the background, pulling strings.”
Sophie turned on her heels and left the conference room in the same fashion she came in.
I pulled the phone out of my pocket and sent a text to the pilot, letting him know to have the plane ready to go in an hour. Then I took a second to digest all the information Sophie had given us. “Why would he kidnap his sister to start with?”
Eric spun in his chair. “He wanted to take over the throne. From what I read about this man, he was sent from group home to group home as an orphan. More than likely, he hates Jessica and Patty for their privileged life.”
His idea made sense. The reason to retake her was to make his father pay for keeping him in jail. We needed to get to Jessica soon. These men were after vengeance.
“That was a lot of info to take in. Let’s put together a plan of action and head to the airport. John, pack as many explosives as you can. I want to blow the place up. Everyone else, grab your guns, and let’s get Jessica back.”
20
Jessica
The pounding in my skull was making me want to scream. This had to be a dream, a horrible dream where my cranium was being operated on. Damn.
I opened one eye slightly to see if anyone was around. But my eyes wouldn’t focus. Everything was distorted. Moving my palm along the floor made my stomach wrench. The awareness of where I was came back full force.
I lifted my legs and arms. My hands and feet were no longer bound together, but they had to have injected me with something. I had both eyes open, and the world was spinning. I needed to get up and look at what was around me. I had to get out of here. Using my arms, I struggled to shove up off the floor. The closer I got to a sitting position, the worse my tummy discomfort was.
I would not let them win again. The bile in my stomach was getting worse. I crawled across the cage to the other side and was able to discharge my stomach in the bucket. After that, I felt slightly better and could concentrate a little more.
I needed to figure out how I got here. The harder I thought about it, the more my head seemed to ache. Then it all came flooding back—Brock in a scene with a woman, running upstairs to pack, sneaking out of the building, getting on the wrong plane. Then, they had me again. That thought caused me heave once more.
“Hello, Jessica. It’s a pleasure to see you back where you belong.”
That voice brought back all my worst nightmares. That was what this had to be. It had to be a nightmare, and I would wake up in Brock’s arms.
I twined my fingers together, hoping to decrease the shaking. I had tremors running all through my body. The dread was so predominant in my mind that I couldn’t figure out how to respond. I hated that they could see how scared I was.
“We dosed you with some drugs to help you sleep. You were out longer than we wanted. Next time, we will make sure to change the dosage. It’s no fun if you sleep through everything.” His voice was so hypnotic. It sent me into the past to a horrible place I never wanted to go again.
“Within the next hour, all the drugs will be out of your system.” The clicking of his high-end shoes moved across the cement, closer to the cell. “Are you excited to play again? A lot has changed over the years. I can’t wait to get reacquainted.”
The flood of memories of the man talking for hours shot through me. He loved to hear himself talk. My head was still pounding from the drugs they had given me, and the sound of his voice hurt.
I hoped Brock didn’t believe the ruse, and he was still looking for me. If Axmed kept talking, that meant time was passing without me being tortured.
“Why me again?” Why go through all this work to get me again when he could have picked someone else and not have lost so many men? Axmed knew the resources that were behind my protection. My primary goal was to keep this man talking.
My stomach took another roll. The drugs were having a profound effect on me. Unable to hold back, I leaned over and threw up again. I needed to figure out if I could get out of here. Brock had been teaching me a lot of different escape tactics over the last few months.
The cell was small. Two of the walls were exterior cinder brick. One of the walls had a window, but it was barred. The cell didn’t even have a cot whose frame I could have used to pry at the bars of the cell. The one door was at the front where Axmed was standing.
When I looked up at Axmed, he was looking down at me with excitement in his eyes. Axmed had to be in his late fifties. His face was handsome, but those eyes were empty and cold. He’d taken off his suit jacket, laid it on the chair, and loosened his tie. “You are the reason my brother went to jail, and now your friends have messed with my job.”
His brother? All these years, he had been free while his brother was in jail? They had to be twins, they looked so much alike. But his brother had grown fat and weathered in jail. He, on the other hand, had not. Why not break his brother out and leave it at that?
“I would do anything for my brother. It took years to get power and money. While your family was worrying about you, I took that moment to break my brother out. Why still come after you? In the beginning, I wanted to use you as ransom for my brother. Since I was able to get him out without you, you are now his reward.”
“They will come for you. I still don’t understand why Father didn’t just kill your brother. What’s his name?”
“This is priceless. Your powerful team never put it together. My brother, Ashkir, and I are your half-brothers. King William never could keep it in his pants.”
Everything clicked, and I understood now. “You were trying to force Dad to hand the crown to you because you’re the oldest. But why torture your sister?”
“You and Patty have had the world handed to you. We wanted to take you both to hurt William with the ones he loves. And don’t expect your boyfriend to save you.” Axmed stared at me for a moment. “I saw it on the news this morning. Patty was crying and talking about the funeral they are planning. I believe your friends from the States are on their way to Shialia to go to said funeral.”
The tears ran down my face. “I guess you won.”
He chuckled. “I always win. I play the long games. My brother will have his fun with you, and then we will sell you on the market to make up for the money you have cost us over the years. I’m not sure, with all the scars, if we’ll be able to sell you for much. Not too many men can look at an ugly whore like you.”
I tried to block out the nasty words and think positively. Brock worshiped the scars on my b
ody. They showed what I had been through. And he would still want me. No matter what this man might do to me, Brock would still love me.
Axmed’s words about the funeral came back to my mind. Your friends are flying to Shialia to go to said funeral. That gave me hope. If Patty were planning my funeral, it would be in the States. We both wanted graves next to Mom. We made a pact years ago, and she wouldn’t break it. This was her way of letting me know they were still looking.
Brock would look for me. He would do everything in his power to find me. That man loved me with every fiber he had. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too mad at me for taking off my tracker and jumping to conclusions. More than likely, my ass would be hurting for days.
“I wonder if your new man will show up to the funeral. I heard a rumor that this one was cheating on you as well.”
“No. Believe what you want, but he wasn’t cheating on me.” I didn’t know how he was still getting inside information unless they somehow had my phone bugged or someone at the club was still working with these people.
I still wasn’t sure how much time had passed. All I knew was that Brock was coming. I had to figure out a way to give them time and, preferably, not get tortured.
Maybe it was time to ask some questions of my own. This man couldn’t stop talking. I bet he liked to talk about himself. Maybe I could get some intel for when I got out of here.
“How have you been hiding all these years?”
“I made everyone else the face of the organization. Nobody but my top trusted knew who I was. Your boyfriend thinks he stopped the man in charge of the sex trafficking. All he got was one of the men that worked for me. Nobody will ever stop me. It’s your fault I’ve had to hide for years.”
My lips curled up. “It’s not my fault you hid for years and made your brother pay for what you’d done. Your brother was the muscle back in the day, and you ran the organization. It was more your fault than mine that he was imprisoned for years.”
“You have more fight in you this time. Last time you were no fun to play with. I think I might help my brother this time. I will enjoy hearing you scream.”
