by Susan Stoker
It was bad enough Jeremiah had taken Milena, but to touch his son?
No. Fuck no.
“So Jonathan grabbed the women and Jeremiah took the boy? Why?” Dax asked.
“I don’t give a shit why. All I care about is getting them back,” TJ said.
“Where would they take them?” Hayden asked. She sounded calm, but it was obvious she was angry. TJ figured she was probably upset Milena and Sadie had been taken practically from under her nose. He didn’t blame Hayden. Not in the least. Milena hadn’t gone off by herself, she hadn’t done anything stupid, but she’d been taken just the same. Jonathan had snatched the girls from under everyone’s noses.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Quint said, answering Hayden. “Where would they take them? They’ve managed to elude not only the police, but the Feds for weeks.”
“A motel?” Calder asked. “There are a ton of fleabag, cheap pieces of shit. Believe me, I’ve been called for DOAs at a ton of them.”
“Mexico? Maybe he’d try to take them over the border?” Dax chimed in.
“I doubt it,” Cruz said. “They’d be way too obvious and I’ve already called in a BOLO for Milena and Sadie. And a two-year-old would be way too conspicuous at the border.”
The group was silent for a moment, then TJ asked, “What about the school?”
Cruz looked sharply at TJ. “Why would they go back to someplace they’d been busted at?”
“Why not? If Jones thinks Milena ratted him out and got his operation shut down, why not go back to where he was king? Where he felt the most powerful?”
“Yeah,” Dax agreed, sounding enthusiastic. “He knows every inch of that place. Somehow, he and Jonathan escaped the raid. They obviously have hiding spots there.”
“How do we get close without being seen?” Cruz asked. “The last thing we want is to go in with sirens blazing and have them disappear into some hidey-hole again, or just flat-out kill the women or JT.”
“We need to check it out,” TJ told everyone. “Just us. Not the whole fucking FBI and every cop in a ten-mile radius. We’ll see if there are signs of anyone being there recently.”
“And if there are?” Dax asked.
TJ smiled, but there was no trace of humor on his face. “Then they’re dead for touching what’s mine.”
* * *
Milena tried not to panic. Jonathan had shoved them into a van parked in an alley near the club, and before she or Sadie had been able to do anything more than freak out, he’d had their hands tied behind their backs. Then he’d knocked them out by holding a cloth over their faces. The only thing she remembered before she’d passed out was the look of horror on Sadie’s face as she’d watched while Jonathan had rendered Milena unconscious.
Now Milena was sitting in a chair alone in a large room she didn’t recognize. Her hands were cuffed behind her. She could get up and walk around, hunched over, dragging the chair with her, but she wouldn’t get far that way.
But she couldn’t just sit there like a helpless victim. She stood and wobbled over to one of the windows in the large room and peered outside. One look at the empty land and building on the other side of the window made her stomach clench in horror. She recognized where she was immediately.
The Bexar County School and Orphanage for Girls.
Jonathan had brought them back to the school. At least she assumed he’d brought both her and Sadie there.
Worried about her friend, Milena frantically struggled against the cuffs for a long moment, doing nothing but hurting herself. Frustrated, she sagged against the back of the chair.
The door to the room opened, scaring Milena half to death, and she looked up expecting to see Jonathan, but instead it was Jeremiah who came through the door.
Her breath hitched in her throat at seeing him—but it was the fact he was holding her son in his arms that really scared the shit out of her.
Her mind spun as she tried to figure out what was going on and how the hell Jeremiah had gotten his hands on her baby.
The older man stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him softly. JT was asleep—at least Milena prayed he was—his head resting on Jeremiah’s shoulder, one arm dangling limply.
“Hello, Milena,” Jeremiah said in a perfectly normal voice.
For a second, Milena wondered if this was all a big joke. First, she’d been in the middle of an FBI raid on a school that was merely a front for a child-porn and sex ring. And now she’d been kidnapped from a nightclub shooting and her son had also apparently been taken from her parents’ house.
Her parents!
“Where are my mom and dad?” she asked frantically.
“Shhhh,” Jeremiah said, walking toward her. “They’re fine.”
“Take off these handcuffs and give me my son,” she demanded hotly, wanting nothing more than to feel her son’s weight in her arms.
“No.”
She hadn’t really expected him to do what she wanted, but his immediate and emphatic answer still frustrated her. “What do you want?” Milena asked.
“What do I want?” Jeremiah repeated. “What I want is to have my girls back. I want to still be living and working here at my school. You have no idea how long it took to train my girls. We all had a wonderful life here.”
Milena gaped at him. He was delusional. “A wonderful life? You were molesting and raping children.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “You don’t understand. My girls loved me. Would do anything for me. They had a good life. They were fed, clothed, and cared for. Do you know the statistics about the abuse babies who are born to unwed teenage mothers go through? Trust me, it’s astounding. Here, they were loved. They didn’t go to bed hungry. Didn’t have to deal with mothers who were too busy to care about their daughters.”
“You were abusing them in ways far worse than anything they might’ve experienced with their mothers,” Milena insisted.
A vein in Jeremiah’s forehead began to throb, but he didn’t raise his voice. “No, you’re not listening to me. My girls were loved here. They were precious. They experienced nothing but love and respect from me and the visiting Misters. They were treated as if they were princesses. They were proud when they were chosen to be with a Mister.”
Milena’d had enough. “You raped them!” she screeched. “You’re a disgusting, perverted, miserable excuse for a human being! They weren’t proud, they were scared to fucking death. You and your asshole so-called ‘Misters’ hurt them. Stripped them of the joy of being kids. You had no right to touch them. None at all!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jeremiah said, his face red from anger, his voice rising. “I had every right. They were mine. Mine to raise. Mine to punish. Mine to enjoy and mine to get rid of when they no longer suited my purposes. But you ruined that for me. I did you a favor, and you stabbed me in the back!”
Milena was just now realizing that she shouldn’t have yelled at the older man. He was clearly unstable and mentally damaged. And he was holding her son. She should’ve praised him for what he’d created with the school. Built up his ego. But it was too late for that.
“I didn’t turn you in, Jeremiah,” she said in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone.
“It’s Master Jeremiah,” he returned, icily. “You will address me properly at all times.”
Milena gulped. Fuck. She mentally kicked herself for goading him. She knew better. She immediately acquiesced and made sure she used as respectful a tone as she could muster. “Master Jeremiah, I didn’t turn you in. I swear. I had no idea what the school was about. I was only here to help the teenagers give birth.”
“You knew, bitch,” he said, scowling, seemingly forgetting about the toddler he held in his arms. JT’s head fell off his shoulder and dangled off to the side at a weird angle. Milena actually jerked in the handcuffs, wanting to go to her son, protect him, but of course she couldn’t.
“You knew—and you told! You got all my beautiful girls taken away. I didn
’t even get to keep one. You have to pay for that. Someone has to pay!”
Jeremiah straightened then, hitching JT up more securely on his shoulder. He ran a hand over her baby boy’s light brown hair in what would’ve been a caress if Jeremiah wasn’t fucking insane.
“I need to start over. Get new girls. Train them all over again. But this time I’m going to keep them all for myself. I’m not going to let outsiders in. They’ll be all mine. Mine to teach, to train, to love. Well…mine and my son’s.”
“Where is Jonathan?” Milena asked, not liking the gleam in Jeremiah’s eyes.
“Who?”
“Jonathan. Your son.”
“Oh, him.” Jeremiah shrugged. “Don’t know. He’s not important.”
“But you said you were going to start a new school with your son.”
A smile spread over Jeremiah’s face then. One so evil Milena shivered in the overly warm room.
“I am. This is my son.” He turned JT in his arms then, resting his little bottom on his forearm. The toddler’s head once again wobbled to the side, but Jeremiah didn’t bother propping it up on his shoulder this time. “You took my girls from me, so I’m taking the most important thing you have. His name from here on out is Joel. I will teach him how girls should be treated. Teach him how to discipline them and the best way to make them obey. From around age nine or so, he’ll be able to begin participating and have some girls of his own.”
“No,” Milena whispered in horror.
“Yes,” Jeremiah countered. “Master Joel has a lot to learn, and I’ll teach him everything I know. We’ll work side by side and be a team. Me and him will be Masters of a new school for girls.”
The awful future her son faced if she didn’t get him away from this psychopath had her panicking. Milena jerked frantically against her bonds. “Let me go! You can’t do this! He’s just a little boy. Leave him alone!”
Jeremiah laughed then, an evil, maniacal laugh that sent chills down Milena’s spine. “I can do whatever I want, bitch.” He leaned over and put JT on the ground. Her little boy was limp, completely out of it from whatever Jeremiah had used to drug him. And it was very obvious the toddler had been drugged.
Jeremiah moved his hand and wrapped it around the toddler’s neck.
Milena could only stare at him in sheer horror.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Jeremiah said in a perfectly normal tone. “I’m going to uncuff you from that chair and we’re going to take a walk. I’m going to show you what I created here, room by room. Prove to you that the girls liked what I gave them. What the Misters gave them. You will walk in front of me without protest. If you do anything I don’t like, I’ll hurt him. His life is in your hands. If you try to run, I’ll choke him. If you try to hurt me, I’ll choke him. If I drop him, he’ll die. Understand?”
Milena tried not to hyperventilate. “I understand,” she said weakly. Her mind was going a thousand miles an hour, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do and how she was going to get her and JT out of this.
She held completely still as Jeremiah walked behind her. She felt him unlock the handcuffs and didn’t move. She was going to wait for him to tell her when to move and where.
“Stand, bitch. It’s time you got an education.”
Milena slowly stood, ignoring the tingles in her hands from loss of circulation. She turned around and bit her lip to try to stop a whimper from escaping. Jeremiah was holding JT under his arm like a sack of potatoes.
If he dropped the boy, he’d surely break his neck.
Milena was suddenly glad her son was unconscious. There was no way he’d sleep through being manhandled as Jeremiah was doing, and he’d likely be screaming bloody murder. He’d known nothing but comfort and gentle touches throughout his life. He wouldn’t be dealing with their current predicament well if he was conscious. And she had no idea how Jeremiah would deal with a hysterical child. Didn’t want to find out either. Thank God for small favors. Milena hoped her son stayed knocked out.
“After you,” Jeremiah said, holding out his free hand in what would’ve been a gallant gesture if he wasn’t scaring the shit out of her.
Milena took a step toward the door, her heart in her throat.
She was way out of her league. She had no idea what to do and how to escape without either getting JT killed or having Jeremiah disappear with him forever. Both were unacceptable.
For the first time since she’d regained consciousness, Milena thought about TJ. She didn’t know how long it had been since she and Sadie had been taken from the nightclub, but the second TJ knew something was wrong, he’d come for her. She didn’t know how he’d find her or how he’d get them out of their predicament, she just knew he would.
He’d trained his entire life for this kind of situation. But Milena had no idea how he’d be able to take out Jeremiah while he held JT. If something happened to his son, he wouldn’t be the same person afterward. She wouldn’t either, but TJ would blame himself and she’d lose him all over again. She knew that down to her soul.
He needed help, and she’d do whatever it took to make sure JT survived whatever Jeremiah had planned. All she had to do was wait for an opening. She had to stay alert and ready for Jeremiah to make a mistake. She’d do what she needed to do in order to make TJ’s job easier. She wasn’t a former Special Forces soldier or a badass highway patrolman, but she was a mother. And if an opportunity arose when she could help, she would.
Following Jeremiah meekly and silently, she mentally pleaded, please be out there, TJ. For the sake of our son, please be out there somewhere.
Chapter 19
An hour and a half had gone by since TJ had been at The Sloppy Cow with his friends. Daxton had gone to the school long enough to scope it out to see if their hunch had been correct—it had—and then he’d returned to help put together a plan.
After planning their approach to Bexar and how things would go down, TJ had to stop at his apartment before he could finally head to the school. Too much time had passed. Time during which Jeremiah could be doing God knew what to the two people TJ loved most in the world. But he was too trained to go into a situation as dangerous as this without a solid plan.
He’d done as promised and called Chase as soon as they had a plan in place. The other man was nearly to San Antonio and had merely said he’d meet them at the school before hanging up.
Putting Chase out of his mind, knowing the others would brief the Army captain, TJ eased his Mustang into the small alcove he’d used when he’d done surveillance on the school months ago. The entrance off of the winding road was barely visible. He parked, making sure his car was completely out of sight of anyone driving by, and climbed out, all his thoughts centered on the task ahead. Cruz knew where he was going and what his plans were, and TJ knew he’d tell the others.
He opened the trunk and pulled out the sniper rifle he’d taken time to collect from his apartment. He’d bought the weapon after he’d gotten out of the academy. He hadn’t been sure why he’d felt the need to have it, and he’d only shot it once since he’d purchased it, but he had no doubt his skills were just as good today as they were when he’d been on the Delta Force team. They had to be.
TJ made sure the rifle was loaded even as he headed for the trees. He walked for a hundred feet then got down on his hands and knees for the last ten. He ducked under the scrub bushes that grew along the edge of the rise and settled on his stomach. He brought his rifle around and balanced on his elbows. He removed the cover to the scope and took a deep breath, completely in the zone.
It was pitch dark and almost eerily quiet. The only lights came from the school below him. But the night-vision scope on his rifle lit up the area as if it were two in the afternoon instead of two in the morning.
Daxton, Cruz, and Quint were driving down the dirt road that led to the school as he got settled.
Moving the scope to the building itself, TJ took a few moments to check it out. He saw two vehicles park
ed along the side of the main building. The rage threatened to overcome him, but TJ ruthlessly held it back. He had to keep himself calm in order to do what he had to do.
There was no sign of Jeremiah or Jonathan other than their cars, but TJ was patient. They’d most likely use their vehicles to get out of there eventually. They might have walked out when the school was raided, but TJ had a feeling today would be different. Maybe he was channeling Rey, or his Delta buddies were guiding him from the grave, but TJ knew that if he didn’t take Jeremiah Jones out today, he and Milena would have to continue to watch their backs.
TJ trusted the others—Daxton, Cruz, even Chase—to get Milena and JT out of the building safely. He trusted them as much as he did his former Delta Force team. They’d proven time and time again they were reliable and would do whatever it took to make sure their friends’ women were safe.
TJ’s job was to eliminate the threat once and for all.
A line of sweat beaded on his forehead and slowly slipped down his temple, but he didn’t even notice. The bush he was lying under tickled the back of his neck and the rocks under him dug into the skin of his elbows and belly, but TJ didn’t feel any of it.
He was in the killing zone. Jeremiah was going to die today. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
* * *
Milena felt sick. Jeremiah had walked her through the entire school, showing her what he’d created and telling her how much better the new school he was going to rebuild would be. It was deathly quiet and eerie. The dormitories where the girls were kept were heartbreaking. The cribs that had once held babies were empty, but the starkness of the room was startling. There weren’t any bright colors to stimulate tiny minds, no mobiles over the cribs. Nothing to indicate the babies were given any kind of love whatsoever.
The room for the littles was even more depressing. There were eight beds lined up in two rows of four. No dolls, no toys. Nothing but white sheets and gray walls. The shackles on the beds told their own story. Milena didn’t need Jeremiah’s explanation of how the girls had to be taught not to get up in the middle of the night and try to wander away.
