Rogue Trilogy: Parts 1 - 3
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A few people blinked in surprise at the gunshot and ducked for cover as the vehicle sped away. Ignoring the bystanders, Abby spared a glance for the shopping bags that had been dropped on the sidewalk. The mess could have been a symbol of their lives. Chaos had returned and their short interlude of happiness had been destroyed.
She watched the van recede for a few moments so the driver wouldn’t think that she was pursuing him. She didn’t want to put Ryan in any more danger than he was already facing. When it was almost out of sight, she ran for her jeep. She didn’t know who the assailants were, but they’d just made the worst mistake of their lives. They’d signed their own death warrants by kidnapping the boyfriend of the only surviving Black Squad member.
A grim smile touched Abby’s mouth as she hastened towards the lake house. One detail that she’d kept from Ryan was that she hadn’t just been a member of the Black Squad, she’d been the team leader. No one could evade her once she was on their trail. Sooner or later, she’d find the kidnappers and she would get her lover back. Her smile faded as she wondered what kind of shape Ryan would be in when she saw him next.
Whoever had ordered him to be captured was going to pay dearly. The deaths that she would have to mete out would be on his kidnapper’s hands, but she would suffer as well. Her soul was already irreparably stained, but it was about to become far darker.
Abby had tried to put this kind of life behind her, but it seemed that it was her fate to be caught up in death. Every time she killed, it felt like a part of her was dying. She had a feeling she was going to have to erase a lot of people to get Ryan back. She’d come close to losing her mind when she’d murdered her team members. If she had to kill multiple people again, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to recover from the trauma.
Knowing what it could cost her didn’t change anything. Ryan had saved her from his bandits and now it was her turn to save him. Abby wasn’t going to turn her back and walk away. She would track him down and rescue him, even if it meant that she would end up losing her sanity in the process.
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Rogue Rescue
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Chapter One
Ryan left the small grocery store and paused when he spied Abby in the café across the street. Her beauty made her stand out from the crowd and tended to draw stares whenever they visited the tiny town. She wore her long, dark brown hair up in a ponytail today. Her clothes were casual and would have been unremarkable if her jeans hadn’t been quite so tight and the sleeveless red shirt hadn’t dipped down low enough to reveal her cleavage.
His eyes dropped to the golden lioness that nestled between her breasts. He’d given the pendant to her in Brazil as a memento of their brief yet memorable time together. Her short holiday had turned into sweet torture for them both when he’d been forced to hold her captive for several nights.
She’d allowed him to strip her down and to pretend to use her body when she’d barely even known him. He hadn’t known that she’d enjoyed the farce almost as much as he had at the time. Only later did he become aware of just how pleasurable it had been for her as well. Thinking about the things he’d done to her made him want to race back to their lake house hideaway and tear her clothes off again. As if reading his mind, her eyes met his and she smiled. It was slightly wicked and hinted that she was having similar thoughts to him.
Staring at Abby like an infatuated teen, he didn’t react with his usual speed when he caught a blur of movement from the corner of his eye. He was torn out of his daydream when a black van screeched to a halt right in front of him.
Dropping the grocery bags, Ryan reached for his gun as the door slid open. A man in a black balaclava knelt in the opening. Two more men were behind him, ready to spring into action. Expecting to be gunned down by a barrage of bullets, he was instead shot with a Taser. Two small prongs hit him in the chest and electricity surged through him. Dropping his gun, he went down to his knees, but he was scooped up by two of the men and was tossed into the back of the van before he could sprawl on his face. The third man slammed the door shut then the driver hit the accelerator and they took off with another screech of tires.
Incapacitated by the volts that had just coursed through him, Ryan couldn’t resist when his hands were pulled behind his back. His body still jerked in the aftermath of being electrocuted as cool metal handcuffs were snapped around his wrists. His feet were kicked together and were then bound with strong plastic ties. One of the men gagged him and pulled a cloth bag over his head. It both muffled all sound and shut off his sight.
Ryan battled through the fog of pain, trying to figure out who had just kidnapped him. Two people came to mind; Trevor Watts or Diego Montoya. Watts was his former boss and he was less than happy with Ryan for walking away from the job. Montoya was just as likely a culprit. He was the reason why Ryan had walked away from his career as an agent in the first place.
“Call the boss and let him know that the package has been secured,” the driver called back over his shoulder. He spoke in Portuguese, which answered the burning question of who was behind the kidnapping.
Ryan was far from relieved to discover that the man he’d spent a full year hunting down had turned the tables and had sent a team after him. There was little doubt about what Montoya had planned for him. Ryan’s death would be slow and extremely painful. His only consolation was that they hadn’t taken Abby as well. If she’d been by his side when Montoya’s men had grabbed him, she’d have suffered the same fate as he eventually would.
He smiled grimly behind the hood. From what he knew of his still relatively new girlfriend, Abigail wouldn’t stand idly by and allow him to be snatched without retaliating. She’d search the Earth for him and there was a good chance that she would kill anyone who stood in her way. He’d have done the same if their situations had been reversed. They’d only been dating for a month, but he knew she cared about him. He wasn’t sure if it was love or just lust on her part. His feelings for her were suddenly crystal clear. He’d fallen in love with her when he’d taken her captive in Rio de Janeiro.
As instructed, one of the men in the back of the van called their boss. “We have him, sir.” There was a short silence while he received instructions. “Yes, sir. We’re heading there right now and we should be there in three hours.”
Ryan wracked his brain as he tried to figure out where they could possibly take him in that short length of time. Washington was a five hour drive away, so that couldn’t be their destination. Lying on his side with the bag over his head, there was no chance of catching a peek through the windows. He couldn’t even tell what direction they were heading in. It was frustrating, but he just had to lie there for now.
While he was bound, he wasn’t weaponless. Ryan always carried a knife in his right boot as a backup weapon. He’d be able to slip it free even with his hands cuffed behind his back, but it would be useless to do so while the three thugs were surrounding him.
The van slowed down and came to a stop at roughly the three hour mark, just as the thug had advised. The driver exchanged a few words with someone and he assumed that a bribe was handed over. They spoke too low for Ryan to hear them, but he recognized a deal being made from their tone alone. After the short conversation, the van lurched forward and they drove for a short distance before stopping again.
“Watch him,” the driver instructed the men in the back then opened his door.
Gagged, bound and hooded, Ryan waited in an agony of suspense until a jet engine came to life somewhere nearby. He’d been taken to what was most likely a private airstrip and he would shortly be flown to Brazil to meet the justice of a drug lord and multiple murderer.
If Abby was coming after him, he hoped she would exercise caution. She’d dealt with her fair share of bad guys, but Diego Montoya had a personal grudge against him. He would make Ryan pay before he took his life. He could almost feel the knives sliding into his flesh already.
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Chapter Two
Abby saw Ryan emerge from the small grocery store and couldn’t help but smile when their eyes met. He’d had black hair and brown eyes the first time she’d seen him, but he’d reverted to his natural blond hair and blue eyes now. The lighter colors suited his sun-bronzed skin. He wore khaki trousers, a white T-shirt and a light tan jacket to hide his gun. Anyone with any training would be able to make out the bulge beneath his left arm where his holster sat. Most people weren’t that observant. Her clothes were far too tight to be able to wear a holster so she’d stashed her gun in her handbag.
After spending most of her adulthood single except for the occasional one night stand, it was still hard for her to believe that she was in a steady relationship. She’d had to wait for a long time to meet a man that she was compatible with in every way. It had been well worth the wait. Ryan was strong, handsome and incredibly sexy. He had a toned, beautifully sculpted body that made her tremble every time he put his hands on her.
Her daydream of stripping his clothes off and having her way with him evaporated when a black van screeched to a halt and cut him off from her view. It was lunchtime on Saturday and the café was crowded. Abby pushed her way through the throng, ignoring the girl who shouted after her that her order was ready.
She reached inside her purse, grabbed her gun and ejected the clip as she burst out through the door. The van was already speeding away and the windows were too dark to see through. Inserting a new magazine into the gun, she aimed for the bumper and fired. The gun went back into her bag even as the townspeople ducked and screamed in alarm.
Leaving the groceries lying on the sidewalk, Abby picked up Ryan’s gun and ran for her jeep. She was relieved not to see any signs of blood and assumed he’d been incapacitated by a tranquilizer or a Taser. Whoever had taken him wanted him alive and in good health.
She ignored the speed limit as she raced back to the lake house. She was tempted to smash through the gate rather than to take the time to stop and unlock it. Since the gate could be seen from the road, she stopped long enough to open it. She didn’t want to draw the attention of a passing police officer. She and Ryan could handle their own problems in their own way and it didn’t involve getting the law involved.
Abby left the gate open, since she’d be returning in a few minutes and sped the rest of the way down the long dirt driveway. Parking beside the rustic house, she let herself in and ran to the bedroom that she shared with Ryan. She didn’t allow panic to take over as she pulled a black backpack out from beneath the bed. Rummaging around inside it, she picked out a small black monitor that could easily fit into her purse and turned it on.
A red dot appeared on the digital screen that was about the size of her palm. The dot was heading north and would shortly disappear. The van would become much harder to track if she didn’t get a move on. The bullet that she’d fired at the van had a small magnetic tracking device in it and it would lead her directly to Ryan as long as she didn’t fall too far behind.
Taking a few more moments to pack a bag, Abby locked the house and drove back down the driveway. She locked the gate then sped off down the highway in pursuit of Ryan and his doomed kidnappers. They’d made the biggest mistake of their lives by taking the boyfriend of the one and only remaining Black Squad member.
Abby sped up until she was just a few miles behind the van then followed it at a safe distance. She was careful not to get close enough to show up in its rearview mirror. The red dot on the monitor indicated that it was still steadily heading north. Tension worked its way into her shoulders when the dot stopped moving three hours later.
Spotting a private airfield ahead, she saw a small jet taking off and knew with utter certainty that Ryan was on board. She’d only been a short distance behind the van, but she’d missed her opportunity to rescue him.
A security guard walked the perimeter of the airfield and another one was stationed at the gate. Both stared at her suspiciously as she slowly drove past. Abby was tempted to pull over and torture one of them for information, but decided it would be a waste of time. It was highly doubtful that they’d know where the jet was going. They were paid to keep people out, not to monitor flight information.
The tracker that she’d fired at the van had brought her this far, but it couldn’t help her now. The van was presumably hidden inside one of the buildings on the property and it would be another waste of time to try to retrieve the device. Abby switched off the monitor and dropped it into her purse. She didn’t know all of Ryan’s secrets yet, but she was well aware of the two men who were his greatest enemies. His old boss, Trevor Watts, or Diego Montoya, the man who had murdered Ryan’s wife, had to be behind this snatch and grab operation.
Weighing up her options, Abby took the next exit and headed towards Washington. She knew exactly where to find one of the men that was on her list. If Watts wasn’t the culprit, he might be able to help her narrow down her search for Montoya. She wasn’t going to give him a choice about aiding her. He would help her or he would die.
It was late afternoon when she parked two blocks away from the building that she and Ryan had briefly been held prisoner in a month ago. It looked like an ordinary office building on the outside and blended into the other buildings seamlessly. In actuality, it housed a clandestine agency that did the dirty work of the government. Ryan’s old unit hadn’t had an official name, they’d simply called it the SOB, which was short for Special Ops Branch.
The last time they’d been here, they’d used a keycard to exit the place. The keycard that Ryan had stolen from Agent Swift would have been deactivated long ago and he’d tossed out the window as they’d fled anyway. Her only option was to walk in through the front door and announce her presence, but doing so could very well get her killed. It was a risk that she was willing to take, which told her just how strongly she cared for Ryan. She wouldn’t have risked her life for any other human being on the planet. He was the only man to have pierced her walls and to have worked his way not just into her bed, but also into her heart.
Abby expected alarms to go off as soon as she stepped through the door and she wasn’t disappointed. Cameras tracked her as she took a few steps inside. The security system flagged her as being dangerous and sent an alert to the security guard at the reception desk. He pulled his weapon and shouted for her to put her hands in the air and to get down on the ground.
Ignoring the order, Abby looked up at the closest camera, knowing that the boss of the agency would be watching her. “I need to speak to Trevor Watts about Ryan Sheldon,” she shouted over the noise of the alarm as more uniformed guards emerged from the elevator.
The guard at the desk picked up the phone when it rang a few seconds later. He pressed a button to shut off the alarm and quiet descended. Five men ringed Abby and all had their handguns trained on either her head or her body. None dared to come close enough to attempt to disarm her. They didn’t know who she was, they only knew that she was to be considered as highly dangerous.
“Yes, sir,” the security guard said into the phone then pointed at the elevator. “Mr. Watts has agreed to see you. Relinquish your weapons and you’ll be escorted to him.”
Abby had little choice but to comply. She handed over her handbag then removed several knives that she’d secreted on her body. The elevator would no doubt have the ability to scan her for weapons and she didn’t want to chance anyone thinking she was here to assassinate their boss. She didn’t need weapons to pull that off, of course, but they would feel safer if she stepped into the metal box unarmed.
The five men crowded around her with their guns still aiming for her vital organs as Abby put her hands up and stepped into the elevator. She was about to find out if Watts was behind Ryan’s kidnapping or if Montoya was to blame. Either way, she wouldn’t be leaving the building until she had the information that she needed. They’d managed to find Diego once and, if he was the culprit, they’d know how to find him again.
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Chapter Three
He knew that Abby had most likely been close behind the van when the jet had taken off. He’d heard the thud of her tracker hitting the bumper just after it had driven away from the grocery store. She’d be anguished to watch the jet flying away, heading for a destination unknown. With her training, she would find a way to find him, but it would take time, time that he might not have.
He heard three of his kidnappers take seats in the rows nearby. The fourth thug sat beside him to keep a close watch on their captive. So far, he’d only sustained a few bruises from being manhandled onto the van and then the jet. His captors had been ordered to bring him safely to wherever Diego Montoya was, which was most likely somewhere in Brazil. The real fun would begin after he landed and he was brought before their boss.
During the long, tense flight, Ryan had plenty of time to think about his life and the mistakes that he’d made. His greatest lapse of judgment had been to leave the army and to become an undercover agent for the SOB. He gave a silent laugh at the acronym that was so apt. Some of his coworkers had been sons of bitches, especially Aaron Swift, his superior.