UnSub

by Kendra Greenwood

  Alyx gagged. She stomped her heel into the guy’s foot but it felt like concrete. She kicked him hard and struggled to swivel her body into position to get a shot at the brute, but he had her securely trapped in a bear hug. Stars erupted in her eyes as her knees gave way and she collapsed into a cloud of swirling darkness.

  Her last thought. Daniel. His warning blared in her dizziness. He’d been right. Something terrible. Wrong.

  * * *

  Daniel paced. He’d been doing a lot of pacing since he met the formerly fearless Alyx Cameron. Jack had told him to stay away from the club tonight, that he would be a distraction for Alyx. He’d agreed, but not for the reason Jack mentioned, but because the idea of another man touching her had his guts tied into a Gordian knot. Steve would be good to her, he knew that, and hopefully this whole ridiculous charade would be over soon and he could go back to his life with the just the normal craziness at the hospital. Lacey would forgive him. He’d already promised her he’d dismantle the rec room before she moved in. Now, she insisted she wanted it gone by the end of the week. Okay, he’d humor her. After spending time in there with Alyx he’d decided he’d never entertain another woman in there again anyway. Memories of her sprawled across the bondage bed, her wrists and ankles shackled to the corners gave him an instant hard-on. Not good. He loved Lacey, right? Alyx had been a momentary distraction and once the rec room was gone he could banish her ghost from these walls.

  Yet the thought of going back to his previous life left him with a twitchy pain in his chest. He’d probably have a myocardial infarction and be the laughingstock of the entire medical community. He pictured the front page of the local newspaper: Prominent Long Island Heart Surgeon Drops Dead of Heart Attack.

  She’d left two hours ago. He wished he’d seen how hot she looked in the fetish wear he’d bought her. Probably better that he hadn’t, he didn’t need any more images of her hotness branded into his cerebral cortex.

  The TV stared back at Daniel, some mindless sportscaster rattling off meaningless statistics. He tried to focus, but after about ten minutes, Fuck Jack, he thought. He couldn’t sit here waiting to see how it went. One drink at the club, he told himself, to reassure himself she was okay.

  Daniel parked in the lot of the St. Andrews club and had a long talk with himself. This was probably a bad idea. He should wait in the car until she came out. At least he was in the vicinity in case she needed him. Nobody expected the slavers to show up on the first night, so his anxiety was mostly over Steve scening with Alyx in public. Well, the private scening didn’t thrill him all that much either. Steve promised that he wouldn’t have intercourse with her, but if they both decided they wanted it, he couldn’t stop them. Hell, Alyx might really like Steve. Shit. He was a cop. Perhaps Daniel had intentionally blocked that tidbit of information out of his muddled brain.

  Jesus, his head hurt. He needed for this shit to be over. For real.

  Daniel sprang from the car, slammed the door shut, and headed for the front door. Sitting and doing nothing was definitely not his style. Zach gave him the customary “Bro Welcome” and he entered the teeming mass of overcharged human flesh grinding and writhing on the dance floor.

  As expected, Steve wasn’t at the bar, and Daniel clenched his teeth at the notion of what Steve was doing to Alyx upstairs. Jillian was tending bar and Daniel sat on a stool waiting for her to take his order.

  Jack rushed toward his office, Agent Scarborough, Steve and Colin right behind him. Daniel’s heart pounded, something had to be wrong. He followed them into Jack’s office. Scarborough yelled into his phone. “Fuck, Matt, how could it have happened this fast? And nobody saw a fucking thing other than that van high-tailing it out of the parking lot?” Matt said something, but Daniel couldn’t hear.

  “Who was on the back exits?” A silence as Matt answered. “What do you mean no one?”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. Fuck, Matt. Nothing’s in place. We didn’t even plant her tracking device.”

  Agent Scarborough shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, giving it a painful tug. “All right. Set up roadblocks over a five-mile perimeter and check every vehicle, even the trunks. They’ll probably do a heat run, so even if we get a bead on them they’re probably not heading directly for their home base. Alert everyone. Don’t fuck this up, Matt.” Scarborough pinched the bridge of his nose and struggled for a breath. “If we lose her, this could go to hell real fast.” He paused to listen to Matt’s comment before saying in a gritty whisper, “We can’t lose her, Matt. I’ll never be able to live with myself.” He pushed the call release button and his shoulders slumped. He threw his phone on Jack’s desk. “What a clusterfuck.”

  Agent Scarborough turned. Daniel stood in the doorway. “Oh geez. Daniel.” Rob dragged his hands down his face. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

  “I don’t need to sit down. Just tell me.”

  “Maybe I need to sit down.” Jack fell into the chair behind his desk. “It seems that Lisa was walking Alyx around the club, introducing her to people and showing her where the submissives sit to wait on their Doms. They hit the ladies room in the back and that’s the last we saw of them. The guys had to already be inside, because the emergency doors are all locked from the outside.”

  Jesus. The slavers had not only taken Alyx, but Jack’s sub, too? Both brunettes. Daniel addressed Steve. “You never got her upstairs?”

  “No,” Steve said, his voice barely perceptible. “I told her to wait for me in the pen, but when I went to find her she wasn’t there. We asked around and Lily said Alyx was with Lisa in the ladies’ room. When we couldn’t find them we checked the surveillance tapes outside all the exits and that’s when we saw it. Two guys grabbed them and threw them in a van.” Steve let out a massive sigh and dug his hands into the pockets of his black leather pants. “I’m sorry, buddy. I can’t believe I lost her in the first fucking hour.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Daniel shouted. “But wait, you said the guys were already inside? How could that be?”

  “Our guess is they’re new members, signed up to scout out the women,” Jack said.

  “Well, then you have their identities in your membership rolls, right?” Daniel held onto a glimmer of hope that they could find a lead quickly.

  Rob said, “It’s not likely they used their real identities, but we’ve secured the records and I have someone researching it now. It will take some time. Time I’m afraid we don’t have.”

  Daniel didn’t know what to do with himself. He needed to do something. Anything.

  “We’ve set up a perimeter search in a five-mile radius and we’re checking video footage in the area. Maybe we’ll get a hit on the vehicle leaving here,” Agent Scarborough offered.

  He’d worried all along that this might go badly for Alyx. He’d tried so hard to talk her out of this insane assignment but she wouldn’t listen to him. Daniel struggled to make sense of his feelings and finally deciphered what it was: despair.

  They’d never find her. The slavers had her, they’d sell her to some despicable sadist and she’d die at the end of a whip. His last meal gurgled in his stomach. He had to literally will himself not to throw up.

  His eyes fell to Agent Scarborough. “So, you fucked this up? You weren’t prepared for the possibility that she’d get picked up so fast?” Daniel fumed. “Son of a bitch.”

  “I never anticipated this, not in a million years,” Scarborough muttered. “I wasn’t even sure she’d get picked up. It was a long shot from the beginning. Our intel says they usually scout them out for a few days before they decide if they fit the profile. And they usually grab them on their way home, not in the club. This was a pretty ballsy move. They must be getting close to the auction and needed merchandise in a hurry.” He exhaled heavily. “I figure they must have sized her up Thursday night.”

  The stab of blame nearly dropped Daniel to his knees, his lungs seized in his chest. If he hadn’t insisted on bringing her to the club early this wou
ldn’t have happened. Shit, this was all his fault. “Jesus,” he exclaimed again. “And I was the one who forced her to come Thursday. If I hadn’t—”

  “Don’t.” Agent Scarborough put his hand up. “Don’t do this to yourself. The what ifs are a one-way trip to nowhere. Better we come up with a plan.”

  The four men stared at Daniel. His anger suddenly exploded and he kicked over the chair in front of Jack’s desk. He growled in anguish. Glaring at Scarborough, he asked, “So what are we going to do? I can’t just sit here waiting.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. Leave it to the professionals.”

  Daniel reached across the overturned chair and leveled a punch to Scarborough’s jaw. The FBI chief fell across the desk and knocked Jack off the chair. The two men slumped to the floor. “You’re not professionals. You’re idiots.” Steve and Colin grabbed Daniel by the arms and restrained him before he could further the assault.

  “Get him out of here before he hurts himself,” Scarborough yelled, getting to his feet. He reached down and offered a hand to Jack.

  “Daniel, go home,” Jack added. “We have to leave this to the FBI.”

  “Yeah, right,” Daniel said, shrugging off the two burly Doms holding him back.

  Colin and Steve escorted Daniel out to the parking lot through Jack’s private exit. “Come on, buddy. Calm down, they’ll find her,” Steve said.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down,” Daniel screamed. “They’re a bunch of incompetent assholes.”

  Steve didn’t respond and Daniel slowly made his way to his car. He faced the driver’s side door and leaned into it, resting his arms on the roof and his head on his forearms. He couldn’t go home.

  * * *

  Daniel pulled into the long familiar driveway. The home of his youth. It was late, but he didn’t care. Lights remained on upstairs and he rang the doorbell. He had a key but didn’t want to frighten his mother by just walking in. Tears welled in his eyes. Footsteps padded down the stairs and his mother’s soft brown eyes peeked through the side window.

  “Daniel!” She threw the door open wide. “What are you doing here at this time?” One look at his face and she said, “Oh, darling. What’s wrong?”

  For some reason, he couldn’t move and she tugged on his sleeve and pulled him inside. She led him by the hand into the living room and pushed him onto the over-stuffed white sofa, then sat beside him. “Tell me. What is it? Lacey?”

  “Mom, I—I don’t know where to begin. It’s Alyx. She’s been kidnapped.” His mother gasped and put her hand over her mouth. “You don’t know the whole story about how I met her. I need to tell you.” She settled both her hands on top of his, so lovingly as Daniel proceeded to explain how he’d come to meet the very special, Special Agent Alyx Cameron.

  After he finished his sordid tale his mother asked, “They have no idea where she is? No tracking device, nothing?”

  “No. Honestly, it happened so fast. They hadn’t anticipated her getting taken inside the club. The plan for tracking and surveillance was for when she left the club and at the place they arranged for her to live while undercover. And if I hadn’t insisted on taking her to the club on Thursday this never would have happened. Jesus, Mom, it’s all my fault.” Daniel dropped his head in his hands and sobbed.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” His mother wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and he let his head fall onto her shoulder. “I’ve never seen you cry, darling. Not since you were a baby.” She held him tightly for a few minutes longer and then released him. “Daniel, beating yourself up about this won’t help. In my experience, regret and guilt are never productive. They only hold you back from taking action.”

  “I know. That’s what Agent Scarborough said.”

  “They’ll figure it out. What is the plan?”

  “I don’t know. I was so disgusted with the whole situation I left them to do whatever FBI shit they do.” He dug his elbows into his thighs and pressed his lips into his clasped hands. He paused for a minute, gathering his apology. “Mom, I’m sorry about revealing my involvement in the BDSM stuff. It’s not something I ever wanted to share with you.”

  “Daniel, please. I’ve been a psychiatrist for over thirty years. Believe me, I’ve heard it all. You’d be surprised that the behaviors some label aberrant actually fall within normal psychological parameters. Men will be men. Women will be women. We’re all just human.”

  They sat together in silence for a moment and then his mother held his chin in her hands and forced him to meet her gaze. “You care for her.” It was a statement, not a question. “I could tell the other night. I’ve never seen you enjoy the company of a woman so much. She made you laugh. You don’t laugh enough, Daniel. You never did. You were always such a serious child, so rigid, so solitary. It was like you were alone even when you were in a crowd.”

  Daniel peered into his mother’s loving face, the tears wet on his cheeks. “I think I’ve lost my one real chance at happiness, Mom. I screwed up. I should have stopped her. Made her listen to reason.”

  “What about Lacey?”

  “She showed up unexpectedly and Alyx was still at my house. Needless to say, she was furious, and rightly so. I never meant to hurt her. When I offered to do this with Alyx I didn’t think of it as cheating, and I thought Alyx would be gone and what Lacey didn’t know wouldn’t matter. I know that’s unacceptable and an insult to both Lacey and Alyx. On the other hand, if I hadn’t agreed to this ridiculous proposal I’d never have met Alyx and known what it felt like to be this crazy in love. I do love her, Mom. I never felt this way about Lacey.”

  “Daniel,” his mother said, her voice stern, her gaze leveled at him. “You’ll work things out. Honestly, I was never convinced that Lacey was for you.” She squeezed his hands affectionately.

  “What if they don’t find her in time? The thought of what they might be doing to her is ripping my guts out. If they kill her I’ll go insane. Why didn’t I stop her? I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Placing her warm hands on either side of his head, she looked at him lovingly. “You know full well that you couldn’t keep Alyx from doing what she wanted. Don’t beat yourself up over your inability to keep her safe. Now, let’s think logically. She’s a trained professional. She’s strong and smart. Have faith in her to find her way back to you.”

  Guilt about bringing her to the club early was compounded by the fact that he might’ve seriously compromised the fearless Alyx Cameron by forcing her to admit she could be afraid. Maybe he’d made her an emotional cripple, having left her former fearlessness in his bedroom. Now she might be too afraid to fight her way back, to battle her way out of this dangerous and horrible plight. “Honestly, Mom, I don’t even know if she feels the same way about me.”

  “Trust me, darling, she does, even if she hasn’t admitted it to herself yet.”

  * * *

  Alyx’s head bumped against the metal sidewall of the van as it traveled along the unpaved road. A sickening sweet smell filled her nostrils and a wave of nausea roiled her stomach. Her head pounded, and the metallic tang of blood stung the inside of her lips. That bastard had squeezed her mouth so tight she’d split her bottom lip open—again. She reached for her face but her hand was tethered to the floor. Damn. Again. This was about the tenth time she’d been shackled this week, although this time wasn’t a game. She’d wind up dead. Seriously. Dead. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest as the realization she’d been kidnapped settled in her psyche. She struggled to sit up but her ankles were also chained. The night was dark and the van seemed to be heading down an isolated road, no streetlights whatsoever, and there wasn’t even moonlight.

  Someone wailed. She moved her hand across the floor a few inches and felt an arm. Lisa. They’d been in the bathroom when two men put a cloth over their mouths and she’d lost consciousness. She’d been off her guard, too worried over scening with Steve and never expecting the slavers to show up in the first fifteen minutes of her undercover assignment. No
one had figured it’d happen this fast and definitely not inside the club. Nothing was in place. They’d barely set up perimeter surveillance. Hadn’t planted her tracking device. What a mess. She had to think. But no time. Lisa whimpered again. Alyx leaned over as close as possible, keeping her voice low. “Lisa, Lisa, wake up, girl.”

  Lisa moaned louder. “Fuck.”

  “S…shush, Lisa, listen to me. The slavers have us in the back of a van and we have to work on a plan for escape.”

  “What the—? How the hell? Don’t you FBI guys know what the fuck you’re doing?”

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to tell you not to worry but I’d be lying. I’m afraid we’re on our own.”

  “I think I just got religion,” she said, followed by a little sob.

  “I’ll figure out how to get us out of here. You’re going to have to trust me. If I tell you to do something, do it without question.”

  “I may be a submissive but don’t expect me to say ‘yes, ma’am’ or any of that shit. So, you got a plan?”

  Alyx was impressed with Lisa’s feistiness. If she’d been the sniveling, shy type, it would have made this situation all the worse. “No. No plan. This is going to have to be a figure-it-out-as-you-go thing.”

  “Great. That gives me tremendous confidence, thanks a million.”

  “My guess is that whatever we do, it will have to be fast and bold. They’ll probably have us secured pretty quickly and once that happens it might be impossible to get free. Follow my lead. By the way, are you injured? You might need to run, and I mean move your ass.”

  “I think I’m fine, a bit of a headache from whatever crap they used to knock us out.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  The van came to an abrupt stop and Alyx held her breath. She thought back to Daniel’s spanking intervention last night. The asshole. Well, he’d be pleased to know that she was fucking terrified and if she ever saw the bastard again, she’d have no problem telling him so. And that would drive her to get herself and Lisa out of this situation in one piece. She’d be elated to tell him exactly how terrified she was. Hell, she might spank him.