Show of Force

by Elle James

  Riley couldn’t tell who he was, nor did she recognize his voice. She could sense the danger in the way he walked and tapped a metal rod against the palm of his hand.

  He hit a switch on the metal rod and touched it to her bare skin.

  A jolt of electricity blasted through her.

  Riley screamed, the pain so blinding it nearly made her pass out. She dragged in a breath, fighting to remain calm. “Where is my brother?”

  The man tapped the wand against his palm again. “You will never see your brother again.”

  “Like hell I won’t.” Riley jerked against her bindings. She planted her feet against the floor and tried to rise, chair and all.

  A strong hand clamped down on her shoulder, forcing her to see sit down.

  “Charlotte Halverson lives.” The man paced in front of her. “Your job was to kill her. Because you did not fulfill your duties, your brother is lost to you forever.”

  Riley sat silently, anger burning deep inside. She refused to believe she would never see Toby again. If it were the last thing she ever did, she’d find her brother and kill the people who stole him from her.

  “Do you know what we do with agents who are not loyal to the mother country?” He smiled, his lips parting in a feral grin. “Some would think that we would kill the agent.” The man snorted. “That would be too easy. We do not waste years of training without first attempting to re-assimilate the protégé back into the fold.”

  He paced several steps in front of her, turned and paced back the way he had come, all the while tapping the rod against his palm.

  Riley tried to memorize the contours of the man’s face and commit them to her memory for when she would track him down and kill him. But after a few minutes of watching him pace, she shifted to the rod in his hand, knowing what pain it could inflict.

  The man in black stopped in front of her and barked out, “Who do you work for?”

  Riley bit down hard on her tongue to keep from answering.

  The wand shot out and bit into her arm, sending a shock of electricity through her body.

  Riley clamped her jaw tight, refusing to even whimper, though the pain was excruciating.

  His eyes narrowing, the man in the fedora leaned closer, his fetid breath making Riley gag. “You will learn the proper response to that question.” He raised the wand again.

  Riley dug her feet into the concrete floor, jerked forward and rammed her head into the man’s chest, knocking him backward several feet.

  The fedora remained in place even though the man staggered, tripped and fell, landing hard on his backside.

  Again, a hand clamped on her shoulder, shoving her back in her seat and the chair legs back to the floor.

  She landed with a jolt that rattled her teeth.

  Once the man on the floor rose, he hit her again with the electric prod.

  Electricity shot through her entire body.

  He held the prod against her arm so long the pain caused her system to shut down. Darkness became her friend.

  * * *

  MINUTES, MAYBE HOURS later, Riley awoke to someone tugging at the tape on her wrists.

  When she opened her eyes, Riley stared into the eyes of Margaret Weems, her nanny.

  “You won’t have much time,” the woman said.

  “Margaret?” Riley blinked and stared around the room. “Why...how did you find me?”

  “I can’t explain now,” she said. “Toby is in a room down the hall. You have to leave now, before they come back.”

  “Before who comes back?” Riley shook her head. Then the images she’d thought were just a nightmare came back to her. “You need to get out of here. Go,” she insisted. “If they catch you, they’ll torture you.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” She cut away at the tape on Riley’s right wrist, freeing her hand from the chair. Then she rounded to the other side and slipped the blade of a knife beneath the other band of duct tape and ripped through it as well.

  Riley rose from the chair and peeled the rest of the tape from her wrists, taking a layer of skin with it.

  “You have to hurry,” Margaret urged. “They will be back soon.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.” Riley hooked the woman’s arm and half dragged her toward the door.

  Margaret set her feet into the concrete and yanked her arm free of Riley’s hold. “Go without me. I will only slow down you and Toby.”

  “But they will kill you.”

  “My job here is done.” Margaret stepped backward. “It is time for you to make your own decisions about who you are and what you believe in.”

  Riley shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

  “I was there when you were born. I worked alongside your parents when you got your training.” She lifted her chin. “I knew what they had planned for you, yet I still didn’t stop it from happening. It was my job to protect you and your brother until such a time when they would call you to duty.”

  “What are you talking about?” Riley stared at the woman as if for the first time. She’d known Margaret all her life. The woman was like the grandmother she never had. Riley trusted her with her life, and more importantly, Toby’s life.

  Margaret’s gaze shot toward the door. “You need to leave now.”

  “You need to come with me,” Riley said.

  “No,” she said, “my job is done. They will hunt me down for releasing you.” She shook her head, the lines around her eyes and mouth seeming so much deeper. “I don’t have the strength to run.”

  Riley’s chest squeezed tightly. “I don’t know what you’ve done, or what role you played in kidnapping my brother. But I won’t let them hurt you.”

  Margaret held up her hand with a small pill pinched between her fingers. “They won’t hurt me,” she said with a smile, and slipped the pill beneath her tongue.

  Riley leaped toward the woman, but she was too late.

  Margaret dropped to her knees and slumped to the floor. She coughed twice, and foam bubbled from her mouth.

  “Holy hell, Margaret.” Riley knelt beside her. “Spit it out.”

  Margaret shook her head and raised her hand. “Take my ring.”

  “No, Margaret, you wear it.” Riley held the woman’s hand and stared down into her eyes.

  Margaret coughed again. “Take the ring. It has meaning. Find it, and you will know what to do.” Her last words faded into silence, and all tension left her body.

  Riley pressed her fingers to the base of Margaret’s throat, searching for a pulse. There was none. Her nanny, and her old friend, was dead.

  As she released Margaret’s hand, she felt the cool metal of the ring Margaret had wanted her to take. She recognized it as one Margaret had always worn on her right hand. It was made of yellow gold, white gold and rose gold bands twisted together. The ring had seemed very important to Margaret. What she meant about finding the meaning of the ring made no sense to Riley. She didn’t have time to work through the riddle. Instead, she slipped it from Margaret’s finger and pushed it into the pocket of her jeans.

  The sound of footsteps alerted her to people moving in the hallway outside the door.

  Riley dived behind the door as it opened.

  A large man dressed in black, wearing a black ski mask, stepped into the room and nearly tripped over Margaret’s body. As he bent toward the woman on the floor, Riley balled both fists together and hit the man in the side of the head as hard as she could.

  The big man fell over on his side.

  Before he could rise, Riley kicked him in the face, breaking his nose.

  The man yelled, his eyes teared, and he grabbed his face and hunched over.

  Riley dived past him into the hallway. She didn’t know which door hid Toby, but she vowed to find him and free him before these monsters tortured
him as well.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You should be within a block of the building where she’s being held,” Jonah’s voice said from the speaker on Mack’s cell phone.

  “Mack?” a female voice came across. “This is Grace.”

  He recognized Grace’s voice. “Where’s Declan?” Mack asked.

  “He’s on his way,” Grace said. “He has Gus, Mustang and Snow with him.”

  “What’s his ETA?” Mack asked as he pulled Riley’s car over to the side of the road.

  “They should be right behind you,” Jonah answered. “I have them up on the GPS as well.” Jonah gave him the address of the building in which he’d find Riley.

  Committing the name and numbers to memory, Mack turned to see headlights heading his way. His grabbed his cell phone, switched it to silent and waited for the other members of his team to climb out of Declan’s truck.

  Declan hurried toward him, carrying a handgun in one hand and a heavy flashlight in the other.

  “Who’s guarding Charlie?” Mack asked.

  “Seems since the cat was out of the bag, she’d be safer at her own house,” Declan said. “Cole and Mustang sneaked her out of the hospital on a gurney and into the back of a laundry truck. They got her back to her house and its state-of-the-art security system. Cole and Jonah are with her. We thought you might need a little help here.”

  Mack nodded. “I’m guessing there were at least two guys who jumped us. There might be more where we’re heading.” His fists clenched. “Those two guys should never have surprised me like that.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Declan said. “The main focus now is finding Riley and getting her and her brother back.”

  “Agreed. Let’s do this.” Mack took the lead, determined to find Riley and end the threat to her and her brother.

  Declan, Mustang, Snow and Gus fell in behind him. Their training as Force Recon marines kicked in and they moved from shadow to shadow, closing in on what appeared to be an abandoned building that might have been a small factory or machine shop.

  When they came within spitting distance, Mack held up his fist.

  The team stopped in place. Declan moved up in line with Mack.

  “See the broken window near the right corner of the rear of the building?” Mack pointed. The window was high enough off the ground that they wouldn’t be able to just look inside.

  Declan nodded. “I’ll give you a boost so you can make a quick assessment.”

  Mustang and Gus split off and circled to the other side of the building. Snow provided cover should someone discover Mack and Declan while they were exposed, attempting to get a look inside.

  Mack checked left and then right before he ran for the building. Declan ran with him. As soon as they reached the wall below the broken window, Declan bent over. Mack stepped up on his back and pulled himself up to the window.

  Inside the structure was old machinery covered in dust and dirt. The place looked like it hadn’t been occupied for at least ten, maybe fifteen years. What was unusual was that in a far corner there was a dull light over a doorway. Mack would have assumed all electricity had long since been shut off.

  Mack dropped back to the ground.

  “See anyone?” Declan asked.

  “No.”

  Moments later, Gus and Mustang returned from their reconnaissance of the rest of the outside of the building.

  “There are three entrances,” Mustang said. “One is on the front of the building. It’s a huge double door that has been boarded up. There’s a side door that was probably used for employee entrance and a loading dock at the rear.”

  “Which entrance do you suggest?” Mack asked.

  “The rear dock,” Gus reported.

  “Did you see any guards posted?”

  Gus shook his head. “Not one.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel confident,” Mack said. “They could be lying in wait in the shadows. We’ll have to be careful breaching the building.”

  The men set off, following the shadowy exterior of the neighboring building until they reached the back corner of the old manufacturing business.

  Then, one by one, they ran across to the loading dock.

  Mack found a door near the truck loading area. The door wasn’t locked, nor was it dusty like the rest of the interior appeared. He twisted the knob slowly and eased the door open.

  Inside and to the left was a chair with a guard seated in it, his head tipped back, resting against the wall. The man was half asleep, if not completely out. And he had a military-grade rifle lying across his lap.

  Mack eased up to him, grabbed the rifle and hit him in the head with the butt of his own weapon.

  The man slumped over and fell to the floor.

  Declan pulled zip ties out of his back pocket, then secured the guard’s wrists and ankles and slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

  “Where’d you get the tape?” Mack asked.

  Declan chuckled softly. “I always bring a little bit in my pocket. It can fix anything.”

  They checked the immediate vicinity for more guards but didn’t find any. Declan waved the other two men into the building and they spread out, searching the main floor for offices or rooms in which they might have hidden Riley and Toby.

  They came up empty as they worked their way past large rusting machinery to the other end of the building and the door with the light glowing over it.

  Mack reached the door first and stepped through, holding his pistol in front of him. The door was a stairwell leading downward into a basement. The dirty yellow light was barely bright enough to illuminate the stairs. Mack tiptoed downward into the bowels of the building. Near the bottom of the staircase were two guards standing on either side of a broad hallway.

  They didn’t see Mack coming because they were looking down the hallway.

  Footsteps sounded on the filthy concrete floors.

  Mack’s attention turned to what the two men were staring at.

  A figure ran into one of the rooms off the hallway.

  The men spoke to each other in Russian. One of them left his post and ran after the figure.

  Mack slipped up behind the other man and grabbed him around the throat in a headlock. He squeezed hard, cutting off the man’s air. He held him tightly in a stranglehold.

  The man was large but unable to break free of Mack’s grip. Soon, he went limp from lack of oxygen. Once again, Declan pulled out the zip ties and secured the man’s wrists and ankles. Then he pressed duct tape over his mouth and dragged him into an empty room to the man’s left. Already, the guy had regained consciousness and was fighting mad, making grunting noises in an attempt to capture the attention of other members of his group in the building.

  Mack didn’t wait for Declan and the others. He figured they didn’t have much time before others discovered they were there. They had to find Riley and Toby soon.

  The sound of a struggle drew Mack’s attention. The figure that had disappeared into the room down the hallway had been smaller, not bulky like the guards. The thought that it might be Riley had him running down the hallway.

  Another door burst open in front of him and three burly men dressed in black barreled through. A shout went out from the lead man.

  Mack didn’t have time to do more than react. He ducked low and plowed into the first guy, hitting him square in the gut, sending him flying backward into one of the others. The two men fell in a heap on the floor and scrambled to untangle themselves.

  The third man stepped aside, letting his comrades crash without taking him down with them. He threw a meaty fist toward Mack.

  Mack twisted sideways.

  The fist missed his face and rammed into his shoulder, jerking him around.

  Mack staggered backward, righted himself and went after the man.

&nbs
p; A gun appeared in the man’s hand.

  Adrenaline firing through his veins, Mack didn’t slow. He sent a side kick into his wrist. The gun went off before it flew from the man’s hand and hit the floor, skittering out of reach.

  The bullet hit the wall beside Mack.

  He didn’t care. As long as he could keep moving, he would.

  Sounds of struggles and a muffled scream came from the doorway down the hall. Riley needed him. He was certain. One man in the way wouldn’t keep Mack from reaching her.

  He swung his fist, catching the man in the chin, sending him slamming back against the wall behind him.

  Gunfire went off behind him, but Mack couldn’t shift his attention from the man in front of him. Cocking his leg, he shot a powerful kick into the man’s thigh.

  The distinct sound of a bone snapping echoed off the concrete block walls. Mack’s opponent dropped to the floor.

  Declan was there with zip ties to keep the man immobile.

  Together they secured the other two men and all their weapons.

  With the acrid scent of gunpowder still stinging Mack’s nostrils, he jogged toward the doorway where the guard had followed the slim figure inside.

  Grunts and thumps sounded from within.

  “Leave my brother alone,” Riley’s voice sounded.

  His heart racing, Mack pushed through the door to find Riley in the clutches of one man, while another held Toby around the waist like a quarterback carrying a football.

  The boy kicked and fought as hard as his little body could. “Let go of my sister!” he yelled.

  Mack started for Riley but stopped short when he noticed the gun in her captor’s hand. The gun was pressed to Riley’s temple.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Riley said. “Help Toby.”

  “Move and I put a bullet through her head,” said her captor, a large man with shaggy black hair and a rugged, pockmarked face. “And when she’s dead, I’ll kill the kid.”

  Riley stiffened, her fade hardening into a mask. She looked to Mack. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she gave the briefest of nods. Then she jabbed her elbow into the man’s ribs and ducked out of his grip. The gun went off.