Collar (Changing Roles Book 3)

by Ellie Masters

  That was the tenth time he’d said that. I didn’t even bother replying. Frankly, Pete’s optimism had fried my last nerve minutes ago.

  My cell phone, now fully recharged, buzzed. It was Mitzy. I hoped she’d found something. My voice sounded much more tired than I felt. I’d been waiting for her call. “What have you found?”

  “Good news and bad news.”

  Kevin exited the elevators and searched the room for me. Our gazes met, and his grim expression matched mine. I waved him over to join me.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Kevin is joining me. I want him to hear this.”

  I walked to where Thomas sat deep in conversation with a man huddled over a laptop. Pete rose from his seated position and followed me.

  “I’m putting you on speakerphone.”

  “Perfect. It will keep me from having to repeat myself. I’m conferencing in your technical team. Hang on.” A moment passed while she made the connection. “Okay, I think we’re all in on the call now. If you want to make your way to your team, you’ll be able to see the feed I’m sending.”

  “The feed?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “I was able to track the van on the traffic cams.”

  My heart sped up. “You found the van?”

  “That’s what I just said.” Her tone thickened with exasperation. “That’s the good news.”

  I gestured for everyone to follow as I headed to the security booth. “Tell me,” I growled.

  “I was able to track the van via the traffic feeds out of the parking lot and through town, but that’s the problem. The van left the city and moved beyond the coverage area of the cameras. I can tell you the last road it was traveling on, but I can’t tell you where it stopped. That’s the bad news part.”

  We made it to the security booth and crowded inside with the four-man team working on the feed.

  Mitch Gilmore glanced up at our arrival. “Damn, this girl is good. We’re still working on their outer firewalls. She made it all the way in.”

  Her voice cracked over the speaker of my cell phone. “Do you think this is going to help? Is boss lady going to be okay?”

  “Hey, Mitzy. This is great work,” said Mitch.

  I tried to soothe her. “Mitzy, this is absolutely astounding. It’s going to help us find her.” At least I hoped so.

  Her voice steadied with a clearing of her throat. “Do you have the feed up?”

  “Yeah, it’s on the screen right now.” Mitch made some adjustments to the monitor, and we were able to watch the white van leaving our parking lot.

  My stomach lurched with the views hopping about as the van moved in and out of various traffic camera frames. With the van’s steady progress out of the city, my pulse pounded in my temples. This wasn’t helping to narrow down the search area. It only gave us more areas we needed to look into, and in the country, they were much more spread out. I ran my fingers through my hair, frustration building with each shifting of the feed to a new camera.

  Mitzy placed an overlay of the van’s movements on a map, showing where it departed the city. “This is the best I can do. I extrapolated out on that road. There’s a camera a bit of a ways out on that highway, but no van. Either they switched vehicles or stopped somewhere in between. Either way, this doesn’t seem to help much.”

  I couldn’t help but agree with her sentiment.

  Kevin heaved an anguished sigh. “We’re never going to find them.” He pulled out the money clip, worrying the metal with his finger. “I may never see her again.”

  I took the clip from Kevin, my mind spinning. “Hey, Mitzy?”

  “Yes, boss man.”

  “Kevin has a clip with a GPS tracker in it. It’s linked to a bracelet we think Lily might be wearing.”

  Her voice brightened. “Well, shoot, why haven’t you used that?”

  “It requires an activation code, and Kevin can’t find the packaging. We’ve tried to link it to the bracelet but can’t without the code.”

  “Has it ever been used?” The sound of rapid keyboard clicks transmitted over the phone.

  Kevin shook his head.

  I held the phone to my mouth and answered. “He’s saying no.” If it had, we wouldn’t be standing here. Frustration filled every aspect of this fiasco.

  “It’s been in a box ever since Lily bought it.” Kevin dragged his hands down over his cheeks and gave me an agonized look.

  Thomas lifted the clip out of my hand. “Then why is it blinking?”

  Mitzy’s lilting voice came over the speaker. “What are you guys doing?”

  “Looking at the clip,” I explained. “Looks like the tracking beacon has been activated.”

  The clip exchanged hands again, and now Mitch held it. He pulled out a USB connector and had the clip attached to his system. “Hang on. I need to download the drivers first.”

  We stood in silence as Mitch’s fingers flew over the keyboard, and the screen flashed. He scrunched his nose. “Yeah, it’s asking for the key info and PIN code.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I don’t have it. I’ve been searching upstairs for an hour.”

  “Come on, Kevin,” I said. We deserved a lucky break, and I refused to be stopped cold because of a technicality. “Where would she have kept it? In the box?”

  He wiped his hand across his face. “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  “You guys are such losers,” said Mitzy. “Just break the encryption.”

  “Do you know how long that will take?” Mitch shook his head and gave the rest of us a look saying it wasn’t that simple.

  “Like, no time at all,” she quipped.

  Kevin’s face turned beet-red. “Now look here, Mitz—”

  “Jake, we don’t have all night to waste measuring our dicks here. Bring me that clip, and I’ll break the encryption. Take a pic of it first and send it to me, so I know what I’m dealing with. I’ll have everything I need locked and loaded by the time you get here. And I’m working on tracking boss lady’s phone. That’s a bit trickier, but if this bracelet thing works…”

  That was all I needed to hear. I motioned to Bryce and Kevin. “You two come with me. Thomas, I need you to stay here with Pete and oversee things with the police.” Twenty minutes later, Bryce, Kevin, and I stood in Kate’s office, hovering over Mitzy’s workstation.

  Her skilled fingers flew over the keyboard, and the screen flashed strings of letters and numbers I couldn’t decipher.

  “All right,” she said. “That should do it.”

  “Do what?” I leaned in close over her shoulder, struggling to make sense of her screen. Briefly, her comment returned to me about breathing down her neck. I turned my head slightly so I wouldn’t be breathing directly on her.

  “I broke the encryption.” Her hand guided the mouse with sure strokes. “Give me a minute… If Lily is wearing the bracelet, it should pop up.”

  Only I didn’t see anything on the screen. “When are we supposed to see something?” I stood up, arching my back to relieve the stiff muscles from hunching over.

  Her mouth pursed, and her fingers danced over the keys, not a reassuring sign.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The screen was supposed to pop up with a location, but nothing showed up.

  Her brows pinched together, and she gnawed at her lower lip. “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t get what?” Kevin crowded over her other shoulder, leaning toward the screen, his breath moving her hair.

  She threw up her hands, surprising both of us with the vehemence of her movement. “My God! Can the two of you just take a step back? I can feel you breathing down my neck.”

  Bryce pulled Kevin back and jerked his chin toward me, telling me to move.

  I wasn’t budging. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’ll say,” said Mitzy. “The bracelet was active. I can tell you that much. But it stopped transmitting some time ago. Let me pull up the history.” She consulted a secondary screen. Finally she jabbed her finger at a sp
ot on the map. “It stopped transmitting here.”

  The point she indicated was at the outskirts of town, beyond where the cameras lost the van.

  My stomach dropped like a dead weight. “They must have found it and ripped it off.”

  Mitzy nodded. “Makes sense.” She pulled up the tracking log and overlaid it on the map. Pointing, she drew our attention to the screen. “See here?”

  I nodded.

  “This is Stripes.” Her finger traced a path on the map. “And this is the path of the bracelet. It roughly follows the path of the van.”

  “What do you mean…roughly?” I squinted at the screen.

  “It’s not an exact match,” said Mitzy. “The bracelet and van didn’t take the same route, although they were headed in the same direction.”

  “Lily isn’t wearing the bracelet,” I said. “Kate is.” I gave her a shove. “Quick, did you follow my brother’s path as well as the van?”

  “Well, duh,” said Mitzy. She pulled up the path of the bike and the overlay of the tracking results. They matched perfectly.

  “Looks like Kate had it on.” She jabbed at the screen, punctuating her point. “The bracelet’s transmission ends here.”

  My heart sank, but this was something, at least.

  Kevin pressed his palms to his face. His voice came out muffled. “What do we do now?” He collapsed into a chair and began to rock. Bryce put a hand to Kevin’s shoulder and gripped hard.

  I would have comforted Kevin if I could, but my mind was working in high gear. “We go to that location and spread out from there. Someone must have seen the van.” Shit. It was a helluva lot better than standing around.

  Mitzy tapped her lips. “Hang on. Let me try something.” She ran her hand over the top of her bright pink highlights, then sprang into action. “I have an idea.”

  I had no clue what she could possibly look into. We had exhausted all our options. Kate and Lily had been taken out of town. They could be anywhere by now.

  Structural diagrams popped onto Mitzy’s screen. Her gaze darted across the images.

  “What are you doing?”

  “When the two of you were riding in the back of that van, boss lady had me look for buildings along that route with very specific criteria. We were looking for the site of the first girl’s murder.”

  Those were leads we’d never followed up on. If the cops were searching, I wasn’t aware of it, but then, I’d been in jail the last four days.

  “I don’t get it,” said Bryce. “How can that possibly help?”

  “Give me a second,” said Mitzy as she leaned in close, her fingers flying over the keys. “I just need to change the parameters”—she chewed at her lower lip—“and do a little triangulation. Hang on…”

  I couldn’t follow the speed with which Mitzy opened and closed windows on her screen.

  “Boss lady wanted to know which buildings fit her criteria for…well, for stringing up a person and whipping them to death.” Mitzy shrugged. “I still have my search results and access to their database.” She pointed to the screen. “We know roughly where we lost the van and bike. Assuming they stayed local…” She bit her lower lip, fingers flying. “I should be able to narrow things down.”

  “Whose database?” I didn’t care if Mitzy screamed at me; I was back to breathing down her neck.

  She didn’t seem to mind, her focus intent on her work. “Duh! The city’s. Now hush and let me work.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kate

  Lily’s screams cut through the air as she awakened to our shared horror. BlackJack was with her, and her torture had begun. The strike of leather on her flesh echoed through the building.

  Dear God. Poor Lily.

  I could not lend her my strength, but I willed it into her with my prayers. Her terror pierced the air, shredding my heart with each agonized cry.

  Closing my lids against her struggles, I breathed deep. To survive, I needed to find my center and focus, but it was difficult with my present and past converging.

  Josh took a step back and unbuckled his belt. He stared at me as he pulled the belt free. The rasp the leather made as he tugged it through the loops made my skin crawl.

  “As I remember, you had problems holding position last time I used my belt. You can’t get away from me now.”

  Josh’s words were taking me back to a dark place in my past when my Master had bound me almost as I was now. The inevitability of my death had approached with my Master, and I remembered welcoming it with open arms, believing service to him was my sacred duty as his slave.

  I’d been so naive. So stupid.

  But I was not welcoming death now. I fought to survive. For myself. For Jake. And for Lily.

  Amber light filtered through the high industrial windows. The cracked and broken glass refracted and diffused the last rays of a setting sun. The tiny details helped distract me from what was happening a few feet behind me.

  Night was approaching fast, and soon it would be dark.

  I’d been standing for hours. The cuffs attached to my wrists helped to support my weight but at the expense of a heavy strain on my shoulders. The cuffs chaffed but did not cut into my skin, a tiny reprieve from what could be much worse, and I’d lost feeling in my arms. My joints and ligaments protested every movement, but I endured.

  I could still fight. I could still hope.

  Three other men prowled around the interior of the building, guarding the entrance and watching BlackJack work Lily over with whatever he was using. An eagerness gleamed in their eyes as they encouraged and leered with each lash.

  Josh had yet to touch me. His belt coiled around his fist. I knew what he waited for, sickened in my stomach that I was going to give it to him. Unlike his father, he didn’t want my pain or fear. He wanted what his brother had.

  “Make him stop.” I kept my voice low, pitched to reach Josh’s ears alone.

  He reached up to caress my shoulder, dragged his fingers down between my breasts. “No.”

  Lily’s cries pierced my heart.

  Tears fell down my cheeks. “Please, I’ll do anything…”

  A true sob escaped me with a particularly wretched shriek from Lily. Her terror poured out and filled me with dread.

  The harshness of his father’s voice grated the air. “Time to begin, Son.”

  One of the three men held a camera and came in for a close-up of my face.

  Josh waved the man away. “Give me space.”

  I breathed deep to prepare for what I knew would follow. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t let him hurt Lily.”

  “She’s meant to suffer,” he said with a lustful gleam in his eyes. “As are you. Time to embrace the pain.”

  He uncoiled the belt and folded it over on itself, forming a loop.

  The first strike fell hard and fast, cutting deep into my skin and ripping a scream from my throat.

  He rained down a flurry of hits to my hips and across my belly. My skin blistered with his strikes. Then he spun me around to focus on my ass. I saw Lily’s broken form for the first time; a mass of welts crisscrossed her back. And as my skin heated with fiery welts, my strangled screams joined hers in a symphony of suffering.

  A man with curly black hair and a scar over his left eye was capturing our last moments. He paced around us with the video camera, documenting our torment. One of the other men remained at his post by the door. The third watched BlackJack with Lily.

  Lily’s silence had the tiny hairs at the back of my neck standing on end. Was she still breathing?

  BlackJack unzipped his pants and pushed them to his thighs. I squeezed my eyes shut after his first thrust, wishing I could cover my ears as he took what Lily would never give. Josh’s blows continued to rain down on me, the sound muffling BlackJack’s grunts, until his father finally roared with his release, crying out into the deepening darkness.

  The sun had set, and the light in the warehouse faded. My heart accelerated when a presence loomed to my l
eft, forcing my eyes back open.

  Shoving his dick into his pants, BlackJack fastened his fly. He ran a hand down my skin, making me cringe and twist away, but he latched on to my hips and forced me to stillness. His fingers caressed the welts raised by Josh’s belt. Beside me, Josh’s eyes narrowed into thin slits with his father’s presumption.

  “How much longer are you going to play with her, Son?”

  “Don’t rush me,” said Josh through gritted teeth.

  “We don’t have all day. Finish her. Fuck her if you want, but hurry it up.”

  BlackJack pointed toward Lily. “Boys, she’s all yours.”

  The three accomplices moved from their positions and advanced toward Lily. A moment later, a shriek confirmed she was still alive. It was at once both the worst and best sound I had ever heard. My heart blackened, knowing those men were raping sweet Lily and I was powerless to intervene.

  I wanted to tell BlackJack what I would do to him. How I would rip off his balls and shove them down his throat. How I’d cut off his dick, slice it into tiny pieces, and feed it to him one bite at a time. But I held my tongue when he fisted my hair and forced me to stare into his piercing black eyes.

  Behind the evil swimming in his eyes, hints of Jake stared back. My stomach roiled, and I fought the urge to retch.

  “Do you know why you’re here, cunt?”

  My entire body shuddered. I tried to shake my head, but I couldn’t move. My voice failed me, and all I could manage was the weakest of squeaks.

  Lily moaned, her body breaking under the callous assault of three men.

  His fist tightened, and he yanked on my hair, pulling hard on the roots. “I asked you a question, bitch.”

  Where was the strong woman I pretended to be? My body trembled beneath his glare.

  “Let her go,” said Josh in a low rumble.

  BlackJack snorted. “Your pathetic excuse of a Master must pay for what he did to my son.”

  The bad blood ran deep between Jake and his father.

  “I said let her go.” Josh’s possessive growl split the night. “Kevin’s bitch is yours, but this one is mine.”

  He shoved his father, but BlackJack didn’t budge. Instead, he shook me, slamming my head against the wooden beam, causing my vision to gray out at the edges. “Finish and fuck her. The boys will want a taste of her too.”