by Anna Blakely
“She was. Pity, she would’ve made me a lot of money tonight.”
Ignoring the pain from her hair damn near being pulled out by the roots, Gabby shoved against Andino with her shoulder. “You sick son of a bitch!”
“We’ve wasted enough time.” The man let go of her hair and grabbed her upper arm. To his minion, he said, “Take care of him.”
Kole started to reach for his gun but the other man was already yanking on the front of Kole’s shirt and throwing him to the ground.
“No!” Gabby fought to get free. “Kole!”
“Shit, we’re almost there!” Fletch, maybe? “Less than two minutes out!”
“It’s okay, Gabby,” Zade’s teammate tried, and failed, to make her feel better. “It’s going to be okay.”
Keeping his bruising grip tight, Andino pulled her around the back of the vehicle. When she saw Kole, Gabby knew he was so very wrong.
It wasn’t going to be okay. Not by a longshot.
Kole pushed himself up to his feet…to face his executioner.
“Kole?”
“Close your eyes, sweetheart.” He stood stoically as he accepted his fate.
Screw that.
“Please,” Gabby begged his team to hurry. Praying they’d come out in time, Gabby told Matt and Gabe and whoever else that was listening, “He’s going to shoot him!”
“Of course he is,” Andino uttered smugly, assuming she was speaking to him. “What do you think I pay Eduardo for?”
Hector gave his man the signal.
“No!” Gabby screamed as three shots rang out.
Kole’s body jerked as each bullet hit him in the chest and torso.
“Kole!”
Her knees started to give out, but Andino’s tight grip kept her from falling. She was pulled toward the driver’s open door as the other man casually turned and got into the back seat, shutting the door behind him.
“Motherfucker!” Matt’s growl barely sounded over the rush of Gabby’s own heartbeat filling her ears.
“Get in.” Andino shoved her into the driver’s seat. To the man sitting behind her, he said, “She tries to run, shoot her.”
Gabby couldn’t run. All she could do was sit there and stare at Kole’s still form.
He was lying on his back, his arms spread out to his sides. His eyes were closed and there were three new, jagged holes in his pristinely pressed, white tuxedo shirt and vest.
She couldn’t help but think of his earlier comment about Andino’s men filling him full of holes he preferred not to have.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, knowing he could no longer hear her.
Andino got into the car and slammed the door. With his gun pointed at her side, he said, “Drive.”
Gabby woodenly put the car in reverse. She turned the SUV around and did as she was told.
She drove.
Guns in hand, Matt and Fletch burst through the main entrance doors as she sped past.
Chapter 17
Gun out, Zade continued down the concrete steps. Leading to what, he had no fucking clue. Andino hadn’t gone down here for a pillow and glass of water, that was for damn sure.
It had taken a lot longer than he’d expected to pick the lock on the well-secured door. However, since the door was located inside Andino’s private office, it was a simple key lock and not an electronic entrance like the room’s main door.
When he’d first begun working on it, Zade was busy listening to the humorous argument Gabby and Kole were having for the guard’s benefit. Hearing his woman rip Kole a new asshole for supposedly going to the wrong door to wait for her was one of the most entertaining moments he’d had in a while.
Afterward, at the same time he’d gotten the lock to click free, she’d spoken to him directly. She’d wanted to make sure he was okay and let him know they were together and headed to the SUV.
He assured her he was fine and reminded her to stick with Kole before heading down the staircase he was on now.
When Zade first opened the door inside Andino’s office, he’d expected to walk into another room or some sort of hallway leading to another part of the house.
What he hadn’t expected to find was a small entryway and yet another door. One leading to a creepy-as-fuck, stairway to Hell.
But that’s exactly where he was, now…heading down a dark, narrow staircase taking him someplace God only knows, where he’ll find only God knows what.
You know what you’re going to find.
Zade’s heart thundered at the thought. Yeah, he had a pretty good idea what lie ahead. He could only send up a prayer and hope it wasn’t as bad as what his imagination had come up with since walking through that damn door.
He turned the knob and...
Jesus.
Silently closing the door behind him, Zade stepped into the fifth level of Hell. A long, straight hallway went on for what seemed like forever. Sconces, identical to the ones by the main entrance outside, were evenly spaced on each wall, their low light giving off an eerie glow.
That glow allowed him to see what appeared to be several cells lining both sides of the long hallway. Cells with iron bars.
Zade’s stomach swirled with an instant and fierce need to puke. This was where Andino kept the girls he planned to sell.
Mounted high on the wall to his right were four monitors. Each of the screens was on, their pictures divided into six equal frames. The monitors showed the other rooms in the house, including very clear pictures of Andino’s office and the ballroom.
If the bastard was still down here, he saw everything.
“Jameson, watch your back, brother. Pretty sure Andino knows Gabby’s no longer in the house.”
Silence.
Zade put a hand to his ear. He double-tapped the com to turn it off and back on again. “Kole, you copy?” His teammate didn’t answer. “Gabby? Can you hear me?”
More silence.
Frowning, Zade reached out and felt the smooth, dark walls. Solid concrete. Concrete walls that would require some major steel-beam framing to hold the type of house that lay above him.
Concrete and steel were not the electronic device’s friend.
Fanfuckingtastic.
Turning to go back into the stairwell to give them a heads-up, his fingertips barely brushed against the knob when a voice came from somewhere down the hall.
“H-hello? I-Is someone there?”
Heart pounding, Zade spun around. His gun held out in front of him, straight and at the ready.
“Hello?” the quiet voice reached him again.
Holy shit. The bastard had left one of the girls down here.
Cautious, because it would be just like Andino to use one of the women he’d abducted to set his ass up, Zade kept his gun raised and took a few steps forward.
“If you’re there, please let me out.” The voice sounded so desperate. “I’ll do anything. Just unlock the door and walk away. Please.”
Fuck. He needed to make contact with his team. Let them know where he was and what he’d found. But Zade had no idea where Andino had gone, nor did he know when or if, the bastard was planning to return.
I can’t leave her down here.
Sending up a quick prayer that he wasn’t getting played for a fucking fool, Zade told her who he was so she wouldn’t be frightened of him.
“My name is Zade King,” his deep voice echoed down the long hallway. “I’m here on behalf of the United States government. Where are you?”
The woman’s gasp echoed off the walls. “Down here! Last cell on the right!”
Of course she’d be in the very last cell. Christ, the whole set-up was like something out of one of those lame horror films.
He could practically hear the people watching from home screaming at him to not go down the hall… Don’t do it, man! It’s a trap!
“Please,” the voice begged. “Please, hurry!”
The woman’s overwhelming excitement and relief sounded genuine, making Zade’s
eyes sting. Even so, he knew he still needed to be careful.
With his head on a slow and steady swivel, Zade checked each of the cells as he passed by. It made him physically ill to see the tiny, barren rooms.
Each one was identical to the next, with a stained mattress for a bed and a toilet and wall-mounted sink in one of the corners.
When he finally got to the last cell on the right, Zade held his gun at the ready and looked inside. His heart broke at what he found.
Standing in the middle of the small, degrading space was a young woman. A tiny, blonde woman with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
“Samantha.”
She blinked in surprise. “H-how do you know my name?”
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but… “I’m a friend of Gabby’s.”
Those blue eyes grew wide with both recognition and fear. “Is she okay? I-I didn’t mean to put her in danger. I saw her on the screen and got so excited, I blurted her name. One of Hector’s men heard me. H-he made me tell him who she was. I didn’t want to, but he…”
She came closer, out of the shadows and into the dim light. Zade muttered a curse. She was dressed in a short, strapless black dress covered in sequins. Her long, blonde hair fell down over her shoulders in soft waves, and she had makeup on as if she’d been ready for a night out on the town.
But what struck an arrow through Zade’s heart were the fresh bruises on her face and the marks from where someone had wrapped their meaty hands around her upper arms.
“For the most part, the men here leave us alone, but there’s one.” Sam brushed her hand over the bruises on one of her arms. “He likes to hit.”
Fucking bastards deserved to die. Every. Single. One.
“Please,” Samantha begged him. “Is Gabby okay? I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her because of me.”
Join the club, sweetheart. “She’s fine. She’s with a man on my team. He’s keeping her safe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to her, honey.” Zade studied the lock. “Your sister’s safe. Right now we need to focus on getting you out of there.”
“You need a key. Hector and his men have them, and they left.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I-I…I don’t know. Twenty minutes ago, maybe? It’s been hard to keep track of time down here.”
I bet it has been, sweetheart.
“After I told them about Gabby, they threw me back in here. Then they took the other girls who were still down here out of their cells, and they all left through the intake room.”
“The intake room?”
“There.”
He followed her gaze to his left. They landed on a door at the end of the hall.
“That’s where he took us when we first got here. There are enough tables for four girls at a time.”
Zade’s gut tightened. “Tables?”
“Big, concrete slabs. They have leather restraints for our ankles and wrists so we can’t fight them.”
“Jesus.” He ran a hand over his jaw.
“I heard Hector call it the intake room to one of his men. Hector puts girls in there and leaves them for a day, sometimes more. If you’re good and you do what he says, it’s not so bad. They bathe and…shave you.” Sam looked down as a humiliated blush began crawling up her pale neck and into her cheeks. “Hector said it was to prepare us. But the girls who fought him”—she brought her eyes to his again—“he’d use his knife on them. Never on their faces, but…we could hear them screaming.”
Motherfucker had better enjoy those last few breaths of his. Because Hector Andino was running on some serious borrowed time.
Pulling his wallet from his pants, Zade flipped it open and grabbed the small tools he’d used to pick the lock upstairs. Shoving the wallet back into his pocket, he wasted no time getting to work.
“Any idea why Andino didn’t take you with the others?”
“No.” Her voice got thick as she fought to keep fresh tears at bay. “H-he ordered Eduardo to make me tell them about Gabby. Then told him to put me back in here. Before that, several others had been taken upstairs. They never came back. I’m assuming that’s because they’d been…” her voice trailed.
“Sold,” Zade finished for her. “Don’t worry, we’ve got more guys waiting in the wings to intercept them and get the girls to safety.”
“Oh, thank God.” Sam’s shoulders relaxed. “Are you military or something?”
He smirked. “Or something.” He continued working on the bitch of a lock. “Did Hector say anything about coming back, or did you happen to hear him tell the guards where they were going?”
“No.” She shook her head, her long, blonde hair swishing around her bare shoulders with the movement. “Wait, he did say something about the dock.”
“The dock?”
Sam nodded. “That’s how we got here. First we were taken to New Orleans and put on a boat. When we got here, there was a large van waiting where we’d docked. It brought us here, to this place.”
“Do you remember how long it took to get from the dock to this place?”
She thought back. “About an hour, I think. It wasn’t much more than that, I know.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not a lot to go on.”
“No, that’s great, Sam. Really. That’s a lot of good information, and I’ll be sure to pass it along to the others as soon as we get back upstairs.”
If I can ever get this fucking lock to open.
The thing was acting like it was welded shut.
A stretch of silence passed while he continued to try to free her before Sam spoke up again. “The others…are they like you?”
“Like me?”
“You know, the badass, superhero type.”
A loud chuckle burst from his chest. “I mean, they aren’t quite as badass as I am, but they can hold their own.”
His attempt to make her smile worked, giving Zade a warm feeling in his chest. Sam had a beautiful smile. One he hoped the world got to see a lot more of after this.
But then she looked down at the lock and frowned. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Most of the time.” He gave her a sideways grin.
Sam studied him closely. “How do you know Gabby? Wait”—she shook her head—“why is she even here? And how did she know where to find me?”
He didn’t want to say they were boyfriend and girlfriend. That sounded too juvenile, and lovers would’ve made what they shared sound purely physical.
It’s more than that. Much, much more.
“Your sister and I are…together.”
“Together.” She toyed with the word. “Oh!” Her lips curved upward. “Figures she’d end up with a guy like you.”
“Why is that?”
“You seem very sure of yourself and strong. I mean, you’d have to be, right? I don’t know how long you two have known each other, but Gabby can be a bit—”
“Stubborn?”
Sam chuckled. “I was going to say pigheaded, but yeah. I guess you really do know my sister.”
Better than most of the people I’ve known my whole life.
“To answer your other questions, Gabby hasn’t stopped looking for you since you went missing.”
“Really?”
“That surprise you?”
“No.” Sam shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t. I just never thought…when I stepped off that boat, I thought that was it. That I’d never see my family again.”
She swiped at a tear. Poor girl’s emotions had to be skyrocketing all over the damn place.
His heart hurt for what this young woman had been put through. Not that he had any way of knowing specifically what Andino and his men had done to her.
Not going to ask, either.
Those questions would be left to the medical personnel at the Homeland medical facility in Dallas, which was the first stop they’d make once they landed back in Texas.
Like his Gabby, Samantha Shoemaker was strong. A survivor. And he couldn’t wait to see the look on Gabby’s face when she saw her sister again.
More than that, Zade was most excited about the future and where this thing between he and Gabby would go from here. If he had anything to say about it, it would go on forever.
As he continued working on the hardest lock on the planet to pick open, Zade prayed like mad that Gabby wanted forever with him, too.
Chapter 18
“Where are we going?” Gabby stared straight ahead at the long, gravel drive. She felt numb, almost disconnected from the horrifying reality of what was happening. Of what had happened to Kole.
Oh, God. Kole.
It was a blessing, really. To not have to feel the terror and sadness or the overwhelming devastation from knowing Kole was dead. Knowing she would mostly likely be the next to die.
Gabby was grateful she’d lost the ability to really think about the fact that Sam would forever be a memory, ripped away from her parents and friends. From her life.
A life she’d barely had a chance to even live.
And then there was Zade. Thank God she couldn’t feel the sorrow and pain from that particular loss. If her mind hadn’t mercifully shut down that portion of her brain—most likely from shock—Gabby would feel her heart being ripped to shreds, piece by torturous piece.
“Just drive,” Andino kept his gun trained on her from the passenger seat. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”
“You’ll be caught, you know.” Even to her, her voice sounded wooden. “Maybe not today or next week. It might be a year from now, but eventually, you will have to pay for every horrible thing you’ve ever done.”
The twisted man laughed. “No one knows every horrible thing I’ve done, mi amor . There are simply too many to count.”
“Why?” She blinked as she continued driving. A tear may have fallen, but she wasn’t sure.
“What was it you told me when we first met? Money is everything, Gabriella. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy my…work.”
“You’re a monster.”
