Dangerous in Training (Aegis Group, #2) (23 page)

The first ones were brought in at gunpoint. A cluster of six. Then two. Another grouping of five. The men sported scratches, a few gashes, but by and large the escape had gained the women nothing. And lost them their only coordinated escape effort. Because a few people couldn’t wait.

Rachel came in the last group, her lip busted and cradling her hand.

The men yelled. The women cried. Hannah closed her eyes. It was her fault. She’d talked them into escaping. It’d taken most of the night, but she’d done it. And it had failed.

“Hannah...” Christine backed away from her.

Hannah glanced up. Two women were pointing at her. Half the men glared her way.

Oh God...

She held her head up, refusing to hide, though her insides were shaking.

Mason held his finger up to his lips and rushed to the wall, drawing his gun.

Thud. Creak.

Thud. Crack.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Would the women give Mason up? Was this a Stockholm Syndrome situation? Or would they want to get away? He couldn’t tell. And he’d just let one loose.

This was going from bad to worse. Where was Travis?

Mason tracked the heavy footsteps, eyes trained on the opening, poised on the balls of his feet to move.

The clerk lumbered around the turn, his fat head so fused to his body he had to turn his torso to see Mason.

“Don’t move.” Mason aimed the gun at the man’s head.

The clerk stared at him, his gaze dead, lifeless.

For a moment, no one breathed. No one moved.

The clerk swung his arm surprisingly fast, bending forward in a stiff duck, and knocked Mason’s gun to the side. Mason kept a tight grip on the firearm, but the move left him open. The clerk yelled and swung, landing a punch to Mason’s kidney. He felt the pain of it but locked down on that sensation. He dropped his shoulder and threw his weight into tackling the man. But the clerk was too solid, his center of gravity too low.

Mason tumbled to the floor, gun aimed at the clerk.

Chain rattled, and one of the women—the free one—launched herself at the clerk, nails scratching, feet kicking.

Mason’s heart stopped for a split second. He couldn’t fire. Not without the risk of hitting her. The clerk obviously wasn’t expecting the blow. He staggered to the side and directly in the sphere of reach.

The other two women rushed forward. They looped their chains around the clerk’s limbs, using their body weight to hold him down. But the clerk was strong. He bellowed and rose to his feet, two of the women dangling off him like marionettes.

Mason scrambled to his feet and waded in, grasping the man by the front of his shirt and punching him with everything Mason had. The clerk flailed, one fist hitting a woman and sending her to the floor. Mason grabbed a handful of the man’s oily black hair.

“Don’t move.” Travis’ voice was like ice, his meaning clear despite the language barrier.

The clerk glared at Mason, his eyes spinning this way and that, glaring at the women.

“The keys. Where are the keys?” Mason asked.

“Kneel.” Travis pressed the muzzle of his gun to the back of the man’s head.

“The keys,” Mason repeated.

The clerk lowered to his knees, his movements stiff, as if he never had to stoop to do anything.

“Keys.” Mason pointed his gun at the man’s face.

“Above the bed,” the clerk answered. “I’m going to gut you whores!”

Smack!

The clerk’s head shot forward. Travis shook out his hand.

“Speak when spoken to,” he said.

The three women circled the clerk. Their anger was palpable and deserved.

Mason retrieved the keys from the wall, but instead of freeing the women himself, he offered the keys to the woman he’d freed, the one who’d launched herself at the clerk first. She snatched them up and made the rounds, releasing one and then the other of her companions before allowing herself to be set loose.

“What do we do with him?” Travis asked in English.

“I don’t know.” Mason glanced at the women. There was a good chance the women understood them, but he had to take that risk. “I doubt the cops will care. Cruz owns them.”

“Give me the gun.” The same woman spoke in Spanish. She held out her hand. “Let us have justice.”

Mason’s gut twisted. He knew that look. He knew where it got people and what lay down that road.

“Ma’am, you don’t want to have blood on your hands,” Mason spoke low, soft.

“He’s right,” Travis chimed in. “I know what it’s like to kill someone for revenge. It doesn’t make it better.”

“You don’t know what it was like.” She drew herself up, standing tall, her gaze daring them to say no, to deny her the justice she wouldn’t get if they refused her.

Hannah cried out, unable to keep the sound of her pain inside. The man’s fingers dug into her hair, twisting until it hurt. She gripped his wrist in a vain attempt to lessen the pain. She had to practically bend over and jog to keep pace with him.

A hard shove sent her to the floor at the base of the very same inspection post she’d been shackled to yesterday. Her knees ached, and her cheek burned from the slap she’d received on their way up the elevator.

To say the men were pissed was an understatement.

She scrambled to sit up, her back to the post.

Four men circled her, the look in their eyes less than kind.

This was it. She’d pushed her luck too far and it’d run out. She’d run, she’d fought, and it still wasn’t enough. She drew her knees up, elbows in. If they kicked her she needed to protect her soft places, the unprotected organs.

Where was Mason?

The men were yelling now. She couldn’t understand them, but she didn’t really need to either. She flinched as one swatted the air around her face.

Would he hit her?

She balled her hands into fists. She didn’t stand a chance against four men, not on her own, but she’d put up a fight.

“
Detente ahora mismo
!”

The men scampered back, turning to face the speaker.

Hannah wanted to sink into the ground.

Cruz strode through the open front doors. He looked angry enough to kill. Probably her.

He didn’t even glance her way. The men started speaking at once, no doubt bringing him up to date and throwing her under the bus. Why hadn’t she taken Spanish instead of French?

Cruz yelled and waved his hands, pacing back and forth. The four men, now seven because three had followed Cruz in, were quiet, their gazes bouncing from her to Cruz and back.

The one who’d yanked her around by her hair pointed at her and said something that sounded an awful lot like whining.

Cruz’s gaze snapped to her face. She swallowed.

Not good. Not good at all.

Cruz spoke something short and sharp, then turned away, toward the stairs.

Two men scooped her up under her arms and hauled her after Cruz, into the elevator.

“What’s going on? What are you doing?” she asked, unable to keep her questions in.

Cruz turned and glared at her.

“You caused a lot of trouble.” Cruz’s words were short, clipped.

Good.

Even if one girl got free, it would be worth it.

“What are you going to do? Kill me?” At this point she could only hope.

“No.” Cruz wrapped his hand around her neck, squeezing just enough to constrict her airflow. “As much as I’d like to wring your pretty neck, I need you to fetch a profit.”

“What are you going to do to the others?” Despite the women not sticking to the plan, Hannah was still responsible for the botched escape.

The elevator doors slid open onto another floor. Cruz didn’t respond to her. He pushed her back against the wall, his glare icy cold. He turned and led them off the elevator, down the hall, into a spacious office.

One of the guards peeled off and began unlocking the doors. There were easily a dozen closets. Why would he need a dozen, small closets?

The men holding her shoved her into one. She pitched forward, stumbling into the cramped space. They slammed the door shut, locking her into a space that was barely big enough for her to sit on the floor. She turned, pushing against the walls, eyes open wide, straining to see anything. Splinters stuck in her fingers and palms. The walls were rough, unfinished in places, smooth in others. The voices outside were muted, distant. Her breathing was too loud, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

It was a cell. A cell made for a single person. And she was in it.

Mason pressed the phone to his ear and peered into the reflection on his sunglasses. The women in the backseat squinted, as if they hadn’t seen light in ages. It was almost a painfully bright, sunny day. Not a cloud in sight. A warm sea breeze carried the smell of brine inland. If they’d still been vacationing, it would have been the perfect day on the beach.

“You were supposed to be back already.” Zain’s voice through the phone snapped Mason out of that line of thought.

“Change of plans. We staged a little rescue. No loose ends.” At least not until someone went looking for the hotel owner and found him dead. But that was a problem they couldn’t worry about now.

“What?”

“Just letting you know not to wait up. I’ll call you after we meet with Abraham.”

Zain muttered a curse, no doubt not a fan of being the last to know a plan had changed. “Hurry. Something’s happening.”

“Hannah?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s going on?”

“Again. I don’t know. There was a big commotion just after you guys left. Something happened inside that has the guards buzzing around. They seem pissed. Security is up. I don’t like it.”

What had Hannah done?

There was no question in Mason’s mind that whatever the disturbance was, Hannah was involved. Her old man had taught her a thing or two over the years about protecting herself and survival. She might not be a trained soldier, but she could shoot, and she had a good head on her shoulders. If she saw a way to escape, he believed she’d take it.

“Hurry,” Zain said.

“Shit.” Mason muttered.

“What?” Travis asked.

Mason didn’t answer. There wasn’t time. They needed to meet with Abraham, deliver the girls somewhere safe, and get back to Zain so they could stare at brick and wonder what was happening. It was the most fucking frustrating, useless situation.

He jabbed Abraham’s contact and the call initiated. Hopefully the man answered. They didn’t have time or the resources to play coy.

“You have something for me?” Abraham must have been waiting for the call. Had it even rung?

“I have three someones for you.” Mason glanced in the side mirror at the profile of one of the women. She looked as though she were about to be sick. When was the last time they’d eaten? Showered? Changed clothes?

“What?” Abraham’s disbelief telegraphed through the line.

“It wasn’t the deal, but we wanted to make sure we had the right location for your girls. We saw an opportunity and took it. Do you have somewhere they can go?”

Abraham rattled off an address in the opposite direction from Cruz’s location. Travis rerouted them, doing his best to stick to side streets and lesser traveled avenues where they could avoid attention. They were in a stolen car with three women who looked like prisoners. The last thing they wanted was to get picked up by the cops. The drive left Mason anxious and ready to be back staring at a building he couldn’t enter.

At long last Travis pulled up in front of what appeared to be a well-trafficked shopping strip. A delivery bay stood open, two men with barely concealed guns standing at the entrance.

“That’s us.” Mason nodded at the door.

Travis muttered under his breath and steered them into the yawning mouth of the building. The two men lowered the doors behind them, plunging them into darkness for a few seconds.

Mason gripped his gun. He wouldn’t put it past Abraham to double-cross them now that they had what he wanted. It was maybe not the best plan to free the women before they’d rescued Hannah, but Mason wasn’t going to use the lives of innocent women as bargaining chips to get what he wanted.

The lights flickered on.

Abraham stood maybe twelve feet away, hands in his pockets.

Mason got out first, followed by Travis.

“Is it them?” Abraham’s voice was different. The salesmen veneer was gone. He was a man who’d lost people he cared about. Maybe even loved.

Mason opened the back door to the car and helped first one and then the second woman out.

He didn’t even know their names.

Travis let the third out on the other side.

Abraham took two steps toward them and stopped, lips parted, eyes wide. Disbelief written on every line of his face.

For a moment no one moved.

The women clung to each other in front of the car, staring at Abraham

Abraham stared at the women.

Travis and Mason hung back, interlopers on this poignant reunion.

Abraham said something that wasn’t English or Spanish, hands outstretched, voice breaking.

Whatever it was, it broke the spell. The women rushed forward, Abraham spread his arms and they clung to each other. The women’s sobs were the worst.

Mason opened his mouth and closed it. He knew that relief. He wanted to feel it so bad, to know Hannah was okay, but it was out of his reach so long as Cruz still had her.

“We have to go.” Travis flashed his phone at Mason. The text was too far away to read, but Mason didn’t need to know the details. Something was going down and Zain needed them back on-site.

He nodded and backed toward the passenger side door.

“Wait,” Abraham said.

He gave the women a last squeeze, then sidestepped them, strode directly to Mason and clasped his hand.

“Thank you,” Abraham said. Was it Mason’s imagination, or were those tears? He wasn’t going to judge.

“It was the right thing to do.” He glanced over Abraham’s shoulder at the women. They met his gaze now. Earned some modicum of trust. “What...what will happen to them now?”

“I’m going to send them away from here. I have homes in other countries. They will be cared for. For the rest of their lives. They will never want for anything.” Abraham’s sincerity left no room for doubt. He might be a criminal and a gun runner, but Mason knew he’d do right by these women at least.