Secret Maneuvers (29 page)

The best plan would have been to slip into the basement first, but the windows that lead to it were too small to fit our bigger bodies. Even Belle wasn’t small enough to fit through them, which meant that she had no means of escape. The first and second floors were lined with large windows, making it impossible to stay unseen by anyone who happened to be walking by. Not to mention, we were approaching a house that was surrounded by security lighting, had a vast, unknown floor plan, and also an unknown number of hostiles inside.

Speaking slowly into the comm. link, I said, “We’re going to have to cut the power. It might tip them off that something’s wrong, but it’s the only way to really level the playing field.”

“Agreed,” Jaxon murmured. “Who’s got the electrical box in sight?”

“That’d be me,” Riley answered.

“As soon as you determine it’s safe to do so, you are to cut the power. When the lights go out boys, we’re going in. Get your thermal imaging ready. We clear every room in this place until we find her. Eliminate any threats and detain any civilians. Give us a countdown to black, Sullivan.”

“Roger that, Sir.”

Silence resumed over the comm. link for a few minutes before we saw him move. A flash of shadow that sped across the short distance of lawn from where he’d hidden in the trees, to out of sight on the back side of the house. Clearing this house was going to be difficult, but doable. Each man on this team was practically a one man army. We’d all been through far worse; like Afghanistan and the insurgents there who strapped bombs to women and children, then sent them walking in our direction as a surprise attack. Compared to surviving things like that, this should be a cake walk. I positioned my goggles on my forehead so that they were ready to slip down over my eyes when it was time.

My girl was probably scared shitless, but she was a fighter.

“Five.”

I was going to go in there and probably find her kicking ass and taking names.

“Four.”

Then I was going to take her home and talk her into marrying me.

“Three.”

This was just a small, speed bump on the road to our happy ever after.

“Two.”

So, if all of that was true, why did I have this awful feeling like I was on the cusp of the end of my world?

“Go time.”

Chapter Nineteen

Annabelle

I wasn’t exactly sure who was holding who up, but together, Laura and I were somehow managing to stand in an upright position by the door. My hand was resting lightly on her waist, while her
hand was holding me in a death grip, as if she still didn’t quite trust me not to leave her behind and make a break for it on my own. I pulled my ear off the door to our room, where I’d had it held for the last couple of minutes, listening intently to the other side for any kind of noise. Noise meant movement and movement meant danger to us. So far there’d been no noises and I was hoping that that meant there would be no immediate danger once I opened this door.

I leaned back into her body whispering, “When we leave this room, stay glued to my side.”

“Okay.”

“Do you happen to know where we are in the house? I was unconscious when they brought me in.”

“We’re in the basement.”

“What else do you know about the house, Laura?”

“We don’t want to go left. That just leads to more rooms like this. They put you towards the end of the row of rooms, so if we go right, it leads us through what they call the lounge area, which is pretty big. Like the size of a small house. After the lounge area, on the far wall is the stairs.” Her voice cracked. “I haven’t been up those stairs since I’ve been here.”

“How long have you been here, honey?”

A sniffle, followed by her tearful, raspy voice, “I don’t know anymore. I lost count sometime after I reached a hundred days.”

My heart broke for her all over again. How in the hell had she survived this place for so long? There was no time to dwell on that right now, though. Someone could come back at any time. We had to leave now. I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to stay conscious with all of my blood loss. Frankly, I also had no idea how she was standing upright at all. I could feel the weakness of her body under my hands as we held on tightly to each other and I considered it a miracle that she was alive at all, let alone standing somewhat on her own.

“Let’s get you out of here then.” Her hands clenched a little tighter in response. My hand felt around the door until I found the knob and my adrenaline kicked into high gear. This was it. Turning the door knob agonizingly slow, I pulled it open at what felt like a millimeter at a time until bright light spilled through the crack. Laura was so still behind me that I doubted she was even breathing. That was until her anguished voice sounded.

“They didn’t even lock the door. How many times have they left the door unlocked, knowing I was too stupid to escape?”

“You’re not stupid, honey. They beat you down until you didn’t know any better. You’re a survivor. Remember that. You ready?”

“More than you can know,” she whimpered.

“Okay, here we go, girl.”

Pulling the door open a bit more quickly this time, I opened it enough to stick my head out and look down the hall to the left. It was empty in the direction she had indicated we shouldn’t go, with nothing to see except closed doors to a row of several rooms. Knowing what those rooms were for now, my body gave an involuntary shudder. Turning my head to look in the other direction, I saw that it was laid out exactly like she had described it.

After two more closed doors in the hall, there was a large, brightly lit, open area—perhaps twelve hundred square feet—between us and the stairs on the far wall. Although, I don’t know if I would have compared it to a small house like she had. It reminded me more of a gentlemen’s club.

There were a couple of small stages with shiny metal stripper poles adorning them. In front of those stages were a number of plush looking couches, and there was even a long bar off to the side. Strip clubs had never bothered me before. In fact, I’d been to one for a fellow agent’s bachelor party because the guys had all thought I wouldn’t have the balls to show, but the sight of this was enough for me to see red; wishing I could burn this whole place down on my way out. Unfortunately, getting out alive held more priority than exacting revenge for countless, nameless women who had suffered on those stages and in this basement.

Looking back to Laura, I whispered, “We’re going to hug the wall until we get to the end of the hall here. Then, you’re going to wait while I take a quick look around to make sure we’re alone. When I deem it’s safe, I’m going to jerk your hand and we’re going to haul ass running to those stairs. When we get to those stairs we have to tip toe up them as quickly as we can. Once we reach the top, I’m going to stop us, ease open the door and stick my head out to see if we’re clear. From that point on, you’re going to have to pay close attention to what I tell you to do since we don’t know what’s up there. You with me?”

She nodded her head instantly, no hesitation whatsoever, and transferred her grip on my hip to my hand. She squeezed it so tightly that it was amazing she hadn’t broken a bone. I wasn’t going to complain about her crushing hold since the pain it was causing seemed to clear my head of the remaining haze I’d been suffering from whatever drug they’d shot me up with in the delivery van. With everything that had happened in that room, I’d failed to notice that I wasn’t quite even-keeled yet, but I was coherent enough to look for danger and run like hell, so that’s what we were going to do.

We slipped out of the room, plastering ourselves to the wall as we made the short distance to the end of the hall. Stopping on the very edge of the corner, I popped my head out and took a quick scan of the premises, which was thankfully empty and as silent as a tomb. Yanking Laura’s hand with my own, we ran across the open space to the stairs and we didn’t slow down until we were at the bottom of that first step. Keeping my back to the wall, eyes on the empty den of depravity in front of me, and the small fragile hand of the other woman firmly locked in my own, we trod noiselessly up the stairs, making it to the top of the tall staircase with no bad guys in sight.

Maybe luck was on our side. Maybe some karmic force had decided we’d had enough. Or maybe God was just trying to give us a Holy, ‘You Go, Girl.’ Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I was going to start praying that on the other side of that door, where the first floor of the house was, we’d find a whole lot of nothing, too, and that would mean we could haul ass out of the first feasible exit I could find. For the first time since I’d woken up in the Rivera Cartel’s hands, tied up like a calf at a rodeo, I had real hope that I was going to come out of the other side of this alive.

Then the lights went out.

Bobby

The silence of my green-tinged world through my thermal imaging goggles abruptly ended when I heard a string of gun fire from another area of the house. Since all of our guns were equipped with silencers that meant one of the team was drawing enemy fire. It hadn’t taken long for one of the house’s occupants to stumble upon one of us and now it would only be a matter of minutes before the house was crawling with combatants. Not good.

Jaxon and I were clearing the front quadrant of the house, moving stealthily from large room to large room, making sure no one was waiting to ambush us before moving on. We’d just moved into our third room, a rather large living room of sorts, when a flash of movement across the room caught my eye. A man, who had been crouched by a door, sprang up as the door opened and grabbed the arm of the person who was emerging from it as a feminine squeal sounded.

That person was Belle, and she was covered in blood.

Why was my woman naked and bloody? There wasn’t time to analyze this disturbing new fact that sent my entire body into a cold sweat. The man had his arm wrapped tightly around her throat in a choke hold and shoved the barrel of his pistol against her temple. Jaxon’s low curse behind me let me know that he was also witnessing the clusterfuck developing in front of us. The only good news here was that he was still unaware of our presence across the room. His focus was solely on Belle as she struggled against him.

“Where do you think you are going, puta? Mr. Rivera has plans for you,” he hissed in her ear before bending his head down to lick up the side of her neck. “I bet he lets me have you after he’s done. Mmm…”

My gut was in knots at the sight of his filthy hands and mouth on Belle, but I had to keep a level head for just a little while longer. Sudden movement from behind the man almost startled me to shoot, but I managed to stop myself in time to watch another woman launch herself onto Belle’s captor’s back; latching onto his neck and screaming in shrill tones for him to “let her go” as she used her free hand to hit him repeatedly in the head. The man initially flinched at his attack, but quickly moved his pistol from Belle’s temple, pointing it over his shoulder in the direction of his attacker’s face and pulled the trigger. It all happened so fast that neither Jaxon, nor I, had a chance to do anything to help, not without taking the chance of accidentally hitting Belle if we were to shoot. Belle’s attempted rescuer had no chance to move before she took a bullet to the forehead, either. Belle, on the other hand, had used the distraction to renew her struggles to get free of the chokehold, stomping on the man’s instep and elbowing him harshly in the ribs, but somehow he’d ignored it all to reach over his shoulder and, in the span of a few seconds, end some poor, innocent woman’s life.

Belle’s screams echoed through the room as she started fighting like a crazed banshee. Hysterically calling out the name “Laura” while trying her best to get free, but was forced to quit her struggles when her captor tightened his arm to the point where she couldn’t breathe at all. The taller man was now cursing at her in Spanish, jabbing his gun in anger at her neck, slapping it violently up the side of her head, before digging the barrel into the top, fleshy part of her shoulder causing her to cry out in pain.

“Take any open shot, Baker!” Jaxon’s low voice barked into our comm. link.

I didn’t like it, but Jaxon was right. The man’s enraged rant at Belle was enough of a distraction to take him out before he could make it impossible to get a shot at all by using her as a shield. Between where Jaxon stood, a few feet away from me, and my position, hopefully one of us would get an open shot before it was too late and that asshole killed her. Taking steady breaths, my rifle fixed in my grip, I ignored the world around me, zeroing in on that one spot in front of me. All I could see now was Belle and the man that was cruelly cutting off her precious oxygen supply. He was still yelling at her; oblivious, or possibly uncaring, to her anger and tears. His arm tightened again as he literally lifted her up off the ground, her feet dangling in the air, as he bent his head and screamed something into her ear. That put his head too close to her body for a safe shot.

He pulled his head back as he dropped her body enough for her toes to touch the ground again and I saw her mouth move as she said the word “Asshole.” In another fit of rage, the man pulled his hand back, and swung his pistol towards her head again in retaliation. I saw the movement of his arm in slow motion. It moved forward, made contact with the side of her head, then pulled back again as he started to drop it behind her back.