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“What?” Roxie asked, seemingly shocked and upset that her boyfriend was saying something like that to Valentina.
Samuel shoved at Roxie’s head. “Shut up,” he said, and the kids tightened their hands on Valentina as she held them tightly and locked gazes with Roxie. Valentina stared at her with such hatred in her eyes until she saw a spark of emotion. Was she just embarrassed? Was she insulted, or maybe realizing that Samuel had used her?
Valentina didn’t know, but then Roxie gave her a dirty look and pulled the baby a little closer to her chest. At least she hadn’t dropped her.
She caressed Lena’s and Tye’s hair, comforting them as Samuel started talking to the other guy and about where the safe house was. As Valentina shifted, feeling the pain in her cheek as well as her throbbing arm, she remembered her cell phone, and the pocket knife she always carried with her.
She slid her hand backward and tried to think about the face of a cell phone and then remembered speaking to Gus last. If she hit 911 then they wouldn’t understand what was happening. Gus would know. Maybe J.R. called the situation in? She didn’t know, so she hit redial and she hoped the call went through as she slid the phone back behind her and over to the right, closer to where Samuel and the guy were talking. She prayed that Gus could hear them clearly. She felt the twinge of hope when they mentioned a place called Moonclove, and a thick area of woods and a secure, armed perimeter. It was the location of their main dealer and operator, Gabe West. He was the reason why the police were hunting for Samuel. She was right in the middle of the shit, and if Gus got this call right now, this was going to be one hell of an operation, or a fuck-up. They could all wind up dead—even the babies she was trying so hard to protect.
* * * *
“Holy fuck,” Gunner said to Gus as they met with other members of the Rangers to organize a search-and-infiltrate mission.
“I know. We need to work quickly. This is the third cop they shot, and we don’t know why they went for the kids,” Gus stated.
“Maybe because it’s as simple as we thought it is. Samuel likes to be in charge. He’s narcissistic and self-centered. Those kids are his. Roxie is obsessed with pleasing him, and from what Valentina discovered, as well as the social workers at the shelter Roxie was living in, she only has the kids to keep Samuel coming back to her.”
“So she’s not going to be any help to Valentina,” Teddy Warner said aloud.
Jim Warner exhaled.
“We got a lot of people volunteering to help with this. We need to do this right,” Gus said to them.
“It’s a huge area, and they could be anywhere. I don’t think time is on our side here. He’ll think nothing of taking out Valentina. He really doesn’t need her,” Gunny added as the other rangers placed the maps of the location down onto the large meeting table. Gus knew that Valentina’s boyfriends, the Brazos brothers, were waiting with Helena outside along with their cousins. They were all former Green Berets, hunters, men who were well trained. This could go ugly fast if they didn’t plan this right. As Gus looked at the maps of the land surrounding what was considered Moonclove, he felt sick.
“That’s hundreds, if not a thousand, acres of land, trees, hidden houses, and cabins. We won’t have enough manpower to start winding our way through this brush and the valleys and shit. Never mind the many cabins and houses set up,” Jim said to them. It wasn’t looking like such an easy mission.
“Gunny, we’re going to need some serious help. Not civilians. Men and women who are well trained to travel through this type of area, and quickly, without being detected. Especially if what the men on the phone were saying about security,” Gus said to him.
Gunny exhaled. With his hands on his hips, he looked around the room, then at the map.
“We lost Valentina’s signal from her cell around this area.” He pointed to it.
“Let’s assume they got past there and moved further through. If we have five sets of teams, and I mean military guys who know their shit mixed in with some of our men, then we could squeeze them out and find exactly where they are. It’s our only choice.”
“That’s still a lot of land to cover. We can’t come in with SUVs or off-terrain vehicles,” Jim added.
“It will take us days if we don’t use ATVs or other means to get to the spot where we lost her signal. We’ll have to take the chance and hope they don’t spot us,” one of the rangers said to them.
“Unless we drop in from the sky,” said Dash, one of the Texas Rangers. Gus looked at Dash as his brother Hopper nodded his head.
“We could come in from above. Doesn’t matter if there are trees and shit, we can maneuver through anything. We case out a half-mile perimeter all around as other teams make their way on the ATVs. Our brothers would be more than willing to help do recon to catch where these people are holding Valentina,” Hopper continued.
“Pretty fucking crazy,” Jim stated. “I like crazy. We can all do crazy. She’s one of ours. A fellow cop and a friend, never mind a good-hearted person. She’ll do anything to save those kids, but she won’t be able to do it alone. I say we go for it, and I’ll grab the men for the additional teams,” Gunner said to them.
“Looks like we’re doing this a little unorthodox, but as long as it works, I’m willing to sign off on it. Dash, Hopper, meet with Gunner and the other teams and get this organized. Time is of the essence,” Gus said to them.
* * * *
It was not a shithole but a pretty nice cabin-style house in the middle of the damn woods. As they’d gotten out of the van hours ago, Valentina noticed it was so isolated she couldn’t hear a sound. She wondered if the cell phone had even worked or lost service. There was no way they could get service up here.
The kids were exhausted and hungry. It wasn’t until Valentina mentioned that to Samuel that Gabe West, the owner of the house and the leader of these morons, ordered some food for the kids. Roxie didn’t do anything. She didn’t even care.
Valentina took care of the baby and the kids, and as night fell, her hope of anyone coming was growing less and less. She didn’t know what their plans were for her, and she didn’t like how Samuel and his men watched her closely, especially when they permitted her to use the bathroom. It was bare in there. There was nothing to even use as a weapon, but she had her pocket-knife,
and worse-case scenario, she would use that to do what was needed to survive.
She was exhausted as she held all three babies against her and tried to figure out what she could do to escape. It didn’t seem possible with a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. The kids looked thin. She could feel their little bones as they lay against her. They were suffering, and that suffering needed to stop.
