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“You wound me, woman,” Jones said as I grabbed the poles.
“In all honesty, I was going to ask for them,” Abby said, taking the bait.
“And you wound me more,” Jones said, faking a wound to his chest.
“Sure I do,” she replied with a smile.
Didn’t she realize just how easily she fit in with my friends, that she could find happiness with us?
“Good luck. We’ll go dock the yacht, and someone will be back in four hours to switch shifts,” Wells said.
“See you then,” I said to my friends as I dropped down onto the speedboat and held my hand out to Abby. She ignored it and made her own graceful leap onto the boat.
Show off.
We turned on the boat’s trolling motor and parked at the dock to the house we rented. I tied up the boat while Abby went to the front and entered the code into the lockbox. The house’s lights turned on, and then she opened the back door to let me in.
“This place isn’t bad,” she appraised as she stared at the artwork on the walls.
“I hope not. Christine paid a lot,” I said with a chuckle.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll go inside and make some better coffee. Looks like the host left a selection. Why don’t you set up our lines?”
“On it,” I said with a smile.
I trashed the rest of the instant coffee. She came back out a few minutes later with a much improved cup of coffee, and I sighed in relief at the taste. It didn’t matter that it felt like it was two hundred degrees out; I could always use a cup of coffee.
Abby picked up her pole from the floor of the dock and casted out her line. We casually snuck glances at the compound and continued to memorize the layout. We missed the garden last night. It was large in size, enough to feed quite a few people. The property also had “do not trespass” signs posted at each house. The curtains were all closed, and no one seemed to look out the windows. The houses remained eerily quiet.
I noticed three vehicles parked in the area under each of the houses, which were on stilts—because this was an island, after all. I wasn’t able to see the license plate numbers for the vehicles parked in the drive for the two further houses. I was able to make out the plates of the two closest vehicles. I texted photos of them to Guy.
Guy: Those plates are both registered to Thomas Ricketts, our target’s brother.
Me: So this looks like a family business?
Guy: Yeah, quite possibly. The question is, what role does he play?
Me: Hopefully we’ll know everything real soon.
Guy: Fingers crossed.
There was only fifteen minutes left in our shift when the back door to the closest house on the compound opened. A woman in ill-fitting clothes exited, and she carried a basket. She was barefoot, her hair was pulled back, and she looked dirty. She also looked relieved, like this was the first time she had set foot outside for a while and was taking in all the fresh air she could. Abby and I both watched, not speaking a word. We didn’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, because she wasn’t alone.
A man stepped out the same back door. His arms were crossed in front of him, and he leaned against one of the supports of the house, like he was annoyed that he had to come outside. I didn’t miss the Ruger he had tucked into his waistband. The fact that he needed a gun to contain one woman proved just how big of a pussy he really was.
I could hear the periodic insults he made to her as she started harvesting from the garden. She looked like she paid no mind to the words, until he bragged about what he was going to do to her later. She flinched. My vision turned red, and my fists clenched. Abby let out a hiss, and her whole body went rigid.
I placed my left hand on hers and brought it up to rest comfortably on my thigh. I gently squeezed her hand and hoped that she understood my silent gesture.I’m here. You aren’t going through this alone. I would personally fuck the guy up when we breached the compound. Abby’s eyes only left the compound for a moment to meet mine, and I understood her silent response. The anger in her ran so deep that her eyes were red and brimmed with tears. Her jaw was clenched and she was breathing heavily. Her body told me what she couldn’t verbalize. The man was all hers when we breached the compound. I wouldn’t deny her that satisfaction. Hell, I wouldn’t deny her anything. Anything she wanted was hers when she was with me; I hoped that she’d catch on and want what I had to offer, aside from our mind-blowing sexcapades.
After twenty minutes, the woman got up from her knees in the dirt with a basket full of tomatoes, lettuces, and peppers. She had a watermelon propped up on her hip, supported by her other hand. She walked to the back door after taking one last look around, like she wasn’t sure when she’d get to see it all again, and that made my heart break for the girl. My mind went somewhere it shouldn’t have, and I imagined that girl being Abby. It made me want to smash things and scream in rage all at the same time, but I reined it in. Abby was safe, right next to me, and fighting her own inner struggle. Abby might not be that woman currently, but she was at one point, and that had a lasting effect on someone. Abby might not have PTSD from combat, but I knew she still had the mental scars, just the same as the guys and I did. Hell, even Christine and Jasmine had forms of it. We were all linked by our scars and the impact it had on us; it made us want to be better people. We wanted to make the world a safer place.
When the woman reached the top of the stairs, her babysitter shoved her into the house and locked the door behind him. Abby let out a loud breath, and her shoulders drooped.
“That was rough,” I told her.
“Yeah, it took every ounce of my self-control not to jump into the canal and pop up on the other side and grab her,” she said.
“I’m sure. Let’s go inside. Our relief should be here by now, and then we can go back to the resort and decompress. We’ll have the first round of intel, and we can use that to lay down the groundwork for a plan,” I suggested.
