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“Hello?” His brows furrowed, and he put it on speaker.
“Hello, Hunter,” a man said. His voice sounded distorted, like he was using some kind of filter. “It’s nice to finally talk to you.”
“Who is this?” Hunter asked.
“You don’t need to worry about that just yet,” the man said. “But we have Brooke, and we’d like you—all three of you—to meet us at the coordinates I’m about to drop you in the next half hour. Be there within that time frame, and we won’t hurt her.”
The line went dead. The back of my mouth tasted sour from how sick I felt.
“Fuck,” I said. “He’s not bluffing, is he?”
“I don’t want to find out if he is.” Chase started to get out of the car.
“We’ll go there and confront this guy to get Brooke back. I’ll get Mac to send a few friends to back us up, and we can have Brooke’s security detail follow us,” Hunter said. “They’ll get us some weapons, too. Sound like a plan?”
“It does. Let’s call the FBI, too. I don’t trust the police here.” I sat back in my seat, fully focused on getting to Brooke. There wasn’t a bright side to this, and that was okay. I had to look into the dark to get to Brooke, and that was more than enough to help me get over my fear.
CHAPTER29
Hunter
The coordinates were a spot in the middle of the Mojave desert, far off the main roads. It was the exact kind of place I expected. The kind of area where no one found dead bodies because the sun and the scavengers got to them first.
I drove as quickly as I could, breaking so many traffic laws that I was shocked we didn’t get pulled over.
But that didn’t make everyone else on the road get the fucking picture.
“Is this fucker for real?” I half-shouted as someone whipped out in front of me in the left lane and didn’t hit the gas. I honked, running up on him, but he still didn’t get the hint. “Fuck this guy.”
I whipped over two lanes and gunned it until I hit another slow patch. It was almost comical. I expected Lucas to crack some kind of joke, but he kept quiet, his intensity unlike anything I’d ever seen from him.
Finally, we pulled off the main road, so I was able to floor it. My car wasn’t meant for off-roading, but I didn’t care. I could always buy a new one. We bounced around in the car as we got closer to the coordinates, catching every dip and rock in the desert.
Eventually, we rounded around a rock formation and spotted them. A few SUVs were parked off in the distance, with men standing around them. My heart leapt into my throat. Brooke had to be there. What if they’d hurt her already?
We pulled up, and two men with guns stepped forward.
“Show us your hands!” one of them shouted. “If you let them drop, we’ll shoot.”
I did exactly as he said, keeping my hands up as I got out of the car. The others did the same. Once we were out of the car, the men with guns rushed us and patted us down, something we’d anticipated. They took the guns that we’d carelessly put in our waistbands to throw them off, but missed the thin taser tucked up my sleeve. I let out a quiet, slow breath, hoping I didn’t look as relieved as I was.
“No weapons,” one of them declared. “But stay exactly where you are. If you try to run back to that car, we’ll shoot without a second thought.”
“Where is she?” I asked. “Show us that she’s okay.”
A feminine shriek, more of surprise than pain, came from behind one of the SUVs. A huge man had Brooke by the arm and was dragging her out. She had a blindfold on and a gag in her mouth, but she was okay. Not a scratch on her, from what I could see.
The relief that rushed through me was short-lived, though. They pushed her to the ground, her knees hitting the hard desert ground with athunk. She winced. Two more men who I vaguely recognized from the files that Chase had put together when we first started looking into what was happening in the casino came out from behind the SUV—the tall, slim man, and the shorter one who had leered at Brooke so long that I wanted to punch him: James. The man with the hand tattoos, who had been to our casino on multiple occasions.
So they were the ones behind this.
“She’s fine,” the tall, slim one said. “You happy?” He removed her blindfold and gag.
“We would be if you let her go,” Chase said.
The creepy man laughed, a full belly one like he was at a standup show. “You really think that we’ll just let you go? And have you waltz into the police station right after? Fuck no. We just need to make sure we close up all the loopholes possible.”
I sucked in a breath through my nose, the reality hitting me hard. The chances of us not making it out of here alive were very real. Even if the police were coming to help us, what was to stop them from just shooting and making a run for it before we could even get the tasers out from our sleeves?
