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Marenah spins, yelling to the guys, her blonde ponytail flying in the wind. “We need water, lots and lots of water, and gauze. Matt, I need the dressing kits,” she yells, just as Sheldon’s SUV comes into view with him and Lexie in the front seat. He flips his SUV around and backs up to the truck. The back door raises, and our team double times it to get the cases of water opened up and doled out to the women in the truck without disrupting the detonators that have been draped around them.
I grab Marenah’s attention, pulling her away from the ladies for a minute. “We ran out of time and had to hide some of the women from the warehouse. Allie and Liam are with them in the woods. I’ll have them bring them this way. Some of them were injured pretty bad. Those fuckers sliced them with the knife too, but there are a few who looked like they’re going to need more immediate emotional help than the others.”
She swallows hard, but her resolve is firm, and she nods. “It’s their way of keeping control of the crowd. Slice ten and the rest tend not to give you any problems after that.” She looks around and starts barking orders, putting every spare hand to work. “I’ll go meet the group and see what I can do to help that situation,” she says to me.
“Far right, just off the front corner of the last warehouse. They’re not too far in. Allie has a headset on.”
“I hear you guys. Marenah, I’ll catch your attention when I see you,” Allie says.
Matt pulls a weapon out of Marenah’s back pocket and checks it before snugging it back where it was. She turns around and rolls her bright blue eyes at him, but he just smirks. “Be careful.”
“Always,” she drawls as she heads into the woods, and Cole and Trent return carrying all the stuff I’ll need to start working on the wires.
“Nick, are you okay?” The sound of Allie’s uncertain voice causes my chest to tighten. This is what it’s going to be like for her every day we’re together while I’m out there putting myself in harm’s way. Exactly why I never got involved. But I am involved. I’ve been involved since she first swished by me at the hospital and wouldn’t give me the time of day.
“I’m okay. The women in the truck are going to take a little longer than we thought. Marenah’s on her way. We could use your help when you get here,” I tell her, jumping up on the edge of the trailer to survey the mounds of wires wrapped around every woman on the truck. They’re squashed in so tightly there’s barely room for one or two of us to be in the trailer with them at a time, and they need water first. I jump to the ground, and one of the men watches me sift through the equipment and smiles. The only thing that saves him from the heel of my boot is the sound of a car approaching down the gravel road.
Tommy steps out of a short black Lincoln, tugging at the sleeves of his suit jacket. It could be a hundred degrees and he’d still dress the part. He gives me a wide smile and nods at me as his men surround him. “Good work.” He walks to the back of the truck, and his jaw locks tight. “We don’t run women in this territory, and everybody fucking knows it. That is everyone who wants to stay alive,” he states, walking toward the two men who are lying on the ground and hardly smiling now. “You have one chance. Tell us who you’re working for, and you get off with one bullet straight through the head. You won’t feel a thing. Otherwise, you’re going back to the warehouse for a very long interrogation.”
The same from both of them. Dead silence. They know their situation is about as grim as the ones they put the women in. “Get these fuckers loaded up quickly,” I tell Tommy. “I need to get working on those detonators.”
“You need help with the women? Mr. Larussio sent word to give you anything you need.”
“No, we have that covered if you could get these guys out of here. I’ll start working on the wires now, and we’ll get Special Forces and the bomb squad called in as soon as you get these fuckers out of here. Marenah let them know the official call would be coming in, so it won’t take them long to respond. Let me know what you find out from these guys, will you?”
Tommy nods. “Count on it. We’re going to know who these pricks answer to by the time we get through with them, aren’t we, boys?” he says, smiling at the men who are being dragged past us to the back of the Lincoln.
I turn toward the truck, and Cole and Trent are just finishing in the back, squeezing in and out of all the women, giving those who can hold them bottles of water and those with their hands behind their back sips of the lifesaving liquid that Matt’s handing them from the ground. The eyes are all hopeful, but leery of what comes next. Many of them can’t move an inch until the detonators are deactivated. “We’re going to get you out. It’s just going to take a little time,” Cole tells them, as he carefully pushes the womens’ legs tightly together, making some room to step between. He walks back out of the truck as Tommy and his crew leave with the men.
Cole turns to me. “I hope those bastards get what they deserve. They weren’t going to let these women walk away from this truck with a story if they got caught. That’s for damn sure. I wonder if all the vehicles they use to traffic women in are rigged like that?” he asks as we wait for Trent to finish making his way out of the trailer.
A no lights Special Forces van arrives a few minutes later, and a tall bald man gets out and puts a black and white cap on his head that sports the same name. He walks up to me and looks into the back of the truck. “What a fucking mess,” he says, his eyes taking in the women who are waiting to be detangled from their bomb-rigged restraints.
“No arguments there. We’re going to need help to get these women untangled. The bomb squad should be here in a while, but traffic may still be heavy. Luckily the timer connected to the device wasn’t set, but it’s going to take time to get the lines figured out and get these ladies secured for the night.”
“Yeah, we’re going to need to work quick,” he says, pulling his radio from the clip on his pants. “Bomb squad is on their way; we need to move quick,” he says into the device. We both turn toward the van, but his free hand moves too quick, causing my instincts to kick in. “Ambush!” I yell as he goes for his gun and the double doors on the back of the van kick open from the inside. Three men with machine guns pile out, spraying the ground with a round in challenge as they see me with the barrel of my gun pressed to the side of their leader’s face.
Cole and Trent have dropped behind the wheels of the semi tires as the three men stalk toward me, and Matt is nowhere in sight.
“Let him go, or we kill you and your men. We take the truck and leave you alive. Put your gun down,” the tall dark man says, walking toward me.
“That’s not how this is going to play out. You can have the truck, after we get the women safely off of it.”
He laughs, and my Glock presses tighter against the temple of his leader I’m using for cover. “You like it when fuck face laughs?” I ask, gripping under his neck and holding his face up. “I don’t think your goons know what to do without your say so,” I tell him. “Why don’t you tell them to stand down so when the real Special Forces gets here they can haul your asses away.”
He spits, “Fuck you!”
I grip his neck tighter. “Tell your men to stand down or I will splatter your brains all over the ground and won’t lose a bit of sleep doing it.”
His men are all watching me carefully, intently focused and ready to take me down the moment I move a hair to the left or right. The minute all three lock eyes directly on me I make the call. “Now!” I shoot the man walking toward me, dead center in the chest, at the same time Trent and Cole take out the other two from their positions.
I press my gun into the fucker’s temple, hard, tossing his gun to Matt. “Who are you working for?”
He laughs, but dials it in as Trent and Cole emerge with their weapons still hot from taking his men out and point them at him.
“You can tell me what I want to know and go with the police, or you can go meet some nice men who will spend hours and hours getting you to talk. You get my meaning? Your choice, asshole.”
“Have Tommy flip around and meet you to pick this piece of trash up. There’s no time for him to double back before the real crews get here. And get this van out of here before we have to explain it,” I tell Trent while patting down my captive to make sure he doesn’t have any more weapons or surprises.
