Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Josie felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the dark closet, but it felt like years. This was way worse than that damn cell somehow. She wasn’t across the world in a foreign country. She was right here in the US. A place she should’ve been safe.
She second-guessed her actions from earlier. Should she have tried to escape? Run? Risked being shot to get away from Gen?
She hated that she once again needed to be rescued. She’d always thought she was extremely self-sufficient. She’d never relied on anyone else to give her what she needed. She’d clawed and fought her way to keep her head above water. Learned that from her mom. And yet, here she was. Locked away in another freaking hole as if she was nothing more than a piece of garbage. A throwaway person.
She might’ve fallen into a pit of misery already if it wasn’t for Nate. He and his friends had accepted her, embraced her, made her feel as if she was worthy. Important to them. They wouldn’t simply shrug after she disappeared and go on with their lives. No, Josie had no doubt they were moving heaven and earth to find her. She had to stay strong, the way Nate saw her.
The problem was, it wouldn’t be as simple as confronting Millie and Gen—probably Nate’s first thought. Because surely they weren’t planning on leaving her in a closet in their home to die. They might think it was an appropriate punishment for what they considered her guilty of…killing Ayden. But they hated her enough to want her to suffer a far worse death.
Josie wasn’t sure what was worse than dying from dehydration and lack of sustenance. Actually, that wasn’t true; she could think of a lot of worse things. And Ayden’s family had no doubt chosen something prolonged and painful.
It should’ve bothered Josie to realize she was hated so much. And if she hadn’t met Nate and his friends, she would’ve been completely freaking out by now. But she’d been shown time and time again that she had value. Thinking about all that Remi and Wren had done for her since they’d met made Josie’s heart swell. Not to mention Caroline, Fiona, and all the other women. And then there were the retired SEALs. Everyone had been so wonderful.
Millie and Gen were the bad people here—not her. Screw them . Whatever they had planned, Josie would do everything in her power to thwart them.
With that thought in mind, she reached out to run her hands over the walls around her. She needed to leave her DNA here. If she didn’t make it out of whatever Ayden’s family had in store for her, she wanted to be sure to leave signs for the police. Even if no one figured out where she’d gone for years, eventually someone would clear out this house, and they’d find this hellhole.
Josie ran her fingernails down the wall, then along the floor. She could feel the dirt building up under her nails.
Fumbling around, searching for something, anything she might be able to use to make some sort of mark on the wall, Josie gasped when her fingers closed around what she thought might be a coat hanger. A metal coat hanger, tucked into the corner behind her.
Even in the dark, it wasn’t hard to twist it apart. It was more difficult to write what she wanted on the wall, since she couldn’t see.
When she was done, she twisted the hanger into what she hoped was a sort of weapon. She didn’t like violence, but if it came down to her or someone else dying, she’d do whatever it took to get back to Nate.
The thought of him made her breath hitch with a small sob. What was he doing right that moment? Was he pacing his apartment, wondering where she was? Was he driving around Riverton, hoping to catch a glimpse of her?
No, he wasn’t doing either of those things. Her boyfriend had probably called in all the resources he had at his fingertips and was doing all he could to track her down. That thought gave Josie confidence.
She was going through different scenarios in her mind about what she could do if Millie or Gen opened the damn door, when it actually happened.
Caught unawares, she lost the element of surprise. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because even the dim light in the basement was so bright after so long in the pitch darkness that Josie was basically blind.
“Get up,” Millie growled.
Josie didn’t want to. For all her wishing and hoping she could get out of that closet, suddenly it felt as if it was the safest place she could be. She had no idea what Millie had in store for her, but it wouldn’t be good.
“What’s that? Shit. Drop it!” Millie exclaimed. “I’ll shoot you, I will! Drop the weapon!”
Her eyes had adjusted to the light coming in from the basement, and Josie’s blood ran cold at the sight of Millie pointing the damn gun in her face once more. For a split second, she considered leaping out of the closet and doing her best to bury the sharp end of the coat hanger into one of the older woman’s eyes. But instead, Josie put the hanger down.
She wanted to live. And all it would take was one twitch of Millie’s finger and she’d have a bullet between her eyes. She couldn’t live the rest of her life with Nate if she was dead.
Slowly, hoping not to spook Ayden’s mom, Josie crawled out of the hole she’d been stashed in. The basement looked even more trashed now than it had when she was led to the closet. The path she’d taken had been obliterated. Millie and Gen must have scattered the junk all around them to hide the closet. To make it look as if walking through the years of accumulated crap was impossible.
Smart. And infuriating.
“Put those on,” Millie ordered, pointing to a pair of handcuffs sitting on top of a plastic bag. They were rusty and looked ancient .
Josie hesitated.
“I’ll shoot you and won’t feel an iota of remorse,” Millie warned. “But I won’t kill you. A bullet in your brain would be too quick. Too painless. No, I’ll shoot you in the knee and make you walk on it. Put on the fucking cuffs so we can get on with this.”
Josie wanted to ask get on with what , but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. And her voice still wasn’t cooperating anyway. Even if she wanted to plead for her life, once again try to convince Millie that it wasn’t her fault Ayden had died, she couldn’t.
Reaching for the handcuffs, Josie tried to think of a way that maybe she could pretend to put them on, but with Millie’s impatience and her finger on that trigger, she couldn’t think of any way to get out of having to shackle herself.
Slowly, feeling dread rise within her, she encircled one of her wrists and tightened the cuff. The clicking sound of the device locking was terrifying.
“Now the other one,” Millie ordered, waving the gun at Josie’s face.
The dread increased as she managed to get the cuff around her other wrist.
Millie laughed then. A sinister, horrible sound that would stick with Josie for however long she had left to live.
“Time to go, bitch. Just remember, you’re getting everything you deserve. Karma will have her say. Upstairs. Go .”
It was almost impossible to walk across the boxes, bags, and piles of trash around the basement, especially with her hands cuffed together. Josie’s balance was thrown off time and time again, and she couldn’t use her hands much to keep from falling. Every time she went to her knees or fell to the side, Millie laughed.
It felt as if it took hours to get to the bottom of the stairs, where there was finally a path leading up to the main floor. Josie had never been so grateful to step on a crooked, broken stair tread in all her life.
She cringed when she felt Millie poke the small of her back with the barrel of the pistol. “Hurry up. I want you gone before your boyfriend comes back.”
Josie froze, and she whipped her head around to stare at Millie. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
Millie cackled. “That’s right, bitch, that ridiculous-looking redhead was here with two of his friends. We let them look around, but of course they didn’t find you, just like we knew they wouldn’t. Then they left. They aren’t coming back, and they aren’t going to save you from what I have planned for you. So if you’re hoping for some sort of last-minute rescue, it’s not happening. You’re going to wish you were dead long before someone puts a knife through your stone-cold heart. He should thank me for saving him from the same fate as my Ayden.”
Josie’s heart was beating almost out of her chest. Nate had been here? She knew it. Knew he’d figure out who’d kidnapped her!
She rejected the rest of Millie’s speech completely. Nate might’ve left, but he’d be back.
Millie’s words were meant to demoralize her, but they had the opposite effect. They’d given Josie hope. Nate was here. In Las Vegas. She needed to be ready for anything .
The feel of the gun in her back had Josie hurrying up the rest of the stairs.
“Sit there,” Millie ordered, gesturing to a pile of trash on the floor. It smelled horrible, but Josie did as she was told.
“The bitch give you any trouble?” Gen asked from her spot across the room on the couch.
“No. She’s weak. Just like we thought,” Millie answered breezily.
Josie sat completely still, not fazed at all by the older woman’s insult. She wasn’t weak. She’d proven that by surviving in Iran. All the times Nate had told her how strong she was, how impressed he was with her, echoed in her head.
“You tell her what’s going to happen?” Gen asked her mom.
“No.”
Gen grinned. “Can I? Please? I want her to know.”
“Fine. But get up and watch out the door for him to arrive.”
Josie didn’t know who “him” was, but she assumed Millie didn’t mean Nate.
Gen got up and made her way to the front door. She looked out the window beside it, then turned toward Josie.
“We sold you,” she said bluntly, a glint in her eye. “To a guy who has connections in the sex trade. He knows a guy who knows a guy who likes fresh meat. Women who haven’t been prostituted out already. He used to have a connection to someone in Peru, a man who took unsuspecting women from the casinos, but unfortunately, that guy’s entire operation was taken down.”
Gen laughed then. A deep sound that sent shivers down Josie’s spine. “You’re going to be fucked —literally. Until you’re bleeding out of every orifice. You’ll be tied down, raped over and over. Given to anyone who wants to take a turn. And then you’ll be shoved into a shipping container and sent to China. You’ll be quite the novelty over there, and the whole process will start all over again. The rest of your life will be spent being fucked over, just like you did to us .”
It sounded overly dramatic, like Gen had watched too many thriller movies, but Josie had no doubt that whoever she was about to be sold to didn’t have plans to invite her over for tea and cookies.
“Did you hear me, bitch? You’re about to live your worst fucking nightmare.”
Josie simply stared at Genevieve. The last thing she’d do was give either of these women the satisfaction of knowing how terrified she really was. They wanted her to be scared. Wanted her to beg for her life. For that very reason, she refused to show any emotion whatsoever.
“A thousand bucks. That’s all you’re worth. It’s more than we thought we’d get for you, though. Honestly, I would’ve given you to him for free, but Mom insisted we get some kind of compensation for our troubles. He had to make one other stop before he came here, but he’s on his way now.”
Josie felt cold inside, but she didn’t let any of the turmoil coursing through her body show on her face.
Headlights flickered through the front window as someone pulled into the driveway outside.
“He’s here!” Gen said excitedly.
Millie lifted the pistol again and pointed it at Josie. “It’s time to pay for your crimes, bitch.”
“Someone’s pulling in,” Smiley said unnecessarily from behind a car on the street, where he, Preacher, and Blink were crouching. They’d parked down the block and had been silently watching and waiting for something to happen. They didn’t have to wait long.
A black four-door sedan pulled into the driveway and the headlights immediately turned off. A large man, about six feet tall and easily three hundred pounds, got out and walked up to the front door.
Blink got a glimpse of Gen at the door as she opened it, before the man disappeared inside.
His gut rolled. Everything within him was screaming for him to run up to the house, but his training forced him to stay right where he was.
“I’m going to go look in the car. I’ll be right back,” Smiley said.
“I’m going with you,” Blink said quickly. He needed intel, and he needed it now. Whoever that man was who’d gone inside, he was up to no good. And if he was involved in Josie’s disappearance, or if there was evidence of her being in the car, now or in the past, he needed to see for himself.
“I’ll call Tex with the plate number,” Preacher said. “Go.”
Blink and Smiley crept across the dark road to the back of the car. They went around to the side of the car farthest away from the front door and leaned up to look in the window. Smiley took out a small pen light and turned it on, aiming it toward the back seat .
Blink inhaled sharply at the same time Smiley said, “What the fuck?”
Lying on the back seat was a woman. She had what looked like reddish-brown hair, and her eyes were huge in her face. She had a black eye, bruises all over her face, and a gag in her mouth. Her hands were bound with a zip tie, as were her ankles. If Blink had to guess, he would’ve said she was anywhere from her late twenties to mid-thirties, but it was hard to tell in her condition and in the darkness.
Smiley met Blink’s gaze, then reached for the door handle. To both their surprise, it wasn’t locked. And no overhead light turned on when the door swung open, another clear sign something seriously bad was going on.
Smiley reached into a pocket of his pants and pulled out the knife he always carried. It snicked open, and he reached for the gag around her mouth.
The woman flinched, but didn’t jerk away from Smiley. He reached inside the car and cut off the offending material.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
It was kind of a stupid question, because of course this woman wasn’t all right.
“No! Please help me!”
Without another word, Smiley leaned in farther and reached for her ankles.
Blink looked up at the house, then back at the woman. They didn’t have much time. At any moment the man could return, and they needed to be ready.
“What’s your name?” Smiley asked as he began to work on the zip-tie around her wrists.
“Bree. Bree Haynes,” she said. “I…My ex sold me to this as shole. He’s here to pick up someone else. Then he said he’s taking us to some underground brothel.” She shivered. With fear or revulsion, Blink wasn’t sure.
“I’m Jude Stark. My friends and I are Navy SEALs out of Riverton. You’re okay now.”
Blink had never heard his friend sound so…gentle. He wasn’t known for his bedside manner, so to speak. But as Smiley cut off the woman’s bindings, Blink was stuck on one of the last things the woman told them. The man was here to pick up someone else. And he knew in his gut who that was—Josie.
He’d been right. She was here. And no way was she being sold into sexual slavery. Fuck no .
“Come with me,” Smiley said gruffly, holding out his hand to the woman.
She recoiled.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to get you away from here. You did ask for help,” he said brusquely, sounding more like the man Blink was used to.
The woman bit her already bleeding lip and winced. Then nodded. Without a word, Smiley took her hand in his and quickly led her down the street, toward where they’d parked, instead of heading back to Preacher.
The evidence of what Millie and Gen had planned for Josie sank in. Blink still didn’t know who had actually kidnapped her, but at this point it didn’t matter. They’d obviously sold his woman to this…monster, knowing what he had planned for her.
They were inhuman. He knew evil existed in the world, had given an oath to fight it on behalf of his country. But this…Blink was having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. Women knowingly selling another woman to a sex slaver was one of the worst things he could imagine. They wanted Josie to suffer in one of the worst ways imaginable.
He’d quietly closed the door of the sedan and was trying to figure out what his next move was going to be when Millie’s front door opened. Silhouetted in the doorway was the large man who’d gotten out of the car, and a diminutive shadow at his side.
Blink would recognize Josie anywhere.
The man had her upper arm in his grasp, and Blink could see that her hands were cuffed in front of her. The sight made him hesitate for just the slightest moment.
That hesitation was something his training should’ve prevented. But this wasn’t an op, it was personal—and the sheer relief of seeing Josie alive, combined with the rage over seeing her manhandled by the large man, was enough to make years of training fly out the window.
That hesitation caused him to fuck up…by not ducking back down behind the car fast enough, before the occupants of the house saw him standing by the back of the sedan.
Then all hell broke out.