22. Blake
Blake
Gripping the iPad, I stare down at the still shot of the video pulled from the hospital security footage. The grainy image displays the man I know to be Christian Baylor, wearing a white doctor’s jacket.
I’ve replayed the video a dozen times in the last four hours. Each time, I stare helplessly at the look of horror on Callie’s face when she realizes the woman in the hospital bed isn’t her mother. I watch her turn and find that asshole behind her a second too late to stop the needle from plunging into the side of her neck. Then it’s lights out as she crumples to the ground, bouncing her head off the unforgiving concrete floor.
The asshole doesn’t miss a beat, lifting her into a wheelchair and wheeling her out of the room like he doesn’t have a care in the world. The cameras in the hallways and elevator show him clearly, mapping his route as he leaves out the back entrance without anyone stopping him.
“He’s got some brass balls. I’ll give him that. How the fuck does he think he’ll get away with this shit when we have proof of him kidnapping her right here?” Marcus asks as he slides his gun into his holster.
“I don’t know, but this guy is smart. He would have known there were no cameras in the room, so why leave the door open and risk discovery? We would never have gotten this footage if he had closed the door behind him, blocking out the camera in the hallway. If you look at the shots of him leaving, he keeps his face hidden.” I show Marcus, running through the images of Christian’s obscured face.
“He either fucked up and didn’t realize the camera in the corridor was pointed straight into that room or…” Marcus’s voice drifts off.
“Or he isn’t bothered about being caught,” I answer, trying to keep this swirling vortex of worry and rage contained inside me.
But if that’s the case, what’s his endgame? And what the fuck does it mean for Callie? I silently ask myself as Arlo yells, “It’s go time!”
In the five hours since Callie has been gone, things have taken a turn for the worse. Wade and Jake, who were the original officers on the scene, have been replaced with two new guys—FBI agents at that—who claim to be in charge. Only they’ve done nothing but drag their feet and demand the video footage—luckily unaware that we have made copies—and waste valuable fucking time when they should have been mobilizing at Christian’s property.
In the end, I decided to get her back my fucking self. Which is why I’m armed and ready, consequences be damned. It’s only Arlo’s words that hold me back. He knows if I kill Christian like I want to, Callie would be left to watch someone else she cares about get sent to prison, and she’d blame herself.
If I leave him alive, though, he’ll likely walk free again. After seeing the agent’s work today, it has become very clear Callie was right about Christian having law enforcement in his pocket. Only it seems to go much higher than local PD. There’s a good chance, even with a pile of evidence stacked against him, that he could walk away from all this with nothing but a slap on the wrist. And if that happens, Callie will never be free.
That doesn’t mean I won’t do everything in my power to rescue her. These assholes who think they are running the show are in for a rude awakening. They are about to find out I have connections of my own.
I look out the window at the SWAT team, ready to swarm the castle, so to speak, and smile for the first time in hours. Tempest doesn’t have its own SWAT team. The town is far too small to warrant one. However, a multi-jurisdictional SWAT team that covers an area far larger than any regular regional team is available to me. Mostly because I happen to know the guy who put the team together.
Tossing the tablet on the seat beside me, I climb out of the SUV with my guys right behind me. All of them but Aiden, who is dealing with his own shit, and Banner, who I left with the fake Brenda at the hospital.
Ignoring everyone around me, I walk over to Tate Foster, the guy who heads this SWAT team. The guy is tall and built like a fucking tank, and I say that knowing none of my guys are slouches in that department. He also happens to be a good friend of mine. We met at boot camp, back before we were deployed, and kept in touch when we both came home with fucked-up heads and heavy hearts. When I called him and gave him a rundown of what had happened, he was more than happy to step in.
Hearing me approach, he looks up and waves me closer. “Blake.” He shakes my hand. “Good to see you again. I wish it was under better circumstances, though.”
He hands me a tablet. An image on the screen burns into my eyes and makes me want to throw the thing in the dirt.
It’s a photo from a surveillance camera of Christian and a couple of goons entering the house behind me. What makes the picture hard to witness is Callie’s unconscious body hanging limply in Christian’s arms.
“Infrared shows five people inside. I have guys in position to move on my signal. As soon as we confirm her location, I’ll let you know.” He lifts his head, his stormy blue eyes connecting with mine and holding firm. “I know you want her out of there, but don’t get in our way,” he orders, making the men at my back bristle unhappily. As much as it pisses me off, I get it, so I nod in agreement.
I have no authority, and I don’t want to waste time arguing out here when Callie is trapped in there somewhere, facing Christ knows what.
He turns from me and yells into his mic. “A team, go. B team, cover them.”
The next fifteen minutes are the longest of my life while we wait. I run through my memories, praying to God they aren’t all I’ll have left.
I fucked up. Over and over, time and time again. I held off telling her I loved her, convincing myself it was all just lust so I wouldn’t have to go through the gut-wrenching agony of losing someone I loved again. And look how that worked out for me. Standing in the mud with my thumb up my ass.
I hope against hope that my girl read between the lines of every touch and kiss and figured it out for herself. I can’t bear thinking about the alternative of Callie possibly dying without ever knowing how I truly feel about her.
“Anything?” Tate asks into the mic, sounding frustrated.
“Negative. We have five unidentified males who aren’t talking, but no signs of Baylor or the girl,” the voice reports back over the static-filled radio.
Tate turns to me, but I look away before I see the pity in his eyes.
“We’re going in,” I tell him, ignoring his protests. He has to play by a certain set of rules, but I don’t. I’ll get my answers even if I have to dig them out with a knife. Fuck the consequences.
I hear a car pull up and the doors open before I recognize the voice of one of the dickhead FBI agents. I ignore him too, making my way up the long gravel driveway to the house. I hear the footfalls behind me of my guys following me in. They always have my back, just like I always have theirs, but this time it’s more than that. Callie might be my girl, but these guys all love her like a sister, and none of us will rest until we have her safely home with us.
We walk through the front door, coming to a halt, when I see four men on their knees with their hands behind their heads, staring at the circle of guns surrounding them. All eyes come to us, but none of the guns move from their targets, leading me to assume these guys know exactly who we are.
“Oh, a party,” Arlo says as the radio on the shoulder of one of the SWAT members squawks to life.
“Sir,” the guy speaks into it, but he doesn’t move his gun or take his eyes from mine.
“Give them ten minutes. Secure the perimeter. Nobody in, nobody out, FBI included, until the place is deemed safe,” Tate answers, making me smile.
Like I said, connections.
“Sir,” the big guy answers without argument, trusting his boss.
My guys all pull their guns and point them at the guys on the floor as the SWAT members pull back and head outside. As the biggest guy of the bunch passes me, he stops and looks at me without emotion.
“If you have to kill them, at least make it look like they fired first. I fucking hate paperwork,” he grumbles, making Marcus chuckle.
He leaves while I size up the men on the floor, zeroing in on who is the weakest link and who will be the one to hold out. It’s not hard. Being able to read people is a must with the kind of work we do.
I pull my gun and aim it at the guy I know won’t talk. He stares forward, his breathing even, his face almost peaceful-looking. Yeah, this asshole won’t break quickly, and I don’t have time to play.
“Eeny.” I fire a bullet into his shoulder, making him fall backward, before swinging the gun to the next guy in the line.
“Meeny.” I fire into the meaty part of his thigh, then turn the gun on the next guy. When nobody rushes in, I think it dawns on them that nobody is coming to their rescue.
“Miny.” I shoot once more, aiming for the guy’s shoulder like I did the first. I’m shooting to maim, not to kill, but these guys don’t need to know that. I swing the gun to the last guy, the one whose eyes darted all over the place while he muttered a prayer on repeat under his breath. This time, I aim at his head.
“Mo.” The word is barely out of my mouth when he starts screaming.
“No! Stop. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Shut the fuck up, Finkle,” one of the other guys on the floor shouts, but it goes in one ear and out the other.
This Finkle guy is too freaked out for anything to register now beyond my gun pointing at him.
“Mr. Baylor told us to stay here and say nothing, do nothing, and our debts would be forgiven. All we had to do was wander around the property,” he says in a rush, making me look up at my guys.
“Heat signatures,” Kellen concludes. “He knew there was at least a chance SWAT would get called in. If the place was empty, we would have dismissed it and kept looking. Instead, we wasted a bunch of fucking time here instead,” he spits out angrily.
“Where is Baylor?” I grit out at Finkle, who is openly crying now.
“I don’t know, none of us do. He packed his things and left out the back… we don’t know anything else. We are just here because we owe him money,” he babbles.
I look at his friends as they glare at me with a mix of hostility, fear, and pain, knowing the crybaby is right. None of them know jack shit.
“Fuck!” I yell, kicking over the chair closest to me as I lose what’s left of my frayed control. The chair smashes against the wall, bouncing against it so hard that one of the picture frames above it falls and smashes to the floor.
I pick it up to throw it too, the broken glass slicing into my palm. The pain is a welcome relief when the photo inside it stops me. It’s Christian and an older guy shaking hands, standing inside an airport hangar in front of a sleek black private jet with CBE Airways embossed on the side in gold scroll. It looks like the kind of plane a rapper would have, but I know how pretentious Christian is.
“Find out where this plane is,” I bark, handing the picture to Felix and stomping outside, needing to get the fuck out of this place before I really lose my shit in front of everyone.
I brace my hands on my thighs and take a deep breath, but it doesn’t help one fucking bit.
“You get anything?”
I look up at the sound of Tate’s voice, finding him staring at me from a few feet away, where he is standing with the big guy from his team.
“They were decoys. We think they were being used for their heat signatures. Callie, Christian, and his goons are long gone. They don’t know anything useful, but you might want to call a medic or two.”
Tate rolls his eyes but indicates for the big guy beside him to do just that.
“The two agents left when they realized Baylor wasn’t here. I don’t know what their fucking deal is,” he grumbles.
I don’t try to explain my suspicions, focusing only on finding Callie. “There’s a photo on his wall of a plane with a CBE logo on the side of it. If you had a plane on hand, where would you keep it around here? Because it sure as fuck isn’t on this property.”
“Let me make a call. Give me a second.” He spins around with his phone in his hand before I can reply.
I turn to face the house as my guys swap places with the SWAT team once more, swarming out of the house and stomping over to stand beside me.
“Shit.” I turn back to face Tate at his hissed curse and suck in a breath at the look on his face.
He stares at me for a beat before dropping the bomb.
“There is a private airfield about ten miles from here. A plane took off from there three hours ago. A black jet with a gold CBE logo on the side.”