Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
GABE
I stood with Marco and the rest of our team in the shadow of an abandoned warehouse in some shitty suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Angel Security provided security for events and high-profile people. We also did personnel extractions for corporations whose executives had been kidnapped. And sometimes, like tonight, we flew under the radar to rescue trafficked children. That night, we were there to rescue a twelve-year-old girl whose father had managed to connect with our computer guru.
Michael, computer genius and Marco’s youngest brother, was working on his laptop in his modified Ford Explorer. The man had a setup in the back of that car that would make NASA envious. Liam, Marco’s boyfriend, was also in the Explorer, waiting for us to complete the rescue. He was a nurse practitioner, and his role was seeing to the medical needs of the kids we rescued and patching up any of us who might get wounded during the op. My asshole teammates were betting it would be me. Look, just because I got injured on our last two ops didn’t mean I would get hurt on this one.
One of my teammates, Dante, another ex-Navy SEAL, put his arm around my shoulders. “So, do we need to wrap you in cotton wool, sailor?”
I shoved him away from me. “Shut up, asshole.”
“Knock it off,” Marco growled.
“Yes, Chief,” Dante and I said in unison.
Andrea, a former Army sniper, and Pete, a former Navy pilot, came to stand beside us at the corner of the warehouse while we waited for Marco’s go-ahead order. Michael’s SUV was set well back from the road in the deepest part of the shadows. Our target was a large, dilapidated house across the narrow street. It was set back from the road, long forgotten, just like the warehouse we were using as a base.
Marco tapped his earpiece. “Comms check.”
“Copy,” everyone replied.
“Good. Michael, do you have the cameras yet?” Marco asked.
“Yep,” Michael replied. “I have full control of the security system, which includes the cameras, alarms, and door locks. Oh, and get this. The lights are powered by Alexa.”
“Idiots,” I muttered.
Over my comms, I heard Michael chuckle. “Their stupidity is our way in.”
“And that means it’s less likely you’ll get injured, Gabe,” Liam chimed in.
Snorts and snickers sounded around me. “Yeah, you’re all hilarious,” I grumbled.
Marco rolled his eyes. “Michael, what have we got inside the house?”
“It’s a pretty typical setup for that type of house. There are four large rooms on the first floor, including the kitchen and what should be a living room, dining room, and den. Those rooms have some furniture scattered around, but nothing great. The second floor has four large bedrooms and one small bedroom. There’s one shared bathroom in the hallway. The bedroom doors all have padlocks on the outside.”
“Motherfuckers,” Dante growled.
“We’ll get them out,” I said.
“Can you tell how many kids are in there?” Marco asked.
“Yes,” Michael replied. “There are cameras in all the bedrooms. I counted twelve children in total. Eight girls and four boys.”
All around me, I heard growls of suppressed rage. The worst part was we couldn’t even kill the fuckers who took these kids. We weren’t even allowed to castrate them. We had to leave them to the justice system. Half the time, the cops were in on it. Rage climbed up my throat, threatening to choke me. I wanted to kill these rapist fuckers in the slowest, most painful way possible.
“Hey.”
I blinked and found Marco standing right in front of me. I hadn’t noticed him move. “What?”
He scowled at me. “You got that Dexter serial killer look in your eyes. Shut that shit down. We’re supposed to be flying under the radar. We can’t do that if we leave a trail of dead bodies behind us.”
“We need some damn alligators,” Andrea muttered in her soft, southern accent.
We all turned to look at her. Marco’s eyes narrowed. “What. The actual. Fuck?”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “I’m kidding. Mostly. I’m reading this series of gay romance novels with a group of guys that do what we do, but on a bigger scale, and they get rid of the bodies by feeding them to alligators.”
I blinked. “That’s terrifying and brilliant at the same time.”
“Who the fuck writes romance novels like that?” Marco demanded.
“Kelly Fox,” Liam chimed in through the comms.
The look on Marco’s face was priceless. “You read that shit?”
“Hey!” both Liam and Andrea protested.
I cleared my throat. I couldn’t believe I was going to be the one who brought people back to the topic at hand. “I think we have more important things to worry about than serial killers in gay romance novels.”
Marco muttered something incomprehensible. “Michael, save me from this bullshit. How many adult targets do we have in there?”
I could tell Michael had been laughing when he answered, “Five total. Two are in the kitchen playing cards. One is in the room with the security monitors. One is sleeping on the couch in the living room. The last one is in the backyard, smoking.”
“Armed?” Marco asked.
“The guy outside definitely is,” Michael replied. “He has a handgun in a shoulder holster, and it looks like he has a nightstick hanging from his belt.”
“What about the ones inside?”
Michael paused. “All four of them have at least one handgun on them. The guy in the security room has a shotgun on the table next to him.”
“Okay, everyone is in Kevlar for this,” Marco ordered.
No one argued with him. Even trained fighters can get hit by a lucky shot. We all suited up in silence. I knew without asking that Liam was getting his medical bag out and ready to use. Even though he always worried about Marco, he was cool as a cucumber under pressure. The man had saved my life earlier in the year without breaking a sweat.
Andrea picked up her tranquilizer rifle. The rest of us had handguns for the same purpose. We were also armed with regular firearms to use as a last resort. All of us had cable ties attached to our tactical vests. We pulled down our masks and strapped on our night-vision goggles. “Andrea, Dante, and Pete, take the guy out back. Tranq him, tie him up, and gag him. Signal when you’re done and are at the back door. Gabe and I will go to the front door and signal Michael to cut the lights. Then, head inside and take out the two in the kitchen. We’ll take care of the sleeper and the security room guy.”
“Roger that,” we all said.
“Non-lethal force unless you have no other choice.” Marco reminded us.
There were grumbled acknowledgments of “Yes, Chief,” from most of us and a “Yes, Sarge” from Andrea.
“All right, you miscreants. Let’s do this,” Marco growled.
Everything was silent after that. We all knew our roles. Since Andrea was a sniper, she was the best person to take out the guard in the back. She, Pete, and Dante melted into the shadows. We saw them briefly when they crossed the street, but then they were lost in the overgrown bushes and tall grass on the other side.
Marco and I crept toward the front of the house until we were crouched by the sagging porch. We didn’t have long to wait until Andrea signaled, “All clear, Sarge. One neutralized.”
“Copy that,” I replied.
Marco and I crawled silently up the stairs to the chipped and peeling wooden front door. Marco put his hand on the doorknob. “Michael. Lights.”
The lights inside the house all went out. Marco opened the door to shouts of “What the fuck?” and “Get the lights.”
The guy on the couch woke with a start, but it was too late for him. Marco hit him with a tranquilizer dart and punched him in the face for good measure. We tied him up and gagged him before moving on to the security guy. “Michael, which door is the security room?”
“From where you are, go down the hallway. It’s the second door on your left.”
There was a shout and the sound of a door crashing open. “He’s heading your way with the shotgun,” Michael cautioned.
“Copy that,” I said.
Marco and I looked at each other. “High and low?” I asked.
“Yep.”
Though I hadn’t played organized football since high school, I still remembered how to take someone out at the knees. Marco plastered himself against the wall while I crouched low, waiting for the target to head our way. To make sure he came in our direction, I shouted, “Hey, asshole!”
He aimed the gun toward me, but I was faster. I made a low tackle, grabbing him around the knees and flipping him over my shoulder. He went down, and the gun went flying. Thankfully, it didn’t discharge.
Marco threw himself on top of the man as he struggled to get his other gun out of his holster. He put the writhing man in a chokehold until he stopped moving after I hit him with a tranquilizer dart.
“Is he still breathing?” Liam asked over the comms.
“Yeah, he’s alive,” Marco replied.
“Sadly,” I added.
“Status?” Marco asked, ignoring my comment.
“All targets neutralized,” Dante replied.
“All right, sweep the place to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
We spread out and checked all the closets and the other rooms downstairs. Dante and Pete checked the basement and found a treasure trove of DVDs that were likely child pornography.
Once we were sure it was all clear, we moved all the perpetrators into the kitchen and handcuffed them to the chairs and one to the radiator. As an added bonus, we set all the DVDs on the kitchen table.
Liam and Andrea went upstairs to the rooms where the victims were being held to do a field assessment and tend to any immediate needs. The twelve kids ranged in age from nine to thirteen. I wanted to go back into the kitchen and beat the shit out of every one of those men. Marco must have known what I was thinking because he steered me outside and told me to cool off.
The missing girl was among the children we rescued. When we were sure they could travel, we loaded the kids into the four SUVs we’d brought and took them to a hospital in Cincinnati proper. The girl’s father met us there, along with our contact from the FBI. The other kids would be identified, and their families contacted if it was safe to do so.
The feds had swarmed the house where the children had been kept prisoner as soon as our cars were out of sight. This was the deal we had with them. We could go places they couldn’t without a warrant. Then we would call in with probable cause, and they took it from there. In this case, the girl we’d been looking for was from West Virginia, so the perpetrators had crossed state lines and gotten themselves the attention of the FBI.
Since it was nearly four in the morning by the time we dropped the kids off, we found a nearby hotel and bunked down for the night. As I lay awake in the room I shared with Marco, my mind drifted back to my last mission as a Navy SEAL and the little girl I’d failed to save. What happened after that had almost gotten me a dishonorable discharge. But I didn’t care. I would have done it again, a thousand times over.