Chapter Fifteen
For one sickening second, the auction grounds vanished.
Pope saw white tablecloths and polished silver instead of livestock pens. Crystal glasses. Diplomats laughing over dinner.
Then the man at the center of the table suddenly clawed at his throat.
The chair crashed backward.
Guests started shouting.
Pope sprinted across the room, and security and embassy staff scrambled in every direction. The diplomat collapsed, choking for air, as Pope dropped beside him, trying to keep his airway open as terrified screams echoed through the room.
And no matter what he did, the man still died.
Summer had been out of his direct view for seconds, and look what happened. The same helplessness flooded in.
With icy fingers crawling up the back of his neck, he grabbed the first security guard he saw.
“I’m with Black Heart Security. We’ve got a situation. Take me to your security hub. I need to see the camera footage right now.”
The older man shook his head grimly. “‘Cameras don’t cover most of the outer lots. Too much ground out here.”‘
Pope’s pulse slammed harder.
“There’s a few pointed at the sale barn and payment office,” the guard continued. “But once you get out toward vendor parking and the livestock trailers, there’s dead zones everywhere.”
Jesus Christ.
The lemonade stand sat near the edge of the grounds, most likely nonexistent to the cameras.
And the person who took Summer would have planned it that way.
Bile collected in Pope’s throat. Summer was missing because he’d failed to see the danger before it struck.
He met the guard’s eyes and the man flinched at what he saw on Pope’s face.
“We’ll need to see it anyway. If you see anything odd—a woman being taken against her will—hold them. And call us and the police.”
He didn’t wait for the man to respond, just took off at a jog to the parking area, head swinging side to side in search of Summer. When he reached the edge of the lot, sweat rolled down his spine beneath his shirt, but none of it came from the hottest day of the season.
His mind kept replaying the last image he had of her—Summer standing under that yellow umbrella beside the lemonade stand, smiling softly as she watched him talk to the little girl who bought Flint.
She didn’t need to give him space at that moment. She could have teased him for getting sentimental over a horse or dragged him away before he got attached to that little girl already looking at Flint like she’d found her new best friend.
Instead she’d nudged him toward them and said she’d wait by the lemonade stand.
Like she understood what that goodbye meant to him. That Flint had been more than a horse. Flint was something steady to pour himself into during the years Pope was trying to claw his way back from Baghdad and everything that followed.
He should have stayed with her, and that guilt hit hard enough to make his chest ache.
Gripping his hat with both hands, he stopped beside the truck to wait for Colt. The world rumbled with the noise of trucks. He stared at the exit and the few vehicles already making their way to the main highway.
Summer could be in any of them, hauled away against her will.
Ben.
Oh god, another kid was about to lose the one person holding his entire world together.
The thought punched straight through his chest and stole his ability to breathe.
He bowed his head, unable to push back the terror crashing over him in one brutal wave.
His phone rang in his hand.
Carson.
He jerked the phone to his ear so fast he nearly dropped it. “Tell me you found her.”
“Not yet.” Carson’s words carved out more of his heart.
He sucked in a rough breath and looked back toward the highway again. Every passing vehicle looked suspicious.
Summer could be miles away. Terrified and calling for him.
Christ. He was losing it.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Carson’s voice brought his mind into focus.
He issued a harsh laugh under his breath.
“You’re blaming yourself for this. It’s Baghdad again.”
Carson’s words punched him right in the sternum, and he staggered. To steady himself, he planted a hand on the side of the truck.
“Wouldn’t you?”
A brief stretch of silence filled the line. “Maybe I would…if I didn’t have all the facts.”
His jaw flexed. “Poisoned food got onto the diplomat’s plate on my watch. Fact.” He started pacing because standing still wasn’t possible. “By the time I reached him, he was nearly dead. I couldn’t save him. Fact.”
The memories slammed him harder now.
Crystal glasses shattering on the marble floor. Women screaming. The diplomat’s face turning purple under the mood lighting as Pope fought to keep his charge alive.
“His wife was so distraught from his death she grabbed a gun and took herself out.” His throat barely pushed out the rough words. “Fact. Two kids got left without parents. Fact.” Rage and guilt churned in a violent turmoil in his chest. “I failed in every possible way. Fact.”
“False.”
Pope jolted to a halt.
“That’s not a fact,” Carson said firmly. “There were things happening you knew nothing about.”
He stared blindly across the lot. “Like what?” he spat out.
Carson issued a heavy exhalation. “Like the diplomat was going to be arrested the second he landed back on American soil.”
Pope’s brows snapped together. “What?”
“He was dirty. Lex uncovered everything.”
The words sent him mentally reeling.
“He’d been selling favors for years,” Carson continued. “Information, access, money exchanges. He cut a deal to testify against the people paying him.”
Pope gripped the phone hard enough to make his fingers go numb.
“They poisoned him before he could talk,” Carson said bluntly. “The operation was already in motion before you ever walked into that embassy.”
Pope pinched the bridge of his nose. “No.”
“It’s true, Pope.”
The air suddenly felt suffocating.
He shook his head like maybe he could knock the words loose from his brain. “Okay, but his wife…”
“Knew exactly what was going on.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“She had access to the same information. She could have exposed them too. Maybe she feared for her life. Maybe she couldn’t handle the humiliation once everything collapsed. Maybe both.”
The disgust in Carson’s voice roughened more as he continued, “But they made those kids orphans, Pope. Not you.”
Emotion surged into his throat.
Fucking years.
Years of carrying this around like a live grenade tucked inside his chest.
The therapy sessions and sleepless nights.
The friendships with his brothers-in-arms he destroyed before anyone could blame him for what happened.
He braced his forearm against the truck roof and bowed his head. “All these wasted years.”
“Look.” Carson pushed out a sigh. “I’m not Rhae and I’m not about to start talking like a therapist. But I was a SEAL too. I’ve seen shit. I’m telling you that you can keep bleeding over Baghdad, or you can use it.”
He was staring at the highway again, but he was seeing Summer’s beautiful face. She was the only thing that mattered.
Carson’s words solidified it. “You were never going to save the diplomat and his wife. That outcome was determined long before you ever entered that embassy. But you can still save Summer. If you don’t give up.”
Pope swallowed hard against the pressure crushing his chest. “I can’t imagine my life without her,” he choked out.
The words gutted him because he was already imagining it. Every terrifying possibility was crashing through him.
“I have to do something—now. I can’t wait for Colt.”
“You need backup.” Carson’s voice was firm in contrast to Pope’s emotional crash out. “Colt’s pulling into the auction house now.”
Before he could react, another voice cut across the line.
“Lex just sent the preliminary profile on the person who might have Summer,” Denver said. Papers shifted faintly over the phone.
“White male. Likely works transient or low-skill labor jobs. Drifts location to location. No strong long-term ties.”
Pope’s grip tightened on the phone.
Denver continued. “Lex thinks he fixates on people who’ve built the kind of life he thinks he got cheated out of. He doesn’t just want victims. He wants people he thinks owe him something.”
Jesus. Pope knew somebody who fit that profile.
A memory hit—Gary Crowe standing in the yard of the Black Heart, bitterness seeping into his voice. Gary talking about what had been taken from him.
Should’ve been mine.
Gary watching Summer too closely from his barstool.
Pope shoved away from the truck hard enough it rocked on the suspension. “I know who took her.”
Carson’s sharp voice filled his ear. “Who?”
“The truck driver.” He was already yanking open his door. “Gary Crowe.”
“Stand by.”
“Carson—”
“Those trucks are tagged,” Carson broke across him. “I’m getting his location from the trucking company now. Do not move until we have it.”
Pope barely heard the second half.
Every instinct inside him screamed to go, act, drive.
Summer was out there with a man who’d hauled her away in broad daylight.
He leaped behind the wheel and jammed the key into the ignition.
Suddenly, the passenger door whipped open. Colt climbed in carrying enough weapons to start a small war. “I’ve got your six, brother.”
Pope sent him one grim nod before throwing the truck into gear.
“Then let’s bring her home.”
* * * * *
Summer woke to the vibration of an engine beneath her body and the sickening sway of motion.
For several seconds, nothing made sense. Her cheek pressed against a thin mattress that smelled. The space around her was dim and cramped, and her body felt every bump of the vehicle moving too fast over uneven road.
Her mouth tasted bitter and sweet at the same time, coated with a flavor she couldn’t identify.
She lay there, blinking into the darkness, and the memory formed in her mind.
Lemonade. Gary Crowe.
Vander.
Fear tore through the cobwebs still clinging to her brain. She tried to push herself up, but her arms wouldn’t move right. A tight band bit into her wrists behind her back, the tough material burning into her skin.
The sound that broke from her throat came out raw and panicked.