Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Julius
We’d been driving for what seemed like forever, each turn bleeding into the next until I couldn’t tell if we were circling or heading somewhere new.
The windows stayed dark, the driver silent except for the occasional grunt at a traffic light.
I kept my hands laced in my lap like he’d ordered, but my nails dug crescents into my palms. I wanted to glance out, to find a landmark, but the man beside me was watching my every move, so I stared straight ahead and breathed slowly, like I was back in yoga class, like breath could somehow hold me together.
The car turned off the main road and bumped down a gravel drive.
Porch lights glowed ahead, soft yellow against clapboard siding.
It looked like any other farmhouse in West Texas, the kind with a porch swing and flower boxes, except the windows were blacked out and the blinds drawn tight.
A For Sale sign leaned face down in the weeds.
“Out.” The man beside me motioned towards the door with one hand and lifted his jacket just enough for me to glimpse the gun tucked inside. A reminder, like I’d forgotten he had it.
My legs were stiff and shaky as he hustled me across the gravel driveway, up the steps onto the porch, and inside the house.
The front room was basically empty aside from a few folding chairs and a card table.
A big man sat at the table with a laptop open in front of him, the glow making his face ghostly.
“This him?” the man asked without looking up.
Asshole rolled his eyes. “Of course it is, Charlie. I didn’t just grab some rando off the street.”
Charlie ignored the comment, typed something into the computer, and waved his hand dismissively. “Put him in the basement with the others.”
Asshole jerked my arm and pulled me down the hallway to a door locked with a thick padlock. He pulled out a set of keys, metal clinking in his hand, and opened the lock. Then he gave me a rough shove. “Get down there.”
I barely managed to catch myself before plunging down the narrow wooden stairs. Basements weren’t common around here because of the limestone, but this house had one, and God help me, it felt like I was walking straight into a grave.
The stairs creaked under our weight as we made our way down.
At the bottom, a bare bulb buzzed and cast shadows against concrete walls.
The air was cooler, damper, which wasn’t a good thing since I didn’t have a jacket.
It smelled like mildew and sewage mixed with unwashed bodies.
The odor was so strong it made my eyes water.
Bare mattresses lined the floor. Two women sat cross-legged on one, arms wrapped around each other.
Another figure lay curled on his side, his back to me, shoulders trembling.
A few others were there as well, but they were so still I couldn’t tell if they were alive.
My throat tightened. All these people. All these lives.
I scanned the room, my heart in my throat, but I didn’t see Lainey anywhere. I hoped that meant they hadn’t taken her at all, not that she was being held elsewhere.
I did see someone I recognized, though. The man from the club. His hair was longer now, falling into his eyes, and his cheek was bruised, but I knew that face. Recognition sparked in his gaze as he lifted his head.
“I saw you. At the club the night they took me.” His voice was raw, hoarse, like it had been sanded down.
Relief and horror tangled inside me. “Yeah. I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t.”
“Quiet,” Asshole barked from behind me, giving me a shove toward an empty mattress against the far wall. “Sit.”
I obeyed, lowering myself to the pad. My hands shook, but I tucked them beneath my thighs. Across the dim basement, the man from the club pressed his back to the wall, his gaze fixed on me, steady despite the bruise.
I wanted to tell him everything. That Gator was coming, that I had trackers on me, that we weren’t alone, but I couldn’t. Not yet. So I did the only thing I could. I met his gaze and gave the smallest nod. A promise.
The padlock clanged into place at the top of the stairs. Footsteps receded overhead.
The two women whispered to each other in what sounded like Spanish, and the curled figure whimpered once, then went still again.
“Can they hear us?” I murmured. It didn’t look like a sophisticated operation—no cameras, no obvious mics—but I wasn’t sure.
The man from the club shook his head and crawled over to where I sat, then dropped down on the mattress next to me. “No. At least not that we can tell.” His gaze darted up the stairs, then back at me.
“Your name’s Noah, right?”
“How did you know?” he whispered.
“We’ve been looking for you ever since they took you.”
“We? Who’s we? Is that why you’re here? Are you undercover?” The hope in his voice almost broke me. I wished that was the case, that I’d meant to be here instead of being forced into that car with the threat of Lainey hanging over my head.
“No,” I said quietly. “I think that’s why they took me—because I could ID them. But I’m not undercover.”
His shoulders drooped, the small flare of hope dimming. “They say they own us.”
“No,” I whispered back, my voice steadier than I felt. “They don’t. They won’t.”
Because somewhere above ground, Harlan Thibodeaux was tearing the world apart to get to me. And I would hold onto that until he did, but I wasn’t willing to say that out loud just in case.
His voice cracked low. “They took pictures of me when I first got here. Apparently, they auction us off. They said someone overseas bought me, and I’ll be shipped out next week.”
Anger surged hot through me. “Then we don’t have long.”
He blinked, hope flickering behind the bruises. “You think… someone’s coming?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I know they are.”
One of the two women scoffed. “We all think that at first. But trust me, no one ever comes.”
The loss of hope in her voice was heartbreaking, but I knew from where she sat, it seemed that way, because these men were pros and they were good at hiding their captives. But I had something these people didn’t. I had Three Bears Tactical on my side, and they were better.
Noah studied me for a long moment, then whispered, “Who’s coming?”
“Just trust me.” I touched my earlobe where the stud still sat just to reassure myself the tracker was there, a tiny lifeline humming in the dark.
I started to whisper to him that I had a whole team out looking for me, but before I could, footsteps thudded overhead, heavier this time. The padlock clanged open, and the man who’d ridden in the car with me descended with another familiar face right behind him.
Wade Roark, the guy from the wedding. I’d hoped to never see him again, but here he was. I’d known he was part of the ring, but still, seeing him here made my stomach roll.
“Oh, Julius Petros, finally we meet.” He walked over to where I sat and looked me over like merchandise at a flea market.
“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, but luckily, you’re pretty, so the price you bring at auction will help make up for it.
” He sneered at me before looking at Asshole.
“Make sure he looks real nice for the camera.”
The words crawled over my skin as I imagined some stranger scrolling through pictures, thinking he owned me. My stomach lurched.
Wade turned and went back up the stairs. Asshole flicked an ash onto the concrete, then stomped it out with his boot. “I’ll be back for you later once we get the cameras all set up. Behave, and maybe you’ll live to meet your buyers.”
He followed Wade up the stairs, and the padlock snapped back into place behind them.
The silence that followed was heavier than before, pressed down by the stink of his smoke and his words. The two women clung tighter to each other. The curled figure moaned softly. Somewhere a pipe dripped, slow and relentless.
I glanced over at the two that I hadn’t seen move. “Are they dead?”
“No,” the older of the two women said. “They’ve been drugged. That’s what happens if you aren’t cooperative, so if you don’t want to end up like that, keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told.”
I drew in a shaky breath. How many people had they done this to over the years? This had to be stopped, and these people, both the sellers and the buyers, had to pay.
“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Noah whispered.
“It’s not your fault. It’s theirs.” I motioned towards the top of the stairs.
His jaw tightened. “They think they can break us.”
“They won’t.” I shifted on the thin mattress. “My people are coming. We’re going to get out.”
He watched me, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased, like he wanted to believe me. Around us, the basement hummed with quiet despair, but I knew we would get out of here.
I closed my eyes for a second and pictured Gator, his jaw clenched and his beautiful eyes hard and ready. Kat would be at her monitors following the signal from my tracker. Wolfe, Hawk, and the other guys would be loading gear with quiet fury while they prepared to launch an attack.
Hold on, I told myself. Hold on a little longer.
Because Gator was on his way.