Chapter 21
Jericho
The idea of him putting fucking anything inside of her makes me want to rain hell down on everything the man has ever touched. I want to hurt him so badly that his fucking ancestors feel it from their goddamned graves.
I keep driving in the opposite direction from where I really need to go because I know she's being tracked, and I don't want Damien to get even a hint at where we're headed next.
"It can't be true, right?" she whispers. "Cattle are tagged, like livestock, not people."
"We live in a sick fucking world, Peach. You should know that more than most."
I don't have to look at her to know that she's offended by what I just said, but, honestly, the woman has been raised in a house full of criminals. Most folks only get a hint of what that life may be like from movies and shit. Most people aren't touched at all by the criminal world unless they're victimized.
I hate knowing how much of a risk it is to stop, eventually, but it has to be done. Mostly, I hate the idea of what I'll have to do if we find a tracker embedded in her skin.
"How?" she asks, her voice sounding far away since my pulse is raging in my ears. "When?"
"If he didn't hold you down and do it, it had to have been when you were unconscious or sedated. Does he... drug you?"
"Not that I know of," she responds. I despise the idea that he could be doing stuff to her without her knowledge or consent, but it doesn't surprise me. She mentioned cattle and livestock, but I think he sees her as even less. People are just one more thing for Damien Gaines to use and abuse.
"Have you ever had surgery? Been under anesthesia?"
"I had an emergency hysterectomy right after Eli was born because of hemorrhaging," she answers.
I swallow harshly. I know there's always been a level of danger and risk with her being a part of her father's criminal organization, but to hear how close she got to death makes my heart ache for not being there by her side.
"I don't know that he could pull off something like that, but it might've been possible while you were in recovery. What about dental work?"
"I had to have my wisdom teeth extracted three years ago. They did put me under since they were doing all four at the same time."
I watch as she lifts her hand up to her mouth. "Do you think that's where it is?"
I shake my head as I hit the brakes, spotting a small gravel road up ahead.
The SUV grinds to a stop, and I don't waste a second pulling off my seatbelt and opening my door.
"Let's go. We don't have much time."
I pull open the back hatch of the vehicle and grab the black bag that's there, pulling a small electromagnetic pulse meter from one of the compartments.
She steps forward, opening her mouth.
"No," I tell her. "Turn around. He'd put it somewhere that you wouldn't easily notice or be able to reach."
She turns, the cold air raising goose pimples all along her arms.
"Move the towel, Peach," I growl, hating the tone of my voice. Her being out here naked is awful, but Damien rolling up on us with half a dozen men would be worse.
Without argument, the towel pools around her feet, and I run the EMP reader up her spine, watching the color display stay on red until it flips to green at the base of her neck.
"It's here," I tell her, pressing my finger to the spot where the reading is the strongest.
"H-how do you g-get it o-out?" she stammers, probably from the cold and the fear associated with knowing something is going to have to be extracted from under her skin.
"Bend your neck forward."
I pull a scalpel and some gauze from the bag. I don't give her a warning before cutting the back of her neck. The sight of her blood blooming from the cut before rolling down her back makes me sick to my stomach. Her wince of pain makes me feel like the evilest person in the world.
"Got it," I tell her as I pull the tracker from her flesh, using a piece of gauze to hold the rice-sized device. "Hold this gauze here."
Her hand automatically reaches up and applies pressure to her wound.
"It's not deep enough to require stitches but let me get a bandage on it."
Working as quickly as I can manage, I apply a pressure bandage to her wound with some antiseptic cream.
"We have to go," I snap when she turns back to face me, still naked. "Get your towel."
As I close the back of the SUV, she makes her way around to the passenger seat. I climb back behind the wheel, the tracker still in my hand as we drive away. I don't want Damien to know exactly where we stopped to remove it. If anything, he might think we stopped for another reason.
"What will you do with it?" she asks. "Do you put it in someone else's vehicle?"
I snap my eyes in her direction. "So someone else can get killed when he tracks them down and gets pissed that you're not there?"
"Sorry," she says, a sob rushing past her lips, making me feel even worse. "I didn't think of that."
"No, baby," I say, reaching out my right hand to her. "I'm just a little fucked in the head right now with all this shit. I know you wouldn't want people to get hurt."
I don't know who she is anymore, but years ago, even though she had grown up among criminals, she was always a compassionate person. She helped others as much as she could. She was quick to spend Daddy's money, but she didn't hesitate to give to others in need either.
"Once we get back on the highway, there's a bag in the middle seat with clothes. You can crawl back there and get something more than that towel on your body," I explain as I pull back out onto the road and keep heading in the same direction we were going before I pulled over.
I drive until we get close to an interchange on the interstate, leaving many different directions we could head before throwing the piece of gauze and the tracker out the window.
"Get some clothes on," I tell her when she continues to sit in the front seat with her hand covering the new wound on the back of her neck.
She startles as if she is lost in her own world, and I hate that even though he isn't here, Damien still has the ability to terrorize her in her mind.
I pull my foot from the gas, hovering it over the brake pedal as she unclips her seatbelt and climbs into the back seat. Needing to keep her as safe as possible, I don't pull my eyes from the road in front of me to glance back at her to check her progress. The woman has been violated enough, and the last thing she needs is someone else getting another peek at her body without her permission.
"Are these your clothes?" she asks.
"They're just clothes in case of a situation like this," I answer.
"They're huge."
"That's purposeful. As a team, we never know who would need them, and baggy is better than busting out of them. We have to be able to move when we work."
"Where are we heading?" she asks when I take an exit off the interstate and head southwest.
"Tennessee," I tell her. "Don't forget your seatbelt."
"Is that where your federal office is?"
An ache settles inside of me for the years I feel like I wasted with ICE. The rules and the red tape kept me from doing a lot more than I feel like I could have done. If it weren't for fucking bureaucracy, I have no doubt Nathan Adair would be rotting in the fucking ground. I could've slit his throat at any given moment, but the agency wanted his contacts. That's how it always is. They need the connections so they can work toward taking the next bad guy down. The case we're working on is never the head of the fucking snake, and they wouldn't believe me when I told them that Nathan Adair was the evilest man I'd ever met in my life. That's saying a lot since Ivan Reese was the man who ordered my death.
"I'm no longer a federal agent."
"Did that happen after—"
"It's new. I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings, but I'm not going to go into detail about my new job with you, Aspen."
"Because I'm a liability," she whispers, but she dips her head in understanding.
I listen as she pulls in a long, deep breath, releasing it slowly.
"Do you think there's any way to make a stop?"
"What do you need?"
"A chocolate milkshake."
My lips curl up in a small smile. The woman was addicted to chocolate milkshakes years ago, and it seems not everything about her has changed.
"We can make a stop," I assure her, wanting to give her anything that will help her keep calm and not freak out.
I quickly answer my phone from the on-dash console when a call comes through.
"We got a tracker out," I say when the call connects. "We're currently headed southeast."
"I'll get an address for a secondary check," Hemlock says. "Drive safely."
The call ends, and I feel her eyes burning a hole through the side of my head.
"A secondary check?"
"I'm so sorry, Peach," I tell her.