Chapter Twenty-Eight
Colton
The cold had almost won when I heard it—a subtle scraping against the container’s exterior. Three short taps, pause, two long. An old signal from Cooper’s smuggling days.
My body felt like ice, muscles nearly useless after hours and hours in the container. The temperature kept dropping—both punishment and precaution—meant to keep me docile while they cleaned up loose ends.
A whispered curse in American-accented English filtered through the metal. “This lock’s a pain in the ass.”
Stryker. Which meant—
“Move over,” Cooper murmured. “Some of us actually know what we’re doing.”
The lock clicked open with surgical precision. Luckily my brother had spent years defeating all kinds of security measures.
Light spilled in, revealing Cooper and Stryker in tactical gear, faces smudged with black.
“You look like hell,” Cooper said, moving to cut my restraints. His knife was warm against my frozen skin. “Though better than most of the guards outside.”
“First things first.” Stryker pressed something into my hands—a Glock, familiar weight. “Can you shoot?”
I flexed my fingers, willing feeling back into them despite the cold. “Yes.”
“Good.” Cooper helped me up, steadying me when my legs threatened to buckle. “Because we’ve got about ten minutes before they realize the guards in the north sector aren’t responding.”
“Isabella—” My voice cracked from cold and disuse. “Tell me you found—”
“We’ve been looking,” Stryker cut in. “No firm location yet. But we have leads.”
“How long has she been gone?”
“Eighteen hours since the shipping yard incident,” Cooper replied grimly. “They moved quickly after capturing both of you. We’ve been tracking container shipments, checking our contacts.”
“What do we know?” I asked, forcing my frozen limbs to move as we exited the container.
“After the ambush at the shipping yard, they separated you two,” Cooper explained, keeping his voice low. “Put you in one container, her in another. We managed to get past them, and then traced yours, but hers...” He shook his head. “Trail went cold in Rotterdam. But we’ve been picking up chatter about a high-end art authenticator being sold through an exclusive network.”
The rage that had been frozen started to thaw. “Her expertise.”
“They’re using her skills,” Stryker confirmed. “We’ve identified a potential buyer, a European collector with ties to the black market. Our sources say he specializes in acquiring people with unique talents.”
“How do we find him?”
Gun shots behind us. Stryker quickly took down two guards in pursuit.
“We have contacts working on it,” Cooper said as we reached a waiting vehicle. “But it’s gonna take time. These networks are compartmentalized, cautious. They move merchandise frequently.”
Merchandise. The word made me sick. But it was how they saw her. How they’d use her.
“I don’t care what I have to do,” I said as we tore away from the facility, tires squealing. “I’m going to find her.”
The next week passed in a blur of intel gathering, contact meetings, and preparation. Stryker offered up his loft in London, and Cooper and I set up a makeshift command center there.
My body recovered from the container, but my mind remained focused on a single purpose: finding Isabella. Every night I dreamed of her face in that shipping yard, terrified as they dragged me away.
The days were torture. Every hour that passed meant another hour she spent in captivity. I’d learned enough about trafficking networks to understand what happened to the women they took. The thought of Isabella—my brilliant, vibrant Isabella—being drugged, handled, violated...it tore me apart from the inside. I stopped sleeping more than two or three hours at a stretch. Couldn’t stomach food. My body started to wasted away while my mind fractured with horrific possibilities.
“You need to rest,” Cooper told me on the fifth day, finding me still awake at 3:00 a.m., reviewing security footage from suspected trafficking routes.
“I’ll rest when we find her,” I replied, not looking up from the screens.
“You’re no good to her burned out.”
I finally turned to face him. “Do you know what they do to women like her? Educated, beautiful women?”
Cooper’s eyes darkened. “I’ve seen it firsthand.”
“Then you know why I can’t rest.” I turned back to the screens, the images blurring as exhaustion and fear battled within me. “Every minute we waste, they’re breaking her down. Conditioning her. Making her forget who she is.”
“Colton—”
“What if they’re touching her?” The words came out raw, the question that haunted my every moment finally spoken aloud. “What if they’re passing her around like property? What if by the time we find her, she’s...” I couldn’t finish the sentence, the possibilities too monstrous to voice.
Cooper’s hand landed on my shoulder. “We’ll find her.”
“In what condition?” My voice broke. “What will be left of her by then?”
The question hung in the air between us, unanswerable and terrifying. I turned back to the screens, scanning faces, locations, searching for any trace of her. The woman I loved was out there somewhere, being treated like merchandise, possibly being violated in ways I couldn’t let myself fully imagine without losing my mind completely.
I thought about her eyes, how they lit up when she talked about art. Her hands, so delicate and sure when examining brushstrokes. Her laugh, the warm and genuine one that few people besides me heard. How much of that would remain after days of captivity? After being drugged and handled and god knows what else?
The rage that built inside me during that week was cold and focused. It crystalized around a single purpose—find Isabella, and destroy anyone who had touched her. The corporate lawyer I’d once been would have been shocked by the thoughts that now occupied my mind. The violence I was not only capable of but eager to inflict.
At night, when exhaustion finally won, my dreams were filled with her screams. I’d wake gasping, sheets soaked with sweat, her name on my lips. Sometimes I thought I heard her calling for me, begging me to find her, to save her before there was nothing left to save.
I knew the statistics. Knew what happened to trafficked women. Knew that with each passing day, the chances of finding her whole—physically and mentally—diminished. The knowledge ate at me like acid, burning away everything except determination and rage.
By the sixth day, I’d stopped speaking unless necessary. Cooper watched me with concern but wisely kept his distance. I’d become something dangerous, something feral. Training with weapons became my only outlet. I pushed myself harder each day, preparing for what I’d need to do when we found her. Because we would find her. The alternative was unthinkable.
On the seventh day, I found myself standing in the bathroom, staring at my reflection. I barely recognized the man looking back at me—hollow-eyed, unshaven, something wild in his eyes. I’d lost weight. Gained muscle. Lost something indefinable that separated civilized men from predators.
When Cooper burst into the loft with news on the twelfth day, I was a coiled spring ready to release.
“We’ve got something,” he said, spreading documents across the table. “One of our sources infiltrated an authentication session in Prague. She was there, confirming a supposed Degas for a private buyer.”
“Condition?” I demanded, scanning the grainy surveillance photo that showed Isabella standing next to an older man, examining a painting.
“Alive,” Cooper said carefully. “Functional. But the source reports she appeared drugged between authentication sessions. Kept compliant.”
“Where is she now?”
“That’s the problem,” Cooper sighed. “The session was three days ago. They’ve already moved her. But we’ve narrowed it down to three possible locations.”
I studied the maps they’d prepared. “So we hit all three.”
“Not simultaneously,” Stryker cautioned, joining the conversation. “We don’t have the manpower. And two are decoys, meant to confuse exactly this kind of rescue attempt.”
“How do we know which one?”
Cooper tapped one location. “Process of elimination and intel suggests this compound outside London is most likely. Heavy security, underground facilities, owned through a shell company linked to the buyer. Our source confirmed there was movement and activity there yesterday.”
“Then we move now.”
“We need twenty-four hours to prep,” Stryker insisted. “Security assessments, infiltration paths, extraction plan. We go in unprepared, we lose her forever.”
I wanted to argue, to demand immediate action. But I had fucked up at the shipping yard. Gone off half-cocked and ruined our chances there. “Twenty-four hours. Not a minute more.”
The next day crawled by in preparation. Tactical gear. Weapons. Building plans. Security protocols. By the time we rolled out towards the compound, Isabella had been missing for almost fourteen days. Nearly two weeks of whatever hell they were putting her through.
The night air hit like a sharp blade as we approached the compound, lights blurring the fog. Somewhere behind those walls, Isabella was being held. Being hurt. Being broken.
But no longer.
The compound was exactly as our intel suggested, heavily guarded, state-of-the-art security, isolated location. But nothing was impenetrable with the right team and enough determination.
“The compound has three access points,” Stryker said, laying out the final plan while we drove in Steele’s Hummer. “Underground garage, main entrance, service tunnel. Security is heaviest at the first two.”
“Timeline?” My voice was steady, rage burning through any remaining hesitation.
“Teams are in position. Waiting for full dark. Thirty minutes until we move.”
Thirty more minutes while Isabella suffered. While she wondered if anyone was coming for her.
“She’s alive,” Cooper said quietly, reading my tension. “Our source confirmed they keep her mostly drugged, but alive and relatively unharmed. Her skills are too valuable to damage permanently.”
The clinical assessment made my hands clench, but he was right. Isabella’s expertise made her particularly valuable to whoever had her.
Made her worth keeping alive, if not whole.
“The other captives,” I said, reviewing the intel. “How many?”
“At least a dozen confirmed from various dates and locations. All female.
“We get them all out,” I said. Not a question.
“Already coordinated with local authorities,” Cooper assured me. “They move as soon as we secure the facility. Every woman.”
Rain started falling, drumming against our tactical gear as we approached the service tunnel. All the training, all the preparation of the past months crystallized into this moment. I’d become someone new in the days since Isabella’s capture. Someone capable of doing whatever was necessary.
The compound’s service tunnel was exactly as our intel suggested—narrow, damp, smelling of mold and worse things. Our team moved in silence, Stryker moving first while Cooper watched our backs. The weight of my weapon felt right, its purpose clear.
“First checkpoint,” Stryker breathed. “Three guards.”
They fell without sound—professional work from professional killers. We’d chosen Stryker’s best for this, men who understood what was at stake.
“Focus,” Stryker murmured. “Two guards at the bottom. Standard rotation.”
We continued to descend in silence, using the elevator cables. My arms burned from exertion, but my training took over. Every pull, every movement brought me closer to Isabella.
The basement level was cold, the air stale. Climate control, keeping the captives docile. The thought made something dark twist in my chest.
Stryker took the first guard from behind—quick, efficient, and silent. Cooper handled the second with similar ease. Trained killers.
I was one of them now.
“Cell block’s through here,” Cooper gestured left. “But they’ve got—”
An alarm blared overhead. Lights shifted from white to red.
“Company,” Stryker finished. “Move. Now.”
We ran, all pretense of stealth abandoned. Gunfire erupted behind us—more guards responding to the alarm.
“Here!” Cooper kicked open the heavy door. The cell block stretched before us, all concrete and steel bars, emergency lighting bathing everything in a hellish shade of red.
I saw her immediately, and the sight drove the air from my lungs. Isabella lay curled in the corner of the last cell, completely naked and shivering violently against the concrete. Her skin, once creamy and vibrant, had turned a sickly gray-white from two weeks without sunlight and proper nutrients. Every rib was visible, her hip bones jutting sharply through skin that had grown paper-thin from malnutrition. Her collarbones created harsh shadows, and her once-elegant shoulders had become skeletal. The change was absolutely horrifying. I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for how much weight she’d lose in such a short time period.
Her dark hair—hair I’d run my fingers through—hung in filthy, matted tangles around her face. Dirt, grime, and worse things covered her body. There was an open sore on her hip and shoulder where bone had rubbed against concrete. Her wrists and ankles were rubbed raw and bleeding from metal restraints, the wounds infected and swollen. Needle marks dotted her arms.
They hadn’t even given her a blanket. Nothing to preserve warmth or dignity. Just naked flesh against the cold floor, like she wasn’t even human anymore.
Something in me shattered completely.
“Bella.” My voice broke on her name.
She looked up with agonizing slowness, each movement clearly causing her pain. Her face was gaunt, cheekbones too sharp under bruised skin. Her lips were cracked and bleeding from dehydration. But it was her eyes that gutted me; those clever eyes that had once sparkled with intelligence when analyzing artwork were now sunken and dull, barely focusing as recognition flashed in their depths.
“Can you hear me? Isabella, please. It’s me.” I reached for her through the bars, but she jumped before she recognized me.
“Colton?” The word was barely a whisper, her voice destroyed from what I feared was screaming. Her throat bore marks of hands that had gripped too tightly. She mumbled, but her voice was too hoarse and low for me to make out what she was trying to say.
Finally: “Real?”
I swallowed down the emotion threatening to overtake me. “Real. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Cooper was already working the lock, his skills finding deadly purpose. I stripped off my tactical vest, needing to cover her, to give her back some shred of humanity.
“Later,” Isabella managed. “Just...get me out.”
Stryker and Cooper cleared our path back to the elevator shaft. The door at the end of the hall opened, and a man wearing an expensive dressing gown stepped forward.
Her owner.
My shot was precise. The bastard hit the ground before he could even open his mouth.
More guards came. More fell. I’d become a cold-blooded killer.
But I didn’t give a fuck.
“Up is going to be interesting,” Cooper said as we reached the shaft. “They’ll have the upper levels locked down.”
“Good thing we’re not going up.” Stryker produced what looked like building plans. “Maintenance tunnel. Runs under the whole complex. Comes out half a mile away.”
Isabella trembled in my arms, either from cold or fear or both. I held her closer to my body, trying to share warmth without hurting her.
“Stay with me,” I murmured. “You’re not alone anymore, my darling. Never gonna let you go again.”
“Tunnel entrance is through here,” Stryker led us down a narrow corridor. More guards tried to stop us. More fell.
The maintenance tunnel was cramped, dark, and foul. We moved as fast as we could, Isabella’s breathing harsh against my neck.
“Almost there,” I kept telling her. “Almost safe.”
“No such thing,” she whispered. “Not anymore.”
The words cut deeper into my chest than any bullet could have.
“Two vehicles at the exit point,” Cooper reported through comms. “Engine heat signatures show they’ve been there less than an hour.”
“The cleanup crew,” Stryker said grimly. “Here to tie up loose ends.”
“Not this time,” I shifted her weight, freeing one hand for my weapon. “Not ever again.”
Their cleanup crew was well practiced. The best money could buy.
But they weren’t ready for us. Didn’t have rage on their side.
Stryker moved like the special forces operator he was, each shot finding its mark. Cooper employed skills learned in Europe’s shadows, violence made elegant through practice.
And I...I had the training of the past months and Isabella trembling in my arms.
It was enough.
When it was over, we piled into the Hummer. Cooper drove while Stryker covered our retreat.
Isabella didn’t speak as we fled into the night. She just held onto me like I was the only solid thing left in her world.
Maybe I was.
“Medical team’s standing by,” Cooper said from the front seat. “Private facility.”
“No hospitals,” Isabella managed. “Please. Colton. Please. Just keep me safe.”
“No hospitals,” I agreed, though it killed me. Every mark on her demanded justice. Demanded documentation.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into her hair. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”
She said nothing. Just pressed closer, like she was trying to disappear into me.
“It’s over,” I promised. “You’re safe now.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. “Nothing’s over. Nothing’s safe.”
“I’ve got you.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.” The word felt like a vow. Like a promise written in blood and sealed with my soul. “As long as you’ll have me.”
She was quiet for a long time, her breathing slowly steadying against my chest. Finally, so soft I almost missed it:
“Forever’s a long time to follow the rules, Mr. Moreau.”
“Then I’ll learn to be a rulebreaker.” I pressed my lips to her hair, tasting her blood and fear. “For you, I’ll learn anything.” I held her carefully, mindful of injuries I couldn’t see. Thinking of all the ways I’d failed her.
All the ways I’d make it right.