Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Blaze was propped against the headboard of the bed closer to the door. Two pillows behind his back, one folded under his right elbow to take weight off the ribs. His left eye was fully shut, the area around it dark and rising. The cut over his eye was butterflied.
“Time to call Siren and Axel.”
Blaze reached across his body with his good arm and picked up his phone. He winced and set the phone on speaker on the bedspread. Stella was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Ryder pulled his chair closer. Blaze dialed, and Axel picked up on the first ring.
“Speaking.”
“I need Dom on.”
“Stand by.” The line went dead-quiet for two beats.
Then Dom’s voice came through. “Status.”
Stella breathed out. “I made contact with Nell in the bathroom. I gave her the hotel name and the room number. I told her to remember it in case something goes wrong during the raid.”
“Good thinking.”
“She gave me what she knows about where they’re keeping her.
They drive the women between the warehouse and another building in a windowless van.
All she knew was that it takes about ten minutes.
Before the contact with Nell, I overheard two men at the bar talking about the sale.
They said the auction would happen this week. That’s all I have, Dom.”
“That’s a lot, Stella.”
A beat on the line.
“Blaze. Your piece.”
Blaze’s voice was rougher than it had been an hour ago at the venue. The wolf in him was close to the surface.
“I beat the champion so I’m now the top of the card. The organizer told me the next event was something special. I’m assuming that’s the auction.”
Axel came back on the line. “I’m going to search all locations within a ten-minute radius of the fight location. If we can pin down where the women are being held, we might be able to refocus our raid direction.”
Dom came back on the line. “Unless Axel can pin down the secondary location, our primary objective is the sale event. We hit them when all parties are in one room. Hunter and I are driving down tomorrow morning. Valeria is coordinating with law enforcement through her father and brother. You’ve all done well. ”
Stella woke at five-forty the next morning. Blaze was asleep on his back beside her, his mouth slightly open. The bruise on his face had spread overnight. It had grown darker at the cheekbone, and the cut over his eye was scabbed and ugly.
She lay there for a minute and watched him.
Her head throbbed. She needed coffee. When she slid out from under his arm, he shifted but didn’t wake.
She stood beside the bed and got dressed in the gray light, pulling on jeans, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and the leather jacket from the back of the desk chair. She then stared at the wig.
She thought about leaving it, but Mia Carver lived in this hotel, and Mia Carver was a platinum blonde.
She pinned her hair flat to her scalp and put the wig on.
She did her face in two minutes at the bathroom mirror, light foundation, a little eyeliner, and red lipstick.
She did enough that anyone who’d seen her at the venue would clock her as the same woman.
Back in the bedroom, she picked up her purse from the nightstand. The hotel didn’t have coffee, but there was a convenience store two doors down. She thought, I’ll call Dad when I get back. I’ll have coffee, and I’ll call him to let him know I’m okay.
She crossed to the door, undid the chain quietly, and slid the deadbolt. She pulled the door closed behind her. She walked to the stairwell and took the stairs down to the parking lot. A block down, a truck was idling at the light and the exhaust drifted in a thin gray ribbon.
She crossed the parking lot and started down the sidewalk. A van pulled up at the curb. Her brain registered what was happening seconds too late. A sliding door already open. A man stepping out onto the sidewalk in front of her. A syringe uncapped in his right hand. His eyes were on her face.
He moved fast. Her bear surged inside her, but she couldn’t shift in time. The needle went into the side of her neck and the plunger went down. The pain was brief, sharp, and then warm.
They were waiting for me.
By the time she finished the thought, the drug was already working. The bear inside her went foggy in three heartbeats. Her knees softened. The two men lifted her into the back of the van.