Chapter 20 #2
“I’m gonna tell the people arranging your sale to make sure you go to the most sadistic fuck they can find.
Someone who’ll keep you drugged up to your goddamn eyeballs, but not enough that you won’t know what’s going on.
You’ll be tied up and raped over and over.
By anyone your buyer wants to rent out your ass to, with any objects they wanna use.
Your time left on this earth will be as painful as they can make it—I can guarantee it. ”
The man’s eyes were dead. He had no remorse for what he was doing, and Pyro knew without a doubt that if he let him live, he wouldn’t hesitate to kidnap others to make money off them.
He didn’t care if they were someone’s friend, sister, grandfather.
He’d probably sell his own mother if it meant he could make a buck.
He shifted his hold on the knife, tightening his grip. One of them was going to die in this basement, and he had every intention of that being the psychopath in front of him, smiling as he thought about all the things he hoped would happen to Pyro.
* * *
Casper held on to the oh-shit handle as Chaos drove like a bat out of hell.
The second he’d gotten the call from Edge, he and the rest of the team had loaded up and headed toward the Bay Bridge.
Bowie had given a damn good description of the house where she and Pyro had been taken, and even though they had no coordinates, they hoped they could spot it.
Also knowing the direction she’d come from, thanks to Edge asking the men who’d found her, gave them a place to start.
Tex was looking at satellite pictures to see what he could find, but Casper and the rest of the team weren’t willing to wait around for further intel.
Hearing that Bowie had been found, that she was safe, was a huge weight lifted off all their shoulders. As was knowing Edge was with Penny, certainly driving just as fast to reunite mother and daughter.
But their teammate, their friend, was still out there somewhere.
And from what Tex had said, in deep shit.
There was no guarantee that he hadn’t already been shipped off.
That he was still in the house Bowie had described.
But no one was willing to give up. Not until they either had Pyro back or they found his body.
That last thought was enough to make Casper throw up, but he forced the feeling down. He needed to concentrate. Find that damn house.
The cops and FBI were also on the way, but again, no one was willing to wait for them. Not when Pyro’s life was at stake. And Casper knew down to his bones that his friend was in deep shit.
After they’d crossed the bridge and passed Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge, Chaos slowed down so they could get a good look at every house they passed. There was no guarantee the house could be seen from the road, but no one said that out loud.
They passed the scenic overlook, then the visitors center. When they got to a row of houses, Chaos slowed even more, but none of them looked anything like what Bowie had described to Penny.
After they passed the turnoff for the Kiptopeke fishing pier, Chaos drove on for another few miles. They knew the direction Bowie had walked, but not how far.
“Fuck. I’m turning around. We need to go down some of the side streets. Look at the houses that can’t be seen from the main road.”
Chaos nodded. His friend was right. But it sucked because that would take time. Time Pyro might not have.
“I wish I’d taken my car,” Buck muttered. “We’d be able to cover more ground with more than one vehicle.”
He wasn’t wrong, but it was too late to change circumstances now.
They turned around and methodically began to drive down each of the roads they passed, checking out the houses closer to the beach, then heading back to the main thoroughfare when they didn’t see the one they were looking for.
They’d passed the pier turnoff again and were heading back toward the bridge. It seemed as if their search was going to come up empty when they turned down what felt like the hundredth road.
The sun was peeking over the horizon now, making it easier to see the houses. There was a sign on the gravel road they were on that said something about a rental house ahead. It had some cutesy name, but it didn’t register in Casper’s mind.
They went around a small bend—and there it was.
The house.
Just as Bowie had described it. Yellow, two stories, with white porches on both levels and a brown roof.
“Fuck me, this has to be it,” Obi-Wan said.
There were three cars parked out front. Two white vans with no windows and a beat-to-hell Pinto.
Pyro was here, Casper could feel it in his bones.
The four men got out of Chaos’s Escalade and headed for the front door. Their plan was to go in hot and fast. Overpower and surprise anyone who might be inside. All four had their weapons drawn and they were more than ready to use them. Lethal force wasn’t off the table, but it was a last resort.
Obi-Wan lifted his leg to kick in the door but Casper grabbed his arm, stopping him with a firm shake of his head.
Looking as calm as a cucumber and feeling anything but, Casper reached for the doorknob. He slowly turned it—smiling when it rotated in his hand.
Entering stealthily would give them a few extra seconds and hopefully a leg up in subduing anyone who might be inside.
The thought that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t where Pyro had been taken flashed through Casper’s head.
He definitely didn’t want to scare the hell out of an innocent family who might be sitting down to breakfast, only to be interrupted by four armed men yelling at them to get on the floor.
But he’d take responsibility for whatever consequences there might be if that happened.
Finding Pyro before he could be hurt or killed was worth any punishment. Even jail time.
The four men eased inside the house. Casper could hear two men talking in a nearby room.
He held up his fist, telling his team to halt.
They heard the men discussing the sweet payout they were getting for such an easy job.
As Casper and his team listened in, they actually played a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who got the easier job of transporting “the kid.”
Fury threatened to overcome Casper’s normal control, but he took a deep breath. Then he turned to his men, his friends, and mouthed, On the count of three.
Everyone nodded, and Casper held up his hand once more.
Three fingers. Then two. Then one.
As a unit, the four men leapt into the room screaming at the men.
“Get down!”
“On your face, now!”
“Down, down, down!”
The two men jerked in surprise, eyes huge in their faces, and they immediately did as ordered. Falling to the floor with no resistance whatsoever.
While Chaos and Obi-Wan secured the men, Casper and Buck had their weapons aimed on the doorways, in case someone heard the commotion and ran into the room, guns blazing. But thankfully, no one arrived.
“Who are you? What’s your job here?” Obi-Wan asked, getting in one of the men’s faces.
They were now lying on their backs with their hands cuffed with zip-ties behind them uncomfortably.
One had a dark stain on the front of his pants.
They looked to be in their mid-twenties, way too young to be in the kidnapping business.
“I’m Tom. This is Marcus. We were hired to drive. That’s all, man! Just drive!”
“Drive who? Where?” Obi-wan growled.
“I don’t know. We were just told to come here this morning and pick up our passengers and take them to two separate air strips.” The man’s voice was shaking, and he looked like he was going to cry.
Obi-Wan didn’t show him even the smallest bit of pity. “What air strips? Who hired you? How much are they paying?”
Casper didn’t want to wait around to hear the answers. Obi-Wan would get everything the police and Tex needed to know in order to shut down this operation.
His concern was finding Pyro. He interrupted Obi-Wan’s interrogation. “Who else is here? Where’s the man and the girl you were supposed to pick up?”
“Basement. There are three other guys. They went down to get ’em.” He used his chin to gesture toward a door behind Chaos. “That’s the elevator. The only way to get down there.”
Bowie had said there was an elevator. Casper’s lips pressed together.
It wasn’t ideal. Any stealthy entry they might have made would be blown to shit by using the elevator.
But knowing there were only three men made him feel a little better.
He, Buck, and Chaos could easily take on three perps.
It was thinking about what was going on in the basement that made his stomach roll.
“How long have they been down there?”
“All night.”
“Not the man and girl, idiot,” Casper said impatiently. “The three men who went to get them.”
“I-I-I’m not sure. One went down first, then two others after. Maybe about five minutes ago?”
Five minutes. That was both an eternity and a drop in the bucket.
“Go,” Obi-Wan said with a jerk of his head. “I’ve got these two fuckers. They’ll be singing like canaries by the time I’m done with them.”
Chaos had already pushed the button for the elevator, and Casper and Buck stepped over to join him. The fifteen seconds or so it took the door to open seemed like an eternity.
All three men shuffled into the elevator, and Casper took a deep breath.
He tightened his grip on the pistol in his hand and concentrated on the door.
Whatever was on the other side when the elevator stopped, he and his team would deal with it…
but he prayed that they’d find Pyro alive.
Just being prepped to ship off to some pervert who wanted a sex slave.
And not already dead.