Chapter Twenty-Two
“Take a left.”
Jackson jerked the steering wheel without slowing his speed, following the directions Luke supplied. Ben sat in the back seat, trying not to lose his shit. Seated beside him, Easton stared him down. Probably attempting to decide if he was, indeed, going to lose his shit.
“Incoming!” Luke shouted.
Luke tapped a key on his laptop, and the men in the SUV listened. The ringing coming across the speakers sounded garbled. When Paige’s voice answered the call, Ben’s heart lurched in his chest.
“What?” Paige snapped.
Good girl, Ben thought. She wasn’t showing this guy an ounce of fear, though he knew she was full of it. His hands clenched into fists, gripping the fabric of his black cargo pants.
“I would be careful with how you speak to me, Paige. I am the one holding all the cards.”
Ben committed the sound of the man’s voice to memory. The deep, clear tone measured his words. He was careful not to let emotion seep into his voice. He revealed no more intel than he wanted her to know, but he knew what to say to push Paige’s buttons.
Ben was already looking forward to killing the son of a bitch.
“I’m on my way. I’m less than an hour out. What else do you want from me?”
Paige’s voice rose in anger and not panic, which gave Ben a small measure of relief. If she was going to get through this, she needed her wits about her.
“I want you to pull over at the next exit. Turn right, and there is a gas station on the left. Turn into the parking lot, drive around to the back, and leave your vehicle in front of pump number seven. Get out. Leave the keys and your phone behind. Go to the car parked at pump number ten. Get in it. The keys are under the right front floor mat. Drive it the rest of the way here.”
Ben frowned. The asshole was taking precautions so Paige couldn’t be tracked. The bastard was smart. Calculated. A pro.
“I need my phone for directions. I can’t leave it behind,” Paige protested.
“There’s a phone in the other car. It’s preprogrammed with the address I got you.”
“You left a car, unlocked, with the keys and a cell phone inside. That wasn’t smart,” Paige snapped.
“Do not underestimate me.”
The call ended.
“Get anything?” Ben asked anxiously.
“No. The signal was pinging all over the place. No way to trace the call,” Luke said.
Paige’s voice came across the speaker again. “I hope you guys are listening and got all of that. He’s forcing me to leave everything behind, so I hope my earrings are working the way you said they would. Because I’m plenty scared.”
Ben’s eyes closed as he fought the urge to call a stop to all of it.
“Your woman’s a brave one.”
Ben opened his eyes and met the reflection of Jackson’s in the rearview mirror. “We didn’t plan on them kidnapping one of her friends.”
“No, but our plan will still work. Hang in there, brother.”
He didn’t respond, and Jackson didn’t expect him to.
His brothers understood the thin hold he had on his control .
But their plan was solid. He had to trust it.
He had his brothers and the support from Atlas Security to help him protect Paige.
He trusted them with his life, but he had a harder time than he thought in trusting them with the woman he loved.
When they realized Paige had been caught on camera being in Ivy Springs, the Legends started making plans.
It wouldn’t be hard for Boyd to connect her to Ben if he looked into her time in Ivy Springs, so they wanted to be prepared in case Boyd found her and abducted her.
It was impossible to know all the variables they were dealing with, but their plan covered a lot of scenarios.
The small stud earrings she wore were tracking and listening devices.
With a simple touch to the front and back simultaneously, she could deactivate the signal, so they couldn’t detect the transmitter in the simple jewelry if they used a scanner to check.
The only drawback was that while they could hear her perfectly, they couldn’t communicate with her.
The idea to use the one-way transmitter had been hers.
She worried she would react to the voices in her ear, as she referred to them.
In their experience, planning for the unexpected was business as usual, and Ben was glad they knew to plan for multiple contingencies. Especially in situations like this one, where the man was making calls they didn’t expect and giving Paige instructions they didn’t foresee.
While the directives seemed amateurish, Boyd proved that he was sharper than he seemed. Having her ditch the phone and the Tahoe before she reached the destination would throw Ben and the others off track. Well, it would if they didn’t already have the address he sent her.
“Any word from the operatives tailing Boyd?” Jackson asked, pulling Ben out of his musings.
“Alex has Remi and Ridge tailing him, and the last report was Boyd was at his house in Biloxi. But it’s not the address Paige has,” Easton said.
“And is about an hour away from where Paige is supposed to change vehicles. So he has someone helping him set her up. Any idea who that could be?” Jackson kept his eyes on the road as he theorized.
I’ve been working with Atlas’ tech guy to track down known associates of Boyd’s, but no one raised any red flags,” Luke responded.
“Got a message from Alex,” Easton said after he checked a notification on his phone.
Alex and his operatives from Atlas were able to fly ahead to Biloxi while the Legends trailed Paige by vehicle.
The Atlas guys weren’t going to breach unless they believed Birdie Miller was in immediate danger.
They would wait for Paige and the Legends to arrive, and hopefully they would find Boyd at the destination along with anyone helping him.
“Holy shit!” Easton yelled. “Alex said they’re at the location. It’s an abandoned lot. There’s nothing but dirt. No one’s there. It’s a bogus address.”
“So are they planning another switch when Paige gets there?” Luke asked just as they heard Paige over the transmitter.
“I’m taking the exit now.”
Ben listened to the exchange, his mind whirling with theories. Why would Boyd risk a vehicle exchange just to send Paige to a bogus address? Was Boyd calling the shots or was his associate orchestrating the whole thing? What was their end game?
Ben’s gut churned, and his blood ran cold. “Jackson, close the distance. Book it. Now!”
“What’s up?” Easton asked as the SUV sped down the interstate, breaking every traffic law that kept them from reaching Paige.
“The bogus address. The car switch with the new phone. It doesn’t make sense. Why risk any of that if he’s planning to kill her?”
“He’s not planning to kill her,” Jackson surmised.
“He told Paige when he attacked her a year ago that he wanted to torture her, not kill her. I think that’s still his plan. He just needs her where she’s easier to get to. Which means—”
“It’s a trap,” Jackson said. “He’s going to snatch her at the gas station and take her somewhere else.”.
“Not him,” Easton reminded him. “He’s at his house. Whoever’s helping him is going to grab her, and none of us know who he is or what he looks like.”
Paige’s voice sounded again. “I see the car. It’s black. I’m not sure of the model. I’m parking. Here goes.”
Ben wanted to scream at her to get back in his Tahoe and drive away as fast as she could. His fingers folded over the top of Jackson’s seat and dug into the leather.
“What the…Who are you…What are you doing…No! No! I have to go! I have to…”
Paige’s voice was replaced with sounds of a struggle. Ben raked his hands through his hair, feeling a mixture of fury and terror flood his body until he had to react or explode.
“Dammit!” He slammed his fists into the back of the driver’s seat, the punches coming in quick succession until Easton nudged him.
“Alex and his team are rerouting to our location. But there’s something else.”
Ben struggled to catch his breath, but his lungs couldn’t seem to draw enough air. He wasn’t sure he could handle any more news that made him realize just how much danger his Paige was in.
“Paige is moving, but no audible noise coming from the coms,” Luke interrupted.
“I’d bet good money that whoever kidnapped her threw her in a trunk and took off. There’s the exit. Easton, Luke, you guys question the service station clerk and customers to see who saw anything. Ben, you and I will take the scene for evidence of where he could be taking her. E, what ya got?”
“A message from one of Alex’s techs back at Atlas. The call Paige received from her landlady? It was a deepfake. A good one, but with Atlas’ technology, they figured out it was AI-generated.”
Artificial intelligence? Boyd was going through a lot of trouble to get to Paige, but he wanted her alive.
Jackson skidded to a stop in front of the pump with the abandoned car that was left for Paige. He twisted around in his seat, his expression grave.
“Boyd can’t risk being exposed by coming after Paige himself.
We already know he’s got someone working with him, and the guy is good.
None of Boyd’s known associates have been flagged as accomplices, so we need to think bigger.
Boyd wouldn’t trust just anyone, and he would need someone who knew how to fly under the radar.
Someone who has no reservations about doing whatever needs to be done to complete the job. We find him, we find Paige.”
A calm determination settled over Ben. “Then let’s find him. Because I’m getting her back alive. She’s it for me, man. I can’t lose her.”
“She’s one of us now. You’re not losing her. Whatever it takes, we’ll get her back.”
Ben knew the magnitude of the vow his brother just made.
In situations like this, when things could go wrong in a hurry, they knew better than to make a promise like that.
There was no guarantee they would find Paige, and the probability of finding her alive was even less.
But the Legends have been known to pull out a miracle when they needed it.
“We’ve got your six, brother,” Easton added. “We’ve got your girl’s back, too.”
Ben nodded. “Then let’s quit wasting time. Move your asses. We’ve got an asshole to track.”