Chapter 37
Adrian “Foster” Davis turned from the door as Jump set the charges that would blow the place open. He heard the doors blow, then turned to run into the building.
The heart-pounding chaos of taking a building made him feel alive. He wouldn’t describe himself as an adrenaline junkie, but he would be lying to say he didn’t love this. It was the good type of chaos.
He was second through the door, behind T.
The guys on his team were great. Being a SEAL was something he’d worked hard for.
He’d almost given up a few times in training, but fighting through the pain had been worth it all.
He was here for a reason. Today that reason was to retrieve a man who had intelligence the US needed.
There were rumors swirling around the guy they’d been sent to retrieve.
Apparently, some people thought he ran a trafficking ring.
No one had found solid evidence of human trafficking, but the rumor persisted.
The real reason they were here was that terrorist activity had heated up in areas around US military bases in Europe.
It was a huge problem, all led by this guy, and they needed to find out what he had planned before more military personnel were injured or killed.
They’d made it through the first room and were moving to the next one when two guys pulled weapons on them. Foster took the shot, praying it wasn’t the man they were after. He would check later.
The building had two floors that they knew of. Foster led Wave and Bang upstairs, clearing every room. The guys on the first floor cleared everything down there, not finding the guy they were after.
Finally, Foster opened a closet door in the last room they were searching and found the jerk hiding under a pile of sheets. The photo matched. The dude pretended he wasn’t the man they were looking for, claiming to be his brother. Foster told him to save it for the interrogation.
With zip strips on their prisoner, they headed downstairs. The raid hadn’t been too bad. He’d expected worse, but overall, they’d taken the building easily. There were no surprises, nothing out of the ordinary.
Once downstairs, he checked with Cy, making sure everything seemed right before they called for transport.
“Everything seems good,” Cy said.
“Okay, T, want to call for transport?” Wave asked.
“Sure thing, boss.”
Foster turned to leave when he heard a noise. It was small, but unexpected. He swung his gaze to Cy and pointed to where he thought the sound was coming from. “What’s that?”
Cy shook his head. “No clue. There was nothing there.”
Pen had no room to stretch, but this cage wasn’t too different from the one she’d been in before, just a different location, a different jerk dictating her life.
First, she’d been under her father’s thumb, and now she was under this guy’s thumb and his boot. There had been others, but this guy was mean.
At one point, she’d thought she’d escaped her father’s hold. But it hadn’t lasted. The goon squad had shown up to take her, and that’s when she realized Daddy Money Bags had some issues, and most of them involved money he owed.
It hadn’t surprised her that he’d sold her to pay off his debts. Her father had always hated her. He believed her mother had foisted her off on him, forcing him to pay child support. Like she had any say in the matter.
It would have been better if her mother had left her father’s name off her birth certificate. Sure, she wouldn’t have known who her father was, and that would have sucked in its own way, but her dad was a total dick and she was locked in this cage because of him.
She would have searched for him, and she would have made up some fantasy land where he was a great guy. It would have driven her crazy not knowing, but then she wouldn’t have had to put up with his abuse for so many years.
It pained her to know that her father was a monster who her mother had wanted because he was powerful.
Her mother had been impressed by his money and sold her soul to get close to the bastard.
Now they were all paying for her mother’s mistake of thinking that being close to a powerful man would make her powerful. It never worked that way.
Getting comfortable enough to sleep while locked in a cage wasn’t easy, but she’d finally found a spot that wasn’t too bad, if she didn’t count the fact that she couldn’t stretch out and lie on her back.
She was about to drift off when she heard a noise that didn’t sound like the normal noises the jerks upstairs got up to.
The other women heard the noise too and were passing around shushing noises like popcorn at a fair. She wasn’t going to shush, though. This difference was a good thing. Maybe she would go from one cruel master to another, but surely a different cage would be better than this.
Pen reached out of her cage and started tapping against the wall. The woman next to her tried to get her to stop, but Pen moved to the far side of the cage, so the woman couldn’t grab her hand.
While in captivity, she’d learned a few phrases in other languages, and she was sure this woman was cursing her, calling her a bitch or something like that. Whatever, she wasn’t going to stop tapping.
The noises changed above, and now it seemed almost too quiet. Had they left? She stopped tapping, listening for anything to indicate the new people were still here. Nothing.
Shit, had she missed her opportunity for escape? She couldn’t live another year like this. She would escape this cage one way or another.
Read Protecting Pen next.