Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Hand still wrapped around the other man’s throat, Josiah dragged Dr. Gant out of the bed and slammed him up against the nearest wall.
Right as he did so, a small alarm began to sound in the room.
There was no need to ask what it meant, he could figure that out all on his own. The guards knew that Prey was there.
Like he thought the alarm was going to change anything, Dr. Gant’s terrified expression morphed into a smug one. If he thought that guards were going to come running to his rescue, the doctor was sorely mistaken.
Tightening his hold on Dr. Gant’s neck, completely cutting off his air supply, Josiah slammed the man’s head into the wall hard enough to leave behind a small smear of blood. Then he threw the body on the floor at his feet.
As he stared down at the quivering man, the doctor’s face morphed slowly into those of the men who had killed his team.
Justice hadn't been served that day, but today it would be. This man would pay for his sins, pay for the pain and suffering he’d inflicted on others, pay for every tear that Chelsea had shed.
Ramming his foot forward, he connected with the doctor’s ribs, and the man let out a howl of pain that didn't come anywhere close to satisfying his need for blood.
“Too late to stop it,” the doctor wheezed, trying to push himself up.
“Too late for you,” he agreed, staring down at his prey, blinded by his rage, his need to let out the fury that had consumed him for the last six years.
It had been slowly eating away at him, destroying him from the inside out, and if he didn't let it loose, it would steal whatever goodness was left in his life.
Chelsea.
That’s what he’d lose.
“Too late for your wife,” Dr. Gant shot back. “Protocol says to shoot all guests so they can't talk to the cops. As we speak, your wife is probably lying dead in her bed.”
“Good thing she’s not in her bed then, isn’t it?
” There was no way Chelsea wouldn't have followed their plan, she’d promised, which meant right now she was safely tucked away in the linen closet.
The guards could shoot at the bed, but they wouldn't hit their target because there was no target there to hit.
If they realized that, it would still take them a while to find her, and by then Prey would already have control of the situation, he was sure of it.
“You brought them here,” Dr. Gant snarled, the words coming out as an accusation, but honestly, how could the man have expected anything else? He’d taken a huge gamble in agreeing to sell a kidney to Chelsea, and he’d lost, big time.
“You should have known trusting us was stupid.”
“I wasn't going to,” the doctor admitted. “But you love her. You weren't faking that. It was the only reason Dr. Wood approved you.”
There was nothing Josiah could say to argue that point.
When he walked away and left Chelsea in their bedroom, he’d been willing to admit to himself that he had feelings for her. But they weren't just feelings, he was in love with her.
How could he not be?
She was perfection, she was everything good and right with the world, she was light in the dark, and for some reason, she actually loved him.
Miracle.
There wasn't another word to describe it.
“She’s everything I’ll never deserve,” he whispered aloud, more to himself than the doctor.
If he did this, if he let all the rage inside him flood out, and kill the man before him, it would be killing in cold blood.
It wouldn't be following orders like when he’d been a SEAL, it wouldn't be for any noble reason like making the world a safer place and saving lives.
The doctor was going to prison for the rest of his life.
Prey were already there, it was a done deal.
The trafficking ring would be demolished, but if he did this, there would be no coming back.
All he’d be doing was proving he wasn't good enough for Chelsea.
His fears that the anger inside him was too dangerous would be proven true, and he would have been right to keep everyone at a distance these last several years.
Right this very second, he stood at the precipice, what he chose to do would shape the rest of his life. These last few days, he’d thought that his future depended on whether or not he could let Chelsea in, but he’d been wrong.
Instead, his entire future depended on what kind of man he wanted to be. Someone who was ruled by anger, who killed in some misguided need for revenge, or someone who valued the life they’d been gifted.
“Get up,” he growled, grabbing hold of the doctor and yanking him to his feet.
“You’ll never deserve her,” Dr. Gant sneered.
“I know. But I want to try to be even half the man she deserves.” With that, he slammed his fist into the doctor’s head and watched with great satisfaction as his eyes rolled back and he passed out.
Making quick work of tying the man up, he hurried to the door, aware of growing commotion in the medical suites. There were no guards in the hall, but a few of the doctors and nurses were coming out of their rooms.
Most gave him wary looks, but they didn't try anything, and he didn't stop to take care of them. He needed to get downstairs again, check on Chelsea, and meet up with Prey.
On the stairs, he came face to face with one of the guards.
The man startled when he saw Josiah striding toward him, and when the guard lifted his weapon, Josiah launched himself at him.
Thankfully, the staircase wasn't particularly long, and he knew how to take a fall and work with gravity, not against it, to minimize injury. Tackling the man, he took him down with him, and together they tumbled down the steps, landing in a tangled heap at the bottom.
Without giving the guard a chance to come up swinging, Josiah slammed a fist into the side of the man’s head, just like he’d done with the doctor upstairs. Sensing movement behind him, he commandeered the now unconscious guard’s weapon and came up ready to shoot.
“Whoa there,” a familiar voice spoke. “Guess you won't be needing this.”
A weapon was held up as the figure moved forward. Not one, but three of them, and while they weren't who he’d been expecting to see, he was equally as glad to see them as he would have been Prey.
Blake “Rocco” Wise was the one who had spoken, who was now grinning at him as he stepped forward.
The man led the SEAL team that had been involved in rescuing Ava and Nathaniel Trevino in Mexico, who Tobias had joined when they raided the small South Pacific clinic where Isabella had been working, and then had helped rescue Teresa.
They knew the ins and outs of this operation, but they still shouldn’t be there.
“SEALs don’t operate on US soil,” he said as he relaxed a little.
“Guess we better not tell anyone then,” Rocco said with a wink.
“No way we weren't joining this one, not after everything we’ve already done to bring down these traffickers,” Forest “Phantom” Dalton added. The man had also broken the rules when Kalee, the woman he’d fallen in love with, needed him.
“No one will ever know we were here,” Beckett “Ace” Morgan said confidently.
“Someone will if Rex gets near Chelsea,” Decker “Gumby” Kincade snickered, coming up to join them.
Everyone laughed at that, and even Josiah huffed out a small chuckle.
So far, Rex had managed to get attacked by Ava, Isabella, and Teresa, although none of them knew it was him at the time.
The SEAL had taken all the ribbing his team had given him good-naturedly and praised the women for defending themselves.
But he didn't want Chelsea in a position where she had to defend herself, even from someone who wasn't really a threat.
The thought was enough to get him moving, and the guys fell into step behind him as he headed for the linen closet where Chelsea should be hiding and waiting for him.
“Have you got Desiree yet?” he asked.
“No, but we’re hoping she’s here,” Rocco replied.
“She is. We saw her yesterday afternoon. Her kid, too.”
Rocco quickly relayed that intel to the rest of his team and Alpha Team, and Josiah wished he had a comms unit too so he could be in the loop.
As though reading his mind, Ace held one out to him. “We’ve got one for Chelsea too.”
The closer they got to Chelsea’s hiding place, the stronger the smell of blood became. “One of the doctors told me protocol was to kill as many of the buyers as they could, shoot them in their beds,” he told the others.
“Chelsea?” Gumby asked.
“We had a plan, she was leaving the room a few minutes after me and hiding,” he assured them. So long as she’d followed through, she should be safe.
Still, nerves danced inside him as he reached the linen closet and opened the door, a tingling told him something wasn't right.
“Chels?” he called out.
There was no response, and his nerves amped up to panic.
“Chelsea,” he demanded, reaching into the closet and beginning to rip out everything that was in there.
But the thing he was searching for was nowhere to be found.
Where the hell had Chelsea gone, and why had she broken her promise to him to hide until he came for her?
May 18th
1:29 A.M.
“Mommy!”
The little girl Chelsea was clutching tight, began to struggle in her grip, and she didn't know what she should do.
While she was reasonably certain that under normal circumstances Desiree Tilly wouldn't do anything to hurt her daughter, these weren't normal circumstances. Just because the woman has started this entire trafficking ring with the goal of saving her daughter’s life, with it all crumbling around her, it was anyone’s guess how she’d react.
What if she decided she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life in a prison cell? Lose access to her daughter, the same way she would if the child had died. Was this woman unbalanced enough to decide that her best course of action was for her and her daughter to be together in death?
“Shh, sweetie, stay here a moment,” she soothed the child, maintaining her grip even as the girl wriggled, trying to break free.