“Are you ready to go, boss?” he asks. His sights never leave Eduardo’s.
“I’ll be there every step of the way, too, buddy. We need to stick together. We have a new priority.‘Operation bring them home.’”
Eduardo looks over at me. “I’m glad you said that, Jameson, because I’m going to need you close to bring our women back and get our family back together as soon as possible.”
“I want that more than anything.” I slap my hand on his back, as he walks over to his car, Gus following. He turns back.
“I expect you to bring your shit and move in until they are back home safely.”
I look at him to see if he is joking.
He continues, “I need all the surveillance ready to go and the station with all the manpower to leave at the drop of a hat. Bring your equipment and get everything ready in my place today.”
I run my hand through my hair.
“Yeah, I guess that is the best way. Be there in a couple of hours.” With that, he drives off.
I am left standing alone, and the gravity of our situation finally hits home. With a newfound sense of purpose, I run to my truck and drive off in a hurry to get to Eduardo’s place. But first, a stop at my mine to start‘Operation bring them home.’
I fight the traffic and lose miserably. I end up three hours later at Eduardo’s place, well into the evening. I shoot him a text letting him know that I am here and need help getting my shit into his house. I understand this is a secure area, but I don’t want to make several trips back and forth to get everything. The elevator door opens into the garage, and out steps Eli, Philip, and Gus.
Eduardo isn’t present, but I expected this. I know that he is home because his car is here. What I don’t expect is for him to get out of Emma’s metallic-green BMW and walk toward me. I don’t have to wonder why he was sitting in there. I know that it was to feel closer to her and breathe in her scent that envelops him in her car.
Avoiding looking at him, I allow him his own private moment and sling my bag over my shoulder and grab my laptop. Each of the guys grabs a box that is filled with monitors and speakers to amplify the sounds from Evie and Emma’s trackers. I also have a separate screen showing where they are in the house. I have a blueprint of the mini-mansion that Mr. Martinez calls home.I have also tracked his wife’s routines. I like to know where she is at all times. I am sure that with Evie and Emma in her home, things might take a turn for the worse. I want to be able to get to her—mostly to tear her throat out if she so much as lays a finger on our women.
We ride the elevator in silence, and the tension rises with each floor we ascend.
As soon as Eduardo leads me to our workstation, I quickly get everything situated and in working order. I don’t know what happened when Evie, Emma, and Mateo left us to meet Mr. Martinez and Ramón back at their place because they never returned there. Shortly after he left their place, Ramón and Mr. Martinez left as well to an undisclosed location. We know that Ramón already had his bag packed, so the element of surprise is gone.
Mr. Martinez doesn’t want to risk getting caught at Ramón’s place if Mateo breaks his newly formed trust. He wants to ensure that he can witness it for himself. It seems too good to be true that Mateo went along so quickly with everything that his sperm donor said. That’s what we have been referring to him as—the sperm donor. Usually, when things are too good to be true, they are, so he has every right to be cautious.
“There,” I say, pinning the blueprints of the house on the cork board. I take a look around the workspace that looks like a crime center at first glance.
On the GPS monitor, I see the girls traveling in a car heading on Interstate 37, showing their every movement. Eduardo steps into the room, handing me a can of beer.
“I thought you would be drinking something stronger?” I take the beer can, open it, and take a large pull from it. My throat is dry, and my heart is aching, but I keep it to myself.
Eduardo shakes his head. “No, I have to keep my wits about me in case I need to leave. In case something….” He doesn’tfinish that sentence, but he doesn’t have to. I already know what he was going to say. “Come on. You need to eat. I ordered everyone pizza, then we can get back to work.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
EVIE
“In the End” by Linkin Park
Mateo drove us to the place Mr. Martinez told him to on the phone. We heard his phone ring, and when he answered, he looked at us. Without saying a word, we knew the plan had changed.
Now we are in a Walmart parking lot, of all places. It is packed, and I guess that is the point. We were transferred to another vehicle, this time a black SUV similar to the one Julian rode around in when Emma was with him. I say the term “with him” loosely because she did not have a choice toward the end. The end of where we ended his life and then set Cherry on fire in her own car in front of their house.
I notice Emma tense as she walks over to it. Every instinct she has for self-preservation screams for her to run from this SUV. Do not get into the vehicle, which is blaring with loud red sirens.
We ignore that loud warning bell and walk with purpose to the SUV. We slide into the seats as the doors close in the back, locking us in—as if we would try to run at this point.
Ramón is driving Mateo’s vehicle, and Mr. Martinez and Mateo are in the middle section with Marcus, along with another scary-looking man with a bald head and a gold front tooth that eyes me lasciviously from the rearview mirror. He licks his lips, and I look away. Marcus laughs in the front seat, but no one says anything as we drive out of the parking lot.
Our hands have been ziptied since we left Houston, and they ache with the need to rip them apart. To free myself from these physical confines. Having to use the restrooms outside the gas station we stopped at was difficult since we didn’t have the luxury of having free hands. Now, I sit here in silence with only another few hours remaining before we get to our new prison.
I don’t know how I could have fallen asleep, but I wake up with a jolt as the SUV door slams shut, and Emma looks over at me. Our door opens, and that scary man that was lusting at me in the mirror opens my door, grabbing me over the seat and hoisting me out of the car. His hand lands on my breast, and I flinch, almost falling over as he leans over me, catching my fall while his erection digs into my backside.
