His chuckle sent shivers down her back. “You’re doing this for a pin?” she huffed.
“Damn it, Will. She’s still obstinate,” George groaned.
“She’ll give it up when we have some fun with Kip. Let’s get out; we can discuss our possibilities with the rest of the group. Gwenny, we’ll let you hang around for a while,” Will laughed.
“George, you? I’d never take you for a voyeur. Seeing a woman assaulted and carved up is that much of a turn-on?” she taunted.
“Gwenny, Gwenny, Gwenny. You really don’t get it. I’ll take you back to our undergraduate years. Our freshman year, twelve of us lived together. You’d think it would be a Lord of the Flies mentality, but we grew tight. It became us against those in charge,” Will said.
“I guess you had to, since none of you could get into therealmilitary academy.” She laughed.
George grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head against the seat back. “Foolish. You’d think you’d know not to antagonize your captors. Senior year, spring semester, one of the history professors discovered we obtained a copy of her final. History of the Marine Corps. That was a laugh. If she reported us…well, that was it.” George blew out a breath.
“You killed her and took her jewelry as a trophy,” Gwen accused.
“A necessity,” Will said.
“How did I miss you were so depraved?” she muttered. “The jewelry was your first trophy. The police—did they ever find her? Or did you carve more than her femininity?”
Will struck her with the back of his hand. “Cut the crap. I told you I knew what you took. I want it back, and maybe we’ll spare Kip.”
“You leave him alone,” she shrieked.
George reached his hands around her throat from behind. Choking her, he said, “Can you still hold your breath for four minutes?”
Gwen saw black spots build up in front of her eyes. Soon she was in complete darkness.
* * *
It tookthree elevator rides for the entire group to get to the helipad. A CH-7D Chinook Helicopter, all black, sat waiting, its rotor spinning and ready to lift off. Capable of holding thirty-three plus three crew, it was the largest helo owned by Chase Security.
Julian and Martin walked on either side of Troy. Over the rotors, Julian roared, “You do something stupid, I’ll plug your ass.”
Troy offered a thumbs up. “I’ll do what’s necessary. I’m bringing Kip and Gwen home.”
* * *
“Aaah,”she groaned as her eyes opened. She was hanging over a man’s shoulder. She pounded her fist into his back. “Put me down!”
Kip was being walked beside her, a gun pointed at his head and his hands secured with zip ties.
“You are very tiresome, Gwenny,” the man said.
“Too bad, put me down, you animal,” she hissed.
“Hmm, you worried about me alone in Mosul with our target. Didn’t want my kids to lose their father.” Harry Desmond dropped her onto the ground.
“You were in on it. Shows what a great judge of character I was.” Gwen wiped her hands against her pants.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. The ISIS fighters were supposed to kill you. If you were dead, no one would think to look for the pin,” Harry said.
“Or the other trophies. Are those women dead too?” Gwen asked.
“Cook, you said all she had was the pin,” George Stacy said.
“She only took the pin. I have everything else,” Cook explained. “And no, no one else is dead. Well, at least byourhands. You can’t blame suicides on us.”
She looked at the ring of men surrounding her. “Stacy, you’re the voyeur. Who is the sodomist and carver-in-chief?”
