“Why couldn’t we go with them?” Mari cried. “They wanted to help us.”
“No, they wanted to help their consciences. Nobody can help and nobody cares, Mari.” She hated the cruel words as soon as they left her mouth. “Men don’t care about me or you, except what they can buy from us. This is me making sure when you do get free, you never come back.”
Mari’s expression brightened. “Really?”
“No.” She charged at her, waving her arms. “What’d I just say?—there’s no hope for us. Think like that and you’re dead. If Finch doesn’t kill you, Drex will. Ladomer will make sure of it. Got it? We’re nothing but inventory, property.” Her pulse roared. “We’re stuck here. Forever. Get used to it!”
“Why’re you being so mean?” Mari buried her face in her hands.
“Because?—”
Crack! The front door splintered. Flew off its hinge. Night and debris spilled in as Finch and Drex rammed their way into the house, weapons drawn and aimed.
Heart skipping a couple of beats, Brighton spun Mari behind her and glowered at the men. “What took you so long?”
After clearing the house, Finch stalked toward her. “What happened?”
She had to buy some time, be sure Cord was gone. “We thought … ” Trying to calm herself was no act. She was terrified. Hated herself for what she’d said to Mari. The danger she’d foolishly introduced into their lives. Danger she’d just turned away along with their only chance of salvation. “We were scared.”
“Where’d they go?”
She hoped enough time had passed. “Out back.” When Ladomer’s men rushed in that direction, she yanked Mari into a hug, whispering, “I’m sorry. I needed you to cry. If they saw you smiling, they’d know something was wrong and then …”
“We’d both be dead.”
“She ratted us out—told them we went out the back.”
With a heavy exhale, Cord watched from the king-cab truck as Ladomer Horvath’s muscle rushed from around the back of the house, weapons out, scanning the street. Ready to engage if necessary, Cord held his weapon low and out of sight. “For her own safety.”
The men split up and patrolled the street, gratefully never heading toward Cord. When they started back for the house, Cord let out a captive breath.
“Got there in under two minutes,” Low muttered. “They must have a base nearby to get here so fast.”
Cord knuckled his lower lip as he monitored the activity happening at the house a block down the lamp-lit street as a realization hit. “They surveil her 24/7.” He shook his head. “That’s why she went ballistic. She knew disrupting the cameras would bring them.”
It wasn’t unusual for captors to tightly control the movement and locations of their girls. But this … this was unusual. Not only was Brighton kept in an upscale home on her own, but Horvath supplied whatever it took for Brighton’s other self, “Lizzy,” to service high-end or high-profile clients. She was important. And while she seemed to have a lot of freedoms, tonight was proof that freedom was an illusion. All combined, this had to be Cord’s most complicated and dangerous extraction to date.
“I say we bring in the Feds.”
“Not yet.” Cord gritted his teeth. “If we convince her to come out on her own, we don’t need them, plus it gives us more time to plan and have protections in place. Later, she can file charges when she’s ready.” If she was ever ready. Her Tier 1 clients increased the risk exponentially that she’d have a price on her head. “We need to do this right and quiet. Convince her to come out.”
“I’ve never doubted a mission, but after what she did to Metcalfe??—”
“C’mon, Low. You saw it??—she’s terrified.”
Lowell grunted. “Guess going up against Horvath and whoever’s holding his leash warrants that terror, but … Metcalfe didn’t deserve that.”
“None of them do—not even her.”
Another grunt from Low. “I say either yank her now or walk away.”
“No—to both. Because I’m not giving up on her and I haven’t found the head of this ring yet. Besides, we don’t have anyone covering our sixes if we have to go in hot.”
Ops were always done in cooperation with local authorities, but this girl...she’d hit his radar when she’d been implicated in a scandal that destroyed a close buddy. After all the news and focus on Stone’s inappropriate conduct—which, for many politicians, was just another day on the job—Cord had dug into the facts. Read everything he could get his hands on and slowly a picture started forming that he didn’t like. It pointed to trafficking.
And if her captors used her to take down a political power-hitter like Metcalfe, who else had they strung up the proverbial flagpole? That’s when he’d made it his mission to learn everything he could about her. Unearthed her identity. Followed her, proving the trafficking theory. She had gotten trapped in an industry that was sickeningly lucrative.
“Listen. If we do anything tonight, and it goes south …”
