Johnny grunted. “Yeah, well, I found her Pacey’s last night like all the other girls. I don’t take the fucking time to ask if they’re eighteen. I go on looks and personality, and she’s the best looker I’ve picked in months.”
A cruel laugh came from my left side. “I’ll agree with you on that one. Mendoza’s gonna cream his pants when he sees her. Just his type. Probably keep her all for himself.”
“Then I suggest we take some now why we still have the chance,” a man to my right suggested.
In that moment, I floated outside of myself. Self-preservation? It felt as if I was standing on train tracks, staring down a charging locomotive. With one foot stuck in the tracks and the other scrambling to find freedom, I could do nothing but watch my impending demise.
Then rough hands were all over me—stripping me of my clothes, touching me in intimate places that brought stinging tears of humiliation to my eyes. Excruciating pain soon replaced the humiliation as I was physically torn and battered. There seemed to be no end—I was trapped in a strange alternate universe of degradation and assault.
And there in a seedy hotel room while I was gang raped repeatedly by four strange men, the old Annabel died in a nightmare she never could have fathomed. Her broken spirit slipped away while her ravaged body was forced to go on in a horrific world, alone and hopeless.
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FOUR: REV
The van jolted and jostled us over the uneven terrain as we drove further and further into no man’s land. Glancing out the window, I took in the moonless night and our dark isolation from civilization.
It seemed unbelievable that less than forty-eight hours ago I had sat at a table in The Rising Phoenix and listened to the El Paso Raiders’ attack plan. While I had first been skeptical that they had the resources to take on a cartel lieutenant, they had quickly made me a believer. I had felt more than confident in tonight’s mission, and that soon Breakneck would be reunited with his daughter.
Now I threw a glance over my shoulder into the third row where Breakneck sat next to Bishop. He had flown in yesterday to be a part of the rescue mission. At first, Ghost hadn’t wanted him to come along. “He’s too emotionally invested—it’ll fuck things up.” But Breakneck had gone toe to toe with him to veto any ideas about him staying back at the Raiders compound. In the end, I didn’t know what physical condition we were going to find Sarah in, so it made sense to have someone with medical training along.
Because we couldn’t just go storming into a cartel compound half-cocked, it had taken a full day of further research and planning before we felt ready to move. Thankfully, the El Paso Raiders had set the wheels in motion while Bishop and I were on the road. They also had a lot of allies who were willing to get us intel. The room in their roadhouse where they held church looked more like something out of a Pentagon war strategy session while we spent hours pouring over maps, aerial images, and print-outs from Google Earth.
What we had learned from the Raiders’ sources was that Mendoza ran a relatively small-time trafficking operation. He never housed more than five or six girls at a time before “unloading” them, as it was known. Because of the low numbers, he had less than ten men working for him at the compound. With our group of nine in the mission, we were pretty evenly numbered.
The location of Mendoza’s slave camp was about fifty miles from any semblance of civilization. The gravel road we now found ourselves on seemed to stretch into a desert oblivion. Close on our tail were two other identical black paneled vans. One carried the remaining members of our mission, and the other was loaded down with enough explosives to take out the wired, steel-enforced gate at the front of Mendoza’s compound.
“Fuck, I wanna claw my skin off. I think I’m allergic to this fucking war paint!” Bishop exclaimed, breaking the tense silence. As a form of camouflage, each one of us had slathered black shoe polish onto our face, neck and arms.
Despite the tense mood, I chuckled. “Jesus, you’re as bad as when you had chicken pox. Mama and Pop didn’t sleep for three days trying to make sure you didn’t scratch yourself to death,” I mused.
“Whatever,” Bishop grumbled.
When the van began slowing down, I sat up a little straighter. Chulo turned around in the passenger’s seat to face us. “Okay guys, here is where we leave the vans for safe keeping. We’ll do the last half mile on foot. Then once the front gate is blown, the reserve vans will pull up to wait to pick us up.”
With a nod of my head, I reached for the handle of the door. Once I slid it open, I dropped out onto the soft desert floor. Breakneck came next with Bishop behind him. They were followed by Ranger and Nero, two of the El Paso Raiders who had been appointed to come with us based on their skills.
At six foot five and three hundred pounds, Ranger got his road name from his time with the Army Rangers. After two tours in Afghanistan, he came home to his MC brothers and worked out his extreme PTSD by beating the hell out of anyone who crossed the Raiders’ path. Like a true Army Ranger, he was our lead man into the compound.
Nero, a scrappy Italian originally from Jersey, had stepped forward to be our explosives expert. With his bottle cap thick glasses, he looked more like a tech nerd than a tough biker. But any doubt I had in his abilities faded the first time he showed us a test run of one of his homemade bombs. I knew then he was truly an asset to have along.
“He stays with the vans,” Chulo said, pointing to Breakneck.
Even in the darkness, I could see Breakneck’s fists clenching at his sides. “I’m going to find my daughter.”
“You won’t be any help to her if you get your ass shot,” Chulo challenged.
I placed my hand on Breakneck’s shoulder. “It’s for the best if you stay here. If this goes bad, we’re all going to need you in one piece, not just Sarah.”
“Fuck,” Breakneck muttered under his breath. After a few tense seconds, he nodded his head, and then slipped back into the van.
Once we checked our weapons and were ready, Chulo nodded. “All right. Let’s go,” he ordered.
As I ran across the rugged desert terrain, it brought back memories of my one tour in Afghanistan. Just out of high school, I had signed on for a two-year term in the Army. It was the shortest one I could do where I actually got out of town, but I would still not be gone long from the Raiders. It wasn’t so much I felt I needed molding into a man or a great sense of patriotism, but more about getting money for school. Of course, in the end, I only got a two-year degree at the local technical college before Preacher Man was on me to step up and take more responsibility in the club.
As far as suffering from PTSD, the lifestyle I had known before I went into service had prepared me to deal with the horrors of war. That said, it didn’t mean I didn’t occasionally have a nightmare that brought me shouting up off the bed in a sweaty mess. In the end, the nightmares were just a few more to add to an ever-increasing pile. I was pretty sure a shrink would head for the hills if they ever got a look inside my fucked up head.
Just ahead of us was the row of tightly woven shrubbery that sat about twenty feet from the front gate. After seeing it on a map, Chulo had decided it would be our rendezvous point. Once we were all accounted for, Chulo radioed the weapons van. As I gripped my assault rifle tighter, I tried to still the erratic beating of my heart. Adrenaline had it pumping overtime. There was nothing left to do now but wait for the van to arrive and for the explosives to truly set our plan in motion.
