“Miss Masters, are you still there?”
“Y-yes,” my voice so breathy, it was barely audible.
“Is that you making the noise?”
I knew she couldn’t see me but I couldn’t do more than shake my head back and forth as the tears spilled over. I looked in front of me, and my heart skipped painful beats when I saw the edge of the fake wall had caught on one of my shirts. I quietly leaned forward and strained to hear absolutely everything as I reached for the corner of the material.
“Miss Masters? If you can, let me know you’re still with me.”
“I’m here, the—” The faux-wall was thrown back, and a scream tore through my chest as a large man’s frame filled the closet, but I couldn’t make out his face. It was dark in the closet, and with the light coming in from the bathroom behind him, it made a strange halo of light around him while darkening his features.
His hand slammed over my mouth while his other arm reached out for me. I kicked at him, and when both hands went for my foot, I screamed help me and hurry into the phone over and over as he dragged me out of the closet. I dug my nails into the short carpet helplessly as he pulled me into the bedroom and flipped me onto my back. Before I could attempt to kick at him when he let go, he dropped all of his weight onto me and started yelling.
“Bring it now!” he yelled and turned to look toward the center of the bedroom.
Another smaller man came into view, and I tried to scream, but the first man’s hand covered my mouth again as the second handed him a small towel. He brought it toward my face and I tried furiously to turn my head to the side, but it was useless. The cloth was pressed over my nose and mouth, and before I could comprehend the odd smell, the room was blurring.
The last thing I heard before the darkness consumed me was a sincere, “I’m sorry.”
MY EYES SLOWLY CRACKED OPEN to the foreign room, and it took my mind a few minutes to process that I shouldn’t be here—that wherever here was, wasn’t good. I jolted upright and immediately wished I hadn’t as the room tilted to the side and my stomach rolled. Falling toward the side of the mattress in preparation for whatever was about to come up, something caught my shoulders, and I hung there limply as a deep voice spoke softly.
“Whoa, easy, easy, easy. You’re okay. Let’s sit you back up and I’ll get you some water.”
My body hunched over as I dry-heaved against his arms, and he never once moved as my empty stomach tried desperately to get rid of anything. When I quieted, he started pushing me back into a sitting position, and I flew back and away from his arms. The room tilted again, but passing out wasn’t an option, I needed to get out of there. He reached for me when I swayed back, but I used my legs to launch my body in the opposite direction, and off the mattress.
I took off for the door, but my feet hadn’t touched the ground twice before he had his arms wrapped securely around me, holding me to him as I swung and kicked, and screamed for someone to help me.
“Calm down, I won’t hurt you.” He grunted when one of my flailing limbs connected. “Please calm down.”
“Let go of me! Help me! Someone help!”
“I won’t hurt you, but I need you to calm down,” he gritted, and when I kept trying to get away, he continued to stand there holding me to him.
The nausea and dizziness came back quickly, and soon my arms and legs felt like dead weight. I wanted to keep fighting against him, needed to keep fighting against him—but I was losing strength fast. Images of Blake on top of me were flashing through my mind and fear clawed at me. I needed to stay awake, and I needed to get out of here.
“Help . . . me,” I pleaded to the door and scratched against my captor’s arms. For the first time, I agreed with Candice that I should have let my nails grow long. My legs gave out and the captor easily held my weight as he backed us up to the bed and I struggled to get his arms away from me. This couldn’t happen. Not again.
“You ne—” A deep growl worked up his chest when I dropped my head and bit down on his hand as hard as I could. He took a few deep breaths in and out as I futilely attempted to claw my way out of his arms before he spoke again. “I’m not going to hurt you, stop hurting me.”
Tears fell freely down my cheeks the minute he sat down, and he pushed himself back until he was sitting up against the wall, with me still in his arms. I tried calling out for help again—even though I somehow knew that if anyone was on the opposite side of that door, they weren’t going to help me—but nothing came out.
There was no fight left in me. There was nothing but the purest form of terror. I’d faced Blake, but I’d been prepared for some of his crazy and I’d known him most my life. I didn’t know the man keeping my body still against his, I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know what I was up against . . . and I didn’t know if I would ever see Kash again.
That thought broke me and my body sagged under the stranger’s firm hold as tears alternated hitting his arms and falling onto my bare legs.
“Please,” I forced out and tried once more to remove his arms. They didn’t move, and he didn’t respond for countless minutes as the dizziness and weariness won out.
My eyes shut against their own will, and like back home, the last thing I heard was his voice. “I’m sorry.”
5
Kash
“YOU GOOD?” I asked Mason as we headed back toward the elevators.
He shrugged and punched at the buttons on the wall. “There’s only so much you can do to get them to go in a different direction. He wanted to follow his brother.”
The call from last night ended up being a drive-by involving a newer gang that we’d come across recently, and one of the two victims had been L’il Tay, a thirteen-year-old who Mason had been trying to get off the streets over the last few months. And though Mason was acting like this was just another case, I knew this was harder for him than the rest.
Knowing there was nothing I could say, I clapped his shoulder and let him be alone with his thoughts. Grabbing my phone, I smiled when I was finally able to open Rachel’s text from last night.
SOUR PATCH:
Just so you know . . . cleaning up from a whipped cream war without you isn’t nearly as fun. See you when you get home. Love you.
We just finished up, be home soon babe. Love you too.
The doors to the elevator opened and we stepped in. As they were closing, someone started yelling my name from down the hall, and Mason caught the door just in time.
“Ryan! Gates!” Sergeant Ramirez ran toward us, and as soon as he was in the elevator he started pounding on the CLOSE DOORS button.
I suppressed a groan. All I wanted to do was get home to Rachel and Trip.
“We already have three units at the scene, and I’ll be following you there.”
Ramirez was a K-9 unit, why were they wanting his dog, Crush, there . . . and what scene? “Wha—”
“I know you’re anxious to get there, but you know we’re doing everything we can for this.” The elevator was already moving, but Ramirez kept stabbing at the ground-level button. “How are you holding up? You look really calm, are you in shock? Maybe you should let Gates drive.”
That seemed to snap Mason out of his thoughts. His hand jerked away from his mouth and his eyes widened. “Why would I need to drive?”
“And why would I be in shock?” My heart started racing as Ramirez started hitting the OPEN DOORS button.
Ramirez shot us a strained, sympathetic look before ushering us out to the underground parking lot. “You weren’t informed?”
“Of what?” I was supposed to be the one in shock. So it had something to do with me. Everyone close to me starting flipping through my mind until a sinking feeling hit my chest and stomach. Oh God . . . Rachel. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry, I thought someone already told you, you were supposed to be informed already,” he mumbled to himself as he kept walking toward the lot. “Look, I’m sorry I’m the one that has to tell you this.” He stop
ped walking abruptly and turned to look at me. His expression was one I had seen so many times, and had even had to use myself. It felt like time slowed as I waited for him to tell me one of fifty scenarios that were speeding through my mind. “A call came in to dispatch about an hour ago. It was your fiancée, Ryan. The only thing that came from her end of the call was her saying her name, someone had broken in—”
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I took off running for my truck and had just gotten to the driver’s door when Mason slammed me into the side and ripped the keys from my hand. After barking at me to get in the passenger seat, he fired up the engine and peeled out of the lot.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening, Mase, tell me this isn’t fucking happening!”
“Kash—”
“Damn it!” I roared and punched at the dashboard. “I don’t even know if she’s okay, Mason! What was Ramirez saying, did he say if she’s okay? Is she— Oh God. Rach, baby, please be alive,” I whispered and slumped into my seat, raking my hands over my face.
I heard Mason on the phone calling into dispatch and asking questions about what had happened, but I couldn’t focus on his exact words or the muffled response coming from the dispatcher. I just kept praying over and over again that she was okay. I could deal with our place being broken into. I could replace all that. But I couldn’t replace Rachel.
Mason nudged my arm and I snapped my head to the left to look at him. “Sorry, you weren’t responding. They don’t know if she’s alive, but there’s no blood. So just focus on that, Kash.”
“W-what? No . . . What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel. “From what units at the scene—uh, your place—are saying, whoever broke in . . . they uh, they took Rachel.”
Mason was saying something else, but I couldn’t hear anything past the blood rushing through my ears. When we got to the house, the front door was hanging like it had been kicked in, but the rest of the front looked completely normal. Save for the dozens of officers and detectives that were walking in and out of it. Remembering the faux-wall in the closet, I prayed like hell that Rachel was using it and took off for the large closet in the bathroom.
When I flipped on the light in the closet, dread filled me when I saw the drag marks on the carpet. I called one of the officers that had been taking pictures of the bedroom to get a few pictures of the carpet before I walked in, and all hope left me when all I found behind that wall was our puppy. I grabbed him and pulled him into my chest as I fell back against the wall, and the tears that had been threatening started spilling over.
“Kash, you need to see this,” Mason said softly from the doorway to the closet. I looked over at him, rolled to my knees, and stood. “Give me Trip. Go into the bedroom and look at the wall. We’ll find her, okay? I swear to you we’ll find her.”
I handed him the golden retriever and rushed into the bedroom, which looked like a hurricane had hit it. My eyes widened when they finally landed on the wall opposite our bed. A roar filled the room, and before I could realize it came from me, two officers were holding me back and trying to get me to sit down on the bed.
On the wall in red spray paint were the words DID YOU THINK WE WOULD FORGET? Underneath was a symbol. One both Mason and I’d had tattooed on our left forearms during our last undercover narcotics assignment with Juarez’s gang.
“How?” Mason was asking a detective who was in the room with us. And that was a damn good question. Juarez had put a hit on Mase and me before we could take down his gang, but it had died when the guys hired were thrown in prison for another murder. And I knew for a fact Juarez and his boys were all in prison. “Recruiting people from the inside who got out? Or just using people he trusts? Set up questioning with each of them separately.”
I looked up when Detective Byson’s cell rang. His mouth snapped shut from answering Mason, and he answered the call. “Byson.” His eyes shot over to me and a grim look crossed his face as he listened. “Mmhm . . . Yeah. Set up something with Juarez and his attorney immediately. I’m on my way.” He turned to face me and slid his phone back in the holder on his belt. “Rachel is alive.”
“Thank God,” I breathed and tried to stand, but the officers were still holding me there.
“A call was placed about fifteen minutes ago, demanding that every charge against Juarez’s gang be dropped. Before the dispatcher could ask anything, the caller said they would call back in two days and expect progress on the charges being dropped, and would continue to call every two days until every member of the gang was released. If there isn’t progress, there will be consequences, and if they aren’t released within the month . . . she dies.”
“Kash, Kash, Kash, calm down. Come on, man. Calm down. I know.”
Mason gripped my shoulders and I tried to focus on him. The other two officers were now struggling to keep me down as I thrashed against them. Where I was going to go when I got away from them, I didn’t know, I just needed to go. They had my girl. I needed to find out who they were, and I needed to get her back.
“I know this is hard. But we’ll find her. I swear.” Mason looked just as panicked as I felt, and it was then I noticed the wetness in his eyes he was trying to keep back.
When I finally stopped struggling, the officers let me go at Mason’s request, but he kept me seated on the bed. “I need to get her back, Mason. I have to.”
“We will.”
“I’ll do anything.”
A determined look settled over his face and he whispered low enough that only I could hear him. “Anything to bring the fuckers down, right?”
I slammed my fist against his and swore, “Always.”
I WALKED INTO MASON’S APARTMENT that evening with a bag slung over one shoulder and Trip in my arms. Our bedroom was still being considered a crime scene, and I was asked to stay out of it for the night as they processed more and continued to take fingerprints. Not that I thought I would be able to stay there even after they were done anyway, without Rachel . . . I didn’t know how I would handle being there.
After dropping the bag in the room I’d occupied for years when Mason and I’d shared an apartment, I fell heavily onto the bed and kept Trip secured tightly to my chest as I stared at nothing.
A fear unlike anything I’d ever known had coursed through my body the moment I’d realized Rachel was at a murderer’s home last fall, and that I’d let her walk away with him. When the call between us had been dropped after I’d heard her scream, I hadn’t even let myself believe I wouldn’t find her and bring her back alive.
But the fear I’d experienced that early morning could never be compared to the fear that had been crippling me all day. At least when she was with Blake, I’d had an underlying knowledge of what Blake was capable of. Now, though, I didn’t know who had her, what they were doing to her, and what they could do. I just knew what they’d threatened to do.
For close to ten hours, a handful of detectives had questioned every member of Juarez’s gang, the two men hired to kill Mason and me last year, and family members as well. No one was talking, and the only living extended family of Juarez and his boys that we could track down had either turned their backs on the members of the gang, or were afraid of them. I hadn’t been allowed in for any of the interviews, since I was too close to the case—again—so I’d spent hours seeing if anyone on the street had heard anything, and looking for Rachel’s cell phone, which we’d later found ten miles away from the house in a trash can at a gas station. A gas station whose indoor and outdoor cameras just happened to be down.
There’d been nothing to go off of from the anonymous call placed regarding their demands and threats for Rachel’s safety, and although they said they’d call back every two days, I’d hoped like hell they would’ve called back again. But there was nothing. We had leads that weren’t talking, and didn’t have a reason to talk, and nothing else.
And my girl was gone.
Pain seared my chest and I prayed
to God that he would keep her safe. He could do whatever he wanted with me . . . as long as she came back alive.
There was a shuffling near the other side of the room, and I looked over to see Mason standing in the doorway.
“How are you holding up?”
I sucked hard on my lip ring when my chin started shaking, and looked back to the wall. How the hell does he think I’m holding up? Rachel’s gone and probably being tortured, and I can’t do anything!
“We’ll find her, Kash.”
Unable to speak yet without breaking down, I nodded my head hard, once. We have to find her, and we have to do it tomorrow. I didn’t care if they’d given her a month to live or not. They also said there would be consequences if there wasn’t progress in two days, and I wasn’t willing to let her find out what those consequences were. Seeing how the possibility of giving the takers what they wanted was slim, finding her was the only other option.
“I love her too, I’ll do anything to get her back.”
“Do you mean that?” I choked out when he turned to leave.
He turned back and gave me an odd look. “Of course I do.”
“They aren’t going to release Juarez.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh.
“Chief told me tonight before I left that I was off this case.”
“Know that too. What are you getting at, Kash?”
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat and shook my head quickly. “We had to do a lot of things in the years that we were in undercover narcotics that I wish I could erase from my memory. But you and I agreed before we ever started, we would do anything to take the fuckers down.”
“Kash . . .”
“And I’ll do anything—anything, Mase—to bring these fuckers down too.”
He stared at me for a few tense moments before responding. “I know what we agreed on, and we’ll do what we always do. But don’t do something stupid. There are a lot of people looking for her. We’ll find her.”