by Maya Banks
“He demanded to know where he could find you. When we refused, they beat your father. I’m sorry, honey,” she said brokenly. “I couldn’t let them kill him, so I called you like they told me to. I’m so sorry. I’d never betray you. I don’t want to be responsible for any harm to you or my grandchild, but oh God, they would have killed him!”
“You did right,” Maren said fiercely. “Don’t let them hurt him any more. Tell me what they want. I’ll come right away.”
Steele’s hand came around her arm, turning her forcefully, his expression so black that it would have terrified her if she wasn’t already scared out of her wits.
“He wants to talk to you,” her mom said shakily.
“Put him on then,” Maren demanded.
“Put it on speaker, damn it,” Steele whispered.
Even Hancock had advanced and now stood only a foot away. She felt smothered by the two men. Overwhelmed with gut-wrenching fear. That bastard had her parents! They’d beaten her father. Two of the kindest, most gentle people in the world. People who’d devoted their entire lives to helping others. They didn’t deserve this! They didn’t deserve to be dragged into Caldwell’s obsession. There was no way in hell she’d let this happen. Whatever she had to do to ensure their safety, she’d do with no hesitation. She had Steele. Hell, she even had Hancock. And she had KGI. She wasn’t alone and Caldwell had picked the wrong people to fuck with.
She quickly hit the button for the speakerphone option but still held it to her ear so it wouldn’t be so obvious and her voice wouldn’t seem farther away.
“Maren.”
Caldwell’s voice froze her. She went utterly still, her blood turning to ice in her veins.
“What do you want?” she asked hoarsely.
Steele and Hancock both crowded close to her, their expressions fierce as they strained to hear every word.
“It’s obvious what I want,” Caldwell said coldly. “You and my child. Back where you belong.”
“It isn’t your child and you know it!” she screeched.
Steele put his hand on her arm and then put a finger to his mouth to signal her not to do anything to anger him. As if! She was bloody furious. If she could reach through the phone and wrap her hands around the bastard’s neck, she’d do it and squeeze the life right out of him.
“You are mine. The baby is mine,” Caldwell said. “And I want you both back. You have a choice, Maren. You come back to me and I let your parents go. You refuse and they’ll die while you listen on the phone.”
In the background her mother’s scream rose, and every hair on Maren’s neck stood up.
“Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t you hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t hurt her or my father. Tell me what you want. Just stop it!”
“That’s more like it,” he said smoothly. “I want you here, Maren. You have exactly twelve hours to arrive or they both die.”
“Where?” she asked desperately. “You want me to just walk into their house and I’m supposed to believe you’ll leave them and take me?”
“You won’t meet me at their house. They won’t be at their house. I’ll give you the location once you’ve landed in Florida. As for you believing me, I don’t see that you have an alternative. It’s your choice, Maren. Get on a plane and get here. I’ll call this number in eleven hours and tell you where to meet me. Once you arrive, I’ll make the call for your parents to be released. If I don’t place that call in exactly twelve hours and fifteen minutes? They die. So don’t even think about fucking me on this. If anything happens to me and I don’t make that call, they will die a horrible death. I’m not bluffing, so don’t try to call me on it.”
“How do I know you won’t kill them anyway?” Maren asked, her voice rising with hysteria.
“I have no reason to kill the grandparents of my child. Not unless you continue to keep my child from me. I want you and I want our child. I see no need to have their murder between us for the rest of our lives. And if you prove cooperative and don’t fight me, I’ll even allow you to see them on occasion.”
“I’ll be there,” she choked out.
The phone went dead and Maren fell to her knees, sobs erupting from her chest in painful bursts. Steele’s arms came around her, pulling her up and against him as he held her firmly, stroking her hair, kissing the side of her head.
“Shhh, Maren,” he whispered. “You have to be calm. We have to think this through. I need you with me on this. You have to be strong for your parents. Do you understand? Pull yourself together so we can figure this out.”
“He’s crazy!” she said, her voice rising precariously. “Oh my God, you heard him, Steele. He actually expects me to just leave with him and if I’m a good girl, he’ll let me see my family every once in a while. As if we’re some married couple visiting relatives.”
“I told you, he’s unhinged,” Hancock interjected. “Completely lost his shit. I admit, I never saw this coming. I knew he had a thing for Maren, but he’s focused on business. He’s ruthless. I would have never imagined that he’d fuck over Maksimov. He’s signed his death warrant. When I got Maren out of there, he just lost it. She became his obsession. Getting her back. That became his single-minded goal. Nothing else mattered. And the hell of it is, I think he’s actually in love with her. He’s pissed that she got away, no doubt. But this isn’t about a power play and him seeking revenge for being thwarted. The fucker is actually in love with her and he’ll do anything to get her back, not even realizing that even if he’s successful and even if there were no KGI or Titan to take him down, Maksimov would take him and Maren both out. He’s living on borrowed time and he’s fucked from all directions.”
“Jesus,” Steele muttered. “Goddamn it.”
“Call in your team,” Hancock said to Steele. “We’re going to have to move fast.”
“We?” Steele demanded. “There is no we here, Hancock. You stay the fuck out of this.”
Hancock regarded Steele with a steady gaze. “I’m going in too. You need all the manpower you can get.”
“Just stop the arguing!” Maren said, anguish tearing at her insides. “We don’t have time for this. We have to go!”
Steele strode to the living room, picked up the radio and barked a terse order for his team to return to the house on the double. Then he came back to Maren and gripped her shoulders.
“There is no way in hell you’re going with that bastard, Maren.”
“What choice do I have? You heard him. We can’t trick him and send in KGI with me to take him down. If he doesn’t make that phone call, my parents die. And I believe him! He’s just crazy enough to do it.”
Steele’s team poured in from the back door and the front and within seconds they’d congregated in the kitchen, their stances rigid, completely alert and awaiting Steele’s orders.
“I’ll keep this brief because we have to hit the road. I’ll put a call in to Sam on the way to the airport and have him pull in whoever he has. We don’t have time to pull in Rio and his team. They all flew out yesterday, so Sam, Garrett, Donovan and the new team are going to have to be it.”
Then he quickly went over the situation in clipped sentences and in the end there was a room full of pissed-off, ready-to-go-in-and-kick-ass people.
“I’m going,” Maren said, staring down the entire team. “There’s no way you can do this without me. He’s calling me and if I don’t answer, my parents die.”
“Yes, you’re coming,” Steele said, each word dragged painfully from him. As if he recognized the inevitability of her having to go and had no choice but to place her in harm’s way.
She touched his arm and locked gazes with him. “I trust you, Steele. I trust KGI. We’ll think of a way out of this. But for now we have to go and we have to play it his way.”
Steele nodded, but he looked tortured. Then he turned to his team. “Let’s roll. We’re going to have to do all our planning in the air. We don’t have time to map it out with the others at the compound. I just hope to
fuck that Sam and the others are available and can meet us at the airport.”
CHAPTER 37
AN hour and a half later, they were in the air. Hancock’s presence had been contentious, and it was clear that no one wanted him there and that they didn’t trust him. But at the moment, Steele didn’t give a fuck who came as long as it meant keeping Maren out of Caldwell’s grasp.
She was sitting on the end of the couch in the lounging area of the jet, feet curled underneath her, silent and pale as she listened to the strategy being discussed.
Sam, Garrett, Donovan and even Ethan had come, as had Nathan, Joe, Swanny, Skylar and Edge. Plenty of muscle. If only they knew what they were up against.
Hancock had taken the floor, giving what information he had on Caldwell. It was his opinion that Caldwell wasn’t operating with a lot of manpower. Only two of his men had disappeared with him the morning Maksimov had lost patience and had moved to take Caldwell out. So if Caldwell had hired more men, it wasn’t likely he’d been able to recruit the most qualified of candidates on such short notice.
It had been only days since Maren had been taken from Caldwell, even though it seemed like weeks had gone by. Caldwell had disappeared only two days before, and finding hired muscle that quickly, while not out of the realm of possibility with the wealth and resources at Caldwell’s disposal, was difficult for a man who’d gone off the deep end.
One point in their favor. Hopefully they were dealing with subpar lackeys who were only looking to score a few quick bucks off Caldwell.
“If we knew where Caldwell was going to have Maren meet him, it would make things a hell of a lot easier,” Donovan muttered. “We’d know if it’s open or if there’s room for us to move in and take position, surround him on all sides.”
“But we can’t do that,” Maren broke in, her tone desperate. “If anything happens to him and he doesn’t make that call, my parents die. I can’t trade my life for theirs. I can’t! It’s obvious he doesn’t want to kill me. He’s talking a long-term relationship here.”
A visible shudder worked over her shoulders. Skylar was sitting beside her on the couch and reached over to squeeze Maren’s hand. Maren clung to it, as if desperate for that connection. Shared strength. So far she was holding up well, but Steele could tell she was teetering on the edge and could lose it at any moment.
“We know, Maren,” Donovan said, his voice low and soothing. “But if I can get in close enough to lock on to his cell signal, I can trace the call to the location where your parents are being held.”
“But he’s not going to make that call until he has Maren,” Sam said grimly.
No one looked pleased with that statement. Steele barely controlled his own reaction. He had to turn it off. He had to think of this as any other mission. Focus. Turn off emotion. Turn off the fact that the thought of Maren being in Caldwell’s possession for even a minute made him want to lose his mind.
Edge sat forward and cleared his throat. Everyone turned in his direction. The man never said much, but it was clear he had something to add.
“Look, I know this isn’t ideal, but as Maren said, he’s not planning to kill her. He’s obsessed with her. And he thinks of her child as his. So he’s not going to do anything that would risk her or the baby unless he feels threatened and decides to take them both out with him.”
Steele scowled, the words evoking images that had his insides so twisted up he could barely breathe.
Turn it off. No matter how many times he told himself to do it, he couldn’t manage the feat. His tightly leashed control that had never failed him, the tight rein he had on his emotions at all times, was frayed and at its breaking point.
“So we send Maren in just long enough that he makes that call. We wire her up, have her demand to speak to her parents. If we keep that line open long enough, Donovan can do his magic and lock onto that location. We split teams. One with Maren, one ready to move out the minute we get a bead on where her parents are. The minute that call ends, we go in, take Caldwell down, and the other team takes out the fuckers who have her parents.”
“Gotta say, that’s not a bad idea,” Donovan said.
“I don’t want her in his hands even for a minute,” Steele ground out.
“We don’t have a choice,” Maren said. “It has to be done, Steele. I trust you. I trust all of you. You’ll have my back. You won’t let him get away with me.”
“What if he doesn’t make that call until he’s on the move with Maren?” Skylar asked. “There’s a fifteen-minute gap between the time he says she has to show and when he has to make that call. That tells me he’s prepared for exactly what we’re planning, and he’s going to make that call on the move.”
“Then we have to make damn sure we don’t lose visual contact at any point, and we move when he moves. We also plant a tracking device on Maren, be prepared for the worst-case scenario if we lose visual or he actually gets away,” Sam said. “This guy is certifiable. He’s nuts. He’s not thinking clearly. That’s obvious. So he can’t have covered all his bases. His sole objective is to get Maren back. He’s discounted us from the beginning, when Hancock first warned him about us. In his mind he’s untouchable. That gives us an edge because even if he’s expecting us to make a move, he’s already thinking that he’s outsmarted us and he won’t be expecting the magnitude of our power and resources.”
“If he’s in a fixed location and isn’t on the move when he makes that call, I want Cole, P.J., Skylar and Joe in position, and when the call is done, I want him taken out,” Steele said.
“And why are you here again, Hancock?” Garrett drawled. “The way I see it, you aren’t offering much of anything unless you’re going to be holding pom-poms and cheering us on.”
Hancock stared coldly at Garrett. “Caldwell is my mission and I’ll be there when he goes down.”
“Yeah, yeah, failure isn’t an option,” Ethan said with a roll of his eyes. “We’ve heard it before. But from where I’m standing, this is one giant F on your report card, Hancock.”
“I don’t give a fuck who gets credit for taking him out,” Hancock snarled. “I just want it done so I can move on to Maksimov.” He rubbed his bruised jaw and then his swollen eye. “I have a personal score to settle with that asshole now.”
“I’m thinking your next performance review is going to suck,” Dolphin drawled.
Ordinarily Steele would be all for letting everyone give Hancock shit. The bastard deserved it for all the grief he’d caused them in the past. But their focus was drifting and they were fast running out of time. They’d land in an hour and then they’d only have a few hours to scope out a vast amount of territory and then wire Maren and wait for the call and hope like hell they’d covered the area where he wanted to meet.
“Cut the crap and let’s focus on the goddamn mission,” Steele snapped.
The cabin went silent. Maren rubbed her hands tiredly over her temples, pressing and massaging, anxiety written all over her face. Steele was in a no-win situation. If he did nothing and didn’t allow Maren to follow through with Caldwell’s instructions, her parents would pay the price and Maren would never forgive Steele for that. She’d live with guilt for the rest of her life and be tortured by the fact that she could have saved them.
But if he let her go, if he placed her in the direct line of danger, he risked losing her and that wasn’t something he could dwell on without losing his mind.
She clutched his cell phone like a lifeline, and from time to time she stared down at it as if replaying that last conversation over and over in her mind. He wanted to comfort her. Wanted to wrap himself around her, a barrier between her and the rest of the world. But his focus had to be on a way to prevent harm to both her and her parents.
They landed at the small airport in St. Augustine, Florida, and quickly gathered at the waiting vehicles Sam had arranged. Donovan had tagged every airport within a hundred-mile radius with aerial photos and he was studying each one, trying to determine where
Caldwell would be making his run with Maren.
The problem was, there were simply too many possibilities for them to cover. Until Maren got that phone call, they were flying blind.
Sam made contact with the local city and county police departments and had Resnick pave the way for cooperation. Resnick wanted Caldwell almost as badly as KGI wanted him, and he was eager to facilitate his capture.
“Given the time parameters he gave Maren, the best bet is either Flagler County or Craig Municipal if he’s planning to fly out of here,” Donovan said. “I’ve checked on any private landing strips and there’s one possibility. It’s rural. Only accommodates Cessnas, no jets. Not big enough. My bet is on that one. The other two are too public even though they’re small.”
“How far?” Steele demanded.
“Thirty minutes and that’s hauling ass.”
Steele nodded and then turned to Maren, gathering her in his arms. “Hold tight, Maren. We’ll get through this.”
She gripped him back, clutching desperately at him. “I hope you’re right, Steele.”
The wait was interminable. Everyone was on edge. Restless. Maren checked her watch every few minutes and the closer it got to the eleven-hour mark, the paler she grew and the more agitated she became.
When the phone rang, she jumped, staring down at the phone, stark fear outlined in her features. Conversation ceased and every single eye was on Maren as she shakily brought the phone to her ear.
“Hello,” she said.
Steele was proud of the firm tone she used. He knew she was scared out of her mind, but she sounded crisp and businesslike on the phone.
She listened a long moment and then said, “Don’t fuck me on this, Tristan. I swear to God, if you don’t keep your end of the deal, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
Steele winced, not wanting her to antagonize Caldwell. But at the same time he felt a surge of pride at her courage.
She quietly lowered the phone, letting it hang in her hand at her side as she faced the others.
“He wants me at the airport in an hour’s time. Fifteen minutes after I’ve turned myself over to him he’ll place the call to free my parents.”