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He wondered if the women inside knew that only a couple of yards away, in a decent-size shed, The Stallion kept all the things he denied the women. Computers and phones and an array of weapons, which was where The Stallion was leading Jaime now.
“We have a situation I want you briefed on. Then you may go back to our Gabriella and finish your...” He trailed off and shook his head as he locked and chained the back door they’d exited into an overgrown backyard. “Sex is such a base instinct, Rodriguez. Women are a worthless expense of energy. I’m fifty-three, for over half my life I have searched for the perfect woman and failed time and time again. Though, I will admit the women I’ve kept are of exceptional quality. Just not quite there...”
The man got a far-off look on his face as they walked through the long grass toward his shed. It was the kind of far-off look that kept Jaime up at night. Void of reason or sense, completely and utterly...incomprehensible.
The Stallion patted his shoulder again, tsking. “I know this is all going over your head. You really ought to work on your English.”
Jaime shrugged. It suited his purpose to be seen as not understanding everything that went on because of a language barrier, and at times it had been hard to remember he was supposed to barely understand.
But when The Stallion started going on and on about women, Jaime never had any problems keeping his mouth shut and his expression confused. It was broken and warped and utter nonsense.
The Stallion unlocked the shed and stepped inside. Two men were sitting on chairs around The Stallion’s desk, which was covered in notes and technology. The man strode right to it and sat on his little throne.
“Herman’s gone missing,” he said without preamble, mentioning The Stallion’s most used runner in Austin. “He didn’t deliver his message today, and so far no one has figured out where he disappeared to. Wallace, I’m giving you the rest of today to find him. He can’t have gone too far.”
The fair-haired man in the corner nodded soundlessly.
“If he somehow gives us the slip that long...” The Stallion continued. “Layne, you’ll take him out.”
Layne cracked his knuckles one by one, like he’d seen too many mobster movies. “Be my pleasure. What happens to him if Wallace finds him, though? I wouldn’t mind getting some information out of him.”
The Stallion’s mouth curved into a cold, menacing line that, even after two years, made Jaime’s blood run cold. “Rodriguez will be in charge if we find him. I’d like to see what he can do with a...shall we say, recalcitrant employee. ¿Comprende?”
“Sí, senor.”
“Wallace, you’re dismissed. Report every hour,” The Stallion said with the flick of his wrist. “Layne, have the interrogation room readied for us, please.”
Both men agreed and left the shed. Jaime stood as far from The Stallion as he could without drawing attention to the purposeful space between them. The man steepled his hands together, looking off at some unknown entity Jaime was pretty sure only he could see.
Jaime stood perfectly still, trying to appear detached and uninterested. “Did you need me, senor?”
The Stallion stroked his forehead with the back of his thumb, still looking somewhere else. “Once we figure out what’s going on with Herman, I’ll be moving on to a different location.” His cold, blue gaze finally settled on Jaime. “You’ll stay here and hold down the fort, and Ms. Gabriella will be yours to do whatever you please with her.”
Jaime smiled. “Excellent.” He didn’t have to fake his excitement about that, because Jaime was almost certain Gabriella had exactly the information he’d need to pull the sting to end this whole nightmare of a job.
And then Jaime could go back to being himself and figuring out...who that was again.
Chapter Three (#ua443a2e0-39b1-5b8e-9c7c-2ae6decd0d50)
Gabby considered taking a nap in lieu of lunch. Her little visit, which she couldn’t begin to understand, however, had eradicated any appetite she’d had.
That man had acted like two different people. Even the way he talked when The Stallion was present and when he wasn’t was different. His voice, when he’d spoken with her, had only the faintest touches of Mexico, reminding her of her parents’ accents—a sharp, hard pang of memory.
But when he spoke to The Stallion, it was all rolled R’s and melodic vowels. Even his demeanor had changed. That goal or determination or whatever she thought she’d seen in him just...disappeared in the shadow of The Stallion. He was someone else. Something more feral and menacing.
But, despite the very disconcerting shirt-ripping, and the way his gaze had most definitely lingered on her chest, he had been honest with her thus far.
He hadn’t hurt her, but he’d let her hurt him. Blow after blow. Considering she’d gotten into the habit of exercising to keep her overactive mind from driving her crazy, she wasn’t weak. She had punched him with everything she had, and though he hadn’t made too much of an outward reaction, it had to have hurt.
She shook away the thoughts, already tired of the merry-go-round in her head. If she couldn’t nap or eat, she’d do the next best thing. Exercise until she was too exhausted to think or to move or to do anything but sleep.
She rolled to the ground, then pushed up, holding the plank position as she counted slowly. It had become a game, to see how long she could hold herself up like this. The counting kept her brain from circling and the physical exertion helped her sleep better.
A knock sounded at the door, which was odd. No one here knocked. Except the girls, but that was rare and only in case of emergency.
Before she could stand or say anything, the door squeaked open and in stepped the man from earlier.
She scowled at him. “I only have so many clothes, so if you’re going to keep ripping them, at least get me some duct tape or something.”
He pulled the door closed as he stepped inside. “I won’t rip your clothes again...unless I have to.” He studied her arms, eyebrows pulling together. “You’re awfully strong.”
“Remember that.”
“It could definitely work in our favor,” he muttered. “Now, where were we?”
She pushed into a standing position. “You don’t want to go back to where we were. I’ll hit you where it really hurts this time.” Why he smiled at that was completely beyond her.
“You might literally be perfect.”
“And you might literally be as whacked as Mr. Stallion out there.”
He shook his head in some kind of odd rebuttal. “Now—”
“You act like two very different people.”
He froze, every part of his body tensing as his eyes widened. “What?”
“You act like two completely different people. In here alone. With him. Two separate identities.”
He was so still she wasn’t even sure he breathed.
“Two separate identities, huh?”
“Your accent is different when he’s not here. The way you hold yourself? It’s more...relaxed when he’s with you. Rigid with me. No...almost...” She cocked her head, trying to place it. “Military.”
She knew she was getting somewhere at the way he still didn’t move, though he’d carefully changed his wide-eyed gaze into something blank.
Yeah, she was right. “You were military.”
“No.”
“Police then?”
“You’re an odd woman, Gabriella.” He said her name with the exaggerated accent, and it reminded her of her long-dead grandfather. He hadn’t been a particularly nice man or a particularly mean man. He’d been hard. Very formal. And while everyone else in her family had called her Gabby, he’d been the lone holdout.
He’d never appreciated the “Americanization” of his family, even though he’d immigrated as a young man.
“I’m right. You’re...” Her eyes widened as she put it all together. Him not hurting her. Him gathering information. Being someone else with The Stallion.
He gave a sharp head shake so she didn’t say anything, but she did step closer. “But you are, aren’t you?”
“No,” he returned easily, nodding his head as he said it.
Her heart raced, her breathing came too shallow. He was an undercover police officer. She had to blink back tears. “Tell me what it means, that you’re here. Please.”
He let out a long breath and stepped toward her. This time she didn’t scurry away. She needed to know more than she was afraid of him. He’d checked the room for bugs before, and she knew they were safe to talk in there, but she also understood how a man like him would have to be inordinately careful. Undercover. What did it mean? For her? For the girls?
He inclined his mouth toward her ear, so close she could feel his breath against her neck. “I can’t promise you anything. I can only tell you that I am trying to end this, so whatever information you can give me, whatever you can tell me, it’ll bring me closer to finishing out my job here.”
He pulled back, looking at her, his gaze serious and that determination back in his dark eyes.
She tried to repeat those first five words. I can’t promise you anything. It was important to remember, to not get her hopes up. Just because he was an undercover police officer...just because he wanted to take The Stallion down...it didn’t mean he would. Or that he’d get her out in the process.
“How did you put it all together?” he asked. “I’m not...”
“You’re very good. Very convincing. I’m probably the only person you let your guard down for, right?”
He nodded, still clearly perplexed and downright worried she’d figured it out.
“I don’t know, ever since I got here...I remember things, and I can see...patterns that no one else seems to see. I thought I was going crazy. But...I don’t know. I was always good at that. Observing, remembering, figuring out puzzles and mysteries. It just works in my head.”
“Clearly,” he muttered. “Hopefully you’re the only one around here with that particular talent or I’m screwed.”
“How long?” she asked. Was he just starting out? He was so close to The Stallion, surely...
“Two years.”
She let out a breath. “That’s a long time.”
“Yes,” he said, a bleak note in his voice that softened her another degree toward him. He’d voluntarily held his own identity hostage, separated himself from his life. He’d probably had no idea the things he’d end up missing or wanting.
God help her, she hadn’t had a clue in that first day, week, month, even year. She’d had no idea the things that would grow to hurt her.
She felt a wave of sympathy for the man and, even if it was stupid or ill-advised, she had to follow it. She had to follow this first possibility in ages that there might be an end to this. “How can I help?”
“So, you trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” she returned, feeling a little bleak herself. “But I’ll try to help you. Because I believe you are what I think you are.”
“That’ll work. That’ll work. But there’s something you have to understand. Being a different person means being a different person. The ripping-your-shirt thing...”
“It was for him to think that you were...having your way with me.” She shuddered a little at the thought, at how close they might have to come to...proving that.
“Yes. There may be times I have to push that a little bit. Because he is...” He cleared his throat. “What do you understand about your position here? Is there a reason you were kidnapped? Is there a reason he’s kept you girls...untouched?”
“I’m not really sure. I have no idea why I was taken. I was waiting at my dad’s work for him to get off his shift and all of a sudden there were all these people and men talking and I was grabbed and thrown into a van with some other people. They took us somewhere that I don’t know anything about. It was all dark and sometimes we were blindfolded or there were hoods put on our heads.”
Gabby felt ill. She didn’t relive the kidnapping anymore. She’d mostly gotten beyond that horror and lived in the horror of her continual imprisonment. Going back and thinking about coming here brought up all sorts of horrible memories.
How awful she’d been to her mother that night when she’d had to cancel her date to pick up Dad. All that fear she hadn’t known what to do with or how to survive with when she’d been taken, moved, inspected. But she had. She had survived and lived, and she needed to remind herself of that.
“Eventually, after I don’t know how long... Actually that’s not true.” She didn’t have to lie to this man about her memory or pretend she didn’t know exactly what she knew like she did with so many people. “It was two days. It was two days from the time they took me and put me in the van to the time they took me to this other place, kind of like a warehouse. They took me—and all the people from that first moment—there and then we were sorted. Men and women went to different areas. And then The Stallion came.”
“Keep going,” he urged, and it was only then she realized she’d stopped because she could see it. Relive every terrifying detail of not knowing what would happen to her, or why.
“I didn’t know that’s who he was at the time, but he walked through and he asked everyone if we knew who he was. One woman in my group said yes and she was immediately taken away.”
“Did he say his name or offer any hints about who he was beyond The Stallion?”
“No. I’ve gone over it a million times in my head. He must’ve...he must be someone, you know? He had to be someone with some kind of profile?”
“Yes, he is.”
“He is?” She stepped toward the man who could mean freedom, a scary thought in and of itself. “Who? What’s his name? Why is he doing this?” she demanded, losing her cool and her calm in an instant.
“I can’t answer those questions.”
She grabbed his shirtfront, desperate for an answer, a reason, desperate for those things she’d finally given up on ever getting. “Tell me right this second, you miserable—”
“I’m sorry,” he said so gently, so emotionally, she could only swallow a sob.
“He kidnapped me. He brought me here. He separated me from my family for eight years, and you can’t tell me who he is?” she demanded, her voice low and scratchy but measured. She was keeping it together. She would keep it together.
“Not now. There are a lot of things I can’t tell you, because everything you know jeopardizes what I’m doing here. You deserve the answers, you do, but I can’t give you what you deserve right now. But if you help me, you’ll have the answers, and you’ll have your life back.”
Odd that prompted a cold shudder to go through her body. “You can’t promise me that.”
“No, I can’t, but I promise to put my life on the line to make it so.”
She didn’t know what to do with that or him, or any of this, so she turned away from him, hugging herself, trying to calm her breathing.
There were no promises. There were no guarantees. But she had a chance. She had to believe in it. She had to fight for it. With everything she had. If not for herself, for the three girls she shared this hell with. For their family’s, and hers, even if they probably thought she was dead.
She owed it to a lot of people to do what this man said he would do: put her life on the line to make it so.
* * *
GABRIELLA WAS CLEARLY BRILLIANT. The way she described remembering things and figuring out patterns no one else did, to the point she thought she was crazy... It sounded like a lot of the analysts he knew. Because when you saw things no one else saw, it was very easy to convince yourself you were wrong.
But she wasn’t wrong, and she had so much information in that pretty head of hers... Jaime was nearly excited even though she now had the power to end his life completely.
He didn’t care because he was so close now. So damn close to the end of this.
She might be brilliant, but he was a trained FBI agent, after all. He wasn’t going to let her figuring him out be the end. No way in hell.
“Tell me about what happened after the woman who knew who he was disappeared.”
Gabriella nodded. “She was taken away from the room. She had no chance to say anything at all. After that, the rest of us women were separated into groups, and I tried to find a rhyme or reason for these groups, but I really couldn’t. Except that all of the women in my group were young and reasonably fit. Dark hair, though none of the same shade—it ranged from black to light brown.”
