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“I can’t,” Star whispered. “I don’t want them to see me cry.”
“Who? You don’t want who to see you cry?” Lacey asked.
“The guards. They’ll tell Anton.”
“But Mr. Baba adores you,” Lacey said. “I see the way he treats you.”
Star shook her head.
“Not anymore. He’s going to sell me, just like he sells the others,” she whispered and then gasped at what she’d done. “No, I didn’t mean that. I just—”
Lacey’s heart leaped, but she kept playing along.
“Sell you? But what about Sammy?”
And that’s when Star’s last defenses fell, and she took a chance.
“He’ll keep Sammy. Sammy is his son, but he’ll sell me to someone else, and I’ll never see Sammy again. Please don’t tell. Pretend you never saw me getting food. Just let me walk out of here. I have to get away before this happens. He’ll be at his club tonight. It’s the only chance I’ll have to make a run for it. I can’t lose my baby. I’d rather be dead.”
“I’ll help you,” Lacey said.
Star’s heart skipped a beat.
“How?”
“I have a friend here in the city. He’ll help.”
Star frowned.
“I don’t believe you. You’ll just tell Anton and then I’m done. If you do I’ll swear you lied, and believe me, I’m good at lying. I’ve been doing it for seven years without getting caught.”
Star made a grab for the food and was about to bolt when Lacey grabbed her hand.
“Stop,” she whispered and pulled her back into the pantry, then leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “I’m with the FBI. Will you testify against him if I help you and Sammy escape?”
Star gasped, then stared at the woman, looking for the lie on her face, but she didn’t flinch.
“You’re serious?”
Lacey nodded.
“What do I do?” Star asked.
“Be ready to run. It’ll be after dark.”
“After Anton leaves,” Star said.
Lacey nodded. “Go pack what you need for the baby and just be ready.”
“Thank you,” Star murmured. “Thank you.”
“Go,” Lacey said, and the moment the woman was out of the kitchen, she sent Ryker, her outside contact, a text.
We have ourselves a witness who’ll testify. She’s running tonight with a toddler. Pick us up at the back gate of the property.
She hit Send and then waited.
Drug the kid to keep it quiet. I’ll have to disarm the alarm at the gate. I’ll text you when it’s done.
She sent back a thumbs-up emoji and stowed the cell back in her pocket beneath the chef’s jacket and went back to prepping vegetables, but her thoughts were already locked into what she needed to do to get them off premises. She’d need to put the silencer on her weapon. There were at least three guards at all times between the house and the back of the property. She would have to take them out just to reach the gate.
* * *
Anton left to go to his casino just before 7:00 p.m., which was his habit. Since it was the Fourth of July, Las Vegas was packed with people on holidays. He got all the way to his office before it dawned on him that he hadn’t told Star or Sammy goodbye, and then dismissed it as of no concern. It wouldn’t be long before she would be gone, Sammy would be with a live-in nanny, and he would be giving full attention to the business of making money, again.
An hour passed and then another before the fireworks began. He got up and walked to the windows overlooking Vegas just as a shower of fireworks spread across the sky.
Entertainment.
That’s what Vegas was all about.
He was still watching when his cell phone rang. He went back to the desk to get it.
“Hello.”
“Boss, this is Ian. The security alarm just went off at the house. We found three guards dead in the back garden, and Star and the baby are gone.”
Anton staggered.
“Gone? How? Who was supposed to be watching them?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”
“You and Dev know how to track runaways. Star has a chip as well and doesn’t know it. Send out as many men as you need. I’m on my way home.”
“Yes, sir,” Ian said and disconnected.
Anton rang for his driver and then took the back way out of Lucky Joe’s. He rode home in silence, mentally going over everything Star had said and done over the past week. He couldn’t find one instance where he’d doubted he had lost control. He had enemies. It occurred to him that this might be the case, but whatever the reason, he wasn’t too worried about getting her back. All of the procurers who worked for him, including Darren Vail, had one last duty before they turned the girls over to the men who took them out of state. They shot a tiny tracking chip just under the skin on the back of every girl’s neck. It was done while they were unconscious, and they didn’t even know it was there. It’s also why no one ever got away.
Two (#uff7fe1cd-e1d2-5e62-86e8-dd1b93512c2b)
Boom!
Fire exploded in the night sky over the alley behind Pizza Rock, momentarily revealing the trio running through it. If someone had aimed a spotlight at them they couldn’t have been more vulnerable. The car he’d picked them up in—the one he’d planned to make their getaway in—was stuck in traffic on a side street waiting for a parade to pass. Forced to abandon it so they wouldn’t get caught, they were now afoot and running toward the backup plan—a second vehicle parked a few blocks away.
“Damn it all to hell,” Ryker muttered and tightened his grip on the gun in his hand. “Fourth of July. This had to go down in Las Vegas on the Fourth of July? Keep moving. Whatever you do, keep moving.”
Twenty-four-year-old Star Davis was behind him with her two-year-old toddler clutched tight against her chest.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she kept saying.
“Hush, Star! Just run,” Lacey said and looked over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed.
Star stumbled and then screamed, thinking she and her baby were falling.
Lacey grabbed her.
“Stay with us, honey. It’s not much farther.”
The baby whimpered and then drifted back off to sleep. The medicine they’d given him earlier to keep him quiet was working, but it made Star anxious. What if they’d given him too much? What if he didn’t wake up?
Ryker kept a continuous one-eighty sweep of the area in front of them, ready to take anyone down who got in their way while Lacey kept an eye out for who might be coming up behind them. He and his partner had been undercover too damn long to have this screw up now.
Boom!
The baby flinched in Star’s arms but didn’t cry.
A stray cat hissed from behind a Dumpster, then darted off into the shadows as they ran past.
Lacey was bringing up the rear without comment until she suddenly let out a low cry.
“Ryker! Runners coming up on our six.”
Ryker paused and pivoted, his heart pounding. He heard them, too.
“Take Star and the kid and get to the Farmers Market parking lot. I’m right behind you.”
Lacey grabbed Star’s arm.
“We have to run now. Stay with me and don’t look back.”
“Oh, my God,” Star moaned. “I’m—”
“Just don’t fucking say that you’re sorry again,” Lacey said and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her closer into the shadows and lengthening their strides as Ryker darted behind a Dumpster into a crouch. He didn’t have long to wait.
Three men were coming up the alley at a fast clip, but it was the silence they brought with them that was the tipping point for Ryker. If they had been tourists enjoying the fireworks they would have likely been drunk and noisy. Chances were more likely it was some of Baba’s hired guns. He saw them from the side as they ran past the Dumpster and knew one man on sight.
He stood up and called out.
“Hey! Bergman!”
The trio turned in an orchestrated move that would have made the Cirque du Soleil proud, but Ryker was already firing.
Pop.
Bergman went down.
Pop.
Blood fanned out behind the middle man’s head before he dropped.
Pop.
Blood flooded the front of the shortest man’s shirt as Ryker’s last shot tore through the carotid artery in his neck.
Three shots in three seconds without one fired in return. Efficient. Ryker prided himself on efficiency, and now he had to catch up. He ran past the bodies without looking down and caught up with the women just as they reached the car.
Lacey clicked the remote to unlock the doors, then tossed the keys to Ryker, who caught them in midair. He got into the driver’s seat as Lacey put Star and the baby into the back. “Buckle up,” she said and slammed the door, then jumped into the front passenger seat and grabbed her seat belt. “What happened back there?”
“Bergman and two others.”
Lacey groaned.
“Our cover is blown. How did that happen?”
“Who knows, and it’s too late to worry about it,” Ryker said.
“You’re right. Get us out of here,” Lacey said.
Star was out of breath and trembling as Ryker started the car and drove away.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“They’re sending a chopper for us,” Lacey said. “This might have worked better if the need for haste had not been an issue. Now we just have to get to the pickup site.”
The toddler whimpered in Star’s arms. Now that they were settled, she dug into the bag over her shoulder and pulled out a bottle, then smiled when the baby started drinking.
“My poor little Sammy,” she crooned. “Mama’s hungry little boy.”
Lacey glanced over her shoulder at the young woman. At first glance, and in the darkened interior, she looked like a teenager. Lacey gave Star and the baby one last look, then turned around and buckled her seat belt. They were headed out of Vegas with fireworks exploding in the sky behind them. They had a date with an FBI chopper at a GPS location just off Highway 93, and time was wasting.
Lacey kept an eye on the headlights of the cars behind them while Ryker wove through the traffic with professional precision. The farther he drove, the less traffic they met, and the fewer cars trailing behind.
“How far now?” Ryker asked, knowing Lacey was keeping track of the GPS location for him.
“Looks like about six miles,” she said.
He hit the accelerator, moving them faster, anxious to tie this up without anyone getting hurt. But he had a knot in his gut and a niggling concern that this wasn’t over.
The night sky was beautiful, peppered with stars from a heavenly explosion a thousand light-years in the past, while the mountains to the north appeared as a ragged bulwark between the city behind them and the desert landscape around them.
Star glanced out her window and then looked up through the glass sunroof. Her pulse was as erratic as the trip they were on, and then she saw a shooting star.
“Look at that! A star on the run, like me.”
“They burn out,” Ryker reminded her.
The shock of his careless comment scared her, and she buried her face against her sleeping baby’s neck.
