Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3) (5 page)

“Coercion.” I pull on my pants. “The waitress from last night flipped after one question. Could be a fresh wound. Said Mason owned the city.”

“I don’t doubt it—his name is growing and is on almost everything coming in and going out of that place, from food distribution trucks and railway boxcars to cargo freight.”

“I’m going in today. Time is a real factor; this has to be done quickly before he bounces.”

“We’re not as young or pretty as we used to be, and this shit is way above our pay grades. I know you, Ryder. Don’t play cop, just get your skip and get the fuck out.”

“Get me intel on the accidents.”

“No, Ryder. That is exactly the fucking opposite of what I told you to do.”

“Let’s find out what we can. Maybe we could throw the FBI a bone.”

“Or maybe I’ll be throwing your dead body into a shallow grave.”

I laugh. Briggs hangs up on me.

I breathe in the hot black coffee vapors while watching the sun come up out the window as I tempt myself with the less than delicious brew. Force of habit. I stop myself right as the liquid hits my lips, with minimal damage done. I let my tongue glide over the warm, flavored moisture.

I’ve got to stop doing this. It’s fucking pathetic.

Setting the cup on the nightstand, I turn my attention back to considering how I’m going to get into Miguel’s palace.

“What would Chief do?” I wonder aloud, remembering a time when my mentor and adoptive father sat in the driver’s seat looking over at me as I sat in the passenger seat of his ‘89 Dodge Charger.

He was patient. He always wanted me to think more than he wanted to get paid. And he always forced me to look at all the angles—the wrong ones and the right ones—until I hit the idea that clicked like a grenade ignition—how it quietly ignites its spark and then, the big bang. 

Chief would say, “It’s not about right or wrong, it’s about what works and gets the job done while keeping you alive.”

Quietly, I meditate. Positioning my elbows on the floor and lifting my legs over my head, I begin a series of asana poses. Using awareness, box and tactical breathing, I clear my mind with an assurance that the answer will manifest into existence.

Parking my newly acquired white pick-up truck with the EPA logo embossed on the side across the street so they can see it, I stride with an urgent gait up to the guard booth outside of the steel fenced gate. Dressed in black cargo pants and a casual button up with a clipboard in hand and a backpack of equipment, I appear official.

“How can I help you?” The guard steps out to block my path.

“I’m from the Environmental Protection Agency and it’s of the utmost urgency that I speak with the owner of this home.” I throw in a deep homeboy Texas drawl to accentuate the persona.

He looks from me, to the truck, then back again.

“Did I stutter?” I wax impatient. “Make the call.”

He makes the call.

Two minutes later a couple of rough looking characters come to greet me, showing off their muscular fighting physiques in a-size-too-small short sleeved polos with pistols holstered over the top.

“You don’t have an appointment,” the larger of the two demands in a tone that’s only purpose is to piss me off.

I point to his feet with my clipboard and roughly declare, “Do you know that where you’re standing right now has a ninety-eight percent probability of being a toxic environmental waste site?” I lift the clipboard and direct it towards the house. “Do you know the basement and lower levels in this home are leaking noxious, cancer causing, poisonous chemicals and gasses right now that you’d never detect and will cause your flesh and organs to grow black with tumors?”  

His tough guy act morphs into serious distress, and his buddy rubs his stomach for a

moment before saying, “You know, I haven’t been feeling so good lately.”

“I’m sure you haven’t—but I have twenty other houses up this stretch of bayou to stop at after this one and don’t have time to explain every detail to middlemen. I must see the owner, now!”

The larger guard nods to the smaller one, who turns and jogs back to the house.

“Check him,” the big one orders the gatekeeper with a growl to reestablish his own authority over his peers.

The younger gatekeeper does. I’m searched and scanned for unauthorized weapons, wires, taps or anything else they’d find suspicious.

When the feel-up is over the larger guy instructs, “Open the gate.”

He walks me to the house and into a front foyer. “Wait here.”

Standing in an at-ease position, I take account of my surroundings. The décor is lavish—no-holds-barred, dripping with money. The ceilings are high, the rooms massive, and the windows are large double-paned glass. I wonder if they’re bulletproof.

Some stiff comes at me with a relaxed saunter and three hundred dollar suit. “Mr. . . .?”

“Cooper. Mr. Cooper.”

“Mr. Cooper, you’ve made a mistake. This home has already been tested for radon and other noxious gasses.”

“That’s what you think this is? This is
not
a routine checkup, Mr. . . .?”

“Greer. I am Mr. Mason’s liaison.”

“Mr. Greer. Companies, including Mason Enterprises, are fracking throughout our beautiful state and so close to your backyard it’s pushing up gases at an unrelenting toxicity level. A home not two miles from this one had a recent level of over 20 pCi/L. That’s more than four times the EPA action level. The family had to be evacuated while teams came in to install equipment to make the home and land safe again.”

“I can assure you—” he interrupts, undaunted.

“I can assure
you
,” I insist, taking control of the conversation, “Mr. Mason’s property is adjacent to eight thousand acres of protected wetland habitat that is managed and controlled by the United States Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Department, and I have been sent here by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to get readings from within this home and the acreage around it leading up to the bayou. Now, you either produce Mr. Mason or you yourself give me a tour of his fine residence. Otherwise, I produce a US Marshall and a warrant.”

I’m in.

Chapter Four

Rachel

Something new—a couple hours ago they duct taped my mouth. This’ll be the second time. The first time was when I woke up one time, disoriented, and started screaming my head off. After my rage, I cried . . . hard. My nose got plugged with mucus and I could hardly breathe. I thought for sure I’d suffocate. I tried clearing my nose by blowing it and wiping the goo on the side of the mattress. Pretty disgusting, since I’m sure it’s still there. But it became a life and death situation. Even after I expelled the mucus, my sinuses hurt, and getting air through the swelling was nearly impossible. I won’t cry again.

Why’d they use the tape this time? I wasn’t screaming.
A chill, cold like a corpse, goosebumps over my skin. They’re either going to move me again or murder me, and they don’t want to hear from me when they do.

I have to shove the fear from my mind fast.

I mull over the five stages of grief—as categorically and chronologically ordered in my psychology textbook—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Five. That’s it. That’s all the American Board of Psychologists, or whoever made up that shit, can give me?

I consider what’s happened to me and I realize that those stages are all fucked up! Makes me wonder if there’s a hostage’s handbook somewhere.

“Denial.” Skip!

There’s,
Why me?
Why is this happening?
And,
God, aren’t you watching out for me?
But you know what’s happened, and you feel the chilling dread of the darkest shadow you’ve ever encountered creeping closer. And with every passing day, it closes in on you—your own mortality—and you wonder how long the air will last.

So my number one is fear. Plain, simple, easy.

Fear.

Anger . . . hmm, I’m going to pass that one for the moment and skip to . . .

Bargaining.

That’s my number two.

I pleaded with Pedro to free me. He started to cry and left the room. He may be my only chance, as he seems to be the only one here with a conscience and maybe without a hidden agenda. Monster One and Monster Two, who tried force feeding me, each have their own ideas. While one maybe wants to dismember me, the other is following orders.

The way I refused to eat . . . that was bargaining with my captors.

Then, of course, there’s all the prayers I’ve been saying to
any
God in the universe that would hear me, begging him to get me out of this.

If I get a real chance to bargain for my life with my captors, I will, in a heartbeat. Of course, the shooter hasn’t shown his face to me, though. I wonder if it’s the guy who got me the nutrition drinks and who stopped the other man from hitting me.

I don’t know, but if they’ve made up their mind to kill me, I hope I can be brave enough to be defiant and spit in their faces.

Bargaining is number two.

Depression . . . should absolutely be number three in the hostage handbook’s stages of grief. I wonder if my captors have even bothered to learn my name. They haven’t used it. No one has spoken to me or questioned me, and the only one who talks to me is Pedro. I’m so fucking depressed—no comparison to anything I’ve ever felt before. I want to put my arms around my family and never let go. I cried for the first few days I was here—thinking about how I’ll probably never see them again—but I can’t and won’t do that anymore. Neither sorrow nor fear are productive emotions, and because they’re debilitating, I have to keep them in check.

Acceptance? No fucking way! I can’t do that. Not ever. I can picture my little sister and my mom—it’s just the three of us. They need me. I have to get home!

So how do I fight? How do I get out of here?

More thoughts flood in, all day long, tormenting me silently as I sit here chained against the wall on my filthy mattress. What if this is not short term? What if they move me somewhere more . . . permanent?

Now those thoughts jack me right back around to fear. I’ve read true life accounts about people taken. Women who were chained for years, their bodies used and beaten mercilessly. By a great miracle some get away, but most never get their miracle and are never found.

Fucking heartbreaking fucking world!

Acceptance? No. There is no acceptance—there is only plotting. I fix my mom and sister’s faces in my mind.

But my captors said home,
I’m reminded.

Can I focus on that? Can I believe it? What else do I have?

Muffled voices catch my attention. They sound like they’re coming from behind a closed door or wall, and I have to strain to make out what they’re saying.

“I have to take measurements in that room too!” a man demands loudly. “
Everywhere.
What part of that don’t you understand?” His voice carries a noticeably deep and resonant timbre with a southern twang. “It’s my ass if I return with insufficient data.”

He sounds pissed off.

“This is a
private
storage room with the dimensions of a closet, it’s not big enough to be of any consequence,” another man says coolly with a Spanish accent. “Put the container by the door.”

The first man who spoke makes it known he’s unhappy, but then it goes silent again and they’re gone.

I don’t know how long it’s been, but the tape is still in place and no one has come.

If . . . I mean
when
I go home, I’m going to do all the things I’ve put off, thinking I’d have time to do
later
. No more waiting for anything! I’ll eat what I want when I want—spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, milkshakes and fucking french fries. I’m going to get the little black tribal elephant tattoo I’ve always wanted but was too afraid of the commitment and the pain to actually go through with.

I’m going to piss off my mom, drop out of Tulane—I could never step foot on that campus again—get a backpack, study abroad and travel the world. Europe, India, China, Morocco, Nepal, Australia—everywhere! I want to see everything. Then I’ll choose a university closer to home, finish my education and get on board with my career.

And fuck? Yeah, I’m going to fuck a hot guy when I want to. I’m going to stop playing hard-to-get while waiting for Mr. Right and start having a whole lot of fun with all of the Mr. Right-nows that I want!

I consider those things and make mental lists for each item on my list—what I’ll eat first, where on my body my elephant will go, the brand and style of condoms I’ll keep in my purse and what I’ll need for a worldwide journey.

For a while, it keeps my mental state positive and my emotions in check.

But the time I’m awake and alone trudges by in the most painfully long increments. 

I contort my body to follow the chain with my fingers all the way to the concrete wall it’s secured to and feel and pull, hoping it will give way. Of course it doesn’t. But I still try, just like I have every day.

If only I could see where I was. Get a bearing on my surroundings. Maybe I could see a tool or . . . I don’t know, something to help me get out of here. If I could get them to take the blindfold and chains off . . . I could play along if I had to. I could run if I got the chance.

I will kill to get away.

I
feel
like I’m still wearing the knee-high, flowy summer dress I had on the day they took me. And I’m grateful, even as I’m surprised, that none of them have put their hands on me . . . sexually.

Could I be in some way important?

I listen as what sounds like a door squeaks open. Heavy feet walk towards me and someone slowly and carefully begins to pull at the tape.

“Just rip it off, Pedro!” a gruff voice says in Spanish.

“Yes, like you would her dress!” The men laugh and jeer.

Once I’m free from the tape, I say, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

This is one English phrase that Pedro has learned from me. He’s quiet as he steps away and comes back with the bucket.

So miserably humiliating to urinate and shit in a bucket someone else is holding. He squeezes my arm carefully to steady me in my position over the bucket. He even lifts my dress, keeping it out of the way. This is his everyday job, but he’s being unusually quiet.

“Will you sing to me?” I hum to make sure he understands.

“No.”

I hum more, pushing through the fear his silent stance is generating inside me.

“No puedo cantar hoy,”
he insists, and I can’t help but wonder what’s different about today, why he can’t sing.
“Me siento triste.”

Why do you feel sad, Pedro?
I want to ask desperately, but I’m not ready to reveal my ability to understand their language.

“Please?” I press. “How do you say that in Spanish? Poor favor?” I butcher the word purposely.

He sniffs and whimpers very slightly, as if he’s crying.

“I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”

“
Terminado
.” He sets me down on the bed without wiping me and grabs away the bucket with my sloshing waste. A moment later I hear his footfalls run out of the room.

The word freezes me in place.
Terminado.

“I told you not to get attached to her,” one of the gruff men’s voices calls out in Spanish.

“You should have licked her pussy when you had the chance,” the other adds, and both men laugh raucously. It takes me a moment to translate that one in my head, and I have to school my features once I do so they can’t see my revulsion. 

“She was supposed to go home!” Pedro shouts in an unexpected flash of emotion. “Not go with the others.”

The first man taunts, “Poor Pedro lost his girlfriend.”

The next thing I hear is a splash of liquid against the floor and the man’s laughter changes to the violent shouting of curse words, a few I’m not familiar with, but I get their meaning just fine.

“
I’ll kill you, Pedro!” he screams in Spanish. “You threw her piss all over me!”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!”

“I won’t hurt her. Her buyer in Mexico City will hurt her. Why else do you think we have orders not to touch her?”

I shudder, but try to show nothing but confusion in my expression. I must be hiding my terror well enough because the man continues smoothly, revealing my fate to me without realizing it.

“No bruises, no cuts. The buyer wants her creamy white skin. That is why he pays Miguel so much money to buy her. Miguel will fix his problems with El Carnicero because of the drugs he lost. While the buyer gets a perfect girl to”—my mind races to translate this next word—
despedacen
. When I come up with the translation, I can’t help but whimper.

Tear to pieces.

“Poor, poor Pedro.”

Their words churn in the deepest recesses of my belly.

They
never
intended to send me home. They’re
selling
me! They kept me pristine so my buyer could do what he wanted with me . . .

Then murder me.