Stripped, page 25
“You’re sure?” he asked, leveling his gaze at her.
She extended her phone toward him. “I heard him screaming in the background. I know it was him. If we don’t move on this, he’s dead.” A piece of her heart shriveled up and turned to ash just thinking of it.
“Goddammit,” said the captain as he took her phone from her. “Who’s your provider?”
She told him and the captain nodded. “Let me make a call. Ward, call the SWAT sergeant and have them on standby.”
Jack nodded and picked up his desk phone, his features tight.
“If we can’t get a location from that, we can get an emergency warrant to trace Sawyer’s phone, and for any security camera footage from around where we think he was taken,” said Amelia.
The captain started back toward his office. “Go home, Simmons. You can’t be here.”
She ignored him and sat down in her desk chair, drumming her fingers on the desk. Feeling helpless and useless as they waited to see if they could ping the location of the cell that made the call. The sounds of Sawyer’s screams echoed through her brain and made her want to hurt someone. Not just punish them. Not just put them in jail. Hurt them.
The minutes stretched on as they waited, and finally, after maybe ten minutes, the captain emerged from his office, a piece of paper in his hands. “We’ve got the location. Notify SWAT. It’s a warehouse off Fulton. We’re going in.”
Brooke rose from her seat and the captain shook his head. “Not you. You shouldn’t even be here.”
She opened her mouth and spoke to her commanding officer in a way that would’ve surprised her if she’d had room to feel anything besides fear and determination. “You wouldn’t even have this intel without me, so suspended or not, I’m a part of this. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you go in without me, so if you want me to stay here, you’re gonna have to cuff me and lock me up. I’m a part of this team. I’m damn good at what I do and leaving me behind would be a mistake.” She ground her teeth together, clinging to the anger flaring through her. “Fucking no one kidnaps my boyfriend and gets away with it.” She stared at the captain, who gave her a once-over and then turned and walked back into his office. When he reemerged a few seconds later, he tossed something to her. She caught it, staring down at her badge.
He nodded at her. “Let’s go.”
Sawyer came to with a gasp as ice cold water hit his face. Blinking rapidly, he tried to wipe his eyes, but couldn’t move his hands from behind his back. The cold, concrete floor bit into his skin. His head throbbed and a shiver wracked him as he struggled to sit up. The room came into focus around him as rough hands hauled him to his knees.
He must’ve passed out. They hadn’t even told him what they wanted from him. They’d hauled his ass into this freezing warehouse, stripped his shirt off and taken turns shocking him with a car battery and holding his head underwater. Pain and panic all twisted together, and the only thing that had kept him from begging them to shoot him, to end it all and take the pain away, was the thought that if he gave in, he’d never see Brooke again.
“Make sure he suffers.” Hernandez’s voice, moving away. The room was dark with a stark white light shining down on the small space where Sawyer knelt. He blinked again and looked around, catching sight of a small metal table covered in tools and weapons.
Shit. Apparently it was time for round two.
Domingo Da Silva crouched in front of him. “Welcome back, pig.” He backhanded Sawyer across the face, causing his vision to fade out as pain exploded across his cheek and jaw. Unstable, he fell back and the same rough hands as before lifted him back into place. “Now that you’ve had a taste, you’re going to talk. Then maybe I’ll let you die quickly.”
Sawyer sneered at him, his face throbbing. “I’m not telling you shit.”
Domingo laughed. “That’s what they all say.” He rose and pulled a thick knife with serrated edges from the table. “That’s what they all say. All these little birdies who think they don’t want to sing.” He pressed the tip of the knife against Sawyer’s chest and then walked around him in a slow circle, dragging the point of the knife across his skin, leaving a scorching hot trail behind him. A warm trickle of blood ran down his skin, and Sawyer gritted his teeth, refusing to react. Refusing to scream the way he had with the car battery’s volts charging through his body, leaving him feeling charred from the inside out.
Domingo laughed again. “But you just have to find the right song, and they all make such beautiful . . . music.” On the last word, he slid the blade into Sawyer’s shoulder, leaving it in place. Sawyer grunted, trying to breathe through the searing hot pain coursing through him.
“Who’s the girl?”
Sawyer glared up at him, his jaw working against the pain-filled groan threatening to break free. His entire arm felt like it was on fire. Blood dripped down from his wound and onto the floor. “What girl?”
“The girl who was with you the other night at the hotel. The other cop.”
Sawyer just stared at the floor, not answering. He closed his eyes and conjured up images of everyone he cared about. His parents. His brothers. Jack and Amelia. Brooke. Silently saying goodbye to each of them, because this was it. They were going to kill him, because no fucking way was he telling them a goddamn thing about Brooke. If his last act was to keep her safe, so be it.
Domingo threw another bucket of ice water on him, making him shiver and sending pain coursing through his shoulder and down his arm. “Talk. Now. The girl. Her name. Her address.”
Sawyer spit on the floor. “What girl?”
Domingo reached forward and yanked the knife out, making Sawyer cry out through gritted teeth. Blood rushed down his arm and chest, pulsing from the wound. “Don’t be stupid. Tell us who she is. That’s the only way to make the pain stop.” He thrust a finger into Sawyer’s wound, twisting and scraping. He screamed, needing to let out the pain. The room dimmed around him and he swayed on his knees.
“Just fucking kill me. I’m not telling you anything about her. I’ll die before I talk.”
At least he’d see Ryan again soon. The thought was enough to bring a smile to his face just as Domingo’s fist connected with his temple. Two thoughts ran through his mind before he slipped back into the darkness.
Brooke, I love you. Ryan, I’m coming, man.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Brooke hopped out of the van before it had come to a complete stop, adjusting her Kevlar vest and unholstering her Glock. Damn, but it felt good to have her service weapon back in her hands, loaded and ready to go. But even though the captain had given it back to her, her Beretta was still tucked into her waistband. It never hurt to have backup.
At the thought, her eyes darted around the warehouse’s parking lot. Jack, Amelia and the captain were all there, all clad in matching Kevlar, as well as two vans full of SWAT guys. Granted, the SWAT guys were all giving her the cold shoulder, but she’d expected that, and frankly, she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting Sawyer out of there.
If this was a trap, it was a very poorly guarded one. There were floodlights on in the parking lot, no visible security around the small building. It wasn’t like Baracoa to be sloppy, and she had to wonder what the hell was going on. Why had the Sheriff called her? How had he known her name?
The SWAT sergeant waved everyone over and they huddled around in a tense circle. The city’s night sounds filled the air around them. The whirring rush of nearby traffic. The roar of a semi truck’s engine. The distant clanging of a railroad crossing. Brooke wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs as she eyed the building behind them. Sawyer was in there. In pain. Alone.
Please don’t let us be too late.
If they weren’t too late, she’d do whatever it took to fix things between them. Anything to know that she had a shot at a future with him. Because in a situation like this, the truth became obvious. Simple. She loved him, and the idea of losing him was a million times scarier than loving him.
The SWAT leader was a grizzled-looking man in his early forties, tall and lean with thick brown hair falling around his shoulders, his temples and beard streaked with gray. “Here’s what we know. One of our own, Detective Sawyer Matthews, is being held in that warehouse. We don’t know how many cartel members are in there, or if, given the circumstances of how we were able to locate Matthews, we’re walking into a trap. Recon of the building indicates two entrances, one on the east side of the building, another on the west side. We’re going to divide up. Alpha team and HEAT will take the west entrance. Omega team will take the east entrance. The objective is to get Matthews out. You see cartel members, you have clearance to shoot to kill, but this isn’t a hunting trip. This is a snatch-and-grab.
“Once we breach, move in, move fast. We don’t know what the layout is inside. If there are separate rooms, clear in teams of two and move on. The faster we move, the better chance we have of getting Matthews out of there alive. Move in.”
Half of the SWAT members went around to the far side of the building. Brooke moved forward with her team, laser-focused on the building ahead of her. Not letting herself feel guilty or afraid. Not letting herself feel anything but pissed off and determined. They’d rescue Sawyer and she’d make things right. That was the only way this could end.
One of the SWAT guys fired what looked like a cannon at the door, the explosion shattering the quiet of the night.
“Atlanta Police! Everyone get down on the ground!” the captain shouted, his gun trained ahead of him as he moved swiftly into the building. Brooke was only a half step behind him, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness of the warehouse. She did a visual sweep of the space, her heart vaulting into her throat when she spotted Sawyer.
“There, far corner!” she called, thrusting her chin in the direction of where Sawyer’s very, very still frame lay on the floor. She started to run toward him, and gunfire erupted from the far side of the warehouse, right around where Omega team would’ve breached.
A metal door just to her right slid back and several armed cartel members spilled out. From somewhere to her left, Jack fired, dropping a few of them. “Go,” he called to her. “Go get him. We’ve got this.”
Amelia tossed a smoke bomb toward the cartel members and then nodded at Brooke. “We’ll cover you. Go!”
Glancing once over her shoulder, Brooke sprinted across the warehouse, gunfire echoing out in staccato bursts. She was less than ten feet away from Sawyer when her feet went out from under her and a hand yanked her hair back. She felt the biting press of a knife against her throat. “You move, he dies,” said a voice she didn’t recognize.
Sawyer stirred on the floor, the light catching on the pool of blood around his shirtless body.
“You picked the wrong crew to fuck with,” she said, and he laughed, pressing the knife in a bit harder.
“I should’ve known you’d come. We tried and tried to get him to tell us your name, where to find you, but he wouldn’t. You should’ve heard him scream.”
In a series of rapid movements, Brooke stomped on her assailant’s foot and twisted his wrist, causing him to drop the knife. He grabbed at her, but she chucked her weight forward, sending her attacker off balance, and then kicked backward, catching him in the leg. He grabbed for her again, and the knife scraped against her skin, a sharp, rasping sting that she barely felt as she whirled and, with a steady hand, pumped two shots into Domingo Da Silva’s chest. He crumpled to the floor and she ran to Sawyer. Shouts and gunfire bounced across the room.
Dropping to her knees, she pressed a shaking hand to his throat, relief flooding her when she felt his pulse. His chest rose and fell, and she left her hand on him as she took stock of his injuries. His eye was black, his lip split and swollen. Dried blood trickled from his ear. Angry red burn marks marred his chest. His hair was soaked, not with sweat, but water. Worst of all was the stab wound in his shoulder. She shook him, trying to rouse him.
“Sawyer. Sawyer! Come on, Sawyer. We’ve gotta get you out of here.”
He moaned but didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t responding, and she needed to wake him if she had a hope of getting him out of here. She didn’t want to, but she’d have to try a painful sternal rub.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she made a fist and pressed her knuckles against his sternum, then rubbed up and down, applying pressure.
He grunted and then grabbed her fist, his eyes flying open.
“It’s me. It’s me,” she said, not trying to pull her fist away.
A nearby wooden crate splintered as flying bullets chewed through it.
“Brooke,” he said, his voice raw.
She nodded. “Can you get up? We gotta get out of here.”
“You think I’m going to just let you walk out of here?” She spun to see Ernesto Hernandez standing a few feet away, a gun trained directly at her head.
Behind her, she felt Sawyer slip her Beretta out of her waistband. She smiled. “No. I think he’s going to fucking kill you.”
Sawyer sat up and pumped three shots into Hernandez. With an anguished cry, he dropped to the floor. “Fuck you,” Sawyer ground out, and then spat on the floor.
With quick movements, Brooke stripped off her vest and slipped it on over Sawyer’s head, adjusting the Velcro straps gingerly around his injuries as fast as she could.
“No, Simmons,” he protested, shaking his head woozily. “Keep your vest on.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not half-unconscious. You are. Come on,” she said, slipping Sawyer’s arm over her shoulders. “Let’s go.”
Her legs shook with the effort it took to help him off the ground. She was strong, but Sawyer was over two hundred pounds and was having trouble supporting himself. The gunfire started to die off and Jack ran over, taking Sawyer’s other arm and laying it over his shoulder.
Sawyer’s head swiveled in Jack’s direction. “Hey, Posh,” he said.
Jack let out a grim laugh. “Shut up and walk, Matthews.”
With a groan, Sawyer started putting one foot in front of the other, his breath coming in sharp pants from between clenched teeth. They stuck close to the wall as they moved him toward the entrance, sweat cascading down Brooke’s back.
Behind them, she could hear the SWAT team corralling the remaining cartel members. Sirens wailed in the distance, more reinforcements arriving. They stumbled out through the same door she’d come in, and Brooke gulped down several deep breaths of the cool night air. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest she thought it might break her ribs.
Amelia came running over, a huge, relieved smile lighting up her face. “Thank Christ,” she said, her eyes dancing over Sawyer’s injured body.
“I shot Hernandez,” said Sawyer, lurching against her, and then Jack. “I did it, Ryan.”
Amelia frantically waved the paramedics over, who ran up with a stretcher. Brooke’s arms shook with the exertion of helping Jack load him onto the stretcher. She didn’t get a chance to say anything to him before they rolled him into the waiting ambulance and tore off, sirens screaming.
“Any sign of the Sheriff?” she asked Amelia.
“I shot him in the ass, but he seems to have slithered away.” Someone called to her, and she jogged away from Brooke, leaving her alone.
She suddenly felt as though she couldn’t catch her breath and dropped her hands to her knees, hanging her head between her legs. A hand gently touched her back. She glanced up to see the captain.
“You did good in there, Simmons.”
She nodded rapidly, trying to breathe through the adrenaline overload. “Thank you, sir.” She looked over at the road, watching the fading lights of the ambulance as it turned a corner and disappeared. A set of keys appeared in her line of sight.
“They’re taking him to Grady. Take one of the patrol cars and go.”
She stood and took the keys, her entire body coursing with electricity. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Go.”
She started running in the direction of the cruisers, glancing down at the keys in her hand to check the car number. “Thank you, sir!” she called over her shoulder.
She drove with her lights and sirens on the entire way.
Everything hurt. Sawyer’s face. His chest. His shoulder and arm. Pain covered him like a blanket, heavy and oppressive, and for a minute he lay still with his eyes closed, letting it swallow him up.
Flashes of memory came back to him. The sensation of the Taser coursing through his body. Water. No air. Drowning. Panic. Fear. Searing hot pain on his chest. His shoulder being ripped open.
Shooting Hernandez in the chest.
He managed to pull his heavy eyelids open. Hospital. He was in the hospital. He blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog.
Brooke stood at the window, her arms wrapped around herself, her back to him. She’d come for him. He didn’t know how they’d found him, but she’d come. And now she was here, and that had to mean something.
His mind lurched back to her putting her vest on him. An intense emotion filled him and then overflowed, warming him from the inside out. Giving him more hope than he’d felt in days.
He cleared his throat and sat up a little, his shoulder throbbing. “Hey, Wilma.”
She spun, her eyes wide and bright, her face pale, and then she ate up the distance between them in a few long strides. “Hey, Fred,” she said softly, perching on the edge of his bed and taking one of his hands between both of hers.
For a minute, maybe longer, they just stared at each other, Brooke’s fingers tracing over his knuckles.
“Thanks. For saving my ass,” he said, swallowing thickly. “How did you find me?”
“The Sheriff called me to gloat that they’d taken you. We traced his location.”
Sawyer frowned. Something wasn’t adding up here. “He called you? But they were beating the shit out of me trying to find out who you were.”
Brooke’s confused frown mirrored his own. “Then why did he call me?”
Sawyer shook his head slowly, something else coming back to him. “Why did he kick my gun back toward me at the shoot-out at the hotel?”
She extended her phone toward him. “I heard him screaming in the background. I know it was him. If we don’t move on this, he’s dead.” A piece of her heart shriveled up and turned to ash just thinking of it.
“Goddammit,” said the captain as he took her phone from her. “Who’s your provider?”
She told him and the captain nodded. “Let me make a call. Ward, call the SWAT sergeant and have them on standby.”
Jack nodded and picked up his desk phone, his features tight.
“If we can’t get a location from that, we can get an emergency warrant to trace Sawyer’s phone, and for any security camera footage from around where we think he was taken,” said Amelia.
The captain started back toward his office. “Go home, Simmons. You can’t be here.”
She ignored him and sat down in her desk chair, drumming her fingers on the desk. Feeling helpless and useless as they waited to see if they could ping the location of the cell that made the call. The sounds of Sawyer’s screams echoed through her brain and made her want to hurt someone. Not just punish them. Not just put them in jail. Hurt them.
The minutes stretched on as they waited, and finally, after maybe ten minutes, the captain emerged from his office, a piece of paper in his hands. “We’ve got the location. Notify SWAT. It’s a warehouse off Fulton. We’re going in.”
Brooke rose from her seat and the captain shook his head. “Not you. You shouldn’t even be here.”
She opened her mouth and spoke to her commanding officer in a way that would’ve surprised her if she’d had room to feel anything besides fear and determination. “You wouldn’t even have this intel without me, so suspended or not, I’m a part of this. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you go in without me, so if you want me to stay here, you’re gonna have to cuff me and lock me up. I’m a part of this team. I’m damn good at what I do and leaving me behind would be a mistake.” She ground her teeth together, clinging to the anger flaring through her. “Fucking no one kidnaps my boyfriend and gets away with it.” She stared at the captain, who gave her a once-over and then turned and walked back into his office. When he reemerged a few seconds later, he tossed something to her. She caught it, staring down at her badge.
He nodded at her. “Let’s go.”
Sawyer came to with a gasp as ice cold water hit his face. Blinking rapidly, he tried to wipe his eyes, but couldn’t move his hands from behind his back. The cold, concrete floor bit into his skin. His head throbbed and a shiver wracked him as he struggled to sit up. The room came into focus around him as rough hands hauled him to his knees.
He must’ve passed out. They hadn’t even told him what they wanted from him. They’d hauled his ass into this freezing warehouse, stripped his shirt off and taken turns shocking him with a car battery and holding his head underwater. Pain and panic all twisted together, and the only thing that had kept him from begging them to shoot him, to end it all and take the pain away, was the thought that if he gave in, he’d never see Brooke again.
“Make sure he suffers.” Hernandez’s voice, moving away. The room was dark with a stark white light shining down on the small space where Sawyer knelt. He blinked again and looked around, catching sight of a small metal table covered in tools and weapons.
Shit. Apparently it was time for round two.
Domingo Da Silva crouched in front of him. “Welcome back, pig.” He backhanded Sawyer across the face, causing his vision to fade out as pain exploded across his cheek and jaw. Unstable, he fell back and the same rough hands as before lifted him back into place. “Now that you’ve had a taste, you’re going to talk. Then maybe I’ll let you die quickly.”
Sawyer sneered at him, his face throbbing. “I’m not telling you shit.”
Domingo laughed. “That’s what they all say.” He rose and pulled a thick knife with serrated edges from the table. “That’s what they all say. All these little birdies who think they don’t want to sing.” He pressed the tip of the knife against Sawyer’s chest and then walked around him in a slow circle, dragging the point of the knife across his skin, leaving a scorching hot trail behind him. A warm trickle of blood ran down his skin, and Sawyer gritted his teeth, refusing to react. Refusing to scream the way he had with the car battery’s volts charging through his body, leaving him feeling charred from the inside out.
Domingo laughed again. “But you just have to find the right song, and they all make such beautiful . . . music.” On the last word, he slid the blade into Sawyer’s shoulder, leaving it in place. Sawyer grunted, trying to breathe through the searing hot pain coursing through him.
“Who’s the girl?”
Sawyer glared up at him, his jaw working against the pain-filled groan threatening to break free. His entire arm felt like it was on fire. Blood dripped down from his wound and onto the floor. “What girl?”
“The girl who was with you the other night at the hotel. The other cop.”
Sawyer just stared at the floor, not answering. He closed his eyes and conjured up images of everyone he cared about. His parents. His brothers. Jack and Amelia. Brooke. Silently saying goodbye to each of them, because this was it. They were going to kill him, because no fucking way was he telling them a goddamn thing about Brooke. If his last act was to keep her safe, so be it.
Domingo threw another bucket of ice water on him, making him shiver and sending pain coursing through his shoulder and down his arm. “Talk. Now. The girl. Her name. Her address.”
Sawyer spit on the floor. “What girl?”
Domingo reached forward and yanked the knife out, making Sawyer cry out through gritted teeth. Blood rushed down his arm and chest, pulsing from the wound. “Don’t be stupid. Tell us who she is. That’s the only way to make the pain stop.” He thrust a finger into Sawyer’s wound, twisting and scraping. He screamed, needing to let out the pain. The room dimmed around him and he swayed on his knees.
“Just fucking kill me. I’m not telling you anything about her. I’ll die before I talk.”
At least he’d see Ryan again soon. The thought was enough to bring a smile to his face just as Domingo’s fist connected with his temple. Two thoughts ran through his mind before he slipped back into the darkness.
Brooke, I love you. Ryan, I’m coming, man.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Brooke hopped out of the van before it had come to a complete stop, adjusting her Kevlar vest and unholstering her Glock. Damn, but it felt good to have her service weapon back in her hands, loaded and ready to go. But even though the captain had given it back to her, her Beretta was still tucked into her waistband. It never hurt to have backup.
At the thought, her eyes darted around the warehouse’s parking lot. Jack, Amelia and the captain were all there, all clad in matching Kevlar, as well as two vans full of SWAT guys. Granted, the SWAT guys were all giving her the cold shoulder, but she’d expected that, and frankly, she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting Sawyer out of there.
If this was a trap, it was a very poorly guarded one. There were floodlights on in the parking lot, no visible security around the small building. It wasn’t like Baracoa to be sloppy, and she had to wonder what the hell was going on. Why had the Sheriff called her? How had he known her name?
The SWAT sergeant waved everyone over and they huddled around in a tense circle. The city’s night sounds filled the air around them. The whirring rush of nearby traffic. The roar of a semi truck’s engine. The distant clanging of a railroad crossing. Brooke wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs as she eyed the building behind them. Sawyer was in there. In pain. Alone.
Please don’t let us be too late.
If they weren’t too late, she’d do whatever it took to fix things between them. Anything to know that she had a shot at a future with him. Because in a situation like this, the truth became obvious. Simple. She loved him, and the idea of losing him was a million times scarier than loving him.
The SWAT leader was a grizzled-looking man in his early forties, tall and lean with thick brown hair falling around his shoulders, his temples and beard streaked with gray. “Here’s what we know. One of our own, Detective Sawyer Matthews, is being held in that warehouse. We don’t know how many cartel members are in there, or if, given the circumstances of how we were able to locate Matthews, we’re walking into a trap. Recon of the building indicates two entrances, one on the east side of the building, another on the west side. We’re going to divide up. Alpha team and HEAT will take the west entrance. Omega team will take the east entrance. The objective is to get Matthews out. You see cartel members, you have clearance to shoot to kill, but this isn’t a hunting trip. This is a snatch-and-grab.
“Once we breach, move in, move fast. We don’t know what the layout is inside. If there are separate rooms, clear in teams of two and move on. The faster we move, the better chance we have of getting Matthews out of there alive. Move in.”
Half of the SWAT members went around to the far side of the building. Brooke moved forward with her team, laser-focused on the building ahead of her. Not letting herself feel guilty or afraid. Not letting herself feel anything but pissed off and determined. They’d rescue Sawyer and she’d make things right. That was the only way this could end.
One of the SWAT guys fired what looked like a cannon at the door, the explosion shattering the quiet of the night.
“Atlanta Police! Everyone get down on the ground!” the captain shouted, his gun trained ahead of him as he moved swiftly into the building. Brooke was only a half step behind him, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness of the warehouse. She did a visual sweep of the space, her heart vaulting into her throat when she spotted Sawyer.
“There, far corner!” she called, thrusting her chin in the direction of where Sawyer’s very, very still frame lay on the floor. She started to run toward him, and gunfire erupted from the far side of the warehouse, right around where Omega team would’ve breached.
A metal door just to her right slid back and several armed cartel members spilled out. From somewhere to her left, Jack fired, dropping a few of them. “Go,” he called to her. “Go get him. We’ve got this.”
Amelia tossed a smoke bomb toward the cartel members and then nodded at Brooke. “We’ll cover you. Go!”
Glancing once over her shoulder, Brooke sprinted across the warehouse, gunfire echoing out in staccato bursts. She was less than ten feet away from Sawyer when her feet went out from under her and a hand yanked her hair back. She felt the biting press of a knife against her throat. “You move, he dies,” said a voice she didn’t recognize.
Sawyer stirred on the floor, the light catching on the pool of blood around his shirtless body.
“You picked the wrong crew to fuck with,” she said, and he laughed, pressing the knife in a bit harder.
“I should’ve known you’d come. We tried and tried to get him to tell us your name, where to find you, but he wouldn’t. You should’ve heard him scream.”
In a series of rapid movements, Brooke stomped on her assailant’s foot and twisted his wrist, causing him to drop the knife. He grabbed at her, but she chucked her weight forward, sending her attacker off balance, and then kicked backward, catching him in the leg. He grabbed for her again, and the knife scraped against her skin, a sharp, rasping sting that she barely felt as she whirled and, with a steady hand, pumped two shots into Domingo Da Silva’s chest. He crumpled to the floor and she ran to Sawyer. Shouts and gunfire bounced across the room.
Dropping to her knees, she pressed a shaking hand to his throat, relief flooding her when she felt his pulse. His chest rose and fell, and she left her hand on him as she took stock of his injuries. His eye was black, his lip split and swollen. Dried blood trickled from his ear. Angry red burn marks marred his chest. His hair was soaked, not with sweat, but water. Worst of all was the stab wound in his shoulder. She shook him, trying to rouse him.
“Sawyer. Sawyer! Come on, Sawyer. We’ve gotta get you out of here.”
He moaned but didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t responding, and she needed to wake him if she had a hope of getting him out of here. She didn’t want to, but she’d have to try a painful sternal rub.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she made a fist and pressed her knuckles against his sternum, then rubbed up and down, applying pressure.
He grunted and then grabbed her fist, his eyes flying open.
“It’s me. It’s me,” she said, not trying to pull her fist away.
A nearby wooden crate splintered as flying bullets chewed through it.
“Brooke,” he said, his voice raw.
She nodded. “Can you get up? We gotta get out of here.”
“You think I’m going to just let you walk out of here?” She spun to see Ernesto Hernandez standing a few feet away, a gun trained directly at her head.
Behind her, she felt Sawyer slip her Beretta out of her waistband. She smiled. “No. I think he’s going to fucking kill you.”
Sawyer sat up and pumped three shots into Hernandez. With an anguished cry, he dropped to the floor. “Fuck you,” Sawyer ground out, and then spat on the floor.
With quick movements, Brooke stripped off her vest and slipped it on over Sawyer’s head, adjusting the Velcro straps gingerly around his injuries as fast as she could.
“No, Simmons,” he protested, shaking his head woozily. “Keep your vest on.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not half-unconscious. You are. Come on,” she said, slipping Sawyer’s arm over her shoulders. “Let’s go.”
Her legs shook with the effort it took to help him off the ground. She was strong, but Sawyer was over two hundred pounds and was having trouble supporting himself. The gunfire started to die off and Jack ran over, taking Sawyer’s other arm and laying it over his shoulder.
Sawyer’s head swiveled in Jack’s direction. “Hey, Posh,” he said.
Jack let out a grim laugh. “Shut up and walk, Matthews.”
With a groan, Sawyer started putting one foot in front of the other, his breath coming in sharp pants from between clenched teeth. They stuck close to the wall as they moved him toward the entrance, sweat cascading down Brooke’s back.
Behind them, she could hear the SWAT team corralling the remaining cartel members. Sirens wailed in the distance, more reinforcements arriving. They stumbled out through the same door she’d come in, and Brooke gulped down several deep breaths of the cool night air. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest she thought it might break her ribs.
Amelia came running over, a huge, relieved smile lighting up her face. “Thank Christ,” she said, her eyes dancing over Sawyer’s injured body.
“I shot Hernandez,” said Sawyer, lurching against her, and then Jack. “I did it, Ryan.”
Amelia frantically waved the paramedics over, who ran up with a stretcher. Brooke’s arms shook with the exertion of helping Jack load him onto the stretcher. She didn’t get a chance to say anything to him before they rolled him into the waiting ambulance and tore off, sirens screaming.
“Any sign of the Sheriff?” she asked Amelia.
“I shot him in the ass, but he seems to have slithered away.” Someone called to her, and she jogged away from Brooke, leaving her alone.
She suddenly felt as though she couldn’t catch her breath and dropped her hands to her knees, hanging her head between her legs. A hand gently touched her back. She glanced up to see the captain.
“You did good in there, Simmons.”
She nodded rapidly, trying to breathe through the adrenaline overload. “Thank you, sir.” She looked over at the road, watching the fading lights of the ambulance as it turned a corner and disappeared. A set of keys appeared in her line of sight.
“They’re taking him to Grady. Take one of the patrol cars and go.”
She stood and took the keys, her entire body coursing with electricity. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Go.”
She started running in the direction of the cruisers, glancing down at the keys in her hand to check the car number. “Thank you, sir!” she called over her shoulder.
She drove with her lights and sirens on the entire way.
Everything hurt. Sawyer’s face. His chest. His shoulder and arm. Pain covered him like a blanket, heavy and oppressive, and for a minute he lay still with his eyes closed, letting it swallow him up.
Flashes of memory came back to him. The sensation of the Taser coursing through his body. Water. No air. Drowning. Panic. Fear. Searing hot pain on his chest. His shoulder being ripped open.
Shooting Hernandez in the chest.
He managed to pull his heavy eyelids open. Hospital. He was in the hospital. He blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog.
Brooke stood at the window, her arms wrapped around herself, her back to him. She’d come for him. He didn’t know how they’d found him, but she’d come. And now she was here, and that had to mean something.
His mind lurched back to her putting her vest on him. An intense emotion filled him and then overflowed, warming him from the inside out. Giving him more hope than he’d felt in days.
He cleared his throat and sat up a little, his shoulder throbbing. “Hey, Wilma.”
She spun, her eyes wide and bright, her face pale, and then she ate up the distance between them in a few long strides. “Hey, Fred,” she said softly, perching on the edge of his bed and taking one of his hands between both of hers.
For a minute, maybe longer, they just stared at each other, Brooke’s fingers tracing over his knuckles.
“Thanks. For saving my ass,” he said, swallowing thickly. “How did you find me?”
“The Sheriff called me to gloat that they’d taken you. We traced his location.”
Sawyer frowned. Something wasn’t adding up here. “He called you? But they were beating the shit out of me trying to find out who you were.”
Brooke’s confused frown mirrored his own. “Then why did he call me?”
Sawyer shook his head slowly, something else coming back to him. “Why did he kick my gun back toward me at the shoot-out at the hotel?”
