Lost Hart, page 19
Rex, Brock, Aaron, Colton and Rob were all huddled in the kitchen murmuring while Sergeant Fox yammered away on his phone by the door to the hallway.
“I’m hungry, Mama,” Connor said, lifting his head from her chest and gazing up at her with those gorgeous blue eyes.
Oh, thank God he spoke.
“What can I get you?” Tessa said, coming right over with a cooler bag full of food. “I have cheese sandwiches, PB&J, chicken and cheese, apple slices, orange slices, bananas, and these super yummy granola bars that look like they have chunks of chocolate in them.”
Connor’s eyes lit up at the mention of chocolate, and he nodded.
Smiling, Tessa handed him the already unwrapped granola bar, and he dove in like a savage, getting crumbs all over Stacey. Tessa set a juice box next to Stacey. “Try to get him to drink that. The kids are pretty dehydrated, so we need to make sure they get some electrolytes.”
Stacey nodded and reached for the juice box, pushing the straw through the foil-covered hole behind Connor’s back.
“Where’s Chase?” Connor asked, chewing and spewing more crumbs.
Stacey swallowed and handed her son the juice box. “He was there with all the other superheroes. He just had to stay behind for a little bit. But they’ll go get him soon.”
“I didn’t like those men,” he said, wrapping his lips around the straw she offered him. “Or that lady. They were all mean. Kept making me sleep when I didn’t wanna.”
Oh God, Stacey was going to lose it soon.
She could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate.
A big, warm hand landed on her shoulder, and she glanced behind her to find Rex. He looked as fractured as she felt. His face was longer, his midnight-blue eyes haunted. “Easy, Mama,” he said softly. “You’re doing great.”
She rested her hand on his as a tear sprinted down her cheek, and she hiccupped a sob she couldn’t fight.
Isaac stowed his phone in his pocket and approached them. “Need to know what happened,” he said, having seemed to calm down a bit. “So one man is left behind?”
Stacey gasped. Even though it wasn’t new news, she still hated hearing that Chase had been left behind.
What happened to “No man left behind”? Wasn’t that the motto with these military buffs?
Rex nodded and made a noise in this throat. “My brother, Chase. He was running point. We got all the kids out of the Sprinter van, took out just over half of Creed’s goons, though Creed got away.”
Isaac blew out a breath and shoved the fingers of one hand into his hair. “Okay, I’ve got a social worker coming, as well as two other police officers—female. We need to find out who these children are and get them back to their families.”
“My wife’s family owns an airline, and we’ve already offered to fly the parents and children wherever they need to go. We can fly the parents here to pick up their children,” Rob said. “No cost, no problem. Got helicopters at our disposal, too.” His attention was pulled away when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He put it to his ear and said, “Barney, where are you?” before walking away.
“Well-organized operation you have here,” Isaac said almost sarcastically.
“I know you’re pissed, but you’re not wrong,” Richelle said, looking proud.
Isaac only gave her a brow lift before settling his expression into a neutral one again. “Not happy with you guys going rogue.”
“Nobody—besides Chase—got hurt who didn’t deserve to get hurt,” Aaron said. “And we’re going to get Chase back.”
“You’re mostly pissed because you can’t join us ’cause of your badge.” Colton elbowed Isaac playfully, though even his smile seemed forced. Obviously, everyone knew each other, based on the level of familiarity among them all.
Another big extended family, kind of like the Harts.
The atmosphere in the suite was thick and tense. Nobody spoke much, and jokes were at a minimum and fell flat. They were all struggling with Chase being in the hands of the enemy.
Isaac’s rancor having pretty much disappeared, his shoulders slumped slightly, and he pushed both hands into his pockets. “Really sorry what happened to one of your men.”
“I’d know if he was dead,” Rex said, his face tight. “I’d feel it. He’s not. They have him.”
“We just need to figure out where,” Aaron said.
“What about getting your tech guy back on the dark web and reconnecting with Impervious?” Isaac suggested. “Offer a trade. Cash for Chase, and then we set up another sting at the exchange. Get SWAT and Seattle PD involved.”
“Only one problem with that,” Brock said, his gravelly bass causing a hush to fall about the room.
Isaac regarded the bigger-than-life Hart family patriarch with a skeptical brow lift. “And what’s that?”
“Chase is our tech guy.”
Chapter 20
Chase hugged his knees to his chest and scooted his back harder against the concrete wall of the cell.
Sure, he was cornering himself, but at least this way nobody could sneak up on him.
He was outnumbered.
At least fifteen sets of brown eyes, all curious, all wary, all interested, watched him with intensity. Waiting for him to let his guard down, to close his eyes and give in to sleep so they could pounce.
He’d taken out one guy already. Bashed his head into the wall when he came at Chase with a shiv.
But that didn’t seem to send enough of a warning to the rest of them. It’d only incited them.
The floor was filthy.
He was filthy.
A mix of body odor, shit, piss and puke mingled on the thick, unmoving air. His gut burned with the need for food. He had a headache from lack of water, and his tongue felt like a dry sponge. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d pissed.
Weren’t they at least going to move him to gen pop? Why were they keeping him in the holding cell with all the petty degenerates?
He was arrested on drug charges. Surely that meant hard time?
His eyelids were heavy. He hadn’t slept in days.
Even when the rest of them slept, he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
If he slept, they’d come for him.
He’d done what was right, taking the blame for Piper.
She was innocent in all of this, just like he was.
But she was a woman, a Canadian, and the chances of her surviving a Peruvian prison were a hell of a lot slimmer than his. So he’d done what he knew he had to do. He took her place. Sent her off with Derrick and Heath while the authorities hauled him away, charged him with drug trafficking, obstruction of justice, and then his Spanish got a little rusty after that.
Either way, they’d had him going away for a long time if they got their say about things.
His eyelids dropped, but he quickly threw them open. Over half the men in the cell were watching him. Waiting for him to slip up and nod off.
He was just so fucking tired.
His mind was starting to play tricks on him, too. He kept thinking he heard Heath out the window yelling his name. But that wouldn’t make any sense.
Heath wouldn’t be stupid enough to get this close to the prison.
Heath needed to get Piper and Derrick to safety and then get home.
Chase was a lost cause.
He would die here. He just knew it.
Maybe he should just let sleep come and they could kill him while he slept. Perhaps he wouldn’t feel anything.
Or he could go up and punch the second biggest guy in there—since he was the first—punch him out and let the rest of them dogpile on top of him. Shiv him and end it quick.
That was always an option, too.
His eyelids dropped again and stayed down.
Sleep was so enticing.
Maybe he could shut out the world for just five minutes. A little “power nap,” as his mother liked to call her three o’clock coffee and siesta.
“I’m just having a power nap, boys. Leave me be for fifteen minutes, then I’ll be right as rain and can help you with your homework.”
Fuck, he missed his mum.
He missed his brothers, too.
His body began to relax as he dreamt of their last family dinner, right before he and Heath headed down to Peru for their latest job. They were to keep tabs on a new drug-trafficking ring. A street drug laced with a fatal amount of Fentanyl was killing a lot of backpackers and tourists. He and Heath were being sent down there to find the source and shut it down.
Their mother had pulled out all the stops for the dinner. A big barbecue in the backyard with her famous dry-rubbed ribeye steak, baked potato, salad and probably half a dozen other sides.
Joy Hart knew her boys liked to eat, so she always made sure there was enough food on the table to feed a football team, as well as send every member home with a container of leftovers.
He’d been so hellbent on keeping his eyes open and staying awake that he forgot how good it felt to close them and think of his family. To think of happier times.
Bony fingers gripped his ankles, causing his eyes to flash open just as he was tugged forward and his head made a hard smack on the concrete.
Five men stood over him. All of their faces dark and angry.
He was too out of it to understand their Spanish. Heath was the better linguist. Chase was the tech guy.
The one who held his ankles made to flip him over onto his belly. He kicked and thrashed, swiped at ankles and tossed his head back and forth, hoping to catch a limb or finger between his teeth.
But he was outnumbered.
Five on one.
And he was a weak one at that. He hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink in days.
They got him onto his belly and hauled him up to his feet, each of them taking a limb. A bench was cleared and they tossed him over it, his ribs colliding with the unforgiving wood and knocking the wind out of him.
They went for his pants.
No.
He managed to get one arm free and took a swipe at the man closest to him. He made contact with the guy’s knee and sent him to the ground with a painful cry.
A quick smack across the face had Chase seeing stars, and a ringing formed in his ears. He tasted blood.
They tried again for his pants and managed to get them down halfway on his ass cheeks. He fought them with everything he had.
He didn’t want to die.
He didn’t want to go out like this.
Sure, when the delirium set in, he thought he would be better off dead, but now that death stared him in the face, he knew he wasn’t ready for it.
He had more things he wanted to do.
He wanted a wife.
He wanted children.
He wanted a family.
He wanted to live.
He’d been in and out of consciousness for a while now.
Dreams, all of them bad and from another time in his life, spun through his mind like an old movie reel on hyperdrive.
Peru.
Prison.
He’d rallied the last ounce of strength he had, fought for his life in that hellhole as four men pinned him down and another one prepared to “claim” him.
He broke free, killed two of the men by snapping their necks, and put another two in the hospital. One would never walk again. The other would be blind for life.
They’d thrown him into solitary confinement after that.
A six-by-six cell with no window. No light. No bed.
Just a toilet, a sink and one meal a day.
For four fucking months.
With nothing but the voices in his head and the monsters in the dark to keep him company.
With a groan, Chase tried to roll over, but he couldn’t.
Where was he?
Not back in the Peruvian prison.
No.
His brothers had busted him out of there.
But he wasn’t at home, either.
He tried to move again, but pain shot through him from various parts of his body. His shoulders. His ankles. His wrists. His head.
He was also fucking freezing.
And naked.
Another attempt to move had him seeing stars, but he pushed past the pain and opened his eyes. A small shuffle and he saw that his ankles were bound together with zip ties.
They were too tight, and the skin around them was raw and bloody.
The same was probably true for his fingers, but he couldn’t see them since his hands were bound behind him. But he was losing feeling in his fingers, and if he moved his hands even an inch, raw flesh was scraped and agony swamped him.
But that was nothing compared with the agony in his shoulder. They’d dislocated it for sure, binding his arms so aggressively behind his back.
The pain was almost enough to make him puke.
When he came to after taking a coldcock to the head, he couldn’t see a damn thing. It was pitch black, he was naked, and everything in his body was turning to ice.
He knew he was bleeding. He could smell it. The scent of blood—along with a lot of other disgusting smells—hung metallic and fresh in the dank air.
“Hey!” Chase called out into the darkness, his throat raw and voice scratchy. He was lying on his side on the cold concrete ground. The room was pitch-black, but he knew it was a room.
He could feel the walls around him.
Feel them moving closer.
His muscles were beginning to freeze solid, and he shivered like dry ice had been poured down his throat.
Where was he?
What happened?
Then, like a flash, it all came back to him.
Creed.
Impervious.
They’d found the kids, found Connor, and their backup had arrived. But he went after Creed and was hit in the head from behind.
Fuck.
Then he woke up here—wherever he was—naked, cold and bound.
Did they get the children to safety?
Did they have them bound and naked somewhere, too? What about his brothers and the other guys?
He’d had a bad feeling about the whole thing from the moment they got to the garage behind the speakeasy, and he was right. The whole fucking operation was probably botched. He should have let Brock run point on it. Chase was obviously not cut out for the leadership role. He was a grunt. The tech guy, that was it.
Ignoring the pain in his left shoulder, he slowly wriggled along the floor like a fish out of water enough to find a wall. He pushed and squirmed so much, tears sprang from his eyes from the pain, but he did it anyway and eventually managed to prop himself up to sitting.
Not that it did much good.
His ass was still on the cold concrete, not to mention his balls. His dick had probably all but retreated back inside him, thinking this was the end.
If it wasn’t for the freezing cold and the seizing up of his muscles, he might be able to get out of the zip ties around his wrists. He’d done it before. But last time, he was being held by a bunch of Somali pirates, so he was sweating his ass off in the heat and used his sweat like grease to help him slide out of the restraints.
He wasn’t sweating now.
Nope.
His body was hanging on to every last bit of precious moisture it could to try to keep his organs from shutting down. If he sweat, he’d only catch hypothermia faster. He needed to remain calm and not freak out.
Easier said than fucking done.
He was in the dark.
He hated the dark.
He was in a small space.
He hated small spaces.
Neither of those things, the dark or the small space, was helping with his rapidly beating heart or the direction his mind was headed.
Monsters lurked in the dark, and they were particularly fond of small, shadowy spaces—which was exactly where Chase feared he was.
Much like the dark and closing-in walls, the cold was beginning to fuck with him, too. Playing games with his thoughts.
Using his back and feet, he pushed back against the wall and awkwardly, painfully climbed his way to standing. He needed to figure out where he was. Find a door, a window, a shard of light.
“Hey!” he called out again, moving along the wall with his back to it, feeling with the last shred of working nerves in his fingertips for something, anything to give him an indication of where he might be. “You’re a fucking coward, Creed,” he called, hoping to goad the sadistic bastard into showing his face. “Dealing in children. And now you won’t even show me your fucking face. Won’t even face me like a man.”
The cold air burned his lungs as he hollered and moved around the room, his feet feeling like they were on fire from how goddamn cold they were.
Noise somewhere across the room had him trying to run, but his ankles were bound, so he almost lost his footing and face-planted into the floor. He managed to catch himself and just fell face-first into the other wall, groaning in pain as his cheek smashed into the bricks. There was no time to give in to the pain, though. He would freeze to death if he didn’t move, if he didn’t figure a way out of there.
Moving his cheek along the freezing concrete at a slow and awkward shuffle, he found what appeared to be a metal door. That’s where the sounds were coming from.
Pressing his ear against it, he heard voices. They were too quiet and muffled to understand, but he could pick out about three different people speaking. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the room, but that didn’t mean it still wasn’t dark as hell. However, a small, barely discernible sliver of light filtered through next to the door where the jamb was starting to warp. He got down on the ground next to the light and used it to study his feet and ankles. Both were covered in blood from where the zip ties dug into his flesh. He couldn’t see his hands, but they were as raw as his ankles, so chances are, he was bleeding there, too.
“Creed!” he practically screamed, kicking the door. “Face me like a man, you sadistic sack of shit. If you’re going to kill me, I suggest you just fucking do it!”
The door opened a moment later, the light from the outside making him squint and hide his face so his pupils could dilate in a more natural way.
