Shattered (Broken Trilogy Book 2) (10 page)

“Be a good girl, Savannah,” my father warns.

The last thing I see is Luka’s face as he slams the trunk lid down.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.” My panic escalates as the car begins to move. I can hear Dr. Roberts’s voice in my head. “Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Panicking won’t solve the problem. Stop and look at your surroundings. See what you can do to help your situation. There’s always something you can do.” Holy shit…my phone!

I cover the ear part when I pushed the number two and send.

“Savannah!” His voice makes me happy but it’s quickly masked with confusion and hurt. “Are you there, baby?”

“Yes,” I whisper, feeling so many things.

“Oh my god! Are you all right?”

“No.” I start to sob. “I’m not.”

“Where are you, baby? Something is blocking our transmission.”

“I’m in a trunk.”

“A trunk?” he nearly shouts. “Okay, did you see anything when they were putting you in there? Your surroundings? Make and model of the vehicle?”

“No.” I sniff trying to hold it together.

“It's okay, baby, hang in there. John is tracking your phone now. It won’t be long until we have you.”

“Cole,” my voice quivers, “Paul?”

“He’s all right. Bullet hit his vest, just stunned him a little.”

“Derek is—”

“Yeah, we saw.” There’s a pause. “I can explain that picture, baby, it—”

“Don’t,” I interrupt. “I can’t handle any more lies. I’m barely holding it together.”

“Savannah, no—”

I pull my guard up. “Promise me that if Blackstone finds me alive, you’ll let me go. I deserve a few years of happiness.” My words are rushed in case they are my last. “I love you, Cole, and that’s what hurts the most.”

“He’s feeding you lies, Savannah. I’m coming for you, and when I get there I’ll prove I’m still your knight.” My chest clenches as his words tug on my heart.

“We stopped! Cole, the car stopped!” My breathing picks up again. “Oh god, I don’t want to die.”

“You’re not going to die, Savannah. I see where you are. I’m roughly twenty minutes behind you.”

Oh shit.

“I hear footsteps.”

“Hide your phone, but don’t hang up.”

I quickly shove it into my bra just as the trunk opens. A man I’ve never seen before stares in at me.

“Savanna Miller?” he asks in a thick Hispanic accent. I’m frozen, paralyzed in fear. He grabs me and slaps me across the face. “I asked you a question. Is your name Savannah Miller?”

“Y-yes,” I cry out.

He glances at a picture then pulls out a needle.

“No! No, no, no, no, please! Don’t!” I scream. “pleaseeeee!” It doesn’t make a lick of difference. He shoves the needle into my arm anyway.

A moment later I’m staring at a dim light peeking through a crack as I quickly drift off, knowing it’s a one way ticket to hell.

Chapter Eight

Cole

Cole listens as her sobs slow and finally go quiet. Thankfully, Keith is driving, because Cole is finding it impossible to focus on anything but Savannah.

“I will take down her father and everyone with him,” Cole curses as he flexes his hands on his lap.

John is clicking away on a computer in the back seat while Mark is making phone calls to Border Patrol, trying to find out if The American is in the United States or Mexico.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. There is still no sound from Savannah. Cole nearly loses it a few times, wondering if she is alive or not. Mark has to talk him down several times. They can’t call in local PD or the FBI in case someone is listening or watching. The risks are too high.

Cole finally leans back and closes his eyes, trying to remember every single part of Savannah. The one thing that comes to his mind above all else is how those deep, dark eyes of hers seem to find him even in a sea of people. God, he loves her eyes. They are hypnotic and they are his. He slips off, remembering her…

“Good morning, Colonel,” Savannah’s low voice makes his eyes filter open. He grins when he sees she is dressed in his army hat and button up uniform shirt, which is conveniently left undone, showing off the sides of her perfect breasts. “Time to do your morning workout.”

He shakes his head as he goes to grab her. She leans back, holding up a finger.

“No, no, Colonel,” her lips spread into a sexy smile, “drop and give me twenty.”

His hands rush to her hips, lifting her in the air sitting her down on his growing erection. “You look damn fine in this.” He fingers the shirt. “With what I have planned for you, I’m never going to wash it.”

She leans down, her hair falling all around them. “Now, that, Colonel, sounds like a damn fine plan.” She lifts her hips, slipping him inside her. His eyes roll back as she feeds him all the way in. She’s more than ready, making everything heighten. Her body starts to move in a sexy weave and he peeks at the mirror facing them. Fuck him, it’s one incredible sight. The way she arches her back makes him grow even harder. Her hands go to his hair, clutching a handful while biting her lip with a moan. One hand moves to her hip, helping her rock, the other to her breast, giving it a little squeeze. She’s a fucking perfect wet dream. “Cole…”

“Logan,” John whispers from the back seat, pulling him from his dream and filling him with emptiness that comes with his reality.

Cole’s eyes pop open. He glances at the clock and sees he’s been out for nearly three hours. “Yeah, John.”

“They stopped at a hotel.”

Cole sits up straighter. “Which one?”

“The Hilton, fourth floor.” John reads off the address and Keith immediately heads in that direction.

When they arrive, they pull up into the driveway and do a sweep of the cars. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The four of them head into the lobby. Cole and Keith approach the front desk.

“Hi, and welcome to The Hilton West Virginia. How can I help you this evening?”

Cole sees the young woman look him up and down as he approaches her. “Perfect,” he mutters to himself. “A friend of ours checked in about thirty minutes ago. I forget his room number, but I was wondering if you could help me out?” After flirting for an endless ten minutes, he finally gets the room number.

They pile into the elevator and make their way down the hallway on the fourth floor. A man dressed in a room service uniform comes out of a room. Cole grabs his arm and whispers in his ear that they need his help and flashes his military badge.

“Yeah o-okay,” the guy stutters.

“Knock,” Cole orders when they stop in front of room 402.

The guy knocks and announces room service. Nothing. He knocks again, and still nothing.

“Excuse me? Can I help you?” a man dressed in a suit asks them as he approaches. “I’m the night manager. Are you gentlemen guests here?”

“No,” Cole answers quickly, “but we have reason to believe a woman is being held against her will in this room.”

“Are you the police?”

“No, sir. We're with U.S. Army Special Forces,” Mark chimes in, knowing that normally gets people’s attention. “We need to see inside that room.”

“Well, I need to see some proof—”

“Agent John,” Cole snaps out, “perhaps Channel Five News would like to hear about how The Hilton is allowing a man to rape a young woman with the manager’s knowledge. What’s your name, sir?”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary.” He pulls out a master key and opens the door. Cole barges through first, weapon drawn. His stomach sinks when he sees the bed.

“Oh, shit, shit, shit!” Cole hisses, turning to Mark and feeling helpless.

Mark picks up the note resting on Savannah’s cell phone.

I expected more from the U.S. Army.

The girl has been bought and paid for.

She’s long gone.

“They just gained an hour and twenty on us,” John says quietly behind them. “After talking with the manager, I got a description. It was a Hispanic man who rented the room alone. He did say he was in and out in a matter of minutes. He’s sending me the surveillance footage as we speak.”

“All right.” Keith nods at him, then looks at Cole. “Let’s focus on the fact that they need Savannah alive.”

They make their way back to their truck and head south on the interstate. Cole’s stomach is a ball of fire in his gut. This is a far cry from when he rescued Savannah the first time, as his heart wasn’t
as
invested. Yes, the moment he saw her picture in that file he was drawn to her…but now, she is his life, the air he breathes, the reason to come home from a mission. Life isn’t worth living if she isn’t in it.

John speaks up. “I have a location on their vehicle. Fuck, they're at a private airport.”

“I’m on it,” Mark says, pulling out his cell phone.

***

Savannah

I feel something warm caress my face, drawing me up and away from the darkness that is consuming me. My head hurts and my mouth is dry. I start to moan. Everything feels terrible, like I was out drinking the night before, but I know that isn’t true. My eyes flutter open and I focus on a green wall in front of me.

“Huh?” I mutter. “Wh-where am I?”

“Shhhh, Savannah, you’re right where you should be.” Her voice rings through my ears.

Lynn.

The last god-knows-how-many hours come flooding back to me. I try to move away, but her hands keep me on the bed.

“It’s okay, sweetie, take a few moments to let the drug wear off.”

It takes all my effort, but I pull away and roll off the bed, hitting the floor like a wet rag. Ouch! With every passing second I can feel the drug leaving my system. I tug my heavy body off the floor and shift to lean against the opposite wall.

We sit staring at one another for a long time. I finally clear my throat, wanting some fucking answers.

“Your bracelet.” I point and watch her quickly cover it with her free hand. “Is that new?”

“Sort of.” She forces a smile. She’s lying or avoiding the truth.

I pull my leaden legs up to my chest. “Lynn, I’ve known you forever. You wouldn’t have bought that for yourself. So who bought it for you?” I watch as her face goes from friendly to angry.

“A friend.”

I shake my head, feeling tears pool in my eyes. “I know you took my picture the night I was taken, Lynn. But I want to know why.”

Her face hardens. “I did it for proof.”

“Proof of what?”

She leans forward. “Proof that you were out drinking again, and proof that you were with Joe Might.”

I skip the comment about the drinking and focus in on what really confuses me. “Joe Might? The new client?”

“Yes.”

“What does he have to do with anything?”

She pushes off from the bed and stands by the window. “I hired him to take you out and have you returned at home at a certain time.”

I think back to that night. I remember Joe asked me to go to dinner. We had both skipped out on a very boring meeting. I drop my head to my knees, trying to accept what she is telling me.

“I-I don’t understand, Lynn. Why on earth would you do that?”

Lynn sighs, acting like she’s annoyed that I can’t keep up. “Fuck, Savannah, you had the perfect life, damn it! You had a father who made a ton of money, you got a crap load of attention, and all you had to do was stand there and look pretty. All he ever asked of you was to help a bit with his campaign, but no, you had to whine and bitch about it to me!” She makes a face. “Oh, Lynn, I hate being in the media. Oh, Lynn, I hate all the attention. Oh, Lynn, they think I’m a drunk, blah, blah, blah.” She stomps her foot like a child. “You had it so good, but were you happy? No! You couldn’t see past your own nose. It was always about poor Savannah. Christ, it made me so pissed!”

As everything comes pouring out of her, all I can do is stare at my best friend. I considered her like a sister for years, and to hear the poison in her voice is shocking. To hear someone you love speak to you like this with such obvious hatred is hard to grasp. How she despises me. Yet again, lies are being told; it is incredibly heartbreaking.

“If I was such a terrible friend, Lynn, why did you stick with me for so long?”

“Fame.” She shrugs like I should have connected the dots. “You were going to take me places, and I knew I could benefit, until you started fucking up in the media. That’s when everything changed, that’s when I knew a decision needed to be made.”

The perfect storm is starting to brew inside me, tilting my world off its axis. “Decision?”

“Yes, Savannah, you were bringing everyone down with all your failures, so I stepped up to the plate. I knew someone who knew someone who was involved in human trafficking. Small world, hey?” She chuckles to herself. “So I made some calls, and lo and behold, seems the Mayor of New York’s daughter was a sweet little prize to get. So I hired Joe Might, a friend of mine, to pose as a potential buyer and make sure you arrived at your condo at the right time. I knew you would go get the files. You were always on top of things. You were always so OCD when it came to your job.” She rolls her eyes in disgust. “Then poof, you were gone.” She laughs. “Like a magic trick, now you see her, now you don’t.”

That storm finally breaks, and I jump up and grab her by the hair, the two of us falling on the floor as I punch and kick and hit her, feeling the anger fueling my muscles. I’m sick of the lies, sick of being a victim. She certainly wasn't expecting it, and I get quite a few good ones in before something cracks me in the head and everything goes black.

“
Perra
.” His voice jolts me from my sleep. “Oh, sweet
perra
, you came back.”

I quickly sit up and take in my surroundings. I’m in an attractive room with Spanish décor. Sunlight is streaming in through a large window. It’s hot. I’m sweating. I wipe my forehead and smell something funny. I realize I’m not alone in my bed. I scramble to my feet, seeing the blood. Oh my god, there’s so much blood! I’m covered in it. My hair, my hands, my arms, my legs. My fingers shake as I tug the corner of the sheet that’s closest to me. I need to know who it is. Dark hair peeks out. He is turned away from me. I see his shoulders, back, and waist. I drop the sheet and round the bed. I don’t have to see his face to know who it is. My hands cover my mouth as vomit spews out of me.

“No!” I heave and wail at the same time. This can’t be happening! The door opens quickly, and I see The American dressed in shorts and a t-shirt staring at me.

“You did this, you know.” He points with his chin toward the jelly-like body. “If you had just given yourself over to me in the first place, Agent Mark Lopez would still be alive.”

“Fuck you,” I hiss, wiping my mouth free of vomit. “Fuck all of you.”

He walks toward me as I raise my chin to meet his stare. His shoulder rises and he punches me square in the face. I feel myself falling, but I never hit the ground. I just keep falling…

I jolt straight up, trying to make sense of what’s going on. I feel around the bed, empty. I see a window, but it looks different than the one I saw before, and it is night. What? So was I dreaming before? Is Mark alive?

Pushing the covers away, I see I’m still in my own clothes. They're dirty, but at least they are mine.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” a voice says, coming out of what looks like a bathroom. Luka approaches, holding out a bag. “Here.” He sits the Nordstrom bag in front of me. “We need to meet downstairs in twenty. That should be enough time for you to shower, change, and be ready for the exchange.”

“Exchange?” I blurt out, looking around the room.

Luka nods as he sits a cup of coffee on the table next to the window. “Yes, Savannah. You’ve been bought and paid for. We just need to make sure all the little details are properly checked out before we hand over our, for want of a better word, ace.”