Blindsided (3 page)

“Just checking the accommodations,” he said, looking beyond her into her room. “I see you even have your own maid.”

“There’s also no windows, so you don’t have to worry about me making a break for it,” she spouted back. “Has my family been notified about my ransom?”

“Not yet. Is there another exit from the room? Through the bathroom, maybe?”

“I already told you there’s no way out.” She crossed her arms at her front.

“I was thinking more along the lines of someone getting in. But just in case, I’ll be right outside your door. Count on it.” Then he leaned in, his clean-shaven jaw brushing her cheek, and she nearly jumped back from the shock he gave. “I’m going to get you out of here,” he whispered against her ear, but she barely registered his words. Frustrated with the light-headed response his closeness caused, she shoved him away from her.

“So you can take the ransom for yourself? I wouldn’t go anywhere with you.” Roni slammed the door closed on his face and took delight in having the last word. Then the lock clicked back over, taking even that away from her.

On a huff, she checked herself before she turned to face the young girl. The maid stood by the bed, her head still bowed, but the bedcovers had been pulled back.

“Hello,” Roni said, hoping the girl would engage.

She only nodded in reply. Her lashes blinked, a seemingly nervous reaction to Roni’s greeting.

“Did I say something wrong?” Roni asked.

A low reply came. “They don’t like us talking. Only working. I can help you get ready for bed now.”

“Who’s
us
? You and me?”

The girl shook her head. “Other girls. Please, senorita, let me help you. I can’t be gone too long.”

Roni ignored the plea in her voice. Something felt off in this already off place. “There’re more girls like you? How many?”

“My counting is not so good. And the number, it...it changes.”

“Changes? Because girls quit?” Roni would have to think the turnover was pretty high in this warped place.

The girl’s silky hair swished side to side with the shake of her head, but no answer came. Instead she peered out from behind her hair at the corner of the room as though someone watched. A wave of nausea swept over Roni. The picture of captivity this girl painted for her had all the details Roni needed to put two and two together—and what it meant for her. The owner’s earlier compliment of her beauty sickened her even more. Guerra and Gunn had paraded her in here like some horse to be put on the auction block. “They have no intention of ransoming me, do they?”

The girl shrugged again and lifted her chin a bit. Roni caught her first glimpse of her youthful face and too-sad eyes before she dropped them again.

The kind of business the owner of this place ran became evident.

Human trafficking.

“What’s your name?” Roni asked, fighting a surge of anger.

“You can call us
sirvientas
.”

“Servant girl? I don’t think so.” No big surprise the girl wouldn’t be called by her name. Her captors knew how to make her forget she was a person with an identity. “I’ll call you by your name only. So what is it?”

She tilted her head in uncertainty. “I used to be called Magdalena.”

“Then that is what I will call you.”

“No.” She raised her chin a little farther. “Magdalena is...gone.”

The young girl’s sad eyes had seen too much. Roni could spit nails, but that wouldn’t help this young woman and who knew how many more there were.

“Then how about I call you Maddie. Will that be all right?”

The girl nodded with a twitch of a smile. The smile quickly vanished.

“My name is Veronica, but my friends call me Roni. So you can call me Roni, too.”

Roni stepped up to the girl but dared not touch her. Her scars weren’t visible like Roni’s, but they were there just the same.

“Will you tell me how you got here? Were you taken like me?”

Maddie frowned. “I come from a village in Mexico. My mother, she was very sick, but we were too poor for medicine. A woman came and promised her I would marry a rich, handsome man if I go with her to work. She said she had a job for me. She was speaking our language. My mother trusted her. The woman paid my mother enough for medicine, and I went with her. We drove for a long time. A lot of hills went by. She brought me to a house and left me there. The man there, he pay her money before she go.” Maddie dropped her chin to her chest and finished, “After she left, I knew my mother made a bad choice.”

Silence ensued. “When was this, Maddie?”

“I’m nineteen now. I was sixteen.”

“So three years you have been held captive, forced to work for no money.” There was no sense asking her if that was true. It was obvious this wasn’t a job.

A knock on the door broke their conversation. The lock clicked, but when it swung wide, it wasn’t Gunn this time. It was the owner of this place. Roni curled her fingers into her palms. Never had she wanted to punch someone more. Not even Jared when he admitted to using her to spike his racing career. Not even when he checked to make sure her scarf covered her neck every time they entered the Winner’s Circle to be photographed.

“
Sirvienta!
What is taking so long? You should be gone by now.” The owner spoke fast, his skin taut over his clean-shaven cheeks, his black hair unmoved by his outburst.

Roni stepped in front of Maddie. “It’s my fault. I was being chatty.”

The man’s jaw ticked, but after a second of staring over Roni’s shoulder at Maddie’s dropped head, he nodded once and gave Roni his full attention. “There’s no chatting here. Don’t forget you are a prisoner.”

Maddie made her way to the exit, but Roni knew she couldn’t let her go. “
Sirvienta
, I really need your help with...with finding some things before... I go to sleep for the night.”

Maddie paused for direction from her master.

After a few seconds, he walked to the door, fury in his every step. “I’ll see you in the morning, Miss Spencer. In the light of day, you’ll see your future is really quite limited.”

The door shut and clicked over. One look at Maddie’s sad eyes and Roni knew she was just as trapped as this young woman.

She had to get out. Tonight, if possible.

Roni grabbed the chair to sit. Her hand grasped the Mulberry silk and the smooth material repulsed her. “I’m not going to bed, Maddie, but I do need your help.” She glanced around the room and mouthed, “To escape. And you’re coming, too.”

Maddie’s sad eyes sparked with what could only be her last shreds of hope. The innocent girl was still in there somewhere. Whatever tactics Maddie used to save herself from fully disappearing had worked.

Still, the spark died out with the shaking of her head back and forth. “Oh, Roni, not me, but I do want to help you. It would mean so much to me, but how?”

Roni pushed a pad of paper and pen toward the girl, then whispered, “Draw me directions to where the Boss keeps his cars. I’ll take it from there.”

THREE

A
guard in a black suit stood at his post by the Boss’s office. From the stairway, Ethan watched around the corner as the guard read an incoming text on his phone. Ethan held his breath to see if an alert had gone out about him being missing from his post by Roni’s room. As soon as Roni’s guard took the maid down to the basement, Ethan made his way up the stairs to the top floor—the floor with the Boss’s office.

Entrance into that office was critical. And so was time. Roni would only be safe for so long locked up in her room. He had to figure out how to get her out of this place, but first he needed to get an ID on who the Boss really was. Ethan needed a name, something Pace could use to hold the guy on while they ramped up the trafficking charges.

Ethan knew his team was out there, ready to move in, but would hold off until they had evidence in hand. Rushing in would only botch all their work.

The guard’s phone rang. He answered on the first ring. “Yeah, I’ve got time. Boss is visiting a lady friend for the night.” He shared a laugh with whomever was on the other end. Ethan wondered at the identity of the lady friend. Had the Boss left the premises to visit her? Or was the lady friend already in residence?

Roni?

She couldn’t be the lady friend, Ethan thought as he looked down the stairway. One floor down was her locked-up-tight room. She was safe inside. He’d made sure of it.

Except the Boss would have a key.

Ethan needed to speed up this quest and return to her to see if she had unwanted company.

But first, he needed to access that office, so he could get Roni out for good. Too much was at stake, and for the first time in a year, it wasn’t just the case.

Ethan waited for the guard to turn away so he could move in for a sneak attack, but the guard started heading in his direction. With his phone to his ear, the man said, “It’s not my job to watch him. Guerra brought the guy in, he should be the one playing hide-n-seek with Gunn.”

So the alert had gone out. He was a wanted man. And the guard was headed his way. The only way to go was back down.

Ethan took the steps in double time and launched his body over the railing at the bend. He shimmied down the spokes and held tight and still, breath and all.

The guard ran past him from above, never looking over the railing at the man hanging between the landings.

As soon as the guard made it to the lower floor, he turned the corner to continue down to the next one, saying, “I’ll check the basement out. We don’t need him snooping down there.”

Ethan pulled his body up the railing spokes and over the railing. He hit the stair treads on a run and took the turn to the Boss’s office. Ethan slipped inside and closed the door on a soft click. The computer sat off to the right side on a mahogany desk. He would start there.

The monitor hadn’t gone to full sleep mode yet from when the Boss left. Having to come up with passwords would have slowed Ethan up. In reality, it would have stopped him in his tracks.

He opened an email account, but no names were listed on the account or any of the few emails in the in-box. Somewhere a name would have to be linked to the account. He clicked the trash files and waited for a couple of dozen to download.

With one eye on the screen, Ethan opened drawers and felt the numerous paperweights lined up on the desk front. They were substantial pieces, some sharp, some blunt. The Boss’s weapons of torture, perhaps? Or death if things didn’t go well for his victims. Ethan was pretty sure a blood scan over them would glow blue.

He picked up a heavy carving of a bull. It was some sort of trophy for the Most Valuable Player for a sports team. The name of the recipient had been scratched out. Figures the Boss thought of everything. But Ethan was counting on someone from his past not knowing him as the Boss. Someone who might email him with salutations to his real name.

Ethan tipped the bull trophy over and saw a compartment had been cut into its base. He slid the bottom cover off to find a single key.

The computer bleeped at its download end. He gave the deleted emails his full attention and found what he was looking for. Lyle Ramsey was the recipient name a sender used to forward some crass email joke.

“Well, hello there,
Lyle Ramsey
. Does your friend know what you do for a living?”

Ethan brought the computer back to the way he found it. He got what he’d come for. The processing team would take the PC when they were inside, but Ethan doubted they would find any evidence on it. Lyle didn’t get to be the Boss by leaving a paper trail. And no paper trail meant cash houses. Find the cash houses and Lyle goes bye-bye. Ethan didn’t think he’d have to look much further than the basement.

He picked up the phone and checked it for a dial tone. He dialed the secure number for Pace and said two words.

Lyle Ramsey.

Pace would know what to do with that.

Ethan hesitated to mention Roni’s presence. A part of him didn’t want Pace knowing she was with him. He knew what Pace would say to that.

“Do your job.”

Ethan sighed and quickly relayed the message that Roni Spencer was in his custody. He clicked off just as voices filtered down the hall.

“If you brought some snitch into my house, you will pay, Guerra.” The Boss’s irate, booming voice echoed through the closed door.

“Gunn’s not a snitch, but he does have high expectations for your average gofer. I’ve reminded him many times who’s in charge. Something tells me he would push me aside if it got him ahead. If he wasn’t so clever in his thefts, I would have wasted him months ago.”

Ethan looked for a coat closet to hide in. He tried the door to his left.

Locked.

He circled the room. The drapes wouldn’t hide his big frame. Nor would the cubby under the desk. He pulled the doorknob again, but it wasn’t budging.

Then he remembered the key.

Guerra continued out in the hall. “The man’s a chameleon. Gets the job done before anyone sees a thing. Good at hiding out, which is why I can’t find him right now.”

The doorknob turned just as Ethan inserted the key and turned his own doorknob. He was behind the door, safely hidden from sight before Guerra and Ramsey entered the office.

But if Ramsey was here, what happened to the visit with his lady friend?

Was she in the office with them now?

Ethan turned to his side to listen with one ear, straining to make out another person’s presence. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed an elevator behind him. It would seem Ramsey had a private line down to the basement.

“And what about the Spencer woman?” Ramsey asked, his chair squeaking as though he leaned back into it. “What does she know?”

“Nothing. She thinks she’s been kidnapped for her money and is here to be ransomed. I would have killed her at the garage, but Gunn stepped in. She can be disposed of now. Her family won’t be expecting her home.”

“Why’s that?”

Ethan pressed his ear to the door, wondering the same question.

“As far as they’re concerned their glamorous debutante was in the car theft business. The FBI is ready to close in. She’ll go down for everything. All roads lead to her. When she disappears, everyone will believe she escaped to the Mediterranean to live on the run for the rest of her life.”

“Everyone?”

Guerra laughed. “Well, not everyone. Someone paid me dearly to make her go away. I got the call to expect her tonight. That’s how I knew to be looking for her before Gunn spotted her.”

Ramsey chuckled. “I’m not surprised she angered someone enough to arrange her disappearance. She’s strong-willed. I’d keep her here, but she’s too tough to break. There’s a reason I tell my scouts to go for the girls who can’t look up. I tell them to flatter the girls. Tell them they’re pretty. It’s such a simple way to start, but oh, so effective. The girls who look you in the eye and say, ‘Thank you’ are the ones you pass on by. It’s the girls who don’t believe the compliments that become my inventory.”

“When you told the Spencer woman she was pretty she didn’t do either,” Guerra pointed out.

“I know.” Ramsey’s voice held irritation. “That’s why she needs to go.”

“So what’s the plan? Do you want me to go kill her? Or do you want to try your hand at breaking her?”

“Neither. I have someone else who will gladly take her. My connection who runs the outfit in Greece. He likes redheads, and I owe him a favor.”

Ramsey went on to talk about a new shipment coming in, but Ethan’s mind blared with the realization that his instincts had been right about Roni. She really
was
innocent, and if he didn’t get her out of here, she would disappear forever.

Ethan grabbed the doorknob, ready to do whatever had to be done to stop what these men planned. But to run out there now would only get himself killed before he could save her from a worse demise.

But if Guerra was telling the truth, then her home wasn’t safe for her either. Someone she knew and trusted wanted her dead.

If Ethan called in his team right now, Pace would cuff her for sure. She wouldn’t be safe with his men either. Pace was wrong about Veronica Spencer, though. She was the fall guy. Roni didn’t know anything. She was being set up. She was innocent.

But her innocence was the least of Ethan’s concerns at the moment. If he didn’t get her out of here, she would cease to exist forever.

* * *

The map of the estate was a rough-drawn depiction, but it was better than nothing. Maddie had helped with the layout, and knowing that she cleaned many of the rooms, Roni felt comfortable trusting the girl to not get her lost in these warped halls.

Little Xs marked the vicinities where the guards stood, too numerous to count, a military entourage strategically placed, some spots more than others.

The two areas on the map that had an exorbitant amount of guards were her destinations. Whatever required that much muscle had to be significant enough to protect.

Like an exit.

Roni’s bedroom displayed no clock. She could only guess the sun hadn’t made its appearance yet, but it would soon. Then what?

She grabbed at the tail of her scarf in the vicinity of her pounding heart. She needed to keep her fear in check or she would lose her faculties. But physical torture was all too real to her. Years of pain from her burns and multiple surgeries left her with a need to be in the driver’s seat at all times, never wanting to succumb to being in something’s or someone else’s grip again. The memory of being a slave to the pain of years of surgeries and recuperations with no end in sight and no reprieve nearly killed her. If it hadn’t been for Cora she would have lost her mind.

Roni thought of the hopelessness in Maddie’s eyes. That young girl knew the same merciless agony of having no control over her life, and no voice to speak out.

Roni pulled at her scarf harder, realizing her breathing had picked up to an erratic pace. In the mirror of the vanity, she could see her knuckles had whitened with their hold. The understanding that she had been brought to a place where her control was stolen from her again brought on a swift bout of panic. She had to get out of this place. Now.

But how, if she was under lock and key?

She looked at the map again. Thanks to Maddie, Roni wouldn’t be walking blind when she did somehow get out of the room. The girl would be compensated for her help big-time. Roni told her that, but the girl shook her head back and forth. How strange that Maddie wouldn’t hesitate to help another captive escape but refused help for herself. She didn’t believe it yet, but when the time came to put this place in the rearview mirror, Maddie would be buckled in beside Roni.

But first to find a vehicle to make a break in.

There had to be a slew to choose from. What high-class criminal didn’t brandish a showroom full of souped-up horsepower?

She looked at the area on the map with all the guards, the place the cars were kept. Every detail of the route would have to be memorized. She couldn’t keep the map lying around. If it was confiscated, Maddie would pay the price. Flushing it was the only way to prevent fallout and to protect her new friend.

When she thought she had it imprinted on her brain, Roni made her way to the bathroom and watched it disappear. Oh, how she wished she could do the same. Press a button and poof, back in her own house on her mountain in Norcastle, safe from anyone who wanted to harm her. All she could do was be ready to run when the guards weren’t watching.

A knock sounded on her door.

Could this be her opportunity? The lock clicked over, and Roni had one second to make her play.

She reached for a mosaic vase on the dresser and ran at the door. As it pushed wide into the room, she couldn’t see who entered behind it. At full force she barreled at the door and slammed into it with her shoulder, her arm raised high over her head with the vase ready to find its target.

As she heaved her body at the door, she knocked her visitor into a stumble. It took her a second to realize it was Gunn and less than another second to bring the vase down.

But before she could make contact, he turned his body, his arm reaching up to block her assault. He grabbed on to the vase. A battle of strength kept it high in the air, their face levels matched and close.

“Roni, I’m here to help you,” he said, his eyes filled with the compassion he’d lacked back in the garage. Surely a trick.

And she wasn’t falling for it. “My name is Veronica Spencer. Roni is for friends
only
.”

Gunn pulled the vase from her hand with little effort and tossed it onto the bed. He grasped her wrist still above her head with his free hand. “Then Roni it is, because from where I stand, I’m the only friend you’ve got.”