War Bringer (2 page)

“This wasn’t your fault, bro,” Angel said quietly.

“She was mine to protect. It is my fault.”

Angel pointed to a barren stretch of road between two low hills. Fiona’s Acadia was parked on the opposite wayside. They were on the same highway she’d taken to come up to Wyoming; she hadn’t even made it a half hour out of town when they’d grabbed her.

Kelan pulled off the road. They crossed the street to her vehicle. The dirt in the wayside had been undisturbed since the rainstorm a few days earlier, letting them clearly see the tracks her SUV made, along with those from other vehicles that pulled in front of and behind her. They probably forced her from the road, sandwiched between their cars.

“There’s another set of tire tracks over there,” Angel said, pointing back the way they’d come. “The tracks look as fresh as these, but who knows if they’re connected.” He crossed over, then came back, tracking the dusty footprints. He looked at Kelan. “They come from this side.”

Kelan glanced in both directions down the long road. He followed the two sets of large hiking-boot prints, seeing no smaller footprints that would have indicated Fiona crossed the road on her own volition. Maybe they carried her. Or an accomplice might have taken her phone south to dispose of it, while the other vehicles took her north. Who knew where she was.

He closed his eyes and mentally searched for her energy. He was certain she was still alive; he could feel her fear. She hadn’t used her emergency necklace yet—or the secondary security bracelet he’d given her. Maybe she couldn’t. Or maybe she was waiting for a safe moment. He hoped whoever had her hadn’t taken them.

“Let’s go get her phone,” Kelan said, certain that was all they’d find.
 

“Want me to drive her car?”
 

“No. I will.” He had the second key for her car always with him. Stupidly, it made him feel closer to her when she was away at school.

A few minutes down the road, they pulled over again at the point where her phone was still pinging. The highway’s shoulder and wayside spilled down a steep slope and into open rangeland. None of the earth looked disturbed. There were no tire marks, but also no footprints to indicate an improvised explosive had been set or the way to her phone was otherwise booby-trapped.

He and Angel used their phones to find hers. Kelan picked it up with a plastic bag he brought from the car. He wanted to activate her screen and see the last few calls she’d made, but Greer would need to process it for fingerprints first. Besides, they had her call logs.

Cars from the road whizzed by in waves of noise. Kelan stood in the hot evening wind on the tinder-dry hillside. Had Fiona been followed all the way from their condo? Had there been other people waiting for her in different spots along her route up to the team headquarters to ensure they caught her in their net? If she was followed, had she known it?
 

Shit, the fear she must have felt—must still be feeling.

Angel put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her.”

He shook his head and asked, “Why Fiona? Why not me or you or any of the other guys?”

Angel considered his question. “Most likely she was the easiest target. They could snag her a fair distance from Blade’s, giving them time to get away with her.”

* * *

Kelan marched into Blade’s, leaving Fiona’s vehicle in the garage for Max and Greer to process. Angel left the SUV parked out front for quick access should a lead present itself.
 

The women were gathered in the hallway. Their anxious faces stopped him and Angel. “Is there any news?” Mandy asked.

“No.”

“Kelan, we’re so sorry,” Ivy said as she slipped a hand around Mandy’s waist, both of them watching him with big, worried eyes.

He clenched his jaw, tamping down his emotions as he nodded. He looked from Mandy and Ivy to everyone else. Hope, Remi, and Eden. The Jacksons. The kids, Zavi and Casey. The team’s family had grown. That his Fiona had been taken was a wound in his soul. But the truth was that he would have felt the same if they’d lost any of their dependents.

He went down the hallway, heading for the elevator to the weapons room. He heard Angel telling the group to stay on the property for the next few days until they knew what they were dealing with.

Kelan waited for Angel, then they both went down to the bunker. Max and Greer paused in their work, looking up at him as he entered the ops room. Their calm, intent expressions told him what he needed to know: there was no new information on Fiona or her abductors.

Kelan handed Fiona’s phone to Max and tossed Greer the memory card from her dash cam, glad no one wasted words on empty hopes for Fiona’s welfare. “Tell me what we know,” he quietly ordered as he entered the conference room.
 

“There’s no new chatter. No ransom calls. Nada from Jafaar,” Kit said.
 

Greer pulled up the video from Fiona’s car. “Here it is.”

Kelan’s heart banged with fear and hope as he waited for the images to open on the big smart screen. Angel dimmed the lights. Greer forwarded the recording to the end, bypassing the footage of Fiona leaving the parking garage and heading out of town. They could go through that portion later.
 

Kelan’s hands clenched as he watched Fiona’s abduction. As they’d seen from the tracks, two vans had sandwiched her Acadia, forcing her off the road and onto the wayside. She tried to get her car free of the others, but she was squeezed between them. Her abductors, three of them, were dressed head to toe in black long-sleeved tees and jeans, with black baseball caps. One had a gun. The camera didn’t get a look at their faces.
 

Their vehicles were missing license plates. Another white van was stopped on the other side of the road. Fiona’s SUV bounced, probably when one of her captors broke her window. There was some kind of off-camera struggle, then her vehicle went still. Her captors must have carried her across the road at that point. The cameras only picked up a little of their movement before two of the three men returned to their vans and drove off. She wasn’t with the men who returned to the two vans.

The whole event took less than ninety seconds.

As soon as it was over, the room scrambled to action. Greer restarted the video from the beginning, looking for evidence that those vans might have been captured on traffic cams anywhere along Fiona’s journey from Fort Collins. Blade checked with State Patrol to see if anyone had been stopped for missing license plates or other erratic behavior. Angel and Val called up highway cams along the route Fiona took.
 

Kelan walked into the weapons room and unlocked one of the long-gun cabinets. He took out an M16 and set it on the center island. From the handgun cabinet, he retrieved two Berettas. He selected a KA-BAR and its holster from the knife drawer, paused, then also took an ankle-holstered KA-BAR.

Images of Fiona flashed through his mind—her unruly cap of dark blond curls, which were so goddamned soft, and blue eyes the color of forget-me-nots.

“What are you doing?” Kit asked.

Kelan blinked those thoughts away—along with the barbs they held—and rubbed the heel of his palm against his heart, where they still stuck. He didn’t look up.
 

“Preparing for the war I’m bringing to whoever has Fiona.”

“You know you’re not a lone wolf, right?”

Kelan did look up at that, meeting Kit’s hard eyes. “You know it’s not your heart in the hands of our enemies, right?”

“She’s one of us, Kelan. She is my heart.”

Kelan spread a cleaning mat on the island, then began disassembling the M16. “I’m going to kill them.” He looked at Kit from beneath his brows. “Every fucking last one of them.”

Kit shook his head. “Ah, no. You’ll stay in formation and take the orders you’re given, like everyone else on the team, feel me?”

“Then I quit.”

“Not today you don’t, bro. Keep it together. This is bound to get worse before it gets better. Fiona is now our number one priority.”

“Kelan,” Owen said as he joined them in the weapons room. “You have the full resources of this team and my entire company. Whatever you need, whatever we have to do, we’ll do. Inside or outside of the law.”

Kelan met Owen’s eyes and held his gaze for a long moment. At last he nodded, then resumed cleaning his weapons.
 

He’d failed Fiona. He would find her, secure her, and leave a long, bloody gash in the body of the enemy while he did it.

Chapter
 
Two

Fiona felt something hard and cold beneath her cheek. She took stock of her senses and her environment without moving or making a sound. Her hands were bound behind her. The metal of her security bracelet pressed into her wrist. She moved slightly, relieved they hadn’t taken her security necklace either.

She was on the floor of a cargo van, one clearly in motion. Where were they going? How long had she been unconscious? Her legs weren’t bound. She tried to open her eyes, but all she saw was black. And at that, she panicked. Sitting up fast, she felt pain explode in her head. She couldn’t remember being hit. Had they drugged her?
 

She sucked in a deep breath and caught a mouthful of fabric. A black cloth covered her head. She was nauseated and had to focus all of her energy on not vomiting for a moment. Taking slow, deep breaths through her nose, she waited for her stomach and head to calm down.
 

Kelan had probably found her car by now—and its dash cam video. He would find her. He’d tear the whole world apart looking for her.

She just had to stay alive long enough for him to do it. She shut her eyes and conjured up his image, taking comfort from his strength, his silent power. His eyes were so dark, they were almost black. His hair shimmered like liquid tar, but in the sun, you could see the burnt umber highlights in it.

She remembered the faint sandalwood scent he had. Sandalwood and sunshine. So much better than the stink of the hood covering her face.

The road they were on was straight and smooth. In the time since she’d awakened, they hadn’t stopped at lights or intersections. Probably a highway, then. Where were they? How long had she been out?
 

After a while, Fiona thought of a way to get out of the van and get her hood removed and her hands untied.
 

“Hey!” she shouted, uncertain if anyone was in the back with her or if they could hear her in the front. “Hey, someone!”

“What?” a man answered. His voice was muffled, as if he spoke through a partition.
 

“I need to use a restroom.”

The man cursed. She could hear him say something to someone else. A phone call was made.

“You need to hold it for a while.”

“I can’t. I’m going to pee in your van if we hit another pot hole.”

The men argued up front. The van started to slow down. The terrain got rough as they pulled off the road, then stopped. Fiona’s heart started a fast rumble. If they were anywhere near civilization, she could make a break for it.

Someone opened the back doors, and she was yanked roughly out of the van. It wasn’t dark yet—she could see late evening sun filter through her black hood.
 

Another vehicle stopped behind them. Whoever was in the second car had to see her bound and hooded. Relief flooded her system at the thought of a potential ally—until she remembered there had been two vehicles that originally pulled her over.
 

One of the men dragged her around the corner of the van and started to unfasten her jeans.

“What are you doing?” She kicked at him and tried to get away, but another set of beefy arms blocked her.
 

“You said you had to pee.”

“I do, but not like this.” She sucked in a rough gasp and got a mouthful of hood. “Not with an audience.”

“She’s not going anywhere. There’s nowhere for her to go,” one of the men said as he untied her hands.

“And the hood. I can’t see anything with it on.”

Rough hands fumbled with the strings behind her neck, then dragged the bag off her head. She looked up at two men in black ski masks. The day was a hot one. Sweat was beading above their dark brows.

“Get to it.”

“I need privacy.”

One of the men shoved her back against the side of the van. “You don’t get to ask for anything, bitch.”

“Careful with her! Just let her do her thing so we can get out of here.”

Fiona looked back at the men still in the second van, both of whom were watching her. “They have to go, too. I can’t pee with anyone watching me.” She looked over to the empty prairie hills—they were way out east somewhere. “Where would I run to anyway?”

The lead guy shook his head, then waved the other men over. As a group, they went around the front of the first van. Fiona pressed her alert necklace and jogged to the end of the second van. She waited, listening for a car coming in either direction. The first she heard was headed toward them on the opposite side of the highway.
 

She ran across two lanes of traffic and was halfway across the median before the men spotted her. She was waving madly toward the truck heading her way at seventy-five miles an hour. Three of the men crossed toward her. Already the car was slowing down.
 

Oh, heck. She hadn’t thought this through. The men had guns—she was endangering anyone who stopped. But if she didn’t try something, she would end up dead herself.

The lead guy didn’t bother chasing her. He shouted toward her. “You weren’t the only one we took today. We got the boss’ kid in the second van. Come back over here or I’ll shoot her. We only wanted her for insurance. Thought we’d need her to keep you in line.”

Fiona lowered her arms.
Oh. God. No. Not Casey.
Fiona wasn’t even aware there were tears on her cheeks until she felt wind cool the heated streams on her skin. “I don’t believe you.”

The man shrugged, then started toward the back of the second van. The truck Fiona had been waving down came near, slowed, then stopped.