Brooke was numb. Numb was better than scared, but scared was probably coming. She’d taken a taxi to the IHOP, but when she stepped out of the car, she was grabbed by two men who came out of nowhere. In spite of her screams, she’d been hooded, trussed up like a goose, and tossed onto the floor of a van. All she could think was it’s happening again.

The men spoke Spanish as they drove, and she listened hard, trying to figure out what they were saying. She didn’t know much Spanish, but she knew a little. It was far better to concentrate on that than let herself fall apart. She refused to fall apart.

But she didn’t know enough Spanish to figure out where they were taking her or who they were. Not that she needed to be told who they were. Certainly they were the Columbians Scott had been selling weapons to. Who else would grab her? Was one of them the man she saw in the hall before she found Scott’s body? And what did that mean for her?

She hated to think.

The van screeched to a halt and she was soon yanked out of the vehicle and made to walk while someone gripped her arm like a vise and steered her. The scents of water and fish assaulted her nostrils. She wanted to sink into panic, but she forced herself to focus on what that smell could mean.

The Chesapeake or the Potomac, though she was banking on the Chesapeake. The Potomac wasn’t quite this fishy. Yes, concentrate on details!

Brooke stumbled along, propelled by cruel hands, until her feet hit a ramp that took her upward. The ramp was hollow—and the structure she stepped onto rolled with the current.

A boat.

A moment later they shoved her into a room where she fell on the floor, her hip hitting a pile of something hard. Brooke’s wrists were bound at the front of her body rather than the back, so she reached up to shove the hood off as soon as the door closed.

“Miss Brooke?” a soft little voice asked, and Brooke whipped her head around, searching in the gloomy cabin for the source. As her eyes adjusted, her gaze focused on a little girl in a Girl Scout uniform sitting on the floor.

Brooke gasped as she scrambled toward Amy, gathering her between her bound arms as best she could.

“Amy. Sweetie. How are you?”

“Scared.”

Brooke trembled. She’d been holding her own fear at bay behind a giant wall she’d erected, but she knew it was close to tumbling over the top and engulfing her. Except now she needed to keep it together for this little girl. She had to keep it together. That’s what Cade would do.

The thought of Cade sent a wave of despair—and hope, oddly enough—crashing through her. He would know she was gone by now, wouldn’t he? And he’d be angry that she’d left the safety of Grace’s house. Grace, with her Secret Service detail and her alarm system complete with cameras and codes and who knew what else?

Things that didn’t work so well when you left them behind and ventured out because you wanted to help someone. She couldn’t quite reconcile how these men had found her, but they’d probably been watching Grace’s place. She should have thought of that and maybe suggested an alternative to Bert. Like what if he’d brought Shelly to her?

She hugged Amy tightly. “It’s going to be okay, sweetie. There are some really good men coming to get us soon.”

“I don’t like the man who brought me here. He wasn’t nice.”

Brooke’s heart skipped. Oh God, if anyone had abused this child… “I know, kiddo. They are not nice men at all. But the nice ones are coming.”

She had to believe that. Because if she didn’t, she’d fall apart—and she was afraid that if she did, she’d never come back together again.

She sat with her arms around Amy and tried to calm her racing heart. She had to keep it together for Amy. And for Cade, because she was determined she would see him again.

“Have you eaten? Did they feed you?” Brooke asked, trying to focus on the most basic things in order to keep from dwelling on the horror of their situation.

“I’m hungry, Miss Brooke.” Amy started to cry and Brooke squeezed her tighter.

“I’m sorry, honey. Maybe they’ll bring something soon.”

She didn’t think these bastards intended to bring them anything, but she wasn’t going to tell the little girl that.

“Are you okay? Nobody… hurt you, did they? Did they touch you?”

“The bad man picked me up and carried me. Then he put me in here.”

Brooke’s heart hammered. “Did he do anything else? Did anyone?”

She could feel Amy shake her head. “No.” She cried harder. “They left me all alone. I was scared.”

“Shh,” Brooke said. “It’s okay. I’m here now. I won’t let them hurt you.”

She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she was determined to get Amy out of here without her knowing the sort of terror Brooke had felt at the hands of these kinds of men. Her stomach twisted and she shoved the nausea deep. She couldn’t think about that right now. Couldn’t worry that it would happen again.

She had to survive for Cade and Max. And she had to protect this little girl. There was nothing more important.

---

Cade locked his emotions down and went into crisis mode. He knew his team watched him warily, but he wouldn’t blow. Not yet anyway. Not unless something happened and they didn’t get Brooke and Amy back again.

It was a good thing Bert Lewis wasn’t in this room. Or, hell, this fucking building. Because Cade would likely snap his neck if he saw the man right now. Viking launched into an explanation of how Bert had manipulated Brooke into heading for an IHOP, presumably to comfort his wife, and how Lopez had directed the whole thing. He had promised that Amy would be released once the cartel had Brooke. But of course that’s not how criminals operated.

No, they operated by being as fucking evil as possible. They’d taken Brooke and they weren’t letting her go. It was also entirely possible that the cartel had killed Amy Lewis and dumped her body somewhere.

Ghost strode into the room, looking pissed as shit. Didn’t compare to Cade’s pissed, but whatever.

“What the fuck is going on over at the DEA?” he demanded of Viking.

Viking didn’t look pleased either. “Sir, Bert Lewis was cooperating. He wasn’t being held for anything.”

Because he was cooperating, the motherfucker. Cade knew how it worked. And yet he still wanted to strangle the dude.

“Yet they let him use his damned phone. They relied on him to tell them if it was Lopez calling so they could listen in—but he lied when the call came.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jesus.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have they heard from Lopez again?”

“No, sir.”

“What the utter fuck?” Ghost shook his head, hands on hips, looking pissed. Then he spun to Hacker. “What do we have in those files? Do we know where the weapons are yet?”

“No, sir,” Hacker said. “Working on it, sir.”

“Let me know when you figure it out. And be ready to fucking go when we find them. No way in hell am I leaving this up to anyone else to secure those weapons. HOT is going in.”

---

They were being kept in the dirty hold of a fishing boat. Brooke had fallen on ropes earlier. That was the bulky thing she’d hit with her hip. She and Amy had been sitting there for a long time, she wasn’t sure how long, when the chattering of voices came to her. She stiffened but kept her hands on Amy. The little girl had stretched out and fallen asleep with her head in Brooke’s lap.

Brooke didn’t know how long they’d been there, but it felt like a very long time. She was stiff and cold and nauseated from the scents of fish and brackish water. She was also terrified deep down inside, but she’d managed so far to keep it at bay behind a wall she’d erected in her brain. She simply couldn’t fail to be the strong one in this situation. Amy was six. She needed a strong adult, not a sobbing woman who couldn’t function.

The voices grew closer. They were speaking Spanish. Fear doused her in ice water as the door opened and a light shone in. Brooke blinked, turning her face away and covering Amy's eyes. Two men came over and dragged her and Amy to their feet. Amy started to cry, but Brooke refused to show any emotion.

Though she knew she shouldn’t do it, she lifted her chin and faced the men squarely. Neither of them reacted. They simply propelled their charges toward the door and down the ramp. A big black car waited nearby. They were shoved into it unceremoniously and collapsed on the seat in a tangle of bodies.

Brooke’s hair fell across her face, covering her vision for a long moment while she worked to sit up and grab hold of Amy before she moved her hair. When she finally managed to shove her hair away, her gaze landed on the man sitting across from her.

The same man she’d seen in the hallway just a couple of nights ago. He arched an eyebrow and smirked at her. There was no warmth in his gaze, however.

“Well, Miss Sullivan. We meet again.”

“What do you want with us?”

His gaze flicked to the little girl and then back to her face. Brooke suppressed the shiver that wanted to slide through her at the coldness in his eyes.

“I only want my shipment, Miss Sullivan. Tell me where it is, and you will be free to go.”

“Shipment?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were Scott Lloyd’s woman.”

She shook her head harder. “No. Definitely not. We were friends. That’s all.”

The man crossed his legs at the knee. He somehow managed to look elegant and polished in spite of the evil in his demeanor.

“That is not how he described it. You were his partner.”

Brooke’s mouth went dry. “He said that to you?”

The man shrugged. “He implied as much. He said that if anything happened to him, you had the evidence to take down his enemies.”

Shock zapped into her neural receptors. “That’s not true. I don’t know anything. We weren’t romantic, and I was most definitely not his partner.”

“You will understand that I cannot simply take your word for this.”

Brooke wanted to ask the man if he’d killed Scott. She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it. And yet she couldn’t ask with Amy sitting there and crying. The poor kid was already traumatized.

“I can’t tell you anything when I don’t know anything. But I can promise you that this child knows absolutely nothing—why don’t you let her go? You have me, in spite of the fact that I can’t do anything for you.”

He laughed. “Ah, Miss Sullivan. I begin to understand why Mr. Lloyd was infatuated with you. Charming. Shrewd. And very beautiful.”

Brooke’s stomach dropped. Nausea rose in her throat. No. You control your reaction. You will never be a victim again. Fight.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Mister….?”

“Surely you have guessed by now, Miss Sullivan.”

“I truly haven’t. How could I?”

“Persistent, aren’t you?”

“I’m only speaking the truth. I don’t know you, I have no idea what Scott was involved in, and hoping I can tell you anything is going to prove fruitless for you.”

“Then you can tell me where the files are.”

A flush rose on her skin. “Files? What are you talking about?”

He tilted his head to study her. “Ah, finally, something gets a reaction. The files, Miss Sullivan. The ones that your lover deleted off his computer after making a copy. Where is the copy?”

She didn’t think that lying about it was going to do her any good at this point. She clearly wasn’t good at lying, and he could tell that she knew something. If she continued to insist, then he would never believe her about anything she said.

And maybe he wouldn’t anyway, but she wasn’t going to lie about something that so obviously made her look guilty. “It might be in a book that Scott returned to me the day he died. But I don’t know that for sure, and I don’t have the book anymore. The military has it.”

“The military? You mean that rather large man you entertained at your apartment the other night?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

He shook his head. “Well, this is regretful.” He pressed a button on the arm of the seat beside him and said something in Spanish. The car started to move, gliding away from the marina.

“Where are we going?” Brooke burst out, her fear getting the better of her.

“Columbia, Miss Sullivan. You had better hope your military man is willing to negotiate—or that you remember some of the information you claim to have forgotten—or you will not enjoy your little trip in the least.”