Chapter 10
They sat outside of a run down house as Ghost looked down at his phone screen. “The tracker says she’s in here,” he finally said, looking out at his surroundings. The tracker had taken them well out of the city limits of Paris and into the country side, fields of nothing surrounding the house. There were bars on the outside of the windows, as if guaranteeing that no one could get out.
“Looks like they have this place locked down,” Wolf murmured as his eyes scanned the property.
“If they have locks on the windows, I can guarantee the doors are locked while they’re inside as well,” Ghost said. A man walking to a van a few yards away caught his peripheral vision. “Look, there’s the blue van.”
The man puffed on a cigarette as he went to the back of the van and opened the door, yanking out Josephine, her friend, and two other teen girls. The fear and tears on Josephine’s face made Ghost angry, both at her and at the bastards responsible. He’d kill everyone in that house to get her and would deal with the consequences later. No one touched his family.
“We should trail them. Even if they do lock the doors, we need to get inside before they’re locked again. I’m sure the back door is unlocked to bring in the girls, but it’s also probably heavily guarded,” Wolf said.
“Noted,” Ghost replied, watching as the man pushed the frightened girls toward the house, laughing at them as they cried. He made a mental note to put a bullet through the guy’s head when he got the chance.
They got out of the car, quietly closing the door to not alert anyone of their presence. Once the man rounded the corner of the house, the three men quickly moved to the van, pausing when they saw a man in the wing mirror.
“Wait a second,” Ghost whispered, nodding toward the mirror. The two men stepped behind him and waited as Ghost crept closer. The man inside the van bobbed his head along with the music faintly playing on the radio as he smoked what smelled like marijuana. Ghost’s heart pounded in his chest, so loud that he was almost convinced the man could hear him coming. He inched closer to his oblivious target as the man took another drag from his smoke. Ghost yanked the door open and pointed the rifle at him.
“Get out of the van,” he ordered.
The man laughed and held his hands up, but got out of the van, grunting when Ghost threw him to the ground. “Who the hell are you and what’s your problem?” the guy complained in a thick accent.
“Take me to my sister,” Ghost demanded, holding the muzzle of the gun against the guy’s temple.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Ghost pulled out his phone and pulled up a picture of Josephine. “Her” he said, thrusting his phone into the man’s face. He looked at it for a few moments and smiled.
“Ah yes. That beauty is going to make Sebastian so much money,” he said and laughed. Ghost kicked him hard in the ribs, forcing him to turn over onto his back. Ghost put his foot on the man’s throat and pressed down.
“You take me to my sister or I’ll crush your fucking windpipe,” he growled. The man gripped Ghost’s ankle as he gasped for air, but didn’t speak. Ghost pressed down some more until the man coughed.
“Okay,” he gasped. Ghost let up a little.
“How do I get in the house?”
“You’ll never get in—”
“How do I get in?” Ghost asked again, pressing down harder.
“Okay, okay,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “The back door is always unlocked, but you won’t get through the kitchen alive.”
Ghost yanked him up off the ground by his shirt and pushed him forward. “I bet you I will,” he said and motioned for Wolf and Léon to follow.
They walked to the backdoor with Ghost occasionally pushing the guy forward whenever he’d stall. “I’m not trying to get myself killed,” the man hissed as he walked up the stairs to the porch.
“If I don’t get to my sister, them killing you will be the least of your worries,” Ghost muttered, pushing the guy forward again. The man walked through the door and was greeted with cheers until they saw Ghost, Wolf, and Léon behind him. They all drew their guns and glared at the men.
“Qui sont-ils?” one of the men barked in French. Ghost grabbed the man from the van by the collar and held his gun to his head. The opposing men took a step forward, menacing snarls on their face as they gripped their weapons tighter. Adrenaline coursed through Ghost’s veins. They were greatly outnumbered; getting out of this one situation would be a challenge, but it was nothing he didn’t think he could handle.
“Where is my sister?” Ghost finally asked. The men continued to stare at him without a word, probably unable to understand what he’d said. Léon stepped forward and began speaking to the men in French, which only seemed to agitate them as they cocked their weapon and inched closer.
“How about you let my friend go and we can talk man to man?” a bald man with tattoos on his head said. Ghost looked warily at his hostage and ground his teeth, pushing him away. The man stumbled on his feet before dashing out of the room, leaving Ghost vulnerable. I hope this doesn’t backfire on me.
“So where is she?” Ghost asked again, his tone tight as his impatience grew.
“You shouldn’t have come here, boy,” one of them said as they stepped up to Ghost. “You leave now or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“I’m not leaving without her. So you either tell me where she is or I’ll go look for her myself when I’ve killed every single one of you,” Ghost responded, not flinching when the man pulled out a blade and put it to his throat.
“Tough guy, eh? And how will you kill us? There’s three of you and many of us,” he said, waving his hand around the room. Ghost looked to Wolf, who gave him a subtle nod in response. In a quick movement, Ghost popped the blade from the man’s hand into his own and put him in a choke hold, pressing the blade against the man’s throat.
“Holy shit,” Léon exclaimed as the men around them grew anxious, tightly gripping their weapons.
“I’m not going to ask again,” Ghost murmured. “Where the fuck is my sister?”
“I don’t know where she is,” the man replied, his tone arrogant. “I’ll give you one last chance to walk out of—”
“Go,” Ghost said to Wolf and Léon. Wolf shot two men in the chest before they could react with Léon following suit. With one hand, Ghost shot three men while using his hostage as a human shield. Two men laid injured on the floor, begging not to be killed as Ghost turned his attention back to the man he still held at knife point.
“Are you going to answer my question now?” he asked.
“I don’t even know what the whore looks like,” he sneered. Ghost kicked him in the back of the legs to bring him to his knees.
“She isn’t a fucking whore,” he growled, thrusting his phone into the man’s face. “Where is this girl?”
The man looked at the picture and smirked. “Ah, the new package. There’s no way we can let you walk out of here with her. She’s a gold mine.”
“I’m not asking for fucking permission,” Ghost said, hitting the man at his temple with the butt of his rifle, knocking him out cold. Turning to Wolf and Léon, he nodded. “Let’s go.”
They carefully walked through the house, taking down any target that drew a gun at them as they passed. He fought the urge to call out her name, as he didn’t want to risk being ambushed before he got to her. This mission was already dangerous enough. One wrong move and it was over for all of them.
“Myles!” he heard behind him. He quickly turned at Josephine’s voice to see her and Pia being whisked back out of the house by Sebastian.
“Josephine!” Ghost called out, running to the back out the house and out the back door. They were shoved back into the blue van where a man was already waiting with it running. They peeled out of the yard before Ghost, Wolf, and Léon even hit the ground. “Shit!”
“Get to the car!” Léon exclaimed, making a run for the driver’s side. The men raced to the car and jumped inside, rushing to catch up to the van before they lost it. Ghost’s heart raced in his chest as they tailed the van. They sped down the country roads and headed back to the city, weaving in and out of traffic as the van tried to evade them.
“Maybe we can try to take a shot at one of the tires to get them to stop, eh?” Léon suggested, glancing at Ghost as he accelerated to a speed dangerously too high for street traffic. Ghost’s gaze locked onto the police car sitting in an alley as they zoomed past it, watching it in the car mirror as it peeled out onto the road behind them with its blue lights flashing.
“I can’t risk that. That could be fatal if timed wrong. Pretty sure they’re not strapped to anything. The girls could be killed at impact,” Ghost responded idly. “Looks like we have company.
Léon glanced in the rearview mirror. “Shit.”
“Shit?” Ghost looked at him with a raised brow. “Why shit? At least when we catch this bastard, he’ll pay for what he’s done.”
“I would’ve much rather put a bullet in his forehead, but if you’d rather go about it the legal way after we’ve killed nearly a house full of men, so be it,” he responded in a huff.
They were quickly approaching the Point d’léna bridge, the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance. As much as Ghost wanted to marvel at the famous landmark before them, now wasn’t the time to lose focus. The van suddenly swerved into oncoming traffic in an attempt to pass the car in front of it. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Ghost watched the van crash into another delivery vehicle, sending it skidding across the road and onto the sidewalk where tourists and locals alike stood to look at the river. The pedestrians all screamed as they dodged out of the way. Ghost felt his stomach drop as he continued to watch in horror as the van crashed through the concrete railing and off the bridge into the Siene river.
“No!” Ghost yelled as Léon skid to a stop, barely missing the car in front of him by hair. People gathered at the railing, everyone talking in panicked voices while trying to call for help. Ghost was out of the car in an instant, the police on his tail as he ran to the gaping space in the railing.
“Freeze, sir!” an officer yelled with his gun drawn.
“I can’t!” Ghost exclaimed, already pulling off his shirt.
“Sir, you need to stop what you’re doing!”
“My sister and her friend were kidnapped and they’re in that van!” Ghost yelled back. The officer lowered his weapon slightly and looked over his shoulder toward the other cop, who only looked at him in confusion. “Just get us some help. I’m going to get my sister.”
“Hey, take this!” Léon yelled. Ghost looked over his shoulder to see him running toward him with a hammer.
“I’ll definitely make good use of this,” Ghost mentioned, taking the hammer from him.
“Well, if you don’t end up needing it, at least use it to clock that bloody asshole in the head on my behalf,” Léon said.
Ghost gave him a small smile as he took the hammer. “Will do,” he said, tucking it into his pants with the hook resting on his waistband.
Before the officer could stop him, Ghost ran toward the opening and jumped. Adrenaline coursed through his body, sending his mind into autopilot as soon as he broke through the water. The van sunk a lot quicker than he expected it to, causing anxiety to fill him. He didn’t have much time to get to her and his window of opportunity grew smaller the deeper the van sunk. Diving wasn’t new to him; he’d done it countless of times in missions. But he couldn’t expect the girls to know how to properly handle being in deep depths, especially when they were probably hyperventilating from the crash.
He swam as quickly as he could until he could reach the door handle of the back of the truck. He looked into the small window of the back of the door and saw the water was up to Josephine’s and Pia’s waist. Although he couldn’t hear them, he could see them screaming as they jerked at the chains that bound them to the bench they sat on. Ghost jerked on the door, finding it locked from the inside.
His hand brushed against the hammer at his waist. Thank you, Léon, he thought as he pulled it from his pants and began to hit the window. Though the window broke easily, it caused more water to rush into the back, shrinking his time even more. He reached inside and felt around until he felt the door handle and pulled, slightly relieved when the door finally popped open. More water rushed in and the girls screamed, still jerking at their chains.
“Please get me out of here!” Josephine cried with terror in her eyes.
“Calm down and listen to me,” Ghost ordered. “When I get you out of here, go out of the door and just swim up to the surface. Got it?”
They both nodded quickly. Ghost took a deep breath and went under, scanning the bed of the van to see where the chains were attached. Seeing where they were bolted to the floor, he took the hook of the hammer and slid it under the head of the bolt bounding Pia. After a few firm pulls, Pia’s 4 bolts were loose enough for her to pull them out. She swam out of the van as he turned to Josephine, coming up to take a breath of air from the remaining space they had.
“Myles, please!” Josephine sputtered, holding her face above water as best as she could as the remaining space filled up. “I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not dying today,” he said and took a deep breath before the van was completely filled by water, submerging them completely. Josephine held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut as Ghost worked on her bolts. He jerked and jerked, but they didn’t move an inch, sending him into panic mode.
This can’t be happening.
After everything he’d done to try to save her, this couldn’t be how this ended. She looked at him, her eyes begging him to save her and he couldn’t even get her bolts out. He braced his feet on the bottom of the bench, gripped the hammer handle as tight as he could and pulled with all his might, finally getting the bolt to move. Josephine released a stream of air bubbles as her eyelids fluttered, her hand weakly trying to grab onto him as the other held her throat. As much as he wanted to give his air to her, he couldn’t; otherwise he wouldn’t be able produce the energy he needed to get the other three bolts loose. He braced himself to pull out the second and third one, repeating his previous action until that one was out too. By the time he looked up before doing the first one, Josephine had gone still, her eyes closed as her hair waved around her head.
Don’t you fucking die on me, Josephine. Ghost pulled at the bolt with the last of his strength, feeling a small pop in his shoulder that sent pain radiating down his arm. He didn’t care; he continued pulling with all his might until it was finally loose enough for him to pull out. He secured Josephine in his arm, wincing as her dead weight rested on his now injured shoulder and swam out of the van and toward the surface. His lungs burned as he swam, willing himself to hold on just a few seconds longer. He had to do this; Josephine was counting on him.
He broke through the surface with a gasp, trying to get as much air into his lungs as possible. A boat was already waiting on the water when he returned to the surface. He swam over and passed Josephine to them before allowing them to pull him out of the water, wincing as the pain from his shoulder increased.
“I have to make sure she’s okay,” he said between breaths, crawling over to where Josephine lay. One of the divers stopped him.
“We got it from here. Let’s take a look at that shoulder,” he said. Ghost watched as they performed CPR on his sister, Pia watching in the corner of the boat as she huddled in a blanket in tears. Sirens sounded from the bridge above them as they moved closer to shore, two medics alternating between doing chest compressions and breathing into Josephine’s mouth. Her skin was pale and cool to the touch when he held her hand. Come on, Jojo.
Paramedics rushed to the boat as soon as they arrived to shore, helping Pia off the boat and relieving the medics. Ghost refused to leave his sister’s side as they continued to work on her, the chances of survival growing dimmer with each passing minute. A mixture of anxiety, anger, and fear brewed inside of him as he watched.
“Come on, Jo,” he said, rubbing her hand between his. After another twelve minutes, they stopped and a gentle hand rested on Ghost’s uninjured shoulder. The paramedics looked at him with sympathetic eyes and shook their heads. Josephine was gone.
“No,” he whispered, looking down at his sister as grief and anger came to the forefront of his emotional tidal wave. “No!”
This couldn't be how it ended. After all he'd done to try and save her, it still wasn't enough. She had her whole life ahead of her with graduation in a couple of months. His mind reverted back to her smile as she stood in front of her mirror in her cap and gown. We’re all we got, he'd told her, which was true. Without their mother, it was just the two of them and he'd failed her. It was a failure he couldn't accepted.
With tears in his eyes, he moved over her chest and began compressions once again. “We’re all we got, Jo,” he said, right before he breathed into her mouth. “You can't leave me now.”
His shoulder ached with each motion, but he grit his teeth through the pain. He only needed her to wake up. Everything would be okay if she'd just wake up.
“Please, Jo,” he said through gritted teeth, a single tear rolling down his cheek. Every single memory he'd had of her flickered through his mind like a rainfall of Polaroids; from when their mom first brought her home, when she first learned how to say his name and even the most recent ones of them teasing each other and her being upset with him. It wasn't until now that he realized how much of an impact she'd had in his life after the few years she’d been with him and he'd be damned if he allowed her to be taken from him.
The gentle hand appeared on his shoulder again. “Sir, she’s—”
Josephine coughed up water and rolled away from him, throwing up on the deck. Hearing her gasp for breath was music to his ears. Paramedics rushed over to her and quickly put an oxygen mask on her as they loaded her onto a stretcher and carried her off the boat.
“You did good, SEAL,” Wolf said when Ghost finally got off the boat.
“You fellas are military men?” Léon asked in wonder. “That explains a whole lot of things.”
Ghost chuckled. “I can never thank you enough for your help, Léon,” he said, clasping the man’s shoulder. Léon gave him a small smile.
“I needed to give your sister the chance my daughter didn't get,” he answered, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and straightened his posture. “Um, so did you give him a good whack with the hammer on my behalf?”
Ghost hadn't even thought to see if the man was still alive when he'd rescued the girls, but he was probably long dead if he hadn't surfaced by now. With everything Léon had been through over the last decade or so trying to catch this man, the least Ghost could do was give him the closure he sought.
“Sure did,” Ghost answered. “Took the hook and sank it right into the back of his head. Didn't even know what hit him.”
“Fuck yeah!” Léon looked up to the sky. “You hear that, baby? Daddy said he’d catch him and he did it!”
Ghost’s heart ached for the mourning father. He could've been experiencing the same grief had things had a different turn of events. He’d forever be grateful to the man that risked his life to help him save his sister.
“So what now, Léon?” Wolf asked. “You've finally caught the bad guy; what's the next chapter of your life going to be?”
He put his hands in his pockets and smiled. “It's time to get back to a normal life.” He paused for a moment. “To finally live again. That's what my Abby would've wanted.”
With a final handshake to both Ghost and Wolf, Léon turned and walked down the road to his car alone. Ghost watched as he drove away. God speed, Léon. Thank you for everything.
“So…” Wolf started. “You realize he was our ride, right?”
Ghost blinked. In the chaos of it all, it had completely slipped his mind and here he was watching the man drive off in the sunset.
“I'd call you a cab, but…” He pulled his damaged phone from his pocket with a grin. “Didn't make it.”
“Tragic,” Wolf said with a chuckle. “Well, guess we better hitch a ride in the ambulance. You need that shoulder looked at anyway.”