Chapter 35

Six guns aimed at Josh’s head. Five men, one woman, all of them young, irrationally attractive, and glaring at him with fight in their eyes. He should’ve been scared shitless, but the cold blood settling around his heart suspended him in a state of shock.

He’d just killed a man. Even as he feared God and shunned evil, he knew without a doubt he’d do it again. For her.

Liv watched him, her eyebrows in a stark V, her complexion pale and splattered with blood. “Lower your guns.”

The weapons lowered, disappearing in waistbands and pockets. Her friends, whoever they were, shifted closer, forming a bulwark at her back.

The Latino woman opened her mouth, and Liv held up a finger, silencing her and glaring at him. “How did you find me?”

“You might call it a lucky break. I call it divine intervention.” He flicked the safety on the gun. “Why’d you leave this in the Honda?”

“So you could return it to your mom.” Her eyes flashed. “I did not expect you to use it in a reckless gunslinging rescue.” She spoke low, repeating her question. “How did you find me?”

He tucked the gun into his waistband at the base of his spine. “I left as soon as I woke. Got to the front of the neighborhood, and there you were, in the van, only a few blocks ahead of me.” God hadn’t abandoned him after all. “I followed you.”

Her lips pinched in a line. “I freed you.”

The woman at her side covered her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh my God. He’s that missing football player from Baylor.” Her head snapped to Liv. “He’s one of us?”

They were three hours from Baylor in the middle of nowhere. It was surreal that news of his disappearance had traveled that far. And what did she mean, one of us? His vision prodded through the nighttime shadows, searching the faces of her gun-toting, backup team. “Who are you?”

Liv pulled out her phone and squinted at the screen. “I have about twenty minutes before Mr. E wonders why my phone isn’t moving.” She blinked up. “Josh, this is Camila.”

Camila gave him a chin lift. “I was her first delivery.”

The hand of darkness seemed to lift from the trees, the stars singing together and the world crashing into place in a duh-faced moment. He took in their handsome features, their muscular builds, and their youth. Some were of Spanish descent, and they all fit the same desirable mold, including Kate. All seven of her captives. Here. Free.

All the signs had been there. She had never shown remorse over the fate of her captives, refused to talk about rescuing them, never veered from her plan to deliver Kate. And Van’s inability to attend the transactions made it all possible.

Camila gave Liv’s hand a squeeze. “Liv gutted my buyer the minute he sent the transaction. I screamed like a maniac, covered head to toe in his blood.” She half-laughed, half-groaned. “When she calmed me down, she told me her story. Her history with Van. Her Mom. Her daughter.” A sad smile touched her lips. “I refused to abandon her, so she let me dispose of the body and gave me an anonymous e-mail address. I sent a phone number there, one that couldn’t be traced to me. A year later, she called. That’s when I met Ricky.”

The man closest to him held out a hand. “Ricky. Slave number two.”

Josh accepted the handshake, awe-struck, his tongue not functioning.

Another guy flicked up three fingers. “Tomas. Number three. Her favorite.”

Someone coughed, “Bullshit.” Then each of the remaining men stepped forward, their names threading around him, pulling him into their huddle. Luke, the only redhead, number four. Martin, who had to drag his eyes from Liv, number five. Tate, huge smile, number six.

A familiar blond head emerged through the wall of men, her hands twisting in the front of her dress. She peered up at the strangers with a shell-shocked expression. “I’m…my name is Kate.” She stared at Liv, her lips parted and eyes wide. “Does this make me number seven?”

Liv moved to her and cupped her face, bending to meet her eyes. “You okay?”

With a jerky swallow, Kate raised her chin and nodded. “I’m still trying to catch up. I…I had no idea. I thought I was going with that man.” Another swallow. “I didn’t expect you to kill him. Have you ever lost a slave?”

A deep inhale billowed Liv’s breasts above the cups of her bra, and a quiver skipped over her arm. “No, Kate. We are all here.”

We. They were all free, yet Liv was still a prisoner.

Liv smoothed Kate’s hair from her face and spoke to her in a low, rushed tone about her mom and daughter, the significance of the other slaves being there to help her, and why she does what she does. The whispered conversation went back and forth for a moment longer, and Liv turned Kate toward Camila. “I trust them with my life, Kate. They’ll protect you with theirs.”

Camila embraced Kate in a hug. “Finally, a girl. And blond?” She glanced at Liv. “Still hunting in the border towns?”

“Until Josh.” Liv moved to the hood of the sedan and picked through the cash, weapons, and phones that had been gathered from the dead men’s pockets. “Kate’s buyer wanted blond and innocent. Took Van a year to find her in the southern slums.” She turned toward Kate. “Your brothers were protective of you, but they’re drug dealers, and they’re involved with some really bad people.”

Kate’s face pinched. “I know.”

“It’ll be fine.” Camila grinned and waved a hand at the men. “You can help me air out the testosterone in our house.”

Josh startled. “You live together?” Were they still considered missing?

Ricky strode around the buyer’s sedan and shoved a lolling arm into the trunk. “We come from broken families and ghettos who wrote us off as runaways.” He slammed the lid shut. “If we return to our hellholes, it might initiate investigations that led to Liv.” He walked back toward the group, eyes on Kate. “You can’t go home.”

She stepped away from Camila’s embrace and rubbed her head. “I…I know.”

Martin pointed a finger at Tate. “You know, that guy threw a fit when we told him he was stuck with us. Look at him now. He’s been trying to fuck me since he moved in.”

Hands laced behind his head, Tate glared at him. “I come into your room at night, because the entire house can hear you shouting Liv’s name while you’re jerking off. You need to get over her, man.”

Martin flipped him off. “Fuck you.” His eyes lit with laughter then shifted back to Liv with unmistakable longing.

Liv’s shoulders squared under Martin’s gaze as she blinked up at Tate. “You look well.” She smiled. “Happier.”

“I am happy, Mis—” He coughed in his fist. “Liv.”

Tate was number six, so he would’ve been her last delivery, which she’d said was eight months earlier. Thick black hair and one of those boxy jaws women love, he smiled like he was posing for a camera, but it was warm and sincere when he regarded Liv. Josh believed she’d never had sex with him, but she knew him intimately. She knew all of their bodies intimately. With her hands. And her mouth.

Jealousy surged through his lungs and tightened his muscles. It was ill-timed and immature, but it couldn’t be helped. His fists clenched, itching to drag her away and pretend that none of this existed.

Ricky nodded at him. “Liv, your boy’s about to pop a vein in his forehead.”

She closed the distance, her shadowy gaze caressing his face, her nearness replenishing the oxygen in the air. She clasped his fists and uncurled his fingers, her hands sticky with blood.

“Why’d you free him without a transaction?” Martin crossed his arms over his chest.

Her eyes didn’t waver from Josh. “He’s stubborn, disobedient, and untrainable.”

He saw so much behind those words. Her spine straightened defensively, her lips flattened with fear, and her eyes hooded with affection.

“He failed the buyer introduction.” She raised their laced hands to her chest. “You would’ve failed the next one, too. It was only a matter of time before Mr. E and Van saw this—” Her lashes lowered, her gaze on their hands, and fluttered back up. “They would’ve killed you.”

A mass of regret clotted his throat. He didn’t mourn loving her, never that. But he wished he was smarter. There had to be a safe way to end this with her family protected, but he couldn’t see it.

The guys continued their road cleanup, but their attentions lingered on Liv. Without hesitation, his possessive heart led his lips straight to hers. With a hand on her neck, his other clasping hers against her chest, he kissed her deeply, nipping, licking, stealing her breaths, swallowing the hum in her throat. She was his, and he owned her mouth with a kiss that would leave no misunderstanding.

When he released her lips, her eyes clung to him, dark and hungry. Exactly how he wanted her. After all his questions were answered. “You freed me. Freed Kate. How does this save your mom and daughter?”

Camila paused in her effort to kick gravel over a patch of blood-stained dirt. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

The red slicking Liv’s cleavage gleamed in the headlights as her chest heaved. She unwound their hands and walked toward the van. “We need to wrap this up.”

He shoved his fingers through his hair, watching the uncharacteristic wobble in her retreating strides. “Camila, why didn’t she tell me about you? About this?” He gestured at Ricky and Luke, who were pouring jugs of acrid-smelling vinegar over the crime scene.

“She freed you,” she said, softly. “When you return, you’ll be swept into the investigation of your disappearance. Lots of interrogations.” She jerked her chin at the group. “How are you going to keep this a secret? We’re killing people, Josh. And Liv is crazy protective of our identities. In fact, she’s terrified her expressions or reactions around Mr. E and Van will give us away. So she lies to herself when she’s in that house. She thinks of us as dead.” She turned toward Kate, whose eyes were glazed and distant, and stroked her hair. “Until she needs us.”

Across the road, Liv leaned against the passenger door of the van, stripping her boots and wiping the blood from her chest with a t-shirt, her expression downcast and inwardly focused. He never once suspected this endgame, and he liked to think he knew her better than anyone else did.

He watched her with a renewed appreciation for her mystery. She was a complicated puzzle, one he planned to enjoy for the rest of his life.

A new life. What did that look like? He wouldn’t return to his old life without her. Yet, she’d sent him on his way as if she expected him to do just that. His spine tingled. “She wouldn’t have freed me unless she had a solution to save her family.”

Kate’s shoulders bunched as she watched Liv wrestle with the front clasps of the bodice. “She’s going to kill herself.”

His nostrils flared, his pulse spiking in objection. “Did she tell you that?”

Her head shook as she hugged herself. “I was just thinking about her behavior since we left the house. She cried a lot on the way here. Then her voice grew cold and weird. She started singing “Last Resort”, you know, that suicide song by Papa Roach. Definitely not her usual genre of music.”

Muscle-clenching fear shot through his legs. He sprinted toward Liv, watching her movements, his entire body aware of her fingers on her corset and her feet pacing in a tight circle. Did she have a weapon on her? Would she attempt it right there? In front of him?

He skidded before her and slapped her hands from her belly. “Do you have a blade under your clothes?” He wiggled the remaining hooks free, dropped the corset, and tackled her bra, searching the seams. “Answer me.”

“Fuck you.” She gripped his arms, tried to stop his hands from unclasping the back hooks.

The bra dropped, her breasts bare and streaked with red. No weapon. He dropped to her latex shorts, shoved them past her hips.

“What the hell are you doing?” She glowered down at him, kicking off her shorts like she was going to kick him.

Well, screw her. He was a breath away from tying her up. He opened the passenger door and shifted her until the door gawk-blocked her nudity from the nosy onlookers.

With her arm twisting in his grasp, he pulled her chest against him and pinned her back against the inside of the door, his voice low and vibrating. “Did you consider me in your suicide plans?”

A gasp shuddered through her. Good. Let her feel some of his wretched horror.

Her shoulders rose, and her eyes sparked. “Yes, I thought of you. So much so I made a covenant with my heart to stop cutting you with its jagged, damaged pieces.” She spat the words, her voice growing louder, her eyes watering. “Don’t you see how wrong I am? I’m a kidnapper. A murderer. A fucking monster.”

“I see all of you.” He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to her temple. “I claim every jagged piece of you.”

She shoved at his chest, tears escaping, screaming, “I freed you. For you.”

His feet dug in, his arms caging her against the door. He put his face in hers and stared directly into her eyes. “And I will free you. From you.”

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment. She seemed to be struggling to hold her composure in place. Then a heartbreaking sound keened in her throat. She grabbed him, clinging, her arms twining around his neck, her thighs climbing his body.

He hoisted her backside and wrapped her legs around his waist. His heart fractured and bled out, but as he held tightly to her trembling body, his fortitude strengthened and beat anew.

With her face against his neck, her rushed breaths stroked his skin. “Staying alive is the most selfish thing I’ve done. Every day I live risks them.” She gestured behind her. “And you. Mom. Mattie.”

“Yet you rise out of the storm, faultless and upright.” He gripped her chin, angled it until he won her eyes. “With every delivery, you release another captive. Then you return to your cell to begin the cycle again. The predators exist with or without you. You lure them out, and stop them from preying elsewhere.”

She peered up at him, lips parted, her body going soft in his arms.

He kissed her lips, treasured the salty tears there, and rested his forehead against hers. “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone. You were the first slave. The one who has never been freed.” He cupped her beautiful, tear-stained face, and traced the scar with his thumb. “Don’t give up. On me. On us.”

The hammer of her heart against his chest slowed with her breaths. She hugged him tighter, nodded. “Thank you for coming. For shooting that man.” She trailed a finger over his lips, watching the movement. “You saved me.” She glanced up. “You can mark that off your to-do list.”

She still needed saving, as did her family.

Camila strode toward them and held out Liv’s handgun. He snatched it before Liv could and set it inside the glove box, along with Mom’s PT-22.

Camila’s face creased with concern. “You won’t come home with us, will you?”

The others talked amongst themselves in the background.

“She sure as hell ain’t going to kill herself.”

“Fuck no. But she can’t go back to that house.”

“He’s right. We need her. Our lives, this whole operation, is fucking pointless if she’s dead.”

Liv untangled her body from his, wiped her cheeks, and shook her head. “I have to go back.”

Using the wet rag Camila held out for him, he wiped Liv’s face, neck, and arms, removing the remnants of blood. The others hovered around the sedan, grumbling, dismantling the cell phones, and pocketing the cash and other valuables that had belonged to the dead men.

Questions piled up in his aching head about the dangers of this operation. “What do you do with bodies and evidence?” He tossed the rag back to Camila.

“I’ll explain on the way back.” Liv grabbed a t-shirt from the passenger seat and pulled it on. “We need to go.”

“What do we do with the Honda?” He handed her a pair of jeans.

“Where is it?”

“About a quarter-mile back.” He pointed down the road. “Keys are in the ignition.”

“It’s yours,” Liv said to Camila as she dressed. “I was supposed to get rid of it anyway.”

With the bodies stuffed in the sedan and the road cleared of blood, they said their good-byes. The guys hugged Liv a bit longer than he thought was needed, but there was no talk of future contact. Everyone knew the stakes, and no one had a solution.

Kate lifted a hand to him and gave a small smile. Her demeanor seemed to already be transforming, her chin lifting higher, her shoulders relaxing. She would be fine. Probably better than fine with that fierce pack of protectors.

“I’m driving.” Liv climbed in the van, her gaze lingering on her friends.

Some of them slid into the buyer’s sedan. The others faded into the woods. Her expression was wistful as she watched them leave, her fingers curling around the wheel.

“You’ll see them again.” He would make sure of it. “Under better circumstances.” He hoped.

As he moved her extra clothes from the passenger seat to the floor, his hand brushed a folded piece of paper. He held onto it.

The van crunched along the gravel road, the same path he’d taken by foot in his race to catch up with her. At the time, he’d had Mom’s pistol out and ready with no intention of using it. But when he saw that gun aim at Liv, it was a terrible ache, a flashing of his own life, a loss of breath. There was no falter in pulling his trigger. No guilt. She was alive.

He put on his seat belt and unfolded the paper in his hand.

“Don’t read that.” She stared straight ahead, navigating the winding road, her expression lost in the darkness.

When he flicked on the ceiling lamp, she tried to grab the paper from his hand. He caught her wrist, pinned it to her thigh, and held up a letter that was addressed to Van.