Chapter Twenty-Four

Rowan lay helpless on her back, hands pinned beneath her as she stared up at Montoya, pinned beneath his boot. Deep inside her the cold was beginning to thaw, the terrible, constant fear starting to melt beneath a rising tide of rage.

This piece of shit currently towering above her was a fucking coward, terrorizing her and all these women, keeping them bound and toying with them before he either killed them or sold them into a life of sexual slavery. All to get rich and make himself feel powerful.

Fuck. You.

She didn’t dare say it aloud, because she wasn’t stupid. But she let her eyes tell him exactly what she thought of him.

“What did Oceane and Anya tell you?” he pressed.

“About the attack in Mexico.” Her voice was rough, almost strangled.

His mouth tightened and he pressed down harder with his boot, compressing her ribcage. “About the business.”

She searched her memory, her brain working slower under the bombardment of fear. “Some offshore bank accounts. Assets.”

“What else?” His voice was hard, implacable.

Jesus, she didn’t know. What did he want her to say? “My case is against Ruiz. Not them.”

“I don’t care about Ruiz,” he snarled. “I care about what Oceane and Anya told you.”

Rowan shook her head, heart thudding. “I only know what they told me, about the finances and the attack. I’m not privy to whatever else they told the federal agents. I don’t know anything else.” How could she convince him that she was telling the truth?

He stared down at her for a tense moment, his face eerily blank. Then he removed his foot and lunged over to grab one of the women by the hair.

The prisoner cried out, her legs flailing as he dragged her along the floor of the container. Rowan cringed and scrambled into a sitting position. Montoya jerked the poor woman to a halt a few feet away from Rowan and wrenched her head back, exposing the line of her throat. Rowan’s stomach contracted, fearing he was about to take out his switchblade and slash her throat.

“What’s your name,” he demanded of the girl in English, the beam of his flashlight illuminating her young face.

Frightened brown eyes settled on Rowan, the buried shame in them making her heart twist. “Gabriela,” she whispered, her naked body shaking.

“And if you could have one wish granted right now, Gabriela, what would it be?”

She bit her lower lip, her shoulders hunching as tears clogged her voice. “I want to go home to my family.”

Rowan’s throat tightened to the point of choking her. This girl was barely out of her teens and she’d been ripped away from her home, her family, then abused and terrorized for however long by this bastard and his men. Now he intended to sell her off as a sex slave. God, she wished she had a gun so she could shoot him right in his disgusting face.

“Tell you what, Gabriela,” Montoya went on in a silky voice, stroking the muzzle of the pistol over her hair. Gabriela shuddered, made a distressed sound. “If Miss Stewart tells me what I need to know, I’ll let you go.”

Both Gabriela and Rowan jerked their gazes up to him in shock. He was lying. But Gabriela was clearly now clinging to that desperate thread of hope because she turned heart wrenching, hopeful eyes on Rowan. “Please,” she begged. “Please tell him. I want to go home.”

“Yes, Rowan,” he echoed, the gleam in his eyes making her ache to kill him. “Tell me.”

Helplessness flooded her. “I don’t know anything else,” she insisted.

“No?”

“I already told you everything I know,” she snapped, frantic to think of a way to—

He put the pistol to Gabriela’s temple and pulled the trigger.

Rowan jerked back, a scream locked in her throat as the opposite side of the girl’s head exploded into a red mist. The other captives screamed too, started crying.

With that cold, evil stare drilling into Rowan, Montoya flung Gabriela’s shattered head away from him. Her body toppled over and hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Rowan stared at the crumpled heap in horror. Christ. Christ, she was going to throw up. She gagged, was shaking so hard her bones hurt.

“Do I need to do that again to get you to talk?” Montoya asked, his tone almost bored.

Rowan struggled to find her voice. “I t-told you, I—”

He turned away, stalked toward the remaining women.

“No!” Rowan was on her knees now, shoving to her feet even though her legs wobbled. She wouldn’t let him hurt anyone else. She would body slam him, kick and bite. Do whatever she could to stop this.

The chirp of a radio made everything go still, even Montoya. Facing Rowan, he pulled it from his belt and answered. Whatever the man on the other end said made the women in the back gasp.

The beam of the flashlight was lowered, but Rowan could still see Montoya’s face. And the rage that contorted it.

He advanced on her slowly. She lost her bravado for a second, then braced herself and stood her ground. He was going to kill her now. She had to do whatever she could to fight for her life.

Maybe he saw the determination in her eyes, because he gave her a cold, almost admiring smile. “A bullet is too kind a death for a puta like you,” he sneered.

He shot out the hand holding the flashlight. Rowan ducked, the blow hitting her on the shoulder rather than the side of the head as he’d intended. But she lost her balance and fell, landing hard on her hip. By the time she’d scrambled into a sitting position, he was at the far end of the container.

“Adiós, chicas,” he said, then exited the container and slammed the heavy doors shut with a bang.

Rowan sat gasping, her heart hammering in her ears. What was happening?

His muffled voice came from beyond the closed doors, then she thought she heard his footsteps moving away. She swiveled to look at the others. Did any of them speak English? She didn’t know much Spanish, but she knew a few phrases. “¿Qué pasa?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

“No sé,” one of them answered in a frightened whisper.

But she got her answer soon enough, when she got up and tried to shove the doors open with her shoulder. She lurched hard to the left, slamming into the side wall when the container suddenly began moving.

What the hell? They seemed to be going upward.

And then it hit her.

A crane. Someone was lifting the container with a crane. Packing them onto the ship with the rest of the cargo.

****

Cradling his rifle in his arms, Mal leaned forward to get a better look through the Blackhawk’s open door as they neared the port. Another Hawk carrying the rest of the team was circling from the other direction, providing recon for the taskforce from the air. FBI and DEA agents were already on the ground, in the process of establishing a perimeter and hunting for Montoya and his crew, along with Rowan.

CCTV footage had backed up witnesses’ reports of the getaway vehicle there, and someone had seen a bound woman being carried toward one of the ships. Four huge cargo ships were currently berthed in the port. One of the enormous port cranes stationed on shore was hoisting a shipping container high above the second ship’s deck.

Mal scanned them as they circled overhead. Everything was in flux down there, crewmembers and port workers being evacuated from the area, making it impossible to spot Montoya. But with agents posted at all exits, every person was being checked.

To Mal’s left, Hamilton waved his arm to get everyone’s attention and spoke into his mic over the team frequency. “Fresh intel just came in. Montoya might have a shipment leaving from port. A human one.”

A deep, burning rage built inside Mal. Motherfucker. “Any word on Rowan?”

“Not officially. But it sounds like he might try to hide her with the others.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Montoya thought he could ship her off as part of his skin trade? He snapped his head back around, searching below them frantically. One clue. Something to give away her location. Anything. Where are you, Rowan?

His searching gaze snagged back on the suspended shipping container. It stuck out because it was the only one not stacked neatly on board the waiting ships. None of the other cranes were active. Could Rowan…? “What’s the story on that container?” Mal asked.

Hamilton craned his head to get a better look, switched frequencies to speak to the pilots before responding to Mal. “They’re taking us in lower for a good look.”

Maka got up and moved next to Mal, crouching to inspect the container. “Someone’s in the crane cab,” he said. Khan and Hamilton moved closer to see as well.

A man sat high up in the cab, hands appearing to be on the controls. He shouldn’t still be in there, not with the FBI and DEA clearing everyone else out. Leaving a container dangling like that was obviously unsafe. Was he just putting the container into position on top of the rest before he could shut down the crane?

Hamilton was back on the radio. Mal caught the moment when those gray eyes lifted and found his. Hamilton gave a shake of his head. “That crane’s not supposed to be operating,” he said grimly.

God dammit! Was Rowan in there?

Mal focused back on the container, his heart slamming. He had to fight to keep the sudden leap of emotion in check. “Get us down there.” If Rowan and the other women rumored to be held by Montoya were in there…

Hamilton nodded, was already talking to the pilots. The helo descended, coming in closer to the crane cab. The operator was still at the controls. Uniformed FBI agents were converging on the crane, but it was a hell of a long way up to the cab.

As Mal watched, the crane swung the container out further, moving it away from the ship. His muscles bunched, his whole body tensing. No. “Jesus, tell me he’s not gonna—”

The jaws of the clamp opened and dropped the container, sending Mal’s heart plunging into the water with it.