He’d never understand why some men got a rush from making anyone feel small and weak. Ella’s reaction to him after he’d changed into the man from her nightmares made his skin crawl. It wasn’t’ the first time he’d experienced that reaction when he went undercover, but this time it felt personal.

Everything with her felt stronger than it had before. He knew what he needed to do, and he’d never hesitated to get the job done—and he wouldn’t this time—but he couldn’t escape the feeling that this was going to cost the little bit of his soul he’d managed to hold on to.

Cory was waiting for him and Mick when they came down the fire escape. Kaylee and Ella were going out the front of the building and would be heading to a bar where one of the men that Cockram employed would abduct Ella. Mick hadn’t liked that Kaylee was putting herself on the line. He’d prefer that she stay behind her computer, which was dangerous enough.

But Kaylee did her own thing, something that Mick was still adjusting to. Thinking about their argument almost brought a smile to Linc’s face. There was something to be said about watching a strong woman take on a man like Mick and not back down.

“Is everyone in place?” Mick asked as they approached Cory.

Cory was an inch or two taller than Linc and wore his coarse black hair cut close to his head. He looked all business tonight, but normally Cory had an easy smile and was one of the best friends Linc had.

“Dude, you look like a douchebag with that gold chain.”

“Don’t I know it,” Linc said, taking the small earpiece Cory held out to him and putting it in his ear.

“Testing.”

“Got it,” Linc said. “There’s a chance I’ll have to lose the earpiece once I get to the pick-up location. I’ll be in touch through back channels.”

“Sounds good. Cade is there somewhere,” Mick said. “I think he’s in position. Use him if you need to.”

“I will,” Linc said. “I spoke to the Director earlier about an interesting conversation my dad and I had, but can you follow up and see if he thinks my family might be compromised?”

“No problem. Anything I can help with?” Mick asked.

“Not yet. But I might have to get rid of my public persona,” Linc said.

Mick raised both eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“No. Which is why I spoke to the Director. My father’s company had a hack that went after my private holdings,” Linc said.

“Interesting. I’m guessing the Madrid apartment was on the list.”

“Every place we use is,” Linc said.

“Okay. I’m going raise this up. Make sure Truehart looks into it. I think Kaylee should be able to do a back trace,” Mick added. “She’ll need something to keep her busy until Ella is out again.”

“If you need access—”

“Kaylee will hack her way in. See exactly how they got through and what they took,” Mick said.

“Thanks.”

“That’s what brothers are for,” Mick said. “Don’t let this mission get personal. What happened in the past doesn’t matter now.”

“I know,” Linc said.

“Good. You ready?”

“As ever,” Linc said.

Mick nodded and Linc opened the back door to the building, stepped out into the alley and walked away without a backward glance. It was a cool November evening and he felt the chill all the way to his bones. He wished he had on his heavy pea coat instead of this long, leather duster, but that wasn’t the kind of coat this man wore.

He walked around the front of the building and down two blocks where he’d left his Bentley Mulsanne. It was newly purchased and was a thing of beauty. He’d sprung for bulletproof glass on the windows, and the highest-powered engine available. The car was made for speed. He drove through the Georgetown neighborhood where Ella’s apartment was located across town toward the Crystal City area where Kaylee and Ella were going.

Linc didn’t allow himself to think of anything but becoming Cockram. He slowly let the last vestiges of Linc Garrison fall away. Sinking instead into a man who grew up hard on the streets, forced to learn the best way to survive, trading others to keep himself safe. He punched on the radio and heard the music that Cockram liked to listen to. It had been years since Linc had killed him, so the music wasn’t current, but that suited him. Reminded him to keep focused on what he needed to do.

He pulled the Bentley to a stop at a park a short walk from the bar, waiting for his guy to bring Ella to him. He got out of the car that made him feel like a sitting duck and moved into the shadows.

“Two in position.”

“Affirmative. We’re a go,” Mick said.

John Cockram had been a smoker, so Linc reached into one of the pockets of his coat and started to take out the pack he kept there when he heard a noise behind him. Silently he turned and grabbed the lurking man by the throat, looking down into eyes that were wide with fear.

* * *

Ella had to fight her instinct to run. Knowing she was a lot safer than she’d been the last time she’d been in Diavolos’s hell didn’t really reassure her. She knew how hard it was to physically escape that place, and she was very afraid she was going lose what little of her humanity she’d managed to scrape back together.

“We’re supposed to be on a girl’s night out,” Kaylee said.

But Kaylee was tense too. The two of them weren’t the type to hang out in a bar and drink wine and talk about… “What should we talk about?”

“You’re the society blogger,” Kaylee pointed out with a smile.

“That’s right, I am,” Ella said, but she felt so far removed from the life she’d made for herself.

“I’m not much of a wine drinker,” Ella said as the waitress dropped off their drinks.

“Me either,” Kaylee admitted.

They were going to screw this up by how tense they were acting. Anyone who looked at the two of them was going to know something was up.

She took a deep breath. If she was going to put her life on the line—and let’s face it, that’s what she’d agreed to—it was time to start acting the part. She glanced around the bar. There were a lot of groups of women and the usual after-work crowd from the nearby industrial parks.

“Have you started thinking about where you’re going to live now?” Ella asked.

“I thought I’d stay with you for a while longer,” Kaylee said.

“Yeah, but you haven’t been staying with me, have you? You’ve spent the last two nights with Mick.”

“Yeah…that’s… I don’t know,” Kaylee said, looking over her shoulder and then leaning in closer. “I’m wearing an earpiece and he can hear this conversation,” Kaylee said under her breath.

Ella almost laughed. “You haven’t talked about it yet?”

“No. And I’d rather not do it like this,” Kaylee said.

“Fair enough,” Ella said. She was happy that Kaylee and Mick had formed a bond while he’d escorted her back from Madrid. But she knew Kaylee pretty well, and had a feeling it was going to take a while for her to be secure with Mick because of her upbringing.

“Anything new from your d—Dirk?” Ella asked.

“Nothing,” Kaylee said. “And I don’t think this is the kind of thing that women talk about.”

“I think it is,” Ella said. “That’s one of the things I hear a lot on my blog. Women need a place to be honest about relationships. We all put a spin on our own stuff to make it seem not as bad as it is. Like me and my past. I could have not talked about it, but by doing so, it made it easier for others to come forward.”

Kaylee nodded. Her father had sold her out to Diavolos and Ella knew that her friend was trying to cope with the aftermath. “I never knew either of my parents, they were gone before I was even a few hours old so I…I can’t say I know what you’re going through, but I do know that he’s not worth the pain you’re feeling.”

“Me too,” Kaylee admitted. “He’s been gone from my life for so long I don’t know why… I just always thought that he wasn’t as shitty as his actions made him seem.”

“I know,” Ella said, reaching across the table to take Kaylee’s hand. “But now you can move on. Don’t waste any more energy on the fantasy of what your dad could be.”

“Is that what you do? Move on?” Kaylee asked.

“I try to. It’s easier, because I never had anyone to miss. For me, I’ve always just had myself to rely on. And Bri.”

“And me,” Kaylee said.

“That’s right. We’ve always had each other’s backs, which is the reason I’m in this bar tonight.”

“You know I’m not going to let you down,” Kaylee said.

Ella knew her friend meant that. But this was Diavolos they were talking about. He knew more about destroying lives than anyone else she’d ever met. He took what he wanted and left nothing behind but husks. She’d lived through it, and it was bringing back all sorts of PTSD for her to deal with.

Normally she’d whip out her camera and do a video blog to get all these feelings out of her head and share them. But she had the feeling that she shouldn’t be doing a live video while she was waiting to be kidnapped and taken undercover. “I’m scared,” Ella said. “I have been for years, and now I realize that the ways I’d thought I’d changed were just me lying to myself. I’m still that scared little girl.”

“Me too,” Kaylee said. “When I was on the way back here from Madrid I kept hoping that Dirk wasn’t who I thought he was… It was just like my childhood. And all that stuff I told myself about not needing him was just self-protection.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Ella said. Knowing Kaylee would get that she meant this mission. She was doing it because Diavolos needed to be stopped. He needed to be taken out of play so that no more lives were harmed by him, and the dark web marketplace where he bought and sold people like they were commodities was shut down.

“I know. That’s why I asked,” Kaylee said as she tipped her head to the side and then looked up at Ella. “It’s time.”

She was supposed to go into the bathroom with Kaylee so the men that Linc hired would take her. She took a deep breath. Even though she knew what was going to happen, it was still scary. Kaylee had explained earlier that the abduction needed to take place in public so that it looked legit.

She didn’t say anything else. She appreciated that Kaylee had been here for her while she waited, but from now on she was on her own. And though Kaylee had her back and men like Linc and Mick were going to be keeping her under surveillance, she knew the truth. She was on her own, trying to outwit the devil.

* * *

Linc pulled his punch at the last moment, the kid standing next to him was about ten, maybe a little older. He had the skin-and-bones look of someone who lived on the street. He had tight, black curly hair and his eyes had a slight almond shape. Linc held the kid by his collar.

“What are you doing here?”

The kid yanked hard against Linc’s grip before pulling a knife with his left hand. Linc grabbed the kid’s wrist and then threw him down on the ground. He came down hard on the kid, but just to rattle him, not hurt him. He put his knee in the kid’s chest and then brought the kid’s hand holding the knife down hard on the ground until the knife fell free.

“I’m not going to ask again,” Linc said.

“You Cockram?” the kid asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“There’s a guy in the alley,” the kid said. “I wouldn’t have cut you, I just don’t like being touched.”

Linc nodded. He stood and backed away. He was spoiling for a fight, his entire body ready for it. “I went easy on you.”

The kid didn’t say anything else, just retrieved his knife. “That way.” The kid gestured toward the back of a strip mall, and Linc was aware of the kid ghosting out of there as he pocketed his cigarettes and reached around to the small of his back to check that his holstered weapon was easy to get to.

“Two here. Might be a trap, but someone is waiting in the alley to speak to Cockram. Do you have eyes on our target?”

“One here. Yes. Go and check it out. Where are your men?” Mick asked.

“Alley. They’ll go in through the window and take her out the same way.”

Linc preferred to use mostly petty criminals who’d come up through the juvenile justice system. Boys who’d never made a choice to have a different life when they’d been released from incarceration. They didn’t work directly for Grimaldi, but he used them whenever he was on a mission like this. But tonight he hadn’t had time to assemble his normal team and had to make do with two men he wasn’t sure he could trust completely. One to do the snatch, and the other to help out at Cockram’s home base.

The street light was out and it was impossible to see what he was facing. He pulled his weapon as he moved the shadows on the left, carefully to stay close to the wall and keep hidden.

“That’s far enough, Cockram.”

Linc stopped. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“What is this shit? You know better than to contact me here. If you’re interested in the product, you can bid online like everyone else,” Linc said.

“I represent someone who wants to keep the sale private. And he will make it worth your while,” the man said.

“How much?”

He named a figure that was three times what Linc knew the last model who’d been kidnapped and auctioned had made on the dark web. “Who is your client?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the man said. “Do we have a deal?”

Linc wasn’t sure if this was a trap—if he was being kept in the alley so that Ella could be stolen from him. Was this Diavolos or some other bidder that wanted her? “I’ll let you know. I have another client who has expressed interest. Message me privately online. Don’t contact me like this again.”

“If you drag this out, the price will decrease,” the man in the shadows said.

“I doubt that,” Linc said. “She’s worth a lot of money.”

He hated talking about Ella like this. But he knew the men who were interested in her weren’t going to back down. She was the kind of cash cow a man like Cockram would milk for everything he could.

“What about the sister?” the man said from the shadows.

“I’ve only got a line on the one,” Linc said.

“The amount triples if you get the other one too.”

He knew Ella wasn’t going to give up her sister, and no one in the online community had seen been able to pinpoint her location since they’d escaped Diavolos’s operation over ten years ago.

“How will I find you if I get both?” Linc asked. His vision was adjusting to the darkness of the alley and he could make out the shape of the man standing a few feet from him. He appeared to be wearing a leather bomber jacket and a baseball cap. He recorded as many details as he could as the man stepped forward, his face still hidden by the brim of the hat.

He held out a business card, and Linc took it before the man turned and walked out of the alley. He reached up and tapped his earpiece. “Four, you got the guy exiting the alley? Bomber jacket and baseball cap.”

Frank Ross was the Ares Team logistics guy and sniper. He spent a lot of his time keeping an eye on all of them.

“Negative. No one matching that description exited. Three?”

“I’m on the footage from the security cams and the ATM across the street. I’ll see what we can find.”

Linc moved down the alley and found the cap and leather jacket on the ground. He was careful not to step into the street. Instead, he walked back toward his car to wait for his delivery.

“One here. Any ideas on who that was?” Mick asked.

“None,” Linc responded. “But he was watching me for a while.”

“Cover blown?” Mick asked.

Linc didn’t know. He didn’t think so, but it might mean that someone wanted him out of the deal. He’d been the one to set it up, but it wouldn’t be the first time that he’d been cut out of the action by another player on the black web.

“Not sure. Might have a rival looking to steal my deal. I think we have to play this out. I’m not willing to walk away,” Linc said.

“Me either. Six has gone silent. Three? Do you have visual?” Mick asked.

There was silence on the line and Linc held his breath, waiting. He was back at his car and didn’t see his guys. The ones who should be bringing Ella to him.

“They’re in the ladies’ room. I’m headed to the hallway, got delayed at the bar, but we’ve got the alleyway covered. We’re staying back to allow your guys room to move.”