5. Brook

5

brOOK

We drove for what seems like hours but I know was probably a half hour or so. The van was eerily silent. I could only hear the three men breathing, but they didn’t say much of anything. At one point, the smell of a cigar was strong, even through the cloth covering my head, and I started to cough.

“Roll down the window. Nobody wants to smell that,” one of the men said.

Other than that, nothing was said.

We traveled up a hill; I could tell by the way my body could not lean forward and the way I was tilted back. The terrain was not good, letting me know we did in fact go off road. And once we stopped, I had to walk a long way on uneven terrain. And now, here I am. Still clothed and covered.

“Take her mask off.”

“But—” someone starts, and the same man yells at him, “I said take it off.”

Someone trots toward me, and they take the mask off.

I blink at the light. Immediately I take everything in. There’s a man on a computer across the room. One man is smoking a cigar in the corner, and the other is standing next to me, looking at me formidably and as if he’s ready to do the bidding of whatever the other two tell him to do.

“Brook. May I call you Brook?” the man with the cigar asks.

I glare at him.

He laughs, and I know he’s enjoying this, the sick fuck. “Fine, I’ll talk. You listen. I know that you are Walker’s right-hand man, uh, woman. I also know that he has security codes that you can access. Codes that will get me into the world’s largest database of, well, let’s just say people I need to access. I want those codes.”

I don’t even blink; I just continue to glare at him. I knew when I hired on with Walker and the Ghost team that they were important and that they had enemies. I knew this could be a possibility one day, but I’ll be honest, I never thought it’d happen to me.

The man is getting frustrated with me. I’m sure he thinks because I’m a woman, I’m just going to give in and tell him what he wants to know. Well, I’m not.

He squats down in front of me and pushes the hair off my face. Instantly, I feel a rush of bile rise in my throat, but I push it down, not wanting to show any weakness because that’s what he wants. “Tell me the codes.”

I shake my head, side to side, slowly.

He starts to laugh, and the other two do the same. I’m caught off guard when his fist comes up and hits me across the cheek. I fall backward, and the other man sits me back up. He rips the tape off my mouth. They want to hear me scream. They think I’m going to tell them, but I’m not.

“I hear you’re important to Walker.”

I shake my head and wince at the movement. My head is pounding, and my vision is blurry, so I mutter, “I’m not. I actually quit today.”

His forehead creases. “You’re lying.”

I lower my head and clench my eyes together, trying to relieve some pressure. “I’m not.”

I can feel his breath on the side of my neck. “Well, since you quit, you can tell me.”

There’s no way to brace myself. Even though he’s pulled the tape from my mouth, I still have it around my wrist and ankles. “I. Won’t. Tell. You. Anything.”

I no sooner get the words out than I feel the steel toe of his boot against my ribs. I suck in a breath and roll to the side from the impact. But I don’t scream, I don’t beg, I don’t let out anything but a grunt.

“Give me her phone.”

The other man walks across the room and brings my phone back. “Open it,” he demands.

I shake my head, and he grabs me by the neck and holds the phone up to my face, using the face recognition software to unlock it.

He tosses me to the floor and walks away. The room is silent, until I can hear Walker through the speaker of the phone. “Brook? Is that you? Brook, baby, tell me where you’re at.”

The man laughs. “I’m sorry, Brook is not able to come to the phone right now.”

Walker’s intake of breath fills the room. His voice is filled with rage. “Rodriguez.”

I snap my eyes open and take in the surprise on the faces around me. They really have no idea who they’re dealing with. They don’t know how powerful Walker and his team really are. They have the world’s information at their fingertips.

The man recovers quickly. “Good, so you know who this is, and I don’t have to introduce myself. You have something I want, and I have something you want.”

“Put Brook on the phone.”

“I said...” the man starts, but Walker doesn’t let him finish.

“I want to talk to Brook now.”

The man brings the phone over and squats down in front of me. He holds the phone out.

“Hey, Walker.”

Walker’s voice is thick and soft. “Hey, honey. How you holding up?”

“I’m good. These three assholes are bullies, but I’m fine,” I tell him, wanting him to know that there’s three of them.

“Good, baby. That’s good.” He takes a deep breath. “I need you to hold on, okay? I’m going to get you out of there.”

“Walker, he wants the codes. Don’t give them to him.”

“You bitch!” the man holding the phone says. He points to the other guy, who pushes me backwards and kicks me again.

I scream, unable to hold it in.

“Brook! Brook! You fuckin’ bastard, you’re a dead man. Do you hear me? You’re dead.”

The man laughs. “Awww, and she said you didn’t care about her. It sounds like you do.”

“Damn straight I do. You give me Brook, and I’ll give you whatever you want,” Walker says.

The men are completely floored with the notion that he’s going to willingly give up the codes. Walker’s voice fills the room. “Unless you touch her again. You put your hands on her one more time, and you get nothing.”

“Fine. Send me the codes and I’ll send you her location. Thirty minutes.”

And then he hangs up. “Set a timer,” he tells the man on the laptop. “We’ll wait for the codes. If we don’t get them, we’ll take her apart, piece by piece.”

I lean down and rest my forehead on the dirty floor, concentrating on my painful breaths. Oh, Walker, what have you done? He’ll do it. He’ll give up the codes, I know he will. He’s that kind of guy. We’re like his family, and he’s protective of his family. I should have been paying attention. I should have done something to stop this from happening.