Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

“ I thought you said this gang was smart,” Abasi said as they sat in the SUV, watching one of the houses the Demons used for their drug operation. “If you’d shown me a satellite image of this neighborhood, I’d have pointed at this place and said, ‘That’s it; there’s the gang house.’ Amateurs.” He shook his head in disgust.

He had a point. With its boarded-up windows, smashed glass, and overgrown yard—the parts that weren’t filled with abandoned vehicles—the old wooden house looked derelict. The only thing in good repair was the wire fence, which had several signs attached saying: Private property, trespassers will be shot .

To Noah, the area didn’t feel inner city, which meant he’d spent far too long in the UK. The road was wide and straight, stretching into the distance. It was also in desperate need of repair. Houses were spread far apart, and there wasn’t any sidewalk, only unkempt grass verge. All the buildings they’d passed had been small, wooden, and in disrepair, many of them shielded from view of the road by trees and overgrown bushes. This wasn’t a neighborhood where folks got together for street barbeques. No, these people were big on minding their own business, and Noah doubted any of them had the Houston PD on speed dial.

Which, considering their situation, was a plus for the three of them.

“I’ve got the front,” Abasi said as he climbed out of the car.

“I’ll take the back.” Rodrigo followed him just as silently.

“Guess that leaves me as backup.” Noah joined them in the darkness. “Rodrigo, I’ll follow you. Abasi can take care of himself.”

“And I can’t?” Rodrigo adjusted the strap of his black backpack.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a badass too.” Noah rolled his eyes. “Remember, this is a bag-and-tag operation. No fatalities.”

Both men just looked at him, making no promises.

They kept low, moving fast and sticking to the shadows as they approached the property’s fence. There was no sign of any dogs, so they jumped over the wire barrier and into the yard. As the three of them spread out, Rodrigo held up a signal jammer and indicated that he was blocking all communication for the next ten minutes. The last thing they wanted was for the gang to call for reinforcements. He slipped the jammer into the side pocket of his backpack once he was done.

The small group split up, Abasi heading for the front of the house and Noah and Rodrigo for the back. They moved slowly and cautiously, keeping an eye out for any sign of movement. Or any attempts at booby-trapping the place. They found nothing. Either the Demons had become lax in protecting the house or Elle’s information was wrong.

Noah peered around the corner to the back of the building and held up a fist to signal Rodrigo to stop. Two men sat on the remains of an old porch. Both wore vests with Demon Brothers patches sewn onto them. One was vaping, and the other was scrolling on his phone. From their relaxed postures, neither was too concerned about security.

Looked like Elle wasn’t wrong after all.

Rodrigo gestured toward the guy vaping, and Noah headed for the other one. The gang members didn’t even see them coming. Before they knew what was happening, Noah and Rodrigo came up behind them and had them in matching choke holds. They were out cold within seconds. It took another minute to hog-tie them with the zip ties and slap duct tape over their mouths.

Noah stepped back and eyed the unconscious men, lying sprawled on their bellies, hands and feet bound. They weren’t going anywhere. He signaled to Rodrigo to cover the door with his weapon while Noah eased it open. There was no one in the kitchen.

As they stepped into the disused and filthy room, Abasi appeared in the doorway leading to the front of the house.

“One down in there,” he barely whispered before gesturing to a door that stood ajar. “Basement.”

The sound of a radio drifted up from below the house.

“Only one way in and out,” Noah said, just as quietly. “No way of knowing how many are down there. If we go down those stairs, it will be a bloodbath.”

“Are we sure we got all the guards up here?” Rodrigo asked.

Abasi curled his lip in disgust. “If you can call watching porn on a crud-encrusted couch guarding the place.”

Noah rubbed his jaw. “Rodrigo? Got any flash-bangs in that bag of tricks of yours?”

His smile blinding in the darkness, he took off the pack, dug inside, and withdrew four canisters. “How many do you want?”

“All of them.”

Rodrigo handed out the stun grenades. “This is gonna make a helluva noise. Here’s hoping we’re right about having disabled all the guys on guard duty.” He looked rueful. “Also, we probably should’ve done some recon on the nearby properties to see if any of them were gang-owned before we barreled in here.”

“Elle did a search,” Abasi said. “Do you think I would have walked in here without covering all the bases? What kind of agent were you?”

“The fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind.” Rodrigo grinned. “Ready?”

They pulled the pins, fully opened the door to the basement, lobbed the stun grenades down the stairs, and closed the door hard behind them.

The noise was phenomenal. Even upstairs, Noah’s ears were ringing when it was over. But they weren’t the ones incapacitated. As soon as the noise died down, the small team didn’t hesitate. They threw open the door and rushed down into the basement. Six men lay writhing on the floor, a couple with blood running from their ears. None of them were in any condition to fight back. The noise and bright lights of the stun grenades had rendered their senses useless. One guy in the corner was vomiting.

Needless to say, the group was easy to subdue.

Once they had them restrained, Noah looked around the large basement room. It was in much better condition than the house above. Someone had made sure the place was spotless and given a fresh coat of paint. Although their hard work was ruined now. A couple of tables had been overturned, but there was no mistaking the residue of cocaine and materials needed to cut it for sale. In the corner nearest the stairs sat heavy-duty metal shelves loaded with white bricks.

“They have this much coke lying around, and their security is beyond shit.” Abasi nudged one of the bound and gagged men with the toe of his boot. The man groaned and blinked up at him, trying to focus while still partially blinded by the flash- bang. “Pay attention,” he said to the gang member. “This is what happens when you get lazy and rely on your reputation to protect you.”

“Uh, they might not be as dumb as we thought,” Rodrigo said from the top of the stairs. “I hear motorcycles. Lots of them. Do we have a plan?”

One of the hog-tied Demons started to laugh and shout, all of it unintelligible behind the duct tape covering his mouth.

“Yeah.” Noah stepped over the laughing gang member. “Get the hell out of here.”

He and Abasi jogged up the stairs.

“Well, this was a complete waste of energy,” Abasi said as they ran through the kitchen and into the yard. “The rest of the gang will have them untied and back to work in no time.”

As they sprinted for their car, the distant motorcycle engines were suddenly drowned out by the wail of sirens. Before they’d even shut the doors properly, Noah had the car in gear, and they sped off in the opposite direction of the noise.

In the back, Rodrigo twisted in his seat to stare out the rear window. “Got a lot of lights coming this way.”

“That would be because I texted our friendly police detectives before we got out of the car and told them to get their asses here as fast as possible.” Noah grasped the steering wheel as they slid around a bend. “And before you panic, thinking I don’t know what I’m doing, I used a program Elle set up for the London office that disguises your cell number.”

“How did you know we’d be out of there before the cops arrived?” Rodrigo said.

“I didn’t.” Noah turned into a darkened street, heading back toward the city center.

“You didn’t?” Rodrigo sounded outraged.

In the passenger seat, Abasi chuckled. “Looks like we’ll be in plenty of time to meet that big rig after all.”

For the second night in a row, Annabelle woke with a scream.

Only this time, Noah wasn’t there to calm her.

Beside her, the bed was cold and empty.

A figure rushed into the room, and Annabelle screamed again. The lights came on, and Violet stood there, her gun sweeping the room.

“It was just a dream,” Annabelle managed to tell her. “Unless… can you smell smoke?”

“The building isn’t on fire.” Violet seemed disappointed to have to holster her weapon.

Running footsteps preceded Rochelle and Katrina, who rushed into the panic room with weapons drawn.

“Dream,” Violet said with disgust. “She’s fine.”

Annabelle brushed her hair away from her face, still disorientated from a nightmare in which they were all burning. She reached for the water bottle on the little shelf beside the sofa bed and gratefully drank while willing her heartbeat to slow the hell down.

“Where’s Noah?” Rochelle asked Violet the question on the tip of Annabelle’s tongue.

The ex-cop shrugged. “He had stuff to do.”

Or, Annabelle thought, he’d been so freaked out by sharing a bed with a woman who wasn’t his wife that he’d run away. She blinked several times, willing the panic residue from her dream to clear. Surely, she was wrong about Noah.

“What stuff?” Rochelle demanded, giving Violet a look that would have had Annabelle in tears if she’d been the recipient.

“How should I know?” Violet held up her hands. “Rodrigo said Noah needed someone to cover for him, so I agreed to watch the video feed from up here instead of in the office. No big deal.”

The sound of heavy running feet made all three Benson Security women raise their guns toward the guest room door.

“Don’t shoot.” One of the triplets—Annabelle was too tired to tell which one—appeared in the doorway, also armed.

It was like having an NRA convention in her bedroom. With two of the attendees dressed in pajamas.

“Where’s Noah?” Rochelle snapped at the triplet.

He shrugged. “I thought he was in here.”

“Maybe he’s going over some leads with Abasi in his hotel room,” Katrina said. “Abasi wasn’t scheduled for a watch rotation tonight, so he went back to his suite.”

“Call them for me,” Rochelle ordered, and Katrina nodded while leaving the room, presumably to get her phone. “Violet, neither Noah nor Rodrigo mentioned where he was going or what he was doing? You sure about that?”

“I didn’t ask.” Violet seemed irritated that Rochelle was still demanding answers.

Katrina returned to the panic room, phone in hand. “No reply from either Abasi or Noah.”

“Try Rodrigo,” Rochelle said grimly.

Katrina was already tapping on her screen. “It’s going straight to voicemail.”

Rochelle turned to the triplet. “Wake Evan; get him to trace their cell phones.”

“On it, Boss.” He rushed back out through the guest room.

“What’s going on?” Annabelle asked the women. “Noah didn’t tell me he was leaving. Has something happened to him?” She wanted to ask if the Demons had taken him but couldn’t bring herself to voice her fear.

“It’s possible he’s holed up somewhere in the building, talking with Rodrigo and Abasi,” Katrina said hopefully.

“Unlikely.” Rochelle wasn’t happy. “I’m going downstairs to see what Evan finds. Go back to sleep, Annabelle. Violet will watch over you.”

“I can’t sleep now.” Annabelle threw back the covers. “I have nightmares. Noah was helping with them, and now I’m worried.”

“We’re all going downstairs,” Violet said. “I’m not equipped to help her the way Noah can.”

Rochelle turned back to Violet. “What way is that?”

“Cuddling.” Violet shuddered. “That isn’t in my job description.”

Rochelle turned to study Annabelle and her bed. As her perceptive gaze took in everything—including signs that someone had slept on both sides of the sofa bed—her lips thinned and her jaw tightened.

“Noah was purely keeping me company while I slept,” Annabelle rushed to explain, feeling like a teenager caught sneaking a boy into her bedroom. Something she’d tried only once because her dad’s disappointment in her had ruined ever attempting it again.

Katrina’s phone rang, and she answered it before talking to Rochelle. “Evan says he can’t get a location on any of their phones. The GPS is off.”

“Then get him to turn it back on. He can do that remotely.”

“Um, no, he can’t. He says they’re using an app Elle designed, which blocks people from remotely accessing their GPS.”

Annabelle wasn’t sure she followed the conversation and had no idea who Elle was, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out this wasn’t good news. She pressed a hand to her stomach as it roiled wildly.

“Do you think someone kidnapped them from Abasi’s hotel?” she asked, unable to hide the terror in her voice. The Demon Brothers could have been watching. They could have followed the two men. What if they’d hurt them? What if they were dead?

Annabelle gave a little squeak of alarm as her knees gave out. With a thump, she sat back down on the edge of her bed. Noah was in danger—and it was all because of her.

She became aware that Rochelle had crouched in front of her. “Try not to panic. I don’t think the Demons have Noah or anyone else on our team, for that matter.”

“Then what’s happened to them?” Noah wouldn’t leave her by choice. He’d promised to stay by her side and protect her. Something must have happened.

“I think”—Rochelle’s eyes flashed fire—”that the boys have taken matters into their own hands.”

“I don’t understand.” And she didn’t. Noah was her main bodyguard. Just a few hours earlier, he’d lain alongside her in bed, protecting her from attack—both mental and physical.

“The boys have gone rogue,” Rochelle said. “And I plan to skin them alive for doing it.”

Annabelle’s brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. She looked over at Katrina and Violet, who both appeared angry.

“I can’t believe they left me babysitting while they went off to have fun without me,” Violet raged.

Annabelle felt faint as the words sank in. “They’ve gone after the Demons?”

Rochelle nodded tersely before standing. “Looks like it. Let’s get some coffee. None of us will sleep now anyway.”

They headed downstairs to the office, where Evan sat in front of his computers, his hair standing on end.

“I think I’ve found a way of tracking them,” he said excitedly. “I can hack the GPS in the vehicle they took.”

“Do it,” Rochelle ordered as she glanced at Katrina. “I’ll take Harris and go fetch them. You, Logan, Violet, and Evan, look after Annabelle.”

Katrina nodded as Rochelle hurried back upstairs.

Annabelle made her way over to Evan. “Where are they?”

“Gimme a sec.” He tapped away at his keyboard, his fingers flying. “Got it! They’re… in the middle of nowhere.” He looked confused.

“Send the coordinates to Rochelle’s cell,” Katrina said. “Violet, make sure the building’s secure. We’re down half the team while she’s gone.”

Violet turned on her heel and went off to do as she was told. In the meantime, Annabelle stared at the point on the map where Noah’s vehicle sat, wondering what they were doing out there in the middle of the night.