For Her Benefit Read online

  Batter up, assholes. "Help! Somebody, help us. Help us now!"

  April tried to grab my arm. "Stop it. They'll kill you."

  I shook her off. "I am not staying here to see what happens. I'm taking my chances. If you want to stay with our captors, go back to the chair and tie yourself up. I'm getting out. Help!"

  I thought she'd protest more, but she'd backed up, leaving me room. Finally, I heard footsteps outside the door, followed by some angry chatter. I kept screaming. It wasn't ideal, but at that point I was committed to the plan. "Help me!"

  Finally, I could hear the chain rattling on the other side, followed by the door unlocking, and I braced myself.

  As luck would have it, when the door was shoved open and the light spilled through like high tide on the ocean, it was short and stocky who came through first. And I'd gauged his height correctly. He was my height, which meant when I swung the pipe with every ounce of strength I had, it clocked him right in the face.

  There was a sickening crunch combined with a smooshed feeling. He gave one singular howl and then went down with a thud. His nose was caved in just a little bit, his face misshapen somehow.

  Oh God. My stomach lurched.

  Now is not the time to be a soft touch. He assaulted and kidnapped you.

  I reached out for April as she stood frozen, staring down at him. I grabbed her upper arm and growled, "Run!"

  But I’d hesitated just a second too long. I should have hit him and then run, and God help April if she didn't follow me. But that precious second was enough time for one of the taller men to shove his way through.

  "Aleksio," he said.

  I lifted my makeshift bat again and then swung it, but all it hit was belly. Jesus Christ. He grunted, but he didn't go down. Instead, he got furious.

  To April, I yelled, "Run. Run as fast as you can and get help."

  The tall one reached for me.

  From the corner, April finally made noise, though not the helpful kind. “No. No. No. I'm not with her. You can have her if you’ll just let me go."

  My weapon hadn't worked so well the second time. I tried to wield it again, but he grabbed the end of it. And even though it was short and thick, he jabbed it back toward me, causing me to trip over my own damn feet. He launched at me, and I rolled out of the way, kicking out my foot and hitting him in the ankle. He howled. Then I kicked my foot up, my instep connecting with his groin.

  He huffed, but he still didn't go down. My other foot aimed for the one target I had left, his knee. My heel collided perfectly with the side of his kneecap. There was a sickening crunch, and as he fell over, he reached for me, but I crawled away quickly.

  Once on my feet, I glowered at April. "You are literally the worst."

  With both my attackers down, I rose to my feet and stared. What the hell happened? And then I saw. The tall guy had fallen on something jagged that impaled him through the center of his chest. Oh, hell. He was alive though, and I could hear him groaning.

  Even though April had tried to negotiate with my life, I grabbed her hand and pulled her through the doorway. I dragged her as we ran down the hallway. At the far end, I could see we were in some kind of a warehouse, but I didn't go straight for the open door on that end. I didn't know how many guards would be waiting outside.

  I pulled April inside what looked like a small office and searched frantically for a window. There was a small desk with a laptop sitting on it. The desk looked like barely more than a card table, but it might be strong enough to hold our weight.

  I was still wearing my fitted evening gown, but the laptop was travel-size and no larger than a small tablet. I grabbed it, not really sure what would be on it, but I knew East and Telly would need to go through it later. I shoved it down the front of my dress as April gawked at me. "Now you're stealing from them? You're one of the thieves, aren't you?"

  "Stop being an idiot. This is evidence for the police when we get to them."

  Her brow furrowed as she suddenly reassessed my level of intelligence. "Why do you even know how to think like that?"

  "Look, this is a hard situation. And we will get out of it. But I have no intention of letting these motherfuckers get away with this. I fully intend to make them pay. Somebody big and ugly is going to welcome them to prison."

  I shoved open the window and noticed that she was moving sluggishly. It was possible shock was setting in. Or worse, there really had been some kind of sedative in the water they gave her. It could be anything. She was older. Fifty-five or so. Maybe this was just too much stress for her.

  Don't be stupid. She's clearly in shape. Probably has a trainer for yoga, or Pilates, or whatever.

  Since she didn't look like she could walk very well, I helped her out of the window, and she complained the moment she saw it was a two-foot drop. "What if I break my ankle? Then I really can't run."

  "Fine. Then get out of the way so I can get out. You can take your chance with them."

  She glowered at me, but then she jumped the two feet. Nothing happened. I climbed out with her and saw there were several cars in the parking lot.

  I ran to the nearest unobtrusive looking one. It was a muddy tan color, older model, and rusted in spots. It wasn't the kind of car that would call any attention on the road.

  Back when my Mom had a post in Washington DC, there were some kids in my school that may or may not have been into stealing cars. Bored rich kids. I’d never gone so far as to steal a car, but one of the kids did show me how to boost one, and I remembered him talking about how much harder newer ones were to steal because of all the electronics. The older models were much easier.

  I would worry about the morality of what I was doing later, after we were free. I took her hand and she tried to yank on it. "Can’t we pick a nicer one?"

  I couldn't believe this shit. "Are you for real right now?"

  "It looks dirty."

  "Oh my God, if I live through this and never see you again, it'll be too soon."

  The car was unlocked, and I opened the driver's-side door, crouching low. "Climb into the other side."

  She wrinkled her nose but did what I told her, having to hunch up her dress as she did. Her black dress had a generous slit, and lent itself to being easy to maneuver in. Thankfully she didn't have some large poofy ensemble on.

  I climbed in after her and reached under the steering wheel, looking through the wires. I didn't dare turn on the lights.

  Come on. Come on. Come on. Which one is it?

  April reached over me and flipped down the visor. "Why don't you just use the keys?"

  Of course, for her there would be keys. As if she conjured them out of thin air. There was a cluttering and clinking as the keys fell into my lap. "How did you know they were there?"

  "Well, I could see them."

  I grabbed them and shoved each one into the ignition until one of them worked. I put the car in neutral and then got out.

  "Where are you going?" April hissed.

  "I don't want to start the damn car here. Get out and help me push."

  "Oh no. No, no, no. I do not push cars."

  "Get out and push, or I'll shove you out, start the car, and run. At least they'll still have you."

  Her eyes went wide. "You would do that, wouldn't you?"

  "It's no less than what you would do to me. Now get out and push."

  We were able to push the car about two hundred meters until we were at the side of the warehouse. If my orientation was right, we would be near the entrance. There was sludge on my feet, God knew what, and I was exhausted.

  You’re so close; you can be exhausted later. "Get in."

  For once April complied without resistance. We closed the doors with soft clicks.

  We both held our breath when I started the engine.

  Maybe I should have picked a different car. Not that I'd exactly had a lot of choice, but the stupid lemon was slow to start. The chun-chun-chun-chun sound jolted my heart, sending it into a wild gallop so fierce I fi
gured April could hear it. I turned the car on again.

  Chun-chun-chun-chun. Still nothing. Jesus Christ. On the third try, chun-chun-chun-chun, and then it started. With a muttered prayer to every god I could think of ever hearing about, I gunned the engine. The stupid car took forever to go from zero to sixty, but it was moving.

  "Where are we going?"

  It was a good question. Too bad I had no answers.

  "I don't know."

  Just drive. I felt like Dory with her cheerful disposition, singing to just keep swimming. But it was all I had to go with. Up ahead, there was a security station. That would be the true test. If we could get past that, we would be safe.

  I held my breath and started my round of prayer again, this time making up a few deities. But luck was on our side. There was no security for the exit gate. It just opened automatically. It seemed our captors never intended for us to make it out of there.

  As we pulled out of the gate, I gripped the steering wheel so hard even my pigmented knuckles started to go white. My jaw hurt with the force of clenching it. So far no one had come looking for us. There had been no shouts of alarm, no spray of gunfire. It was as if they either expected us to attempt an escape and were just waiting until we got a whiff of freedom to nab us, or it was their funny version of an April Fool’s joke. But hopefully, no one knew we were gone and luck was finally on our side.

  I tried to stay calm and drive at a reasonable pace. There was no need to peel out. Drive calmly. Get on the main road. Figure out where the fuck you are. Find cars. Civilization. People.

  I calmly passed the barrier and turned on my right blinker.

  That’s right. Nothing to see here. I’m just making my escape from human trafficking scum…as you do.

  Luckily, April kept her mouth shut. Another car approached the entrance as we were exiting. A Peugeot, older, dark gray. The driver was in no hurry as he approached the security gate. In that brief moment of ships passing in the night, he looked over, and my gaze darted over to his. It was a split-second of recognition, but I knew that man. The man with the burn. The man from my mother’s photos.

  I didn't mean to look too long, and it might have only been for the length of a breath. The problem was, I wasn't the only one experiencing recognition. The awareness must have hit him in that moment as well because neither one of us was able to look away. And I don't know, maybe it was some internal sense of survival, but I gunned the engine and peeled out into the main road.

  Even if he chased us, even if they came for us, we were so close to civilization. There was no way I was giving up now.

  "Who the hell is that?" April asked.

  "Someone bad. Someone very, very bad."

  "Well, take me back to my house. My husband will protect us."

  I coughed out a laugh. "This isn't Driving Miss Daisy, you daft twat. I'm going to the one person I trust. Ben will protect us. He'll see you get home, and I’ll be safe with someone who actually cares about me." I checked the rearview mirror. “Right now we have bigger problems than where we go next.”

  “What's that?”

  “We're being followed.”

  Ben

  There was going to be hell to pay, not that I cared about that in the moment. Livy was in trouble. And it was because of me. Because of my so-called brothers. Because of my life. So I owed it to her to find her.

  Love. Don't forget about love.

  I did love her. That sinking feeling in my gut, the one that gnawed and clawed and tried to break its way free, was brewing. Little bits of it were escaping via the bile in my esophagus, but I swallowed it down. I didn’t have time for that. All I knew was that I had to save her. I didn’t have time to get caught up in my own bullshit.

  One handed, I tapped on the laptop that held information on her tracker.

  I prayed to God nothing had happened to her dress.

  My stomach coiled at the thought of it. What if something had happened to her dress?

  You're not helping yourself.

  No. I had to follow it because her tracker was on the move.

  I frowned as I saw the tracker moving. It had been stationary for a good forty minutes.

  Where are they taking you?

  I didn't dare stop though. Judging by the information that was blinking back at me, she was still a good forty-five minutes away. Were they transporting her? Moving her? Jesus Christ.

  I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. If my fucking team hadn't wasted so much fucking time, I might have her by now.

  Even though my brain was full-on entertaining 'this was all their fault' thoughts, some saner part of me spoke up into the dark abyss. They were just trying to do things systematically.

  She was definitely on the move. I watched the little pinpoint that represented her. It stopped on a roadway north of where I was. I headed left up the road, then turned onto the major freeway. I didn't know my way around that area well, but I knew I had to meet that dot.

  And with the screech of my tires, I was going to do it, by hook or by crook.

  My phone rang. I saw East was calling, but I shut it down immediately. No doubt, he had a tracker of some sort on me. Which I gave zero shits about. They could follow if they wanted, but they’d better know none of them should get in my way.

  It took me twenty minutes of the kind of driving that would mean Bridge owing a lot of money to the rental car company for the sheer number of tickets we were going to have, but she needed me.

  Liv is independent. She doesn't need you.

  Even if that was rational thinking attempting to prevail, I couldn't listen to it. I could not take that risk with her life.

  I wove in and out of traffic, ignoring the mildly steep roads. Every second lifting my gaze to the tracker, making sure I was on the exact course with her.

  And then the dot moved, no longer on the road that I'd been following but pulling off on a side road. Shit.

  I got off at the next exit then turned the car around with another screech of tires, the car fishtailing slightly as the tires tried to catch on the pavement, but I was back on course. The road was quieter. Fewer cars. More industrial. Shit, where the hell is she going to?

  I was getting closer. Just a few minutes more.

  And then abruptly, the dot stopped moving.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I hit the gas. Then with a glance at the computer for confirmation, I saw the headlights up ahead and found what I was looking for. There were no other cars on the road now. It was a long an empty stretch of warehouses.

  The headlights up ahead weren’t on the road though. They were off to the side. Had she run out of gas? Gotten a flat? What was happening?

  As I approached, I noticed that here was steam coming out from the back of the car. And then I saw a woman in a long dress with a slit. Jesus Christ, it was Livy. She was running around the front of the car in a field of industrial wasteland. Full of gravels, and nails, and God knew what else, but she was running. Oh God, she was barefoot.

  I screeched my tires as I drove up, throwing the car in park and running. Someone was chasing her.

  I threw my car door open, realizing I had no fucking weapon. I had fucking left without a gun or anything, but someone was gaining on her, so I bolted.

  She ran and ran, but then she tripped and fell with her arms stretched out in front of her. But smart girl that she was, she tucked and rolled. The class with Roone had been helping. She knew how to fall.

  Her attacker was reaching for her, paying no attention to me as I gained on him.

  He stopped in front of her and reached out. But before he could put his filthy hands on her, I tackled him from behind. I aimed to roll him to the side so at least he couldn't follow Livy. We fell with a teeth-jarring thump. I didn’t have time to catalog any bumps or bruises though because he was elbowing me, causing a sharp lance of pain along my side.

  I grunted. Took it. And then delivered my own elbow to his temple. He tried to duck it though, and the blow glanced off
of him.

  He rolled away.

  I rolled too, getting to my feet as we began to circle each other.

  His grin at me was evil. “I’m going to kill you.”

  "You're welcome to try."

  I glanced at Olivia. "Liv, if you can move, get back to the car. It's idling. Go, get in it. Go."

  She groaned from the ground. "I'm not leaving you."

  "Yes, you are."

  "What, like you left me?"

  Why the hell was she so damn stubborn? I couldn't argue with her though. I needed to focus.

  The guy rushed toward me, and I lowered myself into a fighting stance. I'd spent years learning how to fight. Now was the time to use what I’d learned. If I lost this one, Livy would die. And wouldn't you know, that was a hell of a motivator.

  As he rushed, I shifted my stance, lifted my foot, then delivered a kick to his side. He took it with ease. He attempted to lift me up and throw me off balance, but I delivered a hammer fist to his temple, causing him to stagger and let me go.

  While he staggered back, I was on him.

  Straight punch. Straight punch. Kick. Shift in, pull him down, knee strike.

  Backing up out of reach, he got me good on the side with a hit to the ribs. I oomphed, but I stayed on my feet.

  We danced around again. This time, when he attacked, I managed to block one of his blows, but he got me with a hook that rung my fucking bell. I could actually hear the clang of it as his fist connected to my fucking jaw. Holy Christ, that hurt.

  I could move the damn thing though, so I hoped it wasn't broken.

  I blocked his next attempted hook with his own hand and delivered an uppercut, followed by a straight jab. This time, I deliberately grabbed onto his shirt, then pulled him in for the knee. I delivered another one. And another one.

  Livy was moving, crawling, getting to her feet. "Get up, Liv."

  "Ben, we have to go."

  "You go. I have to do this."

  He said, “Yeah, you should listen to your girlfriend. She knows what I'm going to do to her after I kill you."

  He lunged at me again, but I moved too quickly for him and he rushed past me. I caught him at the back of his shirt, brought him around, and hooked my arm around his throat.