1941002110 (R) (28 page)

A
NDROV’S LIMOUSINE
took him to the Ritz on 22nd Street, but he didn’t go inside. Chase and Alpha Squad rolled up across the street, their Suburban idling as they watched. The SEALs had traveled separately, but they were also there, ready to rocket into action. Everyone watched as Androv’s car pulled up. Two women emerged from the hotel. One was tall and thin, the other not so tall. The shorter woman was veiled, and she stumbled as if she’d had a little too much to drink.

She was wearing a long coat that covered her entire body and high heels. Her legs, what they could see, were bare. She stumbled, and the coat flopped open. She was almost naked and stacked like a brick shithouse—

“Sophie!” Chase yelled, reaching for the door and tugging on the handle. He was out of the Suburban in two seconds flat, running for the portico of the Ritz. It was a distance away, but he could make it. He
had
to make it.

“Jesus, Fiddler, you’re gonna compromise the op!”

He didn’t know whose voice it was, didn’t care. He kept running—and then the tall woman shoved Sophie in the car and got in behind her. It accelerated away from the curb.

He kept running, but the limo was fast disappearing. The Suburban rocketed up beside him and the door flew open.

“Get the fuck in here,” Matt Girard ordered. “Now!”

Chase leapt inside and yanked the door closed as Hawk floored the SUV.

“Jesus, what the fuck?” Viking yelled into the mic. “Are you assholes insane?”

“Yes,” Hawk growled. “Now help us catch that motherfucker.”

Viking swore. “We’re on it. But no more cowboy heroics, all right? Thought you fuckers knew better.”

“If that was Ivy in there,” Iceman grated suddenly, “would you be calm?”

The airwaves were silent for a long moment. “No. Fuck no.”

“Thought so. That’s Chase’s woman in there, and we’ve got to get her before Androv hurts her.”

Chase started to protest the first part of that statement, started to automatically deny what Ice had just said about Sophie being his woman. But, fuck, what was the point? He looked at the guys. The ones who could take their eyes off the road were looking back at him.

Yeah, fuck him, they knew what he didn’t want to fully admit. Sophie
was
his. He wanted her—and he was going to fucking go get her. And then he was going to make Androv wish he’d never touched a hair on Sophie’s head.

S
OMETHING WAS VERY WRONG
. Sophie knew it was. She wasn’t as drunk as before, but she still couldn’t seem to control her legs. And the world spun whenever she turned her head.

She was chilly. Her clothes felt strange. There was a coat, but beneath that, she felt almost naked. The coat rubbed her skin in places she didn’t think it should. And there was a film over her face. It was dark but diaphanous. She could see through it, but not well.

“We seem to have company,” a voice said. “You had better lose them.”

“Yes, sir.”

She was in a car, and it was going fast. Then it spun around a corner, and she flopped against the person beside her. Whoever it was pushed her roughly.

“Hold her.” The same voice as before. A familiar voice. Right in front of her.

Grigori’s voice. A chill washed over her. Grigori had found her. He was going to kill her. Had he killed Chase? Where was Chase?

“Broke your files,” she said.

“She spoke,” Grigori said. “Why the fuck can she talk?”

“You wanted her to be able to walk. Talking is also a possibility.” The woman’s voice. Angry.

“She sounds worse than drunk,” he said. “I couldn’t make out a damn thing she said.”

“Then that’s a good thing.”

“Is it? Rodriguez will want her sentient at the least. He’s flown a long way, and he’s going to want to enjoy his prize.”

“He can still enjoy her,” the woman said. “She won’t fight.”

“Files,” Sophie said. But it came out sounding like
fzzzzzz.

Dammit!

“Shut her up.”

Something poked into her skin. A needle. Sophie tried to fight, but her efforts were ineffectual. The drug moved through her system, flooding her with a strange ennui. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

“Is she going to be able to walk?”

“Yes. But if you want her to seem perfectly unimpaired, it’s not happening.”

Grigori blew out a breath. “This is going to cost me, Annika. I am not happy. I’m even less happy that you didn’t kill the man she was with like I told you to do.”

The woman sniffed. “If you hadn’t wanted to rush this, it would have been different. And I do not kill. You knew that when you sent me.”

“You and your squeamishness,” he bit out.

A hand smoothed down her arm, making her skin crawl. “She’ll still fetch a nice price. She’s quite lovely. And those breasts—dear God, they are fabulous. Rodriguez will pay handsomely for her.”

“She would have earned me more in Monte Carlo. And now I have to sell her to a fucking Mexican drug lord.”

Grigori paused and then growled something in Russian. She didn’t know what he said, but the car sped up again, whipping around corners and rocketing down straightaways. Sophie gave up trying to sit straight.

She flopped like a fish—and then the tires squealed hard and the car stopped so fast she flew forward and then back before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

Before she could even attempt to right herself—and she didn’t think she’d be able to do it anyway—rough hands grabbed her and hauled her up. Against a body. A male body judging by the size.

Something clicked and a hard metal cylinder pressed into her temple. Right about then the doors whipped open and men shouted.

Get the fuck out of there!

Hands above your head!

On your knees, motherfucker!

But the gun against her head didn’t move, which meant the man didn’t move. Outside the car, a woman cried. Annika.

The man holding Sophie shoved her toward the opening and out into the road, his arm around her neck.

“I will kill her,” he said, and a little sob formed in her throat. It was Grigori’s voice, and she knew he meant it.

“You do that and you’re dead, Androv. I promise you that.”

Chase!

“It looks like I may be dead anyway.”

“Not if you let her go.” A different man this time.

Grigori snorted. “What assurance do I have that you won’t kill me when I do?”

“You don’t have a goddamn one. Except this. You’re the CEO of Zoprava and the world thinks you’re a nice guy. If anyone dies here tonight, it won’t look good for any of us. Too much fucking paperwork for me, and I hate paperwork. So do yourself a favor and let her go.”

Grigori’s arm tightened around her neck. “This bitch is worth a lot of money.”

“Fuck it, Viking,” Chase growled. “I’ll do the paperwork for you—
after
I kill this motherfucker.”

“I suggest you let her go, Androv,” the man named Viking said. “Or my boy here is going to put a hole in your head that no amount of money will cure.”

Grigori cut off her airway—and then he shoved her away and she stumbled and fell to the pavement, her knees and hands hitting hard, the pebbled surface scraping her skin.

And then hands were on her shoulders, beneath her arms, pulling her up, turning her into a solid body, her face mashing to his chest. He whipped the veil from her face, and cool night air rushed into her lungs as she sucked in a breath.

“Sophie, thank God.”

“Chase,” she said, but it came out sounding like
shhhhhhze
.

“Baby, you’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“Chase…”

“I got you, baby. I got you. I’m not letting you go.”

She clung to him just to be sure.

35

^“
H
uman trafficking,” Mendez said, throwing a sheaf of papers down on the table in front of Grigori Androv. The man didn’t even flinch, just looked up with hot, crazy eyes.

They’d brought him back to HOT HQ hooded and cuffed, and now they had him in a room with Mendez, Viking, Chase, Hawk, Richie Rich, Iceman, Kid, and Brandy. Victoria was with Sophie, taking care of her and getting her tended to by the on-call physician assigned to HOT.

Chase had wanted to be there with her, but he’d needed to be here even more. Because he needed to hear what Mendez had found out, and he needed to know how they were going to stop Androv. It wasn’t as easy as locking the asshole up and throwing away the key. The man was, unfortunately, respected by those who had no idea just how evil he was.

And HOT was a military organization, not a civil one. They weren’t the police or the justice system. They couldn’t prosecute him, couldn’t put him in jail. That was up to a DA.

“You sell women and children, Androv,” Mendez said, his jaw tight. “You promise them a better life and then you sell them into sexual slavery. Your people shake down the pimps regularly, taking a cut.”

“It is called free enterprise,” Androv said, his Russian accent thicker than normal. “And you have no proof. This is not proof.”

Mendez sat on the corner of the desk and swung his leg casually. Like this was just a friendly get-together. Anyone who knew Mendez knew that the calmer he was, the worse it was. In fact, he hadn’t made eye contact with Chase since he’d arrived, and far from making Chase feel like everything was cool about the fact he’d gone off on his own mission, he was pretty sure there was going to be some hell to pay. Mendez had helped him and Sophie, but no way was the colonel going to let this pass without comment.

“You kidnapped and drugged Sophie Nash. By your own admission, you were planning to sell her to a Mexican drug lord. I have the recordings. I also have your files. Everything in them. The women, the underage girls, the records of where you sent them. And then there are the private sales, like you were attempting tonight. You kept very meticulous records.”

Androv lifted his chin. “My name is nowhere on those files. Forgeries, all of it. Faked by your people so you could frame me. As for the recordings…” He shrugged. “I speak at a lot of events. A skilled engineer could easily make a mix of my words to implicate me.”

“So that’s how you want to play it, huh? It’s a setup, you did nothing wrong, we want to take you down.” Mendez looked thoughtful. “Sounds reasonable to me.”

Then he leaned forward, his expression deadly. “You’ve sold your last human being, Androv. It ends here. I
will
destroy your ability to do business in every single location named in those files. I’ve shared the information with the intelligence community. Teams are moving to shut down every single operation you have around the world. By morning, you won’t have a network anymore.”

Beads of sweat broke out on Androv’s brow. He looked angry—and worried. A cornered animal was a bad thing, but there was nothing the man could do right now.

Mendez stood and Androv shrank against his seat in fear. It was a reasonable response considering the look on Mendez’s face.

“I’m turning the information in your files over to the district attorney. I’m turning you over to the police. Will they let you go? Probably. But know this—you fucking touch Sophie Nash again, you fucking breathe the same air she breathes, you’re dead.
Dead.
I’m doing things the legal way tonight—you’d better take advantage of it.”

Androv looked suddenly defiant. “You threatened to kill me. These men heard it.”

Mendez’s eyebrows went up. “Really? Did I?” He turned to look at them. “Did I threaten this man’s life?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Richie Rich said.

“Me neither,” Ice said.

“Didn’t hear a damn thing.”

“See?” Mendez smiled. It was anything but friendly. “No threats here. Only a promise, Androv. Fuck with Sophie Nash and you die. Painfully.”

And then he said something in Russian, and Androv’s expression changed. He wasn’t defiant now. He was terrified. And, fuck, Chase didn’t know what the hell the colonel had said, but the angry harshness of his voice and the shock of hearing him speak another language was disorienting enough for Chase. He hated to think what his reaction would be if he could actually understand the message.

Androv cowered in his seat. Chase wanted to punch the motherfucker for good measure, but there was no way he was getting through his teammates to do so. Probably a good thing since he likely wouldn’t stop if he did.

“Fiddler,” Mendez barked, and Chase’s head snapped up. “With me. Now.”

Fuck.