Broken Honor (6 page)

He stared down at Urban. Why would his former teammate kidnap Mara? “This doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Chapter Six

Mara gazed down at the man who had broken into her home, knocked her unconscious, tied her up, and driven her into the middle of nowhere. Travis’s former teammate. “I thought SEALs were supposed to be the good guys. The nation’s heroes.”

“At one time he was. I don’t know what happened to change that.” Travis straightened away from the body and reached for her hand. She flinched, couldn’t control the automatic reaction. He’d killed a man with those hands—the same hands that had wrung every drop of pleasure from her in bed, but the thought of h
im touching her now made her skin crawl. Or maybe that was just the shivers she couldn’t seem to stop.

He’d killed his teammate to protect her. On a purely logical level, she understood that and was grateful for it. But, oh, God, there was such a huge difference between knowing Travis Quinn was a dangerous man and seeing him in action. And witnessing the sheer brutality he was capable of only drove home the realization that she didn’t really know him at all.

Was this the kind of man she wanted in her child’s life?

Travis’s jaw tightened, and he dropped his hand. “We need to move.”

She hugged herself against the chill in his tone. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere in New Mexico. I have a truck about a mile due west from here. If something happens and we’re separated, run for it. The keys are in it. Take it and don’t stop until you get back to El Paso.” As he spoke, he strode to the hangar door and peeked out. “Aw, fuck me.” He ran back to her, gripped her shoulders, and whirled her around. “Hide. Now.”

Where?
she thought, stalling out midstride, her heart threatening to beat a hole through her rib cage as her gaze boomeranged around the hangar, looking for a hiding place. Travis shoved her toward one of the disassembled planes, but she was too short to reach the doors. She wasn’t getting inside without a ladder or Travis’s help.

A large toolbox sat on the floor nearby. Better than nothing. She ducked behind it, crouching down in a tight ball, arms wrapped protectively around her belly. Voices sounded from the front of the hangar, but they weren’t speaking English. Or even Spanish, for that matter. Was it…Russian? She strained her ears. Couldn’t make out words, but yes, she was certain it was Russian. She’d spent a summer in St. Petersburg during a high school exchange program and used to know quite a bit of the language—at least enough to understand a conversation and to make herself understood—but it had been ten years since she’d last used it.

One of the Russians called out, followed by the sounds of struggle—fists landing against flesh, grunts of pain, something metal clattering to the floor.

Oh, God, had they found Travis? Had he even tried to hide?

She peeked around the bottom edge of the toolbox. Two big guys held Travis captive on the floor, his face turned in her direction, his cheek smooshed against the concrete. Their eyes met, and his narrowed in an obvious warning.

Stay hidden.
She could all but hear him issuing the order.

He resumed struggling, and she ducked back behind the toolbox and held her breath at the sounds of more punches, more things falling to the floor, some glass shattering.

A third Russian voice broke through the confusion. “
Stoy!
”

She knew that word.
Stop.
And just like that, the fight ended. Someone groaned in pain, and she couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening to Travis. She again peeked around the toolbox. Two Russians dragged him to his feet, but he wasn’t the one groaning. It was the bald one to Travis’s left, who was favoring his leg and groaning with the strain of holding Travis still. She gazed past the three of them to the well-dressed man striding into the hangar. He had sharp features and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck. He was in charge here. Of that, she had no doubt.

He eyed Travis up and down, then glanced over at the body of her abductor on the floor with a raised, perfectly manicured brow. He clicked his tongue against his teeth and said in English, “Well, this is interesting.”

“Zaryanko.” Travis all but spat the man’s name. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I stopped to collect the merchandise Mr. Urban had for me,” Zaryanko said placidly. “Where is she?”

Merchandise?
Mara’s stomach lurched. This man considered women merchandise? Oh, God.

“Gone,” Travis said. “I let her go. She’s safely in the hands of the authorities by now.”

Mara shrank back, clearly hearing the implied warning in his words. No matter what happened, she did not want these people to know she was still here.

Zaryanko sighed. “You and your friends have a bad habit of getting in my way, Mr. Quinn. First in Afghanistan and now here you are, disrupting another of my business transactions. You’ve cost me a lot of money these last few months.”

“We stopped you from starting a nuclear war,” Travis said, deadpan. “Cry me a fucking river.”

“But in truth, you’ve also done me a bit of a favor here,” Zaryanko continued. “I was supposed to hang on to the woman, tuck her away until you came for her, but you’re already here and Mr. Urban’s dead, so I see no reason to go through with their plan. Unless they pay me…”

“No honor among thieves,” Travis said.

“Or dirty business associates.” Zaryanko considered for a moment, nodded. “Yes, I think this works out much better. It’s long past time I recoup my loses, and I believe they want the information you have badly enough to pay whatever sum I ask.”

“Who are they?” Travis demanded. “What information? I don’t have any information.”

Zaryanko’s gaze tracked over to Urban’s body, but he said nothing more about it. He snapped his fingers, the sound sharp and echoing around the hangar’s high walls. “Bring him,” he said in Russian.

Mara eased back behind the toolbox and shut her eyes, listened to their footsteps fade away.

Travis had sacrificed himself for her.

Tears burned, and she fought them back. She didn’t have time to break down. They had Travis, were taking him God knew where, and she was his only hope. She had to move. Run to the east, find the truck, and get to the nearest phone and call…

Who?

Obviously, the police were out of the question. The morning had been so Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole surreal, they’d never believe her. And if Urban had indeed been a SEAL, how did she know she could trust anyone in authority?

She’d call Jesse. Her cousin would know what to do—he
always
knew what to do, and he could bring in the rest of Travis’s team. And Lanie. She was a Texas Ranger, one of their best investigators, and would figure this all out.

Except she couldn’t go anywhere until she was sure the Russians were gone.

She waited, listened. Minutes ticked by, and shadows lengthened across the floor as the sun sank. She really didn’t want to be wandering around in the desert after dark, but—what if Zaryanko and his two thugs were still out there? She hadn’t heard any engines, car or otherwise. But neither did she hear any voices or footsteps outside the hangar.

The sun sank closer to the horizon, spilling orange-gold light in through the west-facing hangar door. The cold emanating from the concrete floor seeped through her leggings into her bones, and she shivered so hard her teeth clacked together. She couldn’t stay here much longer. Desert nights were cold, especially in the winter, and she’d freeze to death. But was it safe to leave yet? She had no idea.

She peeked around the toolbox again. The hangar was empty, and she didn’t see anyone on the tarmac beyond. Gulping down her fear, she stood. Her legs had cramped up, and she shook them out one at a time until she was positive they wouldn’t collapse on her.

The hangar door beckoned with the promise of freedom, but she wasn’t so sure about walking out that big door, exposing herself to whatever lay beyond, and scanned for—

There. A side door.

She scrambled toward it and fumbled with the lock, a wild panic overtaking her when she finally got it open and tumbled into the deepening shadows of evening. In front of her lay nothing but a vast expanse of desert. Gulp.

Suck it up
, she warned herself. Travis had let them take him so she would be safe and able to send help. She wasn’t about to let him down.

Judging by the sunset, she was facing south. Travis had said his truck was to the west, which meant—crap. She’d have to run straight across the airfield.

She stayed close to the wall of the hangar like she’d seen soldiers do on TV and edged around the corner. A plane sat on the tarmac. Zaryanko and his men were still here.

She shrank back. She should go hide again. Maybe find a blanket so she didn’t freeze and just wait the night out in the hangar. They had to leave sometime, right? Except she didn’t like the idea of staying overnight with a dead body only a few feet away. And what if they were waiting for more criminal types to arrive? Right now, there were only three of them, and she got the impression that Zaryanko didn’t do much of his own dirty work. So, really, there were only the two thugs. Who probably had guns. And knew how to shoot.

She sagged against the metal wall of the hangar and lifted her face to the sky. After her mother had married Ramon Escareno, she had been raised in a strict Catholic home, and while she’d found the church’s views too narrow-minded and confining, she’d taken comfort in the idea of heaven and that her dad could be up there, watching over her. She sent a quick prayer up to Jackson Warrick.

I love you, Daddy. Please, help me be strong and brave for my baby.

With that, she sucked in a fortifying breath, pushed away from the wall, and ran. She made it a quarter of the way across the pavement before she heard the shout behind her in Russian.

Oh, God, they were going to shoot.

She picked up the pace, her tennis shoes pounding as hard at her heart. Halfway there. Heavy footsteps thundered behind her, closing in fast. Three-quarters of the way. Up ahead, she saw the snake of an unpaved desert road, and a large black van kicked up dust as it sped toward her.

Help?

Unsure, she faltered a step, and that was all the Russians needed to catch up. One grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back against his rocklike body.

No, no, no! She kicked and screamed, but the thug seemed unfazed. He just banded his arm tighter around her, clamped a large hand over her mouth, and looked at his companion. “I win,” he said in Russian. “Told you she was still here. Pay up.”

“Later,” the second man said, nodded toward the road, and added something more that she didn’t understand. But it couldn’t be good, because they weren’t at all surprised to see the vehicle.

The Russians dragged her back to the plane, and Zaryanko smiled. “Well. Quinn was lying after all. Good work, Alexei.”

“What do we do with her?” the bald thug holding her—Alexei—asked.

Zaryanko eyed her up and down, made an unimpressed sound, then turned his attention to the arriving vehicle. The van rolled to a stop near the plane, and several armed men wearing the gold-and-red colors of El Sindicato hopped out.

“What do you have for me?” Zaryanko asked them in English.

The lead gang member opened the back door. He pulled ten bound and gagged women out, one by one, and laid them facedown on the tarmac like fish at a market.

“Hmm.” Zaryanko walked down the line, inspecting each of them, murmuring his approval until he reached the last woman. She was older than the others, with silver-streaked hair and a lined face. He grimaced and motioned to his thug with the flick of a wrist. “Pyotr. This one is too old and ugly. She’s worthless to me. Do something about it.”

Pyotr drew a gun and strode over to the sobbing woman. The shot was drowned out by the terrified screams of the others. Mara’s stomach lurched into her throat and one word kept bouncing around inside her skull.
Merchandise.

“I’ll take the rest at half our usual rate,” Zaryanko said.

“Fuck no!” the gang leader said. “You kill one of our women and think you can cheat us—”

“Pyotr,” Zaryanko said softly, and his personal killer raised the gun and fired again. The gang leader dropped. The women’s screams choked off into silence.

“Anyone else have objections?” Zaryanko asked. Nobody spoke. “Very well. Half our usual rate, and I will not be making the trip back to this wasteland until you have something better to offer me.”

Money exchanged hands quickly after that, and the gang members didn’t stick around. They were long gone before Pyotr ushered the nine remaining women onto the plane.

“So what about this one?” Alexei asked.

Zaryanko walked over and pinched Mara’s face between his fingers, turning her head side to side. “She’s fat and short,” he said in Russian, “but her face is pretty enough.” He added something else that she couldn’t translate, but she swore she heard Travis’s name mentioned. Then, “Bring her.”

Alexei picked her up and all but tossed her into the cargo area of the plane with the other women. The door latching shut behind her was the most terrifying thing she’d ever heard in her life.

This couldn’t be happening.

She sat up on her knees and blinked until her eyes adjusted to the near darkness. She was the only woman not bound or gagged, and she tried to calm the others in both English and Spanish as she worked to free their hands.