Delta: Rescue: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) (2 page)

“You’re all good,” Ryder said. “Three ladies on the bed. One standing. Only hostile is still unaware.”

Inside the hotel room suite, Javier and Gray took both sides of the double French door leading to the bedroom, and Luke took the middle. His left hand rested on the fancy knob, his right holding the weight of his sidearm. He pushed quietly into the room and caught the eye of the standing woman. He pursed his lips together, shushing her quiet, and stuck the business end of his 9mm against the base of the man’s skull. Javier and Gray went wide.

“Law enforcement. Hands in the air.” Luke took the weapon from the hostile’s waist and tucked it into his own. “Walk to the wall, asshole.”

The man’s head pivoted and lingered on the woman, then the three ladies in the bed.

“Move it.” Luke’s molars gnashed as irritation mixed with his adrenaline.

He grumbled but wisely relented and moved. A few steps later, he was face-first against the wall. Luke patted him down and removed an ankle-holstered .22, then bound his wrists. As planned, Javier took the man out of the bedroom, Mirandizing him as they moved him for the task force to interrogate him.

With Grayson at Luke’s side, they carefully approached the women. The three on the bed were trembling as they looked at the other woman. She was dressed differently. If he knew the Mercier cartel, that woman had been cleaned up and was about to hit the market. She was wearing a dress and had on makeup. The joint team had arrived in time to save her. One more life they’d been able to salvage.

“Relax.” He approached cautiously. “We’re the good guys. We’re getting you out of here.”

None of them spoke, and he could almost smell their fear and distrust.

“It’s okay,” Grayson tried. His voice offered a reassurance that Luke’s couldn’t.

“How did you find us?” asked the standing woman with a hint of an unfamiliar accent and a confidence that didn’t match the situation. Her soft features stood out against the aged years in her eyes. Who knew who she was in real life—traffickers didn’t care who they stole, college students or CEOs—and who knew what she had seen while they had her, but it had to have been a lot. This woman—nearly his age, maybe—had witnessed hell. But her shoulders were back, and she had the distrusting spirit of a fighter, which Luke admired.

“We’re help,” he offered.

A woman on the bed shifted. “But—” Then she cut herself off as the three others turned toward her in harsh surprise—or fear. What didn’t the task force know? What couldn’t they see?

“You’re letting us go?” The standing woman stepped closer to the bed.

“Not immediately.” Luke shook his head briefly. “It’s best if you come with us first.”

She pursed her full lips. “I don’t want to.”

“Ladies?” Grayson ignored her and spoke to the three on the bed. “We’ll get you safe.”

As they eagerly nodded their heads, Luke could’ve sworn a flicker of uncertainty and curiosity darkened the woman’s face. He stepped closer to her, noting that the three on the bed looked well taken care of, considering. “What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?” she countered.

“Brenner.” His eyes narrowed, and surprisingly, he had to bite down a smile because while she was feisty, she was also in danger. Amusement was poor form given the circumstances, and she was a victim. “Luke Brenner. What do you say we get you out of here? We’ll deal with the men who took you.”

Her flat lips pursed. “I don’t need your help. If I’m free to go—”

“Easy. Promise, we’ll take care of you.”

Her eyes flared, and color hit her cheeks. “I don’t need it.”

Grayson cleared his throat. “We doing this?”

“Yeah.” Luke moved forward, ushering the girls off the bed. “Let’s move before someone else arrives.”

“Where are you from?” the woman asked again, this time with more strength.

“Nowhere.” No need to get into the politics of where everyone was recruited for the task force.

“No,” she pressed him. “You’re not local.”

“And you’re from here?”

Her accent was nothing he was familiar with. Javier’s Brazilian accent and Ryder’s Aussie drawl were easy to decipher. Not so hers, which sounded smooth, almost like hidden elegance, and the cadence made him pay closer attention.

“I asked you first,” she said.

He turned back toward her. “I have a job to do. Let’s move boots.”

“Same. Let me walk away. I want to go home and forget about all of this.”

He lowered his voice. “Did they touch you? Hurt you?”

Her chin jutted up. “
No.
Not all of them are like that.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. What’s your name?”

She tilted her head toward him, then caught the eyes of the other girls. “If we talk to you, they’ll find us. They’ll kill us. That’s the truth. Better to know that now than regret it later.”

Luke stepped between her and the other women. “Come in to headquarters. We’ll work it out.”

The women shifted uneasily. The tension in the room crept higher, and the reasons were unclear.

“What?” he asked.

She pivoted her gaze around him to the bed. “You don’t know them like I do. If we talk, we will die.”

“Take it easy,” Grayson broke in. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll figure out how to keep everyone safe.”

“They’ll never forget.” Her dark hair fell over her shoulders as she shook her head. “Never. Not if we talk. Let everyone leave. That’s best. Like we escaped.”

Luke took a step forward. “What I’m telling you is that we
need
to go, and eventually, you’ll be able to trust me.”

She leveled him with a stare so cold, so hot, so absurdly confusing, that he took a step back. “I trust no one.”

“We’re out.” Grayson guided the other girls from the hotel room. “Get a move on, buddy.”

The woman rolled her lips and stared. Their standoff couldn’t go on much longer. No telling if Cade would call in backup or if the traffickers had security triggers already in motion. Luke
could
—maybe
should
—pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, and be on his merry fuckin’ way. But hesitation had frozen him, staring at one of the most beautiful women he’d ever encountered.

“My name is Luke Brenner. I’m the guy you have to trust. Badge.” He flicked his waist. “Team.” His chest. “I’m the good guy. I’ll help you sort out what you need to. But we need to leave.”

She didn’t move a muscle. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“The same could be said for you.”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “I’d like to leave on my own.”

“We have to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask now then let me go.” She wasn’t scared, wasn’t cocky. An enigma more complicated than a simple victimization.

“Again. What’s your name?”

Defiance danced on her lips. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Look, lady. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her eyes ran up his body, sizing him up, and finally landing on his face. “You look like you do nothing but hurt people.”

“Only the bad ones.”

“There are shades of bad.” For a flash of a second, he saw the victim, the scared woman who didn’t have a choice. But that faded in an instant as she sighed, seemingly letting her guard down. “Fine. I’ll go with you, but I need to use the bathroom.”

“Now?” He shifted in his boots, the urge to drag her out overpowering his manners.

“Please.”

“Shit,” Cade murmured in Luke’s earpiece. “Two minutes. Get her out of the building in less than two minutes. Read me?”

He nodded agreement for Ryder to report in to the task force’s commander, but the woman took his nod as permission to hit the bathroom. Before he could say anything, she hurried away. The red soles of her expensive-looking shoes caught his eye, and something felt wrong about the girl. His thoughts went into overdrive. Who was she sold to? How long had they had her? Did she worry this was a cartel test where the traffickers tested their women to see if they’d run? Did she know her new owners?

“Hey, boss. What do we know about—”

Muffled glass shattered from the bathroom. Luke spun and slammed against the locked door.

“What—” Ryder broke into his thoughts via his earpiece. “—the fuck? Your girl’s pulling herself through a tiny-ass window.”

With another slam against the bathroom door, it broke open. Luke’s eyes peered out the tiny, broken window.

“We’ve got a problem.” Grayson’s voice crackled through the earpiece as Luke stood in disbelief in the empty bathroom.

Ryder broke in. “She’s scaling the damn wall, climbing toward a balcony.”

“
What?
” Luke’s mind spun.

“These girls,” Grayson said, “say that lady is management.
Upper
management.”

His blood went cold.
She
was a goddamn human trafficker? Luke jumped onto the toilet and peered past the broken glass.

“I’ve got a shot,” Ryder announced. “You want management taken out?”

“No!” he snapped, against everything he had stood for in his life. “No shot.”

“No,” Cade agreed, less forcefully and more calculating. “Where’s she going?”

“Roof,” Ryder replied. “Seventh floor. She’s climbing toward the roof.”

Luke took off, barreling through the hotel room and gunning it for the hotel’s staircase. Did he just say no to shooting a human trafficker? They
all
needed to be taken out, even the pretty ones with full lips and innocent faces. But something was missing. No way could she be involved in this. Even as he took three stairs at a time in a full sprint, he wanted to see with his eyes if it were true.

The hotel was twelve stories tall. Part of him worried that she’d kill herself accidentally before he could catch her.

“Update, Ryder,” he said.

“Woman’s still moving. Kicked off her shoes and hauling ass.”

“Son of a bitch. Where now?”

“Eleven.”

Same as him.

“We have company.” Ryder’s vocal inflection was concerned.

“Hold back, Brenner.” Cade jumped in. “Read me, Luke?”

At the roof door, he didn’t want to stay back. “Why?”

“Asshole. You do not question. You listen.”

Damn it.
“Who’s out there?”

“Brother,” Ryder broke in, “we have a chopper coming in fast, rifleman hanging out the opening.”

“Fuck!” Luke slammed both hands on the door.

“Stay put!” Cade ordered.

Ryder layered in. “They’d take you out in a heartbeat.”

“She’s out there?” Luke asked.

“Roger. Estimated ETA for a pickup, fifteen seconds.”

Fuck it. Cade can kick my ass later.
Luke pushed through the door and ducked defensively into the humid heat, pressing against the wall to take in his surroundings. There. The object of his unfathomable interest hustled across the south side of the roof. “Hold up! Stop.”

She spun, eyes wild, out of breath from their adrenaline-filled race.

Luke bunched his fists, holding himself back, more curious, or even turned on, than sane at the moment.

“Who the fuck are you?” he shouted.

Their eyes locked. The chopper lowered, and not wanting to die that day, he threw his hands up and hoped it enough to keep himself from being target practice. They’d still shoot, he’d still die. Ignoring his orders and entering the rooftop was a huge mistake, but he needed to know who she was. His reasoning had abdicated authority, and she was the unknowing catalyst.

“I’m going to find you,” he said.

A ladder dropped from the helo. She quickly grabbed onto it, shouting what he guessed was an instruction
not
to shoot.

Why? Why would she say that? They were enemies. They survived because the other one didn’t.

But as he wondered, an arm reached out of the helo and pulled her inside. She was safe from falling, safe from Ryder’s sniper rounds, and that was a relief, which screwed with his head more than her scaling a Miami hotel. The chopper pulled back hard and fled. Task force intel buzzed in his ear, communicating that a satellite had locked onto the bird. Parker would work his magic and see where it ended up. Simple. Their team would get them. Eventually.

Still, Luke stood there with too many questions. Namely, who
was
that girl? And for the first time, he wanted answers as much as he wanted blood.

CHAPTER TWO

Pulling out his earpiece to silence his cursing team leader, Luke pushed back inside to the air-conditioned hall and bounded down the stairs. When he hit the ground floor, Javier and Ryder were waiting. Grayson and the girls were gone. Luke’s chest hammered, and his mind couldn’t latch on to a logical course of action, so he stayed silent and fell into place when they boarded their blacked-out Expedition.

“Where’s Cade?” Luke asked.

Ryder shook his head. “Rode back with Gray.”

Luke nodded. He had about five minutes of quiet before they showed at their rendezvous, where Cade would tear him a new asshole.

“Damn it.” He tried to contain the hum of his muscles. Stress exacerbated that uncontrollable urge for pain. To inflict it. To receive it. He wasn’t a sadist—just a fighter. And clenching his fists only to release and do it again, he felt a growing need to find a brawl.

“What happened up there?” Javier slowed, already exiting the highway onto a palm-tree-lined street decorated with brilliantly painted buildings. A co-op grocery, local restaurants, housing that had seen better days. The farther they drove, the sketchier the area, until they were in a place Delta and MacKenzie security could hide unnoticed.

“Dunno, Brazil.” Luke rubbed his eyes, hunched over in his seat. “Things happen.”

“I get it. If anyone gets it,
I
get it. But…shit.” Javier whistled. “Cade’s gonna light you up.”

“I know.”

Ryder clapped Luke on the back as they pulled into the parking lot. Javier threw the SUV into park, and Luke looked up, wondering if his screw-up would kick him off the team.

“Ready?”

“Fuck if I care.” Which was a total lie. He wanted cartel blood. He wanted to know about the girl.

“Right.” Ryder got out.

Luke dropped his head back and heard Javier say, “Shit happens. We’ll get them another day.”