By Lethal Force Read online

  Mia glares at the asshole like she wants to rip his dick off and shove it down his throat.

  Trevor once again outbids every other man in the room—though Mia’s final price is less than fifty thousand. And then…it’s over.

  The elbow to my ribs startles me, and Trevor jerks his head towards the women. The guards are unlocking the chains connecting their collars in preparation for handing them off to their buyers. “Time to go.” Lowering his voice, he mutters, “On my mark.”

  Like a good bodyguard, I trail behind him. The goons outside scanned us for metal before they let us in the restaurant, but I have a ceramic knife tucked into my boot and Trevor’s belt turns into at least three separate weapons. Fucking spook has all the good toys.

  Trevor strides up to Mr. Black with an air of impatience plastered across his face. “I have a plane leaving in under an hour. Remove their wrist cuffs and cover them. I will not have others looking at what is now mine.”

  Mr. Black nods at the guards who each pull out a set of keys and start removing the handcuffs. Ivy and Mia immediately move towards one another, Ivy’s arm wrapping around Mia’s shoulders. “Of course. If you will transfer payment—”

  “Now,” Trevor barks, and the rafters shake as the small explosion rattles the building. Bits of dust and plaster rain down, the girls start to scream, and Trevor and I spring into action.

  The guards try to round up the women, but I drop and roll, coming up with the knife in my hand. With a quick jab, I sink the ceramic blade into the closest guard’s side, twist, and drop him where he stands.

  Trevor pulls off his belt, twists the buckle, and pulls taut, exposing a thin, metal wire. A shot whizzes by my ear, and I spin, aiming a kick to Mr. Black’s solar plexus as Trevor dispatches the second armed man.

  But in the next breath, three others race in from a side door. Trevor goes for Black, and I grab a gun off the floor, firing twice, dropping two of the three new assholes. The third grabs Ivy, but she wriggles and kicks until her fist finds his balls, and he drops her.

  Another shot makes us all spin around to see Nomar in the doorway, his gun drawn and a look of murderous rage in his eyes. The man who’d grabbed Ivy is gurgling on the floor, blood filling his lungs. He won’t live another five minutes.

  Tucking the gun back into his holster, Nomar grabs one of the sets of keys from the closest guard and starts to unlock the other women’s shackled wrists.

  “You want to live?” Trevor asks, and Mr. Black starts to choke and wheeze as the garrote bites into his neck. “Where’s Josephine Taylor?”

  “J-Joey?” Ivy stammers. “She…they separated us. Days ago.”

  “Where is she?” Trevor asks again, pulling the wire even tighter.

  “Not…here,” Mr. Black wheezes, his fingers desperately trying to loosen the wire, to no avail. “She…was…never to be…sold.”

  Taking my knife, I cut through the waistband of his pants, his briefs, and expose his flaccid cock. “If you ever want to be able to use this pathetic dick again, you’ll tell us where she is.”

  “Amir Abdul Faruk. He has her. The other two,” he gestures weakly towards Ivy and Mia, “were not part of his plan, so he had his men bring them to me.” His shoulders sag. “He will kill me if I do not deliver his money tomorrow. Please…”

  Trevor meets my gaze. We have a way in. “I’m going to kill you anyway,” Trev whispers in the man’s ear, and as Mr. Black whimpers pathetically, I turn to Nomar.

  “Come on. We have to get out of here,” I say, not wanting the women to witness yet another death. Nomar translates for the three who look like they could be locals, ushering them out the door to the waiting van, and I extend my hand to Ivy, who still holds Mia tightly.

  The two share a look, then Mia straightens in Ivy’s embrace and they both stare expectantly at Mr. Black. “If you’re going to kill him,” Mia says, her voice hoarse and weak, “we’re going to watch.”

  “Are you sure?” They look so fragile, but then again, I can understand their need to see the man who hurt them die.

  “Yes,” they answer in unison.

  Trevor pulls the garrote tight, and Mr. Black’s face turns purple, then blue as he bucks and thrashes with his last breaths. Blood seeps around the wire, then pours freely from his carotid artery, and with a final muttered curse, Trevor lets him go where he falls to the floor, his eyes open and staring.

  Mia sobs quietly, but Ivy pins me with a hard stare. “Who are you?”

  “Ford Lawton. I…used to know Joey. A long time ago. Can we save the rest of the explanation for the van?”

  “Hell, yeah.” Ivy urges Mia towards the door, and once we’re in the van racing towards the safehouse, Ivy touches my arm. “Ford?” Her shoulders are straighter and her eyes hold a fire I didn’t see when she was chained and about to be sold. “Joey’s strong. She tried to protect us—until they came and took the two of us away.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I don’t know. But they put us in this tiny little compartment—almost like a coffin—in the back of a van, and it was hours before they let us out again.”

  From the front seat, Nomar says, “That’s how they got you over the border.”

  “Did you ever hear the name Mr. Black mentioned?” I ask. “Amir Abdul Faruk?”

  “A couple of times,” Mia whispers. “He was in charge of the guys who transported us. They kept saying how much Ivy would go for.” She shudders and turns her cheek into Ivy’s neck, her next words muffled. “I wasn’t as valuable. So…they…they…”

  “It’s okay,” I say softly. “You’re both safe now. I promise. This is Trevor, and that grump behind the wheel is Nomar. We’re all ex-military or US Intelligence. We’ll get you home. All of you. And we’re not leaving Joey behind. We’ll find her.”

  8

  Ford

  A little after 11:00 p.m., one of Nomar’s contacts, a Brit named Matthew, knocks on the safehouse door. He—along with three of his most trusted agents—will protect Ivy, Mia, and the other girls until we can make arrangements to get them all home to their families.

  “Matt,” Nomar says as he claps the tall, thin man on the back. “Thanks for this.”

  “You saved my arse, mate. I’ve been trying to put an end to that bastard’s trafficking ring for three years. But he’s always smelled a rat before we got in there.” Behind him, two other men and one woman wait for Matt to introduce them.

  “Ford?” Ivy asks from the bedroom door. “Is everything okay?” She holds a blanket tightly around her and darts a glance back at the bed where Mia sleeps. She passed out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  “Just fine, sweetheart. Matt and his team are going to stay with you until we find Joey and can get the hell out of here,” I say.

  The woman with Matt steps forward and holds out a duffel bag. “I brought clothes—various sizes. Sweats, long sleeves, socks. And some fancy shampoo and soap. I’m Tara,” she says with a smile. “You’re Ivy?”

  Ivy nods, but pushes past Tara and grabs my arm. “You have to find her, Ford. Please. Joey took care of us. The three weeks we were in Turkmenistan working? She was the one who taught us how to make the locals feel comfortable. How to double-check the tent frames to make sure they were solid. How to sleep at night when it was so hot.”

  I arch a brow, and Ivy offers me a weak smile. “Put on fresh socks.”

  “That sounds like Joey. She was always so practical. And she never let anyone struggle if she could help it. We’ll get her back.” I don’t finish my sentence, but the words echo in my head. Or die trying.

  The Jeep bounces over rutted roads, jostling me awake. One thing you learn in the military? How to grab small bits of sleep here and there. Whenever you can. The past five hours, I’ve proved how much I still know.

  “Finally awake? Thank God. You were starting to drool,” Trevor says from the front seat. With a glare, I swipe my hand over my mouth, only to find it dry as a bone. Jerk.


  Darkness still holds sway over the sky, but a hint of light brightens the horizon in the east. Still, the stars shine this far from any major city. Checking my GPS, I sit up with a start. We’re not far outside of Mazari Sharif. Less than twenty minutes from where we think they’re holding Joey.

  “Any news?” There’s no cell service here, but if I know Trevor, he’s been on and off his SAT phone the entire five hour drive.

  “Maybe. Amir Abdul Faruk has been on the terrorist watch list for seven years,” Nomar says. He nods at Trevor, and the former spook passes me a tablet. On screen, a man stands outside a massive home surrounded by a tall, stone wall. Next to him, a smaller figure—a woman—dressed in burnt orange, and behind her, another man. Stockier. With something that looks vaguely like a gun. The time stamp reads two days ago.

  “This is the best you got?” I ask, trying to zoom in. If this is Joey…

  “The satellite only passes over this region once every forty-eight hours—usually. But we got it retasked to keep a constant watch until we know if she’s really there,” Nomar says. “If she goes outside again, we’ll get a better shot.”

  “Do I want to know how many favors you called in to commandeer a satellite?”

  “No,” he and Trevor answer at once, then share a chuckle. While I slept, they must have worked out some of their shit.

  Trevor turns in the front seat and meets my gaze. “Faruk is a paranoid fucknut. There are guards at each corner of that wall with AK-47s. One way in and out—the gate. Razor wire everywhere else. This isn’t going to be easy.”

  “I can call Ryker, but it’ll take him at least twenty-four hours to get his team here.”

  “No.” Running his hand through his dark hair, Trevor frowns. “Look, I know the guy’s K&R. And it might come to that eventually. But we’re breaking so many laws, they could put us all away for the rest of our fucking lives if we’re caught.”

  He meets my gaze, and I understand. He’s doing this for Wren. Keeping her safe by keeping the man she loves safe. And I can’t blame him. But this is Joey. I won’t lose her. I can’t. “Let me call him. At least tell him to stand by. Put his team on notice. Send him some of this intel. We don’t know what this Faruk is doing to Joey. Or how long she has left.”

  With a grumbled response that might be a “fine,” he turns back to the road.

  “Ford?” Nomar and I lock eyes in the rearview. “This isn’t like when we were deployed. There were rules there. Even with Saddam as batshit as he was. This is rural Afghanistan. And most of this area? It was a Taliban hotbed for years. The locals won’t be any help. They’ll actively try to kill us.”

  And Joey.

  “If you’re saying we shouldn’t rescue her—” My entire body vibrates with anger, and Nomar’s lucky he’s driving.

  “Whoa, there. Nobody’s saying that. I wouldn’t leave a woman I hated in that situation, let alone one I cared for. But you haven’t been ‘in country’ for more than a dozen years. We have. And I need your guarantee you’ll follow our lead.”

  I must have missed a hell of a lot of conversation while I was napping. “Trev and I already had this talk. Why are we rehashing it again?”

  “Because I put in my retirement papers a month ago. When you called, I was wiping my apartment clean. Twenty minutes later, and I would have been gone. Headed back to the States. Everything we’re doing…we don’t have any sort of official support. I’m a civvie now. Just like you. And I’d rather not spend the rest of my life in an Afghan prison. Or…without my head if they find out we killed all those assholes at the auction.”

  Shit.

  Nomar eases the Jeep off the road and down a little hill to a group of tents as the dawn threatens to spill over the horizon. “These guys owe me. They’ll hide the Jeep and give us horses. We’ll never get a vehicle closer to the compound than this without being shot.”

  Nothing said in the next ten minutes makes any sense to me. Trevor, Nomar, and two older Afghan men gesture and argue, until finally, another man brings out three tunics for us to put on over our fatigues and black t-shirts.

  The horses look just as thrilled to be saddled up this early in the morning as I feel relying on an animal—one that can’t outrun a car—for our only transportation. But Trevor’s right. If we try to take the Jeep any closer, Faruk’s men will see and hear us coming, and that could be deadly—for us and for Joey.

  “Good news,” Trevor says as we mount up and urge the horses forward. “One of Faruk’s men is…dissatisfied with the way the asshole runs things. He’ll get Nomar into the compound for the right price.”

  “And what’s the right price?” I don’t really want to know, but after working with Dax for the past few years, I’ve socked away a nice nest egg. Private security work pays well.

  “Ten grand.” With a shrug, he lets Nomar get twenty or thirty feet in front of us before lowering his voice. “Dax is funding this whole thing up to six figures. After that—”

  “What?” Telling me the sky was made of horse shit wouldn’t have surprised me this much. A hundred thousand dollars? Money he clearly didn’t think twice about since he didn’t bother to mention it to me.

  “The dude’s loaded.” Trevor arches a brow. “You didn’t know? Jesus, Ford. Look at how he lives. That tiny apartment? No car, no parking fees or insurance. He hasn’t taken a single day off since you two hired me. Who does that?”

  “Dax.” I shake my head with a sigh. “When we get back, he and I are going to have a serious talk about work-life balance.”

  “Like you’re much better.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I leave the office by six most nights.”

  “And do what? Go home? Watch baseball? Read a book?” He shoots me a pointed look. “When’s the last time you got laid?”

  “This is the conversation you want to have right now?”

  “Yes.” His tone turns grave. “Because we’re about to go try to rescue a woman you haven’t seen in twenty years, and every time one of us says her name, the look on your face? You’re still in love with her. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I can’t.” Transferring the reins to one hand, I scrub the other over my eyes for a brief moment. “I’ve loved Joey all my life. Tried to date on and off. Never lasted longer than a month. None of them measured up.” As I dig my heels into the horse’s sides and urge him to pick up the pace, I admit the truth to Trevor—and maybe to myself. “Joey was it for me. Is it for me. I have to tell her, Trev. Whatever happens after that…she needs to know I never stopped loving her.”

  By the time we tie the reins to a post behind an abandoned barn at the bottom of the hill, my legs are on fire and my ass is numb. “I really don’t like horses,” I mutter as we drop our rucksacks.

  The sun starts to brighten the sky, silhouetting the wall and the four stories of stone and clay that make up Faruk’s compound. Nomar obsessively checks and rechecks the gun strapped to his side under his tunic. I don’t like this plan, but it’s all we have. I can’t just waltz up to Faruk’s front gate and ask him to hand over the woman he kidnapped.

  The village hasn’t stirred, the only sounds the goats and chickens wandering the paths between small houses. Roads would be too generous of a term. There isn’t a single vehicle in sight, only horses tied to posts, a few of them neighing quietly, but most still sleeping.

  Nomar rummages in his sack, pulls out a headscarf and an AK-47, checks his pistol one last time, and starts toward the compound’s gate.

  The comms unit in my ear clicks once, and then his voice whispers over the connection. “There’s a small camera hidden in one of the buttons on this getup. But the range sucks. You’ll have to be close. Make your way to the back of the compound, and for fuck’s sake, stay out of sight. I’ll get in, find out where they’re holding her, and get out. Do not engage unless there’s no other way. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I say. Meeting Trevor’s gaze, I offer a silent prayer Nomar will find her alive, then follow the spoo
k to the outskirts of the village, climb the hill towards the back of the compound, and wait.

  Joey

  Jerking awake from yet another nightmare, I reach for the ring hidden under my tunic. I’m so tired, but I can’t relax. Can’t manage to sleep for more than half an hour at a time. Mateen is a bright, kind boy. Every day after I take his blood and give him the various supplements and medications that will prepare his body for the final cocktail, he tells me about some famous soccer player he wants to meet or challenges me to a match on his little gaming system.

  But his father…his father will soon turn him into a monster. I see the fear in Lisette’s eyes every time Faruk comes to check on the boy. When he was finished with his treatment yesterday, Mateen wanted to stay with his mother, but Faruk refused to allow it.

  At least then, I was left alone in the makeshift lab. More or less. The camera watches me incessantly, and Zaman often hovers in the doorway. And tonight…I’ll have to tell Faruk the first component of the cocktail is done. How long until he forces me to start a treatment I know will kill my patient? Days? A week at most. And then…I’ll be dead too. I can’t harm that little boy. If I can’t figure a way out of this, I’ll use the cocktail on myself. Die on my own terms and let Mateen live—for as long as his disease allows.

  Pulling the tiny needle I stole out of the hem of my tunic, I open a small cut on my inner arm. The pain eases the fear I’ll implode and lets me breathe again.

  Lying with my back against the door, fully dressed, save for my headscarf and slippers, I try to call up a single happy memory. Anything to hold on to.

  “Oh, crap. I’m so sorry,” I cry as my soda tumbles down the shirt of the most delicious, handsome man I’ve ever seen. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Turning back to the counter, I grab wads and wads of napkins, then try to soak up the icy liquid from a strong chest until I realize what I’m doing. My hands are all over him.