Page 65 of Protecting Bree
“Fuck. All right. While we get the hell out of here, I need the two of you to think really hard on any details about the boat, the men, anything that we might be able to use to track her down,” Tex said.
Cookie leaned down and picked up Fiona, carrying her against his chest as he headed for the Jeep.
Kevlar offered to carry Julie, and she shyly took him up on his offer, since she wasn’t wearing shoes.
Seeing her toes in the dirt made the ache in Smiley’s heart grow. Bree probably wasn’t wearing shoes either. His desire to know what the hell happened here, how she’d gotten separated from the other women, was gnawing at him. But he wouldn’t deny the women the time they needed to process that they were safe.
Tex and Cookie climbed into the backseat with the women. Fiona sitting on her husband’s lap, and Julie between them and Tex.
“I knew you’d come,” Fiona said softly, when they were all settled into the Jeep and Kevlar was pulling out of the shipyard.
Everything within Smiley was urging him to stay, same as he’d felt after seeing her clothes at the truck stop. Once again, this was where Bree was last known to be. It physically hurt to leave. He rubbed his chest as he stared straight ahead.
“I told you once that I’d always come for you, and I meant it,” Cookie told Fiona.
“Hurt wanted to come but?—”
“But it’s been a very long time since he’s been in the field,” Julie said, interrupting Tex. “It’s fine. Being able to talk to him, reassure him that I’m okay…it was enough for now.”
“Fuck,” Smiley swore under his breath. He felt more than saw Kevlar look over at him from behind the steering wheel. But he kept his gaze straight ahead. He was holding on to his control by a thread.
“Bree,” Fiona whispered.
“We aren’t leaving her,” Tex said in a low tone, full of emotion.
“She…we wouldn’t have been able to escape without her.”
“Hold that thought,” Cookie said. “We’re going to a hotel where you can shower, eat, and change into some clean clothes. Then we’ll sit down and you can tell us the whole story. Unless you have intel that we need right this second about where she is so we can go get her.”
Smiley looked back and saw both Fiona and Julie sadly shaking their heads. Julie reached over and took one of Fiona’s hands in hers. He didn’t like the look that passed between the two women.
He clenched his teeth so hard they started to ache. He wanted to disagree. Tell Kevlar to pull over so they could hear what Fiona and Julie had to say right then and there. But Cookie was right. They needed to get them to the hotel and do what they could to make them feel safe and comfortable.
Knowing there was nothing they could do right this moment for Bree was more painful than any injury he’d ever gotten while on a mission. Smiley would rather be shot than feel this.
“Smiley? Are you okay?” Fiona asked.
His first instinct was to lash out. To tell her ofcoursehe wasn’t okay. Bree was in the hands of a fucking sadistic madman who wanted to defile and hurt her both mentally and physically.
Instead, he simply shook his head and continued staring out the front windshield.
He heard Cookie murmuring to his wife, telling her not to push, to give him some time. But time wasn’t going to fix this. It would only take Bree farther and farther away from him. And give Castillo more chances to hurt her.
Closing his eyes, Smiley prayed for patience. And he prayed Bree was strong enough to withstand anything the assholes who took her had planned.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bree lay on the floor of yet another fucking cage and did her best not to move a muscle. She was curled into a ball, trying not to throw up or moan from the motion of the boat. They were moving incredibly fast, and every time the boat went over a wave and came down hard on the water, her bones ached.
She was pretty sure she had at least one broken or cracked rib from being kicked. And one of her eyes was swollen shut. She had to be covered from head to toe in bruises. She hurt…everywhere. But she was alive.
And Fiona and Julie had escaped. She’d overheard the men on the boat worrying about that. Clearly concerned about how “unhappy” the boss was going to be when he found out. A search of the shipyard was being planned at daylight, and she could only hope her friends were able to get out, get beyond the fence before that happened.
Even though she wanted to rage and cuss out the men who were on the boat with her, Bree instinctively knew that her best option was to pretend to be unconscious. Sofar that had worked, as far as the men leaving her alone. The last thing she wanted was to bring their attention to her again. She had no idea if they were the kind of men who would rape a woman while she was passed out, but she had to continue hoping they weren’t, as they hadn’t touched her so far.
So she lay on the floor of the cage and did her best to act as if she was completely out of it. All the while, trying to remember the Spanish she’d learned during her college days to glean any information she could.
Honestly, even though she’d been beaten to a pulp, Bree wouldn’t have changed anything she’d done. She wasn’t upset for killing that guy back in the truck. She wouldn’t spend another second thinking about him. He’d chosen his path, kidnapping innocent women to sell in the sex trade, and his death was a direct result of his life choices.
