A few scenarios crashed through my mind as we were escorted to a room at the back of the conference center. Martin Zander had brought some of his people here, as was the norm. It seemed likely there would be repercussions after Zander’s death.
“What’s happening?” Nora whispered to me as the soldiers walked us up to the door. “Is this to do with Ava? Is she going to be okay? Did Blaine really just shoot her uncle?”
“I don’t know the details, babe,” I said. “It’ll be fine. Blaine has got Ava’s tracker—he’ll bring her back, I promise.” I hope. “If it’s bad, just look away. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”
I was expecting a blood bath. What I got was Taylor with a woman on his lap. She was screaming and thrashing. Taylor was trying to restrain her.
I froze.
The door behind me opened as I was still reeling from this development, and a soldier handed me a field medical kit.
“Don’t just stand there,” Taylor grunted. “Give her something before she hurts her damn self!”
I’d been asked to do many things in my time since I had first met Taylor. Sedating a woman was a line I was not prepared to cross.
“Ava?”
It was Nora who broke the shocked impasse, her fingers clutching mine in a death grip.
The woman recoiled at the name, the fight leaving her for the briefest moment during which I caught sight of luminous winter blue eyes before she fell to broken sobbing.
Ava? She wasn’t Ava, this woman’s hair was blonde where Ava was dark, and her face bore the subtle lines of age. But those eyes, I could have sworn I would never see the like again. Yet here they were, red-rimmed and staring back at me with so much pain.
“Not quite,” Taylor said. “Her mother.”
Blaine
I had underestimated Ava in just about every way. Despite Carter notifying the guards as soon as he noticed she was missing, she had already hacked her tracker, ditched the cell, and crossed the river, taking her out of Taylor’s jurisdiction.
I was impressed.
I was fucking angry.
As if I didn’t have enough to deal with, Taylor called me as we were leaving.
Ava’s mother wasn’t dead. She was alive and had gone into shock after hearing the daughter she thought she’d lost had run out into the lawless outside alone.
Then the bastard threatened to kill me slowly if I didn’t bring Ava back safe and well.
I pushed it all down and focused on the task at hand.
The river’s far shore was a no man’s land where the lawless outsiders vied for the scraps.
Ava had several agreed rendezvous points with Jodi in case of emergency, which Jodi had only disclosed after I’d killed Zander. I’d be dealing with her for that later, although I couldn’t find it in me to blame her. I was new to Ava, had known her a few weeks, and the two women had a history that covered years.
I couldn’t see Ava reaching any of the rendezvous points, even assuming she had anything with her for GPS.
Taylor didn’t poke his nose in when I organized a small team to take boats to the other side. We’d run reconnaissance over there a few times, but not in the last year. It wasn’t even on Taylor’s expansion plans. Too much scrubby forest, not enough inhabitants, and nothing else resource-wise to interest the king.
What they did have was a few beaten communities run by the kind of thugs who made Taylor look like a saint. It would be a long trek for her to the only bridge to cross back to this side. Unless she tried to swim again, which I did not like the idea of, given the currents.
I still put patrols on the length of the river.
Despite what the old movies would have you believe, tracking a person wasn’t easy when they didn’t have an electronic tracker turned on. She was on her own, no boat, and unless she had dropped something that didn’t get buried in the deep mud lining the far shore, we were likely to be out of luck.
We were out of luck.
Dark came.
Dawn came.
Finally, I got a call from Mitch to say they’d reactivated her hacked tracker.
She had been taken because there was no other way she could have gotten to Havoc without transportation, and no one would go there by choice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ava
DEEP IN THE night, when cold and exhaustion had taken their toll, I realized too late that my boot had caught a tripwire.
I ran.
They came with flashlights and dogs.
And although I fought with all my wild desperation, one punch to the stomach and I was retching on the floor.
“Grab her, Karl!”
A dark shape loomed above me: lank, ratty hair, a thick black beard and bald head, and stocky with muscle. As Karl fisted my hair and dragged my still heaving body from the floor, I acknowledged that a man would always be stronger than a woman and that no amount of training could ever make us equal.
“Got ourselves some pretty little fresh meat here, Bill,” the toothless thug said, his stinking breath in my face. His sweaty odor washed over me, making me gag again.
Raucous laughter greeted this statement from the crowd of five, maybe six men, who surrounded me. A pair of mastiffs strained against their chain leashes, two hundred pounds of muscle excited by the chase.
“That we do,” the man who approached still had his front teeth, clean-shaven, weathered features, made harsh in the flashlight. “Hold the dogs back,” Bill said. “Thought it was gonna be one of them biker prospects again. But ain’t this a fine treat.” He stepped up to me, running a rough finger down my cheek.
“Where’d you think she came from?” the one who’s fist was burning my scalp asked. “Soaked through. Think she swam the river?”
“Reckon she ran from Grimm’s,” a man from the gathered crowd said. “Maybe we should hand her over. Don’t want no trouble stirred up with those mean bastards.”
“Well, she’s on our turf now,” Bill said, stepping back. “Plenty of creeks around these parts between us and Grimm. You run from the bikers, girl?”
I shook my head.
Leaning back, he pinched my cheeks, turning my face toward the flashlight. He whistled. “Look at those pretty eyes. Pupils ain’t dilated, and they like to keep their girls on that shit.” He released me. “They come looking for her, then they’ll have to negotiate. Ain’t nothing for free. If she’s theirs, they’ll pay to get her back. If she ain’t, they’ll pay, too.”
Binding my wrists in rough rope, they marched me through the forest, keeping me motivated to move with a push, slap, or by letting the slavering dogs snarl at me.
I walked, knowing I had no choice.
Knowing too that my attempt to flee my uncle had delivered me to something far worse.
Blaine
It took longer than I wanted to pull everything together. Small team or a large team? They both had merits.
A large team would give us plenty of back up, but it would also draw attention.
A small team could cross via the river, which would be less dangerous, but also slower given we’d have to cover the land on foot.
Slower wasn’t working for me. Every second Ava was in Havoc was a second she could be getting raped or beaten, or both. In the end, I decided to go in heavy.