Page 92 of Keeping Penny

The thought that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t where Pyro had been taken flashed through Casper’s head. He definitely didn’t want to scare the hell out of an innocent family who might be sitting down to breakfast, only to be interrupted by four armed men yelling at them to get on the floor. But he’d take responsibility for whatever consequences there might be if that happened. Finding Pyro before he could be hurt or killed was worth any punishment. Even jail time.

The four men eased inside the house. Casper could hear two men talking in a nearby room. He held up his fist, telling his team to halt. They heard the men discussing the sweet payout they were getting for such an easy job. As Casper and his team listened in, they actually played a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who got the easier job of transporting “the kid.”

Fury threatened to overcome Casper’s normal control, but he took a deep breath. Then he turned to his men, his friends, and mouthed, On the count of three.

Everyone nodded, and Casper held up his hand once more.

Three fingers. Then two. Then one.

As a unit, the four men leapt into the room screaming at the men.

“Get down!”

“On your face, now!”

“Down, down, down!”

The two men jerked in surprise, eyes huge in their faces, and they immediately did as ordered. Falling to the floor with no resistance whatsoever.

While Chaos and Obi-Wan secured the men, Casper and Buck had their weapons aimed on the doorways, in case someone heard the commotion and ran into the room, guns blazing. But thankfully, no one arrived.

“Who are you? What’s your job here?” Obi-Wan asked, getting in one of the men’s faces. They were now lying on their backs with their hands cuffed with zip-ties behind them uncomfortably. One had a dark stain on the front of his pants. They looked to be in their mid-twenties, way too young to be in the kidnapping business.

“I’m Tom. This is Marcus. We were hired to drive. That’s all, man! Just drive!”

“Drive who? Where?” Obi-wan growled.

“I don’t know. We were just told to come here this morning and pick up our passengers and take them to two separate air strips.” The man’s voice was shaking, and he looked like he was going to cry.

Obi-Wan didn’t show him even the smallest bit of pity. “What air strips? Who hired you? How much are they paying?”

Casper didn’t want to wait around to hear the answers. Obi-Wan would get everything the police and Tex needed to know in order to shut down this operation.

His concern was finding Pyro. He interrupted Obi-Wan’s interrogation. “Who else is here? Where’s the man and the girl you were supposed to pick up?”

“Basement. There are three other guys. They went down to get ’em.” He used his chin to gesture toward a door behind Chaos. “That’s the elevator. The only way to get down there.”

Bowie had said there was an elevator. Casper’s lips pressed together. It wasn’t ideal. Any stealthy entry they might have made would be blown to shit by using the elevator. But knowing there were only three men made him feel a little better. He, Buck, and Chaos could easily take on three perps. It was thinking about what was going on in the basement that made his stomach roll.

“How long have they been down there?”

“All night.”

“Not the man and girl, idiot,” Casper said impatiently. “The three men who went to get them.”

“I-I-I’m not sure. One went down first, then two others after. Maybe about five minutes ago?”

Five minutes. That was both an eternity and a drop in the bucket.

“Go,” Obi-Wan said with a jerk of his head. “I’ve got these two fuckers. They’ll be singing like canaries by the time I’m done with them.”

Chaos had already pushed the button for the elevator, and Casper and Buck stepped over to join him. The fifteen seconds or so it took the door to open seemed like an eternity.

All three men shuffled into the elevator, and Casper took a deep breath. He tightened his grip on the pistol in his hand and concentrated on the door. Whatever was on the other side when the elevator stopped, he and his team would deal with it…but he prayed that they’d find Pyro alive. Just being prepped to ship off to some pervert who wanted a sex slave.

And not already dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE