Page 103 of Ruthless Protector

“We’ll get them back, I promise you that,” Van said.

We both knew he couldn’t make that promise, but if I thought of the alternative—that dark and ugly place I’d lived in before Willa and Tilly came into my world, bringing back to life a heart I thought was nothing but a shriveled, dead husk—I’d have to be committed.

They got it beating again. It was all them.

They’d brought me back to life.

I wouldn’t quit until I had them home and safe.

Willa

I was jostled roughly and startled awake. It took me a moment to orientate myself. I was upside-down, looking at one of the goon’s backs. He had me slung over his shoulder and was carrying me up a steep set of stairs.

A door opened and a moment later, I was dumped on the floor. The wind was knocked out of me, my head spinning after having all the blood rush to it. Before I could take in where I was, the sound of the door shutting echoed through the room, followed by a decided click. I jumped up and stumbled to it, trying the door handle, yanking on it as hard as I could. Locked.

I spun around, searching the dark corners. Everything was black, the only light came from a lamp in the corner. I was alone. The dull flash of a small red light caught my attention up by the ceiling. A camera. I was being watched.

I searched the room, looking for another way out. No windows. When I spun back, I spotted another door. I rushed over and tried the handle. The door swung open. A bathroom, bright and white and such a contrast to the black walls of the main room, I stumbled back a step.

What the hell was this place? Where was I?

I took in the large room, and when I realized what I was looking at, froze solid.

The walls, the floor, were all lined with black plastic, and there were manacles hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room.

I thought I was here because of Trent. I didn’t think that now.

Somehow, I knew, I just knew, this was the place, the kill room of a monster. The man who’d killed all those women. I backed into the bathroom, my knees giving out from under me. I hit the tiled floor hard.

And I was next.

Jude

Twenty-four hours had passed since Willa was snatched from her home.

Nothing. We’d heard nothing.

“Whoever has them, they don’t want money,” I said.

“Trent’s wanted by a lot of people,” Van said. “Maybe he was forced to go deeper underground? He’s gotta know Willa’s yours. It’s not hard to work out you’ve got access to a lot more money than she does. The guy’s dumb enough to think he can blackmail you as well.”

“Maybe.” That made sense, of course. He could have got someone to work with him for a cut of the cash.

One of our informants had reported a sighting; a guy, his description fitting Trent’s, with a kid, the day before. Neco was behind his computer, searching property in the area, places they could be hiding, if they were still there. Warehouses, abandoned apartment buildings, vacant stores.

A series of beeps came from his computer, an alert of some kind, and I watched Neco click open another screen. His eyes hardened, then lifted to mine.

“What?”

“Got him,” he said.

I strode over and stared at a red dot flashing on the map filling his computer screen.

“Trent just turned his phone on,” Neco said.

He’d used two different phones to call Willa, the burner we’d found at his apartment and this one. Please don’t let this be another dead end. “Let’s move out,” I said, heading for the door.

We had a team assembled and ready to go in ten minutes.