Saved By The Enemy (Hacienda Heights Book 3) Page 5

  I grinned savagely. “Yes, I know about that. I’m looking for Mina Blakely. About five foot nine, red hair, though the last I was able to tell, you’d put a dark wig on her. Hazel eyes, any of this ringing a bell?”

  Vincent’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously as he looked around. “She is not here.”

  I casually drew the hammer back on the Browning, keeping my finger resting lightly on the trigger. “You took my girlfriend, Mr. Perron. Start talking or lose a knee.” I pointed the gun at his kneecap.

  He lifted his hands and an edge of panic entered his voice. “She is not here. She escaped her bonds last night and surprised John in ze hall. He needs ze hospital. He may be blinded.”

  Pride unfurled, warm and satisfying in my belly. That was my girl. It did complicate things just a bit, now that she was on the run. She was a smart woman, and she wouldn’t flee to any place that might be monitored. The safest place would be the embassy in Paris. That was an almost eight-hour drive, assuming she had transportation. If not, she’d need to make use of public transportation or rent a car. This could get tricky fast.

  As I moved around the man on the floor, looking for and spotting an unmoving bald man lying in the hall, I made a mental note to tell Tucker to keep an eye on the embassy in Paris. I wanted to know the second she turned up.

  Staring down at Vincent coolly, I said, “Here’s the deal, Mr. Perron. You’re going to tell me everything you know about this ring, and maybe I’ll call an ambulance for your friend. Lie to me...” I let the threat hang in the air.

  Vincent swallowed hard and began to speak in slow, halting sentences. “I don’t know a lot. I just rent ze houses and guard ze girls. John brings them to the ships. I meet him in Sète or sometimes I go along to America, when I have the inclination. We drop them off at the auctions in Toulouse. Our only job is to make sure they’re clean, fed, and presentable before Sylvian takes them.”

  “Sylvian?” Keenan said, voice rising in surprise. “Sylvian who?”

  Vincent stammered, “S-Sylvian Ancel.”

  “Bullshit. The director?”

  Vincent nodded.

  I glanced sideways at Keenan. “You know him?”

  “Sort of,” Keenan said, shaking his head. “He’s not big in the States but he’s a popular director here in France. Kind of hard to believe that he’s involved. This guy could be lying.”

  Well, Keenan was proving time after time the benefits to bringing him along. I didn’t watch many films, and when I did, foreign films weren’t my bag. If a big-shot director was involved, this thing had a wider reach than I’d originally anticipated.

  “I’m not lying,” Vincent snapped. “Ancel hosts auctions all the time. How to you think he got ze big mansion and all the girls, hmm? He has been failing to compete with Sebastian Beaulieu for years now! He is a part of zis, I swear it.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, but a lead was better than nothing. “Where do we find him?”

  “He has several places.” Vincent glanced down the hall to his cohort. “Please, the hospital. We had one phone and it was broken.”

  “Keenan, call Tuck and have him look up the properties this Ancel guy owns. Tell him we know he has more than one.”

  I reached into my own pocket and dialed 112, hitting speakerphone before tossing the phone onto Vincent’s chest.

  “Say anything out of line, and my partner or I will shoot you,” I warned.

  The phone rang and as soon as the operator answered, Vincent began to speak in French. Keenan didn’t appear alarmed, so I had to assume he was on the up and up. Still, it grated to have to trust someone else with an endeavor this crucial. The moment we got out of this mess, I was going to learn French and any other language that could help me avoid a shitshow like this one in the future.

  When Vincent was through speaking and seemed to relax, I took the phone from him and handed it to Keenan. “Tell them that we’ve captured two men with ties to a sex trafficking ring and that they will be restrained when emergency personnel arrive.”

  Vincent barely had time to protest before I stuffed a rag in his mouth. At the moment, I was having trouble empathizing with him. He’d taken Mina and had planned to sell her as a slave.

  By the time I’d found zip ties and secured Vincent and gathered the men’s weapons, Keenan had checked on the unconscious John. His ashy skin was worrisome. I didn’t want Mina facing murder charges. It would be just like the justice system to charge her. I hoped the ambulance didn’t take long.

  Keenan slipped the zip ties on John’s wrists and glanced up at me. “What now, oh fearless leader?”

  “Now, we’re going to find Mina.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mina

  I gritted my teeth, limping determinedly toward our newest hotel room door. I just had to make it a few more feet before I could collapse onto one of the beds and pop a few Tylenol, and wait for it to take the edge off the blinding pain in my leg.

  “Mina, please,” Julienne begged in an undertone. “Just let me get you some help.”

  I cut my head to the side in silent denial, not trusting my voice. I’d explained this to her a dozen times over. We had to be very careful. I had no idea who had been involved in the plot to kidnap Julienne, and there was every chance we were being followed. We’d radically transformed ourselves since fleeing the beige house, using the cash I’d found in the guard’s wallet to buy cheap hair dye and new clothing. They’d surely reported my injury to their bosses. They’d be waiting in hospitals and on the lookout for a woman who was using crutches or a cane to compensate.

  Ah, blessed 208. The cheap golden sticker lettering on a door had never looked so inviting. I jammed the key card into the card reader and sighed in relief when it blinked green. I pushed inside and found a similar setup to the last few hotels we’d stayed in. A pair of beds with patterned bedspreads, walls painted robin’s egg blue, and heavy tan drapes pulled tight across the windows.

  Julienne kicked off her shoes near the door and watched with concern as I collapsed onto the first of the beds with a wince.

  “The injury is getting worse,” she said with a frown. “Mina, you cannot keep doing this. We need to get you to the hospital.”

  “No hospitals,” I ground out. “Too dangerous.”

  “Then the U.S. Embassy in Paris,” she begged. “You will be safe there. They will grant you protection, I know it. And there will be doctors you can trust.”

  I dug around in the bag strapped to my back until I encountered the cylindrical pill bottle. I shook two into my palm and swallowed them dry, ignoring the awful taste that coated the back of my throat. I had to get some semblance of sleep. I hadn’t been able to nod off on the busses we’d been using to get around. We’d hopped from Marseille to Grenoble, and finally to Lyon. We’d only stayed a few days in each, during which I’d tried to keep the fever at a reasonable level. But now, I felt more feverish than ever.

  Another worry had just occurred to me this morning, after the fifth time I’d thrown up in as many hours. It could have been the fever or pain, or the way my nerves were stretched to the breaking point that was bringing almost anything I ate back up. But the last time I could remember having a period was about a week before I’d been sent to seduce Logan. If my math was right, I was more than a couple weeks late. I was having such a hard time focusing though, I couldn’t get it straight in my head.

  My knowledge of pregnancy stretched only as far as the soap operas Heather enjoyed watching in the evenings, and they were probably wildly inaccurate. If I was pregnant, I couldn’t be far along. Could the fever or even Tylenol hurt the baby at this stage? And could I do anything about it at this point? If I didn’t take anything for the fever and pain, I was going to end up in a sobbing heap on the floor of our next bus. Soon, we would try to reach Julienne’s father’s villa on the edge of the French Riviera.

  When I was quiet for several minutes, Julienne set her bag on the small end table and flopped on her bed, pulling
her knees up to her chest. She peered at me over the tops of them, her guileless eyes wide with concern. I had been pleasantly surprised by the way she’d handled herself in light of my injury. The graze had been deep, and though the bullet hadn’t lodged in me, the wound had still managed to get infected. I’d expected Julienne to go to pieces without me to guide us the whole way. Instead, she’d seemed to rally herself, coming to my aid when I needed it most.

  “Do you want to talk, or should I just let you sleep?”

  What could it hurt? Staying quiet was only giving me ample opportunity to focus on how much the wound was beginning to burn. I was also on the edge of becoming weepy, thinking about the child I might or might not be endangering.

  “Sure. Let’s talk.”

  Julienne licked her lips and the words tumbled out of her in a rush. She must have been waiting for a chance to talk for a while. “How do you know all of this, Mina? The evasive maneuvers, and the zip ties, all of it? Were you some sort of American spy?”

  I laughed, despite the pain that still gripped me. “No, not at all. I’m just an actress.”

  Julienne chewed her lip for a few seconds before she admitted sheepishly, “I’ve never heard of you. I’ve heard of Keenan Blakely but...”

  “He’s my stepbrother,” I said, frowning up at the ceiling. “And don’t feel bad. Most people haven’t heard of me. I never got a chance to develop a mainstream Hollywood career. Someone leaked a sex tape of me and my boyfriend at the time, and the ensuing scandal tanked my career before it could get off the ground. So I created the Hustlers instead.”

  “The Hustlers?”

  Each of my girls’ faces flashed before my eyes. Blonde, svelte and beautiful Carla. The soft and lovely Aurora. The brash new recruit, Bella. I missed them all so badly it made my teeth ache.

  “I started a group of women who provide services to men who need discretion.” I caught her doubtful look and hurried to explain. “Not prostitutes, though the name might suggest that. We help people who need a woman for a role—for a price. Gay men who aren’t out. Those who need a fake fiancée, or need to fake a family member, a date, what have you. Whatever the client wants, we do, short of sex or other illegal ventures.”

  “I see. You learned your skills while working for a client, yes?”

  “Not exactly,” I hedged. “I had a very overprotective…man friend. He suggested I learn what to do up to and including kidnap.”

  “Had a man friend?” Julienne asked.

  “What about you?” I asked quickly, trying to deflect the barrage of questions I could sense coming. I didn’t want to relive the whole devastating affair with Logan. I didn’t want my heart aching right along with the rest of me. “What’s your home life like?”

  Julienne shrugged delicately. I couldn’t help but notice how fragile she appeared. The oversized sweater she’d bought at a little consignment shop swallowed her whole, and the blonde hair color she now sported washed her complexion out.

  “My papa wanted to do films, always. He started with short films about my mama. She was a model and a painter. She died quite young, at only twenty-four, just after having me. As he branched out, he slowly gained fame. He wants to break through, start making movies that will sell in America. But he’s been blocked at every turn by Sylvian Ancel. I have heard rumors about the man. He is evil. I would not doubt if he had me taken to disrupt Papa’s latest project.”

  Well, damn it, now my heart was aching for a whole new reason. “I understand what it’s like to lose a parent. My dad died when I was young. Cancer. Mom kept me away from him for most of it, so I wouldn’t have to remember him that way. I barely remember what he looks like.” Traitorous tears escaped and I dabbed at my eyes with the thin cotton sleeve of my blouse before they could fall into my hair.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “For what?”

  “You’re hurting, so I’m sorry.”

  For a time, there was silence from the other side of the room. The pain in my leg had dulled by the barest of margins. The graze wasn’t bad, but the infection no doubt festering in it could cost me my leg. Julienne was right that I needed a doctor. But I couldn’t figure out how to see one without risking landing back with our kidnappers. It had been almost a week now. We were nearly in the clear.

  “What was it like, growing up with Keenan for a brother?” she asked, the barest hint of an ardent crush in her voice.

  I snorted. If she wanted the Teen Vogue scoop, she was going to be sorely disappointed.

  “Miserable. He was ten years older than me, and he treated me more like a pest than anything else. The Senator was only a little better. He was invested in me, sure, but I always got the sense that his love was conditional. And I was right. He tossed me out on my ass the second I embarrassed him. And he hasn’t spoken to me since. He hates me.”

  Julienne tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hate? A strong word. Are you sure?”

  “Trust me,” I said bitterly. “He’d say I’m getting what I deserve.”

  “A man who raises another man’s child is not usually that coldhearted, Mina. I am sure he will surprise you. I bet they are looking for you right now.”

  I closed my eyes. I was weepy, tired, and hurting all over. I needed to sleep for at least twelve hours before I’d feel up to arguing the point with her. So I changed the subject again, rather than protesting her opinion.

  “How did you get to America, anyway? Why didn’t your father cast you in one of his films or find you a job on set?”

  “Amelie,” she spat with uncharacteristic venom. I cracked one eye open to peer at her. Julienne’s pretty face was a mask of stern disapproval.

  “Sister or stepmom?” I asked, taking a wild stab at her problem.

  “Stepmother. Though she is my age. I went to America in order to get away from her. My father does not see her for what she is. She is vain and selfish and she spends his money like she is the richest woman on earth.”

  “Gold digger, huh?”

  “Yes. I could not get through to him, so I decided to leave. How embarrassing to be taken during my audition for a lingerie commercial.”

  Blackness was eating at the edges of my vision, and I let my eyes slide closed once more. It was eerie, how parallel Julienne’s life was to mine. Slightly different circumstances, different countries, but similar problems when it came right down to it. My calf throbbed with every beat of my heart, and I shoved a pillow beneath my ankle in order to keep the wound out of contact with the bedspread.

  “We’ll get to your father,” I murmured. “I hope you’re right about that offer of protection.”

  Because we weren’t out of the woods yet, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that we probably wouldn’t be safe even at her father’s house. At least a prominent movie director might have a connection to a doctor, even if it wasn’t strictly on the legal side.

  I shimmied up the bed and found the soft pillows waiting for me at the apex. As soon as I got comfortable, unconsciousness seized me and I was lost to fevered dreams. I tossed and turned, holding a dark-haired baby as I searched endlessly for its father down empty hospital halls.

  When I woke in the darkness to the sound of Logan’s name on my lips, there were tears coating my cheeks.

  Chapter Eight

  Logan

  Mina’s trail went cold around Marseille. But the information Perron had provided allowed us to find a the properties that Sylvian Ancel owned, including a small shipping yard. Which had led us to this fresh hell.

  Keenan and I had our backs pressed up against a shipping container. Deafening gunshots split the air and dirt leaped up from the ground as a guard attempted to mow us down with an automatic rifle.

  “This is fucking nuts,” Keenan hissed. “This isn’t exactly what I pictured when I decided to come.”

  “This is exactly what I pictured,” I said with a grim smile.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were enjoying this.” Keenan glared
at me from his position against the container.

  In truth? I was enjoying myself.

  In all the months since I’d taken over Farraday Industries for my father, my sense of adventure had atrophied into nothing, and I’d begun to feel like an echo of myself. I was not well-suited to a boardroom. The battlefield was my areas of expertise, and the return to battle filled me with a sick sense of joy. Adrenaline slammed through my veins, lighting me up, making me feel alive in a way I hadn’t been for so long.

  This was what I wanted to do, I decided. Scum like this needed to be taken down, and I was just the man to do it. I’d have to see if Tuck had intel as to what it took to become a specialist in security, to run down assholes who thought to profit off humans as slaves.

  “What’s the matter, Hollywood?” I countered the jab with a grin. “Can’t hack it when the bullets are real?”

  Keenan’s exasperated expression changed to determination and his jaw flexed, as I’d known it would. Keenan and his stepsister were exactly alike. Issue a challenge and I was sure to get a response.

  Another shot echoed around the yard, and I had to wonder when the authorities were going to show up. Surely this ring couldn’t prevent all the citizens living within the vicinity from reporting gunfire?

  The white storage containers were piled three or four high, like giant children’s blocks. The alleyway between them was only large enough for two average-sized men to walk side by side. Keenan and I were not average-sized, so were forced to duck out one after the other once I gave the signal.

  I sprinted down the long, narrow alley, my Browning in firing position. The gunshots had given me a pretty good idea of where our adversary was hiding. I fired, and just missed the head poking out from behind the crate. The responding yelp echoed off the metal of the containers. I cursed myself for not donning the earplugs that Colonel Graham had provided as my ears began to ring. Being rendered temporarily deaf wasn’t going to aid me in tracking down Mina.