Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“She’s in Caracas.” Cole sat on the other side of Tate, removed a laptop from his backpack, and woke the screen.
“Venezuela.” Tate released a breath. “That isn’t that far away.”
Cole narrowed his eyes at him.
“What?” He straightened. “It could be worse, right? At least she’s not chained in a dog kennel on the other side of the world.” At Cole’s silence, Tate set his jaw. “Tell me she’s not in a dog kennel.”
“She’s not.”
Returning to the laptop, Cole opened a photo of a dingy alley with overflowing dumpsters, laundry on clothes lines, and bars on the windows. Sagging balconies hung from the buildings, and graffiti covered the brick walls.
“I shot this from the second-floor apartment I rented.” He pointed to a battered red door among a dozen others in the picture. “She lives in that one. Alone. In the largest slum in South America.” He glanced at Tate. “In the most dangerous city on the planet.”
“Why?” Tate had so many qualifiers for that question, he didn’t know where to start.
Why was she alone? Why did she live there? Why didn’t she come home? Why hadn’t his other investigators been able to find her? Every cell in his body buzzed with urgency to go to her, to get her the fuck out of that hellhole.
“Why is it the most dangerous city?” Josh asked. “Drugs? Cartel?”
“It’s the most weaponized city with the highest homicide rate. A gun for every two people, and a murder every twenty-one minutes. Street gangs and crime lords are in charge. There’s political corruption and drug trafficking, but those aren’t the only problems.”
“It’s the kidnap capital of the world,” Tate said quietly, recalling a headline he’d read somewhere.
“That’s right.” Cole flipped to a new image—another view of the slum with a huge iron gate dominating one side of the road, surrounded by armed guards in street clothes. “This compound is the main hideout for Tiago Badell, the man Lucia works for.”
“Works for?” His head pounded as every assumption he’d made about her over the years unraveled. Armed guards. Iron gate. Main hideout. “Who the fuck is Tiago Badell?”
“One of the wealthiest crime lords in Venezuela.” Cole met his eyes. “His specialty is kidnapping.”
CHAPTER 3
A chill crept over Tate’s scalp. Aside from Cole, every person in the room had endured their own personal hell at the hands of a kidnapper. As unease vibrated between his friends, he wanted to shelter them from it.
He turned to Liv. “I can take this conversation elsewhere.”
“How does it work?” She asked Cole, ignoring Tate’s concern. “Are they trafficking humans?”
“No. Badell leads a gang that targets tourists, missionaries, Venezuelan middle class, anyone who is too ignorant to avoid Kidnap Alley and not wealthy enough to travel in armored vehicles. He grabs people off the street and gives their families three days to cough up the ransom. If payment isn’t received, the victim is murdered.”
Lucia was part of this? It didn’t make sense. How could she go from being abducted and sold into slavery to working for a man like Tiago Badell?
He was certain he wouldn’t like the answer, but he asked anyway. “What does she do for him?”
“You won’t believe me unless I show you.” Cole clicked on a video file and hovered the mouse over the play button. After a moment of hesitation, he leaned around Tate to speak to Kate. “It’s graphic.”
Tate twisted at the waist to see her face. She’d watched Josh kill her buyer and had spent weeks, bloody and broken, beneath a whip. She didn’t look it, but the girl was tough as hell.
She wrapped a tiny hand around Tate’s bicep, shoulders squared. “I can handle it.”
Cole pushed play.
On the screen, a naked man lay on his back on a concrete floor. Eyes swollen, nose busted, and chest heaving, he jerked against the ropes that restrained him. He was skinny, pale, and hard, his engorged dick pointing heavenward, and he didn’t look happy about it.
Whoever held the camera handed it off to someone else, changing the angle to show at least two other men in the windowless room. The footage stayed below the necks, capturing dust on black boots and blood stains on pants. Assault rifles hung across their torsos, their tattooed fingers resting on the trigger guards.
“Who are they?” Tate asked.
“Badell’s men. And that”—Cole pointed at the screen as a woman walked into view—”is Lucia.”
The camera lowered, keeping her head out of the frame. A tight miniskirt exposed the curves of her perfect figure, and a black bra bared her flat stomach. Her hair was either pulled up or cut short, putting all that satiny, bronze skin on display. Her shoulders, arms, chest…every inch of her was toned, smooth, flawless.
No, not flawless. He leaned closer to the image. “Is that—?”
“A scar.” Cole paused the video and zoomed in on her abdomen. “See how it zigzags like that?” He traced it on the screen, following the jagged white line from the bottom of her breastbone to her hip. “Blunt force trauma. It’s pretty faded. Old.”