Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) (8 page)

What? No.

Tears streamed down Lauren’s cheeks. “Ryder,” she screamed, but her words were muffled in her captor’s hand.

“
Let’s go,” he ordered the other man. “We got what we came for.”

Lauren fought, dragging her feet, but the other man grabbed her legs. Together the men hauled her to the car and tossed her in the trunk. Pain jolted up the side that took the brunt of the impact. Every body part screamed in agony, but nothing compared to the sight of her husband falling into the dust. After the fighting and the stabbing... Lauren bit back a sob. He couldn’t be dead. He was invincible.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lauren’s face smacked the carpeted wall of the trunk. It was the softer side, as she’d come to think of it, the side closest to the back seats. The trunk didn’t have a seatbelt so she rolled around like a jug of windshield washer fluid. She tried to brace her legs to stay in place, but the more she struggled against the car’s movement, the harder she hit the interior walls of the trunk.

The car took a turn at high speed and she rolled the other direction, hitting the opposite side, which was more metal than carpet. She hurled curses at her captors, but didn’t hear a response. The exhaust sputtered loudly, some modification to make it more macho.

Black shrouded her, so she didn’t have a sense of the small space. The restraints binding her wrists weren’t ropes as she’d assumed, but some hard plastic that bit into her wrists. Zip ties? Great. She was screwed. The image of Ryder falling filled the confines of the trunk. How badly was he hurt?

Lauren forced down the near-hysterical sob. It took more than a knife to take out her husband. Her heart dropped and she kicked in anger, connecting to something metal. The pain reverberated up her leg. She’d solve the problem of her marriage when she got out of this mess.

She’s seen a movie once where the victim kicked out the brake lights. Right. Because that was so easy to do with her hands tied behind her back while traveling at seventy miles an hour, but it was better than flopping around like a dying fish. Metal, or something hard, covered where she figured the taillights were located. Lauren braced for another turn. And then the car decelerated.

Fear choked her, causing a coughing fit. As she car slowed more, her breath panted out until she was hyperventilating. Deep, empty breaths hurt her chest. So not good. She hadn’t figured a way out of the trunk and they were stopping.

When the car parked, Lauren lay completely still. Maybe they’d forget her. Or leave her here while they went wherever they were headed. Her legs cramped, but she didn’t dare shake them loose. The trunk popped open and two faces leaned in. Could she kick them?

One of the men placed a knife under her chin. “Scream and I’ll slice you open.”

Who talked like that?

“
I said I’d bring you here, I didn’t say you wouldn’t be hurt.”

Holy crap. Lauren’s mind blanked. The men yanked her to her feet and pushed her in front of them up a driveway. The residential street wasn’t one she knew, but the surrounding houses sat far enough so their porch lights didn’t illuminate her walk of terror up the cement walk.

They pushed through the front door of the house without unlocking it. They must feel pretty safe to leave the door unlocked. Of course, they were the probably the most dangerous people in the neighborhood. Who would bother them? They shoved past an armed guard, through a hall with two doorways blocked by heavy plastic, and then up a set of stairs. “Give Smith a call. Tell him we got the girl.”

The dirty realtor? “Don’t you mean Smythe with a Y,” she said, anger washing away the panic.

“
Arrogant bastard,” the taller man said.

That answered the question she was too terrified to ask. Smythe with a Y was definitely an arrogant bastard, and apparently he was the man behind this. What the hell? He might be a dirtbag, but kidnapping jumped past creepy and into criminal. And kidnapping wasn’t his first criminal act. Reality washed through her and her shoulders slumped in defeat. Ryder had told the truth. He’d paid the mortgage. What had Smythe done with the money? More importantly, why did he want her?

Chills wrapped her skin. Lauren didn’t want to find out.

The men opened a door at the end of a long hall. The room was painted a deep chocolate brown with a light blue comforter on the oversized king bed, but with the low light, it was like a dark cave, and Lauren didn’t want to know what kind of animal created this place. She backed up until she walked into her kidnappers.

The answering laugh was movie-villain evil. Someone shoved her into a room so normal it screamed suburban housewife, but something heinous had happened here, leaving a psychic residue that threatened to swallow all the light. Some latent survival instinct had Lauren dragging her feet the more they pressed her into the room. Getting cut open seemed preferable to whatever they had planned in this room. She screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors. The man on her right slapped her across the cheek with enough force to send her sprawling into the wall. The back of her head smacked, aggravating the existing wound, but Lauren wasn’t done fighting. The hands tied behind her back weren’t her only weapons. She lowered her head and rammed the man who had hit her.

With a grunt from the impact, the man went flying back, but Lauren didn’t have her hands to balance, so she went sprawling on the floor next to him. Pain ripped her shoulders. The man next to her on the silky beige carpet sucked air like she’d knocked the wind out of him.

Satisfaction was short lived. He turned his dark eyes to her and rolled to subdue her under him. Lauren braced her legs to buck him off, but it didn’t work. He leaned down to sneer in her face. “Smythe didn’t pay me enough to keep your ass safe, bitch.”

Gathering every ounce of energy, Lauren crunched forward and smacked her forehead into his nose. Agony lanced through her head and the world twisted around her like the accident. The man rolled, blood oozing from his nose.

Ha, bet Smythe hadn’t warned him about the broken nose. Before Lauren could celebrate, the other man yanked her by the hair to drag her to her feet. Spikes of pain added to the existing aches until her vision blurred. Using her hair as a sling, he spun her through a narrow doorway. She hit the wall and screamed as agony preceded her slide to the floor.

The door locked, leaving her in silence and dark. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. Tears clogged her throat, but she swallowed the sobs. The pricks wouldn’t have the satisfaction of hearing her fear and desperation.

Tears leaked down her face silently. Lauren twisted her cheek to the silky rug to wipe them away. Someone had chosen this carpet to soothe tired feet after a long day of work, but it wasn’t soothing to her abraded cheek. None of this made any sense. Despite the aura of evil pervading the space, once upon a time, someone had decorated the house with love and attention. This was not the house for the men who had bodily hauled her from Ryder’s side. This wasn’t even a house that belonged to a slick salesman like Smythe.

She curled into a ball and waited for the pain to ease, to catch her breath, to figure out how she ended up in a house in the burbs locked in a closet with her hands tied behind her back.

Ryder parked his bike at the end of the block and approached on foot. The sports car that had taken Lauren was still parked in the front drive along with a pickup and a few older cars. Dawn threatened on the eastern horizon, but for now, the night blanketed him. Sticking to the shadows, he prowled the perimeter. There were no streetlights on the block, no alarms or landscape lights. Blackout curtains covered the windows, and something wicked infused the air.

The gap between the houses was significant enough to avoid detection from the neighbors. He hopped the fence and eased around to the back. A man sat on a deck by the door smoking a cigarette and playing on a cell phone. Both ensured the target had screwed his night vision.

Ryder approached swiftly and silently. The man looked up when Ryder made it within three feet. He dropped his cigarette, but Ryder decked him before he had a chance to defend. The sideswipe snapped the man’s face to the side. He was knocked out before he hit the deck.

With the guard incapacitated, Ryder moved to the back door and listened. All quiet. He slipped through the door. The gourmet kitchen was overflowing with fast food wrappers and garbage. The lights were on but no one was home. He moved through to a hallway before he heard voices. A guard sat on a stool near the front door. He was talking on the phone. There was no sign of Lauren, and the only way into the rest of the house was through a guard the size of wrestler. He had a thick neck and bulbous nose, and a handgun strapped to his chest.

Ryder eased back into the kitchen to evaluate. Without knowing how many men were in the rest of the house, he’d rather not take on the guard. He’d retrieved his gun from the accident scene, but one gun wasn’t enough to take out a full house. He grabbed his cell to text Rose.

ETA?

At your bike. Tell me you didn’t go in alone.

Ryder ignored the last statement.
Rear guard is incapacitated. Second guard inside front door. One handgun visible. Number of unfriendlies unknown. Need distraction up front.

I’m the distraction?

Just knock on the door, asshole.

Rose sent him a middle finger emoji. A minute later, a knock pounded on the front door loud enough to wake a stoner. Ryder shook his head. Rose didn’t have a subtle bone in his body.

He eased back into the hall where the guard had pulled out his weapon and now peered through a stingy crack. A mumbled conversation ensued while Ryder stepped closer. Two doorways leading off the entry were closed off with thick plastic sheeting, the kind used by construction workers at renovation sites. No way to tell how many were in those rooms. He’d need Rose on the inside.

Ryder slid past the opening and rammed the barrel of his gun into the guard’s back. “One’s in the chamber. What you do in the next two seconds decides whether you live.”

The man twisted, but not fast enough. From the outside, Rose slammed the door inward, smacking the guard in his face. They had him face down on the tile before he could shout a warning. Rose subdued him while Ryder stepped on his gun hand. He leaned down so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Where’s the girl?”

“
Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ryder shifted his weight to the heel of his boot. Heard a finger crack and break.

“
Fucker,” the man grunted.

Ryder squatted down and yanked the man’s hair back to look in his bruised eyes. “This is going to be the longest hour of your life.” He glanced up at Rose. “Take him out back where they won’t hear his screams.”

“
Is that supposed to scare me?”

“
No.” Ryder grinned. “It’s to get my buddy on board. He wasn’t sure a douche like you was enough of a challenge. He likes inflicting pain.”

Rose flipped him off behind the guy’s back.

A woman’s scream rent the air, coming from upstairs. Lauren.

“
I got this.” Rose smacked the guard’s face into the tile. “Go get her.”

A steady heartbeat pumped in Ryder’s veins as he jogged up the stairs. He pulled the Glock as he approached the first closed door. Before he made it, someone opened a door down the hall. Shit. Nothing like flying blind. Ryder tackled the first guy through the door, hitting the wall with the crunch of bones. A second guy punched him in the kidney from behind.

Flying backwards and blind, Ryder dove straight back, taking the second guy with him to the ground. He flipped and pointed the gun to the guy’s chest.

The man who’d knifed him on the dark highway stilled. “I left you bleeding out.”

Incompetent bastard. “Not even close.” The knife had cut open Ryder’s jacket and left a gash through his midsection. Nothing fatal. “Paper cut, asshole. If you hurt her, you’re a dead man.”

“
How did you find us?”

“
Get up.” Using the gun, he motioned the men up and back into the room.

The bedroom was pristine. Well-decorated by someone with money. The cozy bed with pretty linens twisted something in Ryder’s gut. What did they have planned for Lauren? The anger he struggled to contain came alive. He glared at the two men. The taller one had sparred with Ryder on the road. He was lean and fast, clean cut in the regular light. Despite the gun, the man held himself loose, legs apart, waiting for an opportunity. Street fighter, and he liked it. The second had a bloody nose. Quite possibly broken.