She fought them off as best she could, but she was severely outnumbered. At the same time she was struggling in the basement, she heard a scuffle upstairs. The men who had been up there came running down the stairs. Her captors forced her back into the tunnel.
She heard one of them say to the ones who’d come downstairs, “Get back up there. Kill anyone who comes for her.” The man grinned at her. “You just got your boyfriend killed.”
Two men held her arms folded behind her. She leveraged their weight to kick him in the face. His head shot back on his neck, and he stumbled backward. When he righted himself, he charged toward her, his fist raised.
She braced herself for the blow, but it never came. One of the other guards caught his hand. “Don’t forget who she is and what’s about to happen,” he warned the guy.
He straightened then rubbed his jaw where she kicked him. “Of course. Mr. Edwards will deal with her.”
Chapter Fifteen
Kelan followed the tire tracks to an empty steel-frame building. No cars were around. No homes, either. There were no trees or shrubs for cover, but there also weren’t any windows on the side of the building he was approaching.
A few feet from the building were several abandoned cars parked in a neat line of wrecked metal. Tall brown grass grew up wherever daylight hit—in the wheel wells, the busted floorboards, the narrow spaces between bumpers.
He ran forward, as quickly and silently as he could, then crouched behind the cars and listened. He could hear the whine of a power drill and a radio. Some men laughing about a chick they’d had the night before.
Shit was about to get real. He had no idea where he was, and no idea how to get back into the tunnels. He needed a phone to call in a pickup from the team. And he needed to get hydrated. He checked the shadows, trying to judge what time it was. Depending on where he was, the guys could be hours coming for him.
He didn’t have hours. Fiona was in dire trouble now. The guys would need time to research and make a plan, maybe check in with Lobo. The tire tracks in the dirt by where he’d been left led here—he couldn’t waste this lead.
Someone came out of the building to take a piss in the weeds. Kelan waited for him to come around the row of trashed cars, then stood up. The guy grabbed for his gun. Kelan stood, holding his hands up. “Hey, man, I could use some water.”
The guy walked toward him, his pistol held at shoulder height, his arm fully extended. “You’re the guy they dumped. How’d you find us?”
Kelan nodded as he moved forward. “It’s a long story, and I really could use some water first.”
The guy motioned with his gun for Kelan to come with him. “Let’s go.”
Kelan moved cautiously forward. When he was within reach of the gun, he grabbed the guy’s wrist, slapped the gun in toward his chest, and disarmed him. Two other guys heard the commotion and came running out.
Kelan grabbed the first guy by the throat and spun him around for cover as he used the guy’s gun to shoot the two men firing at him. Seconds later, the man he held was dead weight and the other two were lying flat on their backs.
These guys knew he’d been dumped. They had to be involved in King’s world. Why else would they shoot first and ask questions later?
He took their weapons and stuffed them into his waistband. Leaning up against the steel siding, he listened for sounds of more people inside. The tools were silent. The radio music spun on, covering the sound of anyone else who might still be in the building.
He checked the mag in the pistol he’d taken, then cautiously turned the corner. He could see across the opened overhead door, but not into the building. He did a quick look then stepped inside. The big garage was empty. An MP5 was disassembled on a table, in the process of being cleaned. Perfect. He was going back in the tunnels and needed all the firepower he could gather.
He scavenged what he could from the dead guys. One of them had an employee badge, which he took. Another had a KA-BAR in an ankle sheath.
He went back into the garage, where he finished the cleaning then reassembled the MP5. He found more rounds and magazines in a metal locker. He loaded all the magazines then stashed them in his thigh cargo pockets.
Weapons in place, he checked the fridge and found half a case of bottled water. He downed three bottles then stuffed one in another cargo pocket. Next, he had to decide whether to phone in to ops to check in with the guys.
He looked around the garage, trying to tell if there were any clues about where the tunnels were or how to get back to King’s Warren. There was a sweet Range Rover on a lift platform. Its door panels were in the process of being altered for drug transportation.
Kelan stared at that platform it was on. He remembered coming into a garage after the fight at the arena. They’d pulled inside, stopped, then they’d been lowered to an underground parking garage. Could this have been that same elevator?
He looked around for the button to operate the lift. It was there on the wall. A big green button. Kelan hit it and watched the Range Rover slip below the floor. He hit it again, calling it back. Time to call in to ops—but he sure as hell wasn’t waiting for them before going after Fiona.
He’d collected phones from each of the guys. One of them wasn’t screen-locked. He dialed Max. Because the number he was calling from was unknown to the team, the call was routed around to the usual message centers. Kelan pressed his code, and Max picked up immediately.
“Go, Kelan,” Max answered tersely. “Where the hell are you?”
“Wherever the hell this phone appears to be calling from. Somewhere out on the plains. No idea if I’m still CO anymore, either.”
“Never mind. I got it. You’re out east of Bennett. What the fuck are you doing there, bro?”
“I’m goin’ after Fiona. And once I have her secured, I’m gonna fillet King.”
Silence, then, “We just got a call from Fiona.”
“Where was she? She okay?”