“We’re going to be okay,” I reassured him, whispering so I wouldn’t draw their attention to us.
“But my mom,” he whimpered.
I had no clue what they wanted with her, only that it was somehow connected to her job. Once they got whatever it was, I didn’t know what was going to happen to her—or to us. We’d seen their faces, which meant we’d be able to identify them to the police. That couldn’t bode well for us. But the facts didn’t matter. Not when Darren needed me to tell him she was going to come back for him.
“Your mom loves you. She’s going to do whatever they ask her to do so she can come back to you; that’s why they took you. Because they know she’s an amazing mom. You know that, too, right?”
My heart broke as tears spilled out of his eyes. “Yeah.”
I twisted my neck to look over the bed again. It worried me that the men guarding us couldn’t care less that we were talking. They were too confident that they had the situation under control. Then again, all they saw was an elementary school teacher and a little boy. They had no way of knowing that Quinn had been waiting outside to pick me up, and what kind of trouble they’d bought by taking me.
“You know who else is amazing?” He shook his head as he swiped at his cheeks. “My fiancé. He’s like one of those super soldiers you see in the movies, and he’s going to be searching for me.”
“But what if he doesn’t know he needs to look for you?”
“Can I tell you a secret?” I leaned closer after he nodded. “I didn’t drive to school today. Quinn brought me, and he was waiting for me in front of the school when they took us. They might have gotten us, but he knew within minutes that we’d been taken and he’s absolutely looking for us.”
The tears stopped, and there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Do you really think he’ll find us? You, me, and my mom?”
“Yes, sweetie. I don’t just think it. I know it.” I infused as much confidence as I could into my tone. “And he won’t be alone when he comes for us. My big brother will be with him, and these guys are no match for the two of them.”
“Okay.” He still sounded doubtful.
“Can I tell you another secret?’
His nod was more emphatic than last time.
“You can’t tell anyone, but my brother’s a spy. With special gadgets and everything,” I whispered into his ear.
Darren’s head jerked back. His eyes were wide and his brows were raised. “He is?”
“Yup.”
“Wow,” he breathed out. “When the man told me I’d better keep quiet or else he’d hurt my mom, I tried not to cry, Miss Davis. I really did.”
“I know you did, sweetie.”
“But you know what? I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t then I’d be all alone, and I wouldn’t have anyone looking for me.”
As scared as I was for myself and my unborn child, there was a part of me that was at peace with it because Darren was right. Since they were using him as leverage against his mom, his disappearance wouldn’t have been reported and nobody would have even known he was missing. “Then it’s a good thing you did because I’m sure there’s practically a whole army of people out there looking for us right now.”
I wasn’t just making up stories to get Darren to feel better. I knew Quinn would stop at nothing to find me, but that didn’t keep me from being scared. It was amazing how the potentially life and death situation I’d found myself in gave me clarity. I’d been so focused on getting through the end of the school year and then having the wedding I’d always dreamed about that I hadn’t been willing to consider going to the courthouse with Quinn when we discovered I was pregnant. But after all this? I’d marry him the second he got me out of this mess.
“C’mon, Quinn. I know you’re out there. Please find us soon.”
I barely made a sound as I spoke to myself, so I was surprised when one of the guys rose from his chair. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” the other one asked.
“Singing.” He stalked towards the window, yanking a gun out of the waist of his pants in the back. “I think there’s someone out there.”
I strained to listen, almost sobbing in relief when I recognized the off-key sound. Quinn had one of the worst singing voices in the world, but that didn’t stop him when he was alone in the shower.
“That’s what we get for hiding out in this crappy place,” the guy sitting down grumbled. “We have to deal with fucking drunks at nine o’clock at night. What kind of man gets that wasted this early at night?”
It dawned on me then that Quinn’s singing served two purposes. The guys guarding us weren’t threatened by him, and it let me know he was there. And if he wanted me to know before he did anything, there had to be a reason. I could only think of one.
I yanked on Darren’s arm and put a finger to my lips. Then I pointed at the floor as I scooted down until I was lying flat. Darren did the same, and I jerked my chin towards the bed. He rolled until he was flush against it, and I wiggled as close to him as I could get. It wasn’t easy to get into the position I wanted with my hands zip tied, but I knew I needed to move. If Quinn was going to barge in here to rescue us, we needed to be out of the way so he could do what needed to be done. It wasn’t perfect, but at least the bed offered us a little protection from whatever was about to go down.
“Go make sure the guy gets the fuck away from our door. We don’t need him to draw any attention to us.”
“Why do I have to do it?”
“You’re already up.”
I heard the sound of footsteps as the man walked from the window to the door and shifted my body again until I was covering as much of Darren’s as I possibly could.
“But for fuck’s sake, put the damn gun away first.” Yes! I did a mental fist pump. The less prepared they were, the easier it would be for Quinn to take them down. “If anyone sees that thing, they’ll call the cops for sure. And you know what Manny will do to you if you fuck this job up for him. He needs that ledger, and that woman is the key to him getting in without tripping an alarm so he has plenty of time to crack their safe.”
When I heard the sound of the deadbolt on the door being flipped, I braced myself. Quinn changed songs mid-verse, and I figured it was his signal to let me know he’d heard the same thing and was ready. “Close your eyes,” I whispered to Darren.
He squeezed them shut just as the door hinges squeaked as it opened. And then all hell broke loose.
8
Quinn
“Highway to Hell?” Xander asked dryly over my earbud. “Seriously, dude?”
I didn’t pay him any attention and continued singing while listening carefully for the click of a lock as I slowly stumbled down the walkway. We only had a vague idea what room they might be in, assuming they were holed up in this shithouse motel. Finally, as I closed in on room 301, I saw a curtain ruffle through the dirty window. I abruptly changed my tune, a final warning to Jenna that things were about to get rough. If she was in there. Fuck, I hoped she was there.
We had a team headed to the DA’s office and deciding whether to go with them or come to the motel had been almost impossible. I wanted to be there when we rescued her and since I refused to believe in any other outcome, the only question had been where I would find her. It seemed more likely that they would want as few people as possible at the break in.
Weston’s shadow was all I could see of him as he edged his way along the wall, coming towards me. He and Xander had quickly followed me to the motel and forced me to stop and make a plan, rather than just kicking in every damn door until I could kill the motherfuckers who had my woman.
We had just reached opposite sides of the door when the clink of metal gears alerted us that the lock had been disengaged. The door cracked open. “Hey, shut the fuck up man—” he snapped, but was cut off when I pretended to drunkenly stumble into it with all of my weight. As the guy behind it flew backwards, I lifted my arm and pointed my weapon at a man sitting at a card ta
ble by the window. Weston was only half a second behind me and stood, legs braced apart, blocking the door, his own gun leveled on the greasy man who’d fallen to the floor.