Tram shifted the focus off the Delta Platoon operators out canvassing the neighborhood and filled Rio in on the situation, along with the double set of threats.
After Tram fell silent, Rio shook his head, frustration on his face. “Let me get this straight. We have two missing girls. Two separate threats. And no clue whether they’re actually missing, or whether the bride got cold feet and fled in someone else’s car. Hell, you don’t even know for sure if the girls were taken. They could have left with someone they knew.”
Bullshit.
“Without their purses or cell phones? Without letting anyone know what they were doing?” Tag asked through his teeth.
He’d thought Rio was smarter than this.
They all turned as footsteps sounded behind them, and watched two Delta Platoon dudes fast track their way down the aisle toward them.
“Sir,” one of them called out, his gaze finding Devlin. “The coffee shop next door has video of the two women being forced into a car at gunpoint.”
Every muscle in Tag’s body seized. His throat tightened. A dark, heavy weight flooded his chest.
He’d been tapped to infiltrate hostile territory and rescue more hostages than he could remember. Hell, such missions were part of his fucking job. And he’d met each challenge with a cool head, razor sharp focus, and not an ounce of the dread currently filling him.
It was past time to get his fucking head back in the game.
Every operator who’d passed BUD/S and survived that first crucial rotation after SEAL qualification training knew that the key to success was focus. Without it, you were nothing more than a walking body bag.
Only this time, the rescue was personal.
It shouldn’t have been. He meant nothing to her anymore. And letting it get personal was a mistake. A big mistake. Because personal led to missteps. To death.
Only it wouldn’t be him filling that body bag.
It would be Sarah.
Chapter Five
“I’m not fucking with you!” Sarah’s abductor huffed into his cell phone as he paced in front of her. His body seemed to devolve into a cloudy haze every time he passed through the streamers of sunlight peeking through the holes in the walls. “I have your blushing bride. If you want to enjoy her during your God damn honeymoon—call me back!”
Her bound hands resting on her thighs, Sarah sat perfectly still on the disgusting, filth-riddled couch and tried not to think about what germs she might be exposing herself to. Just breathing the plaguey air of this absolute dump was bad enough, but to sit here actually touching the stained, gritty lump of furniture was almost as terrifying as being kidnapped.
Thank God for the oversized, boxy wedding dress that covered her from wrists to ankles. At least most of her skin was protected from exposure.
A skittering sound to her right launched another round of skin crawling and goosebumps. She forced herself not to look. So far, she’d seen cockroaches, spiders, and mice scurrying among the trash littering the floor. Three of her least favorite things. God knows what kind of filthy presents they’d left for her on this putrid discard from a horror movie set.
Of course…where there were mice, there were usually snakes too…
Shuddering away from that unpleasant thought, she tried to focus on her options. But all she could think about was dying.
Langley running that red light had scared her enough. She’d waited with strangled breath for the gun pressed against her side to go off. But while death by a bullet was certainly not on her list of favorite ways to die, at least it would have been a quick death, as opposed to wasting away from the bubonic plague, or the Hantavirus, or a bacterial infection.
Her abductor’s shoes made crunching sounds and dislodged little puffs of smoky dust as he stalked back and forth across the trashy floor. That last message was either the sixth or seventh he’d left Mitch since forcing her and Langley into this dilapidated house.
If only he’d let Langley stay with her instead of locking her in that other room. At least she would have had some company to bolster her through this ordeal. How was Langley faring in her section of this disgusting prison? The room the kidnapper had forced Langs into hadn’t been any more welcoming than this one. But she hadn’t heard a peep from her friend in the two hours or so they’d been trapped here.
Lifting his cell back to his ear, her abductor started shouting again, at least at first. By the time he