Wolf says quietly. “He can hear everything you say. Along with the rest of the team. As to what I’m doing here, well that’s up to you.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Let’s get started on this back first,” Wolf tells her. “I’m going to give you a shot to numb the area. Small pinch.”
We hear Rachel inhale a quick breath.
“There, it won’t take long to kick in.”
“What’s going on?” Rachel asks.
“Tell me what happened to your back first,” he says.
Slim unmutes our side before speaking.
“Wolf, as much as we all want to know what she’s been through, we don’t have time.”
“I’ve been told our time is short,” Wolf says. “Here’s the plan. You have two choices. I can either get you out of here now. Which wouldn’t be easy, and we could both be killed. Or you could go back inside the compound and help us find a way inside. We could get you out safely within a few days and take down the entire Hernández Cartel.”
“That’s not much of a choice,” I hear Rachel say. “As you can tell from my back, my time hasn’t been fun. If I go back inside, there’s no way for me to help you. My room is a locked prison cell. Not to mention that I’ve been too weak to even move around in bed, let alone push myself around in that child’s wheelchair that they gave me.”
“We have these,” Wolf says. “It’s very small and can easily fit inside your ear without being detected. You’ll be able to hear us and we will be able to hear you.”
“Alright,” Rachel sighs. “But that still leaves… Ouch, I thought you numbed it?”
“Sorry, Miss Rachel, I’ll give you another injection. There’s a nasty slash that wraps around your left side. It’s also infected.”
“How bad does it look back there?” she asks.
“With antibiotics, you will heal up nicely. There will be scars though.”
“I don’t care about those,” Rachel says. “Anyway, there’s still the very real fact that I’m a prisoner.”
“That’s it,” I say, standing. “I’m getting her out of there now.”
“Ink, sit down and shut the fuck up.”
Bear walks up and places his hand on my shoulder.
“Your woman is strong,” he says. “Now let her strength outshine us all.”
I sit back down with a resigned sigh. When I get my woman back, we’re taking a nice long vacation. Just the two of us.
“Wolf,” I whisper. “Tell her that I love her and that I’m so fucking proud of how strong she is.”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Wolf tells Rachel. “I have an idea. I also have a message. Ink says that he is proud of you for being so strong and that he loves you.”
I hear a snuffle and I know that Rachel’s crying.
“I love you, too, Sammy,” She whispers so softly that I almost missed it. “Yesterday before I passed out from the fever, I saw Mike bring in a group of girls. Girls, Sammy. They weren’t women they were girls. The oldest is probably sixteen. And the youngest I saw had to be Sophia’s age. She had to be at least two. I want to go back in. I’ll do whatever it takes to help bring this damn family down for good.”
The amount of pride and fear that rush through my body is intense.
“Who's Mike?” Wolf asks the question on all of our minds.
“I guess you could say he’s Carlos’s handyman.”
“Who did this to your back?”
Now that’s a question I want to know the answer to.
“It was Mike,” she whispers. “Carlos has this insane idea that I am his queen to the Hernández empire. He wants me to submit to him of my own free will. I refuse daily and this is my punishment.”
The room is quiet while Wolf works on her back.
“I went ahead and activated the earpiece,” Slim says to Wolf. “Go ahead and slide it in her ear.”
“I’m going to put this pretty deep in your ear,” we hear Wolf say. “It won’t hurt but it does feel weird.”
A few seconds later, I hear her voice clearly as if she were in the room next to me.
“Can you hear me, Sammy?”
“I’m here, baby,” I say, my eyes pooling over. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll never forgive myself for letting you get taken.”
“It’s not your fault,” she says, clearly emotional. “It was mine and I did it because he had my sister. Did she ever show up?”
She did, not long after we discovered Rachel was missing. I tell her as much.
“Listen,” she