Page 96 of Coerced

My heart was screaming at me to go and getAria, to ignore what my brain and body knew were the right things to do to rescue her safely. It was the hardest battle I’d ever fought. I could only hope Aria would forgive me for taking the time necessary to do this right.

Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to wait much longer. Because I’d come up with a plan—something that needed to be tweaked as we got more and more information and made our way to Birch Creek—and I knew where she was.

I made my way here to Aria’s old hometown, remained in contact with her best friend along the way, and went to the spot Britney knew that Aria’s father had been conducting business with these men.

The place was empty.

The doors were locked, the lights off.

Unsure I’d find Aria there, I asked Britney about her parents’ home. Even if I would only find them there, I had to explore every possible avenue that might lead me to her. And I couldn’t imagine her parents wouldn’t want to help me locate her once they learned she was missing.

My team didn’t hesitate to follow me wherever the search led us, and I was grateful to each and every one of them. I’d managed to round up the entire kidnap and ransom unit with the exception of one guy. Damon, Magnus, Banks, and Hart were all with me, but Nixon stayed back. It was too close to his wife’s due date, and we didn’t want to risk her going into labor and him being far from her, even if only for a couple of hours.

In addition to those I worked with regularly on cases like this, Jesse, Blaze, and Kane all stepped up to join in.

After Britney had shared the truth about what Aria had been through and the things her father had gotten involved in, I couldn’t be sure just how large the scope ofthe drug operation was. I knew there wasn’t anything that was going to stop me from getting to Aria, so I figured it was best to come prepared with as many men as I could get, just to be sure we wouldn’t have to delay the rescue.

And now that we’d made it to the address Britney had given me as her parents’ place, my body was itching to get moving.

Because I knew she was here. We’d parked a distance away, not wanting to alert anyone to our presence prematurely, and I saw it. The SUV that had been on the camera footage from my house was parked in the driveway.

She was this close to me.

I had to remind myself to remain focused, to hold on to any patience I had left, in order to not screw this up for Aria. On the bright side, I had a team of guys with me who understood. Many of them had already been through a similar situation where the woman they loved was in danger. Although they were allowing me to lead this mission, there wasn’t a chance they’d stand by and say nothing if I let my emotions get the better of me and started making foolish decisions about how to handle this.

So far, nobody had needed to step in, so I was reasonably confident I hadn’t quite lost the hold I had on my emotions. But I was getting close to that point. All I wanted was to have Aria back in my arms.

“Alright, does everybody know what they’re doing?” I asked.

“We’re good, Pax,” Banks assured me. “We all know where we need to be.”

Magnus was quick to chime in. “Yeah. We’ve done this kind of thing before, so you can rest assured we’re going to be fine.”

Nodding, feeling antsy, I agreed, “I know. But there’s a lot that’s unknown in this case. We have no idea the extent of what we’re walking into here.”

“We’re fine,” Jesse assured me. “I don’t normally handle cases like this, but I’m confident that all of us have walked into situations where we knew even less about what we’d find when we got inside.”

“Exactly,” Damon said. “We might be going in with a direct approach and hoping for the best. You’ve got enough trained men with you, and we’re all going in armed. With the number of vehicles outside, even if they were packed with as many men as they could fit into them, I don’t think we’re looking at more than fifteen potentially armed guys inside. The eight of us can easily handle that.”

Nodding my agreement, I said, “Okay. Okay, let’s go.”

We spent the next few minutes making our approach, doing it discreetly. I couldn’t risk a single thing going wrong, not until I had Aria safe and out of harm’s way. As we all got into position, I tried to remind myself of what Damon had said. Fifteen men inside this house would be a challenge, but we’d easily be able to handle it. Jesse, Banks, and Hart came with me to the front of the house while Magnus, Damon, Blaze, and Kane moved to other points of entry around the house.

With confirmation everyone was ready to go, I pressed my finger to the doorbell.

Keeping my face out of the line of vision for anyone who might have been attempting to look out the window before opening the door, we waited.

And when the door opened a moment later, I was face to face with a man who didn’t quite remember me. Butonce my eyes were locked on his, I said, “I told you not to test me, motherfucker.”

That’s when something dawned on his features, and he reached for the gun at his side. I sprang into action against him, feeling Hart lead Jesse and Banks deeper into the house. Ronnie and I got into a bit of a scuffle, him attempting to throw a couple of cheap shots at my face and missing. The truth was, the guy didn’t have any skills when it came to defending himself. He might have known how to wield a gun, but being disarmed before he could even manage to take aim made that impossible.

I was vaguely aware of the sounds of other men being taken down elsewhere in the house, but I mostly ignored it.

Although Ronnie had the ability to put up a bit of a fight against me, far more than Aria would have been able to against him and the guy he’d arrived at her place with hours ago, I had him down on the ground with my knee in his back in almost record time. Then I demanded, “Tell me where she is.”

“Fuck you.”

I brought my gun out, pressed it against him, and repeated, “Tell me where she is.”