Page 56 of SEAL Ever After

She cringed, realizing she’d been wearing the same undergarments for days.

She wanted to thoroughly wash her hair, brush her teeth, and forget she’d ever been in this horrible place. Looking over, she saw the second woman pulling on her dress, too, and it hung loosely on her frail body. The older women were already gathering their things, readying to leave.

“What’s happening?” Sarah asked. “What’s going to happen to us?”

The newcomer shot her a look, and the three women grabbed their buckets and walked out without so much as a single word. Sarah heard the door locking behind them and then turned to the young woman.

“Are you okay?” Sarah asked, her heart clenching as she looked at the clearly injured woman.

“I’ve been here for nearly a month,” the woman said, looking resigned to the situation. “They beat me when I wouldn’t do what they wanted, and the one guy held me down and—”

She broke off and looked away as Sarah gasped in horror.

The woman brushed her blonde hair back from her face with shaking hands, trying to wipe away her tears.

“I’m Sarah. I was kidnapped two days ago—I think—from a hotel in Virginia Beach. They drugged me and somehow got me on an airplane down here. I mean—I was awake by then, but they must’ve bribed people at the airport or something.”

“I was at a nightclub in Miami,” the woman said. “I was with another girlfriend of mine, but I have no idea what happened to her. I’m Alyssa.”

“Are there other women being held here?” Sarah asked.

“I’m not sure. No one knows where we are,” Alyssa said. “The first few days after we arrived in Mexico, they kept moving me from building to building. I saw some soldiers or something—Americans—that were looking around, searching, but they didn’t see me.”

“Oh my God. Well, maybe they’ll come back,” Sarah said hopefully.

“Nah. They’ve moved me around since then. I don’t know what happened with the original men I was with, but I haven’t seen them since. I think they took me far away from the first place though. We rode for a while in a car. Even if they’re searching for us, those soldiers won’t know we’re here.”

“Oh.”

“They’re selling us,” the woman said, her eyes shining with tears. “Only one man has raped me so far—only one,” she said sarcastically. “As if that makes it okay. He disappeared though right at the beginning.”

“We’ll get out of here,” Sarah assured her. “I don’t know how, but we’ll do it.”

Wiping tears from her eyes, Alyssa sank to the ground. “I hate to break it to you, but we’re never getting out of this. Even if they moved us and we somehow snuck out or jumped from a moving vehicle, some other guy would just get us. There’s too many of them.”

“I’m not letting them sell me off like some sort of possession,” Sarah said sharply, her heart pounding.

Alyssa looked at her, her own eyes sad. “We don’t have any other choice.”

Chapter 26

“ETA is seven minutes,” Evan said over the headsets, navigating the Humvee Ryan was riding in. It drove over a bump in the dirt road but sped up, passing the outskirts of Mexico City. The Mexican military vehicles were ahead of them, and the Humvee that Matthew was driving was right behind.

Ryan’s heart pounded, his gaze narrowing. “Roger that.” Seven minutes until they’d be storming the large plantation where Sarah was possibly being held prisoner.

The seven damn longest minutes of his life.

He clenched his jaw, meeting Patrick’s cool gaze. Lt. Commander Morris’s voice was suddenly in his ear. “We just got some new sat imagery. We’re sending the images to you now via a secure connection. Two new vehicles have arrived at the plantation within the hour.”

“Fuck, I hope it’s not the buyers,” Brent said, his voice cold.

“Is there any other movement there?” Ryan asked, freezing. If they’d taken her already, he and his men might be too late.

They’d move her somewhere else, and he may never see her again.

“We’re almost there,” Christopher said, glancing over at him. “If they leave, we’ll intercept the vehicles and collect the package.”

Ryan briefly closed his eyes. The package. Holy hell. What a clusterfuck his entire life had become.

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