Page 67 of Rescuing Tobias

It was the only thing holding her together.

Without knowing that it was counting on her for everything, she feared she would fall apart completely. That her ordeal would crush her and leave her as nothing but an empty shell of a person, unable to function in society.

The baby gave her purpose, it gave her a reason to go on, and it connected her to the man she knew she could fall in love with one day.

She needed it.

Thankfully, the pain stopped much quicker than she was expecting, quicker than she’d experienced in the past, and she lay there, breathing hard, her limbs twitching as the last currents of pain drained out of them.

Above her, the man chuckled like watching her writhe on the floor in agony was amusing to him.

“I think we now have a third way to control you, don’t we, little nurse?”

His words had her freezing, staring up at him fearfully.

He knew.

Even without him saying the words out loud, she could tell.

They knew about her baby, and they were absolutely going to use it against her. She’d let them too. Because she loved her baby more than she cared about the lives of the innocent people the trafficking ring had abducted.

“How many zaps do you think the fetus can survive?” he asked, holding up the remote control and laughing like he’d made some kind of joke.

The truth was probably not many, if it had even survived the first. They had her backed into a corner and they knew it. She was going to play their game, do their bidding, and pray that she wasn't going to one day join them in that special place in Hell that she would deserve for what she was going to do to the innocent victims lying in hospital beds somewhere in the building.

CHAPTER 20

April 27th

6:51 A.M.

“Arewe sure that’s where the trail ends?” Tobias asked.

They’d been going at this for hours. Taking turns to sleep in one of the apartments in the building, he’d agreed to take his turn only because he knew he had to keep his body as strong as possible. Same reason he’d eaten, taken his painkillers, and even gone so far as to hop in the shower for what had to be the world’s briefest wash.

All of that felt like luxuries he shouldn’t be indulging in.

Luxuries he was positive Isabella wasn't indulging in.

Sleeping and eating when he knew she was being held captive, was injured and in pain, and would be doing her best to protect their baby, was a bitter pill to swallow. But he was doing it. Raven’s threat hung heavily above him, and he knew that if she so much as sensed he was resisting taking care of his basic needs, he’d be out of there so fast his head would spin.

So he did it whether he liked it or not. Whether it felt wrong or not.

As he sat in front of his computer this morning, it all felt so hopeless. Taking care of himself only guaranteed him a continued spot in this room. It didn't guarantee that they’d find the answers they needed.

“So far we haven’t been able to pick them up after they left the vehicle,” Ava said. Her voice was heavy with suppressed grief, and he knew she was reliving her trauma alongside him as he lived through his own personal version of Hell.

“There has to be something, though,” he continued.Hadto be. How could there not? Isabella and the three men who had abducted her couldn’t vanish into thin air. They had to be somewhere. Had to have gone somewhere. And somewhere out there, there had to be a way to track them.

While it sounded simple, and when boiled down to its most basic form it was, tracking someone via CCTV cameras took a lot more work and effort than you’d first think. To begin with you had to actually be able to locate all cameras in the vicinity. And since they were Prey and they did whatever had to be done to save lives, that also meant hacking databases and grabbing footage from people’s personal cameras such as their video doorbells.

Was it legal? That’s why they had a legal team, and he trusted that Eagle would get them the necessary warrants. The man had more connections than the president, and he’d never met a situation where he wasn't completely confident that he could control it. Never in his life had Tobias been more grateful for his boss’ somewhat arrogant attitude, and the fact that he only hired the best of the best.

But even if you could hack every camera in the world, they didn't line up completely. Which meant you couldn’t just track a vehicle’s path from point A to point B. You had to be constantly pivoting, checking cameras in one direction only to find thatyou’d lost your mark and have to go back to the last place you’d seen them and start in a different direction.

It was long, boring, tedious work, but it was all they had right now.

Which meant it had to work.

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