Page 83 of Lacey's Fight

8:24 A.M.

Waiting until tonight would give them the cover of darkness, but Ben couldn’t wait any longer.

They had to know now whether or not Lacey was here in New Zealand.

While he had the utmost confidence in the abilities of Ghost’s Delta Team, and his own skills, this wasn’t their usual mission.

Just because Mervin Matthewson had been at the auction in England a mere few days ago to purchase more little girls, didn’t mean that he didn’t already have some here with him. If there were little girls here that he had trained to be his own personal little army then Ben knew the man would use that to his advantage.

None of them wanted to be forced into a situation where it was either die, let a teammate be killed, or take out a brainwashed child.

Best case scenario was that it was just Mervin, his mother Mable, and Lacey here. That way they could take the Matthewson mother and son duo into custody and bring Lacey home. Ending this whole ordeal once and for all.

Worst case scenario is that they would find Mervin and his mother had somehow managed to slip away, any little girls here had been trained to kill intruders leaving him and the Delta Team no choice but to protect themselves, and Lacey was already dead.

In between those two scenarios was the one where they were all in outback Australia. Ben needed Lacey in his arms now. It wasn’t just knowing she was in danger and had likely been injured in some way, that had him wired tight, it was knowing that she believed he felt nothing for her.

Pushing her away out of fear of losing her had been a stupid decision.

A cowardly one.

And one that had cost him her anyway.

Now he was itching to hold her, kiss her, and plead for her forgiveness. There was no way he was able to even consider the possibility that she wouldn’t even give him—them—a chance. For now, he had to believe he could convince her not to give up on him, if he didn’t there was no way he could function.

The farm was remote, in a heavily wooded area, and they had no idea what sort of surveillance system the man had. Right now, they still didn’t know how he’d been able to infiltrate CPS records to identify girls who wouldn’t have families that would make a fuss if they went missing. If the man had hacked the database, he might have the skills to have this whole place monitored.

So far luck seemed to have been on their side.

No one had approached them yet. There had been no traps, no bullets whizzing in their direction.

Nothing at all.

And it was making him edgier.

If Mervin wasn’t hiding out here, then he could still be in Australia but what were they going to do if he wasn’t in either of those places?

What was he going to do if they found him, and Lacey wasn’t with him?

There was always the chance that Mervin hadn’t taken her because he wanted her for some reason but rather to just kill her.

Maybe he’d decided to eliminate all four of the Smith sisters.

After all, they had made it more than obvious that they weren’t going to give up on finding him. That they’d keep looking until they had him in custody. Or he was dead.

Eliminating a threat was smart, especially since it was clear that Mervin hadn’t yet met his objective. Olivia Oswald had found evidence that two of the six boys well known to be some of the ones who had relentlessly stalked a young Mervin Matthewson had both reported incidents of stalking over the last few years. Another one had reported regular break-ins, and another had reported to the cops that he kept getting hang-up calls to the point he had to change his number. Twice.

Mervin was the one stalking his abusers, Ben was positive that he was, which meant they were right about why Merv had abducted the girls. He planned to use them, and perhaps he suspected that Lacey and her sisters knew enough to possibly bring him down.

Whatever his plans, Lacey would never truly be safe until Mervin was no longer in the picture.

Ben had no intention of losing another woman he … loved?

No, not loved. Love was too strong a word, he didn’t know Lacey well enough, hadn’t known her long enough, to say that he loved her, but he had fallen hard and fast, and he could see himself falling in love with her.

Which was why he wasn’t going to lose her.

“You hear that?” Ben asked, freezing as a sudden noise caught his attention.

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