Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

this little cutie outside. You know how it is, right? Sometimes you just need a little something different.”

“Ah, I understand you perfectly well.” The man smiled. He sounded more relaxed now, which was a relief because my stomach was churning after the nasty crap I’d just said, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could have kept it up.

“Well, the price is five hundred each,” the man stated, getting down to business immediately. “That’s for two hours. The rooms are upstairs.” He gestured with his head toward a staircase behind him. “You can both go in if you’d like, or I can have another girl down here in a few minutes if you’d prefer to wait.”

“I’ll wait,” Holm replied immediately before shooting me a look. “I’m not keen on, uh, sharing. You can go ahead. I’ll just wait right out here.”

“Sounds good to me.” I shrugged easily. Holm had put just a little extra emphasis on that last sentence, and I realized immediately that it was his way of telling me that he’d keep watch while I went in to speak with the girl. I dug my wallet out of my pants pocket and pulled out the bills. I made a show of looking around before discreetly passing the money over.

“Get up.” He sneered at the girl as he stood up from the table himself.

She obeyed without protest and immediately got up.

“Follow me,” he said before turning and heading toward the stairs. I felt just a little trepidation about splitting up from my partner, but I trusted him and knew that he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, and this way, he could give me a heads up if it seemed like something was wrong.

The staircase led up to a dimly lit hallway, lined on either side with two doors each. I could easily imagine what was going on behind those doors, and it was disgusting to think of what was happening here just above the bar, where tourists were happily enjoying drinks and having a good time.

“In here,” the man directed us toward the first door on the right. The girl stepped inside first, and I stepped in behind her.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” was all the man said before shutting the door behind us.

I turned around to look at the girl. She had moved to sit on the bed, one of the few pieces of furniture in the sparsely decorated room. In fact, aside from the bed, the only thing inside the room was a cheap-looking table and a wooden chair. The walls, which had once probably been white, were stained a dingy yellow and covered in suspicious-looking dark stains.

The girl hadn’t moved since she’d sat down. She was completely still, the same way she’d been outside, and her eyes were glazed over as she stared at something far away.

“Hello,” I murmured softly as I moved to crouch in front of her. I reached into my pocket to pull out my badge. “My name is Ethan Marston. I’m a federal agent with an American agency called MBLIS. I’m here to help you.”

“What?” the girl yelped, the blank look in her eyes gone in an instant as she stared down at me.

“I’m a federal agent,” I repeated. “The man I came here with is my partner. I’m sorry about what we said before. We just needed to get that man’s trust so we could speak with you.”

“No,” she whimpered as she looked around the room wildly. She looked terrified, which really wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. “You need to leave. I don’t want any trouble.”

“You won’t get in trouble,” I tried to reassure her. She was beginning to raise her voice, and I needed her to calm down before the man got suspicious and returned. “We’re here to help you. Just please calm down--”

“No!” she suddenly screamed. “No! Help! Help!”

“What the hell?” I hissed. Why was she reacting like this? Had I made some massive error in judgment? No, there was no way. It was evident from her body language and how she’d been behaving the entire time we’d been here that she was being abused and manipulated, so why was she panicking at my offer of help?

I tried to plead with her to stop yelling, but the door burst open with a bang just moments later. The man from before was standing there, a gun clutched in his hand.

“What’s going on here?” he yelled, his eyes bugging out as he looked between the girl and me.

“H-he’s a cop!” she shrieked as she pointed an accusing finger at me.

The man lifted his gun, and I jumped out of the way just as he pulled the trigger. The girl screamed as the bullet tore through the mattress just a foot away from where she was sitting. I reached for my own gun but couldn’t quite get to it from my current position on the ground.

The man turned his gun toward me again, and for one terrifying moment, I was staring straight down the barrel of it.

Before he could pull the trigger, though, I heard a dull thump, and the man collapsed to the ground with a groan. As he fell, I realized that Holm was standing just behind him, his own gun held aloft in his hand. He’d pistol-whipped him just a moment before he’d gotten the chance to shoot.

“Thanks, brother,” I breathed as I got back onto my feet.

“No problem,” he replied as he crouched down to handcuff the unconscious man. “What the hell happened, though? We heard screams.”

I turned to look expectantly at the girl sitting on the bed. I was honestly wondering what that was about, too.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered, her eyes welling up with tears. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, I was just scared that…”

She kept cutting herself off as she gasped for breath between sobs. Despite the mess she’d caused by screaming, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. It was obvious that the poor girl had been through