She lifted herself up and rushed to throw the book into the big bag that doubled as her purse. She hurried to pull on her clothes, regretting she didn't have time for her own shower, yet knowing she couldn't get out of this house a second too soon.
Chapter Three
Dylan
Dylan Parker's right leg bounced up and down nervously. He was wired on caffeine, adrenaline, and dread. If he didn't already know for a fact that the seemingly average ranch home he was staking out was a veritable fortress, he would have stormed it already, Lukus Mitchell be damned. Dylan had only worked for Titan Securities for a few weeks, but he already hated the fucking job. As the new guy, he'd been relegated to stakeout duty, which meant long, boring hours of no activity.
Boredom wasn't why he hated the job.
What he loathed was following a lowlife like Jake Davenport and not being able to do jack-shit to intervene. In the weeks Dylan had been trailing the prick, he'd seen more horrendous grievances against women than in his entire two duties in Afghanistan as a decorated Marine sniper.
It turned his stomach to think what might be happening inside the brick home he had his binoculars trained on. He'd sat outside this house for many nights, and had seen at least three other women go inside. In every case, they'd come out looking worse for wear—sometimes limping, often disheveled—always scared.
Davenport only brought the innocent ones home with him.
What had Dylan most upset was that tonight it wasn't just some nameless victim inside that house. Tonight it was Hannah Martine. He hadn't been prepared for the protective anger he would feel on behalf of Davenport's newest victim.
The nagging guilt at not being able to do a damn thing to protect her mingled with his fury that Hannah would willingly go anywhere with Davenport. Dylan had tried to warn her about the kind of man Jake was; yet she'd ignored him. He hadn't felt this level of anxiety since his last mission overseas. That he could compare what was happening in a quiet Palo Alto house to having his platoon attacked and his Humvee blown up by an IED proved to Dylan how evil Jake Davenport really was.
The buzz of his mobile phone jarred him from his trip down memory lane. It was his brother calling.
"Derek, you'd better be calling to tell me we're moving on to plan B," Dylan said.
His older brother paused before replying. "Sort of. Lukus and I are in the car on the way to the airport. We're on a red-eye and will be there in the morning. Stay the course."
"Fuck staying the course. I thought we were going on offense when Z got out here last week, but all we do is sit around with our thumbs up our asses, watching while more women are getting hurt."
"We aren't sitting around. We're gathering evidence," Derek said.
"I haven't given you anything substantially new in a week. How many pictures do you need of this asshole? We either have the goods on him, or we need to go in and get more proof."
"Listen, you twerp. You're just one member of this team. We've dug up a lot of intel that we're about to use. Just shut up and do your job. We need to know where Davenport is at all times. Can you do that, or do we need to replace you?"
Dylan was about to say he'd gladly be replaced, but the front door opening distracted him. It was worse than he'd feared. It was hard to make out details in the dark, but he could see that Hannah was moving slowly, as if she was in pain. Davenport seemed to be dragging her along, his grip on her upper arm prodding her to go faster. She was barefoot and her long sandy brown hair looked as messy, as if she'd been riding on the back of Dylan's motorcycle for an hour.
Ah Hannah, what the fuck did he do to you, honey?
"Dylan! Are you still there?" Derek's voice boomed in his ear.
"Yeah, I'm here. I have eyes on the jerk and his newest victim."
"Good. Stay back. He's already had his goons put you in the hospital once. We don't need a repeat performance."
"I couldn't give a fuck about that. It's these women I care about. Every day that goes by, more innocents are getting hurt."
His brother sighed. "I wish this wasn't your first assignment with us. I admire how much you care, I do. But you have to stay detached. You can't make this personal or you'll make mistakes. It already got your ass kicked once. It's a job."
"You wouldn't say that if Davenport had Rachel... or Mom. I'm not like you, Derek. I can't make this impersonal. You aren't here to see how afraid some of these women are. You aren't here to watch them limp out after surviving God-only-knows-what fucked-up shit goes on inside his house or his warehouse."
"You're right. I'm not there... yet. But I will be by the morning. You've done good, but you're getting too close."
Davenport was pulling out and Dylan waited a respectable amount of time before following. He'd been trading in his rental car every day to keep mixing it up, but he suspected Davenport knew he was still under surveillance.
He returned his attention to the phone conversation. "Listen, he's moving in on women I know for a fact are innocent. He's been working on a bartender at the Four Seasons for a few weeks, and tonight she was his latest victim. I just had the pleasure of watching a beautiful young woman go into his house of horrors and come back out four hours later limping, her clothes awry, and looking like she's gone through hell. So am I getting
