Kayla stepped into the tiled bathroom in front of Levi, who quickly locked the door behind them. She glanced at the square window on the opposite side of the room. He was right. It would be tight, but there were no bars, and they should be able to get through it. What she wasn’t sure of was if there was enough time to get out before they got caught.
“It’s going to be hard to cover up the sound of breaking glass,” she said, opening up the cupboards under the sink to search for a towel that would help muffle the noise.
Levi eyed the window. “True, but we can either try to escape this way, or play cat and mouse until Nicu and his brother return, which would greatly lessen our odds of getting out. I just don’t know how I missed whoever’s out there while I was searching the house.”
She tried not to think about the possibility they were leaving her father behind. Levi had been right when he said there was no way to know if he was somewhere on the property. And that they couldn’t help him if they were both locked up as well. But that didn’t stop the worry over what might have happened to him from gnawing at her gut.
I’m trying to trust You, God, but there is so much at stake here.
Trying to focus, she pulled some thick towels from one of the shelves beneath the sink. “It doesn’t matter now what we missed. We just need to get out of here.”
“I figure we’ve got a couple minutes, tops, before they figure out where we are and they find a way in.” Levi climbed up on the counter that ran beneath the window.
He hadn’t mentioned it, but she knew what he had to be thinking. Despite strict gun laws in the Netherlands, Nicu and his brother had both been armed. Which meant whoever was outside that door was probably armed as well. A face-to-face encounter would be risky and something they wanted to avoid.
She glanced at the door. She hadn’t heard any more noises outside the bathroom, but that didn’t mean that whoever was out there wasn’t getting closer. How had they gotten to this point where they were being forced to run for their lives?
Her mind shifted to her sister, Lilly, which brought with it a familiar panic. A spiraling chain of events had taken a straight-A high school student and thrust her into the dark world of human trafficking. All it had taken was a string of bad decisions and one person who’d taken advantage of her naivety, and she’d lost her sister forever. And now another frightening chain of events had brought her here. She couldn’t lose her father as well. He was all she had left.
“Kayla?”
“Sorry.” Her chest heaved as she handed him one of the towels. She had to stay focused, because the men who’d taken them played by an entirely different moral code. The only way to save her father was to get out of this house and go for help.
“Just be careful,” she said.
Levi steadied himself on the counter, then jabbed at the window with the end of the fire poker a couple of times. As soon as the glass shattered, he quickly ran the poker around the edges of the window to finish breaking out the rest of the glass.
“Give me the towel and the glass,” she said.
She carefully dumped both the towel and the shards into the bathtub, then handed him the second towel to lay over the window frame and protect them from getting cut. Another door shut. Apparently, whoever was out there had every intention of searching the entire house room by room until they found them.
“I want you to go first.” Levi held out his hand to help hoist her up on the counter. “Just wait for me on the other side. I’ll be right behind you.”
She took his hand, then froze. The handle of the door rattled behind them, followed by someone trying to kick in the door. The door buckled slightly, and the lock held, but it wouldn’t for long. Kayla caught Levi’s gaze. They’d just run out of time. There was no way both of them could get out of the house before whoever was on the other side of the door broke through.
Levi jumped down from the counter, motioning her toward the corner on the other side of the door.
“What are you going to do?”
“Hit them with the element of surprise.” Levi held up the fire poker and positioned himself in front of the door. “I’m going to have about half a second to disarm whoever walks through that door.”
The third time, the frame split and the door burst open.
Levi lunged forward in one sweeping motion, taking the tall blond man by surprise as he slammed the fire poker against the man’s hand that was holding a gun. Before the man could recover, Levi struck again, this time swinging the fire poker behind his knees and dropping him to the ground. But neither man had any intention of going down without a fight. The man quickly stumbled back onto his feet and swung the gun, hitting Levi across the side of his face.
The two scrimmaged until Levi managed to slam the man against the wall, face-first, and pulled back the arm that held the gun. The man cried out in pain, then dropped the gun.
The weapon skidded across the tiled floor. Hands shaking, Kayla took a step forward and grabbed the gun, then aimed it at their attacker. The man stumbled backward, giving Levi an opening for one more solid punch. A second later, their attacker was out cold on the white tiles.
“Are you okay?” She knelt down next to Levi, who was still breathing hard from the fight, and handed him the weapon. “I know that had to hurt.”
“It’s just a few nasty bruises.” He shot her a half smile. “What about you?”
“I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t need to know that everything about today terrified her. Or that her heart wouldn’t stop racing. But who in her place wouldn’t feel the same way she did right now?
“We need to tie him up before he wakes up,” Levi said. “Help me take off his coat and his boots. We can use the laces to secure his hands and feet.”
A phone clattered out of the man’s pocket as Levi shifted his leg.
“Wait a minute... This is my phone.” She picked it up, noting the crack across the screen.
The man groaned.
Kayla shoved the phone into her pocket and went back to undoing the laces, hurrying to finish before he woke up. “Why would he have my phone?”
“Good question. Nicu must have given it to him.” Levi finished securing the man’s hands with the laces, then nudged him awake. “Get up.”
Pointing the gun at the small of his back, Levi managed to get him back into the living room, then tied his feet to a chair as an extra precaution.
Frowning, Levi stepped in front of the guard and grabbed a ring of keys from the other man’s belt. “I think it’s time you answered a few questions.”
* * *
Levi crouched next to the guard, knowing full well that not only did they need information, they needed it quickly. Three deployments in the Middle East had taught him patience when it came to interviewing suspects. His job had been not only to fight terrorist threats, but to neutralize foreign intelligence, which meant gaining trust, conducting security investigations and processing evidence. And just like today, the circumstances were never perfect.
But right now they didn’t have the luxury of time on their side. He had little to no leverage, let alone solid information that went beyond a pile of files. Nothing that solidified his upper hand and would force the man to give them what they wanted. He couldn’t threaten him with jail time, and there were no deals that could be made to motivate him to talk. But somehow he had to convince the man—before Nicu and his brother returned—that confessing was the best thing to do. Which meant time was working against them.
“Who are you?” Levi asked, stepping in front of the guard.
The man turned his head away, as if he were totally uninterested.
“Do you speak English?”
No response.
Kayla grabbed her phone and pulled up a photo of her father. “Maybe he has something to say about this.”
“Do you recognize him?” he asked.
The guard stared at the ground, still ignoring them.
“What about her?” Kayla asked, flipping to a photo of Mercy.
“That’s okay,” Levi continued. “All you have to do right now is listen. We know that your boss—I’m going to assume Nicu is your boss—is involved in the trafficking of young girls from across Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.”
“And even if you’re not involved in the actual trafficking of these young girls,” Kayla added, “there are stiff laws that include those aiding the smugglers.”
“Why don’t you elaborate on what kind of sentences we’re looking at,” Levi said, nodding at Kayla. “What kind of future does he have to look forward to?”
“A maximum sentence of twelve years for a single offense, fifteen if the victim of the crime is a minor. And aggravated human trafficking—which includes recruiting, harboring or transporting someone under the age of eighteen—can mean life in prison.”
“And this girl,” Levi said, tapping on the photo of Mercy, “this girl is only seventeen years old.”
The guard looked up and caught Levi’s gaze, but this time the earlier confidence he’d noted was gone. “You found a few papers, so what? You don’t know anything.”
Levi took a step back. “So you do speak English. Good. I’ll ask you again. Who are you? And by the way, you’d be surprised at how much we do know.”
The man’s lips furrowed into a deeper frown. “Yes, I work here for Nicu, but that doesn’t mean I’m involved in what he’s doing. I’m just the guard.”
Levi glanced toward the window and the front driveway and held up the ring of keys he’d procured from the guard’s belt loop. “I have a feeling that Nicu and his buddy aren’t going to be too thrilled when they show up and discover you’ve allowed us to escape.”
“Except you haven’t escaped. Not yet. The moment I realized the two of you had gotten out of your rooms, I called them. They’re on their way back to the house now and will be here any minute.”
Levi glanced at a clock hanging on the wall. If the guard was telling the truth, they were taking a huge risk staying here.
“And on top of that,” the guard continued, “you might have the keys to the front door, but try getting past those guard dogs. They’re highly trained attack dogs that will be happy to eat you for lunch.”
Levi kept his own expression neutral, wishing he could ignore the fact that the man might be right. “We’ll see about that, but before we leave, I need to know who else is in this house.”
“Beside the three of us?” The guard shrugged, clearly trying to play hardball. “No one.”
“What about the girls they bring through?” Kayla asked. “What about my father?”
“Who Nicu brings to his house is his business. I was hired simply to run security. Especially when we have guests.”
“How many guests come through this lovely estate?” Levi asked.
“Not many. Nicu’s a private person. He prefers the quiet of the countryside.”
“Which would explain the huge estate in the middle of nowhere. And the fact that he’s kidnapped a least three Americans in the past twenty-four hours.”
Levi caught the flicker of alarm in the guard’s eyes. He might claim to be ignorant, but the man knew far more than he was letting on.
“Here’s the bottom line,” Levi said. “We know your boss is a part of a human trafficking ring. And we’re pretty sure that they bring them here before they end up on the streets.”
His gaze shifted. “This estate is nothing more than an investment bought by my boss. You watch those American shows where they flip houses, don’t you? You can make a ton of money on a place like this bought at auction. Nicu’s planning to double his money this time around.”
“A real estate flipper. That’s interesting. Because from what I’ve seen on these American shows, most of the time those real estate investors don’t kidnap people on the side.”
“Nicu doesn’t like it when people try to get into his business.”
“Maybe, but I have a feeling that Nicu isn’t going to be happy when he finds you tied to a chair after you let us go. But that’s fine. Because we know what’s really been going on here and plan to make sure the police know as well.”
“Forget it. You can’t pin anything on me.”
“Not even murder?” Kayla asked.
“Murder? What are you talking about?”
Levi glanced at Kayla. Maybe she’d found a nerve to strike after all. Maybe their guard drew the line at murder.
“The body of a young girl was dredged out of the canal yesterday,” Kayla said. “One of Nicu’s girls. Apparently that’s what he does to people who cross him.”
“Like I said, you have nothing on me.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, clearly not finished. “We’re gathering evidence that can put you behind bars for the rest of your life, and I promise I will do everything in my power to ensure that is what happens. And not just for the unlawful trafficking of these girls, but for the kidnapping of my father as well.”
“Like I said, you’ve got nothing.”
The guard simply shook his head and laughed. They weren’t getting anywhere.
“You think this is amusing?” she asked. “Because you won’t when you’re sitting in a jail cell. Tell me where my father is.”
“Lady, I don’t have to tell you anything. So if you think that your threats are going to work, forget it.”
Levi glanced at Kayla. Without more time, he doubted there was anything else he could get out of the man. And he wasn’t willing to risk running into Nicu.
Levi pulled Kayla aside. “It’s over. We need to go. Now.”
“Not yet. He’s lying. He has to know where my father is.”
“He’s not going to tell us, Kayla. He’s just going to try to keep stalling us. That’s what he wants. Because he is right about one thing. Nicu will return, and if we’re still standing here playing bad cop, good cop when he does, we’re not going to be able to do anything to help your father.”
Her jaw quivered. “If he’s here and we leave, you know what they’ll do to him.”
“We’ll find a way to put an end to all of this, but this isn’t the way. Not anymore. We need to leave so we can help your father.”
He could read the conflict in her eyes. The deep frustration and feelings of helplessness that made him wish desperately he could fix this. But if they stayed any longer, they could easily forfeit any chance of finding her father altogether.
“Kayla...we need to go.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling on the guard’s jacket.
She pressed her lips together and grabbed the backpack. “Let’s go.”