I looked down at my own hands and then at my feet. She had spoken the truth. I wasn’t bound. I was still wearing my work clothes, and my hair was a tangled mass around my head and shoulders.

My brain still wasn’t functioning quite right, but my physical body took over. I reached for the pitcher. Thank God! It was filled with water. Could be laced with more drugs, but at the moment, I didn’t care. My thirst ruled me.

I gulped down the liquid, letting it dribble down my chin and onto my shirt. I forced myself to stop after a few seconds. I didn’t want to make myself sick. I wasn’t sure when I had last eaten.

I wiped my chin on my sleeve and looked around the dark room. A toilet and sink sat in one corner along with a few tattered blankets. The walls were concrete blocks painted gray. The ground underneath me was hard and gray, like an unfinished basement floor. Along one wall was a door, and on another, a small window with bars over it.

No light streamed in. It must be nighttime.

“Where are we?” I asked again.

“I told you. The dorms.”

I shook my head, and the drum pounding inside my skull grew louder. “No. I mean where. Am I still in Colorado?”

She scoffed. “Colorado? Ruby, you’re far away from Colorado. I’m not exactly sure where we are, but it’s somewhere in the Caribbean.”

The Caribbean? What the—? No. Not possible. I hadn’t been gone that long. I must have misheard her.

She was still talking, but I couldn’t make out her words. The sound of her voice nagged at me. I’d heard it before somewhere. Which made sense since she had called me by name.

I rubbed my temples, trying to soothe the pounding bass. My vision still wasn’t very clear. The woman appeared to be blond. Her hair was pulled back from her face, but I couldn’t make out her features. “How do you know me?”

“We met in Jamaica, remember? I’m Juliet.”

Chapter Three

Ryan

“Ruby? Ruby!” The door to her apartment was unlocked, and I shoved it open, Talon behind me. “Where are you?”

It was nearly five p.m., and I hadn’t heard from her all day despite texting her every half hour.

She wasn’t at work. I’d called there and was told she’d quit that morning over a squabble about vacation time. Her superiors must not have wanted her to leave again so soon. Nothing except the possibility of bringing her father to justice would have convinced Ruby to quit the police force. It was a huge part of her life and her identity.

I frantically searched the small abode. “Damn it, where is she?” My nerves jumped under my skin as fear catapulted through me.

“Calm down, Ry.” Talon walked through the kitchen. “I’m sure everything is fine.”

“Everything is not fine, Tal. She would’ve texted me. For God’s sake, I proposed to her last night!”

Talon jerked around, his eyes boring into mine. “You what?”

“I proposed to her.”

“Are you serious? That’s great.”

“Well, not so great. She hasn’t exactly said yes yet.” I ransacked her living room, much like I had when I found the feminist book under her couch.

“Hell, Ryan. Don’t trash the place. You’re not a professional. You don’t want to destroy any clues the cops might be able to dig up.”

My mind was whirling with possibilities, none of them good. The best alternative traveling through my head at light speed was that Ruby had freaked out about my proposal and flown the coop.

On any other day, I’d be devastated if that was true. Today? It was the best option. Which meant I knew it wasn’t what had happened.

“Look for anything,” I said. “Mathias must have been here. He must have taken her.”

“I’m going to call the PD. Maybe they can trace her cell phone.”

“That will only help if she has it with her.” I balled my hands into fists. “She wouldn’t go anywhere without her phone or gun, but what if…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. What if, indeed? What if so many things? Her father was a lunatic. He’d most likely just had Larry Wade taken out. He was truly on his own now, and if Ruby was correct in her assumption, he was also running out of money.

Talon ended his call. “The department is going to do what they can.”

I was sure they would. I was also sure it wouldn’t be enough.

“Damn.” I plunked my ass on her couch, looking down. The cushions separated under my weight, and something shiny peeked up at me. Something gold.

I reached down and grabbed the object. My heart sped up like a jet taking off. “Look what I found.”

He sat down next to me. “What is it?”

I handed it to him. “See for yourself.”

He examined the heavy eighteen-karat-gold ring. “I’ll be damned.”

“Her father was here. He took her. I know it. Let me have a look at that thing.”

Talon handed the ring back to me. It was identical to Tom Simpson’s ring. I looked at the inside of the band. The same etchings that I couldn’t make out were there, but also something else—something absent on Tom’s ring.

My blood ran cold.

A name was engraved in elegant script.

Bradford Steel.

* * *

Twenty-four hours later, Talon and I arrived in Kingston, Jamaica.

I inhaled the moist tropical air laced with the sweet fragrance of jasmine and mango, and an overwhelming calmness enveloped me.

I was frantic about Ruby. She hadn’t left my thoughts in the last day and a half, but something peaceful flowed through me.

It was truth. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I knew.

We’d find the truth here.

Two men met us—a limo driver, who took our luggage, and the private investigator we had hired.

The investigator was a large man with dark-brown skin and a wide smile. He stuck out his hand. “Mr. Steel times two. I’m Rajae Williams.”

Talon took his hand. “I’m Talon Steel. Thank you for meeting us, Mr. Williams. We hear you’re the best.”

“Call me Raj,” he said in his Jamaican accent. “And you hear correctly. From what I understand, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but if money is no issue—”

“It’s not,” I interjected.

“Good,” Raj said. “I’ve booked a cruising yacht for the next two weeks. The captain is notoriously discreet. We leave tonight. You’ll just be two American tourists and real estate developers visiting the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and I’ll be your Jamaican guide.”

“Have you done anything like this before?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. Though not with this much style. I was instrumental in bringing down a couple of smaller trafficking rings. From what you’ve described though, we’re looking for something bigger. I heard about the two girls who went missing from the Destination Desire resort when you two were here a few weeks ago. Since then, four other young women have disappeared from three other resorts. These things tend to happen in waves.”

“The other two rings you brought down,” I said. “Were they on a separate island?”

Raj shook his head. “One was here in Jamaica, and the other had its headquarters in the Dominican Republic. They’re everywhere. Even in your own country.”

I swallowed. Even though I knew what he said was true, the thought of humans being bought and sold in the US made my flesh crawl. But it had been happening under our noses.

Raj continued, “Because you’ve assured me that money is not an issue, we’ll have access to more information. I have informants who aren’t above taking bribes.”

“Let’s see what they’ll tell us before we start handing out cash,” I said.

“We will,” Raj said. “But it’s amazing how the sight of American green stuff makes people start remembering. The people we’ll be dealing with aren’t the best of society.”

Really? Of course anyone who knew about this wasn’t the best of society. This was no surprise. And damn it, it would be worth every penny we had if we could ferret out Theodore Mathias and get rid of him for good. Now that Tom Simpson and Larry Wade had both met their maker, once Mathias was behind bars, Talon could truly heal.

We all could.

Including Ruby.

Where the hell was she? I closed my eyes for a split second. Her beautiful face appeared, her eyes sparkling…but then they morphed into something else. Cold blue. Fear. Ruby was frightened. I’ll find you, baby. I’ll find you and bring you home.

As I suspected, the PD hadn’t been able to uncover anything on Ruby’s phone. I was tempted to have Raj try to find her, but she could be anywhere. Wouldn’t hurt to ask though.

I quickly filled Raj in on Ruby’s disappearance, and he began punching stuff into his phone. “I’ll do what I can, mon. Let’s get you two to the yacht and get settled in. We’ll be cruising all night.”

Chapter Four

Ruby

“Juliet?” I tried to stand but stumbled onto my hands and knees. “Fuck!” The concrete scraped against my palms, shooting pain into them.