Colton Showdown. Marie Ferrarella

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      The Colton family ranch in Eden Falls, Pennsylvania, was named the Double C in honor of Charlotte Colton. Charlotte was the woman who, even though she hadn’t given them biological life, had, for all intents and purposes, along with her husband, Donovan, given him and his five siblings a reason to exist, a reason to live.

      The couple, whose lives were so tragically cut short along with those of so many others on 9/11, were well-known for their dedication and their generosity. Over the course of two decades, they had adopted six completely unrelated orphans, given them their name and their love and knitted them into a family. A family who never took what they had for granted. The ranch where they grew up was right outside a little village named Paradise Ridge.

      Civilization, with all its technological progress, seemed to have stopped at the borders of the tiny town. The hardworking citizens of that town led what was considered an idyllic life that echoed their ancestors’ existence. Until a serpent somehow found its way into Paradise Ridge and stole some of the town’s young women.

      Tate was determined to find those girls and the ones from Ohio.

      Especially, he silently promised the face that haunted him, Hannah. Find them and free them. Even if it was the last thing he ever did on this earth.

      “C’mon, Big Brother,” Emma was urging him. “You and I have a sting to plan and coordinate.”

      Snapping out of his mental fog, Tate rose from the chair he’d taken to view the DVD for the umpteenth time, searching for some telltale clue he might have missed before.

      He looked at his sister as they got ready to meet the others involved in this undercover operation. “Tell the truth, Tomato-head, you’re going to miss this once you turn in your badge for a butter churn.” He still loved to use her childhood nickname, to her annoyance.

      Try as he might, he just couldn’t picture his driven sister in that kind of laid-back, rural setting—not for more than ten minutes.

      “No, I’m not,” Emma countered with feeling. Then, when Tate’s eyes held hers, she shrugged. “Well, maybe just a little,” she allowed as they left the office. Because he’d forced the truth out of her, Emma punched his arm.

      Tate’s deep laugh echoed up and down the hallway. Maybe Emma wasn’t going to miss this life, but he sure as hell was going to miss Emma.

       Chapter 1

      He wasn’t one of those people who had an obsession about cleanliness. Tate Colton had never had a problem with getting his hands—or any other part of him, for that matter—dirty, if the job required it. That kind of dirt he could put up with and ignore.

      But dealing with these subhuman creatures who made their living trafficking in human flesh, in destroying young lives and thinking absolutely nothing of it, was an entirely different matter. It made him want to go back to the hotel room where he was registered under his assumed name and take a shower. A long, scalding-hot shower to wash away their stink.

      Once he received the assignment from his supervisor, Hugo Villanueva, he knew that going undercover in order to find and save the Amish young women who had been kidnapped would require him to associate with, in his opinion, the absolute dregs of the earth.

      Dregs in expensive suits.

      You could dress a monkey up in fine clothes, but he was still a monkey, Tate thought. No amount of expensive clothing could change that, or change the fact that the people he was forced to interact with were lower than scum.

      He’d think more about stepping on a beetle than he would about terminating the existence of one of these cockroaches.

      To look at the man who had brought him up to this particular hotel suite—his current tour guide to this underworld—someone might have thought the man was a successful businessman or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company instead of the utterly soulless lowlife that he actually was.

      Impeccably dressed in what was easily a thousand-dollar suit, his guide to this lurid world of virgins-for-sale smirked at him confidently as he opened the door leading into the suite’s bedroom.

      “I’m sure we can find something to pique your appetite, Mr. Conrad,” he said.

      Tate scowled at the shorter man. “I said no names,” he snapped, mindful of the part he was playing in this surreal drama.

      The other man laughed, enjoying what he considered to be the display of ignorance on the part of this new client.

      “Nothing to be worried about. What are they going to do?” he asked, gesturing at the bedroom and the young women being held there. Each and every one of them were dressed in identical long, slinky white gowns. “Post it on the internet? None of them even know what the hell the internet is,” he stressed, jeering at the young women who were virtually prisoners in this suite. “They all live in the Stone Age. Trust me.” He patted Tate’s arm and the latter shrugged him off as if he was flinging off an annoying bug—an act that wasn’t lost on the man. “Your name—and your sterling reputation—are both safe here,” he assured Tate.

      “C’mon, c’mon,” the man snapped at the young woman he was herding into the room for his “client’s” final review. “He hasn’t got all night. Or have you?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Tate, a lecherous grin spread across his angular face. “You know, if you’ve changed your mind and want to make your purchase now—” He left the sentence open, looking at Tate expectantly.

      “I haven’t changed my mind,” Tate answered formally. The deal was that he got to see the young women in person in order for him to finalize his choice, and then the negotiations regarding the pending “purchase” would go from there.

      Inside, Tate was struggling to contain his fury. The woman he’d “requested,” “Jade,” was looking at him apprehensively like a mistreated animal afraid of being beaten.

      Had she been beaten?

      Tate looked her over quickly. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded, channeling his anger into the part he was playing—a man who wanted the “goods” he was considering purchasing to be perfect. He was well aware of the fact that the blue-gray eyes continued to watch his every move. Tate swung around to confront the other man. “She looks like she’s been manhandled,” he accused angrily.

      The man shrugged indifferently. “Don’t worry. Nothing happened that would have left a visible mark on her.” His flat, brown eyes raked over Hannah from head to toe, as if to reassure himself that she wasn’t displaying any sign of bruising in plain sight. “That’s the one rule—other than payment up front—the boss won’t tolerate any visible marks left on the merchandise.”

      Out of the corner of his eye, Tate saw Hannah flinch at the label the man had contemptuously slapped on her. Merchandise.

      His anger flared.

      “She’s a person, not merchandise,” Tate retorted, glaring at the guard.

      “Hey, at the price you’re going to pay, she’s anything you want her to be. You want a person? You got it, she’s a person.” He turned to look at the redhead he’d led out of the bedroom for Ted Conrad’s perusal. “A soft, СКАЧАТЬ