Page 47 of Captivated with Them

Dillon chuckled. “He was.” He grew serious again and looked between us. “What about Rue? Have you seen her since that night in the restaurant?”

“Yes,” Kodee said. “Frankie brought her to the apartment so we could make her a passport.”

Dillon’s expression darkened. “A passport? Why do they need her to have a passport?”

A muscle in Kodee’s jaw tightened. “Why do you think?”

I wheeled myself forward a fraction, needing the movement. “After the trial, he’s selling her on. She’ll be taken out of the country, and we’ll never see her again.”

Dillon gritted his teeth and shook his head. “That fucking bastard.”

I exhaled a long sigh. “You’ve got that right.”

“We have to do something.”

“I have a plan,” Kodee said, “but we’re going to need that gun.”

This was news to me, but relief that Kodee had thought of something we could try swept through me. I was aware there was one person in the room who wasn’t a part of this, however.

I turned to Gordon. “You probably don’t want to hear any of this. I don’t want to make you complicit.”

Gordon was surveying us all with a mixture of disbelief and horror. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”

Dillon picked up a pair of headphones that had been sitting on the desk and threw them to him. “You might want to plug yourself into something.”

Gordon nodded and went to his computer. It occurred to me that he could use the computer to call for help, but I thought if he was going to do that, he probably would have done it by now. We waited until he’d fired up the PC, put some music on, and slipped the headphones over his head before we started talking.

Kodee started. “I think the trial might be the best opportunity to get Rue back.”

I frowned at him. “How do you work that out?”

“Just think about it,” he said. “No one will be armed during the trial. Guns aren’t allowed in the courthouse. Rue will be with the prosecution lawyer, not with the Capello brothers. She won’t be guarded by anyone. It might be our best opportunity to grab her and get her the hell out of there.”

“But the courthouse will be full of people, and we won’t be the only ones who will be after Rue. I can guarantee Joe Nettie’s men will also be watching out for her.”

Kodee nodded in agreement. “Before the trial, they’ll be keeping an eye on her. That’s when she’ll be most closely guarded. Everyone wants her to testify, but what will happen once she’s finished testifying? The job will be done, and they will take their eye off her.”

I could see where he was going with this. “And you think we can get in there and grab her before anyone else.”

“Yes. If no one else is armed, it’ll put us on a more even footing.”

Dillon pressed his lips together, lines appearing between his thick, dark brows as he thought hard. “What about if we are the ones who are armed? Won’t that give us an even better chance of getting her out of there?”

“How can we get in there with a gun?” I said. “There are metal detectors and security.”

Kodee arched an eyebrow at me. “You’ll already be taking a lot of metal into the courthouse.”

I glanced down at my wheelchair.

“They’ll check the chair,” I warned him.

“Yeah, but what if they don’t check it well enough? We could create some kind of distraction as you’re going in, pull the attention from you.”

“It would be a risk. If I’m caught taking a gun in there, I’ll be the next one standing up in court.”

“Is she worth the risk?” Kodee asked me.

Of course she was. There was no part of me that was going to say no. “Absolutely.”

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