Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 66: Sold!

-Caleb-

I sat cross-legged on the bed with Jacey sitting across from me while we ate rehydrated pot roast from ration packs. We balanced the food on our knees while our bottled waters rested on the floor next to us.

We’d been picnicking this way for days. We’d also been doing it missionary style so I could hide most of Jacey from the camera. Or cameras. I wasn’t quite sure how many cameras were on us.

They’d left us clothes as well, so Jacey and I spent most of our time in windsuits. When we weren’t fucking. We spent a lot of time fucking. Mostly because we were bored.

There was no television. No phone. No computer. Nothing but Jacey, me, food, clothing, water, and a mattress. And the corner of our bunker that was a small bathroom. That shower had gotten a lot of miles, too.

“I’m two weeks past when I should have gotten my period,” she told me while I was munching on my pot roast.

I choked, grabbed water, gulped, then beat my chest and coughed. “Jacey, give a man a little warning!”

She bit her lip. “I’m worried about having a baby now.”

“Me, too,” I admitted, putting my hand on her knee. “I thought we were safe before. Now, I don’t know. But I’m going to take care of you and a little one if we are blessed to have one.”

“Will it really be a blessing right now?” Jacey asked softly. Her eyes were filled with worry.

“It will always be a blessing, no matter what the circumstances. It’ll be hard right now, but it would still be a blessing,” I assured her.

“Okay.” She put her hand over mine and squeezed gently.

Crackling filled the air, or cackling, or both. I snapped my head up to see a loudspeaker in one corner of the room.

“You missed your period because you’ve got an IUD implant.” I recognized the voice of one of our captors. “Masterson had it put in right after you gave birth to Will Jr.”

Jacey paled and set my food aside so I could stand and face the speaker. “The hell? How do you know that, and how is it any of your business?”

“Masterson told us we weren’t going to get a third hostage,” he said. “We’re still negotiating price, but suffice to say, I think you’re going home to daddy.”

“I don’t suppose, if we asked nicely, you’d just let us go?” I tried.

Helaughed. “You’re funny. I’m gonna miss you.”

“Wish I could say the feeling was mutual,” I grunted back.

“Why don’t you two just occupy yourselves with more fucking. That’s always fun to watch,” he said.

“Cute.” I took my rations to the trash and dumped them. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Oh, wait, wait, we’ve got a bidder coming up from behind. Looks like the CIA wants you pretty badly,” he informed us.

I perked up. “Really? The CIA? That’s great. Sell us to them.”

“They’re really only interested in one of you,” he tsked.

I scowled. “You can go ahead and tell them they’re not getting shit out of either of us if we’re separated. We’re a package deal.”

“Noted.” I could hear furious typing on the other end of the line.

“I think it’s a live auction,” Jacey whispered to me.

“I think so, too.” I sat down next to her on the bed. “You finished with that?”

She nodded, and I took her food to the trash as well. Then I just sat with my arm around her as we got the blow-by-blow on our precarious future from the speaker in the corner of the ceiling.

“Oh look, the FBI doesn’t want the CIA to have you. Bidding is going up and up,” our captor chuckled.

“I don’t suppose you could just sell us to one of them and take your money and be happy, could you?” I suggested.

“Nah. They’re going to beat the sheik, anyway,” he said.

“Sheik?” Jacey mouthed to me.

“Masterson has enemies. The sheik is one of them. Oh, wait, we’ve got… yes, I think they might even outdo the sheik!” he crowed.

“The CIA?” I asked hopefully.

“The FBI?” Jacey said.

He snorted. “You two are far too hopeful for your own good. No, not the CIA or the FBI. As far as I can tell, they’re out of the running.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

Jacey crawled into my lap, and I held her to me. If we weren’t going to be bought by an alphabet agency, then any other buyer was just going to be a new kind of hell, and we knew it.

“This is a lot more fun than I thought,” our captor chuckled. “Just seeing bids go up and up. I might be able to afford that private island when we’re done here.”

“How nice for you,” I sneered.

“All right, six billion going once, six billion going twice…” he murmured.

Six billion? That certainly wasn’t an alphabet agency.

“Sold! Six billion dollars for Caleb,” he said.

“Just for Caleb?” Jacey gaped.

“Just for Caleb. Bidding’s still open on you. I think you might only top out at three billion, but we’ll see if we can’t get four,” he mused.

Jacey clung to me, and I wrapped my arms more tightly around her. “We’re a package deal,” I said again.

“Not necessarily. Come on lucky number four billion.” He began clapping excitedly.

Except for the clapping, our captor was finally, blessedly silent. Then he let out a shout and I could almost see him doing a fist pump in the air. “Four billion! Yes!”

I put a hand at the back of Jacey’s neck and stroked her skin. My heart was pounding, and her breath was coming in frightened little pants. “Same person?” I asked cautiously.

“Pfft. You’re so cute when you’re hopeful. Of course not,” he said.

“I told you we’re a package deal. So you’ll just have to accept an offer that includes both of us,” I insisted.

“Oh yeah? And what do you think you’re gonna do about it?” he scoffed.

I didn’t have an answer for that one.

“And, just in case you were planning to do something stupid…” Clouds of gas began to descend from what I thought were sprinkler heads in the ceiling.

“Fuck!” I coughed, pulling Jacey onto the floor with me. But it was no use. In less than two minutes, we were out.

***

I woke up tied to a chair wearing only boxer shorts. I had no idea where I was, but the floor was marble, the walls were tile, and Jacey wasn’t there. The only one of those that concerned me was that Jacey wasn’t there.

“Ah. He wakes.” A man in a long robe paced before me. “Do you know who I am?”

“I’m guessing the sheik?” I replied, looking him over. “Where’s Jacey?”

“She is with the Trinary. You were quite expensive on your own. I did not feel she had the same value you do,” he said.

I struggled against the ropes binding me, but they were so tight they cut into my wrists and ankles. “She’s valuable to me.”

“Yes, a woman always is,” he responded dismissively.

“I’m not telling you shit unless I get Jacey,” I declared.

He chuckled. “Of course you are. You want to be able to stand again when I’m finished with you, I’m sure. And have children.”

I heard a sizzle behind me and jumped, cranking my head around.

There was a brazier of burning coal behind me and a man holding an iron brand. My mouth went dry.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Now, then. I want to know everything you know about Masterson’s operations in Brazil,” the sheik said. “For a start.”

“I want Jacey,” I replied.

He shook his head. “You are a fool.”

The man with the hot poker approached me.

“Maybe you need a taste in order to understand just how serious I am,” the sheik said.

I swallowed. The poker hovered scant inches from my upper thigh, and I could feel the heat. “Will you at least TRY to get Jacey?”

“I’ll consider it, depending on the information you give me,” the sheik responded.

There was a difference between being courageous and being an idiot, and I had a feeling the sheik was about to educate me in that difference unless I got my shit together. I couldn’t very well go save Jacey if I couldn’t walk.

“A question for a question,” I bargained.

The sheik raised an eyebrow, then a smile played at the corners of his lips. “Ibrahim, we won’t be needing the poker right now.”

Ibrahim looked disappointed, but thankfully, the poker moved away from my genitals and back to the brazier.

“What is Masterson doing in Brazil?” the sheik asked again.

“He just massacred a village of endangered indigenous people to continue his illegal logging operations there,” I said without hesitation.

“Where?” he demanded.

I shook my head. “My turn for a question.”

He laughed. “So it is.”

“What is the Trinary?” I asked.

“A group of three very dangerous assassins who pool their resources on occasion and help each other out from time to time,” he replied. “Now, where?”

I gave him latitude and longitude coordinates. Those coordinates would be burned into my brain forever because I knew I’d arranged a slaughter there.

“Excellent. Ibrahim, are you taking notes?” he asked.

Ibrahim came back into view holding an electronic tablet. He was making quick notes on it with his fingertips.

“Where is the Trinary?” I continued my line of questioning.

“What? You think you’re going to go find them?” He threw back his head and guffawed loudly. “Caleb Killeen, you have some balls, I’ll give you that. The Trinary does not operate out of any one location. You would have to seek them out on the dark web.”

“Then I will,” I said.

He wiped moisture from the corner of his eye. “I very much doubt you will have the opportunity, but we’ll see, won’t we? Now, about Canada…”

“It’s run by a man named Girard, if that helps. He has several locations there. I was only at two, and I have no idea where they are except somewhere near Uppsala because we were basically dragged through the wilderness to get there,” I responded.

“Ah, yes, well, I don’t suppose you can know everything he’s doing, but that doesn’t count as an answer. I still have my question,” he said.

“Shoot,” I replied.

“Masterson has been interfering with my human trafficking operations. My shipments have been diverted more than once, and he has taken my profit. I am… displeased about this,” he continued. “What do you know about the human trafficking operation?”

“He had to destroy a shipment not long ago,” I said. I gave the sheik dates and locations of the next shipments coming in. “He also has a thriving underage sex ring going on throughout the United States and Canada.”

He grimaced. “That was my shipment he destroyed. I was trying to divert it back, and the bastard decided if he couldn’t have them, he was going to break my toys. I was… displeased.”

I was getting the impression it was not a good idea to “displease” the sheik. “Well, hopefully, as long as he doesn’t change the locations, you’ll be able to get some of your own back. Is the Trinary going to treat Jacey well?”

“I have no idea what the Trinary intends to do with Jacey. She certainly has less knowledge than you do,” he said.

“That’s not true,” I corrected him. “I told Jacey everything. Everything I knew.”

His eyebrows went up. “Then they got the same information at a much lower price. Pity.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Jacey knows the coordinates in Brazil,” I replied.

“It does indeed.” He stroked his chin. “Now, Caleb. About his dealings in illegal antiquities…”

The questions went on for hours, long after I’d run out of questions of my own. The sun went down, and the moon rose outside the windows before the sheik called it a night.

“We will talk more tomorrow,” he warned me. “Ibrahim, take him to his room.”

“Can I have limited access to a computer?” I requested as Ibrahim undid my wrists and ankles. I’d long ago pissed myself because the sheik wouldn’t let me use the bathroom, and my feet were nearly blue and had lost feeling. Ibrahim had to help me stand.

“We will talk more tomorrow,” he repeated.

Then he was gone, and it was Ibrahim and me.