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Dispatching the final man to the fires of hell filled me with a deep sense of satisfaction. A tiny part of me wondered, did that make me a monster? If I was, I wasn’t the same sort as they were. I didn’t inflict pain or death on anyone who didn’t earn it. And the offenses that earned that kind of response weren’t slight. It wasn’t meted out for running a stoplight or talking ugly to me. It wasn’t earned by not paying your bills or cheating on your spouse, although I found that unforgivable.

You earned my punishment, the kind that my bosses, those who worked for them, and I dispensed by doing terrible deeds. Abusing others, rape, molestation, murder, and such was what would make us, me, show our dark sides. Or, in the case of those I was watching with cold, unfeeling eyes at the moment, you bought other humans and kept them as slaves.

Anyone in the human trafficking business—kidnappers, transporters, sellers, buyers, and anyone in the pipeline who helped were all guilty in our world. There was no mercy that you could earn, no matter what. You would be prevented from being able to do the same thing to others again. Occasionally, it might be that you were imprisoned for years. However, most of the time, you would be tortured and killed for your crimes. Yes, it meant we acted as the judge, jury, and executioner. My motto was someone had to do it. God knows the law couldn’t keep up, especially regarding the most lucrative business in the world. It was growing rather than shrinking.

When Agony and his Pagan Souls asked us to help them shut down a trafficking ring that they suspected was running through their town of Cherokee, the same ring that had kidnapped Mace’s now old lady, we readily agreed to help. Regardless of their needs, we were always there for the motorcycle clubs we called friends. They were family to some of us and close friends to others.

The Dark Patriots’ owners—Undertaker, Sean, Griffin, and Gabe—were friends with Reaper, the president of the Iron Punishers. They’d all served as Navy SEALs together. My sister was married to an Archangel’s Warrior, Storm, in Dublin Falls. Another fellow operative, Ben, was related to Dublin Falls through his sister, Cassia, and her man, Blade. A second buddy in the company, Justin, was the brother of Voodoo in Dublin Falls and cousin to Blade. In a way, it made us all one big family.

Other members of my team had removed the victims we’d freed before me, and a few others began exacting our retribution on the man who had purchased them and those in his employ who knew about it and participated in the crime. Some had pleaded and said they had no choice. If they hadn’t gone along with it, he would’ve killed them. Others claimed they had no way to know who to tell since he was a powerful man and had connections. Others, the ones who truly made me sick and were like their boss, thought it was alright to treat people as possessions and cattle to be bought, sold, and used however you wanted. Those were the ones we took our time with and made suffer. Others were dispatched faster and slightly more mercifully. A hand landing on my shoulder and squeezing pulled me from my dark thoughts. I glanced over my shoulder. There stood Justin. His grim expression matched the one I wore.

“You ready to get the hell outta here and go home? I’ve had enough of this godforsaken place. I want to surround myself with sweet and innocent for a while,” he said.

“Let me guess. You’re taking a few days to visit Voodoo, Nevaeh, Reese, and Waverly in Dublin Falls?”

He grinned. “Damn right, I am. Those kids can make anyone smile and feel good. Add all the others running around that compound, and you have no excuse not to leave feeling lighter. You should come with me even if it’s only for a couple of days. When was the last time you saw your sister, Storm, and the kids?”

“Too long. I’d like to go, but I don’t know if the office can spare both of us.”

“You won’t know unless you ask. Come on, do it. We’ll stir up the kids, and then once they’re wound up, we’ll leave, and they’ll drive my brother and your sister crazy.” Justin grinned.

I snickered. “You want to be killed? If we do that, Voodoo will kill you, and Storm will do the same to me. Or he will if Bryony doesn’t beat him to it. How old are Reese and Waverly now?”

We were walking away. Others would do the final cleanup to ensure nothing was left behind to incriminate us.

“Reese is two and a half, and Waverly is almost three months. They have their hands full, but my brother loves it. Nevaeh was the best thing to happen to him. She’s helped him heal a lot. He’ll always have demons, but nothing like he did before. How old are Bryony’s two?”

He was right. Nevaeh had helped Voodoo conquer his guilt and other inner devils, just like Storm had helped my sister with hers.

“Tristan will be four next month, and Rylie is eight months.”

“At least they waited until the first one was out of diapers before adding another. Reese is getting closer to being potty trained, thank God. So, what do you think? Do you want to go see what we can do to make our families crazy and then come back to the grind?”

We would always have jobs needing to be done. Some were easier and less emotional than the one we just finished. The awful truth was, it wasn’t over. Just from this one ring, we could chase victims down for years. The chances of finding and freeing them like we did these few tonight were slim. But we’d still do it. To sit back and do nothing would drive us all insane. It wasn’t the kind of people we were.

I’d feel this way, although probably not to the same degree, even if my sister hadn’t been a victim of it herself. It was due to the Warriors and the OG, old guard Dark Patriots, that she was found and rescued. Ultimately, she met the love of her life and was living a beautiful life. I wanted that for as many of the survivors as possible. You could go on and have happiness and a relationship after suffering something like this. There was always hope.

“Alright, let me see if they can spare me. If they can’t, then you need to take pictures of my family and give them hugs. Tell them I miss them, and I’ll see them soon.”

“You got it.”

We were climbing into our transport. It would be a trek to the airstrip, where a plane was waiting to take us home. We’d be gone before the sun rose. It would be as if ghosts had descended and wiped out the filth living on the big, fancy estate. The evil deeds they’d been involved in might never be publicly known, but we knew.

As the miles flew by, I leaned back and closed my eyes. I tried to push the images of the conditions we found those poor people in out of my mind, but it was impossible. They’d be added to my nightmares—just what I didn’t need. To see what another human could do was sickening. However, others would say the same about what we’d just done. It was a thin line we were walking. I never wanted to end up on the wrong side of it.