Page 14 of Caught in the Crossfire

“Wait.” Max pushed me fully behind him when the door screeched open. I latched onto his arms. My heart rate skyrocketed. “Get away from us.”

Buzz Cut started laughing. “Or what?”

Max didn’t have an answer, and neither did I.

The Albanian men stalked forward and reached for me. All I could picture was their fists slamming into my stomach, or worse. My brain raced, trying to decide what to do, but my instincts answered for me.

Wynn’s voice echoed in my ears.Surprise is your friend against a larger opponent.I stepped around Max and high-kicked one ofthem right in the face. I almost collapsed from the pain in my ribs, but it was enough for the man to recoil. Blood poured from his nose. Max lashed out at the other with a precise jab, landing it directly across his jaw.

“Enough,” Buzz Cut said as he pulled a gun. The sound of the hammer cocking had us both freezing. He pointed the gun at me. “Step forward.”

Fear and anger coursed through me in tandem. What were they going to do to me? Would he kill me if I didn’t comply?

Cas’s face flashed in front of my eyes. Obi. Ryu. Ciel. Wynn.

I couldn’t die here. I had to get home.

With my head held high, I stepped forward. Max stood beside me.

“Wherever you’re taking her, you’re taking me too,” Max said.

“I promised you a trip to the cargo hold.” Buzz Cut grinned while he jerked his head. “Grab them both. Let’s show them what happens when they disobey.”

The two men grabbed each of my arms. I tried to jerk away, but their fingertips dug into my skin. Max moved to stop them, but Buzz Cut pointed the gun at him andtsked his tongue.

“Let’s go.”

They dragged me out of the cell despite my feet digging into the ground. Buzz Cut turned on his heel and his men followed, pulling me along. We stumbled back up and down the stairs, but this time my head wasn’t swimming even if the rest of my body was still screaming. My eyes tracked every step, every room we passed. The engine room. The crew mess. Hallways flickering with lights. Crew quarters. The deeper we went into the ship, the colder it got.

Finally, they shoved us inside a vast room filled to the brim with wooden pallets wrapped in plastic and stacked multiple stories high. My shoulders howled in their sockets as they pulled us down rows and rows, organized almost like a maze. Finally,we reached a clearing. Metal cells were welded into the walls, each with a door and a massive padlock.

The men pushed Max and me to our knees in front of the cells. Four of them in a tight row, each no bigger than a bathroom stall in a public restroom. Eight pairs of lifeless eyes stared at me from within the container. Two women in each cell.

Trafficking victims. I scanned each, wide-eyed, as I tried to get a handle on what was happening. The women were haggard. Most watched me back with glassy eyes and expressionless faces. Some huddled in the corners of their cells, as far away from the door as they could get. Some barely moved at all, numb to whatever had put them in these cells.

Was Buzz Cut going to keep us in here now? What did he mean by punishment?

My body shivered, and I wrapped my arms around my chest. It was so fucking cold in here.

“Little bitch,” Buzz Cut said as he patrolled in front of each of the cells. He stopped in front of the third one. “You need to fetch a higher price than this product here, so if you can’t behave, I’ll have to take your punishment out on something less valuable.”

My eyes widened. “Wait?—”

He tapped the barrel of his gun against the metal cell door. It echoed through the cargo hold. Not one of the women inside moved. “You. Red head. Come out.”

I froze as the woman stumbled forward. She was slightly taller than me, and her face looked nothing like mine, but her hair would have been close to the same color if it wasn’t grimy. He chose her on purpose.

He tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants. “My men and I need some entertainment. You know long boat rides. They get boring.”

Go fuck yourself, I wanted to suggest, but I was locked in place as Buzz Cut stared at me. Max tried to grab me, but the other Albanians yanked him back. It was just me and the other redheadwhile Buzz Cut circled us both like a predator about to devour its prey.

When I was a kid, my father had told me in vivid detail what happened to women taken as trafficking victims. He’d described how their bodies were used, raped, and eventually killed. He’d used those stories to keep me from arguing with him about having a bodyguard, or letting my father’s men protect me. Ever since then, I’d feared the day when it happened to me. That was a huge reason I’d made Cas follow that van in Philadelphia. That was how we ended up meeting Wynn and Claire.

And now, despite wanting to be brave enough to fight my way free of whatever was about to happen, I was trembling.

I flinched when Buzz Cut’s hand curled around my neck. “Your resistance gets you nowhere.” He circled behind me, pressing his cheek against mine while he forced me to look at the redhead. “Whenever you step out of line, I’ll punish her instead. You think you’re strong enough to escape here?” His stubble scratched my cheek while he shook his head. “That you can fight back and we’ll just let you? No, little bitch. Your actions affect every other woman on this boat. This is your fault. After I’m done with her, I’ll come for you next, price on your head be damned.”

His tongue dragged up my neck, and I withheld the urge to vomit. The hand on the back of my neck squeezed until spots darkened my vision before shoving me forward. My hands twinged in pain as they caught the full weight of my body. He stalked over to the redhead. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at anything. She just stood there, motionless and empty.