Page 26 of Convict's Game

He’d lose the fucking hand he’d touched her with, one ringed finger at a time.

A few moments on, and two men half carried out another person, a much bigger man, tied up and with his head covered. They shoved him into a second car. Both drove away, and with them went my last sight of Mila.

The only other event on the video was the final two women, picked up and driven away separately, but by that point, I was losing my mind.

She’d been taken, and I had no clue where.

A set of headlights fell over where I stood in the doorway of my car, and Tyler exited a big gunmetal grey 4X4, landing heavily on the tarmac.

He spotted me. “Problem?”

“All the problems.”

The hulking intercept guy approached, exhaustion hanging over him like a cloud. While I’d been carrying out my surveillance, according to Shade, Tyler had travelled north to a Scottish port town, spending long nights trying to uncover another trafficking ring.

Tyler indicated to my car, and we used it as an office.

He regarded me from the passenger seat. “Talk.”

I hauled in a breath. “Salter showed up. Mila is gone. I’ve fucked up.”

He let me run through it all, giving me the space to explain what I’d done.

As I spoke, I realised my failure. “I should’ve called you. If I’d acted faster, we could’ve had people there.”

“Aye, perhaps. But I only asked you to watch, not take action. I have no evidence on Salter yet. Only anecdotal. I can’t prioritise the man without being sure he’s up to something.”

“Tonight changes that, doesn’t it? He took Mila. She said herself that they were there to auction themselves to dirty old men.”

Tyler scrubbed his cheek, his stubble thick with a couple of days of growth. “The point is that the women opted in. I don’t like it, but my job is to protect those who are taken by force.”

I stared at him with confusion. “You won’t act based on what I saw and heard? Mila warned the kid that there could be violence.”

“Could be versus undoubtedly has been. Compare that to a girl ripped from her bed in a foreign country, controlled by threat or pain, thrown on a boat, and transported here. No phone, no way to contact her loved ones. Or worse, the loved ones selling her into it as they’re desperate. I repeat that I don’t fucking like what you’ve told me, but if Salter is facilitating women selling themselves willingly, that pushes him down my list of men to take out, not up. And that list is fucking long.”

“She asked to leave and was denied.”

“The girl you got out, right? Leaving three willing victims.”

He wasn’t going to help me. I swore and glowered out of the front window. I was on my own.

I sensed Tyler’s stare.

“What aren’t you telling me?” He shoved my uninjured arm. “I just laid out my logic, and you’re fighting a battle inside your head. Why? Is it the woman, Mila? Is there something about her?”

Bitterness flooded my tongue. “Nothing that would change your priorities.”

Tyler gave a short, hard laugh. “My priorities are that way because of the scale of what I’m up against. I’d never turn my back on a woman in need. You should know that.”

I gunned the engine. Somewhere, Mila was being held. I was sure of it. “Get out. I’m going to go find her.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

I gaped at him. “You’re exhausted. You have other places to be.”

Tyler closed his eyes and hunkered down in the seat. “I’d never leave a crew member to fend for himself. I can’t pull a team to work on this, but you can have my time. I’ve got yourback, always. Slight issue is I haven’t slept in two days. If I pass out, then wake me when we get wherever we’re going.”

True to his word, he was almost instantly asleep, dropped like a tranquilised bear. I half expected snoring that registered on seismographs while suffering whiplash from feeling rejected to loved.