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33

MAEL

I moved around in the dark.

It was hard to see anything in front of me.

But if I couldn’t see them, they sure as shit couldn’t see me.

I closed my eyes and tried to get my bearings straight. If I let myself focus on anything but the mission at hand, thoughts of Lia would take over.

Where she was, how she was faring with fucking Briggs by her side, and how the fuck I was supposed to get her back.

I let out a deep exhale and opened my eyes. Someone came up to my side, standing close, but I didn’t react. I told Theo not to follow me here, but the fucker was as stubborn as he was emotionless.

He hadn’t responded when I told him to stay back at the crematorium, and yet here he was.

“Are you good?” he asked softly.

“Is that why you followed me here? You think I’m going to let my emotions get the better of me?”

He didn’t answer me, but his nonanswer was enough.

I clenched my fist. Now wasn’t the time to be emotional , but fuck if my little brother didn’t manage to bring out all sorts of chaotic shit inside me. I pressed my hand against his chest when I heard footsteps coming out. We pressed ourselves against the door as the guards passed. Briggs was on full alert, and he had more people come out to protect his merchandise.

Lots of people.

Greedy, evil people weren’t hard to find. With the right price, a lot of these fuckers would turn a blind eye to their own morality, but these kinds of things took time.

So where the fuck had these pieces of shit come from?

How had Briggs managed to secure so many people to work for him?

Things weren’t adding up. We were missing something, and I fucking hated when we missed something. It left room for surprise… and not the good kind of surprise.

When the guards finally passed, Theo and I moved, pushing away from the wall and walking further into the building.

It didn't matter that Briggs had brought in more people to work for him. They were fucking useless, and we managed to get further inside the building without being detected. I couldn’t do my usual—blow this shit up and watch it burn down in flames.

There was a chance Lia could be here, and I wasn’t risking anything when it came to her.

There was also the fact that Theo wouldn’t allow it, even if I confirmed she wasn’t here. Not when he knew there were people inside who weren’t supposed to be here… people who weren’t here willingly.

I hadn’t really given much thought to the… casualties from Briggs’s business.

But Theo was all about being sympathetic. Perhaps he came with me to ensure I got them all out?

Did he not trust me?

I shook my head. Probably not now, when my head had been fucked over Lia for the last week.

We stayed behind a small indent in the wall by the locked door leading down to the basement, where I assumed they were keeping all the people.

A lone guard came by not long after, his keys already in his hand, swinging back and forth. I didn’t need to see Theo to know he was thinking the same thing I was. I waited until the guard was close enough before coming up to him and wrapping my arms around his neck. He tensed, about to scream out for help, but I had already twisted his neck, snapping the bones. His knees gave out, and he went down. I grabbed the keys from his limp hands as Theo dragged the body away to hide it in the far corner.

I opened the door and found a spiral staircase leading down. It was dimly lit with soft lamps that weren’t enough for me to see any further than a few feet ahead of me at a time.

“Let’s go,” I said when I felt Theo come up behind me.

We quickly moved down the stairs, not waiting around long enough to run into any other guards.

I didn’t know the exact amount of guards on-site, but I knew it would be enough to make it hard for us to fight them off should it come to that.

Staying hidden now was the way to go.

Down in the basement, I could hear the soft cries murmured by the women around. The light was enough for me to see women and children in cages, a small pot in the corner, probably for when they needed to go to the bathroom, and that was all.

Theo moved away from me. I stayed where I was, trying to assess the scene and think of the best way to get them out of here with only the two of us. We had to get them out. Theo would never leave without them. I knew that for a fact, which was another reason I didn’t want him to come with me.

“How many?” I asked.

“Ten total.”

“Ten,” I repeated. Not a lot. Easier to get ten people out of here than thirty, I supposed, which was what I had been expecting, but not easy enough.

I threw the keys at Theo.

“Get them out, and tell them not to make any noise. I will shoot if they give us away.”

Theo gave me a look before he turned and walked away to do as I asked.

I walked around and took in the people in the cage. They all peered back at me with the same despondent, helpless look that I fucking knew well.

It was the same look Theo had on his face months—hell, years —after we managed to escape. The same look I had on my face every fucking time I looked in the mirror during that time as well.

My fists clenched as memories of the past threatened to take hold of me.

I quickly moved from one cage to the next when I realized they weren’t Lia.

None of them were. I met Theo’s eyes as I got to the last row on one side of the room, and he shook his head.

No Lia.

Fuck.

Where the fuck was she?

I stayed where I was, trying to think. Where could he have put her that I wouldn’t know? It didn’t make sense. Were there more safe houses that I didn’t know about?

Did he have help?

Theo came up to me. “They're all out.”

I looked behind to see all the women standing there. One girl was hiding behind another woman, and she didn’t look to be older than fourteen. She quickly glanced away when she noticed me staring at her.

The women around were crying, but at least they heeded the warning and were crying silently.

“Let’s go. You take the front. I’ll be in the back.”

“Okay.” Theo turned to the women. “Form a line.”

None of the women moved for a long beat.

“Do it now,” I bit out sharply. Some of them jumped from my tone, but it got them moving. I watched as they formed a small line, some of them standing side by side.

“Alright,” Theo said, looking around. “Follow me.”

He turned for the stairs. The women reluctantly followed him and began to move faster when they realized I was right behind. Even if they were scared, they knew their chances were better off with him than with me.

The girl I saw earlier was at the back of the line.

She turned around and looked at me several times. My expression didn’t change. I was working hard to push the anger I felt over the fact that Lia wasn’t here deep down inside of me. I didn’t fucking know why I thought she would be here. I had been sure, too.

Now I needed to go back home and scour all of Leo’s properties, along with his associates, over again.

What was I missing?

The girl turned back once more to make sure I was there… or that I wasn’t going to attack them when their backs were turned.

I was getting annoyed.

If I wanted to attack them, I didn’t need to wait for their backs to be turned.

The girl’s foot caught on the edge of the stairs, causing her to stumble back. I held onto her before she could fall down the stairs and make a loud enough noise to alert the guards, pushing her back until she was standing on her feet once more.

The woman she had been clinging to pulled the girl into her arms and looked at me, a cross between determination and fear in her eyes. I smirked.

How brave.

“Keep walking,” I said.

They nodded and kept going. The girl didn’t turn back to look at me again.

Getting all the women out of the basement had been the easy part. Getting them to walk along the wall on the main floor of the building was something else.

I pulled out my gun.

I didn’t expect us to be able to get out of here undetected.

Sure enough, we were halfway through the front door when a guard came and turned around the corner.

He looked confused for a moment, as if he was unsure whether the women were supposed to be out or not.

Stupid fucker.

I pointed my gun. My aim proved true when I fired, and it hit him in the forehead. But I hadn’t been fast enough. The fucker still managed to scream for help.

I pushed in closest to the people in front of me. “Time to go,” I said, moving up the line. “Grab each other’s shirts. Now!”

They did as I asked, grabbing onto the shirt of the person in front of them. “There are ten of you. I’ll be fucking pissed if by the time we make it out that door, there’s less than ten. Now run!”

Theo took off as soon as he felt the woman behind him grabbing hold of his shirt. I stayed behind for a beat to ensure they were well on their way to escape, just as more guards rounded the corner, their guns out.

Fuck.

I fired the first shot, hitting the fucker running closest to me. He went down, but there were more of ’em.

They fired their shots. I hid in the corner, blindly blasting my gun just as the women’s screams erupted, annoying the shit out of me. This would no doubt attract more attention.

The guards hid to dodge my bullets, temporarily stopping them from giving chase. It wasn’t going to buy Theo much time, but it would have to be enough.

I looked back just as Theo reached the front door. There would be more fuckers waiting for him outside. My grip tightened around the handle of my gun. If anything happened to him…

No fucker would be safe from me. I would guarantee it. I kept firing, taking down as many guards as I could until I ran out of bullets.

I looked around, my eyes catching on the dead body of the guard within reaching distance, his gun by his side.

I chanced a look out from where I was hiding. The bullets were still flying, but not as frequently as they had been. They were probably reloading. I moved quickly, jumping out from my hiding spot and over to the dead body. I grabbed the gun and moved across the space to a new hiding spot as the bullets came faster.

Bits of drywall splattered down on me from where the bullets had hit.

I tried to time it. If Theo was successful, he and the group would be a good distance away now.

I grabbed the bomb I had in my pocket and pulled the safety pin out, throwing it in the general direction of where the bullets were coming from.

I didn’t wait.

I hauled ass out of there, running in a zigzag line to prevent the bullets from catching me. It took the fuckers some time to realize what was happening, and I smiled when I heard their worried shouts coming from the back. It took half a second for me to realize they weren’t speaking English but Italian.

Italian guards?

The bomb went off with a boom just as I jumped out the front door, covering my head as I hit the ground.

Fire spread throughout the building. The explosion wasn’t big enough to catch anything but the building, at least not yet. But it was enough to kill some of the fuckers and prevent a good portion of them from escaping.

Footsteps crunched nearby, and I looked up to see Theo standing there, wearing his usual expressionless face. We stared at each other for a beat before he held out his hand for me. I took it without hesitation and let him pull me up.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

He shook his head nonchalantly.

I shot him a look.

He let out a small sigh. “I’m not lying. I’m not hurt. We ran into a few guards on the way, but nothing I couldn’t deal with.”

“And the women?”

I didn’t fucking care where they were, but if I went through all this shit to get them out, they better be safe.

“In the back of a mini truck.”

“A mini truck?”

“A gift from one of the Italian fuckers.”

I nodded. So he caught on that they weren’t Americans.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We walked about half a mile from the building, coming to a stop at a white mini truck hidden among the trees. The women were all sitting in the back. I didn’t need a clear light to know they were looking at us warily.

I would let Theo deal with where to put them after this.

“Don’t cause trouble,” I said to the women before climbing into the passenger side of the truck. My eyes met the girl for a brief moment. She hadn’t been captured for long. None of these women had. But I was sure the short amount of time they spent in those cages was enough to traumatize them. And I didn’t know why my mind drifted back to the girl. Perhaps because I was about her age when I finally managed to escape from Leo’s grasp. She would deal with this better than I had. And that was all I could hope for.

I looked in the side mirror to see Theo saying something to the women before walking to the driver’s side and getting in.

We didn’t talk as he drove out of there. I leaned back against my seat. This had been one big fucking disappointment.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find her,” Theo said about fifteen minutes into the drive. I didn’t respond to him. I didn’t fucking feel like talking.

Theo let out a small sigh. “We’ll find her. You know we will.”

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I would find her. I would find her no matter what, but when I eventually did, what would she have been through already?

I still didn’t fucking know why Leo was so obsessed with her in the first place, only that he was, and now he had her.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

Not my phone.

The phone was from the man Leo had put on her.

The messages had stopped coming since the moment she was with him, but now…

I pulled it out and quickly read the text.

Theo glanced over at me. “What?” he asked when he noticed I was smiling.

“Briggs just texted. He wants the men he hired back on Lia. And to make sure she doesn’t leave her new location.”

“No shit?” Theo said with a chuckle.

“Yup. Fucker just gave me the location and everything.”

I felt my heart skip a beat for a brief moment before it leveled out again.

I finally got a fucking location.

And I wasn’t wasting any time. I was going to get my girl.