Page 48 of Cruel Debts (Killers of Port Wylde #4)

FORTY-THREE

ASHER

"What the fuck you mean, no?" Hawke shoved the new guy at the door, an inexperienced bouncer, from the looks of it, and thumped his chest threateningly. "Do you know who we are?"

"Troublemakers," the bouncer said, crossing his arms as he stared us all down. "And I say you're not getting in, you get that?"

"You're gonna get it if you don't let us in right the fuck now," Hawke snarled, but I yanked him back by the collar of his jacket, shooting him nothing more than a look and a head shake as a warning.

He couldn't go off half-cocked here. There was something fishy about this place now. All the staff looked new so far, and that was never a good sign.

We needed to get inside and talk to Minnie. Now.

"Fine, bud, have it your way," I sighed, dragging Hawke behind me.

We headed for the corner, and as soon as the bouncer turned back to the line of waiting customers, I yanked the other two around the corner into the alley and looked around.

"There are fewer eyeballs in the alleyway entry," I pointed out, and without checking to make sure they were following me, I started down the lane, sticking to the shadows as much as possible.

With careful precision, I pulled one of the syringes from my pocket, pre-filled with enough Propofol to knock out a man the size of a small cow, and popped the cap, ready to knock out our resistance at the door and slip in unnoticed.

Unfortunately, the best-laid plans hardly ever went smoothly. When I came down on the back of the second bouncer's neck with the syringe, he slammed an elbow into my throat and rendered me useless, the syringe hitting the ground with a tink.

"See what happens when you try to be the nice guy?

" Hawke drawled, cocking a brow. He reached behind his back and pulled out his pistol, whipping the massive man in the back of the head with the butt of the grip.

The giant went down in a heap of limp limbs.

For good measure, Hawke kicked him in the side, leering down at his prone body.

"Stay down, you fuck," he snarled, spitting on the man as retribution for ruining the smooth entrance.

"Nice, Hawke, real classy," Liam grumbled, but he knew better than to complain for long. He was still on thin ice, and if anything happened to Trinity before we could get to her?—

I didn't want to think about what I'd do to him if she weren't safe when we got there.

The door was locked, but thankfully, our new unconscious friend had a set of keys on him—one of which was marked as 'office,' which set off alarms in my head.

Why would a doorman have a key to the office?

Minnie's office was sacrosanct. You had to have a gold card or an invitation to get in there.

So what was this lug doing carrying around that key like he belonged in there?

It didn't feel right. She wouldn't give that key to a newbie. And I certainly didn't recognize him from any of our recent visits.

"Be on your guard," I told the others, cocking my pistol as I put the syringe back in my pocket. "Something's off here."

"You think?" Hawke's attitude deteriorated the longer it took us to find Trinity, and I couldn't blame him. But if he lost his cool, it would cost us a life—maybe more than one.

"I'm serious. Eyes and ears open. Just like we trained on point."

Reverting to our old hand signals from the military, I took the lead, backs against the wall as we entered the dark hallway lined with private rooms. The area was packed, but thankfully, we were able to slip along unnoticed, moving behind the crowd to get to the main area?—

"," Liam whispered, the code names almost essential now. "Your nine. Look in the room."

I glanced in the windows, and what I saw there sickened me.

Girls who couldn't be legal, there was no way they were legal, in the hands of men three times their age, maybe more. They weren't raping them, not yet, but the way they'd strung these girls up made me sick.

"We have to stop this," Liam growled, and he was right.

As much as we had an obligation to Trinity, we had an obligation to these girls.

There was no denying this was embroiled in the bigger contract we had now.

The people we were trying to take down, the trafficking ring, Minnie—it was all connected.

I wasn't sure how yet, but it was. And it was essential now that we figure out how.

And why she'd send us Trinity to protect, when she was clearly in over her head—or in bed— with traffickers.

"Liam, you head for the upstairs apartment.

I'll deal with the office." I delegated each task like a drill sergeant or a squad leader.

My time as our de facto guide in the war left permanent marks on my soul, and the training came out when it was needed.

Like now. "Hawke, I trust you can make a distraction happen and get these girls out of here? "

Hawke was good at this kind of thing. He'd make sure the deed was done and the girls were safe before these assholes even knew what hit them. As I watched, he flipped out his phone and made a call, his eyes hard, like steel.

"I need a favor," he barked into the receiver. Behind the club, there were two vans, with women drivers and a trauma counselor. Ah, so our usual extraction teams. Good. He was a step ahead of me. Five minutes. Be ready. Bring blankets; these girls look cold."

He nodded and slipped out of sight, headed who knew where to make a miracle happen.

I didn't have time to stick around and watch the show. "Let's go," I growled at Liam, and with that, we were on the move again, our faith placed in the third of our squad to clean up the mess these filthy fucks left behind.

Liam followed me to the office first, insisting we could go through the damn thing faster with two sets of eyes. And he wasn't wrong, really. So I didn't argue it. But as we unlocked the door and found the room empty, it began to sink in that things here had changed hands. Quickly.

Minnie's scrawl on the page wasn't in English. She'd kept her personal notes and bookkeeping in her own written language. And unfortunately for us all, I couldn't read Mandarin. I could only speak a few sentences of it. I was of no help here.

"Take what looks important," Liam muttered, his fingers flying through the document folders in a nearby filing cabinet. "Take anything that looks official from the drawer. We'll need whatever we can get our hands on for St. Clair to use when this place burns to the ground."

I found what looked like a deed in one drawer, a few official-sealed letters in another, and a blueprint and some other semi- official documents in the last drawer, and stuffed them all in the bag over my shoulder.

"We've gotta make this quick," I said with a thinly-veiled layer of disgust in my voice. "It feels almost disgusting to be in here anymore."

"I think I found something nobody was supposed to see," Liam said slowly, and when I turned, he'd pulled out a drawer and reached into the very back of the filing cabinet, pulling out a little black book that had seen better days that had been duct taped to the inside of the cabinet.

If he hadn't known to look in all the least likely spaces, we'd have never found it. I wouldn't have thought to look there.

"Good move," I admitted, taking the book from his hands.

Inside were names, dates, and personal details. It was pretty clearly about girls, likely some of the same ones Hawke was?—

I froze as a familiar sound echoed in the distance, inside the building.

Liam's eyes met mine, filled with panic. "Are those gunshots?"

"Fuck."

It was now imperative that we get out of here and get into Trinity's old apartment before we could no longer do so safely.

"Let's go, now," I said, shoving the black book in the front of my jeans. "While we can."

Liam took point this time, heading for the stairwell where Trinity's room waited at the top. The keypad looked unchanged, but we didn't make it far enough to enter the passcode.

The door opened, and two big, burly Russians emerged, assault rifles in their hands. Aimed at us.

I had just enough time to pull back and swing around the corner to avoid getting hit. Liam, thankfully, did the same on his side, though he was more pinned down than I was.

His signals needed work; they were rusty as shit, but they got the point across. He'd point them out, I'd take them out, using each other's lines of vision to help one another out.

"Come out, little bugs, so we can squash you," the assholes said in their thick accents, cocking their guns menacingly. One shot a few rounds into the wall by Liam's head, and I watched him wince as the wood around him splintered.

"Hold," I whispered, raising my fist to let him know if he couldn't hear me. He nodded his understanding and then made a motion with his hand.

I was thrilled in that moment that he'd bothered to teach us all stealth gun commands while we were all bored and pinned down in the jungle that first year of deployment.

The barrel of my gun slipped around the corner, and with a single shot, I managed to take down the biggest one, furthest away from me.

He made a satisfying thump when he fell down the stairs and slid to a stop at the bottom, just feet away from Liam, who put another bullet in his head just for safe measures.

One down, one to go.

At least.

"You fucking fucks!" The second man was pissed now, and I heard the telltale, familiar sound of the butt of his gun hitting the floor as he leaned it against his leg to do something?—

I didn't care what he was doing. I took the chance, leaning around the wall to pop off a couple of shots at his torso. Unfortunately, they didn't take him out, and he managed to bring his gun up and pop one off back, landing square in the meat of my arm.

I was now half-useless and bleeding. I'd worry about the second part later, but the first had to be dealt with.