Page 12

CHAPTER 12

Rusty

Rusty watched in sickened silence as each woman shed her robe with mechanical precision like dolls being manipulated by invisible strings. Their expensive lingerie beneath, designed with delicate lace and silk, conveyed an innocence that made his fury burn hotter. These weren’t women. They were girls. Some couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen, barely old enough to be in college.

Other than Grace, the other girls were Asian and Colombian. Their features told a familiar story. These vulnerable young women were lured with glossy promises like exclusive modeling contracts, prestigious hospitality positions, and even all-expenses-paid vacations at luxury resorts.

The perfect bait for desperate dreams.

But their real story was in their vacant, distant eyes which proved they’d retreated somewhere far beyond this underground hell. He’d seen that same empty stare in war zones and Colombian slums, where human depravity showed its ugliest face.

But this was his hometown, where sun-kissed beaches and warm smiles were supposed to be the norm. The evil that lurked beneath the surface of this island paradise was a stark reminder that horrors could hide even in the most idyllic of places.

Every muscle in his body screamed for action. He would tear this place apart brick by brick if that were what it took to bring these bastards down and make them pay.

“Turn,” the handler barked. “Slowly.”

The women pivoted like robots.

“Smile.”

Their lips curved mechanically upward, but their eyes remained dead.

“Arms at your sides.”

Each command met with instant, empty compliance that spoke volumes about what they’d endured to reach this level of submission. Or maybe they’d been drugged to make them comply. His mind swooped to the woman he’d found in the basement with the gold cross. Maybe she was meant to be with these women too, but she’d been pumped with more drugs than her tiny body could handle.

Something else gnawed at him. A setup this elaborate should have buyers, spectators—someone. “Hey, Sienna, where’s their audience?”

Sienna’s fingers dug deeper into his arm. “There.” She pointed to a professional array of equipment on the far side of the stage. From their vantage point, he could just make out the sleek cameras, the tangle of cables, and a wall of high-end monitors, each one likely streaming to some wealthy bastard’s private viewing room in fuck-knew where. The thought of invisible eyes watching those vulnerable women, ready to choose which one they were going to bid on made his trigger finger itch.

“It’s a livestream,” she breathed, horror creeping into her voice. “They’re probably broadcasting this globally.”

“Fuck!” The word escaped through his clenched teeth. These weren’t just local predators. They were feeding this nightmare to buyers worldwide, hiding behind screens and proxies while they destroyed young lives.

The sheer scale of the operation threatened to crush his lungs. Rusty had to take down every single one of these monsters and dismantle the entire network. And that meant gathering evidence and tracing digital footprints as well as piling up bodies.

I’m going to follow each thread, no matter how thin until I’ve unraveled the entire web of deceit and corruption.

Below, the handler’s voice barked out another command, and the women lined up like cattle. Each one was forced to step forward, turn, and retreat, a grotesque parody of a fashion show that made Rusty’s stomach churn with rage.

“I need to find their server room.” Sienna’s voice cut through his fury, her tone low and even but laced with a controlled fury that matched his own.

Rusty snapped his gaze to her. “What?”

“These streams would run through dedicated servers,” Sienna whispered with her eyes locked on the horrors below. “If I can access their network, I can inject a kill code that’ll not only shut down their feed but corrupt their entire system. We can take them down from the inside out.”

Rusty’s mind raced, trying to catch up. “You can do that?”

The fierce certainty in her eyes sparked a ray of hope. “I’m the lead cybersecurity analyst for three major banks. These bastards think throwing money at fancy equipment makes them untouchable.” Her lip curled in disgust, and his gaze caught on the fierce curve of her mouth. “They probably have military-grade encryption on their video feeds, but their internal network security is likely pathetic. They’re so focused on hiding their filthy videos that they leave their core system wide open. And they never expect anyone to get this close. Give me five minutes with their system, and I’ll destroy that live feed and capture every dirty transaction they’ve ever made.”

Heat bloomed in his chest, spreading lower. Christ, she was magnificent—brilliant and deadly, her eyes flashing with controlled rage. While he’d been thinking with his trigger finger, she found a way to truly fuck with them.

The raw intensity radiating from her drew him like a magnet. Before he thought twice about it, he grabbed her cheeks and crushed his lips to hers in a kiss that was hard, fast, and unapologetic.

As he pulled back, his eyes locked onto hers. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

The surprise in her expression triggered a heat inside him that made his cock throb as a smile twinged at her mouth and danced up to her stunning eyes.

“Let’s FUBAR these sick bastards.” Peering over the railing again, he studied the layout below, mapping routes and searching for any other fuckers with semi-automatic weapons hiding in those damn shadows.

On the far side of the circular balcony, an elevator and a second sweeping marble staircase led down to the staged area. His eyes narrowed as he spotted an orange glow below, next to one of the six marble columns supporting the balcony. A cigarette.

Got you, you sick bastard. Where are the rest of your asshole friends?

He eased higher, desperate to maintain his cover, and scanned another section between two more columns.

Three more guards. Fuck.

I hope like hell we don’t need to get down there to kill this operation.

Rusty lowered himself to Sienna’s side. “Any idea where the server room could be?”

“Close to those monitors,” she replied with confidence. “They’ll want minimal latency for the streams.”

Rusty’s gut dropped. That was not what he wanted to hear. Getting down there via the stairs would be suicidal, leaving them wide open and with zero cover. They might as well paint targets on their backs. The elevator was an even worse option—a metal coffin with no escape route.

“We need to move before the private auctions start,” Sienna whispered, her eyes locked on the monitors.

Rusty nodded, his mind racing through scenarios, each one ending in a hail of bullets or a bloodbath. He cursed under his breath as he checked the gun he’d taken from the thug in the tunnel. A paltry three more rounds.

Sienna’s gaze searched his face. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m working on it,” he muttered. Scanning below, he studied the layout of the stage and surrounding areas, searching for a way to take out the guards without putting Sienna or the women in harm’s way. He was a skilled marksman, and Soda was just as lethal, but in a firefight, innocent lives were always at risk. The thought of those traumatized women getting caught in the crossfire was a nightmare he couldn’t shake.

“Take your tops off!” The handler’s voice cracked through the air like a whip. A collective fear-laced gasp rose up to them from the young women.

Rage blazed through Rusty he locked his gaze onto the handler’s face, committing every detail to memory—the cruel curve of his lips, the glint of sadistic pleasure in his eyes, the jagged scar above his left eyebrow. When he got his chance, Rusty was going to make the bastard pay for every ounce of fear and humiliation he inflicted on these women. He was going to make him beg for mercy . . . which he had no intention of giving.

“Now!” The handler’s booming voice echoed off the walls as he took a step closer to the victims. On stage, the women trembled, and their hands shook as they fumbled with the tiny clips and straps that held their tops in place.

“Face the front.” The handler’s eyes crawled over the women like a predator savoring its next victim.

The women jerked into motion with stiff movements, and their eyes were fixed on some point in front of them, possibly in a desperate attempt to block out their horror and focus on a single, tiny point of sanity. Four of them had tears streaming down their faces, and their bodies shook with sobs that seemed to rip from their very souls.

“Now, turn for the cameras, ladies.” A new voice cut through the air, smooth as silk and cold as steel.

The voice pulled the pin on a memory grenade in Rusty’s mind—that’s Viktor Fucking Wang, head of the local Yakuza.

The name seared into his brain like a branding iron. Rusty’s grip on the railing tightened as the implications sank in. Wang, the master builder of the Big Island’s four luxury resorts, the philanthropist who donated millions to local charities, the benefactor who built a state-of-the-art school for underprivileged kids.

The fucking slimy hypocrite.

Behind his facade of gleaming resorts and charitable donations, Wang was a monster who built his empire on the backs of broken women and shattered lives.

Rusty’s focus sharpened, and as he found Wang in the shadows below, his mind raced with one singular thought: I’m going to kill Viktor Wang.

“Who’s that?” Sienna whispered.

“Viktor Wang. A fucking?—”

A sharp bark echoed from below, and Rusty’s heart skyrocketed into his throat.

Pickle!

Beside him, Sienna’s entire body went rigid. Her gaze swept the area below, scanning the scene with a mix of horror and desperation.

Pickle’s second bark was louder. When the little terrier bounded up the four timber stairs to the staging area, tail wagging, Sienna’s gasp was like a punch to Rusty’s gut.

Rusty clamped his hand over her mouth, pulling her head into his chest. “Shh,” he whispered urgently, trying to calm her down.

Sienna’s body trembled in his arms.

“Keep quiet, okay?” he whispered as he released her.

He eased his grip on her, but his hands remained on her shoulders, holding her steady and locking eyes on hers, he put a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

Her eyes welled with tears, and Rusty’s heart shattered into pieces. He shook his head at her, trying to convey a message of reassurance, but as tears spilled down her cheeks, it was clear she was beyond consolation.

A sob spilled from her lips. “Pickle . . . Oh God, no,” she whimpered.

Pickle trotted across the timber stage to a Colombian woman at the front of the group, looked up at her, and barked. All the women darted their gazes from Pickle to their handler, and then to the shadows where Wang lurked, their expressions contorted in a mix of confusion, terror, and desperation.

Their raw terror told him everything he needed to know about Wang’s capacity for cruelty.

Viktor Wang emerged from the shadows beneath the balcony. As he mounted the four steps to the wooden stage, his eyes moved from woman to woman with predatory precision, lingering on exposed flesh. His immaculate silk suit seemed to gleam in the chandelier lights.

When his gaze settled on Pickle, his hand slipped inside his jacket. The women went rigid, their faces masks of raw terror.

Rusty’s heart thundered. If Wang pulls a fucking gun . . .

“Ah, a little dog.” Wang’s voice dripped with sadistic amusement. “How . . . touching.”

Sienna’s fingers wrapped around Rusty’s wrist like a vice, yet her body trembled with desperation.

“Please,” she gushed. “We have to save Pickle.” Her strangled gasp added to his fury.

He released his arm from Sienna’s grip and raised his Glock.

His finger tightened on the trigger as he trained his sights on Wang’s head.