by Dana Volney
“I’ve got the dock.” Milo split off to the right. “Sabene, tell me when I’m ten yards out from either hostile.”
“Roger.”
“What color am I?” Milo asked, his words panted from running.
“You’re green for money. The buckets and buckets of money that smile is worth.”
Claire glanced at Samson with a grin. “We’ll take the boss himself.”
They picked up their pace to a jog. If they could all take out their targets around the same time, all the better. That way no one had extra time to alert help or grab a weapon.
They stopped when they reached the last container before the trailer that housed the office.
“How do you want to do this?” she asked. “We don’t have the container number this time.”
He surveyed the rectangle with two windows facing this direction. Shades pulled on both. “Why don’t you just knock?”
The ends of her lips turned up. She started to undo her vest.
“Wait. Nope, that’s not going to work.” He reached for her and reattached the Velcro.
There was no way in fuck he was sending her into the unknown without a vest.
“Relax.” She cradled his cheek with her hand and pressed her lips to his, holding them together for a moment. “They don’t know we’re coming and won’t know what hit them.”
Shit. “They are on high alert. They aren’t going to trust you.”
“I have it handled.” She started to stand then knelt back down. “But it is going to get bloody. We have things to do tonight.”
She knew what she was doing. But that didn’t take the angst out of his chest. “I’ll go low and to the back.” He swatted her ass as she walked straight for the front door, her vest in one hand by her side.
He stayed behind her enough to not be seen if they noticed her approach.
She pulled a gun from her vest before dropping it against the structure. She unzipped her hoodie to reveal a skin-tight brown shirt. She tousled her hair then knocked on the door. “Hello,” she sang out and tried the knob.
It turned and she pushed the door open. “Anyone here? I think I took a wrong turn. I saw a light.” She kept the door open but moved in enough to give him room when it was time.
“How did you get in here?” The gruff voice was loud.
“Sabene, where’s the other one?” he asked.
“In the back still.” Sabene spoke slowly, focused. “Claire, make him come out.”
There were grunts, hits, and scratches on the other end of his comms. Either Rife or Milo or both of them had met up with their targets.
“I think I’m lost,” Claire continued. “I took a turn and then all of a sudden I’m in this place with a bunch of containers and I can’t find my way out and then my dumb car died.”
“This is a secure area,” a guy with a Jersey accent answered. “You can’t just drive in.”
“I did.” There was an innocent shrug in her voice.
Samson didn’t need to see her to know she was probably wide-eyed, twirling her hair, and fidgeting, all things that screamed damsel in distress.
“Bernie,” the gruff guy yelled. “Get out here. We’ve got a problem.”
“Maybe if you could give me a jump,” Claire offered a faux solution. “I’m over there somewhere.”
“He’s in front now.” At Sabene’s rushed words, Samson slowed his breaths deliberately as he moved stealthily along the side of the building. One shot each. That’s all they needed to make tonight. Then they’d go after Padarn.
Samson peeked in. Claire stood there, making sure the door was open, one hand in her jacket, the other touching a curl. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Who are you?” A thick baritone voice asked. “You look familiar.”
“One, two,” Samson counted under his breath, “three.”
He swung around to the inside, staying low. He fired twice just as she did and both men dropped to the ground. He got to his feet and walked over to Bernie.
Claire fired another round into the chest of the guy she’d taken out.
Samson nudged Bernie’s side with his boot. “Where is the shipment of sex slaves?”
The man laughed, blood coming from his mouth. “You’ll never find them.”
Samson glanced to Claire. “So they’re still here.” He pointed his gun to the man’s face. “Which one?”
The man coughed, choking on his own blood. Claire stood arm and arm with him, heat radiating off her skin and reddening her cheeks. If the guy on the ground thought his bullet wounds were bad, he had no idea the kind of pain Claire was ready to inflict if Samson couldn’t stop her.
“Tell me and we let you live,” Samson tried to reason with the man. His wounds weren’t that bad … if he were to be transported to a hospital right now.
“You’ll never find them.” His breaths were labored.
Samson raised his gun. “You should have made better choices with your life.” He fired, hitting the fat man square between his eyes. It was a mercy shot; the guy had no friends left in the area. He was not going to make it to a hospital in time to be saved.
Claire was already heading outside. There were two containers already on trucks. If the women weren’t in these two, they weren’t going to find them tonight.
He found a large wrench and hopped up on the tailgate and knocked the lock off with one swing. He opened one door. Even with the small amount of light available, he could see it was empty.
“No one?” Claire asked from the ground.
He stepped inside. Remnants of clothes and a stench of body odor were all that was left behind. His heartbeat kicked up. They were too late this time. He hopped down and knocked the lock off the second container the same way.
This time gasps and crying hit his ears as soon as he opened one door.
“Sabene, call Teddy. We have another gift for him. Tell him to keep the location as quiet as he can.” Samson held his hand out to the first girl, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. “It’s okay. We’re here to help you.” He translated the same sentence to Spanish. Recognition sparked in the girl’s eyes. He helped her down to Claire, and, one by one, all twenty left the container.
“He’s on his way,” Sabene reported. “I had to tell him what it was about. He’s bringing cops with him this time. Something about captain’s orders. I think it’s best if we skedaddle. Dead people and all.”
Yeah, they couldn’t afford to be detained tonight. He needed the element of surprise for the next part of his plan. They were going to hit him again—make sure Padarn knew that they were going to keep bringing the pain until he left the sex trade alone. Arlington wasn’t big enough for both of them.
Samson told the women that help was on the way and to stay put. None of them seemed eager to run, but he wouldn’t blame them if they did. He sure as shit wouldn’t stick around if he were them.
“Let’s go.” He wrapped his arm around Claire’s shoulders and kissed her temple. She was so fucking sexy with a weapon in hand. She’d combined her passion for her work and her good heart into one mission with the team and this particular case.
For now, they were one step closer to taking out the Salvadorians and getting justice for Grace. And for Claire. Her coma and subsequent memory loss wouldn’t be for nothing.
* * *
“That was fun.” Claire slipped into the back of the SUV while Samson took his driver’s seat. Rife had already joined Sabene. “Where’s Milo?”
“Right here.” Milo slammed his door. “Those guys were big.” He waggled his brows at her. “My knife’s bigger.”
She didn’t see any knives on Milo. A bit of an odd duck, that one—he had a smile that could open any door yet he also had a very dark side he let roam free through the different martial arts he’d studied. It was a very good thing he was on their side.
They’d just saved more women from sex slavery and God only knew what else. And they weren’t even done for the nig
ht. Her blood was pumping and her heart raced. She hadn’t felt this exhilarated apart from sex in a long time.
“Next up is the madam who helps the Salvadorians traffic them after the women arrive.” Rife dropped a magazine to the floor and reloaded.
Satisfaction quickly drained and all that was left was a pit in the bottom of her stomach. That sorry sack of a woman was going to wish she’d become a maggot farmer.
“She’s a key player,” Rife continued from the front seat. “Been with the Salvadorians for years. This is the third shipment she was set to receive here. She’s from out west.”
“But we only got to two.” The dirty faces and beaten bodies of the women coming out of those containers flourished in her mind. Then there was Grace lying in a dumpster. And Allison’s broken body from the demons that had taken her life. Claire reached up to rub her forehead. It wasn’t enough. They hadn’t done enough yet. She clenched her fist in her lap.
“You okay?” Samson caught her stare in the rearview mirror.
“Yes.” She adjusted herself in her seat. “Who exactly is this madam?”
“Madam Susan.” Sabene pulled up a picture on her screen and a Latino woman in her fifties stared back at them. “She’d been arrested for a myriad crimes for prostitution, loitering. Then she became an entrepreneur and started running her own girls.”
Samson parked half a block down on the opposite side from the home Sabene had tracked Madam Susan to. It was nothing fancy but not quite rundown enough to warrant extra eyes as you passed on the street. It was white, although even in the dark Claire could tell it hadn’t been painted in more than two decades.
This bitch was going to pay for treating humans like they were objects to own.
“I’ll go right, you go left,” Rife said to Milo, and the two boys headed off to scout the perimeter.
Claire tried to sit still but couldn’t. “We have to go in before we’re spotted.”
“Hold tight.” Samson glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
God, she hated when he was right. She didn’t want herself or the others to walk into a trap, but the “get out and do something” tingles were crawling up her mid-section and making her body buzz.
“All quiet,” Rife reported.
She got out of the SUV, careful not to slam her door. “I got inside,” Claire whispered, as she carefully stepped toward the house.
“I’m going with you.” Samson removed his HK from the front of the vest.
“No. I can get in and out.” She reached into her pocket and took out her lock pick set.
“We don’t know who’s in there. Sabene has at least a dozen different heat signatures.”
They locked eyes. He wasn’t giving in on this point.
“Fine. But I slit her throat.” She kissed his lips and headed to the front door.
“Fine.”
“I’ve hacked into the alarm company,” Sabene came through the earbud, “and shut down the signal going to the house.” There was keyboard clicking in the background. “You’re good to go until it resets in ten minutes. Make haste, little ones.”
Claire used the long hook and L rake to open the lock. She pushed the door open gently so Samson could go first with his gun drawn. She closed the door behind them and pulled her baton, whipping it to lock at full length.
For a prostitution ring, there was not a lot of action happening here. The house was deadly calm. Samson swept the first floor, but Claire only had one focus: find the madam.
“The master bedroom is up the stairs in the back,” Sabene reported.
“Behind you,” Rife called out over the comms.
Claire whipped her head around before she remembered Rife and Milo were the ones outside. There were sounds of a struggle. The boys must’ve run into trouble.
Claire walked carefully down the hall, guided by a small light plugged into the outlet at the end.
She rounded the stairs and let Samson pass her to go first.
“Take a left,” Sabene directed. “End of the hall.”
Samson turned the knob slowly and pushed the master bedroom door open.
She entered, veering left to the side of the bed, and reached for the covers.
“We have a problem,” Rife sounded in her ear.
Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow moved next to Samson.
“Behind you,” she called out.
He ducked as a silhouette in a long nightgown and flowing hair swung and missed.
She jumped on the bed just as the female kicked Samson in the balls, connecting with a firm thwap. She flung herself at the shadow, hooked her arm around the woman’s upper body, and took her to the ground. The woman tried to scramble away, but Claire grabbed her legs, pulled the woman back with a grunt, and put her in a choke hold.
“Are you Madam Susan?” Claire asked, trying not to yell in the woman’s ear.
“Let me go.”
“There’s no one else here,” Milo relayed from somewhere downstairs or outside.
“Where are the girls you so callously pimp?”
“I do no such thing.”
The hoe bag sure looked exactly like the picture Sabene had in the SUV. Claire pulled the knife from her boot and slashed her blade against her captive’s collarbone.
“Ah!” Blood soaked through the flowered gown as the poor excuse for a woman tried to squirm out of Claire’s grasp.
Samson was bent over but standing. “Lady, just tell her. It’s only going to get worse for you.”
“Where are they?” Claire spat.
“Let me go and I’ll tell you.”
“Talk and I won’t kill you.” Lies. All lies. This bitch was dying no matter what.
“Downstairs.” Madam Susan raised her hand and pointed toward the bedroom door.
“There’s no one here,” Samson called her on her fib.
“You should leave. I don’t have what you want.”
Oh, but Madam Susan did and she wasn’t going to talk. Time was of the essence. Padarn was next. He’d know.
“If I had it my way,” Claire said into the madam’s ear, “you’d suffer the same fate as the people you enslave. Consider yourself lucky.” She unwrapped her arm from the woman’s neck and slid her blade deep across the woman’s neck. Claire pushed her body off hers and stood.
“You okay?” She reached for Samson’s arm.
“Yeah. That bitch got in a good shot.” His face was reddened and his words were pained.
“She’s done. Let’s go.”
They went back down the stairs, keeping an eye out just in case they’d missed someone hiding when they’d entered. The old house was eerily still. Samson shut the front door behind them and they made their way to the SUV.
Rife and Milo met them on the sidewalk before they reached Sabene.
“We need to call Teddy again.” Rife stopped blocking the way to the SUV.
“Why?” Claire glanced down. She had blood on her hands. She swallowed down a wave of bile creeping up her throat. Was the price of this job going to be her humanity?
“It was quiet in the house, right?” Milo asked and his voice brought her back to the conversation.
“Yeah.” Samson had regained his composure.
“But those heat signature Sabene picked up weren’t in the house,” Milo said.
“We know why.” Rife slipped his gun into its holster. “She has the girls she’s pimping out locked in the cellar.”
“Shit.” Samson turned back toward the house.
“Go let them out,” Sabene’s voice rose through the comm. “I’m calling Teddy now.”
“This might be that third shipment.” Claire hurried to catch up to Samson.
She clenched her fists at her side. She wanted to go wake that piece of shit madam from the dead, stick her knife into her back to severe her spinal cord, and let her slowly die of dehydration.
“You should’ve let me end Padarn,” she whispered to Samson as Rife and Milo led them to the outside cellar doors.<
br />
“He’s going to get what’s coming to him all right.” Samson’s jaw jumped as Rife and Milo each took a door and pulled.
“Hello?” Claire called into the darkness. “We’re here to help you.”
Samson translated her words into Spanish and she held her breath. They didn’t even know if the girls were really down here or still alive. They certainly hadn’t been in the house.
Dark-skinned faces with smudged eye makeup came out into the light. This picture was becoming all too familiar. In a very sad way.
“Teddy’s coming.” Sabene had stayed in the SUV. “He’s happy but really not with us.”
“The bodies?” Rife asked.
“Yep, the bodies.” Sabene, hell none of them, had remorse for those they’d killed tonight. In fact, they’d done the world a service.
However, that was their cue to leave yet again.
“I want to talk to him later,” Claire told Sabene as Samson explained to the women that they were okay. He was so gentle and loving with the scared souls.
Sirens wailed in the distance. She slipped her hand into Samson’s and intertwined their fingers. It had been a long day. Wanting to be close to Samson was part of her con. The scary part was she wasn’t 100 percent that’s all it was anymore.
She’d do her best to get some sleep before the sun came up because tomorrow they were ending this once and for all.
Chapter Ten
Claire stomped up the stairs.
What a fucking disaster of a day. Okay, so maybe it hadn’t ended badly. They’d saved a lot of lives tonight.
Samson watched her disappear up to the second floor and then heard the shower turn on. His dick twitched at the thought of water beading off her perfect breasts. Fuck, he wasn’t even trying to talk himself out of wanting her now.
Thoughts were surfacing that shouldn’t be. Feelings for her he’d killed and buried long ago. Apparently not long enough. Could he be so stupid as to think that they could work again? This time for the long haul? He poured himself a tumbler of scotch and sat on the couch, flipping on Sports Center.
