by Eva Ashwood
“We’ll be there in a second,” Hale says calmly from behind the wheel, but I can see his jaw twitch. “She might not have heard it, or she was doing something.”
Two possibilities that have crossed my mind, but we’re slightly late on picking her up today.
For the past three days, she’s spent a good part of her time at the safehouse with the women, getting to know them and taking care of them. Then when we’re done with business at the Onyx Club, we’d pick her up and bring her back home. We all felt better having her travel with us than drive over on her own—not because we’re worried about her fleeing, but because we all want to look out for her.
That’s usually at seven. It’s fifteen minutes till eight right now. Grace should’ve been waiting and anticipating the routine call that would tell her we were on our way.
When we pull into the long driveway of the safe house, that feeling in my stomach grows.
Goddammit. I’m fucking sure of it. Something is off here.
“Fuck.”
Ciro’s harsh curse makes my head snap up, my gaze following his. The blood in my veins feels like it turns to ice as I take in the sight of the two men slumped on either side of the safe house door. Blood pools around them, and I’m suddenly certain that every guard Hale had stationed around the property has been brought down too.
I wrench the car door open, leaping out almost before Hale has come to a complete stop. He, Ciro, and Zaid are right behind me, all four of us charging toward the house, drawing our weapons as we go.
The front door isn’t locked, and when I shove it open, only silence greets us.
Using hand signals and quiet gestures, we fan out to cover the entire house, doing a silent sweep of the building. But we come up with nothing.
Nothing.
The house is absolutely fucking empty.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hale rasps, and I can hear everything I’m feeling in his voice.
She’s gone. They’re all gone.
This was a quick in and out job, no struggle. Did they drug them? Use brute force? Grace wouldn’t have let herself be taken without a fight, so why the fuck aren’t there signs of a struggle? Did they hurt her?
Fury rises up in me so fast it makes my vision literally turn red for a second. I blink it back, fighting to keep my head on straight. Grace needs us right now, and she needs us clearheaded.
We need to fucking find her.
Storming down into the basement, I tear open the door to the security room. It’s fitted up with a monitor that shows the cameras’ security feeds, and it’s our only hope of seeing anything that happened here today.
“There are dishes in the sink. Water’s still warm,” Zaid says, stepping into the room behind me. Hale and Ciro are with him. I quickly punch in the passcode, pulling up screens of data and camera feeds. “They haven’t been gone long. Maybe thirty, forty minutes?”
Pulling up past footage from inside the house, I hardly breathe as I watch the scene play out on the monitor. At exactly seven, when we should have been arriving, two men in masks slide open the front door of the house.
Two of the girls barely resist, fear seizing their bodies. One of them puts up a small fight, but they’re stronger than her, gagging and binding her quickly.
“But where the fuck is Grace?” I grit my teeth, rewinding the footage even more. When I see her honey-blonde hair appear in the frame, it feels like a fist is gripping my heart.
“Turn it up,” Ciro says quietly. “They’re talking.”
Grace and one of the other girls—Lucy—stand in the kitchen. Their conversation is casual at first, but then it moves into deeper territory as the girl starts talking about her past. Grace’s posture shifts. She leans forward, tension gathering in her shoulders even though her voice stays soft and open.
“The men who saved you and the others are in trouble,” Grace says, and my heart pounds in my throat.
I reach for the volume, turning it up even more.
Maybe it was Grace’s plea, or maybe it was just because she couldn’t keep that shit locked up inside anymore, but all of a sudden, Lucy starts to talk. And she knows more than we hoped she or any of the others might. She fucking knows the location where she was being hidden—something I’m positive Camilla wasn’t aware of, or Lucy would’ve probably been killed instead of being sold.
When Lucy finally stops talking, Grace tells her she’ll be right back. She walks out of the front door, closing it behind her.
Then she disappears.
“Shit,” I mutter, slamming my fist on the desk. “Of course she’s in a fucking blind spot.” I tap a few buttons on the keyboard, pulling up other feeds. “There she is, it looks like she…”
But the words never make it out of my mouth, dying in my throat. We all watch as Grace steps out of the blind spot on the front stoop and onto the pavement, looking into the driveway. The camera that’s focused on the driveway shows a massive van already there. Though her face is slightly fuzzy, we can all read the confusion, followed by fear.
I force myself to watch as a man comes from behind her, overpowering her.
I was right. She put up a fight.
But it wasn’t enough.
Grace is strong and determined as fuck, but that man is easily two times her size. He shoves her into the van, getting in behind her and slamming the door shut. The van tears off down the driveway seconds later.
“I’ve seen enough,” Hale says, and I flick off the screens. “We have to move out.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket, already dialing as he raises it to his ear. “Frank, we need backup. I want as many teams as you can put together in the next five minutes, and I want them to meet us at a warehouse on the south side.” He gives the address in a clipped tone. “We’re on our way now. We’ll rendezvous there.”
As he hangs up, he looks at the three of us. “Gear up. We’re not wasting another fucking second. I don’t care if it’s risky, I’m not leaving Grace in the hands of that bitch.”
Adrenaline rushes through me—pure anger, wrath, hatred, all aimed directly at Camilla. I don’t tamp it down this time. Hell, I’m not even sure I could shove the rage away if I wanted to.
I’ll sure as fuck use it though. This anger is what’s going to drive me to rip Camilla to shreds.
I don’t care if I lose my fucking life. I don’t care if it’s reckless or if I have to shoot every single one of the fuckers who calls Camilla boss.
All I care about is Grace.
Just like Hale, I say damn the consequences.
I’ve fallen in love with Grace Weston, and there’s no fucking way I’m gonna lose her now.
21
Grace
When I slowly come to, I blink several times, trying to make the world come into focus around me. Everything is shadowy and dark, and I squeeze my eyelids shut and reopen them. But even as my vision clears, it’s hard to see much. The lights are dim, the large room hushed and quiet.
When my eyes finally begin to adjust to the darkness, I have to hold back a gasp, the noise barely stifled by my gag. The large room is filled with more than three dozen girls just like Lucy, Emmaline, and Dee. All of them bruised and battered, ragged and beat to hell. They don’t huddle against each other. They don’t touch at all, actually, spread out an eerie distance from each other. They’re all wearing thin camisoles and shorts.
I don’t know how long the van ride was, but I know exactly where I am—where I must be.
This is the warehouse where Lucy said the women were being kept.
It’s fucking cold in here. Despite the fact that it’s late spring, the concrete is hard and freezing beneath my ass. I didn’t grab my jacket before I left the house, and the assholes who abducted me certainly didn’t go back to pick it up for me.
I want to puke. Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it back. I have to keep my wits about me.
Some of the girls doze with their arms wrapped around themselves. Other girls stare into space with blank eyes
that gleam in the thin beams of moonlight that make it through the dirty windows high on the walls.
Jesus. How long have these girls been here?
There are men stationed around the room, weapons resting easily in their hands, and although I don’t recognize any of them, I know they’re Rook men.
Pawns of my mother.
Camilla.
As if summoned by my thoughts, she emerges from a shadowed hallway on the other side of the room, two guards flanking her. Her footsteps echo on the concrete, each one like a gunshot.
“You had to interfere, didn’t you, Grace?” she asks, her voice calm. But there’s the slightest note of triumph behind her words. “You almost ruined everything, all the planning I’ve been doing for months and months. My own daughter, pitted against me.”
Dressed head to toe in white, she should look like an angel. Her honey-blonde hair, the hair that she gave me, either hasn’t started graying or has been expertly dyed. Her makeup is minimal, only enough to accentuate her already elegant features. She looks perfectly put together. Just like always.
I want to spit in her face, but I can’t. I struggle against the gag, trying to tear it from my lips, holding her gaze.
I don’t recognize the woman in front of me. Not anymore.
When we first met in the warehouse, I could see something of the mother who had left me behind, who’d abandoned me and my father and sold out Landon Novak, the woman who’d faked her own death.
But all I see in front of me now is a coldhearted murderer, an obsessive woman who cares only for herself. She may have built up her own syndicate, but she doesn’t care for them in the way that Hale cares for his men, their wives, and their children. She won’t give a fuck if the muscled, stone-faced men standing on either side of her die—in fact, she would be the first to pull the trigger and blow their brains out if she had to.
Camilla only wants power, and she doesn’t care how she gets it.
I hate her with everything inside of me.
“I gave you the chance.” She sighs, looking almost sad. It’s just another lie, and I can see through it now. I don’t think Camilla is capable of feeling sorrow. She doesn’t feel anything other than arrogance and pride in what she’s doing right now. “I gave you the chance to come with me, to join me. All of this… the power, the money, it could have been yours, if you’d only listened to your mother.”
Working my jaw hard, I manage to loosen the gag around my mouth, spitting it out.
“I don’t want any of this,” I say hoarsely, struggling for air. “I don’t see power here. I don’t see money. I see a fucked up woman who is so desperate for both of those things that she’s stooped as low as it’s possible to get—selling other human lives. Turning perfectly innocent girls into slaves.”
“No one is innocent, Grace.” She shakes her head. “No one is good. I wish I could make you understand that.” She gestures at the girls gathered around the warehouse. “Any one of these women would shoot you themselves if I told them that was what it would take for them to walk free. Don’t you see? We all have to look out for ourselves. Help ourselves. Because no one else will.”
My mind settles into an eerie sort of calm as I listen to her talk. If I hadn’t already realized it, she’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt how insane she is. How depraved.
“So all that talk about how badly you wanted to be free,” I say, laughing mirthlessly, “that whole story about how you hated being trapped in your marriage to Dad? Your solution to that was to build a business that’s based on stealing other women’s freedom from them? Can’t you fucking see how hypocritical that is?”
“It’s not hypocritical to do what needs to be done,” she says shortly. “I would offer you the chance to come back to me. To return to your rightful place by my side as my daughter, but I know it’s just foolishness to think that you would.”
Every time this woman opens her fucking mouth, she gives me another reason to hate her. I’m sick of this conversation, sick of hearing her try to justify her actions and reframe herself as the good guy.
But I need to keep her talking. I don’t know what she plans to do with me or with any of the women here, or when she plans to do it. And I don’t know if Agent Brady will take the text I sent him seriously enough to actually do anything about it.
Either way, I need to buy myself time.
If no one is coming for me, then I’ll need to figure out a way out of this myself, and I have no fucking idea how to do that yet.
“You have the softness of your father,” Camilla says, crouching down to my level. Her nails are painted bright red like mine were at our meeting, pointed into little sharp tips. “Sometimes I used to wonder how he did his job. He was always so gentle, so kind. Soft. Weak. Just like the men with whom you’re so obsessed.” She’s so calm, controlled, and emotionless. It’s fucking terrifying. “The Braddock twins. Novak’s boy. The quiet one. You were obsessed with them when you were younger, so I’m not surprised that you’ve run right back to them.”
“The Novaks would never stoop so low as to trade and sell other people, Camilla,” I snap.
She cocks an eyebrow, lifting her chin slightly. “Camilla? Since when have I become Camilla?”
“I’m not calling you mother anymore.” I spit out the word like it’s something disgusting. “You were never my mother in any shape or form. You never loved me like a mother should. If you loved me, it was because you saw yourself in me and you loved yourself.”
“You did always take after me,” she says slowly, watching me with glittering eyes. “But you got that stubbornness from your father.” Her voice hardens again, turning back into that woman I don’t know. “I gave you the chance, Grace, to have everything. You could have had everything with me, and yet you ran back to those boys. You don’t need men to make you happy—”
“I don’t,” I snap, “but you don’t need to be a man to be respected.” She flinches, and I know that my words have some dig. “We’re in a different time, Camilla. All of those boys? Those men treat me better than you ever did. Those men actually care about me,” I say, and my throat constricts, but I force myself to continue. “If you truly loved your daughter, would you tie her up here with other slaves you’re going to sell?”
This time, my voice breaks. “Dad loved you. He loved you so much. He respected you. But you were so fucking busy thinking about yourself, brooding over your own petty need for power. Power you could have found with him, power you could’ve shared.”
“You forget Grace, I didn’t love your father,” she says sharply. “I hated that man. Samuel was the worst of them all. Like I said he was soft, weak. I never understood why Damian took such a notice in him when he clearly wasn’t capable of doing his job properly. I always hoped you’d turn out more like me than your father, blinded by sentimentality.”
“I never want to be like you, Mom.” I hate that I say the word, but it just slips out of me. It’ll be the last goddamn time I say it. “I never want to be so fucked up in the head, so set on ambition, that I completely close myself off to humanity. What a miserable fucking world you must live in.”
A bitter laugh spills from me, and her lips twist, barely containing her irritation. Leaving me with the last word, she turns on her heel and clicks away back into the shadows.
As I stare after her, a soft whimper from my right catches my attention. Dragging my gaze away from where my mother disappeared, I search for the source of the sound.
Fuck.
“Lucy, is that you?” I whisper.
She’s several feet away from me, spaced apart just like all of the women are. I glance around quickly to see if any of the guards are paying attention, but the ones who flanked my mother followed her when she left. I’m sure there are others watching, but I can’t see any with their gazes trained on me right now.
Quietly and carefully, I shuffle a little closer to Lucy. She’s got a large bruise under one eye, and her dark hair is tangled, partially obscuring
her face. She looks like a mess, and not just physically. Getting dragged back into the hell she thought she’d escaped from seems to have destroyed every bit of confidence and calm she was able to build up over the past few days.
And she’s the strong one.
Fuck, I hope Emmaline and Dee are okay.
I haven’t seen them since I woke up, although there are plenty of parts of the large warehouse that are out of my line of sight.
“It’s okay. We’ll be okay, I promise.” I whisper the words, hoping she can’t tell quite how empty that vow is. “Listen to me, we can’t talk much or they’ll hear us and separate us. I’ll lose you in this mess of people.” She shakes her head, and I dip my chin to catch her gaze. “Lucy, the binds on my wrists are a little loose. With your help, I might be able to get free. Then I’ll help untie you. We’ll escape.”
“What about everyone else?” she asks.
Shit. What about everyone else? Despite my mother’s promise that all of these women would gladly kill me for a chance at freedom, I can’t believe that’s true. And even if it were true, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t kill them just so I could get out of here, and I’m not going to leave them behind either.
“I don’t know,” I tell Lucy honestly. “But I’ll think of something. We’ll find a way to help them too, okay?”
She nods, seeming bolstered by that idea.
“Help me, all right? See if you can untie these ropes.”
I angle my back toward hers so she can reach the tie on my wrists. She lets out soft noises of frustration as she struggles to untie me, plucking at the already loosened knots. Finally, I feel them start to give way. A few moments later, my wrists are completely free.
Shifting my position a little, I quickly begin to work on the rope around her wrists. We need to get out of here, but I still don’t know what to do about the other women. Lucy and I may be able to escape undetected, but I can’t get all of these girls out that way.
Should we try to slip out and call the police?
There was a time when I would’ve answered that question with an unequivocal “yes,” but that was before my cop fiancé tried to kill me. Before I fell in with a mafia syndicate for whom law enforcement is the enemy.