No.
I raise my weapon and fire. Two shots. Two bodies hit the concrete before the sound finishes echoing off the walls. Dario drops another. Our soldiers swarm the remaining three, and I don’t watch them die. I don’t care.
I’m already moving.
Sierra hasn’t shifted. Hasn’t blinked. She’s staring at me with those big brown eyes, but they’re wrong. Unfocused. Like she’s looking straight through me to somewhere far away.
I pry the gun from her fingers. The metal is still warm. I tuck it into the small of my back, and then I pull her against me so hard I’m probably hurting her.
She crumples into me. Her face presses against my shirt, and the sob that rips out of her is muffled but raw, scraping through my ribs like broken glass.
“You’re okay.” I press my mouth to her hair. “I’ve got you. You’re okay now.”
Her fingers twist into my shirt. Clinging. Shaking. I breathe her in, trying to convince my thundering heart that she’s real and solid and alive.
Christ. The drive over here took a decade off my life.
Those fifteen minutes will stay with me longer than any scar.
Dario moves toward the back of the semi-truck. His face twists. I follow his gaze.
Women. Girls. Twenty, maybe twenty-five of them packed into the trailer. I’ve heard rumors about operations like this. Seen the aftermath once, years ago. But standing ten feet away is different.
I count without meaning to. Note their ages. The youngest can’t be older than fourteen.
The Andrettis deal in drugs, gambling, violence. We hurt people who deserve it and some who don’t. But we don’t sell humanbeings. That’s the line. Apparently, Kozlov, and Viktor, built a whole fucking business on the other side of it.
One of my soldiers crouches beside Harper’s body. She’s lying in a spreading pool of blood, but as I watch, her chest rises. Barely.
“She’s alive,” he says. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there.”
Sierra’s head snaps up. “What?”
I lower myself, keeping one arm around Sierra, and press two fingers to Harper’s neck. The flutter beneath my fingertips is thready and faint, but real.
“He’s right. Her heart’s still beating.”
“Let’s get her to the hospital,” Dario says. “Now.”
One of our guys lifts Harper off the concrete. Sierra reaches for her sister-in-law’s hand, and I keep my arm tight around her shoulders as we move. I’m not sure I could let go if I tried.
The ride to the hospital is a blur. I’m vaguely aware of Paolo coordinating the women’s transport to one of our safe houses. Better that they avoid the system entirely. No testimony, no endless interviews, no bureaucratic nightmare. Just a quiet return to wherever they came from.
We’re going to find everyone connected to this operation. And then we’re going to end them.
The ER doc checks Sierra over first. Bruises, scrapes, nothing serious. Physically, anyway.
Her parents are already in the waiting room, pale-faced and rigid. Her mom pulls her into a fierce hug, tears streaming. Her dad wraps his arms around both of them. I stand back and let them have the moment.
I don’t know how much Lorenzo told them about what happened today, but they don’t ask questions. They just look at me with wary eyes, like they’re seeing me clearly for the first time.
I don’t have the energy to care. Not today.
But they don’t object when Sierra folds herself against my side. Don’t say a word when I wrap my arm around her and keep her anchored there.
When the surgeon finally emerges, Sierra’s whole body goes slack. I catch her weight, holding her upright as he delivers the news about Harper. Stable. Responding to treatment. The bullet collapsed one lung, but she’s going to pull through.
Sierra’s family huddles together, a tangle of arms and quiet sobs. I stay on the outside. She needs them right now.
