She shook her head. “No, they made it clear that we were to remain untouched in that regard. The price was higher if we were virgins.”
“Kaylor’s not a virgin,” I mused out loud, contemplating if that made her less appealing.
Carson snorted as if he hated the reminder I’d slept with his best friend. Too fucking bad.
Kenny’s lips turned down. “No, she’s more valuable.”
“What do you mean?”
“I overheard them talking. Actually, they spoke about her frequently, but even if they didn’t use her name, I knew it was Kaylor they were referring to. There’s only one girl I know whose dad was the head of the Vipers. It’s her pedigree they find enticing.”
“Shit.” This was information I knew too well. It was why my father wanted her under his control, why he altered documents to gain guardianship of her. “Did you recognize any of the voices? Were you able to see their faces?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. They wore masks most of the time. But there was a woman. Silvia. She was in charge of our care, but I seriously doubt Silvia is her real name.”
I huffed, sinking hard into the seat. I was getting nowhere, and every goddamn second counted.
“God, I feel so useless,” she whispered, avoiding my gaze as she stared straight out the window. “I’m sorry I wasted your time for nothing.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” I replied. “Trust me. I’ll look into this Silvia person, and if I find anything, I’ll need you to confirm her identity.”
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over onto cheeks already streaked with exhaustion. “We’re not going to find her, are we?”
“I’ll find her,” I said, and it wasn’t a promise. It was a vow carved into bone. “I won’t stop until I do. You did well, Kenny. I know this was hard for you, and Kaylor would be proud of you.”
She sniffed, brown eyes shining as she stared at me. “I never saw it before.”
My brows pulled together. “Saw what?”
Her shoulders rose and fell with a trembling breath. “What she sees in you, but I get it. I see you, Kreed Corvo.”
A humorless huff escaped me as I shifted the car into drive. “Then I must be losing my touch.”
The headlights cutthrough the darkness, twin beams slicing apart shadows that tried to swallow the road ahead of us, but even their harsh white glare couldn’t illuminate the storm brewing inside my skull, where thoughts crashed against each other louder than the engine’s steady rumble beneath the hood.
Kenny had opted to sit in the back with Carson on the return to her house. Her head rested on his shoulder, honey hair spilling across his sweatshirt. Carson’s arm curved around her protectively.
Raine sat beside me with uncharacteristic silence as I drove, which was fine by me because I had too many thoughts in my head I needed to sort through. Despite the assurances I gave Kenny, tonight hadn’t amounted to much information. Still, it hadn’t been completely worthless.
Yet something fundamental wasn’t clicking. I kept cycling through her memories like a broken record. None of it told me where Kaylor was at this exact moment. My fingers drummed against the steering wheel in frustrated staccato as my mind spun. There had to be a more effective way to find Kaylor, one that also wouldn’t get her hurt.
And then it smacked me, a revelation that stops your heart for a beat before kick-starting it into overdrive, an idea so simple I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it immediately.
Maybe I was asking the wrong fucking question.
I’d been approaching this like a bloodhound, nose to the ground, scouring every inch of Elmwood for traces of her current location, chasing ghosts through a labyrinth that shifted every time I thought I’d found the right path.
Butwhat if the smarter play, the only play that mattered, was the endgame?
The auction.
My pulse stuttered. That was the constant. The immovable deadline. The one thing Rusty couldn’t afford to change, not without taking heat from the buyers and screwing with their schedules. It would be bad for business, especially one so curated and niche as human trafficking.
That’s where I’d hit him. That’s where I’d take her back.
Not in some random warehouse where she might or might not be held. Not during a transport that could go a dozen different routes. But at the moment when she’d be displayed, when all the buyers would be gathered in one place, when Rusty would be counting money instead of watching his back.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears as a plan began forming, crystallizing into something that might actually work.
