“Axel, let’s head upstairs to secure the women,” I say, already heading through the room to the stairs on the right.
I take the stairs two at a time, eager to get this done and over with so I can track down Dani. The sooner I find her, the safer she’ll be.
Axel follows close behind along with two other members of the team. Doing a quick check on the radar, we double confirm there are no surprises. Most of the women appear to be huddled on a cot, probably terrified of the commotion happening downstairs. I’m sure they’re thinking of the possibility that a worse fate awaits them.
One woman stands in the room at the end, just on the other side of the door. I head to that room while the men take the others, my steps quick and sure. Opening the door, the woman stands as far from the cot as the chain around her ankle will allow. Her hair is a wild mess and the clothes she wears hang off her thin frame. Her hands are behind her back as she stands,nervousness coming off her in waves. She looks up at me and her bottom lip quivers as tears run down her face.
“Are you here to kill us?” she asks, her voice shaky.
“We’re here to rescue you. We’re not with those men. You’ll be taken somewhere safe, I assure you.”
“I just want to go home,” she replies, looking down at the floor. Her knees buckle and I catch her just before she hits the floor.
“Hey now, I got you.”
She leans into me and whispers in my ear, “We know who you are and we know where that bitch is.”
A sharp pain erupts in the soft spot between my vest and my neck, and I cry out as I feel my blood pour out of me. She withdraws her knife with a twist, causing blinding pain. I rush to push her away, as I instinctively reach a hand up to put pressure on the wound.
She rights herself and looks down at me triumphantly. My eyes narrow on her. “Who the fuck are you?”
“The name’s Vivian, Kayden. Andrei told me to tell you that he sends his regards.” She pauses, watching my face for any sign of recognition. “Soon you’ll be dead, and Dani gets to learn what it costs to be Andrei’s pet. Ya know, at first some deranged part of me was envious of how badly he wants her. But then I got to thinking, it’ll be a pleasure to die today, to finally escape him. That bitch will take my place to be raped and abused and used until she herself wishes she were dead.”
My eyes widen in fear. This was a trap, the perfect bait to make their move. I should have known they were ahead of us, that we would eventually be discovered. Rage simmers just below the surface at her wicked words. I discreetly push the SOS button on my vest strap, praying Axel gets here before she can finish the job.
She continues on, oblivious to my subtle move. “Soon, Eden will be no more and your precious Dani will be on Andrei’s leash.”
Her words are punctuated by sharp and deafening shots. I instinctively flinch down while trying to maintain pressure on my wound as Vivian’s body jerks with each round that lands in her upper torso. She looks down quickly before raising her face to me with a look that borders on relief—as though the shackles that bind her are finally slipping away. The knife slips from her grasp as she falls to her knees, a choking sound bubbling up as blood quickly fills her lungs.
Her body crumples to the floor as Axel kneels in front of me, already digging into his pack for the QuikClot dressing to pack into my wound. As the blood runs in rivers through my fingers, realization at just how bad my injury is has my heart racing as I become lightheaded. Axel wastes no time cutting my vest strap and shirt for better access to pack the dressing into my wound.
“I got you, Boss. This is hell of a nasty puncture she gave you. Looks like it just missed your artery.”
I wince as he packs the final bits of dressing into the gash, and I sigh with relief after a minute or two when the bleeding slows significantly.
“Thanks, man. We need to go. I’m not sure if you heard anything she was saying, but we have to move. This was a trap—bait to distract us. We need to radio immediately for everyone to initiate Code Green Level Three. Eden is compromised. I don’t know if they’ll actually make a move, but it’s no longer safe there regardless.”
Axel’s eyes widen but he quickly grabs his radio and supplies the orders for evacuation. Donovan is at the compound and I’m confident he’ll move quickly to get everyone moved to the second location I’ve spent the past few months securing in the event something like this happened. It’s completely off the grid,with no ties back to me—an endless paper trail that will have even the best investigator or hacker scrambling for clues.
Axel helps me to my feet and I clasp a hand on his shoulder. “I owe ya one.”
“Drinks on you this weekend, Boss?”
I shake my head. “Is that any different from any other weekend?”
“Touchè,” he says with a chuckle.
And with that we move out with the women in tow and a fire blazing at our backs.
Hours later,I end up on Jaxon’s front step, my fist pounding on the thick, modern door. They built this house over a year ago from the ground up, needing an upgrade from Jaxon’s old condo in the city. Planning for children meant they needed more space.
Thinking back on today, I’m proud of my team for how quickly and efficiently Eden was evacuated. The women were unsettled, and I couldn’t blame them. Hell, I was unsettled thinking about how closely we came to failing the very people we were meant to protect. Once I was satisfied everything was under control at our second facility and I got stitched up, I hightailed it over here. I didn’t bother with changing or cleaning the blood off of me. If I’m a shock to them,oh fucking well.
Jaxon’s lucky I don’t kick in his door, I think to myself as I knock for the twentieth time.
I peep through the narrow window next to the door, my patience wearing thin. After what feels like forever, Jaxon leisurely rounds the corner in grey sweat pants, no shirt, andrubbing a towel over his wet hair. I roll my eyes as he swings open the door.
“Nice of you to finally come down,” I grit through my teeth as I push past him into the house.
