Just as Cairo was about to respond, Landon started toward Pier 8, Kai following after him.I clapped Cairo, then Calix on the shoulder, and headed in their direction.This was our chance to get Astrid back.
Safely.
The wind whipped across the pavement.Kai and Cairo went one way, Landon another, and Calix and I a third, surrounding the container almost at all sides.It was oddly quiet, and while there were cars in the lot, it didn’t seem like anyone else was here.
Was that a good or bad thing?I wasn’t sure.
Landon or Kai didn’t seem concerned.
Suddenly, a man approached the container’s entrance with a loaded gun in his hand, his gaze traveling around the yard.Before I could react, Calix was running toward him, grabbing him by the head, and slamming him down onto the pavement.
My eyes widened, and I ran toward them.But Calix was already on top of him, slamming his head into the ground repeatedly until his screams vanished and Calix’s hands were covered in blood.
Holy shit, I didn’t think Calix had it in him.
Landon tugged a key out of the man’s pocket and nodded to the container.“Take it.We’ll watch for others.”
Calix snatched the key from him and headed toward the container, a different guy than the one who had been almost hyperventilating in my car.Or maybe it was the same emotional one, but this time angry.
After shoving the key into the lock, Calix yanked the chains off the container doors.It creaked open, and in the center of the metal container, Astrid was there, tied to a chair, duct tape across her ankles and wrists, hair matted to her forehead.
And not breathing.
CHAPTEREIGHTY-NINE
ARCH
“What the fuckis taking them so long?”I growled.
Rush glared at the fucker, sitting in a puddle of his own blood.His head was hung low, his lip was busted open in several places now, and both of his eyes were swollen shut.Neither of them had moved an inch in the past ten minutes.
I paced in front of them and ran a hand through my hair, wanting to tear it the fuck out.Astrid had better be there.She’d better fucking be there.If she wasn’t … I didn’t know what I was going to do.My hands were aching to kill this fucker right here and right now.
When Rush’s phone rang, he lifted it from his pocket and put it on speaker.
“She’s not breathing,” Cairo said, voice cracking, echoing through the phone.Frasier was flipping out in the background, and I could barely hear Calix.“We’re heading to the hospital with her.”
Cairo didn’t even finish his sentence before I was barreling toward the man, hands balled into fists.I slammed one into his beaten face, feeling satisfaction in the sound that his head made against the concrete wall before hitting him with another one.
He groaned, “She … she was alive when I left her.I didn’t … I didn’t touch her like that.”
Wrong answer.
My fist shot through the air and slammed into his throat.He choked on his own breath, gasping and coughing up blood.Rush stepped toward us, quieter than he usually was, his lips set in an eerie line.The fucker tried to scream again, but nothing but muffled panic left his mouth.
“You broke something that belonged to us,” Rush said, pulling a knife out of his pocket.
I didn’t know where he had gotten it from because the only weapons that Rush usually carried around were his fists, but it was sharp and pointed straight at the fucker’s face.My gaze flickered to João, who was smirking at the situation, and then I turned back toward them.
“Now it’s our turn to break you,” I growled.
“If you didn’t do this to her, then who did?”Rush crouched down in front of him and pressed the blade against his forehead, cutting into his skin until blood covered his face.“Start talking, or we’ll cut parts off that don’t grow back.”
“She’s … not the only one,” he said.“There are others.It’s a ring, trafficking.”
João walked over.“Trafficking?Sex trafficking?”
“Only the women,” he said.“They take children and men too.For labor.”
