Page 33 of Fighting Salvation

Duchess gripped her arms and leaned back. “Don’t you apologise for that dick kidnapping you. Let me tell you, when I get my hands on him he’s going to wish he’d never been born.”

Bás slung an arm around her shoulder and she felt the heat from his body and fought the urge to nestle back into him.

“Hansen is mine, but if you’re good I’ll let you watch.”

Duchess wrinkled her nose. “Fine.”

“Right, here’s the plan.”

Bás spread the images over the bonnet of the car he’d driven and explained the strategy. As the day began to shorten, they quickened their steps. Val was to go with Lotus, Hurricane, and Bás from the east, and Duchess and Titan would take the west entrance. They’d clear the buildings one by one, converging on the last together.

Val was more than proficient with a weapon, having trained first with her brother and then Jack. She’d also kept up her skills once a week with Reaper at the facility. What struck her most as they moved through the differing warehouses was the silence. Apart from the sounds of birds in the distance, there was a stillness about the place that was eery.

They found abandoned vehicles, some storage containers, as well as old food wrappers which suggested someone had been there recently, but nothing of any significance until the very last warehouse.

Bás motioned for Duchess and Titan to go around the back as they went through the front. The light was fading now, and she had the weirdest feeling she couldn’t place. Like she was being watched. Gun up, she moved to the right as Lotus took the left, with Bás in the middle, and Hurricane watching their six.

“Oh, wow.”

The warehouse housed a clean room set up inside it and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as they moved closer. She watched Duchess and Titan head up the stairs to the second level as Bás pushed through the flaps into the clean room.

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

She heard Duchess and Titan call out before Bás responded with the same. Stepping forward she lowered her weapon as she studied the ten hospital-type beds. Stands with empty bags of saline and, on closer inspection, oxytocin, a drug used to induce labour. Her gut roiled as she imagined what had happened here.

“What the hell?”

Val turned to look at Duchess who, like them, was taking in the scene. This room was kitted out exactly like a labour and delivery suite with stirrups, forceps, and operating equipment including drugs used for anaesthetising someone.

“Looks like he had women here too.”

Lotus had picked up a piece of paper and was reading it. “And for a while too, this is dated over a year ago.”

“What is it?”

“A shipping invoice but check out the date and the name of the company.” Lotus handed the paper off to Duchess.

“Fucking Carter.”

Carter was the younger half-brother to Gideon and Damon Cavendish, or at least he had been until Hansen had killed him. In her opinion, it was no great loss. Carter was a disgusting human being and so was his mother. She’d been murdered in the same attack.

“Do you think he killed them to protect this location?”

Bás palmed the back of his neck, something he did when he was tired. She wanted to go to him and put her arms around the man she cared so deeply for, to take his exhaustion and the weight he carried on his shoulders.

“Possible, but I think Marsha was killed to protect something else.”

“Yeah, but what?” Hurricane rubbed his head. Val caught his eye and he smiled to reassure her.

A noise like a scratching sound made the room fall silent, all eyes going in the direction of the corner where a storage cupboard stood. They raised their weapons as Bás waved his hand, directing Hurricane to open it on his count.

He swung the metal door open and her heart almost broke in two. Looking up at them from the floor of the cupboard was a child of no more than nine or ten. Mousy brown hair hung in knots around her thin face, and her huge brown eyes were full of terror as she tried to scurry back further into the metal box even though she had no place to go.

Pushing past Hurricane, she lowered her weapon and dropped to her knees.

“Be careful, Val.”