Chapter 10
The Hunt
Atlas
It's been two days since Kitten was taken.
After a half-decent night's rest, Jacob and I were up at the crack of dawn, ready to hit another target.
As usual. I checked the GPS app for any movement.
Nothing. I sighed. We may as well get something to eat and move ahead.
The hotel offered a sorry excuse for a continental breakfast in the little dining area, but I wasn't in the mood to complain.
I grabbed a few muffins, some bagels and brought them back to the room so we could eat in peace while we figured out our next steps.
I took a sip of the bitter coffee, gritty with grounds, and spread the map across the desk. Jacob stood beside me, noisily sucking the last of the remnants from the muffin wrapper. I couldn't help but laugh.
"You must be starving. How are those little bits of crumbs treating you? Getting full yet?"
He shot me a crooked grin and shrugged.
"Can't let good eats go to waste, boss."
I smiled as I traced my finger along the map spread out on the motel desk, pointing to the two marked locations we were hitting today. They were stretched miles apart, two and four hours each way, depending on the road conditions and how many checkpoints we had to avoid.
“The drive’s the fucking worst part,” I muttered.
Every goddamn hour wasted on the road was another hour Kitlyn could be sold, raped, or shipped out of the country. The thought alone made my head pound. I knew these bastards weren’t treating her gently. Cartels didn’t handle women like glass; they treated them like pure garbage.
I looked up at Jacob, who stood across from me, tightening the strap on his vest.
My voice dropped low, cold with purpose.
“We hit both today. No stalling. No mercy. We’ll wring answers out of them one way or another.”
He gave a curt nod, loaded a full mag into his Glock, pushing the slide with a quiet click.
After what we did to the last two cartel scumbags, it was apparent they all feared Hector. I'm sure they would have sung like birds if they had known where he was. I wasn't surprised. Fear is how these monsters built empires, terrorizing their men just as much as their victims.
We showered, cleaning off any traces of blood splatter, and layered on our bulletproof vests underneath plain black tees. We wore tactical pants and boots for the task ahead. As far as I'm concerned, we're just ghosts with a vendetta.
The weapons stayed stashed in the duffel. I wasn’t about to drag that bag in and out of every ratty hotel we stayed at. It was too risky.
We loaded up the truck and hit the road.
Three hours later-
We parked a mile out from the next location, a worn-down shingled adobe-style house off a dirt road, surrounded by brush and wired fencing. It looked abandoned, but I knew better. This was one of their filthy holding tanks.
A halfway house for human cargo. Just another track on the underground railroad to hell. We threw our aprons on and approached from the rear, separating the chain-link with bolt cutters. We moved like shadows, quiet and fast.
I peeked through the grimy back window.
Three men were inside. Two armed. One unarmed and nodding off in a chair. To the right stretched a hallway lined with three closed doors, most likely where they kept the girls locked away.
I motioned to Jacob. "Ready?"
He nodded, pulled the pin from a flashbang, and tossed it through the window.
BOOM.
All we heard were screams, glass shattering, and chaos.
We kicked in the back door, our guns raised.
The first guy didn’t even reach for his weapon. Jacob dropped him with a single shot to the kneecap, then pistol-whipped him to the ground.
The second ran for the hallway.
I tackled him into the wall, disarming him before slamming his head into the plaster, leaving a hole in the decaying structure. Blood splattered, and he collapsed like a defective folding chair.
The third was scrambling on the floor, his hands up in surrender, while babbling in Spanish and broken English.
I grabbed him by the collar and hurled him into the half-rotted kitchen table, snapping it in two beneath his weight.
His body sprawled out on the floor.
“Where is he?” I roared, slamming my boot into his ribs.
He coughed up blood, groaning, eyes wide with panic.
“WHERE THE FUCK IS HECTOR?” I yelled again.
“I…I don’t know! I have no idea where he is! Please, I am not lying. We have never even met him." He wheezed.
Jacob kicked over a chair, grabbed a butcher knife from the counter, and drove it through the guy’s hand, pinning it to the floor. He howled, blood painting the cruddy tile.
“I don’t give a shit what you don’t know,” Jacob snarled. “You will give us every name, address, and number tied to Hector’s supply chain, or you’ll leave here in pieces.”
Before he could answer, we heard a soft sob.
I turned.
Three girls, around the same age as Kitlyn, stood in the hallway, trembling.
One of them held the others close, shielding their eyes.
Fuck!
I motioned gently for them to stay back.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. No one’s gonna hurt you.”
I glanced at Jacob, who immediately stepped over to them.
He opened one of the side rooms and ushered them in.
“Wait in here. Close the door. We’ll come get you in a few minutes. You may want to block your ears.”
They obeyed without a word.
As soon as that door clicked shut, I turned back to the writhing man bleeding on the kitchen floor.
No more questions.
No more mercy.
I drew my Ka-Bar and knelt beside him. “This is for every girl you locked in this house. For every scream you ignored. For every bruise, tear, and chain you used.”
I didn’t wait for a plea.
Digging the knife in deep, I slit his throat from ear to ear, watching his eyes go wide and lifeless as blood spilled onto the moldy ceramic tile.
He didn't even have time to scream. Then I moved to the first guy, the one Jacob had pistol-whipped, and drove my boot into his face, cracking bones, which pleased my ears. He whimpered, barely conscious.
I looked at my partner.
"Finish him. No one is giving anything up. I have a feeling none of these men know where to locate Hector."
Jacob ended him with a bullet to the chest.
Fucking blood went everywhere.
The kitchen was coated in red. Blood splatter, partial organs, and tendons covered the tile, us, and the walls.
It looked like a slaughterhouse in this dump.
We hauled the bodies into the bathroom and closed the door. We wiped up as much as possible to shield the girls from the horror, and removed our aprons, throwing them in the trash.
Once they see it, they can't unsee it. I didn't want that shit lingering in their heads. They'd already been through enough trauma. When we were finished, we went back to get them.
They were huddled together in the middle of the room on a filthy mattress, eyes wide with terror. But they were alive. Not a scratch on them.
I nodded toward the door.
“Let’s get you out of here,” I said, my voice soft.
One of them looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Are you—cops?”
“No,” I said, smiling.
“Just think of us as your guardian angels for today.”
The girls were definitely from America.
Pale skin and Southern accents.
They marched forward like little soldiers, still holding hands, whimpering and shaking, their legs barely holding them up. Jacob and I ushered them to the truck, helping them into the back seat.
I have to bring them back to the hotel, call Yara, and have her pick them up. There was no time to turn around and backtrack to my house.
We would lose too many hours. As of now, we have no information and nothing to go on. It seems no one knows where Hector is, which makes sense. He is the ringleader. There is no way they would have access to that type of strict information.
It still didn't derail my mission. I was sure we would eventually reach someone who knew something, or maybe we would run into the bastard ourselves. I looked at Jacob, rubbing my chin.
"Text Yara. Tell her to meet us at the hotel. She will have to bring the girls back to my place for now. Tell her to have them shower and relax until Tony flies in to pick them up."
Jacob nodded. “Okay, boss.”
I looked at the girls in my rearview.
"I will need your addresses to send you back to your families."
All three nodded, still frightened, but much calmer.
I reached into the cooler, grabbed three sandwiches, three bottles of water, and handed them to our guests. They accepted the food, thanking me, and then dug in like wild dogs.
They barely chewed, swallowing whole chunks of the bread. Poor things. They were starving.
I started the engine before I got out of the truck and grabbed the lighter fluid from the back. Just as I did with the first dump, I lit it up, watching the flames consume the entire building, then headed back to the vehicle.
The girls were dozing off in the back. Jacob nodded, shifting in his seat to re-adjust his nuts.
"Yara will meet us at the hotel. She should be there in about two hours."
I pulled away, sighing. I didn't want to take much longer getting to our next target, but I had to get the girls to safety.
"We will lose some time, but this has to be taken care of. They will return to their homes, and I will sleep better at night knowing we did the right thing."
I grew a slight conscious after meeting Kit.
Lucky me!
Jacob nodded. "I agree."
His voice was firm.
"We will find her, Atlas. That's a promise."
I nodded and headed back to the shitty hotel to wait for Yara.