Chapter 12
The Hunter
Atlas
It's been almost four weeks since Kitten had been abducted.
We'd already hit over half a dozen of the shitty spots marked on the map.
Every one of Hector's lackeys either doesn't know where he is, or was too terrified to talk.
The violence we subjected them to tells me they have no idea where the bastard is.
Even my CIA contact had come up dry. We were deep in cartel territory, stuck in a country where we had very little jurisdiction.
And the local police? Forget it. Half of them were on some cartel payroll, and the other half were too cowardly to cross the traffickers.
Asking for help would only slow us down, or worse, expose us.
The frustration was eating me from the inside out.
It gnawed at my chest, sharp and constant.
In nearly every dump we raided, we found more victims. Young girls who lost their spark.
Yara's new job was to handle extraditing them out of here.
Once Jacob and I cleared the place, she'd escort the survivors back to my compound.
If they were from Mexico, they were returned to their families.
If they were from another country, Tony would fly them back and deliver them to their families.
I couldn't leave them behind. Not after what they'd gone through.
Every rescue was one more soul ripped from Hector's grip, but none of them was Kit.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to push back the pounding headache that lived behind my eyes these days.
I just needed one address. One fucking lead.
If I had that, Zach could breach Hector's surveillance system, and we'd slip in and out of his compound like thieves in the night.
I even tapped into some old contacts, traffickers I'd worked for in the past. Useless. None of them ever heard the name Hector. We were holed up in another filthy excuse for a hotel, the kind where the walls were thin, the AC barely cranked, and the sheets smelled like old mothballs.
Jacob sat across from me at the scratch and dent table, eating a blueberry muffin, savoring every bite as if it were his last meal on earth.
Yara was munching on a bagel that looked like it had been lying around for days. She had joined us on the road at this point. I instructed her to follow in another vehicle behind us because we were running into victims left and right.
She would take them back to my place and get them shipped back home, then meet us at the next hotel. It was time-consuming, but I couldn't have Tony just land my plane anywhere he felt like it in Mexico. That wouldn't work.
We were all living off bagels, muffins and shitty sandwiches. I'd kill for a decent steak right about now. Hell, even lukewarm soup would do. We didn't have time for fine dining and to shop at the local farmer's markets. This shit would have to do until Kit and Becca were found.
But honestly, my mind was far from food. It was on her….always her. Was he hurting her? Had he sold her? Was she cold? Starving? Was she even still alive? My palms started to sweat. The kind of cold sweat that came right before bloodshed. My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Babump.
Babump.
Babump.
I stood abruptly, shoving the chair back.
"Gear up," I growled. "We're hitting another facility tonight."
Two hours later-
The SUV bumped along the dirt path, headlights glaring through the darkness. This place was a wreck—another decaying outpost tucked behind a sugarcane field. Rusted gates hung off broken hinges. A single porch light flickered near the door, struggling to remain lit.
Jacob killed the engine. We slipped on our usual aprons and used gloves this time. The aftermath was taking too long to clean up.
"You want the front or the back?" He asked, his voice low.
"Front," I answered, already loading a round into my Magnum 357.
We moved like ghosts in the night. Yara sat in the car while we took care of the scumbags inside the houses.
We didn't bring her in for this part of the job.
She was busy with the girls we pulled out of this shitty mess.
I kicked the door in. The rotted wood crumbled on impact.
Screams erupted from inside. Three men scrambled to grab weapons.
Too fucking slow. The first one took a bullet to the throat before he could raise his pistol. I didn't want to kill him before I asked questions, but the weapon was in his hand. Too close for comfort. Blood splattered the wall in a wide circle, dripping onto the floor.
The second guy ducked behind the table. I flipped it over and stomped his skull into the floorboards. Bone crunched beneath my size fourteen triple-wide boot. Jacob slammed the third guy into the wall, holding a knife to his eye.
"Where's Hector?" He hissed.
The man whimpered, almost pissing his pants.
"I—I don't know! I swear! My job is to move the girls. I never met him. You have to believe me. I am telling the truth."
"You sure about that, maggot?"
Jacob dragged the blade down his cheek, slicing him open from eye socket to jaw. The man howled.
"I'll ask you again," Jacob said calmly. "Where the fuck is he?" The man started hyperventilating, blood spilling all over the front of his jeans, soaking them in crimson.
"I don't know his location, I swear!!! Please don't kill me!"
Getting nowhere and sick of the man's whining, I gave Jacob a nod. One clean slice and blood sprayed the wall as the man dropped into a twitching heap.
Our aprons and gloves were saturated with the sticky liquid. The smell of iron assaulted my nostrils, bringing me back to my mother's murder. I shook my head, shaking the dark memory from my thoughts.
Thank goodness the aprons were disposable. I couldn't imagine going to the laundromat every day trying to wash them.
I stepped deeper into the house. There were four girls locked in a back room, barely dressed, shivering and chained to a rusted pipe. They were being prepped for shipment. One of them lifted her head. I wished it were Kitten, but she had already gone through the process and was with Hector.
I swallowed the scream trying to force its way out of my throat. I slammed my fist into the wall, splitting my knuckles open. Ignoring the pain and the trickling blood, we freed the girls and gave them water, protein bars, and blankets to cover them up.
Yara came in and got them moving toward her truck. She would take them back to my compound, let them shower, and dress them in items I had her pick up at a local shop. Whether the clothes fit didn't concern me. Sending them back home with some dignity was all I gave a fuck about.
Jacob started torching the building, one room at a time. As flames licked along the walls, I stood in the middle of the red-streaked floors, my jaw tightened.
There were still no answers. I had no clue where to fucking find Hector, and I was getting angrier by the minute. The longer he had her, the worse her and Becca's fate would be.
I would not stop until I tortured Hector with my bare hands.
Smoke filled my lungs. We hurried from the burning building.
The fire crackled behind me, spreading fast. Greedy flames devoured the shack we had just gutted.
Black smog and fumes filled the air, but I didn't move. I was livid. Another fucking dead end.
I clenched my jaw so hard it clicked. My fists ached from how tightly I was squeezing them. Blood still dripped from my knuckles, but I didn't care. I felt hopeless. Defeated. No matter how much we tried to pry the truth from these scumbags, no one knew jack shit about anything.
"Atlas."
Jacob's voice cut through the haze. Calm and controlled.
"We've gotta move."
I didn't respond. Just stood there, staring at the flames, thinking about throwing myself into them. At least I would feel something other than this fucking helpless rage burning inside me.
"I don't think we're ever going to find her, Jacob. How many more places must we visit just to be told they don't know where Hector is?"
My face twisted in rage as the heat struck me in the face.
I turned to face him, my voice rising.
"Are we going to end up finding her bones once we find Hector? Will she even be there when we locate the dirty bastard?"
He didn't answer. He just watched me with those sharp eyes of his, like he was waiting for me to explode.
And it came. I lost my shit, grabbed a chair from the front yard, and hurled it into the fire. Then I kicked the truck so hard, it left a huge dent on the passenger door.
"She's gone! She's still fucking gone!" I shouted, slamming my palm against the metal again and again, until crimson smeared across the gray truck, not giving a shit that it belonged to the CIA. I was fucking going out of my mind.
"I'm supposed to be better than this. I'm supposed to find her. It was my job to protect her, and I failed, Jacob! I look at the fucking app every day hoping I'll get a signal to her location, but I never do."
My voice splintered on the word failed. I hated it. Hated how the sound made me feel like I had already lost.
Jacob stepped up and gripped my shoulders tight.
"You listen to me, you stubborn bastard. She is not gone!"
I shook my head, eyes wild. "You don't know that."
"No," he growled, yanking me around to face him. "But neither do you. Pull yourself together. We don't stop. We don't fucking quit. You need to keep your temper under control."
I ripped my arm away and paced in circles as the fire still crackled around us. My chest was heaving.
I couldn't catch my breath. I loved the fucking girl, and my heart was torn. Completely shattered.
"Every second she is with him, he could be hurting her, Jacob, and that kills me!"
My partner stayed quiet for a moment, then spoke low.
"And every second we waste standing in a burning yard, she's still waiting for you to find her."
Those words felt like a punch to the gut.
I stared down at my oozing hands. If push came to shove, I'd let Hector spill every drop of my blood to save her life.
"She is in pain," I whispered. I can feel it. I just know it."
Jacob nodded once. "Then don't let that pain be for nothing. Stay sharp. Keep it together, buddy. I know you're hurting, but she needs you."
I drew in a deep, ragged breath. My hands were shaking.
"I need a win, Jacob."
"I know." He said.
"I need to hear her voice. She needs me to hold her, soothe her, protect her. I need to see that fucking fire in her eyes again. Not this silence. Not this guessing game. She is my kryptonite, my fucking queen, and I am not ashamed to admit that my heart belongs to her. I would die for that girl."
"I know, Atlas."
I exhaled hard, wiping the blood from my hands onto my jeans. "Let's go," I muttered.
"I can't stand the smell of this place anymore."
We climbed into the truck. The girls were already on their way to my place with Yara. I slumped in the passenger seat, my jaw tight, staring out the window as the flames vanished behind us. One more down, too many more to go.
I am going to tear Hector apart limb from limb when I flush him out. My Kitten better be in good shape when I find her, or I will torture him for the rest of his pathetic life.