40. The Third Fingernail #2
His jaw sets. No questions. No hesitation. No speech about doing the right thing.
Just anger. The kind that comes from knowing exactly what men like Jackson do, and exactly what happens when nobody stops them.
"You remember anything about the layout?" Black asks.
The question hangs there a second before Summer answers, and I watch her throat work as she swallows.
Not because she's frightened of going back in.
Because she's remembering. I know that look.
I've seen it on her every hour since I got her back—the memories always land first. The smell.
The sound. The feeling of being somewhere you don't belong.
The kind of thing that stays a long time after the bruises fade.
"It's one big open space," she says. "Concrete floor. Mattresses everywhere. They use curtains to separate some of the women."
The words settle over the group and nobody touches them. Mattresses. Not beds. Not rooms. Mattresses thrown down on concrete, like they're housing animals.
"There's a staircase at the far end," she goes on, her eyes fixed on the building through the gaps in the structure. "It leads up to a maisonette built over the floor." Her voice catches. "That's where they took me."
My eyes find hers. "You sure?"
She nods without hesitating. "Jackson took me up there when I first arrived."
I can picture it far too easily. Summer terrified, alone, surrounded by men deciding among themselves what they were going to do with her. My fingers curl into a fist before I've registered doing it, and the pain that goes through my shoulder barely reaches me.
"There's something else you all need to know," I say. "There's a man in there called Vince. Been running the place since the night they took her. He's the one moving the women out."
The bearded one looks up. "He'll have started already."
"Which is why we don't wait."
One of the others adjusts the rifle across his chest. "How many guards?"
"No idea."
The answer leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hate going in blind. Hate not having numbers, hate not knowing what's behind a door before I put my boot through it. Operations go wrong when nobody has the information. People die because somebody overlooked a detail.
We're a long way past waiting for perfect intel.
"But it won't just be guards," I add.
A few heads turn.
"There'll be clients."
Nobody says anything to that, because nobody needs to. Every man standing here understands. Some of the people inside won't be armed. Some won't be trained. Some will panic the second this starts.
Doesn't matter. They walked through those doors. They paid for access to women who never had a choice about any of it. As far as I'm concerned they stopped being innocent the second they became part of the machine.
The bearded man studies the building a moment longer, then nods. "Then we hit fast."
Nobody argues, because there's nothing to argue about. We don't have warrants. We don't have backup. Most of us shouldn't even be standing here. What we've got is an address, a target, and women inside who've spent months believing nobody was ever coming.
Black crouches and starts scratching a rough layout into the dirt with a stick while the rest of us close in around him. Summer talks him through what she remembers—main entrance, loading bays, the staircase, the upper floor—and every piece gets absorbed and turned over and fitted against the rest.
"If they hear shooting at the front, they'll run for the rear exits," one of the military guys says.
"Which is why we split up." I step forward, ignoring the protest that tears through my shoulder. "We need eyes on the back before anybody goes near that front door."
The bearded man nods. "My team can take the rear."
Black stares at the sketch a few seconds longer, then his attention shifts to Constance. "What if we use a distraction?"
Constance smiles, and that smile alone tells me this conversation is about to become a problem.
"What kind of distraction?"
"One woman. Alone. Middle of nowhere. Gets somebody to open the door."
Understanding moves across her face. "Oh." She folds her arms. "You're saying you want me to play bait."
Black shrugs. "I'm saying you're the only one here who looks harmless." Then his eyes flick to me. "Apart from Summer, obviously, but the boss'll cut my throat before he lets her anywhere near that door."
Constance looks genuinely offended. "Charming."
"Accurate," he fires back.
A few laughs go round the group, and for the first time tonight some of the tension goes out of the air. Not much. Just enough to remind everybody we're still human.
Eventually she looks over at me. "You good with that?"
"No."
Her eyebrow lifts. "No?"
"No part of me is ever going to be comfortable sending somebody Summer loves to knock on a trafficker's front door."
The joking stops. Nobody says anything at all.
Then Constance smiles, and it's a real one this time. "Good answer."
I roll my eyes, then nod. "Don't make me regret it."
The plan comes together fast after that.
Constance approaches the front entrance alone while the rest of us stay out of sight.
The second somebody opens that door, we move—fast enough that they can't organize, fast enough that they can't move the women, fast enough that nobody in there understands what's happening until it's already finished.
Simple in theory. Violent in practice.
Usually the best kind.
I slide a fresh magazine into my weapon and listen to the click of it seating. Around me everyone runs their final checks. Weapons. Routes. Positions. Nobody's talking much now, because what we're about to do has settled over all of us.
My eyes drift to Summer.
She's watching the warehouse. Silent. Set.
And Christ, I wish I could leave her behind.
I wish I could put her somewhere locked and safe and handle this myself.
But that version of her doesn't exist anymore—Jackson took a hammer to it the second he put her on that helicopter—and what's standing beside me now is a woman preparing to walk back into the worst place she's ever been because she knows what's waiting inside for the ones who can't leave.
It fills me with pride and terror in equal measure.
Dangerous combination. The kind that gets people killed.
"Ready?" Black asks quietly.
I look at the warehouse one last time. At the lights. At the monsters waiting inside it.
Then I chamber a round.
"Let's go."