Chapter 1 #2
“Yeah?” he asked, waiting until Mateo reached his side before answering. He’d been planning on heading to his room, getting a few hours of sleep, but even before he heard what Mateo wanted, he knew that wasn't going to happen.
“We need a pickup. You good to do it?” Mateo asked.
There was a coldness to the man’s glittering dark eyes that made him perfect for this line of work.
Just like all of them there, Mateo had the ability to not see other people as human beings.
Without being able to objectify others, you’d never make it in their world.
“Yeah, sure. We get a new one?”
“Grabbed on the side of the road,” Mateo explained. “Tried to run. Stupid.”
The other man gave a dark chuckle that made the hairs on the back of Nathan's neck stand up. This was the life he’d chosen, and despite the unsettledness he’d been feeling lately, it was also a life he was made for. He knew it, got it, and accepted it.
“They all try to run,” he reminded Mateo. He would too if he were them. What else were they expected to do? Happily accept a fate that was more horrific than most people could conjure up in their worst nightmares?
“I know, and I love it.” Mateo chuckled again. “I’d go but I have something else I need to attend to. I’ll text you the address.”
“Sure thing.” Nathan gave a single head nod, then headed off down the corridor.
They weren't friends, colleagues was the extent of the relationships he had there, and not the kind of colleagues you joked about being your work wife or work husband. He co-existed because he’d fallen into this life and it was all he knew, but that was it.
“Thanks,” Mateo called after him, and a moment later, as he was heading to the garage to collect a set of keys and one of the cars, he heard his cell phone ding with the incoming text.
This wasn't the first night he’d gone out to do a pickup, and it wouldn't be the last. It was part of the job, and one he would do as dispassionately as he attended to everything else. It was how he’d gotten his reputation.
He didn't laugh about the nightmare these poor women woke to find themselves trapped in, he didn't relish inflicting pain and humiliation, and he didn't even love the money that came from the sales.
This was a job, and he did it to the best of his abilities because it was the only thing he was good at.
Which made him valuable because he was basically risk-free. He followed orders, never damaged the merchandise, and could always be relied upon to do whatever was asked of him.
As he was doing right now.
In the garage, he chose one of the nondescript black sedans and collected its keys.
Inputting the address Mateo had texted him into the car’s GPS system, he turned on some music and began to drive.
The address was for the parking lot of a local mall about five miles from the warehouse.
Given the time of night, the stores would all be closed, and the parking lot would be empty.
A perfect place to do the handoff in case anyone had spotted the car used in the abduction.
Unfortunately, for the girl who had entered a world she was unprepared for, this operation was run with the utmost care.
The only way to stay under the cops’ radar was to be careful.
Double-check, triple-check everything. Make sure you ran through every possible scenario, and work to downplay any potential threats.
Since it was too late for the people spending a Friday night at home to be still out and about, and too early for the people spending a Friday night out to be heading home, there wasn't much traffic on the roads.
Ten minutes later, Nathan pulled into the parking lot, having made sure he stopped at every stop sign, obeyed every red light, and stayed a mile under the speed limit at all times so he didn't draw any unwanted attention.
When he spotted the dark SUV in a back corner of the lot, farthest from the security cameras that would be patrolling the large space, he headed for it.
Pulling into the spot beside it, he immediately noticed the blonde lying unconscious in the passenger seat.
Despite the fact that she stunk of alcohol, he was pretty sure the woman was one hundred percent sober.
Still, if the car had gotten pulled over and anyone questioned why there was an unconscious woman in the passenger seat, it would be a believable lie to claim she’d just passed out drunk.
“She’s a hottie,” Josh gushed as he opened the driver’s door and came striding out.
For a split-second, Nathan daydreamed about slamming his fist right into the younger man’s grinning face, wiping that smirk out, permanently, if he could, by smashing out his teeth.
But he reeled the emotion in, shut it down, kept his expression neutral as he stalked toward the car.
He wasn't there to argue, to talk at all really, he was just there to collect the package and bring her back to the warehouse.
“Were you spotted?” he asked as he reached in to unsnap the woman’s seatbelt.
“Of course not,” Josh grumbled, although it was a perfectly reasonable question given it was the man’s first time performing an abduction on his own.
“You're sure?”
“It was a quiet road. Only one other car drove past while I was pretending to fix a tire. She didn't have reception, so couldn’t call anyone. It was a clean job.”
“It better have been,” Nathan said calmly. “She has blue eyes?”
“Course. I saw them, even asked to be sure.”
He asked? What an idiot. Could he have made it any more obvious that he wasn't just an unfortunate motorist who happened to get a flat tire on a quiet road that had notoriously bad reception?
Placing a thumb on one of the woman’s eyelids, he lifted it, confirmed blue eyes were beneath, then scooped her into his arms, bumping the door closed with his hip.
“Next time, don’t ask. That’s not a normal question to ask someone, and you’ll tip them off.
You might not always be lucky to be in the perfect kidnapping location.
” Pausing at the backseat of his car, he turned to look at the younger man.
“Remember to drive around for a while before you come back to the warehouse.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know,” Josh muttered, sounding like a petulant teenager.
Buckling the woman into the backseat so it looked more like someone handing off their drunk friend or relative to someone else, should they be caught by a camera, Nathan slid back into the driver’s seat and drove off without a second glance at Josh.
He drove for a while, in no particular direction.
When he got to a spot he was confident had no cameras, he stopped and moved the woman to the trunk.
Maybe Josh was okay driving around with a fake story to explain the unconscious woman in his car, but Nathan preferred not to take such a big risk. After moving her, he drove for a while longer before finally returning to the warehouse.
Thankfully, there had been no stirring from the woman in the trunk, the drugs still keeping her out, which meant he would be able to easily move her to the basement level.
It had been specially built to meet their needs and purposes, and also meant that at first glance, the warehouse appeared to be just a range of offices and apartments.
You’d never guess that inside those offices, flesh trade deals were brokered.
Once the car was parked and the engine off, Nathan collected the woman and carried her through the garage. There was an elevator in there that would take him down to the basement, which made it easier to transport their products.
In the basement, he walked through a couple of hallways, past closed doors that contained the stuff of nightmares, and into the housing room.
There were cages lining both walls, ten on each side of a wide passageway.
Some were occupied, some weren't, and Nathan chose an empty one, balanced the unconscious blonde as he unlocked it, then carried her inside and set her down on the hard, unforgiving concrete floor.
Before he left, he stooped and leaned in so his mouth was close to her ear.
She wouldn't hear him, but he told the woman the same thing he told all the others that found themselves in one of Azure’s cages.
“Don’t fight, blondie, it will make it easier if you just give in.
Just do as they tell you, don’t make this harder on yourself than it has to be. ”
With that, Nathan straightened, strolled out of the cage, locking it behind him, then headed for the elevator to take him up to his apartment so he could head to bed.