Chapter 1 #2
Planting a knee between her shoulder blades, the man kept her pinned to the ground, although she struggled and fought with everything she had. In the end, it didn't do any good. Something sharp pricked the side of her neck, and the world began to grow blurry and distant.
Then it faded away into nothing but an empty, oppressive darkness.
August 24th
8:36 P.M.
This was most inconvenient.
Van Huxley huffed as he drove the huge white van toward their new location.
If there was one thing he hated above all else, it was being inconvenienced.
He was here to do a job, and he did it well, but he didn't like stupid mistakes popping up and ruining things, making them harder than they needed to be.
He also hated vans.
Nothing reminded him of his stupid parents and their sick sense of humor, naming him Van because they’d conceived him in a van, than having to drive one. Most of the time, he avoided them. He drove an SUV as his personal vehicle, but this wasn't about his personal life.
For now, he was deep undercover as part of the trafficking ring Azure, and that meant doing whatever he had to do to keep in character, including driving around in a ridiculous white van that all but screamed human trafficking ring.
Especially given the fact that there were currently five women lying unconscious in the back.
If he was pulled over, there was zero chance that a cop wouldn't find them.
Even from up here in the front, he could smell the putrid scent of urine.
One or more of the women he was transporting must have woken up—trust one of his colleagues to not bother to ensure they delivered a full dose of the sedatives, he swore if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself—and wet herself in terror.
That was actually something he could sympathize with, and he never sympathized with anyone.
As far as he was concerned, the world was transactional.
There was no need to form any sort of emotional bond with anyone to navigate it.
In fact, he’d made it three decades without forming a single attachment. He didn't do emotion.
Most people would probably say that was unhealthy, that all people needed people, but they would be wrong.
Those people had probably grown up in wonderful homes with a mom and dad who loved them and guided them, who were always there for them and supported them in all their endeavors.
They probably never went to bed starving because there was nothing in the house to eat.
Or fallen asleep soaked in sweat on a hot summer night because you slept on a mattress on the floor of an attic that sweltered to well over a hundred and twenty degrees on a hot day.
Or tried to push your own broken bones back into place because you knew your parents were never going to take you to an emergency room.
If you didn't grow up having to steal food to survive and bounce around the foster system from one nightmarish home to another, then you had no right to judge anyone who had.
Normally, Van was able to compartmentalize the horrors of his childhood and adolescence.
After all, he was thirty now. It had been a long time since he ran from the last home he’d lived in when he was sixteen, choosing to live on the streets over staying in that house a single second longer.
But the smell of urine was his kryptonite.
Brought back the one memory he had trouble shoving back down.
His mother used to think it was hilarious to grab a pair of scissors, yank his pants down around his ankles, then grab his penis in her hand, hold the scissors around it, and tell him to pee himself or she’d cut it off.
At five years old, the threat had been more than enough to have him comply, and she’d then make sure the urine wet his clothing, before pulling his pants back up and making him stay in the soaked clothes for hours, until they eventually dried.
Although wet or dry, the smell didn't go away.
Sick monster.
Shoving away the memory, he focused on his task.
The past didn't matter. It was over and done with, couldn’t be changed, and no longer needed acknowledgment.
The only power it held over him was the power he gave it, and he refused to give it any more power.
He’d spent enough time over the years hurting over what his parents, and numerous foster parents, had done to him.
Opening the window to let the warm summer air wash away some of the stench, he kept driving, winding his way through the city, taking pointless turn after pointless turn on the odd chance that he was being followed.
Now that he was one of only two Prey Security operatives left at Azure, he had to be extra careful.
The last thing he wanted to do was make a mistake and have to pull out as well.
From the first day he’d gone undercover with the ring, long before Nathan Solace or Mateo Adler joined, he’d made sure his persona was rock solid.
Not hard to do, since when he was undercover he usually just played himself.
It was easier that way, and to most people he would be easily mistaken for some sort of psychopathic criminal.
It wasn't that he’d been born without the ability to feel, it was just that over the course of his childhood, he’d learned that emotions were a waste of time, and that if you wanted to be productive in life it was better to just turn them off.
Something Nathan and Mateo should have been able to do.
Falling for one of the women Azure abducted and planned on selling had been stupid, and while he’d picked up on Nathan’s attraction to Emma almost immediately, he’d hoped the man wouldn't be stupid enough to let the attraction become something more. He’d had no such hope when it came to Mateo.
From the moment Griffin decided to go after the woman Mateo had been dating before joining Azure, he knew how that was going to end.
Badly.
Now they were both out, and it was irritating to him that they’d chosen love of all things to ditch their responsibilities to their job.
Pulling over to the side of a dark backroad, he spotted the other van sitting waiting for him. Once he parked, he jumped out, as did the man in the other vehicle.
“What took so long?” Adrian grumbled as he opened the back of his van.
“If you wanted me not to be careful, then I could have been quicker. I prefer to take my time, make sure I do things right,” he said with a disinterested shrug.
Of course, he wasn't actually worried about getting caught by the cops because he knew he wouldn’t go to prison.
Prey would back up who he was and what he was doing.
But it would ruin his cover, and make what was left of Azure pull back further.
After Mateo’s fiery escape and faked death—although no one else at Azure knew it was faked—they were already packing up and leaving the warehouse.
The women who had been there had all been sold, and now they were setting up the backup location.
An old factory that was nowhere near as well fitted out as the warehouse had been.
Grumbling, Adrian reached into the back of his vehicle, grabbed an unconscious brunette, and carried her over to Van’s van. The man was limping slightly, and when Van raised an eyebrow at him, the man shrugged.
Smirking, he asked, “She fought back, didn't she?”
Glaring at him, Adrian threw the woman into the vehicle hard enough that she bounced.
But since she didn't rouse, he didn't care.
It wasn't that he wished these women ill, he wouldn't be working to help dismantle the trafficking ring if he enjoyed seeing women abused and sold like they were less than human.
It was just that he didn't personally empathize with them. Couldn’t, if he did, he might wind up seeing himself in their shoes.
He, too, had once been a helpless victim.
But it was his determination to never again become a victim that had him shutting down those feelings before they could become a bother.
“That makes six,” Adrian said, surveying the women, one of whom was indeed awake and huddled in a corner.
“Enough for today,” he said. If they took any more, they risked drawing too much attention.
Six was more than they’d usually abduct at any one time, but given that they’d just had to liquidate their stock so they could pack up and move, they needed to replenish it enough to keep the business profitable.
“Yeah, we need to get everything set up anyway. Too bad Mateo lost his mind over the woman and left us all scrambling to clean up his mess.”
“I told you all that taking the woman was a mistake,” Van reminded him.
“Yeah, but Griffin wanted to test his loyalty. Turned out to be needed.”
“Apparently, Mateo’s loyalty lay more to the woman than to Azure,” he said with a shrug. “You really think that tests for the rest of us aren't coming, though?”
“We’ve lost two of our guys in a matter of weeks,” Adrian muttered. “Crazy.”
“Doubt we’ll be losing anymore.” He was pretty sure he knew who else was undercover for Prey, and that person wasn't going to be doing anything as stupid as falling for a woman, and he certainly wasn't going to be falling for anyone.
Giving the women in the back of his van a onceover, he checked to ensure there was nothing he needed to attend to.
Once he confirmed there wasn't, he slammed the door shut, ready to get them back to the factory and locked up, then he’d go grab some sleep.
No one had slept much last night since they’d all been busy packing up the warehouse after Mateo ran with Ally, and they had no idea what he intended to do.
Sleep was definitely important, because now more than ever, he needed to be at the top of his game.