Chapter Nine
Simple and stupid went out the window when we were dropped off three blocks down from the location Pete was given.
Shep had arranged a driver. The man looked like he wasn’t a day younger than a hundred and seventy-five. His English was impeccable; so were his manners. There was something about the kind old man that made me want to whisk him away and force him to retire someplace far from here.
On the drive over, he explained he’d worked with the “American” before.
I thought he was referring to Shepherd as the American, but as it turned out, he worked with more people than just Shep.
“Worked” didn’t mean he accepted money. He offered his taxi services for free transporting women to safety.
He reminded me of Berta. Good and honest and noble, trying to do right in a country he loved.
Trying to right wrongs that were not his.
But that wasn’t what derailed the simple and stupid strategy to get Kiara. It was Mason changing up the plan after we’d already hashed it out back at the penthouse.
It was simple—Pete was going to the alley.
Fallon and I were going to use the side entrance to get into the building and wait inside for Pete to hopefully bring Kiara in.
If she wasn’t in the alley, Pete would leave without picking a girl.
Then thirty minutes later, Mason would come into play and go to the alley to look for Kiara.
If she still wasn’t there, Pete would come back later and try again.
Simple.
Or it would have been if Mason hadn’t decided he was going to accompany me into the apartment building, and Fallon was going to take his place looking for Kiara.
This led to a minor squabble between me and Mason.
I didn’t like last-minute changes, especially when they were made with no explanation.
But I didn’t need one. I knew he’d switched places because he didn’t trust me to have Fallon’s back.
“You’re not to be outside of touching distance,” Mason demanded.
Now I wanted to kick Mason in the balls for not trusting me to do my job and for being a bossy twit.
“What? You mean I can’t do a skip-dance in the street?” I asked as I fiddled with my dusty-rose shayla that was already damp, making sure my neck was still covered. “This is torture.”
Mason glanced over at me. “You could go back to the penthouse.”
“Bet you’d like that.”
His jaw clenched under the scruff of his not-yet-full beard, but full enough it was more than a five-o’clock shadow and sexier than I wanted to admit.
“I would.”
Gah. I was going to cause the man bodily harm before the night was over.
I decided now was a good time to ignore him and start paying attention to my surroundings.
The street was packed despite how late it was.
Late and hot as hell. The sun setting had barely put a dent in the temperature and did nothing to touch the humidity.
If the sweat rolling down my back and between my boobs was anything to go by, it had to be pushing ninety.
Shop signs were lit up, and streetlights cast a white glow over the dirty sidewalks. I couldn’t take a step without seeing a massage card—on the ground, stuck on parked cars, taped to the light poles.
They were everywhere.
All in English.
Spa and Massage: fifty-percent-off special.
Oil Massage, facial, body scrub: call now.
Massage Therapy: special rates.
Phone numbers boldly displayed.
There had to be hundreds and hundreds of them. Every-fucking-where.
People all around me hustling on the sidewalks, crossing the street, standing in front of shops and sitting at outside tables of restaurants, and hardly anyone paid attention to those massage cards.
There was bumper-to-bumper traffic, horns honking, roadwork being done.
Everything looked normal, but there were thousands of men and women being held against their will in these hotels, apartments, in the backs of stores. Thousands in this district alone.
In my stomach, a lethal cocktail of fury and hate bubbled.
The enormity was such that we were powerless to stop it. The best we could do was save a few . . . but there would always be more.
“Sweetness.” Mason’s gruff voice pulled me from my thoughts.
“What?” I snapped.
“Calli . . . honey, look at me.”
Calli?
I dragged my gaze away from the disturbingly normal movements of those around me and looked over at Mason.
“Everything’s going to be all right.”
“No, it won’t. It’ll never be all right. We’ll never be able to make it all right.”
He nodded. “You’re right. But tonight we’re going to make one young woman safe and return her to her family. Think about that instead of wanting to murder every person who walks by us.”
“How’d you know I was plotting murder?”
“You’re glaring at every person who passes us, and you’re holding my hand testing my bone density.”
I was holding his hand?
I flexed my fingers and, sure enough, I was.
When the heck did I grab his hand? I loosened my hold, but he held strong.
Neither of us spoke the final two blocks.
And when we passed the alley, I kept my eyes trained on the concrete in front of me, not trusting myself to look.
I didn’t want to save one girl tonight. I wanted to save them all.
There were sisters out there who were missing them. There were mothers and fathers and grandparents.
“The shops on the bottom floor are vacant,” Mason mumbled.
I glanced over, and there was nothing but trash in the vacant spaces.
“That’s helpful.”
“Yep.”
Mason guided me around the corner. Unlike Al Fahidi Street, 74th was desolate. There were parked cars, but the street was empty of people. I glanced across the street opposite the Atheryat building. There were businesses, but they were all closed.
I wasn’t ready for Mason’s sharp tug on my hand. I stumbled forward, and before I could right myself, he spun me around and shoved my back against the building.
“What—”
Mason leaned closer. “Shh.”
What the hell?
“Move, brother,” a man said from behind Mason.
Shit, now I knew why the businesses were closed. After dark, this was Sparkle’s block.
“In a minute.”
“Now. Move.”
“I’m just getting a taste, big man. I’ll be done in a minute.”
Mason was pressed close, completely shielding me.
I could feel the tension in his body. His muscles bunching and coiling, readying to strike.
I reached into the pocket of my loose-fitting linen pants and wrapped my hand around the handle of my custom-made retractable knife. I blew out a breath and relaxed.
“Move,” the man repeated from up close.
I glanced over Mason’s left shoulder and saw the man’s hand come up—but before I could draw my knife from my pocket and warn Mason, he was already on the move.
Lightning quick, Mason shifted and delivered a brutal jab with his left fist to the man’s throat, followed by a right hook to his jaw.
The man dropped just as two more men came around the corner. Both of them looked at the man on the ground, then at us, and started yelling in Hindi.
Simple and stupid had officially gone to shit.
“It’s all good,” Mason muttered.
Apparently his definition of all good significantly differed from mine.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” I asked.
Mason didn’t answer. The larger of the two men rushed him.
I stayed against the building, doing my best impression of a damsel in distress.
My acting skills must’ve been impressive, or the boy-man in front of me—who looked like he was underfed and hadn’t had proper nutrition at any point in his life, causing his growth to stunt—underestimated me because I was a woman.
I was five-seven and was looking the guy in the eye.
He reached out and grabbed my wrist. I let him pull me away from the wall, still playing the ‘I’m a scared girl, please don’t hurt me’ card.
I really didn’t want to have to kill the boy-man. He looked like he’d barely kissed his teenage years goodbye. Not that that meant anything. The guy who took my sister had been twenty. But there was a sadness in this kid’s eyes that made me hope he’d go down easy.
The grunts and thuds of fists hitting flesh reminded me I needed to drop this kid before someone else came around the corner.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I begged.
“Come.”
“Just let me go.”
The kid stepped closer to me and yanked my arm.
I used the force of his tug to slam into him and pulled my other hand out of my pocket.
With my fingers still tightly wrapped around the handle of my knife, I swung and hit him square in his ear.
Before he recovered, I landed a front kick to his gut and followed up with a perfectly placed uppercut.
The kid didn’t even stumble before he pitched sideways and went down.
Thank God for glass jaws.
I pocketed my knife and made my way to Mason.
He was straddling his opponent, pummeling his face with no signs of stopping.
“Mase, he’s down.”
Like he didn’t hear me, he continued his beating.
“Mason. Enough. We need to move.”
Suddenly, Mason pulled out of his trance and looked up at me.
The lighting was shit on this side of the building, but I still saw the green of his eyes—wild and raw and furious.
“We need to move the bodies,” I told him.
He did a top-to-toe scan of me and stood.
Without speaking, he pulled zip ties out of his pocket and handed me two.
It took me seconds to roll my undersized attacker to his stomach and zip his wrists together.
I moved to his ankles and did the same, making sure I tightened them as much as possible to cause maximum pain.
Just because I didn’t want to kill him didn’t mean I wouldn’t be happy inflicting as much damage as I could.
I was reaching for the guy’s back pocket to check for an ID, phone, something, when Mason grabbed my arm.
“Not without gloves.”
Damn, that was a rookie mistake. There could be drugs, including fentanyl in his pockets.
“Where are we taking them?”
“Bottom floor.”