Chapter 35 - Gabriel
The fucking warehouse was empty.
I let out a stream of curses from behind my balaclava and slammed the door shut behind me when we entered the building. Everett had cut through the thick lock with a pair of bolt cutters and a gleeful expression.
We started with the address listed for Axion Biostorage and it had all the markings of being recently cleared out. But we had to check anyway.
“No one’s been here in days,” Jason said. His low voice echoed in the cavernous space as he pulled his balaclava from his mouth. Silas and Everett were using their flashlights to check the corners, but I was sure they wouldn’t find anything.
“Ma che cazzo! I am an idiot. He knew we had this address, of course he is no longer using it. Che coglione che sono…”
“Where to next?” Everett asked.
Jason looked at me and I forced myself to be calm.
“The next address on the list. How close?”
He consulted his phone. “About ten minutes. And the other one is all the way across the river. It’s a vet clinic, but it says ‘permanently closed.’”
“Veternaria?” Why? We didn’t have time to consider the why. “The far one,” I said with a confidence I didn’t quite feel. But it made sense. If the asshole had left this place, he would want to go as far away as possible.
We piled back into the van they’d rented for the job.
Silas was driving their battered gold sedan, in case we needed to split up.
The whole way there I berated myself. I should have texted Andrew, but I could not face telling him I’d failed yet again by choosing the wrong place to start.
It was a Tuesday night, the city was relatively calm, and got even quieter as we crossed the river.
As we got closer to the address, I started to get hopeful again. We drove past the building once and saw two cars in the parking lot and a light shining in the window of the front door.
“Looks more promising than the last place,” Jason said into the quiet of the van as we parked around the corner. Silas had pulled in behind us.
“Hell yeah it does,” Everett said. His knee was jumping with barely restrained energy.
“Take a deep breath,” Jason told him. “You ready?”
I gestured for him to lead the way.
We went around the back and saw the guard. Relief rushed through me. This was the right place.
Jason and his pack did not like to kill if they could avoid it. I respected them for that, but I also knew that they would make the right decision to protect themselves or Bridget.
Everett darted out of the cover we’d found behind a hulking A/C condenser and tackled the man into a headlock.
He grunted in surprise, and then pain, but Everett was ruthless.
He locked his arm around the man’s neck and held on tight until his kicking eased and he slumped in his arms. Everett’s grin was feral when he looked up.
“Nice work,” Jason murmured. We converged on the back door, which was unlocked.
The second guard was dispatched as quickly and quietly at the first, barely a scuffle. Impatience to storm inside and find my Omega clawed at me.
Our luck ran out. The double doors banged open and Jason shot the man before he had time to fire on us. And once the firing began, it did not stop.
I held my own. Even though I was out of practice, I let muscle memory take over.
My body knew how to aim and squeeze the trigger, and how to control the recoil of the gun.
They were not men; they were obstacles to finding Bridget.
It was easy then to dispatch the one who ran at me, one shot between his eyes and he crumpled like a broken doll.
In what could have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes, quiet fell. My ears rang from the gunshots. Around us, five men were dead. Six total if the man outside did not wake up. And now someone would need to make sure he never did.
We didn’t stop to consider the consequences. There was no time. The gunshots would not go unnoticed. Silas cut through the lock on the closest door, and we surged inside. Jason flipped on the light.
Large cages had been installed along the walls, but inside were not animals but women. A general cry of alarm rang across the room as they cowered away from us and our masks and our guns.
After the initial shock, horror set in. The women were all thin, too thin, their eyes large in their faces.
Those that had them hid under blankets, while others shoved themselves as far from the doors of their prison as possible.
It was too much to comprehend. My mind rebelled, not wanting to believe that something so abhorrent could happen in this city, on such a scale.
“Bridget?” My voice was too loud and one of the women closest to me began sobbing.
It was then that the scents registered. A dozen of them, mingling into a morass of stress and fear that ratcheted up my own heart rate.
Omegas. Rage descended. Even Matteo had not been treated as an animal. This was not the quiet, private evil of a mistreated partner. This was something altogether different, on a magnitude I had never encountered.
But my companions did have experience here. Jason was the first to react. He stowed his gun and raised his palms, speaking to them, calming words about how we were there to help. He yanked his balaclava off abruptly, and Silas and Everett followed suit.
My stomach heaved but there was no time for that. As I studied each face, scanning for Bridget, I vowed that Domenic would not live past this night.
While Jason and Silas worked to open the cages with the bolt cutters, I kept moving.
Everett followed me into the hallway, but left me behind to check the front door.
The next room was for medical procedures, judging by the view through the door.
A man wearing turquoise scrubs was crumpled on the floor, propping it open.
My bullet had been the one to take him down.
With a jolt, I recognized his face. Dr. Patrick Davis lay dead at my feet and I felt nothing but savage satisfaction as I stepped over his motionless body.
Bridget was not there, but it wasn’t empty either.
A woman lay on an exam table in the far corner, hooked to an IV drip and wearing nothing but a thin paper gown.
A mask was over her nose and mouth, and there was a tray of medical equipment next to her head.
She was not moving, but her IV monitor beeped. A heart rate, but very slow.
“There is one more here,” I called over my shoulder. My feet scattered dropped tools as I went to the woman’s side. Her face looked sunken and I could barely see the rise and fall of her chest.
I stayed until Silas appeared to take my place. Everett followed closely on his heels.
“Fuck. Is she dead?” Everett asked.
“The monitor says she’s alive,” Silas answered, but I was already moving.
Jason was helping the other women stumble to the van outside. I could not look at them. If I did, I would feel obligated to stay. “She is not here.”
“Go. We got this.”
“I am sorry I cannot—”
“I understand. Go.” Jason pushed my shoulder, and I took off running. I aimed vaguely for the train station I knew was about ten blocks away.
It was past midnight, almost one o’clock. Guilt pooled in my stomach at leaving those women, but Jason would keep them safe. A siren sounded, closer than I expected. I ducked into an alleyway and pressed myself into the darkness until the police car passed.
Hopelessness pressed in on me again. I could not call Maggie and Soren now, even if I wanted to. Knowing what I had done would burden them, even if I believed they would not turn me in. And they needed plausible deniability for when I eliminated Domenic.
The last address on the list was my final hope. It would mean another long trek across the city, and soon the trains would stop running for the night. I’d have to get a cab…
No. Use your brain. It was the middle of the night. If he wasn’t here at this place, he trusted others to do his dirty work. Domenic would be comfortable somewhere, probably sleeping soundly without a thought for these women.
I knew roughly where he lived. Bridget had told me it was close to that diner. Had that truly been today that we went there together? It felt like a lifetime ago.
It was easy to look him up and confirm the address. For the first time in my life, I blessed the lack of privacy afforded by the internet.
I took out my phone to call Andrew, then stopped. He would just try to convince me not to go, and I didn’t have time for that. At that moment, Bridget could have been in a cage just like those other Omegas, and I would force the answer out of Domenic.
And then, I would kill him.