She came up behind the guard and killed him easily, lowering him to the ground behind several wide shrubs, whispering the location and a warning that it was close to the street. She switched back to the private channel. She felt Valentino close. He was no longer in the safety of that house just two blocks away. She didn’t like that he was close. The streets weren’t safe. This was how it felt to him when he thought she was in danger.
“Just so you know, you are the love of my life. The one and only.” Before he could reply, she stepped into a shadow tube and let it take her back to the highway tube. She needed to find that last roving guard before she proceeded toward Mariko. They had to get into the house and start looking for the girls.
The gardens flashed by, and she forced herself to look all around her, catching glimpses of guards in other sections. They weren’t her problem. She had only to find the ones she was assigned to and exterminate them to keep Valentino and his men safe as they got into the house to take down Tommaso and his men. They had to put an end to this inhumane idea that one could take young children from their homes, shelters or off the street and sell them to the highest bidder as if they had no value other than for their bodies.
She spotted the guard with one foot on the steps to the gazebo, his hand on the door. He looked around surreptitiously, and then stepped inside and closed the screen door. The gazebo was beautiful, mostly white, the door made of heavy-gauge mesh with panels of carved wood painted white. Each window was screened with that same heavy-gauge mesh. One could push up the windows or open the door and allow the fresh air in, still safe from all insects, or keep the gazebo cozy with heaters on and use it through the winter.
Emmanuelle couldn’t imagine what the guard was doing in the gazebo unless he planned on taking a break. She needed a good shadow that would take her inside the large structure. At night, from this distance, it was impossible to tell if the shadow she chose would take her inside, but she didn’t hesitate. She stepped into one of the smaller feeder tubes, a little ugly one that was crooked and zigzagged but went right up the steps and under the door. She prayed it continued even for a few inches on the other side.
Several times, she had registered the reports of other riders reporting to the “Four” the location of the “dirt.” She hoped Mariko wouldn’t be reporting her body, or that the sound of gunfire wouldn’t alert the enemy and the entire mission wouldn’t be blown because of her mistake.
Emmanuelle had always trusted her instincts, and she had to now. She stopped herself before she was spit out of the mouth of the narrow tube into the interior of the gazebo. She’d had tea with Greta here more than once. Now it smelled of fear, blood and sex, drowning out the scent of the night-star flowers that William had planted around the building so long ago to give Greta and Giuseppi a beautiful, all-encompassing experience even after dark.
When one looked down at the flowers from the balconies, they appeared like stars. Looking up at the night sky, the couple had the constellations and real stars. Looking down, they had the flowers that appeared to be stars glowing at them. If Giuseppi and Greta sat together late in the evening, in the gazebo, they were surrounded by that beauty and the scent of the flowers. Now that beauty was destroyed by three men who had a naked woman shoved up against the screen of one of the windows.
“’Bout time you got here, Lyn,” the one holding the woman snapped. “We started without you. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to smuggle her out here?”
“Shit, Pat, didn’t want anyone to see me. She looks great. Turn her around. You know how I like big tits.”
“She’s got ’em, don’t you, honey?” Pat spun the woman around to face the other two men. “Barry couldn’t help himself. He whipped her tits while I fucked her ass. She’s gonna like taking all three of us, aren’t you?”
The woman was bruised from head to toe. She’d clearly fought them, but had given up completely and just stood with her head down and her hair hanging around her face.
“She doesn’t seem very responsive,” Barry said. “Rosy, thought I told you what would happen if you didn’t answer when we asked you questions.”
Emmanuelle had had enough. All three men were totally focused on Rosy, surrounding her like wolves about to devour prey. They had their backs to her. The latest to join, Lyn, stepped close and grabbed Rosy’s breast cruelly, squeezing hard and slapping at the other.
She took out Barry first. He was just one step behind Pat, laughing, tapping his thigh with a wicked-looking strip of leather. Snapping his neck, she moved immediately to Pat and did the same to him before Barry dropped to the floor, crumbling like a ton of bricks. Lyn started to turn at the sound, but Rosy clawed at him, launching her own attack, hitting him with her fists and then raking at his face with her nails. He swung back around, punching her in the face. Rosy dropped to the floor of the gazebo as if she were a stone, clearly unconscious. Lyn swore. It was the last sound he ever made.
Emmanuelle let the “Four” know where to find the “dirt” but added that there was a live, unconscious friendly in need of medical help, but she would not stay unconscious long. She rode a shadow to meet Mariko at the designated spot and wasn’t surprised to find her sister-in-law was already waiting.
The two entered the house cautiously through the kitchen. Pat had brought Rosy out the door, and it wasn’t locked. Tommaso was so focused on getting his clients drunk or drugged, and in the mood he wanted them in, with the performances on the stage becoming more and more depraved, that he wasn’t paying much attention to his newly bought mercenaries. His own men were spread thin, and couldn’t cover the streets, the grounds and the entire huge house, plus watch over the teens that he’d insisted be kept apart as well as watch the auction room and guard him. It was no wonder no one was overseeing the mercenaries.
Emmanuelle discovered a young girl being held in a small bathroom just off the master bedroom. She’d been fairly certain they would need access to the passageway if they were going to escort the teens to the stage using that method. She looked to be about thirteen and wore only a thin blue wraparound robe that barely covered her bottom. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a high ponytail, and her face was devoid of any makeup. She was barefoot. She sat on a towel on the floor with her knees drawn up, her arms hugging her legs and her head down on top of her knees.
A man talked to her in a low voice with the door cracked open. “You know I’ve been good to you, never steered you wrong.”
“You hurt me.”
“Only when you wouldn’t obey. I had to teach you to obey for your own good. These men are going to offer to buy you girls. You want someone nice to buy you. If you get someone bad …” He trailed off. “Some of these men are really cruel. They’ll share you. Hurt you. They’ll use you and then sell you to other men. That will happen to you over and over. You don’t want that. You want someone nicer to buy you. I’m trying to help you.”
The girl looked even more scared. “What should I do? What if one of the mean ones buys me? I couldn’t stand that. You have to tell me if that happens.”
“No. It’s best you don’t know.”
Something in his voice made Emmanuelle look at his face sharply. He was smirking. Why would he be smirking? Was he deliberately trying to scare the child even more before she went on the auction block?