Any compassion he would’ve felt was stifled. Fucking a girl was part of the plan, a necessary evil to maintain his cover. So he would pick a strong one, drag her upstairs—by a collar and leash if necessary—and use her to fuck with Vera.
Glancing over his shoulder, he expected to find his cartel escort. But only Tomas had followed him into the corridor. Didn’t mean he could let his guard down. Cameras were everywhere.
No more delaying, he made his way to the first doorway.
Inside the cement cell, a dark-haired girl curled up on the grimy floor. She jumped at the sight of him, rattling the chains that connected to hooks in the wall.
“What do you want?” A sob erupted past her trembling lips. “Why am I here? I just want to go home. Please, take me back!”
“How old are you?”
“F-f-fourteen. Are you here to help me? Please!”
“Too young.” He said it for the cameras and ordered his feet to move to the next doorway.
Same story. Same torment.
Room after room, girls cried in shackles, pleading, spitting, and demanding to be freed. Some answered his questions. Others angrily refused to acknowledge him. Many didn’t speak English.
All of them wore street clothes—jeans, shorts, tattered dresses, whatever they’d had on when they’d been abducted. Ages ranging from thirteen to eighteen, they’d come from Mexico, South America, the United States, and several parts of Asia.
Sixteen girls in all.
None appeared to have life-threatening injuries. Bruises and cuts marred their skin from rough handling. But no visible blood.
He backed out of the last room and stood in the dim corridor, listening to their screams. His presence had stirred every chamber into a frenzy of keening sobs and gutting pleas.
His rage stretched on the brink of snapping, but he kept it bottled.
“Might I suggest the one in there?” Tomas pointed at the room two doors down. “She seems the best fit for you.”
The pretty black American girl with blazing eyes and a fuming temper.
At eighteen, she was the oldest. She also appeared to be the strongest, physically and mentally. Even now, her voice rang out above the rest.
“Motherfucker!” she shouted. “Bring your sorry ass back here and let me go! Swear to God, I will find you and cut you for chaining up girls!”
Yeah, she was the best choice. If she held onto that fire, she had the best chance of emotionally surviving what he would do to her.
At least, that had been his own experience. Van had broken his body, repeatedly violating him in ways he’d never imagined or wanted a man to touch him. But, week after week in that attic, he never stopped fighting. Never let his mind surrender or give up.
If he could survive Van Quiso, that girl could survive him.
“Yes, I agree she’s…” He went still, certain he’d heard something in the distance. “Do you hear that?”
Tomas cocked his head, eyes narrowed at the unlit bend in the corridor, where they hadn’t ventured. “Are there more rooms?”
There were no lights beyond where they stood. But there was definitely something…or someone down there.
“Help.” The voice trickled into a weak moan, coming from nowhere and everywhere. “Help me.”
Tomas straightened. “Another girl?”
Luke held up a finger as a frail cry whispered around them, so soft, so fucking strained with pain. His stomach hardened. His heart pounded, and every muscle turned to stone.
He followed the sound.
The whimpers rose in volume, growing closer as he reached the bend in the pitch black. Tomas touched his back, guiding, pushing him forward. With every step, his legs felt heavier, laden with dread.
As his vision adjusted to the absence of light, the stench of rot and fear invaded. The tunnel opened to a room, the shadows so dense he couldn’t breathe.
His head filled with sounds of slapping flesh, his lips cracked and crusted with blood. He heard Van’s voice. Demanding. Lustful. Chains clanked. A haunting nightmare.
An omen.
He saw it now. Watching as an outsider, he saw his silhouette hanging in a cage without sunlight. Except the dangling dark shape wasn’t him. Not this time. It was something else. Someone was there, only a few feet away. It moved.
And cried.
“Please.” The pale whisper dissolved into mewling murmurs too weak to vibrate vocal cords.
He blinked, the thud of his heart hot and viscid. Urgency moved him toward the wall, his fingers sliding over gritty concrete, searching. “Where’s the fucking light?”
“Here.” Tomas bumped his hand, locating a switch.
An overhead bulb buzzed to life, casting the room in filmy yellow. He squinted through the glow, and his eyes came into focus.
He stopped breathing.
A young blonde girl hung from the rafters by one leg.
By a fucking meat hook.
“Sweet mother of God,” Tomas whispered behind him.
The S-shaped hook went through her thigh and suspended her several feet above the floor. Her other leg had been broken in multiple places, the skin flayed, exposing white splintered bones.
His fist flew to his mouth as he cataloged countless stab wounds, purple contusions, and missing appendages. Fucking Christ, this girl was missing fingers, parts of her ears, and a goddamn foot.
The leg impaled by the hook had been sawed off at the ankle. Not a clean amputation. No tourniquet. Nothing to slow the flow of blood except gravity.
“Please.” Her mouth moved, coughing on a dry gasp. “Kill me.”
No.
Fuck no.
He couldn’t.
But he couldn’t leave her like this, either. She wouldn’t survive the wounds unless she saw the inside of an emergency room soon. That wouldn’t happen. Not in the next few minutes. Not ever.
She didn’t even try to move, her body too weak and wracked with pain. She could barely cry, and even then, it wasn’t enough to produce tears.
“Sir.” Tomas touched his elbow, guiding his attention to the wall where they entered.
Another girl.
She sat on the floor, legs stretched out before her. No crying from this one. No tears of anguish. But she wasn’t without injuries.
Tangled black hair framed her bloodied, bruised face. More blood soaked her shirt and denim cutoffs.
Lifting her head, dark brown eyes collided with his.
Ferocious, familiar eyes.
The fighter.
“You.” Luke opened his mouth to say more, but all that came out was a scathing exhale.
His first thought? She did this. The vicious scrapper tortured this young girl and hung her by a hook.
But no, that didn’t make sense at all.
The blood on Marco’s shirt, the shackles on the fighter’s arms and legs, and the fact that she couldn’t stand after the fight… She was as much a victim as the others. Perhaps more so. She’d been thrown into the dark with a dying girl, forced to listen to her shallow cries for help.
“End this.” The blonde’s fractured voice pulled him back. “Kill…me.”
His blood shivered, and denial banged in his skull. Again, he took inventory of her injuries, searching for a sign of hope, anything that might save her.
Rust and dirt coated the hook through her leg. Infection would set in soon. The amount of blood on the floor beneath her was more than a human could lose. She wouldn’t survive this, and every minute she lived was a cruelty she didn’t deserve.