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Dropping my mags out, I slip new ones in, rapping the back of the guns on my thighs to click the clips into place. I push the slide on top of each gun to load them both at the same time.
A report goes off on my right where Rafe stands. A soft thud hits the floor upstairs, along with a tinkle of glass.
“Not anymore.” Rafe glances down at me, the psychotic glint in his eyes matching my own. “Four on your left, you say?”
“Three.” I raise my gun and fire off a round.
“Keeping count?”
“Whatever, Legolas.” The next idiot pokes his balding dome over the top of the table, and I decorated his forehead with a nice hole.
“That makes you the dwarf, right?” Rafe aims to the side of the table, leaving one man alive with his dead friends.
The last man runs for it. We raise our guns together, and the man goes down with two matching holes in the back of his head.
“Perfect.”
Ignoring Rafe’s barb, I track any movement around the rest of the warehouse. The place is stacked with boxes and a neat row of shipping containers along a large back wall that looks like it can slide open for easy access. Not a single human is in sight.
Why do they need all the boxes?
I blow air out of my cheeks. “Fuck it. Where are the girls?”
Rafe walks quickly to the office while I turn to investigate the back of the warehouse, running my fingers along shipping containers, rapping my knuckles on each one. God knows what else Kirril Singleton—Russian born, American mother—is smuggling into the country, or out of it, but I was only here for one thing.
When I tapped on the third container, someone inside knocked back.
“Rafe,” I call as the rest of our team bust into the front of the warehouse, their weapons drawn in a pose worthy of a bad eighties action movie.
I put my fingers in my mouth and whistle, jerking my head to one side.
Tommy Canaveri runs over with a pair of bolt cutters he picks up from the side of the warehouse, half out of breath by the time he reaches me.
“Remind me to teach your boys how to jog.” I shake my head in disgust. “Are you doing the honors?”
“We’re not all as old as you, asshole.”
Tommy wields those bolt cutters like he was born with the tool in his hands. Seconds later the padlock drops to the floor and the door swings open.
A fine-boned, pale body tumbles out. I catch the girl before she hits the ground, taking in her naked state, and shrugging my jacket from my body.
“Sweetheart.” I stare down at the girl who stares back with dark-brown, bloodshot eyes. Her features are almost pixie-like, her slightly gaunt body giving her an ethereal look, like she doesn’t quite belong anywhere I’ve ever been. Dark, matted hair tumbles over her head, crusted with fluids I don’t want to think about.
What the fuck has she endured?
“Can you hear me? How many are you?” I wrap her in my jacket and hold her against my shirt. The girl is covered in filth, and God knows what else. Cuts and fading bruises cover her body—so thin that she must’ve been in that container for a decent time.
“How many?” I lift my chin and yell sharply over my shoulder, dropping my gaze to study her face. She doesn’t respond, even as I stroke her cheeks and try to get some reaction from her.
“Eight,” Rafe’s voice comes from right behind my head.
My head jerks up. “That’s not many.”
Usually when Kirrill Singleton trafficked women, he brought them in by the boatload—literally. “Eight is hardly worth his while.”
I don’t realize I spoke aloud until Rafe crouches next to me. “You’re right.”
Something in his tone rips my gaze from the girl in my arms. “What is it?”
