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1
JADEN
“Get that look off your face, or you’re going to fuck this up, Jaden. Keep your macho testosterone bullshit tucked away in your back pocket.” Sasha, my childhood friend and partner in this madness pauses, punching my arm while piercing me with her steely eyes. “And do not kill anyone. We’re here for one rescue, that’s all.”
I let my eyes wash over the dilapidated building where an air of abandonment masks the horror within its walls. Celestial magic hums through me with powers that never get old. I pull the power closer to me. Fuck off. I’ve got this. I pivot my head, mouth ready to spew my venom on her. Sasha gives me the hand and my mouth snaps shut. She’s right. We’ve been following a trail of trafficker crumbs leading to the pimp, Viper, who runs the Ontario stable. The plan is to extract one crucial victim, a linchpin in our strategy. While my instincts scream to rescue them all, focusing on this specific target aligns with our meticulously crafted operation, Pandemonium Eruptus, designed to dismantle The Game from within.
Sasha straightens her broad shoulders and heads for the desolate warehouse. Our shared determination and a pit bull approach brought us to this terrible place—a human slave stable—where women are sold to the highest bidder: men with enough money to satisfy their twisted depravity. We will rescue another innocent life. Is that what they call kidnapping these days?
Viper’s making a public spectacle of this Vic and if she’s been close enough to rattle his chains, she’s been close enough to learn valuable intel about his trafficking operation. Intel I intend to gain... before damage turns to absolute ruin. One more step toward finding and killing the leaders of The Game, the national sex trafficking ring responsible for killing my fiancée.
Wind whistles through the warped sheet metal siding. I tug the collar of my leather jacket hardening my heart against the emotional pain we’re about to witness as chill fall air chases the late afternoon sun. Shutters hang askew, flapping in the wind. Broken glass grinds under our feet as we make our way through the litter and detritus. The gleaming, solid steel door looks incongruous in the desolate terrain of the industrial graveyard.
I square my shoulders, preparing for the callous inhumanity we’ll find within and ignore the niggling warning raising my heightened intuition. I can’t shake the feeling that something’s about to change my life and there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it. “We have a special mission for one of your rescues. We task you with protecting her at all costs.” The angel of death’s words, long forgotten, choose this inconvenient moment to drop by for a visit. At all costs?
I am a killer. The celestials call me a warrior angel, but whatever the title, I destroy those who prey on the weak and defenseless. Mind games are my weapon of torture, although I favor my magic knives to deliver the killing blow. Truth be told, it’s the mind games that give me juice. I rob scum of their identity and their precious assets until they wish they were dead.
I give payback to the most deserving by planting their dirty little secrets where they will do the most damage. Like dropping sexually explicit text messages to the unsuspecting wife of some rich bastard whose assets are in her name, exposing his true nature. But others need to be erased... period. Some might say I’ve lost my moral imperative. They would be wrong. I believe I’ve found it. I have zero tolerance for the pond scum who prey on innocent women and children. Make them suffer. Deal the killing blow... Walk away.
A blink is all it took for me to lose my goddamn mind and embark on this desperate path. A path where one misstep leads to certain death, where there is no room for emotion. All for the love of a woman . . . or so I told myself. My Savannah, who they took from me. My Savannah, who died in my arms. My Savannah, whose memory is inexorably linked to my soul. Something I will never forgive or forget. At least that’s what I tell myself because that way, I don’t have to face the demons that consume me—I couldn’t save her, and I can’t save myself.
Reckless with rage and single-minded obsession, I’d set about to make the fuckers who’d made Savannah suffer pay. No risk was too great. As long as I kept killing, I didn’t have to think. On my own private vigilante quest, I’d taken foolish chances while I hunted down and erased her killers, almost getting myself killed in the process. On the brink of death, something miraculous happened. The angel of death appeared with a mission and the gift of magical powers. In exchange, I agreed to join a team of humans and supernaturals bringing retribution to predators who escape justice in the Earth realm.
Now, with the blessing of the celestials, I hunt men like Viper and make them pay for their sins. Most, I don’t kill. That would be too easy. I make them suffer. Panic will do in the best of them. In most cases, they do me the favor of offing themselves. In the meantime, we rescued and rehabilitated the victims who weren’t already broken and lost. Only time would tell which camp our latest rescue falls into.
After talking our way past the muscle and brainless security at the door, Sasha and I stand in a damp basement room with crumbling cement walls. Small barred windows are set high on the walls, well out of reach. Exposed wiring snakes around damp rusted pipes. Dark stains that look a lot like blood decorate one corner. We find Whippo, the dirt bag snitch we’ve bribed, and let him know we’ve come to collect the goods. After the requisite whining on his side and threats on ours, he leads us into the pit where people considered human waste are held for their next owner.
Several bunk beds that have seen much better days line the walls. Women in various stages of undress and despair sit on several of them. The sharp tang of excrement, old blood, and rabid fear attacks my empathic senses. My new gift. My curse. Struggling not to gag, I have to stop myself from cringing as the long tendrils of their desperation try to encircle me. Sasha steps aside, her green eyes scanning the room.
Whippo locks the door behind us. I steel myself against the flinch as the lock slips home. Let me out. I push the thought from my mind and stop myself from punching Whippo as he leads us to a stack of rags lying on the floor next to a molding, bug-infested mattress on a lower bunk in the corner. A small still hand sticks out from under the pile of rags, yet nervous energy vibrates from it like the voltage from a power grid. Electromagnetic current arcs toward me and slams into my heart. It takes every neuron in my body not to react. In this world, any show of emotion is a sign of weakness.
“Get up. Kneel.” The stupid bastard kicks the bundle of rags on the floor, eliciting a pain-filled grunt. Despite appearances, whoever lays there is on the alert, ready to spring and flee at any moment.
“Don’t. Do. That.” I clench my fists so hard I almost break the skin. Keep your cool, Jaden.
“Don’t tell me my job, man,” Whippo snarls back.
A slim brown finger shoots up from the rags. “You’ll get your piece of me tonight and not before, you fucking asshole. Wasn’t last night enough for you? Greedy bastard.” The rage in the husky voice matches the solid defiance of the extended middle finger.
Whippo grasps a rag-doll girl and hoists her into the air. She glares at him through smeared glasses with eyes dark as a midnight sky. Her matted curls frame a face battered by hardship, yet filled with resistance. As she swings from his grip, desperately searching for the floor, she slaps Whippo's arm with surprising strength.
“Get your goddamn hands off me!” she snarls, her voice ripped with defiance. Her words, though tinged with bravado, tremble with a hint of vulnerability. I catch her eyes once more, and within those dark pools, I glimpse something akin to hope—fragile, nearly extinguished, but not quite dead. Something that speaks to the darkness in my soul.
My insides combust with a blend of unwanted emotions—anger, curiosity, and another sensation I can't quite put my finger on. These feelings shoot through me like electricity, yet something about this filthy, dirty, defiant yet delicate little thing I’m assigned to protect draws me in.
Whippo pulls his arm back. I catch it mid-swing and let the stinging vibration run up my arm. The man has muscle and might be a formidable match if we have to go nose to nose.
Whippo’s head swivels toward me. “What the fuck, man?”
“I’ll take it from here.” I lock eyes with him while he debates whether he can take me. I almost hope he’ll try; I’m spoiling for a fight. I narrow my eyes at Whippo, letting my disgust wash over him like a tidal wave. “Get out of our way. We've paid your price, now you'll do as we say.” The venom in my voice leaves no room for argument, and he lets her go while releasing a foul stench of fear.
My gaze locks with hers and a surge of energy crackles through my fractured soul. Swollen lids barely conceal the spark of intelligence and curiosity behind her rage-filled eyes. She masks a deeper layer of uncertainty and longing beneath her bravado, then just as quickly it slips away and the light in her orbs fades. Still, she never looks away, even shifting her glasses up on her nose with her index finger. Sasha tenses beside me, ready to pounce and protect me. I subtly unfurl my fingers, signaling her to stay still. Sasha stills.
“Don’t know about this,” Whippo’s nasal voice makes me flex my fist. Now, he decides to have doubts? “Viper going to be goddamned nitro about this. He has plans for little Miss Destiny here. Five hundred bucks ain’t worth getting killed for. We’d better call this off.” Whippo’s whining reminds me of a large, annoying insect. In this world, everyone can be bought, and he’s just told me his fee. I sigh and hand him five hundreds. “Better now?”
Whippo grabs the bills and releases Destiny. She stumbles to her knees. He wiggles his fingers for another bill. I clamp my teeth and hand over another hundred.
“How old is this kid, anyway? What plans? You never said anything about plans.” I spin bullshit as I take a step toward Whippo, getting up close and personal.
