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Every step toward the house we spent too many years in, and saw too many horrors, has dread washing over me in heavy waves, and nausea pools in my belly.
What if we’re too late? What if she’s gone? The thoughts are anything but rational. There’s no possible way they could know we’ve chosen an unsuspecting Tuesday night to rescue Mia from a life she never deserved.
Tires squealing behind us drag our attention away from the street ahead, and I swear everything happens in slow motion.
A van and two SUVs speed toward us, and before I can think to move, Tommy tackles me to the ground, his large body landing on top of me and knocking the air from my lungs.
A moment later, gunfire fills the air. “We need to get out of here,” Tommy barks.
“We can’t. We can’t leave Mia.” I’m frantic. Panic eats its way through my body until dragging in a breath feels impossible. We can’t leave her here anymore. It’s already been too long. She’s been unprotected for so long that it keeps me up at night to think about the horrors she must have endured since we left her.
“We’ll come back for her,” he promises. “But we’re no good to her if we’re dead.”
Before I can respond, Tommy drags me back toward the car, using the old hunk of junk as a shield from the bullets, but I realize too late only the SUVs have stopped. The van kept driving.
It could just be that they didn’t need any more firepower against two teenage kids. I rationalize with myself, but even as the thought crosses my mind, I know it’s wishful thinking.
This feels too planned. Too coincidental.
“In the car,” Tommy barks, and I comply immediately. I tug the door open and throw myself across the seats, hissing out a breath when broken glass digs into my arms. Tommy gets in after me, quickly starting the engine and taking off without a second thought.
I riffle around in the backpack I left in the car, desperately looking for the burner phone I keep to communicate with Mia, identical to the one that she keeps hidden under one of the loose floorboards in her bedroom. My stomach drops when I see a voicemail from her, and even before her sweet voice fills the line, I realize it’s too late.
“Ace,” she sobs into the phone. “They know you’re coming. I don’t know how. I swear I didn’t tell them. There’s no way they could know, but they do.” She chokes on her words, and my heart clenches for her. I’ve always hated seeing and hearing her cry, but right now I’m struggling to breathe. The line goes silent for a few seconds and then she’s screaming, the sound slicing into me deeper than any knife ever could. “No, please no. Please don’t take me. I don’t want to go.” Every word cuts deeper, until her long wails are all that filter down the line.
“Shut up, you little whore,” my foster father growls, and just the sound of his voice makes my skin crawl. “If you think you have something to cry about now, wait until you get where you’re going.”
“No!” she shouts. “I don’t want to go. Please don’t make me go.”
A loud slap fills the line, and my stomach sinks. But it’s her final cry that shatters my heart into a million pieces.
“Ace!” she screams, and then the line goes dead.
I failed her.
I promised I would get her out.
I promised I would never let them hurt her.
And I failed.
CHAPTER ONE
MIA
Iwasn’t always like this.
Once upon a time, I had dreams and motivations, things that pushed me through the hard days, thoughts of a future I knew I could have if I could just hold on a little longer.
But those dreams died a long time ago. They died with the girl that was stolen from her future, the innocent girl who never had a chance to grow into the woman she knew she could be.
I’ve been in survival mode for so long, I don’t know what it means to be happy, to be complete, to be safe, because I can’t see myself ever being anything other than broken. Not after the things I’ve seen and the things they’ve done to me.
I blink back tears at the thought, my stomach heavy with bile I refuse to let rise. Not while there are so many people around. Strangers.
Every stranger I’ve ever met has hurt me in some way. My foster parents. The people who bought me. Those who used me for entertainment and my body as if it weren’t attached to a human being. Ace and Tommy when they promised they would keep me safe.
I curl further into myself, keeping my eyes low and my body as small as I can. I don’t know these people, and at least one of them is linked to human trafficking, so I can’t allow myself to breathe even if I have just been rescued from the most notorious crime family in the country. The Lombardi family will be pissed that Clara and I have been taken. Especially because Clara shot the two heirs to get us out safely. I doubt they’re going to forget a thing like that.
