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2
The building in Tangier used to be a church, and now it was the headquarters of one of the most notorious sex traffickers in Morocco. Bellona was sweating in places she didn't like to sweat, and the more she looked at the girls in the cages, the more furious she became. Sad-looking saints and angels looked down from the painted cracked ceiling like they weren't too happy about it either.
There was one painting of Mary Magdalene bathing Jesus's feet in perfume. Bellona scowled at her. The last time she had seen Magdalena, she had given her a hard time about the reckless boy who had kissed Bellona so long ago. Rafael.
Bellona tended to forget the past as much as possible. It was the only way gods like her had a chance to survive. Stay in the present, keep moving forward. She hadn't forgotten him, no matter how much time passed.
"Please, please, help," a woman begged, her skinny arm reaching through the bars of her cage.
"I will, but I need you to be quiet until it's over. You will be safer where you are," Bellona whispered back. She clasped the woman's filthy hand to reassure her. Bellona saw the needle marks on her arm, and her hatred grew.
There was something about traffickers that made Bellona particularly furious. Set knew this about her, and that was why he had sent this job to her. He was now trying to use his war god skills to help protect those who needed it instead of those who had paid for it.
Bellona thought Ayla had made her old friend soft, though she still did any job Set sent her way. This one was going to be a true pleasure.
Bellona moved past the cages and through a door where the old altar had been pulled down. Doesn't feel so good, does it? she said to the faded apostles that were half falling from the plastered walls. Not that Bellona had many temples to her, but her priests, the Bellonari, were loyal until the end.
Bellona scanned the hallways, her pugio already in her hand. The traffickers had been using the old priests' quarters, and while she didn't like so many small places to get pinned down, she was going to make the exception.
The first room had a girl cuffed to a bed. A man was in a small bathroom adjoining it. Bellona held a finger up to her lips to keep her silent. The man's neck broke with a satisfying snap, and he dropped to the dirty tiles. Bellona pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the girl.
"Take these and wait ten minutes. Then go into the church and help the others, understand?" Bellona said.
The girl responded in Berber, so Bellona switched dialects and repeated herself. The girl told her that she knew of five other men wandering about the building, and Bellona crept back out into the hallway.
"What the fuck?" a man said, coming through a side door. Bellona was on him in a heartbeat. A powerful kick to the balls had him falling with a yelp.
"If I had time, I'd cut all your dicks off and make you swallow them," she hissed. She crouched beside him and cut his throat. "You are lucky that I'm busy."
Bellona picked up the phone he had dropped, and her heart stopped. On the screen was a bounty notification and a photo. He had gray in his hair, and the soft youth from his face was gone, but there was no mistaking that smile. Rafael Asellio had two million euros on his head.
"This can't be happening," Bellona muttered. It had been a long time since she felt her strings of fate being pulled by the Parcae, and she didn't like it one fucking bit.
Bellona was so distracted by the picture that she didn't hear the man until something heavy smashed into her side. She really didn't have time now. She had to get back to Rome. Bellona caught the crowbar before it hit her again, and her divinity ripped free of her. Her usual black uniform transformed into a gold and leather breastplate, her armguards and pauldrons fitting around her skin.
"W-What the fuck are you?" the man blabbed.
"I'm the one you should run from," Bellona purred then cut off his head with her gladius. She shot through the rest of the building with divine speed, leaving trails of blood and bodies in her wake. She took one of the laptops she found in case Set could get anything useful off it and stuffed anything of value into a large duffel bag. Bellona returned to the church where women were crawling out of cages.
"Take this and start a new life somewhere," Bellona said and tossed the bag at the center of them. "Don't go out through the back. There are things there you don't need to see."
The women were all staring at her with wide eyes, and Bellona knew they were seeing a shining goddess in Roman armor with blood on her hands.
"Are you an angel?" a small girl whispered.
Bellona laughed, the sound alien in the awful place. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so much worse."
3
Bellona was getting off a plane in Rome four hours later. She wanted nothing more than to return to her Trastevere apartment and sit in her bathtub, preferably with a nice bottle of wine and a box of pistachio nougat. The quick shower she had in Tangier was enough to get the blood off, but she could still smell the stinking cages and the men she had killed on her skin.
Bellona was in a taxi the next time the phone rang. She smiled as she answered, "Pronto?"
"How did it go, Bells?" Set asked.
"Fine. I sent you a little present in the mail. I don't know if there is anything useful on it, but it might have their suppliers and buyers," she replied, staring out the window at the rain-soaked city.
"Are you okay? You sound a bit off there, Bells. Usually, you're more chipper after a murder spree," Set teased. He knew her too well.
