Nell is here.Stand by.
Axel’s reply came back.Copy. Informing Dom and Siren.
Nell came back out of the bathroom with damp hair, dressed in the sweatsuit. She sat on the end of the bed.
“Thank you for this,” she said, her voice still hoarse.
He went to the mini-fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. He cracked the seal and handed it to her. She took it and drank half of it without stopping. Blaze watched her from the table.
“How did you get here? Have you seen Stella?”
She nodded.
“They brought her in. She tried to shift, and they got distracted trying to contain a grizzly. I took the opportunity to escape. Stella gave me the hotel address, so I flew straight here. When I first got out of the building, I flew up pretty high to get my bearings. I recognized the brick chimney sticking up from a factory that I could see from the warehouse where they hold thefights. I followed the river to the warehouse and then found the hotel three blocks past that.
“Did you see any street names near the building where they’re holding Stella?”
“It’s on Rail Yard Road.”
Blaze dialed Axel and quickly relayed what he’d learned from Nell.
“I have it. The old Westgate Cold Storage. I’m sending the address to Dom now.”
The raid stagingpoint was a fenced lot behind a closed auto-body shop three blocks east of the Westgate building. Dom’s Suburban was already parked along the back wall when Blaze arrived. Ryder had stayed back at the hotel with Nell. A panel van sat at the rear of the lot with its back doors open and the pack’s gear lay out across the floor of it. Two unmarked sedans were tucked against the chain link.
Dom started to fill him in as soon as he joined the team gathering near the back of the van. “Detective Reynolds and Officer Holt drove down from Fate Mountain. They got here twenty minutes ago. Holt's on the breach with us; Reynolds takes the perimeter.”
“Two grizzlies on the team is good. We have heavy if we need it,” Blaze said.
“PD will come in once the building is secure.”
Siren was pulling a tactical vest on over a long-sleeve compression shirt. Hunter was beside her tightening the straps of his own vest.
Valeria’s brother, Gabriel Reynolds, was the taller of the two, with thick dark hair and brown eyes. Andre Holt was a few inches shorter and broader in the shoulders. He’d taken the missing person’s report from Stella and had been waiting for something to move on all this time.
Dom pulled the team in close at the back of the van. There was a schematic of the Westgate building taped to the inside of one of the open doors. The building was a long rectangle with a corridor that ran the length of it. There were doors on both sides. Nell had said they were the holding rooms. There was a reinforced room at the back where Nell had said they’d taken Stella.
The plan was short. Pack through the south door in human form. Hunter on point. Blaze would split off to find Stella. Siren would take the holding room. Reynolds would stay on the perimeter, ready to come in once the building was secure for arrests and victim transport.
“Any questions?”
Nobody had any.
Blaze sat in the back of Dom’s Suburban with Hunter on one side and Siren on the other. The wolf was right under his skin. Stella was in the building somewhere ahead of him, and he didn’t know what state he’d find her in.
The Suburban stopped at the corner and Dom killed the engine. Axel’s voice came through the comms. “South door clear. Reynolds is in position on the perimeter.”
“South stack on me,” Dom said.
They went out fast, up the sidewalk on the south side of the building. The wall was cinderblock and windowless. The pedestrian door was forty feet ahead. Dom looked at Blaze once.
“Let’s bring her home.”
Blaze didn’t answer.
Andre and Dom swung a battering ram on the south entrance, and the door hit the concrete inside. Hunter went through first. A guard twenty feet down was reaching for his radio when Hunter closed the distance and tackled him. The guard’s head bounced off the concrete. Hunter came down with a knee on his chest and a hand on his throat. Siren stepped past with her sidearm up.
Blaze picked up Stella’s scent and followed it deeper into the building. He moved fast. Weapon up. A guard came around the corner, and Blaze put him on the floor before the man got his hands up. He zip tied the guard and kept moving. Stella’s scent was growing stronger with each step.
