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“Lina,” I breathed. “He married that bitch?”
The woman let out a small chuckle.
“Your mother never trusted her,” she admitted. “So neither did we. We continued in secret. We have kept your mother’s legacy alive, the legacy of the Vixens, in the hope that one day you would get to witness what she built. For you.”
Gunshots startled me from asking more questions. The women didn’t seem bothered. Just prepared. Screams of pain seeped through the locked door. More gunshots. Someone was yelling orders.
“What’s going on?”
Yelena looked back at me, a smile on her face.
“Time for you to go home, little vixen. There are some people here who have worked very hard to rescue you.”
“Who?”
37
“We need to breach soon.”
Seamus fidgeted with his gun, a sign that he was anxious. We all were. None of us knew how this was going to play out, but we did know one thing. We’d get Bailey back or die trying.
“How is it that you have people on the inside?” my father asked Eriksen as he strapped on his Kevlar.
“Not me,” the large Nordic man boomed. “Vixens.”
“I thought they all died the night of the massacre.”
“There were a few who survived. They were barely alive when we got to them,” he admitted with a shrug. “It took nearly two years for them to fully recover and be able to leave my compound safely.”
“And now they what? Go undercover as whores to take down trafficking rings?” I asked.
The bearded man nodded. “Well, not them. They could never pass as workers. Not with their injuries,” he pointed out. “Most are the children of the original vixens or women Elizabeth and her people saved. After her death, they wanted to honor her. They’ve slowly been dismantling the underground brothels for all these years.”
“How long have they been undercover here?”
Eriksen scrunched his nose. “Too long.”
“Did you know?” Seamus asked from beside me. “About Lina and Sarah?”
He shook his head sadly. “I’d known that Lina was up to something. She’d always been a social climber, even in the club. She was always clinging to me. Making snide comments about Elizabeth. I should have suspected something back then. Elizabeth had voiced her concerns about her but…well…she was a club favorite. I can’t believe I was so blind.”
“They had it planned all along,” my father told him. “Crowe put everything into motion a long time ago. From the looks of it, he spent a pretty penny to make sure no one recognized Lina as Marilina.”
Eriksen’s throat bobbed. “I never once thought Lina would betray me.”
“That isn’t an excuse,” I bit out. “You knew she was a social climber. You were so focused on doing everything Crowe ordered that you didn’t bother to look around and see what was right under your nose.”
“And there is nothing I regret more than that,” he promised. “Trust me. And I’ll spend a lifetime making up for my mistakes. As will you.”
“You can count on that,” Seamus and I vowed.
Eriksen smiled. “I’m glad she found you two. Even if it is a little—unconventional.”
“Should be our new family motto,” my father muttered beneath his breath, and we laughed.
“Everyone in position?” Vas, my sister’s right-hand man and former Sovietnik to her husband, asked over the comms. In the wake of her husband’s death, she’d taken on the mantle ofPahkan.
“All set,” I responded. “Make sure my sister stays safe.”
