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“We don’t yet know if she’s on the site, Cay,” Poseidon repeated.
“He still has her.Mithras has her!” I shouted. “Whether she’s part of a fucking auction or not, hehasher.” I clenched my hands into tight fists. “I cannot…”
Could not what? Think? Act? Plan? Even as much as put one foot in front of the other? “Why can’t you understand?” I covered my face again, as if doing so would keep the anguish, the bloodcurdling fear raging inside me from coming out. If I gave further voice to it, would it make it more real?
“The team is waiting. Let’s return inside,” said Ares, motioning for me to follow.
“I cannot,” I repeated, turning away from both men when I caught a glance between them.
“We’ll be in shortly,” Poseidon assured him. Maybe he bloody would, but I had no intention of doing so.
When Ares nodded and walked away, I looked out over the barns that housed the Andalusian horse-breeding operation my mother had begun on the estate before I was born. Stalls upon stalls held broodmares and their foals. Before they became yearlings, the majority of those foals would be weaned from their mothers and auctioned. What right did my mum have to rip a helpless animal from the only home it had ever known and sell it to the highest bidder? It sickened me. Was that what Bexli had been reduced to? No better than an animal on an auction block? I jumped up, stood by the tree, and lost the contents of my stomach.
“Cay?” I felt Poseidon’s hand on my back and took the handkerchief he offered.
“I must rescue her. There is no other option. Imust, Kai.”
“Not you alone.Wewill find her and bring her home safely.”
“I cannot endure the maddeningly slow pace of what Ares is suggesting. Was there anything in the brief from Oleander about where she believes these victims are being held?”
“I’m not certain. We can return to the house and review it in more depth.”
I shook my head and walked in the opposite direction, toward the garages.
Poseidon raced around me, grabbed my upper arms, and forced me to look at him. “You want to find Bexli? Get your arse inside and help us do it.”
I pushed him off me hard enough that he stumbled backwards. What if, when it came down to it, doing it by the book wasn’t enough? What if the mission failed? The idea it might, paralyzed me.
“We’ll do this together, Cay,” he repeated. “You won’t be alone. Zep, Mag, Ares—all of us—we’ll find her together. We can’t do that until we get in there and make a plan. Are you coming with me or not?”
“Go ahead. I’ll follow when I’m ready.”
His eyes bored into mine as he shook his head. Finally, he turned and walked away.
When I pulled out my mobile, the photo of Bexli with Moretti behind her was still on the screen. Bile rose in my throat again as I weighed doing as Ares and Poseidon had asked—return inside while they planned a mission—versus the idea I was beginning to formulate. I’d bid on Bexli myself. The pockets of my family’s wealth were deep. I could literally pay millions for her without giving it a second thought. Regardless of the cost, no price was too great to bring her home safely.
The stark reality was that Bexli was my life. It may have stunned her to hear me say so, but regardless of how she felt about me, she was my one great love. In the back of my mind, I always saw us together eventually. Had the day come when Bex married someone else, I still would’ve held out ridiculous hope it wouldn’t last. Only—God forbid—her death would’ve ended my dream of a romantic relationship between us.
“Dad, there’s a matter of urgency I must speak with you about,” I said when he answered my call.
“Winston, are you all right?” The worry for me I heard in my father’s voice was the same I felt for Bex.
“I’m not, Dad, but it’s Bexli.”
“What’s happened?”
He and my mum knew she’d traveled to Milan and about her dream of being a fashion model. “It wasn’t what it seemed, Dad. The man in Milan is a human trafficker. Sex slaves. She’s being auctioned.”
My father gasped. “Dear God.”
“I need to go get her, Dad. Before it’s too late.”
“Of course. Whatever we need to do, we’ll do it. Where are you now?”
“Still in Shere.”
“Your mum and I will come to you posthaste. We’ll figure this out, son.”
