Chapter 10 Convict With frantic swipes, I spooled back to when I'd left with Annabelle, then watched as Mila huddled in on herself and faced the door. The other lass didn't return. Neither did the fourth. Mila was left alone for nearly an hour. Then right at the end, a figure burst in. Salter. The man Tyler wanted. At last, he'd shown up. I zoomed in to watch the bastard. Rings glinted on his fingers, and he indicated for Mila to go into the hall with a single word. Hunched down with obvious fear, she left. I couldn't see or hear any more of their interaction, no matter how hard I listened. Nothing happened until minutes later when at fucking last, she was marched out of the building and into a waiting vehicle. Salter gripped the back of her neck. He'd lose the fucking hand he'd touched her with, one ringed finger at a time. A few moments on, and two men half carried out another person, a much bigger man, tied up and with his head covered. They shoved him into a second car. Both drove away, and with them went my last sight of Mila. The only other event on the video was the final two women, picked up and driven away separately, but by that point, I was losing my mind. She'd been taken, and I had no clue where. A set of headlights fell over where I stood in the doorway of my car, and Tyler exited a big gunmetal grey 4X4, landing heavily on the tarmac. He spotted me. "Problem?" "All the problems." The hulking intercept guy approached, exhaustion hanging over him like a cloud. While I'd been carrying out my surveillance, according to Shade, Tyler had travelled north to a Scottish port town, spending long nights trying to uncover another trafficking ring. Tyler indicated to my car, and we used it as an office. He regarded me from the passenger seat. "Talk." I hauled in a breath. "Salter showed up. Mila is gone. I've fucked up." He let me run through it all, giving me the space to explain what I'd done. As I spoke, I realised my failure. "I should've called you. If I'd acted faster, we could've had people there." "Aye, perhaps. But I only asked you to watch, not take action. I have no evidence on Salter yet. Only anecdotal. I can't prioritise the man without being sure he's up to something." "Tonight changes that, doesn't it? He took Mila. She said herself that they were there to auction themselves to dirty old men." Tyler scrubbed his cheek, his stubble thick with a couple of days of growth. "The point is that the women opted in. I don't like it, but my job is to protect those who are taken by force." I stared at him with confusion. "You won't act based on what I saw and heard? Mila warned the kid that there could be violence." "Could be versus undoubtedly has been. Compare that to a girl ripped from her bed in a foreign country, controlled by threat or pain, thrown on a boat, and transported here. No phone, no way to contact her loved ones. Or worse, the loved ones selling her into it as they're desperate. I repeat that I don't fucking like what you've told me, but if Salter is facilitating women selling themselves willingly, that pushes him down my list of men to take out, not up. And that list is fucking long." Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the (F)indNƟvᴇl.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "She asked to leave and was denied." "The girl you got out, right? Leaving three willing victims." He wasn't going to help me. I swore and glowered out of the front window. I was on my own. I sensed Tyler's stare. "What aren't you telling me?" He shoved my uninjured arm. "I just laid out my logic, and you're fighting a battle inside your head. Why? Is it the woman, Mila? Is there something about her?" Bitterness flooded my tongue. "Nothing that would change your priorities." Tyler gave a short, hard laugh. "My priorities are that way because of the scale of what I'm up against. I'd never turn my back on a woman in need. You should know that." I gunned the engine. Somewhere, Mila was being held. I was sure of it. "Get out. I'm going to go find her." "Then I'll go with you." I gaped at him. "You're exhausted. You have other places to be." Tyler closed his eyes and hunkered down in the seat. "I'd never leave a crew member to fend for himself. I can't pull a team to work on this, but you can have my time. I've got your back, always. Slight issue is I haven't slept in two days. If I pass out, then wake me when we get wherever we're going." True to his word, he was almost instantly asleep, dropped like a tranquilised bear. I half expected snoring that registered on seismographs while suffering whiplash from feeling rejected to loved. This was what it meant to have a crew. He'd given me a task with set parameters. I wanted to operate outside of those, and he was right there with me. I pulled out of the warehouse car park to retrace my steps across the city, this time, with a sleeping Tyler in tow. At Milburne Alley, I watched the building for a while, though the cameras showed no activity since all the vehicles had left. Then I shook Tyler awake and left him as lookout while I scoped out the place. In the darkness, I prowled from room to room, finding nothing. Not a trace of anyone having been here. Except for the fucking phone Mila didn't have a chance to take. When I returned to the car, Tyler was nowhere in sight. I spun on my heel, searching the shadows. A low whistle gave up his location. I squinted, and he stepped out of a doorway, amusement bleeding through his exhaustion at how easily he'd hidden from me. In a rush of memory, his skeleton crew name returned to me. "Just like a ghost," I muttered. Tyler grinned, and we returned to the car. "Where next?" He hunkered down once more. "To the girl I drove away from here." He slept again for the drive across the city then woke to play bodyguard while I knocked on Annabelle's door. Her mother answered and summoned the kid. "We're not here for anything bad. I just need to know everything you know about that place." Annabelle hung her head. Since I'd brought her back, she'd changed into pyjamas with pug faces on them, and looked even more of the child she was. "My boyfriend arranged it. I mean my ex-boyfriend. You just missed him." "Let me guess, he was angry that you didn't go through with it, and the money I gave you wasn't enough." Annabelle toed the floor with a fluffy slipper boot. "He was angry, but I didn't get the chance to tell him about the cash. Mila made me realise what I'd been persuaded to do, and I told him I wouldn't agree to it again. He threw a fit and broke up with me. I'm glad he's gone." Her tear-lined face said the opposite, but at least she was able to keep the cash. From the run-down street, the dirty house, and the recycling box filled with vodka bottles, the girl needed every bit of help she could get. I took the ex-boyfriend's details and left her. Tracking the jackass down was child's play, with Tyler having access to all manner of resources that gave us an address. But when we found him in a gaming session with his friends, all the ashen-faced lad could tell us was Salter had come to him at an amusement arcade. He didn't even have a phone number, only a time and date when he'd had to hand Annabelle over. Another dead end. Dawn shattered the sky when we returned to the warehouse. I'd failed. I had nowhere else to search. Even Tyler's efforts in getting a lead from his multiple contacts came to naught. No one could tell us where an auction might be happening. I'd gone from complete access to Mila to none. She could be hurt right now, and I couldn't help her. She might even have been sold. All I could hope for was that she'd find a way out herself. She'd told me she could. I hated that I'd probably never know. Aday later, and game night was upon us. The darkest night of the month. On any average evening, the warehouse was busy. Weekends saw long queues outside the nightclub, but today, the crowd rushed the other side. For the rooms available to rent in the brothel where they could watch the fun happening in the basement below via livestreaming cameras. I prowled the building, taking no joy from the party atmosphere. With Shade, I'd prepped the basement, checking the cages, the locks, and the cameras, then I'd worked with the different teams in the building, making sure everyone had what they needed for the busy night. Half the men and a couple of the women had arrived already, and I needed to prepare for the moment the siren sounded. I strode the busy corridor between Divine and Divide, passing sex workers and dancers who would make bank tonight, and entered the lift. Tyler was already inside and held the door for me. The haunted exhaustion had gone from his eyes when he scanned me. "You okay?" I shrugged. I'd been on an emotional roller coaster. High from the release from the hospital, low from the certainty that I'd been a bad person to my crew, then up and down again from meeting and losing Mila. Throwing myself into work had done nothing to ease my worry over her. He let me brood, but when the doors opened for the fifth floor, he walked out with me, and his gaze stuck on a woman approaching down the corridor, her platinum-blonde hair bouncing. "Dixie," he said in a low tone. She did a double take at him, and her gaze jumped to me. She forced a smile. "Convict, just who I was looking for. Can we talk? In private?" I shrugged, and she peeked again at Tyler, but then twirled away with a gesture for me to follow. Tyler gave her a long look but returned to the lift, travelling on to wherever he was going. I trailed Dixie down to the opposite end of the hall to where I slept, following her into a bedroom. Like mine, it was lived-in, with clothes and makeup around. Not a room for use by the cam girls and boys. I squinted at it. "Dixie, are you sleeping up here, too?" She shrugged, her wide-necked top sliding over one slender shoulder. The bandage at her throat had been replaced with a smaller one, closer in colour to her skin. She touched the edge of it. "I feel safer here. Don't like to sleep alone at home." I hadn't purposefully asked around for Dixie's story, but through conversations in the warehouse, I knew that the Deadwater serial killer had cut her throat and left her for dead. That murderer had been dealt with, in the permanent sense, but the scars left on my friend weren't just skin-deep. Folding my arms, I rested against her wall. "What's the deal with Tyler?" "There's no deal. Think he just feels sorry for me, hun. I don't need that." "Or, he likes what he sees," I decided. "Maybe once, he did. Not anymore." I released a laugh. "Are you kidding? Dixie, you're hot as fuck." She scowled at me. I held my hands up. "I didn't mean it in that way. My dick literally only works for one woman, and it ain't you. I'm just saying that he admires you. I've seen it more than once." She perked up. "Who's the mystery woman? Name, bra size, compelling facts. Spill the tea." "Her name's Mila." "Cute. Is that short for something?" I frowned. Was it? Her name had got me nowhere in my search for her. Perhaps that was a clue, but not one I could obsess over this evening. My phone chimed with an incoming message. Security had a new protocol for the contestants as they arrived for the game. Manny's team were responsible for the list, but a picture was taken of each then sent to management. Tonight, that was me. I checked the three photos. All men, all expected, the last being Rhys Jacobs. By now, they would've been escorted downstairs. There was only one person I couldn't vouch for. A woman named E Marchant who Shade had spoken to. I'd check off her picture with him once I got it. Something was bothering me about Jacobs. Since the interview, it had niggled at my mind though drowned out by my concerns over Mila. It was about his degree of interest in the protection the skeleton crew could offer him. There was no way that would be the primary thought for a guy who'd dreamt of hunting and fucking a woman, but he'd made a point of referencing it. At the time, I'd dismissed it, assuming he'd heard the story Shade told me about the loser who'd turned stalker. But what if I was wrong? I lifted my gaze to Dixie. "Did you hear about a guy who lost the game and went after one of the women?" She tilted her head in a thinking pose. "Vaguely? I think it was last year." "How well known was it?" "Outside of the warehouse? I'm not sure. Why?" I exhaled and tried to dislodge the strange feeling. It was the type of dark gossip that would be shared between men. Some guy brought down by stronger men. I was overthinking. "Never mind. I need to get ready. Are you done using me as a human shield against Tyler?" Dixie rolled her eyes then pointed at the bandage on my arm. "That needs changing again." A couple of days ago, I'd asked her to change my dressing while I kept my eyes closed. Sweetheart that she was, she'd obliged. I wrinkled my nose at my arm, twisting it to display the lifting edges of the medical tape. "Probably." "Still can't face it, huh? I'll do it for you." I thanked her. She treated my arm while I watched the door, my focus anywhere but on the burn scar. More contestants arrived, the pictures crowding my phone. At last, the sense of excitement built inside me. I was still too pissed off to enjoy it, but it sped my pulse and warmed my blood. In twenty minutes, the game would be underway. The fights would start. The fucking would follow. Dixie spoke as she worked. "I'm glad that this is happening tonight, I mean that Arran has given you the management of it. After what happened last time, most of us feel he owes you." "He owes me nothing," I said automatically. Then I hesitated. "What last time?" "When you went into the game? You broke his rule that none of the crew can take part, and he retaliated horribly." Shit, that's what I'd done? My stomach gutted out. I knew I'd broken faith in some way, but for Arran to give me a second chance that involved exactly the same risk to him made me nauseated. He'd trusted me once and was showing me he trusted me again. Or that he felt so bad that I'd been injured he'd overridden his better judgement. Another two photos landed on my phone. I checked and dismissed them. Only one left now. The last woman standing. "I don't remember that," I confessed. "Shit, bestie. It isn't right that your memory is still messed up." She taped down the fresh bandage on my arm. "You went into the game because you'd craved it, and Arran treated you like you were his worst enemy. None of what happened to you was right, but it started with Arran's delulu overreaction. That's when you were sent undercover, to make up for that plus some other minor things you'd done." "Maybe it wasn't an overreaction. I broke his rule, like you said." "I don't know. He's home in a couple of days. I want to watch him grovel. You're owed that." Dixie was done, and I thanked her and tugged down my grey shirtsleeve, half covering the bandage. I needed to get downstairs. I'd be the one to sound the siren. To unlock the cages. But hearing how I'd broken the rules in the past summoned a flash of a memory, and I stared into space, trying to focus on it. I'd been in the basement. I'd stalked a woman. I remembered the hunt and the feeling like no other. Why had I done it? A wave of certainty followed, raising the hair on the back of my neck. For the end result-the woman I'd get to claim and keep. I'd wanted someone to love who was mine and who'd love me back. A relationship I was sure I'd never had, though I didn't remember my history to know exactly how alone I'd been. The realisation threatened something deep inside me. Of a loneliness so acute it cut through me. Alone in the hospital. Alone before that. I pushed it away. I couldn't indulge that kind of thinking, not after where it had got me last time, where rejection from my crew had nearly ended my life. I had a second chance. I was certain over my future. Over the home I'd found and the forgiveness I didn't deserve. The faith the skeleton crew had put in me couldn't be tested again. A message titled 'Last contestant' arrived on my phone, and my pulse sped before I even checked it. They were all here. This was happening. I could watch but never join in. But the picture on my screen stole my breath and froze my heart. According to the text, the photo was for the final contestant on the list, no longer using her initial but giving her full name of Emilia Marchant. New clothes, her hair up, but in every other way herself. Mila had entered my game.