As soon as they made it into the house, Jared pointed at her and Steve. “You’re needed upstairs. Third door on the right.”
Without question, both Jill and Steve headed upstairs and were met by Adam and Slade.
Adam stopped, holding up his hand. “Don’t even say it.”
“Oh, you don’t get off that easy, bud.” Jill smirked, liking being right.
“She did tell you so,” Steve added with a smirk of his own. “She was pretty dead on.”
Noticing the stress on Adam’s face, her smirk disappeared quickly. “Is she okay?” Jill asked, her teasing tone gone, replaced with concern.
He nodded. “Yeah, she is.”
“Good. I’ll give you more shit later.” Jill couldn’t help but put the dig in at Adam before she glanced at Slade. “Jared told us to come up here.”
“We need you to interview some of the women before we release them to their families.” Slade turned, heading down the hallway.
Jill watched Adam go in the opposite direction, wondering what the hell was going on. Sloan didn’t tell them much on the way over, other than get their asses to his office pronto, and then they blindly followed him to his car.
Slade stopped in front of a door before he turned toward them. “Most of the women’s families have been contacted, but ask them to make sure. If they haven’t, then contact their families before interviewing them.”
“What are we interviewing them for?” Steve asked, peering around Slade to see into the room.
Jill also looked into the room and was shocked as she stared into the frightened eyes of some of the women, some who had eyes like hers. “Who are those women?” Jill’s eyes shot back to the women and then down the hall as Jared and Duncan disappeared into a room, only to return ushering out two men, one who claimed to be Angelina’s husband.
“They are a part of the trafficking ring,” Slade replied without further explanation, since the expression on Jill’s face said she’d worked it out already.
“But I thought we stopped that.” Jill’s eyes filled with anger.
“Unfortunately, it’s never going to stop,” Slade replied, his voice softening. “We only put a small dent in it that night.”
“So what I did was for nothing,” Jill hissed, anger clinching her stomach, making her feel sick.
“No, it stopped some of it, so I don’t think it was for nothing, Jill,” Steve added, touching her arm as he passed her.
“Well, it needs to stop,” she replied, before spotting Angelina. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to see no more women suffer at the hands of men like this.” She went to push past Slade, but he stopped her.
“What you did that night was not nothing, Jill,” Slade reassured, still holding onto her arm. “Never doubt what you did.”
The skin on her arm where he touched tingled, feeling nothing like when Steve touched her or anyone else for that matter. “It’s hard not to doubt when I see this.” She turned her head toward the women. “Why do people do this to other people?”
“Greed.” Slade’s voice was strong, his eyes seeing through her like no other.
Jill frowned with a shiver. “I remember how some of those men looked at me and greed had nothing to do with it.”
“You were safe.” Slade’s tone took on a protective, hard edge as he pulled her closer. “No one would have hurt you.”
Jill felt herself leaning toward him, everything around her disappearing. She was so drawn to this man, and even though he was sexy as sin, she knew it wasn’t that or at least not all of it anyway. She never was a visual type of girl going crazy over the cutest guy in school, one who her friends always went nuts over. No, it was something else entirely, and she felt it deeply, so deep it scared her.
“Some of the families are down on the street waiting,” Damon informed them as he came up behind Jill.
Slade dropped Jill’s arm like she was diseased, taking a step back. “Find out who has been interviewed and let them go to their families, unless they’ve been turned. In that case, they are either going with us or to another Warrior compound in the area,” Slade ordered her, his protectiveness turned to bossiness. “Make sure we have their contact information.”
“Yes, sir.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. “Anything else, sir?”