“Where are the other girls?” I asked. There was no way he came to Toronto for simply one girl. Even two. He had to have more and I took a chance asking, but I needed him to think I wanted to go into business with him. What I was doing was delaying. I was waiting for Deck who I called from my car on the way to the location. I couldn’t give it to him before we’d arrived, so he was trying to get here—fast.
Deck had already been looking for Emily, but when I mentioned Georgie, he went stone silent. What was a ‘be there in ten,’ changed to ‘be there in five.’
“Here. Awaiting shipment,” he replied.
I tensed. That was what I needed to know.
Jacob’s shoulders stiffened and I put my hand on my knife. He pulled his gun, turned, and shot Alfonzo in the head.
Alfonzo dropped to the ground.
I didn’t flinch. I remained leaning against the machinery, my hand on London’s head, making sure she didn’t move.
“I told him, I don’t meet clients. He didn’t listen,” Jacob said.
“So that would make me a liability.”
“Your offer piqued my interest.” Jacob paused. “I require a base to bring the girls before auction. You can provide me with that.”
My hand stilled in London’s hair as I heard a footstep. Deck. Time to finish this. “Who has been providing since Raul’s death?”
Jacob slipped his gun back into his belt. “No one. This is our first shipment in over a year. That guy Deck and his men have been all over us, and now, Alfonzo screwed up taking that one.” He nodded to Chaos. “I don’t make mistakes, Kai. I’m careful. Alfonzo wasn’t.”
“Oh, but you made a mistake, Jacob.” I smiled.
Jacob was quick. Before I even finished the sentence, he dove and rolled and my knife narrowly missed his throat. Fuck.
“Raven. Go to the girls,” I ordered.
I didn’t wait to see if she did because I knew she’d do anything I told her. I kept low as I snuck across the warehouse pausing behind a conveyor belt. I nodded to Deck who was approaching from the back of the warehouse.
Jacob disappeared behind floor-to-ceiling shelves, but I saw his feet as he circled around. And I knew exactly what he was doing and where he was headed. Shit. Keeping low and covered, I made my way back to the girls and came out into the clearing just as Jacob grabbed London hauling her up against his chest.
I came up on his left, my knife at my side.
“Let her go.” My gaze drilled into Jacob and my fingers tightened around the hilt of my knife. I was pretty fuckin’ sure I could kill him before his finger pressed the trigger.
London whimpered as Jacob’s hold tightened.
“In seconds, I can shoot Sculpt’s woman and snap your slave’s neck.”
“Then do it,” I said. I never took well to threats and I was betting he wasn’t going to kill both girls. If he did, he was dead.
Deck was crouched behind a pile of barrels on Jacob’s right. Our eyes met and he chin-lifted to me. I threw my knife at the same time as Sculpt dove out from behind the barrels and took Emily down, protecting her with his body.
My knife sliced through the air and into Jacob’s neck, so close to London’s ear I saw a speck of blood on the outer edge of the lobe.
Jacob’s gun went off, but it was a knee-jerk reaction as his body swayed. London scrambled from his hold and fell to her hands and knees, blood splattered over her face and chest.
Jacob’s hand still held his gun while his other went to his neck, blood seeping between his fingers as he tried to stop the flow around the knife.
He was a dead man any second, but I knew why Deck approached, raised his gun and shot him in the chest several times. It was a man’s need to put bullets in the guy who hurt his girl.
Jacob fell backwards. The gun slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor.
I strode over, yanked my knife from his neck, wiped the blood off on Jacob’s body then put it in the sheath at my waist. Then I went to London.
She was still on the floor as I crouched beside her. Fuck, I wanted so badly to pull her into my arms, tell her it was over. That the men who hurt her would never touch her again.
But for her, it wasn’t over. It was the beginning of finding her way back from what was done to her.
“Baby,” I murmured.
She closed her eyes, but kept her head down.
I gently put my arm around her and cursed under my breath at how much weight she’d lost. I felt Deck’s lethal stare as he was on his knees beside Chaos.
I turned back to London.
“London.” She didn’t respond and I closed my eyes as a wave of pain went through me.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
She spent years with Jacob and Alfonzo and seeing her like this hurt. No, it fuckin’ killed. Torture had nothing on this. The beauty of what London had always given me—lightness—was gone and that destroyed me.
I helped her stand then guided her over to Deck and the others. I saw Deck run his finger over the needle mark on Georgie’s arm. “Heroin,” I said.