Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

88

THERON

It wasn’t possible.

I saw her get shot.

This just couldn’t be real. But even as I thought it, I knew in my gut it was my Emersyn—the Little Red Riding Hood drawing solidified it. She’d been alive that night in the woods.

And I left her.

I didn’t even feel the drops as it started to rain. From my position sitting on the steps, I was quickly soaked. I’m not sure how long I was outside before Nyx came out and put a hand on my shoulder startling me.

“Come on, Griffin is taking us to his safe house. We can talk about what to do next. This place creeps me out.”

I nodded and climbed to my feet, wiping rain off my face. I didn’t go back into the house though. I couldn’t face the darkness there and instead made my way around the side. Knight was already loaded up in the SUV and Gabriel was in his vehicle with the rest of his team. The drive over was silent and heavy. The men knew better than to say anything.

When we got to the house, I changed into dry clothes before finding everyone sitting on bar stools in the kitchen while Gabriel threw some food together and handed out beers. I sat down and drank half of the bottle he handed me in one go. He looked at me with a ghost of a smile on his lips before he reached into a different cabinet and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass.

He slid both in front of me without a word.

The guys were talking amongst each other as I threw back two shots back to back. There was too much noise going on in my head. How was she still alive? What happened after I’d run?

I left her.

“How do you find out about these boarding houses?”

Atlas asked.

Gabriel handed sandwiches out to everyone before leaning back against the kitchen counter and taking a sip of his own beer.

“I have informants, sometimes I’ll interview girls if they escape or we rescue them. Sometimes I go undercover if it’s a big ring.”

“How did you even find her name?”

Nyx asked.

“We go through every grooming house with a fine-tooth comb. You never know what evidence the traffickers will leave behind or what clues the girls will leave. Often it’s their journals, or drawings or like in this instance a name on a wall—that leads us to rescuing them. My men will continue to go through that house board by board until we’re done then we’ll burn it to the ground.”

He took another sip of his beer. “You have to remember, sometimes these girls just up and disappear from their families, so any evidence we find, we try to get the information out to the families if possible so they can either have hope…or closure.”

I took another shot.

“Where do the women go after the boarding houses?”

Nyx asked.

“The auctions usually, or a middleman. Some auctions are for rich individuals but there are also ones that center around—”

he paused as though trying to think of the correct words. “—destination experiences I guess you could call them. There are a few islands and private resorts that supply women to their patrons for a price. They usually cater to certain kinks, illegal ones mostly.”

“How do I find Emersyn?” I asked.

I poured another shot.

“The boarding houses usually distribute to the same places. The difficult part will be if she went straight to auction because the records after the auction house are vague at best.”

Gabriel finished his beer and set the bottle down.

“I have to warn you,”

he said. “I spoke to one of the girls from this boarding house and she said Emersyn aged out shortly after she got there. I couldn’t get an accurate timeline—could be months, could be years, time turns into your enemy when you’re trafficked—if I had to guess though I’d say over a year ago. There’s something else you should know—the girl mentioned Emersyn had a scar running down the side of her face. This was why she remembered her and also why Emersyn aged out because I guess none of the usual buyers wanted to buy her.”

The silence was so heavy I could feel myself choking on it. I must have paled significantly because Gabriel’s usually passive face grew concerned. I shoved off the bar stool and threw back another shot.

“North—”

Nyx said, but I held up a hand.

Yeah, she’d have a scar—

I fucking put it there.

It was my fault. All of it.

I left her.

“What are the odds of finding someone?”

My voice came out hoarse.

Gabriel hesitated but shook his head. “Not ideal. There are a lot of variables.”

I could still feel the knife in my hand. Her shaking sobs assaulted me anew. I closed my eyes briefly and shoved the memory away.

“Can you get me the records from the boarding house?” I asked.

“I’ll have my men bring them over tomorrow morning. This particular boarding house we’ve been watching for a while, which is why I say it had to have been over a year ago that she was there because we’ve been sitting on this one for nearly eight months.”

I nodded and stood up, leaving my sandwich untouched. I grabbed the bottle of whiskey before heading towards the back of the house where I’d seen a patio with some chairs. The alcohol sat like a weight in my stomach, heavy and unyielding. I collapsed into a plastic chair. It protested as I sagged forward over my forearms, bottle dangling between my legs. I took another drink and leaned back.

I’d thought she was dead for so long. I saw it happen.

But you didn’t confirm it. You should always confirm it.

What if this time she was really dead? What if she died before I could get to her? I didn’t know what I would do if we found out she was actually dead. It would be like losing her all over again except the guilt would drown me. I had a decade of time available to me to search for her if I had known she was out there.

I took another drink, trying to drown the sick feeling but it only made me feel worse.

I heard the door open and Knight settled in a chair next to me, reaching for the bottle. I let him take it and we sat in silence drinking for a while.

“She must hate me,”

I said finally, staring off across the sloping lawn of the safe house. “I–I hurt her and then—abandoned her.”

My voice broke. “I could have been spending all of this time searching for her!”

I stood up, fury rising in me as I paced the length of the stone laid patio.

“You didn’t know,”

Knight said.

“No, but I should have,”

I snarled. “I–I saw him shoot her. I saw him shoot her in the head, Trent.”

I paced some more, trying to keep my emotions at bay but like the storm rolling in above us, it was getting harder to hold it all in.

“What kind of father gives up on their kid?”

I stopped, my back to Knight, running a hand over my face to get rid of the tears silently falling. “I fucking failed her.”

“You haven’t failed,”

Knight said.

“Yes I have…too many times to count,”

I growled.

Knight came to stand next to me and I took the bottle he extended my way.

“Well, now you have another chance,” he said.

“What if she really is dead this time?”

I muttered after taking a sip.

“Then nothing changes and you continue with your plan for revenge.”

“It’ll be like losing her all over again.”

Knight nodded. “Probably.”

“You’re a great pep talker, you know that?”

I grumbled, handing him the bottle back.

He laughed and nudged my shoulder. “You know it’s not one of my strong suits.”

“But you’re always there for me anyway,” I sighed.

“You’re stuck with me, old man,”

Knight said, taking a long drink.

“Fuck, are we old?”

“Nah, although missions hurt more now, that’s for sure,”

Knight said. “I’d kill for my twenty-year-old body again. That thing was resilient as fuck! I could sleep on the hard ground for a week and then go get in a fight.”

My lips turned up in a smile but it didn’t reach my eyes.

“We look damn good for fifty though,”

Knight smirked.

I took another drink, realizing with a jolt that I’d turned fifty and hadn’t even stopped to acknowledge it. I’d been going full speed ahead for the last decade and now that I knew Emersyn was alive, it was just one more thing on my plate.

“We’ll find her,”

Knight said. “And then we’ll kill Vetticus…and anyone else who needs to die.”

He turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“You accomplished what you set out to do all those years ago when you showed up on my doorstep with a vendetta and a dream. Now you have an empire, you have the financing and firepower. But most importantly, you have us—and we’re ready.”