Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

103

FLASHBACK

THERON

ROME, ITALY

It killed me to leave Kaelin. But the thought of finding my daughter overrode everything—even though I knew I was probably leaving Kaelin in some asshole’s careless hands. I wanted nothing more than to take the men I had with me and take her from Cooper by force but I didn’t have time.

My team picked me up at the Warren and Nyx immediately filled me in on a message Deathwing had sent. He’d scheduled a raid and he’d heard someone matching Emersyn’s description may have been there—may still currently be there. So that’s where we were headed.

We landed in Rome, and Deathwing was waiting for us with a blacked out SUV on the airstrip.

“How was the Warren?”

He asked as we greeted each other.

“He found himself a girl,”

Nyx said over my shoulder.

Deathwing raised his eyebrows at me, something close to a smile pulling at his lips as he greeted Nyx and Atlas next, before nodding to West and Lachlan behind them.

“That’s unexpected,” he said.

“Tell me about it,”

Nyx continued. “Apparently we have to extract her though. Cooper is holding on a bit too tight.”

“Well, if you need help, let me know,”

he gestured to the SUV, and we all piled in. “What else did you find?”

“I laid the groundwork with Greg and should have an invitation to the next Red Auction.”

“First name basis already?”

Deathwing glanced over at me as he pulled out of the airport. “You move fast. You sure you don’t want to come work for me?”

We got to the safe house and Deathwing led us immediately into a large room for a briefing.

“Gentlemen,”

he said, addressing his team of men already gathered around. He pointed to two floor to ceiling screens where Rune had the mission specs pulled up. “This specific operation distributes to Palmero and Mahoney, however there are also a few middlemen we’ve seen come and go. North and his team are here to assist—it’s rumored his daughter may have been sighted in this den.”

Deathwing went over the mission plans and the directives which were to sweep the warehouse, take one or two of the men captive for questioning and then send the recovery and clean-up crew to take care of the girls and sweep the place for all information.

“We move out tomorrow at 0600,”

Deathwing said. “Dismissed.”

The next morning, I stood at a table in the safe house aggressively cleaning and loading my guns.

I was trying to keep myself under control when all I wanted to do was to storm the place immediately. Screw guns, I wanted to get at these people with my bare hands. Just the thought of how Emersyn could be in there right now was driving me insane. But this was Deathwing’s operation, and I knew better than to let my emotions dictate my actions. As much as I wanted to go rogue, that would only get me and my men killed.

The rest of my team had arrived late last night and I nodded to Tex, Sakari and Knox who were inventorying their own weapons and making friends with Deathwing’s crew. I felt Nyx’s eyes on me from across the table where he was cleaning and readying his own guns—a lot less aggressively. I looked up, and he raised his eyebrows, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“You good?”

I finished with my AR and started loading bullets into a mag.

“What do you think?”

I growled.

His face grew hard, and he nodded. “I can’t imagine how you must feel. If it was my sister I thought was in there—”

He shook his head.

I sighed and put everything down, resting both palms flat on the table and leaning over it.

“My nerves are shot,”

I admitted.

“I know, that’s why you have Atlas and me at your back,”

he said, his grin back in place. “We’ll be there in case you need to unleash hell.”

Atlas walked up and slung an arm around Nyx’s shoulders. He leaned in and whispered something to Nyx that made his eyes shadow and the barest hint of color stain his cheekbones.

“Fuck,”

Nyx breathed. “Promise?”

He turned to Atlas and bit his lip as he looked at him. Atlas brought his thumb to Nyx’s lip and pulled it out of his teeth.

“Don’t do that,”

Atlas said gruffly. “Makes me want to do naughty things and we don’t have time.”

“We always have time,” Nyx said.

“Jesus, you two,”

I teased. “Get a room.”

Atlas chuckled and looked over at me. “Don’t worry, we’ll grab your girl on the way home. Then you won’t be so salty.”

“You think she’d let us join in?”

Nyx perked up, looking way too excited about that prospect. He held up his hands. “Or watch, I’m not picky.”

“She’s known him for five days,”

Atlas said. “Let them get to know each other more before we insert ourselves.”

“I mean, T did say he wouldn’t be opposed to finding a girl we could all share. It was pretty hot with Red,”

Nyx insisted. “With T ordering us around and everything—”

His grin was contagious, and I shook my head, unable to hide my own anymore.

“We’ll see how it goes,”

I muttered.

Somehow both of them always got me back on track and calmed me down which I knew was their intent all along.

We swept through the dingy warehouse.

It was dark and stuffy and smelled like sex, fear and death. Deathwing and I were in lead pushing through the main door. There were also two teams going through the back. Rune was in our ear with a play-by-play from the cameras he’d hacked. When we entered, we were in a long narrow hallway where part of the warehouse had been sectioned off into rooms. There were girls of various ages chained inside.

Deathwing and I quickly took out two men in the hallway and Nyx and Atlas entered the first room, pulling a man off the girl chained to the bed. I didn’t wait around but heard Nyx unload a clip into the man’s face.

Deathwing and I continued down the hallway as the teams behind us swept through the rooms. We reached a door at the far end and I lifted my gun and gave Deathwing a nod. He pushed open the door, surprising a group of men who jumped to their feet, grabbing for their guns. I shot two in my sector before I was on the third. I slammed my gun against his face and shot the man coming up behind him. A Glock was aimed at my face, I shoved his arm down at the last second and the shot hit his friend across the room. The anger surged up inside me as the thought of these men putting their hands on my daughter took over every rational space in my mind. It took all of my self control not to beat these men to a pulp with my bare hands. They didn’t deserve the quick death my bullets were giving them.

With the room secured, Deathwing and I moved to the next door. This time I pushed it open, and he entered, but the room was clean.

“Sector one all clear. Report in,”

Deathwing said over comms.

All teams reported all clear.

“Two taken alive. We have them restrained in Sector three.”

“Copy that. Hold there for now.”

One of Deathwing’s men appeared. “Boss, you need to see this.”

He led us to the back of the warehouse and into a room that must have been their command center. All along one wall were printed headshots of girls. There had to be at least a hundred of them lined up and labeled with a number. I walked up to them, my eyes scanning each one, only to land on a pair of raging grey eyes so like mine, it made my heart stop.

Emersyn.

I hadn’t seen her in so long. In my mind she’d stayed a child, frozen in time. Always my little girl.

But a father knows his daughter and there weren’t any doubts this was her. When I learned she was alive, West and Rune had tried everything to find an image of her but they weren’t successful. Now, here she was, staring at me with eyes as hard as steel and so haunted it made me sick.

I ripped it from the wall to get a closer look. My thumb traced over her face and the scar. Pain seared through me at the sight and the guilt threatened to drown me. It had faded over the years and did nothing to take away from her beauty, but just the thought of how she’d gotten it by my hand was enough to make me hate myself.

“North.”

Nyx and Atlas were at the door. “She’s not here.”

I barely heard them. I stormed out of the room, shoving past them and heading towards where I knew two of these scum of the earth were being held. Someone called my name, but I was beyond stopping now.

I’d been so close.

I rounded the corner and saw the two men tied in chairs in the center of a large open area of the warehouse. I had eyes only for them as I stalked over. I grabbed the first man’s shirt and shoved him backwards so hard the front legs of the chair tipped up. I put the photo in his face.

“Tell me where she is!”

“I don’t know.”

I could see the fear in his eyes as his pupils expanded. I pulled out my .45 and shot him in the knee. The man howled in pain.

“Wrong answer,”

I snapped. “Again—where is this girl?”

“I-I don’t-know,”

the man whined. “She—we distribute to-to several—”

I shot him in the other knee.

“Where the fuck is she?” I yelled.

The man was outright sobbing now.

“Where is she?”

I struck my gun across his face. “Useless piece of shit,”

I growled.

I pressed the gun against his groin.

“Wait-wait, she’s either—”

“Shut up,”

the other guy hissed.

My eyes immediately jumped to him. He tried to look tough but I must have looked unhinged, I certainly felt it, because he tried to lean away from me as I stepped over to him.

“Oh no,”

I purred. “If you’re not going to let him answer me, then you’re going to.”

I shoved the photo in his face. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,”

he snapped.

I shot him in the thigh. I shoved the gun between his legs as he groaned in pain. The threat was clear.

“Yes, you do. You know,” I rasped.

He opened his mouth, and I shook my head. “You better think carefully about your answer. My trigger finger is real itchy today.”

“We sent t-two shipments yesterday,”

the man gritted out. “One to Palmero—the-the ot-other to Quarry.”

I straightened and took the gun away, only to backhand him across the face with it just because I felt like it. I turned to see I had an audience. Nyx and Atlas stood near Deathwing’s two men, looking like they’d stopped them from intervening.

Deathwing was casually smoking a cigarette out of the way, not looking the least bit concerned.

“You finished?”

He dropped his cigarette and stomped it out.

“Who’s Quarry?”

“Middleman,”

Deathwing answered. “Let me wrap up here and we’ll regroup at the house and plan next steps. My recovery and clean-up crew are already en route.”

He walked off, talking into his comms unit and directing his men. I walked over to Nyx and Atlas scanning them like I always did to make sure they were in one piece.

“We talked to a few of the girls,”

Nyx added. “Your daughter is apparently just like you.”

When I looked at him with a question in my eyes he chuckled.

“Causing trouble, has an insane temper—killing people,”

Nyx said dryly. “Yet at the same time there were a few of the little ones who said she’d tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood when they got scared.”

My breath stalled in my lungs and I blinked away the emotions threatening to spill over. I could just picture the chaos and destruction she’d been leaving in her wake. But I could also see her telling whatever version of Little Red Riding Hood she thought the little ones would resonate with. She always did like the different ways I’d tell it although she would let me tell it the traditional way whenever she knew Cole was having a difficult time. The traditional way had been his favorite.

I cleared my throat as I folded up her picture and carefully put it into a pocket.

“That sounds just like her,”

I said finally. “Although I don’t know how I can say that after all this time. She was only a child—”

I couldn’t continue.

I shook my head and walked away, needing to move and clear my head. Being this close and then still not having found her was torture.