That Emerald Vow (The Crimson Creed #2)

24. Chapter Twenty-Four

I wake up to a loud, ringing noise. My arms are wrapped around Charlie in our makeshift bed on the floor of her living room. We made it after the first night, as we kept falling asleep spending hours upon hours researching and trying to find new leads. It’s been a few days since Lily was taken, and we’ve all gone stir crazy trying to find her. Despite the vast network we have, there are no leads, and we can’t very well go to the police and risk ourselves. That wouldn’t help Lily or us.

“Who is it?” Charlie asks groggily as she moves out of my arms to stretch.

Looking at the phone, I respond, saying, “It’s Ade.” I put the call on speaker. “Hello? You’re on speaker with Charlie.”

“What time is it?” Charlie asks.

“Half past two,” Adrian says. “I’m going crazy over here. And I can’t find anything. I was wondering if you guys found anything.”

Charlie says, “No, I’m sorry. I even took a third deep dive through her personal files, and nothing.” At this point, we’re just retracing our steps, wondering if there’s anything we missed. We barely sleep other than these accidental power naps.

“It’s been almost a fucking week,” he yells as we hear something hard smash into a wall.

“Adrian!” we both shout.

“Damon’s gonna head over to you to help,” she says.

My mouth gapes open as rage fills me. The fuck I am. “I’m not leaving you alone. What if you’re next?”

Adrian adds, “I’ll be okay. Damon’s right.”

“Fine, then he’ll come over in three hours after dropping me off at work. Better? I will be safe there.”

“Fine,” I grumble in agreement, but I don’t like it.

She glares at me as tears fill her eyes. “At least your boss knows what’s going on. I have to go and pretend like everything is fucking fine.”

I pull her to my chest. “I know, baby. I know.” I look back at my phone. “I’ll see you in a few hours, man.”

Charlie suddenly leaps up. “Hey, Adrian, you know what we didn’t think about? Her job.”

“Her job?” he asks.

“It’s the only angle we haven’t touched on. She mostly works with at-risk folks and those who need help. But there is a small list of people we flag as potentials because of their history of possible abuse. We hold them there until we can vet them and prove it. Unfortunately, there are those people who cry wolf to hurt innocent people.”

“I guess that’s worth a shot.”

“Damon and I will go through those specifically again.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you both soon,” Adrian says, hanging up.

We look through the flagged files forwards and backwards until I need to drop Charlie off. Unfortunately, just like the first few times, there’s nothing that seems to stand out.

Once I reach Adrian’s house, I see him walking out with a giant gym bag. “What are you doing?” I ask, knowing exactly what kinds of “equipment” is inside those bags.

“Craig Scott. That’s probably the moron who has her.” He seethes as he packs his trunk .

“How do you know?”

“Octavia was able to get me into Lily’s secure server. She keeps thorough notes. And her last session before her run was with him. He’s a scumbag who wouldn’t take no for an answer. She terminated the therapeutic service, and he threatened her. It has to be him. It fucking has to.” He chokes out the last words in a plea. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” I say.

I call Charlie as we head over to Craig’s. “Hey, does the name ‘Craig’ mean anything to you?”

“Fuck me!” she yelps. “Yes! His file is sitting on the desk in my office. We never finished filing it because I got called into work. But Lily hated him; he was always hitting on her, and it got worse and worse. I think she was going to move him from flagged to our new victims list.”

“I think you’re right. We’re about to head to his house to find out more.”

“Fuck, I want to come, but I am about to head in to cover for another nurse in surgery.”

“I’ll keep you posted.”

“O-okay,” she stutters. “Stay safe, Damon, I lo—I need you.” Was she about to say love?

“I will always find my way back to you. Safe is for the weak though. No, we’re all gonna come back. I’ll let you know.”

Right before we make it to Craig’s house, Octavia calls. “Hey, we were able to look into his phone records. And you won’t guess who he’s been communicating with . . . Walter fucking Evans.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. Walter Evans hates Adrian, and we’ve been waiting—not so patiently—to kill him. If only we had ignored Alex and done it, this may not have happened.

“FUCK!” Adrian yells as he slams the steering wheel multiple times .

“You won’t find him at home. Apparently, there’s a missing persons report filed on him. He hasn’t gone to work in a couple of days, and his landlord confirmed not seeing him for a similar amount of time.”

“I am going to skin him alive!” Adrian promises. “Both of them.” He does a very dangerously fast U-turn heading to X’s headquarters.

After speaking to Alex, we assemble a team to head to find Walter and Craig. This was the lead we’ve needed all along because now we know exactly where Lily is. The odds that Craig, who became obsessed with Lily, and Walter, a person with a vendetta against Adrian, found each other is insane.

I try calling Charlie again. She was still stuck in the surgery when I tried calling her earlier to tell her about the newest development, knowing she’d want to join. It went straight to voicemail.

“Hey, baby girl, we’re on our way to pick up the package. I think you should go home after hearing this and get ready for your surprise. I’m sure you’ll love it.” I have to speak cryptically just in case anyone overhears the message.

We make it to the giant cabin in the woods where Walter runs his sex ring. He trafficks high-risk women and brings them here to forced prostitution and sometimes even sells them overseas. Lily’s definitely not his target demographic, but it seems like he kidnapped her as a personal favor to Craig.

We make our way into the cabins. One half of the team has instructions to take care of all the guards, while the other half is there to take care of the men paying for the women’s services, ensuring the girls’ safety. They all know what Lily looks like and to notify us as soon as they find her—if we don’t find her first. Adrian’s primary targets are Walter and Craig, and I’m his backup.

The cabin is one floor, split by the living room and kitchen, with each wing holding several bedrooms. We aren’t detected, as most of the people are with one of the girls in the bedrooms in the right wing. We take them out one by one with our silencers—not that we need them. The music is blasting in this place so loud, I can’t hear myself think.

I move the curtain for the next room, and the woman sitting on the bed’s eyes bulge out in fear. The man in front of her is facing away from me, so he doesn’t notice me entering the room and is probably used to seeing fear in those he rapes. Putting my finger over my mouth for the woman, I pull my gun and aim for his head.

The woman gasps in fear, which alerts the guy to turn to look. I pull the trigger, not giving him a moment to even process what’s going on. Moving my finger away from the trigger, I put my hands up. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re only here to help.” She nods her head but doesn’t seem to believe me. Aria, one of our team members, comes in, and her presence seems to ease some of the tension the woman is feeling. “My friend Aria here will help get you to safety, okay?” I leave them and go into the hallway to further my search.

Mike comes out of one of the rooms saying, “Damon, you’ll want to take a look at this.” I follow him into an office-like room and see there’s an open filing cabinet. It contains files on every person who frequents this house of horrors to prey on these women, including their names. Bile rises at my throat at the thought as my hands clench into fists.

“Looks like we have a long list of assholes to catch.”

I start quietly reading through the list in alphabetical order by first name. My eyes stop around the letter D and pick out the file that caught my attention. Bingo!

Looking at Mike, I say, “Pack this room up and bring it to our place. But this folder”—I hand him the file I pulled—“this one goes on my desk.”

“Yes, sir.”

I head towards the door, ready to pummel some faces in. One man is trying to make a run for it as I leave the room, and I grab him by his hair and he trips over his own legs. Yanking him back, I ask, “Where are you going?”

“Please let me go.”

“Not a chance,” I say wickedly as I pull out my switchblade. “I just found something important, and until I can seek revenge on him, you’ll do.” I take it and slit his throat slowly, making sure it’s facing the other way, then I go through each room on my side and kill whoever’s left. The killing helps ease some of the electric current under my skin.

I head back to where I left Adrian and find him coming back from the other end. We circle the living room. “I can’t find her anywhere!” My heart is running rampant with worry for Lily and seeing my best friend distressed. We have to find her. She has to be here.

Walter comes out from one of the doorways we haven’t checked yet with a redhead. “Walter!” Adrian shouts as the vein in his forehead ticks. “Where the fuck is Lily?”

Walter is smirking. “Took you long enough. We had so much fun with our friend, Lily.” He puts his arm around the redhead. “Didn’t we, Cherry?”

“You asshole!” Adrian says before shooting.

Walter gets shoved back by the momentum of the bullet as it hits his shoulder. “Ugh!” he groans.

He goes to shoot again, but this time, Walter shoves Cherry in front of him with his good arm. The bullet hits her in the chest, and she immediately falls to the ground.

“No!” Adrian and I both scream. That’s when I notice movement behind the curtain at the same time he does. Fuck. He will use every single woman here as a potential shield. There’s only a few feet between him and the curtain to the right.

Adrian and I both exchange a quick glance and nod as we empty our clips into him before he can move a single muscle. It isn’t the death he deserved, but we weren’t going to risk another person dying.

Three of the women carefully come out from behind the curtain. “Are you gonna hurt us too?”

I try to give a reassuring smile. “No, we’re here to help. We’re actually looking for someone.”

“Do you know Lily?” Adrian asks.

“Yes! She’s our friend,” one of the girls with scars littering her body says. “She went to the room all the way in the back with . . . with Tony.” The girl quickly covers her own scars. Fuck. What has Lily been through? Adrian runs through the curtain down the hallway.

Some of our team members walk through with other women that were down the same hallway behind the curtain. “They will help you to gather anything you want to take and take you to a safehouse, okay? And then to wherever you want. We’ll help you.”

“Okay. Thank you,” she says, hesitantly. Her eyes are darting between each member of my team and the other women. They huddle close together to find comfort.

Before I can say anything else, Adrian runs back. “She’s not there! She’s not fucking here. But there was a man beaten to a pulp with a gunshot wound to the head.”

“It’s okay,” I say to the other guys who are helping some of the women they found. They work to direct them while keeping their distance to respect the womens’ boundaries. All of them have been through enough and don’t need any more uncalled for physical touch. “Take them up front.”

“That’s your girl. Lily knows how to handle herself and always has a plan. She has to be here somewhere,” I say as the others pass me.

We go through the whole house, then out the front door and decide to check the back, and that’s when I see Lily talking to someone. But not just anyone—Rowan. He’s one of the members of X. It’s not that uncommon for some members of X to rotate to watch over Alex’s informants. And by her body language, I can tell she’s comfortable with him. Was he trying to help her?

“Adrian! Look!” I yell as his eyes quickly find his target.

“Lily!” he screams out. “Lily!”

“Adrian!” she yells back as she bolts across the yard to hug him, leaping into his arms. “Adrian! You came for me!” she cries out.

“Of course I came for you, mi reina !” he says, kissing all over her.

“Wait! The others. We’re not safe here!” she says, urgently looking around for any signs of threat.

Adrian caresses her cheek. “Don’t worry, baby. We took care of them. You’re safe now. The girls are safe.”