He continued the flirtatious conversation in Spanish, telling her how sexy she was, how bacano her tits felt, and that her lips were more deadly than his .40 cal. He wooed and winked and charmed the panties right off her skank ass. Hopefully, not literally. Camila still couldn’t see her beyond the door.
Camila kept her finger off the trigger and her breaths steady, but Nico didn’t let go of her arm.
“I have an appointment.” Matias rolled the syllables in Spanish.
An appointment for what? A prostitute? The idea of him fucking other women was ridiculous. Saving them, though? That made so much more sense. But who was he saving them from? Whoever had arrived in those luxury cars? An icy chill rushed through her core and chased the heat from her limbs. She glanced at Nico, but his attention was locked on Matias.
“You’re no fun,” the woman said. “This way.”
Matias followed her in and closed the door behind him.
“Fuck,” Camila whispered, shoving Nico’s hand away. “Are there slaves in there? Is this a whore house?”
He launched to his feet, dragging her with him, and pivoted toward the side of the house.
A second later, a solid dark shape darted around the corner from the backyard. Ski mask. Slender build. Large knife in hand.
Frizz. She recognized the metal buckles crisscrossing his black shirt.
“Back door?” Nico asked the other man in a hushed voice.
Frizz shook his head, blue eyes glowing in the dim light from the porch. Jesus, he looked different with his stitched lips hidden and his crazy hair tucked away. He looked…normal. Young. Really fucking young, like late-teens. He was just a baby.
Had he been rescued from slavery himself? If so, why would he torment the slaves at the estate?
He held up two fingers and pointed across the yard at the shadowed tree line. Identifying the location of the men Burd had brought?
Holding down three fingers and a thumb, he pointed his knife at the house.
Nico nodded and turned toward her, whispering, “Three men and a woman inside. Shoot anyone you don’t know. Try not to kill the female.”
What the fuck? The gun rattled in her hands. “Why would I kill anyone when I don’t know who they are?”
Those people could be undercover DEA or FBI or just a family trying to survive amid the violence. They could be the good guys.
What if that wasn’t it at all? Maybe Matias’ cartel captured women who ran slave rings and sold them as punishment. Her heart pounded. Could she hope for such a possibility?
Nico lifted a hand to touch the mask on her face and stopped before making contact. “You’re about to find out.”
Frizz slipped around them and crept onto the porch, his steps silent and movements graceful. Nico followed, and she stayed on their heels.
They froze at the sound of a wane cry coming from the dark corner of the stoop. Definitely a dying animal.
Frizz moved first, slinking toward it. Thank fuck, the boards didn’t creak, but she braced for it, tensing for any noise that might give them away.
She stepped where Frizz stepped and stopped beside him, her eyes straining in the absence of light as she tried to make out the floating shape.
A lamb. She sucked in a breath through the mask.
A newborn lamb, hanging upside-down by its back legs. Its front legs scissored weakly, reaching for the floor but not quite touching. Its mewls were so frail and brittle it must’ve been hanging there for a long time.
Manic energy surged through her blood, begging her to help it. But Frizz beat her there, knife out and cutting it down before she took the first step.
When he lowered it to the floor, she whispered inanely, “Why?”
“Dinner.” Nico turned back toward the door.
Dinner? Fine, then fucking eat it. Don’t torture it first. What the fuck was wrong with people?
She moved to follow Nico, but her gaze was glued over her shoulder.
Frizz squatted beside the poor thing, petting it and making shushing sounds. It didn’t even try to move or run away. Probably too weak. Or maybe it didn’t know any better than to trust a guy who sewed up women. Maybe this was an alternative reality, and she didn’t know which end was up. Whatever was going on, watching him soothe that lamb made her chest so tight she couldn’t breathe.
She joined Nico at the door, and he held up a closed fist, signaling her to stop. His other hand gripped the knob, but he didn’t turn it, didn’t move.
Her pulse spiked. They’d already used up thirty seconds with the lamb. What if Matias needed back up for…whatever the fuck he was doing?
Another count of too many seconds stretched by before a scream penetrated the door from within. Nico swung it open, and she followed him through, gun pointed toward the floor and her pulse pounding in her stomach.
A woman lay unconscious on the floor, bleeding from her temple, but it was the heavy thumps and whimpers coming from the back of the house that slowed Camila’s gait.
Frizz swept around her and knelt beside the woman as Nico took off down the long hall that led toward multiple closed doors, his pistol trained and ready. He slipped into the first room and shut the door. Grunts immediately sounded through the wall, followed by something crashing.
With wobbly steps, she moved in that direction, but a hand gripped her ankle, causing her to stumble. She whirled and met Frizz’s wide gaze where he knelt on the threadbare carpet. He shook his head frantically and pointed at the floor beside her feet.
He wanted her to stay? But Matias was back there. What if one of those grunts was his? She didn’t even know who was in those rooms. Slaves? Being forced at that very moment? Oh God, she hoped she wasn’t right.
Her hands shook around the stock of the gun, palms soaked in sweat as she inched toward the hallway.
A different door opened up ahead, and a fat naked Caucasian man stepped out, his penis fully erect beneath his jiggling belly. Her heart stopped.
He looked at her and narrowed his eyes on the gun she pointed at him. “Who are you?
The mask protected her identity, and Nico had told her to shoot anyone she didn’t know. But on what grounds? Because the man’s dick was hard? Maybe he’d been jerking off. Completely naked? No fucking way.
She steadied the iron sights on his chest. “Who are you?”
CAMILA KEPT THE 9MM leveled on the naked man’s torso, her chest heaving, knees wobbling. She wet her lips, and her tongue brushed against the mask as she slid a finger over the trigger.
A pained male voice bellowed from the back room, followed by a succession of crashing sounds. The naked man widened his eyes, glanced over his shoulder, and darted that way, toward the last door where the screaming came from.
Her pulse thundered in her ears as she pointed the gun at his back. Fuck, she’d never forgive herself if she killed an innocent man, but he if touched that door knob, she wouldn’t hesitate to squeeze the trigger.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” She ran after him.
The next few seconds flashed in the span of two anguished breaths. She passed the fat man’s room in the first breath, glimpsed a baby doll on the floor, a bare mattress, and the lopsided pigtails and tear-soaked eyes of a girl no older nine huddled nude in the corner.
No no no no! Her second breath came with an explosion of fire as she aimed her horror-stricken fury on the fat man, trained the gun a few inches higher, and sprayed his brain matter across the wall.
Her next breath died in her throat as she screamed in horror. But nothing passed her lips. Not a sound. Not a breath. Every living thing inside her was sobbing in the room with that little girl. This wasn’t shock. She stood frozen in a place she wasn’t sure she could come back from.
The remaining two doors opened at the same time. Her arms moved on reflex, the gun swinging left to right as she waited for another naked dead man to step out.
Nico emerged first, eyes scowling through the ski mask and red dots peppering his gray shirt.
/> “Camila.” Matias stepped out of the last room, wearing a mask of blood. He raised red-smeared hands and took a limping step toward her. “Lower the gun.”