I sigh. With his current state of mind, he’s useless to me. Just gonna have to kidnap his ass and wait till he comes down from his high.

A quick sweep of my eyes proves that I have about two seconds before the rest of the men start shooting, regardless of what comes out of my mouth.

Two seconds—that’s all it takes to stick my hand in my hoodie pocket and fire off a shot through the material, downing one of the men to my left.

The surprise of that move gives me a small window of time to upend the table and roll behind it.

Glass shatters from the ashtrays, and a gun falls off the table and discharges, eliciting shocked screams from the girls.

Fuck. If that bullet ricochets and lands within an inch of those girls, I’m going to let them stab me for sure.

No cries of pain follow, so I blow out a deep breath. Relieved, but no less pissed at myself.

Like clockwork, a stream of bullets impales the thick, wooden table. Lucky for me, most don’t make it through.

It’s too dangerous for me to return fire. I won’t be able to peek my pinky toe out without it getting shot off, and I refuse to endanger these girls even more and fire blindly. I don’t take shots unless I’m positive they’ll hit true.

The only thing I can do is wait.

It doesn’t take long for them to empty their clips.

I hear the rustling of clothing and muttered curses as they scramble to reload.

It takes even less time for me to shoot the remaining four dead, sans Fernando. I’m going to save him for later.

The bullets rip through their brains in such quick succession that their bodies drop at the same time.

“You see that?” I ask aloud, already knowing Jay is watching through the cameras.

“Fuck, it only took you eight minutes,” Jay groans through my earpiece.

“Five hundred bucks, fucker,” is my smug answer. A string of curses leaves his mouth, but I tune him out.

Fernando is spitting out his own colorful tirade as he scrambles to find another gun. I shoot him in the knee, the angry man collapsing instantly. Screams of raw pain and anger fill the warehouse, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was a little girl himself.

No—the girls in this warehouse are far tougher than he could ever hope to be. He's just a whiny bitch trapped in a man’s body.

I stand and saunter over to Fernando, enjoying the sight of him clutching his knee, blood bubbling from the wound and onto the floor. His face is red, full of murderous intent as he glares at me.

I ignore the look, instead surveying the copious amounts of blood streaking the cement floor. I don’t want the girls to have to step through it.

“Jay, have Ruby make a pathway for these girls.” Ruby is one member of the crew who comes in, explicitly assigned to handle the survivors and get them to safety. She’s a redheaded spitfire but turns to mush when she’s around any of the women or children we save.

“A pathway?”

“Yeah, I don’t want a drop of blood on their toes.”

The warehouse is full of about fifty girls, all deeply traumatized and broken. They will never have to wash blood from their bodies again if I have anything to do with it.

One of the girls stands, a fierce expression on her face. She can’t be more than fifteen years old, but a pedophile ring will age anyone significantly.

“Are you going to hurt us, too?” she asks loudly. Her dirty brown hair is tangled around her face. She’s filthy—they all are.

The extensive amount of skin showing is smudged with dirt and blood. She looks the oldest, and by her protective stance, she’s pronounced herself the mother of the group.

All of the girls here were kidnapped within the past six days. Six days of unspeakable torture and assault that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Six days of dirty men sexualizing, beating, and molesting them. The young girls would not have been deflowered, but that doesn’t mean the monsters didn’t find other ways to get pleasure out of them.

Jay and I have been watching this location for the past twelve hours, identifying both the girls and the men. Each second that ticked by felt like an eternity—knowing that they were enduring something horrific.

While Jay kept tabs, I allowed myself five hours of sleep before I came here, enough time to keep my mind sharp. I have to be at my absolute best if I’m going to get them out alive.

“I’m here to get you girls home,” I respond, tucking my gun back in my boot.

She looks at me warily, as do some of the other girls.

None of them are going to trust me.

I get it.

I’m scarred from head to toe, have two different colored eyes—both on the dramatic spectrum—and I’m not a small guy. Not to mention, I just murdered a bunch of men in front of their faces.

“Backup is coming in,” Jay informs, right before I hear the back door open and several people rush in.

“Young man, it’s a bloodbath in here. These poor girls! Shame on you, Z.” I wince at the sound of Ruby's voice. Can’t make me flinch from firing off a bullet two inches from my head but Ruby… God help me.

“It couldn’t be avoided, Ruby. I—"

“Not another word from you. If your mother were here, she’d have your ass.”

I grunt but don’t respond, letting her hem and haw over the survivors while still muttering reprimands under her breath. Ruby was a good friend of my mom’s and likes to remind me—and the rest of the crew—that she used to wipe my ass when I was a baby.

If I could’ve killed the traffickers in private, I would’ve, and I hate that I added to their trauma. But when you have a warehouse full of armed men, there’s no calling them back to your office one at a time like they’re being fired from their job. They need to be taken down swiftly where they stand. Otherwise, there’s room for error, potentially resulting in one of the survivors getting hurt or killed.

Necessary means to get the girls out.

The other two that came in with Ruby, Michael and Steve, take care of the bodies. Michael is dragging a struggling Fernando out, tossing me the keys to the girls' chains as he passes by. Ruby already found another set on one of the dead bodies and is currently unchaining the others.

I approach the mother hen of the group and unchain her collar, my hand nearly shaking from the fury of having to unhook a fucking collar from a little girl’s neck. Welts and a large bruise encircle her throat, but I don’t let her see the rage simmering beneath the surface. She stares at me silently, suspicion and tentative hope warring in her pretty light brown eyes.

Her eyes remind me of my little mouse, and something protective flares inside my chest.

“What’s your name, kid?” I ask, keeping my eyes trained to hers. She’s probably waiting for my leery gaze to travel the expanse of her body, but she won’t ever get that shit from me.

“Sicily,” she answers. I quirk a brow.

“Is that where your parents come from?” I question, noting her tanned skin peeking from beneath the grime on her face.

She nods her head tentatively. “Ma and Pa were born there, but they haven’t been able to go back since they were in their teens. They said they named me after the island because even though they’re homesick, I provide them with the only home they need.”

I nod, eyeing her face. Purple blooms from her right eye, and another spark of anger ignites.

“You ready to give them a home again?”

She pauses, and then a small smile forms. “Yes,” she whispers.

Tears flood her eyes, but I don’t let her know that I noticed. I can tell she wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Let’s go then, kid.”

This little girl will go back home, and though she has a long journey ahead of her, she’ll heal.

We keep tabs on all the girls we extract to ensure they don’t go missing again. If it can happen once, it can happen twice.