“I’ll call the brothers, and we ride out tomorrow.”
“I’ve already contacted my guy in law enforcement. He’s putting together a small crew to go with us. Tonight is too short notice, but we can head in tomorrow, after dark.”
In the beginning the law enforcement didn’t take them seriously. A bunch of billionaires playing at being tough. They had proven them wrong when they’d called them to the scene where there had been a mass murder of the trafficked women.
Some of the women they went to save, wouldn’t make it. If they were not careful, the men would shoot the women and take off. They’d have no survivors, and no criminals. Russ wanted to keep the number of victims down to a minimum.
It was a messy business, and Russ couldn’t imagine doing anything else. He saw the damage in Lewis’s eyes, and with each rescue, it seemed to help. Russ would do anything for his nine brothers, and for the club.
****
The pain was unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life, and Anna Little had experienced a great deal of pain. Her mother had been a crack whore, so Anna was used to taking a beating every now and then. Once her mother died, she was put into the foster system, and nothing ever got easy after that.
Her life had gotten easier the day she turned eighteen, and was able to go out on her own. She had her best friend, Karen, and together they were going to conquer the world. They had believed they were going to make it in the world of business and become millionaires one day. That was never going to happen, not then, and not now.
Tears filled her eyes as she thought about her pretty, petite friend. Karen had been so beautiful on the inside and out.
She shouldn’t be dead.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed her hand against her rib and held in the noise. If she made a sound, they would take the belt to her again, and her back was already in so much pain.
Don’t make a sound. Don’t make a sound.
Karen had died in her arms three days ago. Those fuckers had filled her with drugs, and hadn’t even taken the time to find out she was a fucking diabetic, and without her insulin, she was lucky to have lasted three days in their care.
Care? What a laugh. These men were monsters, and Anna hoped someday someone was going to come, and show them what it meant to have their asses kicked. She hated them. She hated all of them.
Staring down at her hands, she tried to think positively. Her hands were covered with dirt and blood, and it had been a week since she had a shower. She stank of vomit, piss, and God knows what else.
She and Karen had been making their way back to their apartment after looking over a small shop in the center of the city. They had saved up enough money that they were thinking of opening either a small bakery, or maybe a specialist food store. Neither of them had decided what they wanted to do. Their options were limitless. They were both twenty-two, excited, and ready to take on the world.
A black van had pulled up beside them, and before either of them could react, someone had slammed their fist against her face, and started to take Karen. No one hurt her friend, and Anna had been taking care of Karen since they were young. She had ignored her pain, gotten up, and started fighting, but Anna hadn’t stood a chance against four men. They overpowered her easily, dragged her into the van, beat her, and then everything had gone to hell. She was in so much pain, and throughout it all, she had to witness her best friend’s pain. They forced her to watch as they repeatedly raped and degraded her friend. They hadn’t touched Anna. Instead they had used her as a punching bag. They told her she was too fat and ugly to be used for anything else. It had all been a waste as her friend was still dead, and now she was still here.
Something was going on. She saw the way the men were talking on their phones, and rounding them all up. She sat in her cage, which was for a dog, and waited. Several of the women were rocking backwards and forwards, trying to find a happy place. Anna had stopped trying to do that within hours of being taken.
She rubbed at her chest as she thought about Karen, her best friend. If she ever got out of here alive she wouldn’t see her friend again. Was there even a point in living?
“Anna, don’t stop fighting. Do you hear? Don’t stop.”
Those had been Karen’s last words before she slipped into a diabetic coma, and not long after that, she’d died. Her body was still lying on the ground in the corner beneath a ratty old carpet along with three more women.
Anna had witnessed more violence in the last week than she ever wanted to remember. One girl had been petrified and tried to run. She’d been dragged back by her hair so that clumps of it were missing, beaten, and then shot in the head. The animals didn’t care. None of them did.