Page 70 of Voracious

I hate that I can’t isolate the earpieces, but Ana is still humming as I give them the timings. It’s barely a sound, I wouldn’t be able to pick it up without the mic on her. Does she hum to herself all the time? I’ve never heard her do it before. She’s stealthy as fuck and I can breathe again when she takes out the guards before they can turn around. The sound of gunshots shakes my brain through the earpiece, forcing me to put it at a reasonable volume and miss out on her humming.

I can see her from Stasya’s cam as they silently move through the house. There’s a shuffling noise coming from the side, causing my hellion to freeze. I can’t see her features and she disappears from sight as she follows it, and my timings are rougher.

“Four minutes.”

Come back.

Get the fuck away from the shadows, send one of the other two cunts.

If they die, I’ll bury them and move on.

Moving sooner than I should, I push the van into drive and speed through the private road until I’m outside the property. Those forty-nine seconds without watching anything are the longest of my life. There are only gunshots and scuffles mixing together.

“Three minutes.”

Where the fuck is she? Her cam is black, there’s nothing in view. She can’t get fucking hurt, she’s a hellion, stronger than anyone who has ever fucking lived and will ever come.

My knuckles bleach white as I hold the screen with both hands, searching each box for her. I don’t give a fuck about theother two, my attention is solely fixed on what Ana can’t fucking see. It’s night vision, there should be green edges. Outlines of shit or a fucking wall. Anything!

It feels like a lifetime until I hear her anger come out in a hiss, “Where is she, Sofia?”

There’s no answer and I recognize the sound of Ana losing control. She’s alive. Fuck me, I’ve lost at least ten years off my life from those ninety seconds of limbo.

“Fuck.” Stasya’s low curse sounds over Sofia’s last breaths and I look at the full screen when I see my hellion starting to move.

We’ve been doing this for years, never have I seen the children all drugged and chained, they’re usually huddling together in the corner, but there are five beds, each with a passed-out child and a metal cuff around their wrist. My reminder is filled with uncertainty knowing they won’t get them out.

“113 seconds.”

We don’t give bullshit half-second reminders, they’re fixed points but there’s no fucking way they will cut through five metal cuffs without tools in less than a minute and have enough time to get out.

Ana’s cam becomes a blur as she bolts through the house. Reaching the others, she pushes Vlad and Stasya out of the way and lifts her mask off her face. Her lips move, whispering an apology before she dislocates five thumbs with surgical precision. Each child is given an apology as the other two follow after her, freeing them and picking them up. The last kid must be three years old, if that, and Ana’s chest shakes. I can hear her apologizing over and over again, as she gently removes the cuff and she blocks my view as she picks him up with even more pain in her voice.

“You look like Theo. I won’t let them hurt you, okay?”

It’s so fucking quiet but the mic is closer to her face.

The sickening shit that they’ve witnessed or experienced doesn’t dampen the sight of seeing my woman cradle a kid. Her cheek is resting on his head, and she hugs him tightly, afraid of letting him go. She’d be an amazing mother, psychotic but amazing. My heart grows too big for my chest when she kisses his head giving her promise again. I’m enraptured in watching my sweet hellion as I press the release for the doors and Stasya hits my shoulder for me to drive once they’re inside.

I still have the earpiece in, and her low voice comes through as she strokes his hair and whispers into his unconscious ear as I drive to our meeting point.

“I’m older now, I know what to do.”

It’s the same promise phrased in different ways the entire drive to where the other cars are hidden. Ana doesn’t let him go and the other two even soften watching her. The probability of the two kids being related is high after what she told me, their sick fucking business plan and how they referred to human beings as the perfect product because the usage creates more.

My body goes on alert as Inessa steps out from the warehouse, I’m still not used to seeing anyone else since Vlad has cut out the middleman and delivers the children directly to his wife. She already has her phone to her ear sorting whatever shit is needed to help the kids and Ana doesn’t let Theo’s lookalike go until Inessa goes to her.

“I’ll keep him safe. I promise.”

Inessa’s coaxing work and she lets him go while mumbling to herself, “Inessa is nice, she won’t let him get hurt.”

No one else can hear her without their earpieces in.

Fuck anything else, my woman needs me. Her head snaps up when I push through the seats and the small smile is filled with relief. My own doesn’t come until I have her in my arms and I’m squeezing too hard as I breathe her in. The low mumbling is stillin my ear, Ana repeating that they’re safe and no one can hurt them.

Cupping her cheeks, I press my lips to her forehead, it’s like a switch and her eyes slowly flutter closed. When they open again my sweet hellion is back, smiling up at me as she laughs, “Why is your heart beating so fast? You only drove.”

Because it’s attached to hers, every fucking beat belongs to her, and I will never survive her. Not because she’s a danger to me, I will never survive losing her. The possibility of it is enough to send me into cardiac shock.

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