Page 119 of Lethal Vengeance
Mateo walks over to work Henley’s station. The other two leave with her.
The second group arrives, and we all get busy again.
I’m down to the last four people. Calling out the next number, I wait for the young woman to approach. When she does, she spits in my face.
“Murderer!” she screams.
I wipe my face off with my sleeve and stand to face her. That’s when I realize it’s the dark-haired girl from the van. Shocked, I stare at her.
“Working for a man like Armando, trafficking girls for him, you’re just as responsible for her death as he is,” she spits out angrily. She steps back and points to me. “Murderer. She helped traffic me for Armando.”
Whispers come from the group of women nearby. Several faces fill with hate and anger. Coming closer, they start surrounding us.
Sterling and Zane push through the crowd and stand between the two of us. “What’s going on?”
“She doesn’t deserve to be here,” she screams. “Because of her, my friend is dead.” Her eyes swivel to me. “You remember the pretty blond next to me? Who held my hand and told me to be brave. Tell me—do you remember her?!”
I lift my chin. “I do. What happened?”
“One of Armando’s men came and got us. He took us off the plane, then found the trackers you put behind our ears and injected into us. Armando questioned us. When he didn’t like our answers, he snapped Mel’s neck and put me in with the group at the facility,” she answers in a voice full of hate. “One day, I’m going to kill him. And you!”
Both Zane and Sterling step forward to take control, but Cruz steps directly in front of the young woman.
He silently observes her for a minute. “She was working undercover. If she had saved your friend, all of these other people, including you, wouldn’t be here. It’s a tough call, and it sucks. Your friend, or yourself and a hundred and sixteen other women?”
I grip the back of Cruz’ t-shirt to hold myself together.
The girl stares at Cruz, trying to decide if he’s telling the truth.
With a sigh, he pulls out his phone. “You must promise never to tell anyone about this, do you hear me? If you do, your life will end. I guarantee it.” His voice is soft, but the threat comes across clear. He hands her his phone.
“You did this?” she asks him.
“No, she did,” Cruz replies softly.
She pushes past him and shows me the picture. “Swear on your life that you did this to him.”
I look down at the picture of Armando spread-eagle in the desert with a knife staked through him and smile. “I swear, I did that to him.”
With tears in her eyes, she hands the phone back to Cruz and looks at me. “I will hate you until the day I die, but with him gone, maybe I can sleep in peace.”
Sterling ushers her over to the station to get her information.
Zane signals to Cruz, who takes one lingering look at me, then disappears again.
“Come on, I’ll take you home,” Zane says gruffly, taking my hand and tugging me away from all the people who are staring at me with contempt.
I barely hear him over Armando’s whispers of punishment and hell.
52
QUINN
Heading straight to my room, I dig through the duffle until I find the secure phone and shoot off a text. While I wait for it to come through, I pace back and forth from one end of the bed to the other, berating myself. I should have confirmed they’d been saved a long time ago. Now, all I can think about is how her family must feel.
Wolf: Three confirmed saves. Two missing. Still searching.
Me: Found the fourth. Fifth dead.
