Page 82 of SINS & Riley
The thing is, even Father Marc thinks I’m dead. I know we could do more if we combined forces, but that would put a bigger target on his back.
The car slows in front of a lone church, isolated and half-forgotten, its stone steps cracked and weather-worn. Two of the stained-glass windows are shattered.
Mostly for show.
Behind them sit reinforced panes, bulletproof and blacked out.
The engine idles, then cuts. The car rolls to a stop, headlights flashing twice.
Sabine steps out to meet us.
My men ease Elena from the trunk, drape the blanket over her shoulders, and guide her inside.
“They’re waiting for her in the great room,” Sabine says, steering them down the right hall.
Elena moves like smoke. So fragile, almost transparent, as if she’s halfway gone.
Sabine catches the worry on my face and offers a small smile. “She’ll be okay. I promise.”
If I didn’t know what Sabine crawled out of, I might doubt her assurance.
But I do know.
Her own brother sold her into the slave trade at fifteen. Six months later, I found her on the block again. The sadistic auction was run by my uncle.
As Zver, I bought her.
People whisper about the women I buy. How no one ever sees them again. They assume the worst. And I let them.
What better way to make these women disappear.
Sabine could’ve vanished too. Taken a new name, in a new country, and lived ten lifetimes off the money I gave her.
Instead, she built this—our relocation ops—run with the precision of a warlord and the fire of a survivor.
She’s as badass as they come.
Once a rescue crosses her threshold, I’m done. Her op, her rules.
For all this, her price was small. “If you ever have enough power to take my brother out, do it. Don’t let me see him again.”
Giving her my word was an honor. And killing the fucker myself would be the highlight of my year.
Sabine leans down to my window, her presence grounding. Her accent always swings between Spanish and French. “We’ll take care of her. She won’t be alone, Zver.”
I give a single nod. “Do you think you’ll be able to get the necklace off her?”
Sabine thinks on it for a minute. “Not right away. Since your little stunt at the auction, the reinforcements on them are ten times as strong. Next, they’ll weld them into their goddamn skin.” Her mouth twists in disgust. “She won’t be strong enough to travel for a few days. Maybe a week. But we’ll get it off. If not now, then once we get her to the stronghold in Tuscany.”
Tuscany.
Thirty thousand acres of untouched land, hidden far off the beaten path, guarded tighter than a nuclear launch pad. Nobody finds anyone there. The women and children who make it that far are safe.
But it gives me pause. “Not Palermo?”
She shakes her head. “Your eyes are bigger than your wallet, mon amie. Palermo’s cost is climbing to almost three times the estimate.”
I smirk.
