Page 35 of Of Sinners & Salvation
“Are you kidding?” Nate asks. “This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. I hacked everything, and I mean everything. It’s real.”
If he wasn’t getting us to Mercy, I’d want to kill the kid. I still do. I’m glad he’s not the one here in the flesh though. I’d be tossing the asshole overboard the next time he referred to finding a trafficking victim as ‘fun.’
He looks away from his webcam and starts messing with whatever else he has pulled up on his screen. “Get a load of this. The guy even put money in an escrow account to show he’s goodfor it, as collateral in case he kills her. It says ‘you break it, you buy it.’ In case you’re wondering how much your girl’s life is worth, it’s a cool mil.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I roar. “That’s all she’s worth to him?”
“Gingers aren’t that rare,” Nate says, looking at something in the corner of his screen while he talks. “I can think of three or four families around town who have a redhead, and Faulkner’s a pretty small town.”
“She’s more than her hair color,” I snap, then shake my head incredulously. “Only a million?”
“Doesn’t seem like much,” Angel says.
“Not in this economy,” Walker agrees.
“The other girls go for anywhere from a thousand to ten thousand per hour,” Nate says. “So, he’s actually valuing her pretty highly. The auction’s where the real money is, though. That’s when they get the guys who want to buy the whole girl.”
I think of what they could have done to Eternity, and I want to puke. I glance at Heath, who’s been abnormally subdued. He’s holding his wallet, with his finger in one of the card slots, staring off. Probably thinking he’s a liability, which he’s not, but I know I’d be doing the same thing if I were injured right now.
“When is that?” I ask, leaning into the phone so Nate can see me.
“You know, that one’s giving me some trouble,” he says. “I think they keep those old-school. It’s not an online auction. You have to be there, bid in person. I can only find mentions of it in comments, and what I think are dates for past auctions. I can’t find any information about who was buying and what they walked away with. Or sailed away with, in this case.”
“So you don’t know when the next one is?”
“Can’t find a date,” he says. “I’d get her sooner rather than later.”
“We’re trying,” I grit out.
Father Salvatore goes over the plan with him one more time, but before we’ve even solidified every detail, a few more guys trickle onto the dock. We watch them warily, clustering together. They each stand alone, glancing around.
“What’s going on?” I mutter to Heath.
“I think those are the guys going over for the girls,” he murmurs, glaring at one of them like he’s barely keeping himself from launching into the guy.
“Explains why the captain was giving us the stink-eye,” Walker says under his breath.
“He’s still taking our money and taking us over there, though,” Angel growls. “Even knowing what we’re going for.”
“Except that’s not why we’re going,” I say, looking out over the water. It seems impossible that she’s so close suddenly, almost within reach. The moment I find her, I’m never letting her out of my sight again.
We’re quiet until the captain comes back onto the dock. We all load onto the small boat, and he starts across the choppy water toward the lighthouse in the distance. The wind off the Atlantic is brutal even in April, and icy sea spray splashes up onto us when we hit the waves near the shore. A helicopter moves past us, banking toward the island. We huddle together in silence, each brewing in our own dark thoughts. At last, the boat steers around the curve of the island and pulls up at a pier jutting out into the water. We climb off, helping each other. Then we head down the path through the woods toward the towering old building with a light on in almost every window.
My heartbeat is thundering in my ears.
Which room is Mercy in? Does a light on mean she’s available to the men who come to visit for that purpose?
We stop at the tree line, letting the men who aren’t in our group go ahead.
“Text Nate,” I order Walker.
“Shit, no signal,” he says. “Nate hacked into their wi-fi for me, but I’m not close enough to pick it up. We need to get closer.”
I swallow down my nerves, glancing ahead to where the men are greeted at the door and let into the building. They have appointments, but we don’t. We can’t just walk in.
“I’m going around the side of the building,” Walker says.
“I’ll go with you,” I say. “When he picks up the signal and texts Nate, I’ll flick my light on and off. You heard what Nate said. He’ll disable the security, but we only have about three minutes to get inside before they’ll activate the backup system.”
