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  Dante, whoever he was, was obviously keeping the women drugged. And some of them, like Jill, had become so far gone that they didn’t even try to leave anymore. Was this where she would have ended up if Colin hadn’t found her? Kat liked to think she would have fought against her captors no matter what. But looking at Jill lying motionless on the mattress so like the one Kat had been found on, Kat wondered if she would have broken too.

  As Kat stared at Jill and saw what she could have become, she knew her suspicions had been confirmed. Hers hadn’t been a simple kidnapping by one deranged man. She had been taken and plunged into the world of sex-trafficking.

  Never before had she considered herself to be lucky. Someone who had gone through what she had wasn’t inclined to think of themselves as fortunate. But crouched on the floor of a dirty room that held sins she was intimately familiar with, she thanked a God she didn’t believe in that Colin had saved her. She wasn’t Angel or Jill or any of the other nameless girls in this hell hole. She was Kat Rossi, and she had her life. If her resolve wasn’t already strong enough, she vowed then and there to never stop until she brought the man responsible to justice. Whether it was Dante or someone else in charge, Kat would bring him down if it was the last thing she did.

  A creaking noise in the hallway had Kat swinging her head toward the door. Heavy thuds in the hallway alerted her that it was a heavy man walking and not one of the other malnourished junky working girls. Without a sound Kat moved to the side of the door and reached into her bag for her gun. There were sounds of the man knocking loudly on the doors and yelling, “Wake up!” When he slammed his fist on the door by Kat’s head she didn’t even flinch. Adrenaline and her training kept her calm and still.

  As he moved away to pound on the next door, Kat considered her options. What she wanted to do was open the door and fire her entire clip into the back of his head. But that wasn’t the smartest option. She had no idea if he was alone. The better option was to get out of the house and call Colin in to handle this the right way. After all, the man in charge of a sex trafficking ring like this wouldn’t stoop to manage the girls himself. The guy in the hallway was probably just a hired hand.

  When Kat heard him pound on the door at the end of the hall, she took a deep breath and cracked the door. She was in the room closest to the stairs, but if he turned around he would see her. Taking a chance that she was faster and knowing she could use her gun if it came to that, Kat slipped out the door and ran for the stairs. The top step creaked under her foot and she didn’t stop when she heard a yell from down the hall.

  “Hey!” a deep voice shouted. In spite of the size of the man that Kat glimpsed as she ran, he was surprisingly quick on his feet. Kat jumped down three steps to the landing and was immediately body slammed from behind into the wall in front of her. Her cheek was pressed flat against the mildewed wallpaper, the scent of evil filling her nose. The man had his thick arm around her throat as he pressed into her with the full weight of his body.

  The feel of a man’s body flush against her was enough to make her stomach roll, but Kat kept her head clear. From this position she only had one choice, and thank God she already had her gun in her hand. Shifting to the left as much as she could, Kat pressed the barrel of her 9mm to the meaty thigh of the man behind her. The shot rang out and was quickly drowned out by the sound of pain.

  “Oh, fuuuuck!” the man groaned as he stumbled backward onto the stairs, grasping his leg with both hands. Kat didn’t wait around to see what he would do next. Before his ass hit the steps, she was racing down the bottom steps and out the door. Kat ran until she was at her parked car halfway down the block.

  Bending over she braced her hands on her thighs and took several deep breaths. With all the training she did with Dane, this was the first real chance she had had to put it to the test. Not counting taking down that dimwitted cousin of Alexander’s in his office. Despite the terror that still rang in her head, Kat smiled. She could do this. She could find the man who took her, and she no longer had any doubt that she would be able to finish the job once she found him.

  With her gun still in her right hand and her eyes on the house she had run from, Kat pulled out her phone and called Colin.

  “Kat,” Colin’s voice answered on the first ring.

  “I need you at 638 Warren Avenue. And you should bring backup…and an ambulance.”

  There was a beat of silence. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” Colin’s words were rushed and filled with fear.

  “I’m fine, Colin. I’ll wait for you.”

  With that she hung up. He would have plenty of questions, but she thought they were better answered face-to-face.

  Chapter Nine

  “Goddamit!” Colin yelled when the line went dead. Standing up so fast he nearly knocked his chair over, he grabbed his suit jacket from the back of it. He locked his eyes on his partner’s face and barked, “Get the LVPD over to 638 Warren. Medical too.”

  While Bass made the call, Colin pulled his extra weapon from his desk drawer and slipped it into the strap around his calf. The second Bass put his phone down, Colin ordered, “Let’s go.”

  “Are you going to let me know what we’re walking into here, partner? Cause I’m not too keen on going in blind,” Bass said from the passenger seat a few minutes later.

  Colin’s knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel with enough force to almost rip the thing off the dashboard. “Kat called from this address,” he bit out.

  Bass shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “You’re calling in the cavalry because your girlfriend’s off the radar?”

  Colin whipped his head around and growled at Bass. “She’s not my girlfriend.” Though God how he wished that weren’t true. Facing forward again, he ground out through clenched teeth, “Kat doesn’t call. Ever. Unless there is something seriously wrong.” In fact this was only the fourth time she had ever called him, with the first three being when she had received the anonymous notes. So he knew it was serious. The only thing keeping his head from exploding was the fact that she had said she was okay. And she had sounded as if that were true.

  The flashing light on top of his car allowed them to speed through downtown Las Vegas and into the seedier side of the city. Annoyed that they had reached the scene before the police, Colin caught sight of Kat’s car and pulled up right behind it.

  In two seconds he was at her door, opening it and pulling her out and into his arms. He was always careful not to touch her, because she had never allowed it. His feelings for her had grown exponentially over the years, and it was a dagger to his heart each time she shied away from him. But the stark fear he had felt for the last ten minutes since she called had him embracing her tightly. Kat immediately stiffened in his arms, but surprisingly didn’t push him away. After a long moment, she relaxed slightly and awkwardly hugged him back.

  Colin couldn’t help from taking advantage of this rare moment, and he dropped his face to the top of her head, inhaling deeply the scent that was uniquely Kat. He only ever got the slightest hint of it, but now so close to her the intoxicating scent shot straight through him.

  Bass, the bastard, cleared his throat loudly behind them, and the sounds of sirens approaching grew louder. Kat dropped her arms and Colin did the same before he overstepped her boundaries.

  She met his eyes for a moment, another thing she rarely did. Those beautiful blue-green eyes that frequented his dreams held emotions he had never seen in them before.

  “What’s the situation here?” Bass asked, and Colin had to resist the urge to land one on the old bastard’s jaw.

  Kat broke eye contact and looked toward Bass. In a matter of fact tone she said, “There are several women being held in that house. Drugged and tied down. And…there might be a rather large man with a gunshot wound to his upper right thigh.”

  Bass raised both bushy eyebrows. “Really?”

  Kat shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Bass turned to greet the LVPD officers w
ho had just arrived. Colin stayed right where he was.

  Scrubbing both hands over his face and through his short brown hair, Colin said, “How do you know that, Kat?”

  She leaned back against her car and crossed her arms over her chest, a classic Kat defensive pose. “You probably don’t want to know.”

  “Jesus Christ, Kat! What the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Kat merely watched him as he had a semi-meltdown. The thought of her putting herself directly in danger like that was enough to make him go postal. Normally any implication on his part that she couldn’t take care of herself was met with an equal amount of yelling on her part. Today, though, she watched him and said nothing while he lectured her.

  “Colin, I’m okay.”

  Colin raked his eyes over her lean body and enchanting face and saw that she was in fact unharmed, although there was a red mark high on her left cheekbone. His hand itched to reach out and caress her face, but he held back.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Kat?”

  “I came here to find a woman that may have been held in the same place as me. I found a lot more in that house than I bargained for.”

  Colin scoffed and shook his head. There were no words for the squeezing pressure in his chest when he thought of Kat being hurt - again.

  “How…how did you know where to go?”

  Kat wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Colin had a sinking feeling he knew where the intel had come from. His vision was already hazing over with the redness of rage when Kat confirmed his suspicions.

  “A tip from Alexander.”

  Colin’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I swear to God, I will kill him! Does he have any idea what he was sending you into?” Colin shouted.

  Kat stepped forward to wrap her fingers around his biceps. The fact that this was the first and only time Kat had ever initiated physical contact with him didn’t go unnoticed.

  “He didn’t know I was coming here. He only called to let me know what his investigator had found. Alexander was going to send his own men to check it out.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Kat let go of his arms and looked straight into his blue eyes. “I had to. Colin, I can’t move on until I find him. He has to die for what he did to me.” She motioned toward the house behind them that was now swarming with LVPD. “And for what he’s done to them. And God knows how many other women.”

  Colin spun around and shoved his hands into his hair. He understood what she needed; he just wished she didn’t feel the need to exact revenge herself.

  “Thank you,” Kat’s voice was soft as it spoke those two simple words from behind him.

  Slowly he turned back around and saw that curious emotion again in her eyes. When he furrowed his brow in question, Kat continued, “Thank you for saving me, Colin. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what had been done to me in the past. Today, in that house, I saw what didn’t happen to me. What you saved me from.”

  Colin was momentarily speechless. Saving her had been enough. He never expected her gratitude. Though he had long hoped for her feelings to be returned, he had come to the conclusion that she might be incapable. Now though, seeing something new in her eyes, and hearing her say those two simple words to him, hope flared anew in his heart.

  Kat tentatively took a step forward and lifted her arms slightly. Colin didn’t need any more invitation than that. Gently pulling her close, he was careful not to hold her too tightly as he had before. If she was offering herself to him, in this simplest of ways, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to mess it up. When Kat loosely looped her arms around his shoulders and briefly laid her head against his chest, Colin’s heart constricted painfully in his chest. The moment lasted mere seconds, but the feel of Kat in his arms would stay with him forever.

  Once again Bass interrupted the moment with his gruff voice.

  “This isn’t our specialty, but the locals are willing to let us poke around if you’re interested.”

  Kat pulled away, and Colin saw the spark of interest in her eyes. Shaking his head, he said, “Sorry, Kat. I can’t let you go back in there. But I’ll go in and take a look around.”

  She nodded and resumed her lean against her car. “I’ll wait here.”

  Colin raised his hand and waved over a uniformed officer.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “This lady is a material witness. Guard her with your life until I come back.”

  The officer tipped his hat in Kat’s direction while she rolled her eyes. “Will do.”

  Colin followed Bass down the street and tread carefully through the yard to the side door that was standing wide open. They had to step back for a moment to allow the paramedics to take a man out on a stretcher. He was cursing up a storm, and Colin felt a twinge of pride that Kat had taken him down. Not that he ever wanted her to be in a position like that again.

  “Your girl’s pretty tough,” Bass commented as they made their way up the short flight of stairs to the main floor of the house. Colin didn’t correct him this time.

  Bass pulled out a pair of gloves and put them on. Crouching down he sifted through some of the trash on the floor. Colin wandered over to the stairway leading to the second floor. There was blood spray on the banister where Kat must have shot the man.

  Another officer came down the stairs, carefully avoiding stepping in the blood, with his hand on his radio. “I’m going to need at least four buses down here. There are several women here who need medical treatment.”

  Colin made his way upstairs where four doors off the hallway stood open. The stench that permeated the first floor was even worse up here. Poking his head into the rooms he found women in various stages of undress, some passed out, some tethered to the walls with heavy rope or steel cables, and a couple of them were hysterical. The officers were doing their best to calm the women, but it was obvious they were on something. Only a sedative straight into the vein was going to stop that screaming.

  Having seen enough, Colin went back downstairs and found Bass talking to another agent who had just arrived on the scene. Colin caught his eye briefly and then headed outside. There really wasn’t anything to be found in there until the women could be interviewed and the CSI unit did their job.

  Kat was watching him the second he emerged from the house, and she met him in the street halfway between the house and her car.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  Colin rubbed his hand over his short hair. “There are at least fifteen women in there. They’re in bad shape, but they’re alive.”

  Kat wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Come on,” Colin said, draping his arm loosely over her shoulder and guiding her away from the house. “Let the police do their job, and I’ll follow up after they have a chance to talk to the women.”

  When they reached her car, Kat pulled out her keys like she was getting ready to leave.

  “You can’t leave yet, Kat.”

  “Why not? You said there isn’t anything we can do here.”

  Colin chuckled and shook his head. “You shot a man, Kat. You’re going to need to give your statement.”

  A hint of a smile graced her lips. “Oh, right.”

  Colin reached out and brushed his knuckles across her cheekbone. “And I want you to get checked out.”

  Kat allowed the brief contact but backed away at the mention of medical attention. “I’m fine, Colin.”

  He sighed, knowing this was not a battle he would win. “I’m going to let the officer in charge know I’m taking you down to the station for your statement. Don’t leave without me,” he ordered.

  Kat gave him a cheeky smile and saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

  Maybe this was what she needed. He’d certainly never seen her be so open with him before. And he didn’t want it to stop.

  Chapter Ten

  Luke slipped his dark jacket on over his broad shoulders and felt naked without his holster and 9mm at his side. However, the
kind of trouble he might find tonight would only require his fists. And they would be put to good use if any drunk assholes dared to even look at Natasha the wrong way.

  Alexander had no idea how right he was to have Luke go with her and her friends to celebrate her birthday. No one, except maybe Alexander himself, would take better care of her. And, Luke thought with a grimace, it had nothing to do with his work ethic. Unbeknownst to anyone, his interest in her was very personal. And he vowed it would stay that way.

  Shoving his wallet in his back pocket, Luke left the suite of rooms he used at The Onyx, only one floor below Alexander’s penthouse apartment. Alexander had arranged for a limo to pick up the girls and bring them to The Onyx to begin their evening. The limo driver had called Luke to let him know they were on their way.

  Strolling through the sleek crowded lobby of The Onyx, Luke automatically glanced around to make sure nothing was out of place. Exiting through the grand entrance, Luke stood to the side while he waited for the limo to arrive. With the glaring sun setting over the horizon, Luke slipped on his sunglasses to block out the blinding light.

  His blood hummed through his veins, and a restless energy had him shifting his weight and crossing his arms over his chest. In the years that Natasha had lived here, Luke had gone out of his way to avoid spending any prolonged amount of time with her. He simply didn’t trust himself not to cross the line with her. Never in his life had he wanted a woman so completely. And never had he not allowed himself to go after what he wanted.

  Checking his watch, Luke sighed. This was going to be a long night.

  “You look as perfect as you did thirty seconds ago when you last checked,” joked Allison from the seat across from Natasha.

  Giving her hair and makeup a quick onceover - again - Natasha pulled out her red lip gloss and applied another coat. When her brother had originally put the kibosh on her birthday plans, Natasha had already decided she was going out with or without his permission. But when he agreed only if Luke was along as a bodyguard of sorts…well, she couldn’t say no to that.