Page 81 of Devour

“Move,” Tate orders. “Now.”

We don’t wait. Tate, Thorne, Priest, Crew, and I take the stairwell at a sprint. Kase and Fox hold the second floor.

Priest hits the third-floor door and kicks it open. The two guards up here are expecting us. One is positioned behind a hallway table he’s flipped on its side, weapon drawn. The other is at the far end of the corridor with his back against the wall and his gun up.

The first one fires. The round hits the doorframe above Priest’s head and sends splinters of wood into the hall. Priest drops low, and Thorne returns fire from behind him, putting two silenced rounds into the table. The wood doesn’t stop them. The guard behind it jerks and slumps sideways. Priest shoots again, killing him. “We don’t fucking need that one.”

The second guard fires twice. One round goes wide, and the second clips the wall next to my shoulder close enough that I feel it go past.

Crew steps into the hallway and puts him down with a single shot to the thigh. The man screams and drops his weapon, grabbing his leg. Tate walks past all of us, picks the gun up off the carpet, and stands over him.

“You’re going to wish he’d aimed higher by the time I’m done with your sorry ass.” Tate crouches and zip-ties the man’s wrists in front of him. He doesn’t bother being gentle about the leg.

“That’s all six of them,” Priest says. “But there could be men in the rooms with the women.”

Thorne looks down the hallway at the row of locked doors. His jaw is set, and his gun is at his side. “Like I’m worried about any of those pussies.”

Thorne drags the man down to the second floor where Fox and Kase are. Fox has the override device in his hand. He looks at the row of doors and then at Tate. “We’re going door by door to search them all. Be ready in case someone is dumb enough to try to fight us.”

Fox holds the device against the first keypad, and the light turns green. I push the door open with my weapon up.

The room looks like a hotel suite. There’s a queen bed with clean sheets, a nightstand with a lamp, a bathroom through an open door to the left. The lighting is soft. There’s even a rug on the floor. We know from our recon that maids come during the day. We took one of them and questioned her to see what she knew. That’s how we also learned that a chef is brought in to keep the women fed unless they do something that costs them their meal privileges.

I can only imagine what else they do to ensure the women do what they’re told. The fucks who run this place believe they’ve thought of everything.

A woman is sitting on the bed with her knees pulled to her chest. She’s naked. A chain runs from a cuff around her ankle to a bolt in the floor near the foot of the bed. The chain is long enough for her to reach the entire room and bathroom.

She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t move. She looks at me and then the others, trying to figure out what fucked-up thing we’re here to do to her.

“We’re getting you out,” I tell her.

She doesn’t respond. Her eyes move to Thorne behind me, then back to the chain on her ankle.

Thorne pushes past me and kneels at the bolt. He examines the hardware and then looks back at Fox. “Do any of those fucks have the keys?”

“We’ll find out.” Fox turns and motions for Priest to follow him out.

We keep clearing rooms while they handle the keys. The next three doors on the second floor are the same—a woman in each one, looking terrified and uncertain if our presence is some kind of cruel joke.

This one has bruises across her thighs and ribs, and she cowers in the corner when the door opens. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

When I get a closer look, I see that she’s the girl that David Carter walked into this building, making my jaw tighten. Fuck.

Fox and Priest come back with a ring of keys. Priest has blood on his shirt and hands. We unlock the chain for the woman so she’s free. “We’re going to take you somewhere safe. We have to get the others,” Thorne says, trying to calm her down.

This continues through the remaining rooms on both floors. There were eight women total. And one dipshit who just about pissed himself when we opened the door and interrupted his fucking. He’s dead now.

Crew, Kase, and Thorne help the women cover themselves with blankets since we couldn’t find clothing anywhere. Then we move them out of the building into the van we brought with us. The Sinclairs are taking them to a safe house. Their wives will handle the questioning from there.

That leaves us with the guards. Five are alive, and only one dead so far. They’re all going to die, but not until we see what we can get from them. At least we don’t have to worry about cleaning up the bodies. We’ll leave that to the owners of the building to sort out. It’s obvious they won’t be calling the cops anytime soon.

The five breathing ones are zip-tied and lined up on their knees in the lobby. A couple of them are bleeding from their wounds.

Tate stands in front of them. He’s pulled a chair from behind the desk and sits in it backward with his arms folded across the top of it. Fox is leaning against the wall, while Priest and I stand behind Tate with our arms folded.

“Here’s how this works,” Tate says. “You’re going to tell me who runs this operation. I want fucking names. And then you’re going to tell me who your clients are, how the membership works, and where the other locations are.” He pauses. “The ones who talk won’t start losing body parts. My brother and I will be happy to compete and see who can make one of you fucks scream the loudest.”

Fox pulls a knife from his pocket, grinning. “That sounds like a fun time.”