SOMEHOW I’D BEEN EXPECTING an ominous, super high-tech structure like the government facility we’d broken into to sequence my DNA. Instead, the place we were approaching in the thin early-morning light looked like an ordinary office building. It could have passed for an accounting firm or a call center.
I guessed I should have known better when it came to the Blood Hunter. He made a living out of keeping his illicit activities unnoticed. But Blaze thought that this place, which on paper was merely the offices of a company that dealt in industrial chemicals, was where the Blood Hunter was storing his main archive of stolen DNA samples.
I couldn’t help glancing at the hacker, who was checking something on his phone. “Are you sure this is the right spot?”
He nodded without looking up. “I traced information from one of the phones we nabbed through a few different contacts to someone working here. Strangely for an industrial chemical business, they have an expert in DNA sequencing on staff. The Blood Hunter would have to process the samples he gets somewhere.”
Julius, the only other crew member joining us in the hands-on assault, grunted. “Wouldn’t he have it all backed up on the ‘cloud’ or whatever?”
Blaze shrugged. “I’m sure he has more than one copy. But he’s got to balance the risks of losing the data with the risks of it being discovered by the wrong person. He won’t have spread it around very much. And if I’m right that this is the center of that part of his operations, I should be able to connect to any other networks he’s shared the information to from inside and wipe them as well.”
And then hopefully fewer mercenaries would be compelled to come after us.
Julius contemplated the parking lot. “It looks like quite a few employees are in already. How did you want us to handle them?”
A grimace twisted Blaze’s lips. “I think that’s unavoidable. There are staff here 24-7, but this is the time of day when the fewest are on hand. These are people who willingly choose to work for the Blood Hunter’s business, though. I’ve seen signs of various other illegal operations that are being concealed by this front. I don’t think we should have any sympathy for the people who’ve sided with that prick.”
He looked at me, probably thinking of the way I’d hesitated to kill any of the mercenaries attacking us if we could find another way. I set my jaw. “These people are all helping the Blood Hunter terrorize the world for their own gain. We can’t give them the chance to alert him or get in our way. That means we take them out.”
Julius nodded in somber agreement. He raised his phone to his ear. “We’re going in,” he informed Talon, who was watching the building from a farther distance with Garrison, ready to provide whatever backup we might need from the outside—and babysitting Carter.
“There’s not going to be any question that the Chaos Crew was here,” Blaze said with a wicked smile. “And while the first priority is destroying the DNA files, maybe I’ll be able to steal a bunch more data on the Blood Hunter’s operations that’ll allow us to create even more havoc later.”
I smiled grimly. “Sounds good to me.”
Julius slung the duffel bag he was carrying over his shoulder, gas canisters clanking together inside. We didn’t want to leave any possibility of the Blood Hunter retrieving data from the computer terminals inside—so that meant that when Blaze had done all he could, the whole building was coming down. Or rather, going up in flames.
Our commander raised his chin toward the building. “Let’s go.”
We marched toward the front door together. A security guard was visible just inside beyond the glass pane of its window. I drew one of my knives into my hand, holding it close at my side as we reached the entrance.
When we pulled the door open, the security guard frowned. “I don’t know you. If you have business with—”
I didn’t let him finish that sentence. With a swift swing of my arm, I’d severed his throat and the arteries that bordered it. Blood spurted out as he crumpled to the floor.
The reception desk was empty this early in the morning. We stormed through the first floor, taking down another guard and a couple of men in lab coats so quickly none of them had a chance to raise the alarm. Blaze pointed us to the second floor.
We paused at the door on the landing, peering through the narrow window into an open-concept room filled with cubicles, several of them inhabited. There was also a row of office rooms along the far wall. Blaze pointed toward them. “One of the computers in those rooms should have the access I need. I’ll head straight there. Assuming you two can take care of the rest?”
Julius’s eyes glinted. “That’s what we’re here for.”
We burst through the doorway together, Julius and I firing our silenced pistols the moment we set foot on the linoleum tiles. One after another employee dropped, some of them in the process of scrambling for their phones or reaching to their waists where they might have had weapons of their own. Too late. In a matter of seconds, they were all slumped by their desks, blood pooling beneath them.
Destroying them was so easy that a twinge of guilt passed through me, but then I thought about Petrov talking about the threats to his family. About the girls and women who’d been stolen from their homes to be used by sick men. Everyone in this building had helped the Blood Hunter make those things happen. They deserved their fate.
Blaze had pushed into one of the smaller offices. There was a bang as he must have dispatched the owner of said office. Julius and I hustled across the room and kicked in the doors of the others, confirming they were empty.
We were just turning around when a pair of security guards barreled into the room. “What the hell—” one was in the process of saying. He was only just raising his gun when Julius planted a bullet in his skull. I caught the other in the chest and then the neck with my own.
We strode through the rest of the building, checking the breakroom with its stale coffee smell lacing the air, the restrooms, and a storage area where we found one more security guard, grooving to tunes on his headphones while he peered through the window, blissfully unaware that the building had been compromised until I blasted his brains across the wall.
Julius prodded a couple of the boxes on one of the shelves. “Looks like they’ve got a drugs operation, or at least part of one, funneled through here. These are the kinds of supplies you’d need in a meth lab.”
“Lovely,” I said. “Well, they’re all going up in smoke too.”
He opened up the duffel bag and handed me one of the canisters. We took opposite ends of the room, splashing gasoline across the shelves and leaving a trail leading to the door. We created a stream down the hall and then liberally sloshed it across every desk and piece of computer equipment except the station Blaze was working at.
One of the screens I soaked showed an image of a woman much like the videos we’d seen at the auction—the worker lying dead beneath his chair had been editing it. To make her look like a more appealing purchase? To conceal any evidence of who her seller was? My stomach turned, and I kicked the asshole in the ribs, even though he was already gone from this world.
“Blaze,” I hollered. “There are files here on the trafficked women. Grab those if you can!”
“I’ll do my best,” he called from the office where he’d set up shop. I could hear his fingers racing across the keyboard from all the way across the large room. “Unsurprisingly, he’s got some tricky security systems protecting the most vital data. I haven’t quite gotten to the DNA files yet. If you’re done prepping the place, keep watch on the parking lot. We need to be out of here before the regular daytime shift shows up. There’s no way we’ll be able to handle all of them without someone getting away and tipping off the Blood Hunter.”
“Dess, you watch the windows,” Julius ordered. “Blaze, you’ve got to have a dozen flash drives on you. Toss me a couple and I’ll back up whatever I can from the computers out here.”
He hustled over to Blaze’s office and snatched what Blaze threw to him out of the air. As he hurried back to the nearest computers, I stalked to the row of windows that looked over the parking lot.
It was still early, but traffic was starting to pick up with morning commuters. Blaze had said we should be fine until eight-thirty or so, but he’d also cautioned us that we couldn’t be sure no one would turn up before then. If they did, we’d need to take them out before they saw the carnage downstairs and raised the alarm.
Somewhere behind me, Julius made a disgusted sound that told me he’d found more unpleasant material. The gasoline fumes in the air were making me a little dizzy, but they also fueled the anger inside me. I couldn’t wait to see this stronghold of the Blood Hunter’s burn.
Blaze let out a little whoop, so I knew he was at least partway to his goal. I shifted my weight, feeling the seconds slip by us with thuds of my pulse. The sun slowly crept up behind the rooftops across the street, streaking their eavestroughs with a golden glow. More cars zipped by along the nearest street.
My eye caught on movement near the parking lot. A light gray sedan was pulling in. My hand dropped to my gun. I drew in a breath to give the guys a heads up before I headed downstairs to take care of the problem, and then I noticed that the woman behind the wheel wasn’t alone.
A small figure sat in the backseat, leaning close to the window. My heart flipped over. It was a little girl, fine blond hair framing her pale face.
Why would anyone be bringing a kid to this building? They wouldn’t march one of their slaves around in broad daylight, would they? And anyway, she looked significantly younger than the other girls we’d seen trafficked, who’d all been at least on the verge of adolescence. I’d place this kid at seven or eight tops.
Maybe they weren’t coming to this building at all? The woman might have preferred to park here when heading to another office or store down the street.
I unlocked my voice just in case. “Someone’s in the parking lot. A woman, looks like a professional, nice suit, and a little girl. They’re just getting out of the car.”
“A little girl?” Julius said, his head jerking toward me in surprise.
“Yes. I don’t understand— Shit.” The woman had opened the back door for the girl, who’d scampered out, and they’d both turned toward the office where I was standing. The girl was wearing a school uniform that only emphasized her youth, a pale blue shirt with a plaid skirt that hung to her knees, stripes of blue, green, and yellow woven together.
A second later, they were heading across the lot to the front door. My stomach lurched.
“They’re coming here. We can’t—I’m not going to shoot a kid.”
Julius swore. “As soon as they see the guard in the lobby, we’re screwed.”
I whipped my phone to my ear, tapping it to dial Garrison’s number. He picked it up on the first ring. My heart pounded so loud I could barely hear my voice.
“We need a diversion in the parking lot, now,” I said. “There’s a woman bringing a kid to the building—we need to stop them from coming in.”
My stomach continued to list as I imagined the little girl walking in and seeing the bloodshed. The nightmares and daytime terrors that might follow. I’d been brought up on violence, but no child really should be. She wouldn’t understand.
Thankfully, Garrison understood without my having to say anything else. “On it,” he said without hesitation. “What car did she come in?”
“It’s a silver sedan,” I said. There was only one of those in the lot right now, thank God.
I heard a squeak of hinges just before Garrison hung up. I didn’t have to wait long to find out how he was going to handle the problem.
Tires screeched down the street. A sports car came zooming into the parking lot and crashed straight into the woman’s sedan. A hoodie-clad figure I knew was Garrison leapt out and immediately dashed off.
At the noise of the crash, the woman had spun around, just ten feet from the door. She clapped her hand to her mouth and then hurried back toward her car, waving for the girl to stay with her. Relief trickled through me, but not enough to settle my nerves completely.
“They won’t be distracted for too long,” I said to the others. “We’ve got to set this place burning and take off before they come back to the building.” I didn’t want to hurt the girl, and that included protecting her from the horrifying sights inside.
Julius sighed. “I was able to transfer a few things that look useful.”
“I’m done,” Blaze announced breathlessly. “All digital files are destroyed, and the triple backups are wiped, too. As far as I can tell, I got it all. I wish I could have grabbed more for our own use…” He paused in the doorway, gazing longingly at the machine. “It’s all on the network, no point in taking the computer itself.”
“There’s no time,” Julius said grimly. He nudged Blaze aside to heave the last of his gasoline over the equipment in there.
We hustled to the back stairwell. On the threshold, Julius held a lighter to a ball of paper he’d stuffed into a mug from someone’s desk. When the paper went up in flames, he hurled it into the middle of the room.
The ceramic sides smashed. The fire licked out across the trails of gasoline, flaring brighter as it crawled across the room with increasing speed. I took in the welcome sight of the Blood Hunter’s hard work turning into ash for a couple of beats of my heart. Then Blaze tugged at my arm.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he reminded me.
Of course. I turned on my heel, and we rushed down the stairs together. Just as we burst into the back alley, the sound of shattering windows reached my ears. The fire was roaring all through the second floor now.
The woman would see it—she’d know not to bring the kid anywhere near the place now. My work here was done, in more ways than I’d expected.
