Page 41 of Hawk

My fists clenched so tight my bones ached. Rage coiled in my chest like a blade waiting to be unsheathed.

The lights dimmed. A final bell. “Sold.”

Darkness descended briefly, then the room lit up once more.

This time, it was a man. Young. Barely fucking legal. Wearing only a Speedo. Arms limp and mouth parted like he couldn’t quite understand what was happening. Just as drugged. Just as humiliated.

“They’re not only taking pictures of them,” Maverick said, his voice a growl. “They’re selling them.”

“They’re selling people?” Wrecker hissed.

“They’re trafficking,” I corrected. “Fucking monsters.”

I was stunned by this revelation. A fucking human trafficking ring, disguised under pixelated filth and dark web encryption.

Wrecker was already gone, pounding back into the hallway. “Gonna find the holding room.”

Maverick made for the landline in the corner. Old-fashioned rotary, red. The kind used for panic calls or locked systems.

He picked it up, dialed a number, and waited.

“Who’re you calling?” Hawk asked, still staring at the screen.

“Backup,” Maverick answered. “Local associates. Be here in ten. Not gonna handle this one alone.”

I nodded slowly, a brutal smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “I’m going to see what’s left of Darren.”

The moment I reemerged from the elevator, the fury came with me. The air upstairs felt thicker than before, as if the whole mansion had absorbed the stench of what we’d uncovered below. Behind me, the walls were still echoing with the ghosts of the auction. Glass rooms. Drugged bodies. People being bid on by monsters in designer suits.

I thought about Gemma. Wondered if this was where she would have ended up if she’d never called Lainie. Immediately, I shook the thought away. It would only lead to death and destruction. If the beast was released, no one would get out alive.

I focused on an image of her seared into my memory—safe in my bed, sleepy and satisfied. Staring up at me with those soft brown eyes, her tempting lips curled in a sweet smile.

I stalked through the corridor, boots heavy on polished hardwood, my fists clenching with every step. The walls vibrated faintly, with music still playing somewhere in the house. It grated on my already frayed edges.

Racer waited in the hall, his expression as hard as granite. “Storm’s got him in the guest suite, end of the hall,” he muttered,motioning with his chin. “Didn’t want him near the kitchen. Too many knives.”

Good.I wanted to bleed Darren somewhere quiet.

I didn’t knock. Just shoved the door open with the heel of my hand and stepped into the room like the devil had come to claim Darren’s soul.

The bedroom was plush. Gold accents, silk curtains. Velvet chairs arranged near a crackling gas fireplace that tried to pass as elegant but felt staged—like everything else in the house.

Storm stood calmly to the side, one hand wrapped around his gun, the other resting casually on the back of a high-backed chair. Darren Thomas sat trembling on the cushion. He was bound, bruised, and already bleeding from a split lip and swollen eye. His tailored suit was wrinkled, the collar torn, and sweat plastered his thinning hair to his forehead.

The moment I walked in, Darren tensed.Coward.

But it wasn’t him that stopped me in my tracks.

It was the wall.

Six framed photographs lined it in staggered columns. Boudoir portraits, blown up and printed in high gloss. Women in lace and satin posed artfully, unaware their beauty had become part of a predator’s trophy room.

And there—centered, larger than the rest—was Gemma.

My Gemma.

She stood barefoot, back arched slightly, hair tumbling down over one bare shoulder, the lighting caressing her skin. So beautiful. Confident. But still vulnerable.

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