“Wil…”

“I’ll be all right,” Wil said. “They’re bringing the kids to the hospital.” Frank stood beside the car, worried. Wil paused before opening the door. “Do you think I’m compromising my badge?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know you didn’t say it. But is that what you think?”

Frank shifted. “It’s just that, when you start graying the lines between right and wrong, it can set you on a slippery slope.” He sighed. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Wil.”

“I’m not engaging in criminal activity, Frank,” Wil said. “I’m trying to help these kids. And if I have to look the other way on a couple things to do that, then so be it. The most important thing to me right now is the kids’ wellbeing.”

“I know. And it should be.” Concern filled Frank’s eyes. “But we both know what happened to those men at the warehouse.”

Wil itched his temple and arched his brow. “So, I should attempt to arrest the cowboy?”

“No.” Frank groaned. “Fuck, I don’t know. I just don’t want you to get mixed up in something that might get you and Tad hurt, or jeopardize your career.”

Wil faced him and gripped his shoulders. “I’m getting the kids back, that’s all. I’m not going into business with these men.” He drew back. “And what you said about graying the lines? The line between right and wrong, and good and bad…they are gray. Sometimes good people do bad things and vice versa. Not all bad guys are one hundred percent bad. Not all good guys are entirely good. These men…maybe they are the bad guys, but they aren’t badmen. No one who cares this much about abused children can be all bad. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Yes.” Frank nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply…”

“I know you didn’t,” Wil murmured. “I told you before, I’m damn lucky to have a friend who cares so much. I haven’t changed my mind about that. In fact, when this long day is finally over, why don’t you come over to my place and have a drink with me, help me unwind.”

The look that passed through Frank’s eyes resurrected that incessant tingle in Wil’s belly button. This time, it drifted a bit lower, warming his loins, and startling the hell out of Wil.

“It’s a date.” Frank’s smile hinted with amusement, but behind the humor lingered a serious tone; he wanted it to be a real date.

“All right, then,” Wil chuckled and opened the car door. “Bring your best stuff.”

“Ah, I see how you are,” Frank grinned. “You invite me over for a drink then expect me to bring the drink.”

“Well, you were the one who called it a date, and it is customary to bring wine and roses to your date.” He winked. “Roses are optional.”

“Shit,” Frank laughed softly, thoroughly enjoying their playful flirty banter. His desire for it to be more than play glowed brightly on his face. “Hell, I can be unpredictable. You never know what I might bring to the date.”

“I do have a sweet tooth,” Wil hinted.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Wil laughed. “I have to get going. But be forewarned, now you’ve got me expecting something special. Don’t disappoint me.”

“That’s the last thing I’d want to do,” Frank smiled, yet quite serious.

“Not even possible,” Wil assured as he slid in behind the wheel. He looked at Frank and his friend stared back, his heart unveiled in his eyes for the first time in a long time. “See you tonight.”

 

•♦•

 

The bodies of the children were wrapped in the sheets and transferred to the living room. The men looked distraught as they carried the lost innocent ones into the room and gently laid them side by side on the carpet.

Sanchez stared down at the children and shook his head. “This is fucked up. It’s like something straight out of a fucking horror movie.”

“I wish it was just a movie,” Cruz mumbled with a sick knot in his gut. He turned to the cowboy, eyes deadly. “Introduce us to the guests.”

“This way.” Clint led them back into the main room, instructed the bulk of the men to wait there, then took Cruz, Sanchez, and Cochise with him into the kitchen. The cook had come to and was in great pain. Olson’s leg was bleeding all over the floor and Barron lay still, chest heaving and face pinched as his useless legs stretched out rigidly. Tremors rippled through Barron as his breath wheezed down his throat and his eyes watered and drained down his temples. “Did you miss me, fuckers?” Clint walked over and rested his foot on Barron’s right ankle and slowly pressed down, grinding the sole of his boot against the man’s crushed joint.

“Fuck!” Barron bucked and flopped half onto his side then back again.

Clint released the pressure and removed his foot.

“What the fuck happened to this one?” Cruz approached Vinny and stared at him with curious disgust.

“Cooking accident,” Clint muttered.

Cochise kicked the cooking pot out of the way. Vinny writhed and whimpered. He couldn’t see the Egyptian as his eyes were blistered shut and possibly boiled inside his head, but he sensed his nearby presence. Cochise pulled out his large knife and severed the cord tying the cook’s hands to his feet and hauled him up off the floor. He paid no mind to the slop coating the man’s clothes and shoved him toward the door.

Cruz and Sanchez followed suit and sliced Olson’s cords. The man cried out in pain when they jerked him to his feet and his injured leg buckled. “You think you’re in pain now?” Cruz growled. “You don’t know what pain is.”

Standing immobile, Clint looked at Barron. The other men paused at the swinging door. Clint picked up one of the extra cords he’d gathered earlier. “You’re the one who dumped the kids in the freezing room to die alone.”

“Fuck…you.” Spittle sprayed from his lips.

Clint ignored the man and fashioned a crude noose in the cord. The fucker couldn’t walk into the other room, so Clint would have to improvise.

“What the fuck?” Barron wrenched away when Clint squatted down and started to slip the noose over his head.

Clint grabbed a fist of his hair and smacked his head against the floor, knocking him senseless for a moment as he slid the cord around his neck. He stood up and looped the cord over his hand a couple times and nodded at the other men. Olson and Vinny were escorted out of the kitchen. Clint followed them, dragging Barron across the floor by his throat as the man gagged and wheezed and clawed at the cord embedded into his neck flesh.

 

•♦•

 

Axel had returned to the private waiting room with the girls when detective Jordan showed up. The man appeared genuinely concerned as he asked about Kelly’s little brother and Kelly herself.

“Can you tell me how you came to be at the orphanage?” Jordan asked her. “Were you and your brother abducted from your family?”

Kelly sat with her hands in her lap and eyes down. “No,” she whispered. “We…we ran away from our foster family.”

“Why is that?”

Kelly blinked as she stared at the floor. “My foster brother molested me. But he was our foster parents’ real son, so they didn’t believe me. After he did it a second time, I took Raimi and ran away.”

“And how did you end up at the orphanage?”

“A man found us sleeping on the streets, practically starved to death. He said he knew of a place we could go where we’d be taken care of.” She blinked and hugged herself. “I didn’t have any choice. Raimi needed food and shelter. The guy seemed nice. I-I thought he really wanted to help us.”

Axel rubbed his damp eyes, his heart hurting at the thought of these kids just looking for someone to care, someone to love them…and then being tricked by the sick bastards out there in the world.

“He took you to the orphanage?” Jordan presumed. Kelly nodded. The detective continued. “What happened when you arrived at the orphanage?”

Kelly swallowed and looked up. “They treated us like animals. And they…used us.” Her chin quivered. “Both of us.” She hung her head and choked on a sob. “I should’ve stayed with the foster family. There, Raimi wasn’t being abused that way. Because I wanted to run away, he…” she tightened her arms around her thin waist and cried softly. “He almost died because of me.”

“No,” Axel cut in. “Not because of you. Because of those sick, cruel men at the orphanage. You and Raimi are the victims. None of this is your fault.”

Jordan nodded. “He’s right. You can’t blame yourself just because you were trying to get away from a bad situation. The men who hurt you and your brother are the ones at fault.”

A few minutes later, Axel and the detective walked out into the corridor. Jordan checked his watch. “The kids should be arriving soon.” They took the elevator to the ground floor. The detective had alerted the ER staff of the kids’ impending arrival and what to expect when they got there. “You’ve seen the kids,” Jordan said. “Are they all as emaciated at the young girl upstairs?”

“Yes,” Axel told him. “Some of them much worse.”

“My God,” Jordan whispered.

Axel asked, “Did Clint tell you about the other kids?”

“Other kids?”

Axel hesitated. “The ones I found in the backroom.”

“Backroom…?” a look of dread came over the detective’s face. “No.”

It made Axel sick to speak of that horror room. “There were bodies,” he murmured. “Maybe five or six, I’m not sure…piled up like…” His throat constricted. “Like bundles of trash.”

Detective Wil Jordan’s eyes reflected the horror that Axel was feeling. “Bodies of…kids?” A film of tears formed.

Axel nodded. “When the kids got too sick to…use…they put them in the back room to die.” He ducked his head and pressed his fingers to his eyes. “It was like a fucking freezer back there. The window was left open, probably to keep the bodies from…going bad too quickly. The poor little things…” He raised his head and looked away, blinking rapidly. “They were practically frozen solid.”

The detective’s tears thickened, and he lost all “professionalism” as he whispered bitterly, “What kind of fucking monsters would do that to children?”

Axel shook his head. “The kind I want to see wiped off the face of this earth,” he admitted. “I know you’re a cop and you have to do things by the book, but these people have no rights. They lost their rights when they turned on innocent children. The only thing they deserve is death.”

After a hell of a lot of torture first.

Jordan didn’t put an argument. He had a young son and Axel knew from having Jules and the twins in his life how one associated their own children with such horrifying events. How could a person not imagine these things from such a perspective? Axel expected Jordan to question him about Clint and whether or not he was taking matters into his own hands concerning the men at the orphanage, but he asked no questions. Maybe as a father, he hoped Clint was dealing with these men in his own special way.

Axel and Jordan went out to the ER entrance and waited. Within fifteen minutes, the truck arrived, driven by two of Cruz’s men. Axel hadn’t expected Clint to be with them. The two men exited the truck and walked around to the rear as Axel and the detective approached. They cast Jordan a wary look then unlatched the door and shoved it up.

“Sweet Jesus,” Jordan breathed when he looked in on the small gathering of children, and helplessly queried again, “Who the hell would do this to them?”

Axel glanced at the other two men and they moved out of the way as the ER team rushed out and began unloading the kids.

“Did Clint tell you what happened?” Rodriguez asked. “With the little girl?”

Axel’s heart shuddered to a halt, quivering in his chest. “What little girl?”

Rodriguez and Matteo exchanged a heartbreaking look that terrified Axel. “The little girl…who died in his arms.”