Milo came back to consciousness slowly and with an incredible, world-shattering headache. He choked back the groan that wanted to escape; without knowing where he was, he didn’t know if it was safe to make any noise at all. He could hear a woman speaking, switching back and forth between Spanish and a lightly accented English, but he didn’t know the voice. He probably could have opened his eyes, but based on the color penetrating his eyelids, there was a lot of light, and that light was going to hurt. He might be more at risk conscious than unconscious, so the best thing to do was keep his muscles lax and his body still until he was alone, and then figure out what was the next step.

 

But whoever was watching him was watching too closely; in the moment between waking and realizing that he needed to be still, the woman had noted his returning awareness.

 

“He’s awake,” she said to whoever was with her, and the person grunted sharply.

 

Milo expected to be handled roughly, but instead, a cool cloth rested on his forehead. A drier, warmer one had been taken away. Someone was taking care of him. Why was that happening?

 

“Wake up, Mr. Sykes, it’s time you and I had a face-to-face conversation.”

 

He didn’t recognize the voice, but now that he was coming out of the fog, he recognized the intonation. But why – how was Silk Road a woman?

 

He opened his eyes to see an older Latina woman standing over him, wearing a pretty smile with her arms crossed under her breasts, and looking no less deadly as she did it.

 

“Hello, Mr. Sykes,” the person he had known as Silk Road said. “It really is about time, isn’t it?”

 

Milo’s mind raced. If she were just going to kill him or have him killed, he would already be dead. It was either torture or something else. He didn’t think torture was likely to be on the menu. Maybe some people started torture that way, but he’d always found that starting with abject terror did a lot to loosen a subject’s tongue. Of course, you didn’t get real information under that kind of duress. But sometimes it was good to make someone hurt before they died.

 

“I am sorry,” the woman continued, “that we needed to resort to such techniques to get you here. That is, of course, not our preference. There are those we hurt because we must, but you are a partner in so many ways. I may disagree with your methods of achieving your goals – or, more specifically, the timeliness of achieving those goals – but you are not my enemy.”

 

Milo braced his hands and slowly levered himself up to sitting. His head throbbed as he was moving, but the ache eased off a little as he settled down. “I’m glad to hear that, Silk Road.”

 

The woman raised an eyebrow, and her smile became a little more real and a little less pretty. Someone brought her a chair, and she settled down it. She didn’t cross her legs; she spread them and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She was a strong woman, clear muscle showing as she moved. Her hair was nearly back, shot through with strands of white, and twisted up into a bun that looked tight enough to keep hair out of her eyes when she fought. He was sure she fought. There was no way a woman like this didn’t fight. She was older, and her lined face demanded respect, but she was also incredibly beautiful. He liked the two together; they gave her a kind of wisdom he found himself enjoying.

 

“Water? You should eat.”

 

His stomach rumbled, and panic ran through him like a cold river. “Tess. Where is she?”

 

Silk Road gave him a long look. “What do you mean?”

 

“She was waiting in the car. About a mile from the warehouse. Fuck. Did your people get her too? Or did she run? I told her to leave if I didn’t come back within a few hours. I need to find her.” His heart was racing so hard it made his head pound even more, and he had to swallow against bile in his throat.

 

“Be calm,” Silk Road said, and for a minute, Milo thought that it would be alright. But then the woman added, “We found the car, and there was no one there. She must have left on foot.”

 

He shook his head hard. There was no way his Tess, his beautiful Tess, would walk out on a dirt road like that, not when she had the car right there. Her hips had been bad for two weeks, and her back was starting to ache from the weight of the baby. There was no way. She’d have driven off if she’d done anything.

 

“No, Silk Road – you have to believe me—”

 

“Ruta.”

 

“What?”

 

“My name is Ruta. If we are to be partners in this too, you may as well know my name. You have seen my face, after all, and I must trust that you will not tell the world that Silk Road is a woman; my enemies barely tolerate me as it is, behind a faceless mask. Without that protection, I doubt I would survive.” The woman’s grin spread just a little wider. “And if I do not survive, I won’t be able to help you find the woman.”

 

He leaped to a conclusion. “You took her.”

 

Ruta scoffed. “Of course I didn’t. Are you mad? I wouldn’t hurt another woman, certainly not one who was only doing her best to escape the monster she’d found herself chained to.” Milo felt himself puff up, but Ruta’s laugh pricked his ego and settle him down again. “Not you, though I’m disappointed she decided to trade one protector for another. There’s still a chance of getting her to give it up, I suppose. But to return to the point. No. I did not take the girl. If I had, she would be safe. I suspect I know who has her though.”

 

“Bastille was at the warehouse. Did he kill Toro?”

 

Ruta shook her head. “No. And I made a mistake in hiring that son of a bitch, and sometime when we are all less distracted, I will make a proper apology for that. I was angry – angry enough to send someone to keep you honest. Or so I thought. I did not understand that he had such a… fight to pick with you. It was why my men had orders to take care of him when they went in to keep you safe.”

 

“Why the crack to the head then?”

 

Ruta laughed again. “That was to remind you that you had a job to do, and you had not done it. To make sure you understood what needed to be done. What still needs to be done.”

 

And then the pieces fell into place. “Toro has her.”

 

Ruta nodded. “He does, I think. He somehow escaped the warehouse; perhaps he saw the girl on the way out. My sources had said he was fonder of her than some might initially expect. He had kept her for a rather long time, all things considered. Considering the things he had his hands in.”

 

“What did he have his hands in?”

 

Someone appeared with a bottle of water so cold that there was condensation on the sides, and a thermos of what smelled like a rich stew. Milo accepted the items and, after a nod from Ruta, dug in. He’d been in enough situations to know that when a meal presented itself, you took it. You relished it, because who knew when the next one would arrive? Especially when it sounded like there was going to be another fight coming up. You needed to be safe if you were going to save someone else.

 

It was interesting, the idea of riding in to rescue another person. So much of his world had focused on ending lives. It seemed good to be thinking about saving one. If he could. If Ruta knew where Tess was. If Ruta was willing to help him get Tess back. Clearly, Toro was smarter than anyone had expected. But Milo needed his girl. He needed his baby. If he had to walk through fire to get her – fine. Let the fire come.

 

“Slaves,” Ruta said, and Milo was startled so hard he almost dropped his stew. He’d expected almost any word except for that one. She eyed him for a moment, then continued. “Is there a better word for girls, kidnapped from their homes and villages, taken somewhere where they are chained to beds and kept drugged or made to be addicted so that they don’t dare to think of leaving? Where they are used and used until they are used up, and then discarded? And God forbid if one of them gets pregnant. The things that are done to them then?” Ruta shook her head, and Milo had an odd moment of conviction that the woman was speaking from experience. That chilled him all the way down.

 

“None of this is about drugs.”

 

Ruta shrugged. “I would have dealt with him eventually because he tried to take one of my suppliers. I will not tolerate that sort of interference; I can’t afford to do so. But finding out that he was buying kidnapped girls and selling them into his clubs? That moved him up the priority list. You are entirely correct about that.”

 

“And now he has Tess.”

 

“It would appear so.”

 

“Tell me you know where he is?”

 

Ruta grinned again, and there was such dark malice in it this time. Yes, he’d been right. This was a woman who would take on all the armies of hell if she thought it would further her cause. And she’d set her sights on the man who had stolen Milo’s girl, who was carrying his baby.

 

There was no way Toro would survive the encounter. It seemed that neither Milo nor Ruta had been able to handle the bastard on their own; he would not, Milo suspected, have a single chance of making it out alive when the two of them worked together.

 

“Let’s go,” he said.

 

Ruta was already on the move.