Page 51 of Cobra
My hands stay loose. That takes effort. Not visible effort. But effort.
“What kind of request?” Cain asks.
The man’s mouth trembles around the answer. “Women.”
Joker’s smile disappears. That’s worse than when it was there.
Hammer shifts his weight.
Blaze curses under his breath, low and disgusted.
I step closer.
The man tries to pull back, but there’s nowhere to go.
“How many girls?”
“I don’t know.”
Hammer’s fist comes up.
The man flinches so hard he almost tips the chair. “I don’t fucking know,” he rushes out. “We get assignments. That’s it. We get a folder. Name, photos, route, maybe family. We grab, deliver, get paid.”
“Deliver where?” Logan asks.
“It changes.”
Hammer grabs his hair and yanks his head back. “Wrong answer.”
“It changes,” he says, panic breaking through now. “I swear. Drop points come last minute. Sometimes warehouse, sometimes storage units, sometimes straight to another crew.”
“Another crew?” Shadow asks.
“Transport.”
Logan’s jaw tightens. “For trafficking?”
The man closes his mouth. That is answer enough.
Cain swears, one quiet vicious word.
I look at the table against the far wall. The folder we took from the van sits there.
Olivia Martin.
I move toward it.
Logan watches me but doesn’t stop me.
I open the folder. The paper feels too clean for what it is. Her face looks back at me from the first page. Not from tonight. Not from the street. A photo taken from a distance, probably outside the salon. She’s laughing in it, head turned slightly toward whoever she was with, one hand lifted like she was mid-sentence.
My chest goes still. The room fades. Not gone. Never gone. Just less. I turn the page.
Salon address. Work schedule. Usual closing times. Vehicle information crossed out with a note that she often walks when staying late. Mother’s name. Father’s name. Siblings. A brother. A younger sister. Neighborhood. Daily patterns.
Too much.
They had too fucking much.
