Page 21 of Kyle

Chapter 6

Every nerve ending in my body tingled. I wasn’t sure if it was from the feel of Anaya’s body pressed against mine or if it was from her violent reaction to my proximity.

If I was being honest, it was from both, which made me a complete asshole.

I couldn’t deny she’d felt right in my arms. But when her body had gone solid before she’d started to tremble, all sense of rightness faded and disgust at what had happened to her to make her so scared washed over me.

I’d read the police reports. She’d been held in a cage—that alone would’ve been enough to permanently scar someone—but to add to that, when she was let out of the metal box she’d been chained to a wall. She’d been held captive and not able to move. When I’d heard someone approaching, my only concern had been to shield Anaya and conceal our identities the best I could. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences of me boxing her in. What kind of effect that would have on her mentally.

But even with all of that, I’d felt it, the moment her fear slid from her body. I saw the trust in her eyes, and it was then I knew I needed to step away. My body had a very strong reaction to her proximity, one I couldn’t hide with my hips balancing her against the wall. The longer she stared up at me with her eyes soft and trusting the harder it was to keep my dick in check. She had no idea what she did to me. No clue how badly I’d wanted to kiss her.

“That’s the fourth man in the last hour,” Anaya grumbled, pulling me from my thoughts.

She was correct, four scumbags had entered the house in the last hour. Which meant we’d been on the rooftop a full sixty minutes and I was still thinking about what she’d felt like in my arms. What I needed to do, but found it impossible, was to concentrate on the job.

Declan was taking pictures with a telephoto lens to send back to Garrett, our intel specialist, so he could run the men through facial recognition. Anything Garrett couldn’t find, Tex would. Anaya and I were scanning the area using night vision binoculars. The full moon provided enough light that even though everything was tinged in green it looked like it was daylight. We could see every detail crystal clear.

“Sucks to say, but the more men we can ID the better. And it seems Amisha spaces out their arrivals to every fifteen minutes,” Dec noted.

“Privacy?” Anaya asked.

“That’d be my guess.”

“But no one has left yet.”

Her statement lingered. None of us wanting to voice the reason why. Likely the girls were rented by the hour, or increments thereof. There was no way to know for sure, but the first man had entered on the hour, the next fifteen after, and so on. But no one had exited.

We were coming up on a new hour, so we’d know soon.

Another car pulled up and I watched the man inside. He remained in his car and it looked as though he’d checked his watch before he sat back and waited.

“The door’s opening,” Anaya whispered.

A man stepped onto the porch and looked both ways before he headed to his car.

“You think he knows someone’s in their car waiting?” she asked.

“No idea. But probably. Sick fuck wouldn’t want to miss a minute of his time.”

She didn’t comment on my answer, likely because there was nothing to say. I was right. The men might not want to run into each other in the house, but they had to know their disgusting proclivities weren’t a secret from the other men who visited Amisha’s.

“That’s the first man that went in. Fifty-five minutes,” Declan muttered. “Fucking pig.”

Once again, silence fell as we continued to watch.

* * *

On the drive across the city, my stomach churned and for once it had nothing to do with Declan’s erratic driving.

Over the last five hours we’d watched twelve men enter and leave Amisha’s.

Twelve men who deserved a bullet to the forehead.

At midnight the last man had entered, but we’d stayed the fifth hour to watch the last man leave. It seemed Amisha was open four hours a night.

We had a minimum of three more nights of the shit. Just sitting on our hands watching, gathering intel.

“Maybe tomorrow—”