Corrupted Vows by Kiana Hettinger

Chapter One

Gabe

Three years later

The girl standing in front of me looked broken.

Her long, blonde hair hung in greasy pigtails down her back and her face was black and blue, nearly unrecognizable.

I looked her over, taking in the short, tattered dress she wore and the bruising that decorated her arms and peeked out from the rips in her dress.

“It’s a good look on you,” I told her.

She glared back at me. “I’d love to see you in a skimpy-ass dress with a bunch of creeps about to put their hands all over you,” she snapped.

I laughed. “I forgot to shave my legs. Maybe next time.”

“Asshole,” she muttered under her breath, still glaring.

“You’re seriously hurting my feelings here, Greta,” I said, clapping both hands over my heart.

“I’m going to be hurting a hell of a lot more than your feelings if we don’t get this show on the road, ASAP. I’m fucking freezing.”

I could see the goose bumps breaking out all over Greta. The temperature wasn’t bad, but the breeze had picked up.

I would have given her a jacket, but we couldn’t afford to risk smudging all the pretty bruises she’d painted on her face and body.

Nacio appeared through the gap in the trees behind us. “My men are in position,” he said, nodding toward the old farmhouse seventy-five yards in front of us.

The old farmhouse on the outskirts of town looked innocuous enough. It had seen better days; the tiled roof was cracked and faded and the porch, which looked like it had been painted blue and yellow fifty years ago, was holding on by a thread. In itself, not really a problem worthy of our attention. What lurked inside the house was a different story. A horror story, and not one you wanted to find on your local bookshelf.

“All right, get Muñoz,” I said to Salvatore, the Costa man I’d brought with me. He stood beyond the gap in the trees, a hulking dark figure next to the first of the four black vans that were parked in the shadows behind the trees.

Salvatore opened the rear door quietly, reached in, and dragged out the weasel of a man we had gagged in there. He even reminded me of a weasel, short and skinny with a pointy nose and recessed chin. Salvatore took hold of his bound hands and started walking him in our direction.

The weasel was walking a little funny, probably thanks to the small explosive device one of Nacio’s men had shoved up his rectum. Can’t say it was a job I would have wanted, but it was an effective incentive: Do as we say or we blow you up with one press of a button.

“You understand how this is going to go, Muñoz?” I asked the guy once Salvatore had brought him to a stop in front of me.

The guy nodded while he glared at me, his jaw muscles ticking wildly.

“Get rid of the gag,” I instructed Salvatore.

If the asshole screamed bloody murder, the plan would be screwed, but then, he’d also be bleeding out of some brand-new holes. I think he had more to lose here than we did.

“All right, tell me the plan one more time,” I told Muñoz.

The guy needed to be equally as focused on what was about to happen as he was on saving his own ass.

Muñoz glared at me, pressing his lips together.

Nacio and I chuckled as Salvatore aimed a shot at Muñoz’s kidney and let it fly. With his hands still bound in Salvatore’s grip, the guy’s torso shot forward, but his shoulders stayed put. That looked painful. To his credit, though, he barely made a sound.

“You feel like talking yet?” Greta asked. She looked ready to take a few shots of her own. I couldn’t blame her; it would help her warm up.

“I take the girl to the door,” Muñoz finally spat out. “I stay on her left side. I tell them she’s new stock. They’ll check her for weapons and wires. When they’re done, I get the earpiece in her ear and slip the gun in her pocket.”

We’d had him practice the move a hundred times—which had thrilled Greta to no end. Really, she’d been brimming with glee the whole time. Well, she’d been brimming with something. I’d chosen to call it glee.

“What happens if you fuck up, ese?” Nacio asked, getting in Muñoz’s face.

“I die,” he replied while his jaw ticked wildly.

Nacio nodded. “And what happens if things don’t go exactly like you’ve told us they would?”

“I die,” he snapped.

My turn. “What happens if anything happens to the girl?” I asked, nodding at Greta.

“I die.”

Nacio smiled. “It seems there’s only one way out of this for you, Muñoz. And just so you know, that little explosive device up your ass? I didn’t design it to kill you instantly. It’ll rip a few holes through your bowels, making sure you bleed out slowly while your own shit contaminates your body.”

The guy paled.

Nacio was one creative fucker. An artist, really. It was a shame we’d have to let Muñoz go if he followed through on his end.

“Okay, boys, enough chitchat,” Greta said, walking through the gap to the last of the black vans. “Me and my pervert friend here go in the front, Gabe comes in the back, we’ll kill a few scumbags in the middle, and be done in time for last call.”

My brother, Caio, opened the driver’s side door and hopped out while his twin, Sandro, rolled down the driver’s window in the van in front and peeked his head out. Though they were identical twins, they’d been easy to tell apart since they were teenagers—Caio kept his dark hair short, cropped close to his head, whereas Sandro’s hair was shoulder-length. For the past few months, though, it had been even easier to distinguish between the two of them since Caio had let his beard grow in.

At barely twenty years old, they were too young for this shit, but that hadn’t stopped them from pestering me until I’d let them come along. Acting as drivers, at least they were out of harm’s way for the most part. And really, they were skilled with weapons and hand-to-hand combat, and could drive just about as well as the rest of the Costa men. The poor guys were just the babies of the family. Babies who’d grown up a lot in the past year.

Greta nodded to Caio and climbed up in the back of the van. Caio closed the door behind her and got back in the passenger side. Muñoz would be driving, which didn’t thrill me one bit, but we couldn’t risk messing with the routine.

“If he tries anything, you know what to do,” I told Caio before he shut the door.

He nodded at me through the window as Salvatore cut the rope around Muñoz’s wrists and shoved him toward the driver’s side door.

Thirty seconds later, they were off, following the dirt road behind the trees back down to where it intersected the main road to the farmhouse.

Nacio was staring at the farmhouse, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked too deep in thought for this stage of the game.

“What is it, Nacio?” Now was a great time to speak up if he had any last-minute concerns. A perfect time, in fact, since in about thirty seconds, there’d be no turning back.

“The man who runs the house,” he said, nodding at the farmhouse. “His name is Pedro Herrera.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we know that already.”

“I need him alive.”

“You have another agenda going on here?” I asked.

He’d gotten us the intel on this house. If he had a second objective, then so be it. Good information to have before going in, though.

Nacio shook his head. “It’s possible he could have useful information, but more importantly, I know one of the girls this man tormented. She deserves to decide how he dies.”

“Fair enough.” It wasn’t the first time we’d taken a few of the fuckers alive. “Salvatore, we take Herrera alive, capisce?”

“Si, Signor Costa. Not a problem at all,” he said, grinning. His dark brown eyes picked up the moonlight like they were flashing with anticipation.

I couldn’t blame him. Putting a bullet between a sicko’s eyes might be effective, but not terribly satisfying.

I turned to Sandro, who was still watching us through the van’s open window.

“We’ll meet you in front of the farmhouse in fifteen minutes,” I reminded him. “As soon as your van’s loaded up, you get the girls out of here. You don’t wait for us.” I eyed my brother, making sure we were clear on this point. “Once you’re on the road, you don’t stop for anything. Something tries to get in your way, you plow right through it.”

“I’ve got this, Gabe,” Sandro said.

I believed him. Since our father passed away, he’d changed. He’d become his own man, far more competent than I would have expected.

From where we stood, I could see the lights of Caio’s van turn into the long driveway up to the farmhouse. Greta would put on one hell of a show, fighting Muñoz all the way to the door, creating a distraction and giving us time to get into position.

“See you on the other side, amici,” I said then took off on my own toward the farmhouse on foot.

The others would move in pairs, but not me. Usually, I played well with others, but not on jobs like this.

Even keeping low and moving quietly, I made it to the back of the farmhouse in two minutes. I could hear Greta screaming bloody murder at the front while the rest of our men moved into position around the house, most of them crouched beneath windows. All the windows had been boarded up, but the job had been done poorly. One pry from a crowbar would pop the boards right off. They’d been put there more to keep the girls inside from getting out than to stop threats from getting in.

It wasn’t a large operation; five or six girls at any given time and a cash flow of maybe a hundred grand in a year. The Costa family made that much in one deal, and we didn’t have to destroy young girls to do it.

I heard footsteps inside, moving away from the back door.

That was my cue.

There would still be one guard somewhere near the door.

I grabbed my tools out of the front pocket of the vest I wore and picked the lock in three seconds flat.

I loved locks—they were like puzzles, and I’d yet to come across one I couldn’t solve.

There was a decent chance the guard inside hadn’t heard the quiet scrape of metal against metal, but just in case, I slipped the tools away and pulled out my knife—because quiet was the name of the game.

The quieter we could do this, the lesser the chance of any of the girls inside getting caught up in the cross fire.

I turned the handle, shoved the door open, and made a grab for the guard in one breath. I’d caught hold of the front of his shirt, and I yanked him toward me.

“What the—”

I rammed the knife straight through his throat, severing his vocal cords.

He didn’t even have time to pull his gun from its holster before he was gargling his own blood.

Jerking my hand sideways, my blade severed his carotid, spraying blood like a fountain as I lowered him to the floor and dragged his dying ass out the back door.

Back inside, I closed the door behind me and crept forward, out of the mudroom and into the hallway lined with eight doors. All of them closed.

A pained cry sounded through the door nearest to me.

My fingers itched to open it.

I gripped the knife tighter and drew my gun, walking right past the door.

Salvatore and Nacio’s men would come in through the windows to those rooms, kill the Johns, and slip the girls right back out the windows.

Getting to Greta was my objective.

Greta and the scumbag who ran this house who would, no doubt, want to inspect his newest merchandise.

I walked right by every one of the eight doors—six bedrooms and two “playrooms”. Like tea-sets-and-dollhouses kind of playrooms. The girls they took were generally teenagers, but they dressed them up in pink frills and pigtails, turning them into every sicko’s fantasy.

At the end of the hallway, I paused as a voice came through my earpiece.

“The girl isn’t breathing.”

It was one of Nacio’s men. They’d managed to breach the windows.

“Get her out now,” I whispered under my breath, not loud enough to be heard by anyone but loud enough for my mic to pick it up. “CPR in the van.” It was the best we could do.

Focusing my attention outward, I listened for Greta.

It wasn’t hard to hear her—she was still making plenty of noise—but we had a code, and she was feeding me information without any of them the wiser.

“Stupid, disgusting, pathetic cocksuckers,” she cursed. Three descriptive terms meant three men—not including Muñoz.

“You’re feisty. I like that.” I’d bet just about anything that was Pedro Herrera, which meant Greta had already drawn him out of his office.

“Ha!” Greta snapped. “You like feisty so much, but you need backup to handle two little girls?”

Two girls. They had one of their girls out there with them.

“It’s a setup,” a voice whispered. Muñoz’s voice. If I’d been any further away, I wouldn’t have heard it.

There’d always been the risk Muñoz would blow Greta’s cover. Now that he had, the time for stealth was over.

“Let her go,” I said, stepping out from the hallway, gun raised.

Pedro Herrera already had a gun to Greta’s head. He swung around to face me, keeping Greta in front of his body like a shield.

Coward—which, if there’d been any doubt, was made abundantly clear by the two goons with him. They stepped in front of him, a solid wall of steroid-induced muscle between me and Greta. Pedro used girls as shields and couldn’t even fight his own battles.

The second girl, maybe sixteen years old, was lying on the settee in the foyer, her vacant eyes and the track marks on her arms making it clear she was spaced out. She wouldn’t be able to help herself, but it was also unlikely she’d cause any trouble.

Behind all of them, Muñoz was cowering like the pathetic little shit he was, not that it was going to do him any good when that explosive went off.

In the blink of an eye, I surveyed my options—and there weren’t many.

Nacio would be coming through the front door any second now. He could hear everything that was happening, thanks to my mic, but without a distraction, they’d know it the moment he opened the door. And unless I could get Herrera to lower his gun (unlikely) or redirect his aim (a possibility), Nacio wouldn’t be able to take the shot either.

“It’s too late, Herrera,” I said, lowering my gun to half-mast as I took a step forward.

Herrera’s goons eyed him, looking for direction. “Take his gun and tie him up,” he barked at them.

“Your girls are gone.” I took another step, ignoring the goons coming at me. “You’ve got no way out of here.” Another step.

“Gabe, stop it,” Greta hissed.

Steroid-Goon Number One grabbed my gun and wrapped his meaty hand around my wrist.

Herrera’s eyes narrowed as Goon Number Two got hold of my other wrist.

“You’re lying,” Herrera snapped, but his hand had begun to shake.

I shrugged. “Go see for yourself,” I said, nodding back in the direction I’d come.

By now, the rooms would be empty, and if Sandro had done his job right, he’d be loaded up and getting out of here already with Caio and the second van full of girls following on his heels.

Herrera moved the gun off Greta’s temple, just a little. Not that he had any intention of backing down, but he really wanted to shoot me now. I could see it in his eyes.

“Gabe,” Greta warned.

She could sense the guy was trigger-happy too.

This was my show. If anyone was taking a bullet here, it was me. End of discussion. All she needed was two seconds to get the jump on Herrera, and I’d either get it for her or die trying.

“Your cash cow just dried up, Herrera. It took me all of five minutes to bring you down,” I said, goading him some more.

“I’m still standing, asshole,” Pedro barked. His eyes had narrowed. “But you’re not.” He aimed and fired, hitting me right in the chest.

The bullet slammed into my vest, knocking me out of the goons’ grip and back, right into the foyer wall. The tiny bullet felt like a ton of bricks.

Through a haze of pain, I watched as Greta spun and punched Herrera in the neck, cutting off his windpipe and making him drop the gun.

Then Nacio and two of his men were there. Herrera’s goons went down then Muñoz—Nacio only shot him in the foot. Then Herrera, though Nacio didn’t shoot him. He punched him in the jaw so hard, the guy’s feet left the floor before he landed in a heap halfway across the room.

I tried to take a deep breath, which was a bad idea. The Kevlar and the trauma pad behind it meant I probably didn’t have any broken ribs. Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a son of a bitch.

“Are you done sitting around while we take care of shit?” Greta asked, coming to stand over me, her arms crossed over her chest. She didn’t look any worse for wear.

“Nah, I think I might hang out here a little longer.” I tried to laugh. Another bad idea.

She didn’t look amused. “What the hell were you thinking, Gabe? Goading him was just stupid and reckless.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “I was thinking you look better without bullet holes in your head.”

“And that was your solution? Get him to shoot you instead?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“He could have just as easily shot you in the head. It might be a big, empty space in there, but I’m still pretty sure you need it to keep breathing.”

“The girl?”

Nacio was tying up Herrera, but he paused. He turned to look at me and shook his head. “Lo siento, amigo. She was already gone.”

I heaved myself up on my feet, ignoring the way my ribs screamed in protest. “Did they get her to the van?”

He shook his head. “There was no point.”

“What do you mean—” I shut my mouth and strode down the hallway, throwing open every bedroom door, searching for her. “Where is she?” I barked, but I’d reached the last door. The last door on the right—the same door I’d walked right by, ignoring the cries coming from inside.

I turned the handle and pushed the door open.

My eyes flew to her face, my heart in my throat, but this girl couldn’t have been any older than the girl in the foyer. Her skin was pale and her lips were bluish. The heavy bruising around her neck told the story of how she’d died.

Someone—presumably one of Nacio’s men—had laid her carefully on the mattress. They’d covered her body with a dirty sheet, crossed her arms over her chest, and closed her eyes.

She’d been alive minutes ago, and I’d left her.

I’d walked right by her.

“Fuck!” I slammed my fist into the wall.

Pain radiated up my arm from my fist, and I drank it in. I hit the wall again, putting a hole right through the plaster and the wood lath behind it.

“Gabe?” Greta said, hovering on the room’s threshold. Her gaze slid back and forth between me and the girl on the bed.

I took a deep breath and tried to rein it in. “Just give me a minute, okay?”

She nodded and backed away, leaving me alone.

Blood dripped from my knuckles as I looked around the room with its old, faded wallpaper. Dingy, scratched-up floors. Dirty, stained mattress.

The girl on the bed wasn’t her, but that didn’t stop a familiar ache from flaring to life deep in my chest, making it difficult to breathe, to think, to exist.

Because the only girl I’d ever loved had lived in a place just like this.

She’d died in a place just like this.