Footsteps sounded, and she heard the clink of the lock engaging, but Ally didn't dare move.
Not until he flung a single word at her did she lift her head.
“Eat,” Mateo said dismissively, then as she looked up, she saw him walking away from her, his pace steady and unhurried, never even bothering to look back.
Feeling lower than she’d ever felt in her life, which was saying something given how bad the bullying had gotten when she was in high school, and she’d almost been pushed beyond the limits of what she could bear.
But that was being tortured by people she didn't care about. People she hated. This was being hurt by the one person she’d trusted. Ally had always known her mom’s parents didn't really want to take her in after her parents died. She reminded themtoo much of the daughter they had lost. They never outright neglected her, she had clothes to wear, food to eat, and a room to sleep in. But they did make it clear she wasn't wanted. Her dad’s parents were just too old to take on raising a child, having already had their son later in life. Again, they hadn't outright neglected her, but she’d known that she was a burden and they’d never done anything to assuage her of that belief.
Mateo had never made her feel unwanted or like a burden, she’d believed in him, trusted him, and handed over the heart she guarded like it was the crown jewels.
How stupid could she be?
Now she knelt on the concrete floor, inside a cage, trapped along with a bunch of other women, ordered around like she was nothing more than an animal. The plate in front of her consisted of two slices of unbuttered toast, along with a single small glass of water. She might still have her clothing on, but she could see the woman in the cell across from her didn't, so she knew she couldn’t count on remaining clothed much longer. She had no idea of what to expect in the coming hours, days, weeks, and months. Years, although she wasn't ready to accept that yet.
Her life had just imploded, and okay, maybe the life she was leaving behind was nothing fabulous. It was lonely, and she wanted more even as she was scared to try for it, but it washerlife, and Mateo and his friends had no right to snatch her away from it.
Pretending she could survive this would be stupid. They’d break her, and it would be embarrassingly easy for them, already she was submitting to their orders. But there was one thing they’d never be able to take from her; she would take her dying breath despising the man responsible for landing her in this hellhole.
August 14th
1:47 P.M.
He still couldn’t draw a full breath.
Panic, like Mateo hadn't experienced in two decades, threatened to render him useless. It was getting harder, not easier, with each passing second to mask his emotions, to pretend that he was the same as usual, that seeing that particular pair of blue eyes staring back at him from inside a cell hadn't affected him.
They knew.
Azure knew who Ally was and what she meant to him.
Well, maybe they didn't know what she meant to him, but someone knew that he’d been involved with her, she’d been targeted specifically, he’d bet his life on it. Hell, he’d bet Ally’s life on it.
It was the only thing that made sense. It wasn't like Azure didn't know where he lived. They did. When he’d turned down the offer to live in one of the apartments here, they’d requested his address. For emergencies only, they assured him, not that he’d ever believed it. They wanted to know where he was so they could control him. So they could monitor him when he wasn't here if they suspected he had flipped and was no longer loyal.
Had they?
No.
If they knew he was working undercover for one of the most well-known, well-respected security companies in the world, then he’d already be dead. Or at the very least, sitting inside a cell of his own with multiple injuries.
So they didn't know who he really was, but they did know who Ally was. And he’d bet that with Nathan suddenly disappearing without a trace, Azure was looking for ways to test the loyalty of the rest of their men.
Ally was his test.
Letting on that he was terrified to see her was only going to tip his hand, let them know that maybe he wasn't as loyal as he pretended to be. They probably wouldn't outright suspect him of being a traitor, although that was exactly what he was, but they would up the pressure, make things worse for Ally, pushing him as hard as they could to see what happened when he cracked.
Which meant he couldn’t crack.
Bouncing his knee as he sat in a communal living room on the ground level of the warehouse, he waited for the others to come for their weekly meeting. They assigned trainers and discussed who was ready to be photographed and put up for sale. They discussed meeting any upcoming buyers, ready to negotiate purchase prices in the coming week.
Usually, he dreaded these meetings. Just because he had learned to effectively shut down his emotions, didn't mean that he didn't feel empathy for these women. They didn't deserve this, and it grated on his sense of justice that they were innocents suffering for no reason other than someone else’s pleasure and desire for wealth.
Mateo was a good hacker, and he’d set up a bug in Azure’s system when he first arrived, to send buyer information to his encrypted phone. That intel was then passed along to Falcon, who organized for Prey to go in and rescue as many of the women as they could. He was sure that Nathan had his own system in place to try to get as many of the women out as possible.
“You're early,” Griffin Finch said as he strolled into the room. The man was nearing forty and was the one in charge. Well, hewasn't the head of the ring, but he was the second in charge, the one who ran the day-to-day operations of Azure. Griffin only made an appearance on the day they had their meetings, and on the days when they had buyers in. Other than that, he delegated work to the rest of them.
If anyone had decided to go after Ally to get to him, it was this man.