"Roman?" I turned away from Marcus after I hung up on the phone with Kirsten and saw Lori and Lauren walk up to us from the driveway where they had parked.

"We heard about what happened and came as soon as we could," Lori said. "Is she... Did they really... Please tell me it isn’t true."

I saw the look in Lori’s eyes. It was a familiar look. It was the same look I saw in Hannah’s eyes many nights when I had caught her awake at the ungodly hours of the morning. Hannah would be sitting alone by herself, unable to sleep.

When I would ask her what was wrong, she was always hesitant to relay her nightmares to me. Weeks later, when the dreams would persist, she finally opened up to me. Hannah would tell me about the dreams she would have of the Auction House where instead of her standing on that stage it was Lori.

She would tell me that with the same look in her eyes Lori now had. It was then more than any other moment that I realized how alike the two sisters were. I hated to tell Lori that her biggest fear, something that never should have ever developed in her, had come true.

"I’m sorry." It was all that I could say. What else was there to say?

I watched as her eyes teared up. Although her teary eyes stared up at me, her face gave an expression of something else. She wasn’t stricken by grief but a sort of unbridled anger. That was also a look I was accustomed to seeing on Hannah’s face.

The sisters held a great amount of love for each other—something I had seen so rarely—and more than grief would overcome them at the news of the other hurt. There was a rage building up inside of her.

"Who was it?" Lori demanded. I was taken back by the harshness of her voice. "Was it Bernard?"

Her correct assumption shocked me. I could only nod my head slowly as I confirmed her question. How did she know?

"I knew he would be up to no good ever since I heard he made bail. A man like that, especially when his pride was wounded, is a dangerous thing. What are you going to do? I assume you have a plan."

I blinked once then nodded again. "Yes, we have a lead. We’re going to meet someone right now who may be able to help us find Hannah or where she’s being kept."

"Who?" Lori demanded.

I shook my head. "Kirsten. She was one of the girls who escaped the Auction House without having been sold. She knows their patterns more than anyone."

Lauren’s eyebrows crossed together. She stepped forward as she asked, "Would Kirsten know? Do you really think she can help you?"

I paused for a moment and then nodded firmly. "Kristen wants to see it shut down just as much as we do. She’s been trying to gather all the information she can on these guys for years now. Even though it’s been a long time, I think she’s our best hope."

They seemed satisfied with my answer as they didn’t question Kirsten’s presence in the investigation and the finding of Hannah anymore. If they were still cautious about her, they didn’t voice it. They knew as much as any of us that we needed any lead we could get our hands on.

"You two should stay here," I told the two of them and quickly spoke as soon as they began to protest. "We don’t know what the situation is exactly and who is being targeted. I need you two here to keep you safe. And if Hannah does come back, we need to be notified."

"Do you think she might come back by herself?" Lauren asked. I shook my head.

"I don’t know what to think right now, but we need to cover all possibilities and endings to this thread. Can I trust you two to stay here and let me know if anything changes this side?"

Lori gave a firm nod before grabbing Lauren’s hand and going inside the mansion. Before she left, she called out to me again.

"We’re going to make some calls." She looked me straight in the eye and demanded something from me in a way I had never heard her speak before. "Find my sister, Roman."

"I will." It was a promise, but it wasn’t just a promise to Lori. It was a promise to myself as well. I wasn’t going to let Bernard and Jared get away with this, not a second time.

I called Marcus. We made our way to the garage where one of my many cars was parked and got in. As we were driving off, Marcus whistled and started to talk.

"That is one scary set of sisters." I huffed a laugh as I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road of the mansion.

"You’re telling me."

We drove for about fifteen minutes in a somewhat chaotic manner. Marcus was shouting and issuing orders to his phone throughout the entire drive. The state of the agency was a mess and in a complete uproar.

Not only had Bernard vanished from their radar and managed to bypass the tracker they had placed on him after he made bail but Jared, the boss, had also been seen at multiple sightings within the past few hours.

Marcus confirmed the picture of him and soon an APB was placed for his arrest. However, it seemed like just as soon as he appeared he had vanished.

"God, this is a nightmare," Marcus said as he hung up on what felt like his tenth call in the past fifteen minutes and massaged the bridge of his nose.

"All part of the job I take it," I mumbled as I sped down the street toward the location Kirsten had given me and turned around corners.

"Trust me, this is not something we encounter on a day-to-day basis." Marcus sounded just as tired as I felt, and I could not blame him.

The entire situation had dragged on a lot longer than any of us could have intended. We were all tired and exhausted of running around with our heads between our legs just trying to keep up with everything.

My grip on the steering wheel tightened as I thought about Hannah and wondered what she must be going through.

When we finally turned onto Kirsten’s street, we found her waving us down.

"God, took you long enough." This was the first thing Kirsten told both Marcus and me as we pulled up on the side of the street where she had been waiting impatiently. She was bouncing up and down on her feet with her phone in her hand as she waited for us.

"Aren’t you a little young to be this snappy?" Marcus asked as he looked at the woman in front of us with a raised eyebrow. She only stared back at him with a cold look of her own.

"Well, when you’ve experienced being sold on the black market as a sex slave and barely escaping with your life, then having the same thing happen to one of your good friends twice, you can come and talk to me about being snappy." That shut Marcus up quickly.

"Get out of the driver’s seat Roman," she ordered me. I got out without another word. "I can only find the place by muscle memory. It’s kind of ironic considering how many times those bastards would beat our muscles to a pulp. Oh, look, another thing to be snappy about."

As she spoke, Kirsten gave Marcus a side-eye. He shifted in his seat at the passenger side before getting out and letting me sit there. He took his seat quietly in the back before muttering an apology to Kirsten.

When I got in the passenger seat, I only raised my eyebrow at her. She sighed dramatically.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I’m just a little agitated at the entire situation."

"We all are," I told her sympathetically, "but I believe this is going to work. You said something about an abandoned warehouse you were taken to when something happened at one of the Auction House locations, right?"

Kirsten nodded as she fired up the car and we began driving. "Yeah. A fire had broken out when one of the girls tried to escape. It burned the entire place down along with giving some of the men there some nasty scars. They had to move the girls to this abandoned warehouse to hold us while another location was being set up."

"Do you know the address?" I asked. Kirsten shook her head.

"Like I said, muscle memory. I was driven to and from there so many times I could recognize the roads and alleyways we took by bumps in the roads, sounds of trains, or parks we passed. It all sounds very weird, but trust me, these are skills you pick up."