There were eight girls locked in individual dog crates. These children all seemed to be very young, no more than six to three. They seemed eerily silent to her. Their little bodies were dirty, bruised. One or two rocked back and forth, staring sightlessly. She turned away, her heart pounding.
Vittorio reached for her, but she avoided his hand. She couldn’t bear to be touched right then. She didn’t want any act of kindness, not when babies had suffered so long without hope and the perpetrators were right downstairs. She felt that she could forgive Valentino anything for the rest of their lives. He had been working on trying to follow this trail for years. She could see why. Who did this kind of thing? Monsters. True monsters. They had to be stopped in any way possible.
Emmanuelle went down to the first floor, trying to keep her body from trembling and the rage under control. She’d experienced anger, she had a temper, but she’d never felt anything remotely like this emotion in her life. She wanted to plunge a knife straight through Miceli Saldi’s heart. Not once, but over and over. Not deep, but shallow, so he felt each strike, once for each of those poor little children locked in those crates.
For the first time in her life, she thought she was capable of going into one of those secret rooms deep under the ground Stefano had where he locked away a prisoner to extract information needed to find a hostage fast. She wanted to be the one to slice through Miceli or Angelo’s skin and do it over and over until they suffered what these children had suffered.
Valentino looked up as she walked toward him and the two prisoners. She stepped over bodies, not even looking at them as she approached. Levi and Axel closed in on her from either side. Vittorio was behind her. She felt him at her back, and the two men at her sides, but she kept walking with determined purpose.
Miceli and Angelo had been attempting bravado with Valentino and the others, but something in her expression wiped the smirks from their faces. Stefano suddenly moved to intercept her direct path. He positioned himself just to the right of the prisoners. Ricco stood to the left of them. She kept walking, covering more than half the room at exactly the same pace.
As she stepped over another dead body, she saw a knife on the floor inches from a hand. She bent and smoothly palmed it, never breaking stride. Valentino moved to intercept her.
“I need them alive, baby,” he murmured softly as he came up to her, standing directly in her path, his fingers very gently settling around her wrist.
“I’ll leave them alive.” She lifted her gaze to his. “I promise.”
“I know you would,” he said, his voice still velvet soft, as gentle as ever. “I need you to give me the knife. I’ll do whatever you want me to do, but I have to do it. Or Dario. It’s a matter of a promise we made.” The pads of his fingers trailed over her lips and then down her chin. He caught her chin and tilted it. “I swear to you, baby, I’ll do what you ask me to do, but this is something I can’t give you.”
“Those children, Valentino.” She didn’t want her voice to break. She didn’t want Miceli or Angelo to see her break down. “What they’ve done to those children. That trauma will never go away. Never. The scars will be there for life …” She broke off and raised her gaze to Dario, who watched her impassively with his dark, dark eyes.
They stood in silence for what seemed forever. She allowed Valentino to take the knife from her. “Find out who is behind this, Val. Don’t let either of them die until they tell you.”
She had to blink several times to keep water from her eyes.
He brushed his lips over hers. “We’re taking them to the interrogation rooms now. I give you my word, they won’t go easily, and we’ll get a name.”
“And we find a way to help those children.”
“Stefano will help as well. They’ll have the best care.” Val looked over her head at his men. At her brother.
Emmanuelle felt a touch on her arm, and her brother escorted her out, with Levi and Axel on either side of her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Marco Messina couldn’t possibly be the brains behind such an organized and extensive network of human trafficking as you’ve uncovered,” Geno Ferraro announced.
They had arrived in New York in the private luxury jet. Emmanuelle, Valentino, Dario and a host of bodyguards, as well as Stefano and several of her brothers. Taviano and Nicoletta hadn’t made the trip, but Ricco and Mariko were there. The paparazzi had followed them from the airport to Geno Ferraro’s enormous condo, with its private garage and security elevator.