I swallowed hard, blinking a couple of times to find my focus. Then I locked eyes with the terrified girl in the corner.
"Call Nadia," I croaked. "Have her meet us at the safe house, the one on Wattle Lane. These girls aren't going to want a bunch of scary, tattoo-covered men around, and that's all I have who I can trust in the Timberwolves right now."
Zed gave a tight nod, retreating into the hall with Alexi to make his call, and I cautiously approached the crying girl. She was the only one awake, but I had to hope that the other girls would all regain consciousness soon.
"Hey," I breathed as I paused near her. I tried for my most soothing, nonthreatening voice, but I doubted I was fooling her. Everything about me screamed dangerous, and I knew it. "We're not here to hurt you. My friends are arranging somewhere safe for you to go, okay? We'll get you home to your family soon."
She flinched hard when I said the word family, and my heart sank. These girls—or this one in particular—likely hadn’t been stolen. They’d been sold.
"You know what?" I dropped the soothing bullshit and gave her a dry tone instead. "Fuck family, they're usually a bunch of assholes. We'll get you somewhere safe and just work it out from there, okay?"
The girl's head lifted slightly at that, her crying slowing to silent tears, and I knew I'd struck the right chord. But now that I could see more of her face, I could see just how young she was. Maybe seven or eight at best.
Swallowing down all the horror at what might have happened to her, I mustered up my very best nonthreatening smile and held out my hand to her. "Will you come with me? I want to take you somewhere safe."
She hesitated, and I didn't fucking blame her. But the ticking in my head was getting more urgent with every passing second. The unconscious girls would be easy to move, but I didn't want this one screaming and fighting if we forcefully moved her. Not only would the sound attract attention, it'd also scare the crap out of her, and I suspected she'd been through enough already.
"Look, I'll be real with you. The people who brought you here? They might be coming back, and I don't know when. I want to get you out before they do. Will you trust me?" It was a huge ask—I knew that better than most. But sometimes you just needed to take a chance and hope for the best.
The girl's brow creased, and her eyes shifted to the unconscious girls. "What about—"
"Them too," I promised with another encouraging smile. "I want to get you all out safely. Please..."
After another hesitation, she sniffed heavily and reached out to take my hand. The relief that rushed over me was enough to make my knees weak, but I just pulled her out of the corner as gently as I could and hurried her into the corridor where Alexi and Zed were both on their phones.
Seeing them, the girl gave a scream and cowered behind me. I instantly cursed at myself for not seeing that coming, but I crouched down to wrap my arms around her on instinct.
"It's okay; these two are my friends," I told her, trying to be soothing as she clung to my neck. "No one is going to hurt you anymore. I promise. No one."
How the fuck I was going to follow through on that promise, I had no fucking clue. I could protect this child while she was in my territory but what then? More to the point, why was I making it so damn personal? I should have just called in my Wolves to handle it all, and yet here I was hugging a dirty, tear-stained child.
"Boss," Alexi softly called out. "Transport is incoming. ETA two minutes to south gate."
I gave him a nod of understanding, my stomach a mess of anxiety as I thought about what would happen if these girls were taken in by the dirty SGPD. They'd never make it to any kind of child protection agency. They'd be handed straight back to Chase's slimy associates to be sold on the flesh markets.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" I asked the girl softly, feeling the tug of her fingers twisting my hair. She was locked around my neck now and didn't seem willing to let go.