"Lexie!" Willow dropped on top of her fiancé, crying happily as Lexie gave her a tired hug.

I got up and grabbed the other dose of Advil and water, then brought it over to her. She smiled up at me while Willow continued to give her hugs, and I finally had to tap the redhead on the shoulder. "Can I give your love here some medicine and water?"

"Oh, shit! I should do that!" Willow took it from me, then placed the Advil in Lexie's mouth before letting her sip the water. "I got you baby. You're safe now!"

"Yes!" Bella said quickly. "I mean, if the offer still stands." She had a big smile on her face at the sight of the girls and their obvious love.

"What offer?" Lexie was still out of it, and exhausted. I hit the remote on the bed and elevated the head of her bed until she was a little more vertical, like Bella was.

"Lexie, this is Bella. We found her when we got you back, she was taken too, and she has no family. I might have told her that she could stay with us once this is all over, because she has nowhere else to go. An adoptive little sister kind of thing," Willow explained.

Bella looked over with a nervous smile, and Lexie didn't even hesitate in smiling back. "Hell yeah. Welcome to the family Bella. It would be nice to have more family."

Bella, started to cry a little, and then tried to crawl over the bed rails to get over to their bed, but the IV wasn't exactly accommodating. "Hold on, we can fix this," I told her, pulling her back onto her bed. "We can get a big cuddle going here in just a second."

I motioned Willow over, and she carefully moved the IV stand while I lifted Bella over the rails, placing her next to Lexie. "Thank you all so much!" Bella's tears weren't stopping, but she was smiling from ear to ear. Considering she had just traded in a stepmother who tried to sell her for two sisters that would support her, even if they were still strangers for the moment, things were hopefully looking up for them. Stress and external conflicts had a way of bringing people together. I just had to find a way to keep them all safe so that they could stay that way.

As I sat there thinking, I felt fingers gripping my own, and looked down to see Lexie's fingers interlocking with my own. "Thank you, Jesse. Thank you for getting Willow for me, and then finding me. I knew you'd do it."

"I couldn't let anything happen to you two. You're both so important to me. And now I guess I have a new sister in law to look after." I nodded down at Bella who was cuddled into Lexie and might have been asleep. Or faking it yet again.

"Well, things happened, but we're okay, right?" Lexie asked. "We're safe?"

"Yes, you're safe," I assured her.

"Oh! I need to tell Dr. Kipel you're up! She'll want to check you over!" Willow yelped. Obviously, we'd all been so happy to have her awake that we didn't think about the rest. She left the little examination area and returned a short time later with the doctor.

"I see we're all awake now," she said with a happy smile.

"I am!" Lexie smiled wide. "Thank you for the help."

"And how are you feeling?" she wondered.

"Tired, and cotton mouth. My head hurts, but maybe the Advil hasn't kicked in yet. Sore all over." Lexie groaned a little as Bella moved a little against her, hooking her limbs around her like a side koala.

"That makes two of us," Bella added as she settled in and got comfortable again. Damnit, she was faking sleep again! I was going to have to keep an eye on her.

"You were both rolling around in the back of an SUV all day, so I'm sure that didn't help with the soreness," I reminded them. "But we'll keep you resting as long as you need to get better." That would also influence what I could do to keep them safe too. I wish I had a house of my own to take them to as a hideout, but I didn't. I lived in hotels, going from assignment to assignment, with the occasional rest day, so I never had a place to call home. All my mail and stuff went to my uncles' place back in Massachusetts, but that wasn't mine. Though as I thought about it, they did have enough room for quite a few extra people.

That meant trying to talk Lexie and Willow into waiting there for me though, which Willow already said was a non-starter. I couldn't exactly disappear on them though. I couldn't risk anything happening to them. What were the odds that I could talk some sense into them?

"Will this affect me having children?" Lexie asked quietly.

"No, you should be fine unless you're already pregnant."

"No, but I'm hoping soon." Lexie smiled softly to herself, and I wondered if she and Willow had already started planning that out.

"How long do you need to keep them under observation?" Willow asked.

"I'd like to keep them through the afternoon. The medicine was injected into the IV lines, and I can give you as a nasal spray too, so you can give them another dose later if need be. I wouldn't go too far though, stay in the area for the next couple of days in case you need to come back to see me. Is that possible to do?"

I nodded, but right now we had no hotel reservations or anything. I could fix that if needed. The question would be if we could get something that was close to the clinic if we needed her for emergencies. "Okay, let me make some arrangements for a few days then. I'll be right back," I assured everyone.

It turned out that there weren't too many hotels that had rooms available and were still near the clinic. But I was finally able to get a Fairfield Inn with 2 queen beds in the room. I even requested a rollaway bed for me in case Bella wanted some privacy in the other bed. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than staying in the clinic! I had hoped for more room, but for only a couple nights it would be fine.

With that done, I gave a quick call to Joe. "I was expecting your call a while ago!" Well, someone grumpy today!

"Sorry, been a little stressful here. Do you have anything for me?"

"Yeah, quite a bit. Your two hotel guys. The first was Parker Lloyd, Indiana State Trooper with a pretty long list of service record reprimands. The second was Yakiv Rasolka, native of Belarus who works for a private security firm called Xtreme Protection LTD based in Gary Indiana. They have a lot of nasty people on their payroll and provide security for a pair of state senators and a host of other politicians and big money people in Midwest."

I grunted at the knowledge, but it was hardly shocking. "I guess that anyone hiring them could potentially be involved in this. Or not. It's a starting point though. What about the address that the GPS was taking them to?"

He just scoffed. "High end men's only lodge on the shore of Lake Michigan. They've had a few lawsuits with women trying to become members, but you'll be shocked to learn that those same politicians, including judges, are members there. There is even a marina at the lodge, which provides easy access to anyone in Chicago, Milwaukee, or the west coast of Michigan too."

I thought about that for a moment and nodded to myself. That would be the perfect place to have the new brothel. When I broke up the last one in Cleveland, it had been in an old hotel, and they were just renting the rooms out, women included, but the security was, thankfully, horrible. This sounded like they had upped the game, and probably restricted the access to members only to control who knew about the situation. Maybe had non-disclosure agreements, brought people in from other states so they could make even more money.

They made me sick.

"I'll be heading there in a few days. I have a few more things for you. Bella Reed, age 16, from Tallahassee, Florida. Father recently deceased, stepmother is the one who sold her to the 2 corpses. Stepmother may have done something to the father to aid in the death too. Evidently, she is sitting on the family money now. I'd love that money to disappear, because Bella should get it when we get her set up, and the stepmom can suffer. I'll visit the stepmom later though, so if you can get me some information, that would be nice."

"That should be easy enough. The boss is good at making money disappear," he replied with a snicker. "I'm sure she'll love being broke!"

"Yeah, she won't need to worry about it long. But speaking of Bella, I need a place for her, Willow, and Lexie. I need to keep them safe, and potentially new IDs like my uncles. Worst case, I can see if my uncles can let them stay there for a bit."

"I could get a private jet there and fly them all to Boston if you need it. Do you want to talk it over? I can probably get an extended stay hotel almost anywhere in the meantime."

"I have a hotel for the next two nights while we get Bella and Lexie better, but after that I'll let you know what I need. I have two sick women here, and one very worried one. I have to see what they're comfortable with."

"With what they've been through, that's a good choice. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?"

I paused for a minute before asking the next question. "Hey Joe, I know I probably should have asked this before, but... who do we work for? I mean, I know it's not the CIA, FBI, or NSA, but who is it?"

Joe let out a deep chuckle. "We don't work for an agency. Are you worried that we're working for the wrong people?"

"I don't think we're working for anyone bad. I guess I've been asked that a couple times lately and it does make me wonder." Obviously, I was being hired to kill bad people, so it was a secret, but it would be nice to know.

"I'll see what I can do. You're there for two more days?"

"Right. After that I need to start moving in one direction or another. But I really want to go up to that club as soon as I can. I'm assuming there are more girls there, and I want to make sure I can get them out." Left unsaid was that would happen to the assholes that were there as their keepers or clients. We both knew what their fate would be.

"I'll send you whatever I can on the building. But be careful, okay? We don't want to lose you."

It was nice of him to say, but it didn't really matter to me. Those girls were more important that what was left of my soul. "Right. Will do."