Gisella and I started cleaning up the blood and the mess while Josh finished attending to Maria, and Yoselin held the baby, wrapped in a hotel blanket. He was quiet now.

Grace, Deisy and Vanessa came over to look at the baby, all smiling. Yoselin offered him to Grace and she took him in her arms, a dreamy look on her face as she peered down at him. She ran her fingers through his full head of thick, black hair.

"He's beautiful, Maria," she whispered.

We all looked at Maria and she was looking out the window, a small frown on her face.

"Do you want to hold your son?" Grace asked.

Maria shook her head, still not looking in his direction.

Grace, Josh and I all exchanged looks.

"Yoselin, will you ask her what's wrong?" I said quietly.

Yoselin went and sat next to Maria's head and talked to her quietly for a minute, and then looked up at all of us sadly.

"She says he is the devil's spawn and she doesn't want to touch him," she said.

Grace's eyes widened and she pulled the baby closer to her chest. "The devil's spawn…" she whispered. "Why would she say that?"

Yoselin looked at her. "Maria is only seventeen. Her family sold her to a man who came to her village in Venezuela and told them that she would be doing housework for rich families and could send some of the money back to them. Instead, he raped her and used her as he pleased. And then he brought her here to Vegas to sell her to other men. That is when she was rescued with the rest of us," she said, waving her hand around the room to indicate the other women and girls there.

Grace's eyes were wide with sadness as she blinked away tears. I had heard it all and worse, but it never ceased to make my guts squeeze with the sickness and depravity of it all. I'd never become de-sensitized to the horror of their stories. And as far as I was concerned, that was a good thing.

Maria started talking and Yoselin listened, her eyes growing sadder.

"She says that her mama always told her that us women are the gatekeepers of the world. Only we get to decide whose genes are passed on, which men become fathers. And we must choose wisely. She say that the boy is the spawn of an evil man."

I glanced at Grace and something fierce lit her expression.

She moved to the side of the bed and sat down next to Maria. She looked at Yoselin. "Will you translate for me?" she asked gently, and Yoselin nodded yes.

"Maria," she said, and Maria jerked slightly but continued to stare out the window. "I agree with your mama. But I also think that in our broken world, sometimes things happen that we don't control, or maybe don't plan. I agree that us women should be the gatekeepers, but I also believe that this world needs strong, good men, men who are raised by mamas who have seen what weak men do. You overcome by making your son everything his father was not."

Yoselin finished speaking quietly, and Maria's eyes darted quickly to Grace and then to the baby in her arms and then away.

My chest felt tight and I knew it wasn't only because I loved the woman speaking with such tenderness and conviction to a woman she didn't even know. It was also because my story began in a similar way to the unwanted boy lying in Grace's arms. And I knew Grace realized that too by the way her eyes landed on me repeatedly as she spoke, her voice soft, and filled with love.

Sometimes therapy takes years and years, and sometimes it can happen in one miraculous instant, a lifetime of doubt and self-hatred healed in a moment of astounding love.

Maria spoke, but she sounded a little unsure now. "He is half of him," Yoselin translated.

"He is half of you," Grace countered and Yoselin repeated.

Maria looked fully at Grace's face now, studying it.

"He's so precious, so beautiful," Grace said softly, her eyes falling on me, "Beauty from pain, a gift. Do you want to hold him?" she asked.

When Yoselin repeated, Maria shook her head no and spoke softly.

Yoselin said, "She wants to see him though."

Grace held the sleeping baby toward Maria so that she could peer down into his face. She looked at him for a minute and her face softened as she spoke. "She says he looks like her papa," Yoselin translated, smiling.

Grace smiled and held the baby toward her. After a minute, she reached out her arms and took him. She looked at him for long minutes as we watched her and then she snuggled him to her chest, a tear falling down her cheek. Yoselin and Gisella sat down on the bed next to her, snuggling both of them from either side, and the little girls climbed up on the bed and sat at Maria's feet, watching the women and the baby.

After a minute, Yoselin started to show Maria how to nurse him.

Josh moved toward the door, and I looked at Grace and smiled as she stood up and took my hand.

"Wrap a towel around his bottom for now," Josh said. "Someone will be back shortly with some diapers and clothes and other necessities."

The women looked up from the baby, smiled and nodded and moved their gazes down to his little face again.

Once we were all three on the elevator heading back down to Leland's office, Grace looked between me and Josh and asked sadly, "How do you do it?"

I looked at Josh and said, "How can we not?" Josh nodded, but didn't say anything, stepping off the elevator first when the doors opened.

Dylan rushed out of his computer room, a look of sheer excitement on his face. "Suit up boys," he said, "I got him."

CHAPTER 35

Grace

My heart was beating out of my chest as Carson rushed into Leland's office with the other guys. I stayed back, not wanting to get in the way. I knew that it all came down to this.

Leland glanced over at me, and Carson saw his movement and nodded at him, indicating it was okay to talk in front of me. My heart squeezed with love for him. He trusted me with everything.

"You gotta move, guys," Dylan said first. "He's in a warehouse in Henderson, but you know this guy, he doesn't stay anywhere very long. He fucked up–maybe he figured because it's Christmas, we'd be off duty."

"You got the location of the family too?" Leland asked.

"Yeah, that's how I got him. Fucker went through his estate gates in a delivery truck. Only, that particular delivery company doesn't deliver on Christmas day. Sloppy. I knew he must be inside and so I tracked it back to Henderson. And get this, he only has two guards with him–must have given the other three Christmas day off. He's quite the benevolent fellow."

All the men snorted.

"What else?" Josh asked.

"I downloaded the layout of the warehouse to your glasses."

"Okay, wait," Carson said, "we need at least three men to go in after Bakos. Takes that many of us just to clear a room properly. Any less would be too risky. That means we need you to film the family, Dylan."

"Who's gonna be the driver then?" Dylan frowned.

They all looked over at me and my eyes widened.

"No way," Carson gritted out. "No fucking way. We drive ourselves this time."

"We need a lookout, Carson," Leland said.

Carson shook his head. "We forgo a driver and a lookout this time. I won't risk Grace's safety. I'd be no good to you if I knew she was sitting outside waiting for us," he said, his jaw ticking.

The guys nodded. "Okay, no lookout this time," Leland said. "We capture Bakos, and Josh can go sit in the car while we question him and get what we need."

"Oh, hell no," Josh said. "If anyone gets the pleasure of talking to Bakos, it's me."

Leland paused. "Fair enough. Let's go get dressed. It's already dark out. We need to move."

Everyone nodded, starting to move toward the door. Apparently they had already made some kind of more elaborate plan and were just working out the details. At least I really hoped that was the case.

As we all walked out the office door, I noticed Leland's slight limp and recalled Carson's story of their team's ambush. It was a reminder to me that they were both lucky to be alive, and fear at what they were about to do, slid down my spine.

Carson took my hand and I followed the men down the hall to another room. Leland opened the door and he and Josh went inside. I saw lockers and showers and figured it must be where they "suited up," whatever that meant.

Carson faced me and pulled me into his arms.

"I'm scared," I said against his chest.

"Don't be, Buttercup. We won't make the same mistake twice. What happened with Josh was some strange fluke and we're gonna figure out what happened. But in the meantime, you have to trust that we're good at our job and we work together well. We know what we're doing."

I nodded, squeezing him tighter.

"Be careful, okay?"

He tipped my chin up with his finger, looking into my eyes. "No way I'm going to find you again after all these years and not get to enjoy you."

I smiled weakly.

"I love you, Grace," he said solemnly, almost reverently.

I closed my eyes for a brief second. "I love you too," I whispered.

He looked into my eyes for a couple beats and then smiled before he said, "Now, I'm going to bring you to a room where you can wait for me, maybe try to nap–"

I shook my head. "No way. I'm not staying alone in some hotel room going crazy."

"Baby, you can't leave this hotel. I can't be worrying about you when I need to be focusing on what I'm doing."