Around back?That’s where I string up the prisoners.
It’s about four in the morning when I drag myself from the car, not quite an hour after leaving Ravi to stew in his own stupidity for a while.The entire drive over here, minus the few minutes it took to order and receive a large black coffee from an all-night drive-through, has been spent wondering how long I can realistically keep him there.
And what the fuck was I thinking, losing my shit and disciplining him like that?The noises he made when he came are still ringing in my ears.The whimpers.The moans.The goddamn screaming.
Fucked up of me?Sure.As much as I want to deny I lost control, I absolutely did.
This is entirely Ravi’s fault, though.I told him to stay away from Brennan, and I told him to stay away from escorting.He didn’t listen.Worse, he’s come up with a harebrained get-rich-quick scheme that could easily land him in the hospital again.
Or worse.Much worse.
Maybe I need to show him case files from back when my team was hired to retrieve a young man who’d run away from home.He’d left to escape parents who were clearly a bit heavy-handed but landed himself in a worse world of hurt by hooking up with an abusive sugar daddy who got him addicted to drugs to keep him compliant.Or Cam Blakely, one of the initial victims of the trafficking ring we’ve been dismantling, who hasn’t spoken a word since my team found him on an island off the coast of Brazil.
By the time we got them back home, all the therapy in the world wouldn’t put those kids together again.
Ravi doesn’t understand.There are far uglier things out there in the real world than being asked to follow a strict set of rules.
Kid doesn’t get it.I’m doing all of this for him.
I’m slugging coffee by the back door when a Porsche SUV pulls up.Out jumps a medium height, muscular blond, and Sebastian Pierce, a former client.
“Thanks for calling us,” Sebastian says.He holds out a hand to shake, which I do, even though I don’t like having to juggle my coffee.
After which, Sebastian looks to the guy he brought with him.“You sure you want to do this?”
“Definitely.”The blond nods his head.“I want to see that fucker suffer.”
Sebastian hired us to find out why people on his consulting company’s client list were going missing.We’ve completed our obligation to him, and any stragglers involved in the operation were picked off because abusive pieces of shit piss me off.
During our investigating, Pierce’s boyfriend was kidnapped by one Pastor Elijah.The pastor owned a farm nearby, in the rural unincorporated area between Belle Argo and Beacon Hill.Only a few miles down the road from my own home, in fact.
Turned out the good pastor had not only been using his private and well-protected religious commune to hide trafficking victims, but he’d been selling teen boys from some of the “less valuable” families in his commune to bring in extra cash.A real philanthropist, this one.
So when our team located Pastor Elijah, I reached out as a courtesy.Pierce struck me as the sort of man who would want to be personally involved in resolving things.
When we get inside, my tech guru is waiting.Bev might be brainy, but she can wrestle a man to the ground as easily as she can hack his email.Which is how Pastor Elijah ended up hanging from the warehouse ceiling with his head lolling sideways.He’s conscious, but he doesn’t look good.
“Nice to see you out in the field for a change,” I tell Bev.Then I nod to the hanging man.“You fucked him up pretty good.”
She tosses her thick chestnut braid over her shoulder, boots thudding on the floor as she approaches.“I like it better behind my computer.But—” She shrugs.“—nearly everyone else is out of the office right now.Besides, who doesn’t enjoy putting a man in his place once in a while?”
“I appreciate you going above and beyond.I’ll keep it in mind when I’m handing out end-of-year bonuses.”
She only rolls her eyes and shrugs again.Bev is someone I suspect does what we do for her own reasons other than the pay.Still, I try to take care of my employees.
Sebastian Pierce studies the slumped figure.“Where’d you find him?”
“A small camper not too far from the farm where he’d been running his commune.It was rented in his name.We figure he parked it out in the woods at some point as a hideaway.It sort of worked.The FBI didn’t find him when they searched the property, but when the land went up for sale this week, we went back for a final sweep.He was living in a moldy, piss-smelling metal box and eating out of tin cans.”I give his limp body a kick, enjoying his pained groan.“How the mighty have fallen.”
The blond one, Simon, perks up.“You said the property’s up for sale?”He pulls out his phone and starts typing.
“I think he knows someone who might be interested,” Sebastian explains.
Nodding, I pull out both my phone and Ravi’s, placing them next to each other on the metal table where I keep my interrogation tools.If he does something clever, or if more messages come from Brennan, I want to know.It’s a long shot, since Brennan already knows I’ve intercepted his texts.So far, the only recent ones have been some group thread discussing brunch plans.Plans Ravi will not be there for.
“Elijah, I’m Liam.Nice to see you.”I’ve learned that sometimes politeness throws these guys off their game.They expect me to come out swinging, and then I introduce myself like a gentleman.
Then I start swinging.
