Jase’s face reddened. “Jesus H. Christ. I run a club forconsentingadults.”
“Let’s take a little ride.” Officer Jones unbuckled Jase from the bed shackles while the second male officer stood nearby. “Face down. Hands behind yourback.”
Jase lay there while the officer threw a cuff around his wrist. But before he could attach the second cuff, Jase bolted up and swung his arm around, smacking the officer in the face with the metal bracket. Blood splattered from Jones’s forehead as he tried to subdue Jase, but Jase unsnapped the officer’s holstered weapon. As he yanked itout—
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!Bang!
Dracule screamed. Alexandrastartled.
Jase hit the floor, blood gushing from his wounds, the unfired gun still in his hand. Officer Randolph stood, her weapon poised in her outstretchedhands.
This is a fuckingnightmare.
As the third officer pulled the weapon from Jase’s hand, Officer Randolph radioed for backup while paramedics jumped into action. One tended to Jones’s forehead gash while the other three tried to resuscitate Jase. Several tense minutes passed before one of the paramedics calledit.
“No pulse,” he said. They lifted Jase onto the stretcher and covered him with asheet.
“Officer Randolph,” said Crockett. “Jase has a master keycard. You’re going to need that to check the rooms and locate Sage and thechildren.”
Randolph spoke with the paramedic. After a quick search, they located the card. When Officer Jones unbuckled Dracule, Officer Randolph and the third policeman drew theirweapons.
No longer full of bravado and big smiles, Dracule only whimpered. Officer Randolph ordered him to kneel on the floor while they cuffedhim.
After Officer Jones read Dracule his rights, he paused in front of Alexandra. “Can you forgive me?” heasked.
Her upper lip curled into a snarl. “You’re amonster.”
With a firm grip on Dracule’s shoulder, the officer nudged himforward.
Squaring her shoulders, Alexandra addressed the officer in charge. “I need to find Sage. She must beterrified.”
Several clubbers had found their way upstairs and were lurking in the hallway. Officer Randolph ordered the two patrolmen to escort them downstairs and to remain outside the broken door on the twelfth floor. Then, she radioed forbackup.
One by one, the policewoman tapped Jase’s Silver Towers card against the keypads on the suite doors. The first two were empty. But in the third, a masked man and teenage girl crouched in the bathroom. Crockett’s hands fisted when police led the pedophile and the child into thehallway.
“Call social services,” Officer Randolph told herpartner.
Alexandra sidled close. “This is way worse than even I suspected,” she whispered. Eager to touch her, he stroked her back. Though anger blackened her eyes, he kept reminding himself that she wassafe.
In the next room, there was a desk and a sixty-inch monitor hanging on the wall. The screen was split into eight squares that displayed public areas in the club along with what appeared to be private suites on thatfloor.
“That’s how Sage must have found me in the club,” Alexandra whispered toCrockett.
Three more men had been hiding in their respective suites with either a male or a female minor. When Randolph opened the door to a suite marked “Playpen”, Crockett’s chesttightened.
For several seconds, no onemoved.
Several children huddled on two dilapidated sofas. Sage stood in the middle of the room, her eyes wild with fear; a small shepherd guarding herflock.
Unlike the posh suites, this decrepit room told the true story of their existence. Empty pizza boxes lay scattered across the floor. Dirty plates stacked in piles. Their only light—a floor lamp with a tattered shade—stood in the corner. Two racks of formal clothing were pushed against a wall. The surreal scene looked more like a horror movie than anything based in reality. These children lived worse than any pet he’d everowned.
Some of the children gaped, their sad, hollow expressions void of emotion. The others peeked like caged animals too scared to make eyecontact.
Crockett’s heart broke. He couldn’t begin to know the torture and abuse they’d suffered at the hands of JasePayne.
Alexandra entered the room with Officer Randolph. “Thank you for helping me, Sage. I’d like to help you,now.”
From the hallway, Officer Jones radioed that they’d need upwards of ten social workers to meet them at the hospital. “Looks like sex trafficking of minors. Approximately a dozen juveniles. Mostlyfemale.”
