Page 43 of Grim’s Angel

Grim

Three hours after McKenna puts six rounds into a paper target, Hound finds the taller man from the bus station.

The blood left inside the abandoned sedan gave him a starting point. A stolen truck caught on a pharmacy camera gave Lock the rest. By the time Hound reaches him, the bastard is too weak from the injuries I gave him to run far.

The Sinners keep an interrogation room at the back of the clubhouse, away from the rooms used by anyone we intend to welcome.

The man sits handcuffed to a chair inside it. One eye is swollen from our fight at the station, and a dirty bandage covers the damage beneath his shirt.

He is the one who wrapped his hand around McKenna’s bruised wrist and tried to force her into the sedan.

Remembering it makes my injured shoulder ache for another kind of violence.

Torch and Lock watch from near the door while Striker circles the chair. He describes the abandoned quarry north of town, the flooded lower pit, and how long the cold takes to erase a man’s fingerprints.

Striker has always understood that a man’s imagination knows exactly where to place the blade.

I step close enough that the bastard has to tilt his head back.

“Who hired Rivers?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

Striker’s fist crashes into his ribs.

The chair strains against its bolts. The man folds as far as the restraints allow, coughing through the pain.

“Try again,” Striker says.

“I swear I don’t know. Rivers is the only one with the buyer’s identity.”

“What were you supposed to do with McKenna?”

“Bring her to the Vegas hotel and hold her there. Another vehicle was coming for her after dark.”

“Who was driving it?”

“I don’t know. Rivers keeps the buyer separate from the crews.”

Alan created the listing. Rivers brokered the sale. An unknown man paid for McKenna and requested me specifically.

Every path circles her without revealing who placed her in the middle.

Lock’s phone vibrates. He reads the message and looks at me.

“Ghost came through.”

The Damned Saints have spent years tearing apart trafficking routes. I asked Ghost to compare Rivers’s contract portal with auction systems the Saints seized during previous operations.

Lock hands me the phone.

Ghost found a dormant buyer key used only once. He recovered part of the encrypted certificate attached to it.

The visible fragment contains a single letter.

S.

“Could be a surname, company, or location,” Torch says.