Page 6 of Thaddeus

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kyle muttered as Hannah nuzzled into Gumby’s neck, finishing with a long swipe of her tongue across his face.

“Hi, I’m Faith,” the elderly woman introduced herself. ‘Elderly’ may’ve been pushing it—she looked to be in her late sixties, but there was nothing geriatric about the fit woman.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with us, ma’am,” Declan said, then made the introductions. “I’m Declan Crenshaw, that’s Kyle Smith, Max Brown, Brooks Miller, you already know Tatiana Miller, and the big guy is Thad Bench.”

“It’s my pleasure. You already seem to know Decker. That’s Sidney Hale over there.” Faith motioned to the black-haired woman. “She’s a volunteer here.”

“Hi, do you all work with Decker?” Sidney queried with a tentative smile.

“No. We’re with a private company,” Declan told her.

Gumby stood to his full height and put an arm around Sidney, claiming her. “They all used to work at the command, but they’ve left the team and…”

I tuned out the conversation Gumby was having with Sidney, unable to pay attention to anything other than the missing hair on the pit bull’s back. There was a long, angry, pink hairless welt. I knew with a hundred percent certainty Gumby didn’t inflict those injuries on Hannah, making me wonder what the fuck had happened to the poor animal.

“The asshole Sidney rescued her from was training Hannah as a bait dog. She was drug behind a car as part of her “training”. Hannah has no toenails and her paws are just now starting to heal. The burn on her back was caused by some sort of acid Victor poured on her,” Gumby explained when he saw me staring at his dog.

What the hell was wrong with people?

“Mother—” I stopped myself from finishing my expletive, remembering Faith and Sidney were in the room. Instead I asked, “Sidney rescued her?”

“She did. Went head-to-head with Hannah’s abuser.” Gumby’s features hardened as he spoke. “Why’d you come here to talk to Faith?”

“We’re leaving for an op this afternoon,” Declan started. “Our target is hosting a dog fight. We’ll have less than an hour for recon. Zane thought it would be a good idea to reach out, any intel will be appreciated.”

“So, easy day,” Gumby mumbled.

“They’re bad.” Sidney winced, her statement barely above a whisper.

“Let me put Hannah in a playroom,” Gumby said. “I’ll be right back.”

Gumby started toward the hallway and a now-happy Hannah trotted beside him.

“Come in, please. Sorry I don’t have much seating but make yourselves at home.”

“Thank you again for meeting with us.” Tatiana smiled and stood closer to Faith.

Now that Hannah wasn’t in the room the rest of us freely moved around.

Sidney looked mildly uncomfortable, rooted in place while waiting for Gumby to return. Not that I could blame her—being in a room full of strangers—but there was something more. The way she’d said that the dog fighting rings were bad. Not that they weren’t, however, there was a sadness in her tone and fear in her blue eyes when she’d said it, that gave me pause.

I’d also noticed there was a gleaming ring on her left hand. I thought back to the last time we saw Gumby and his team. We’d met Caite, Rocco’s woman, but he couldn’t remember if Gumby had mentioned finding himself a girlfriend, or fiancée, if the ring was any indication.

“Sorry about that,” Gumby said, entering the room. “Hannah’s a great dog, but Victor worked her over pretty bad, so she’s still a little scared of strangers.”

“Don’t blame her, brother. I’m amazed she lets anyone close,” I told him.

“Hannah took right to Decker. The second he picked her up she knew she was safe,” Sidney said but didn’t take her eyes off Gumby.

The familiar ache in my chest bloomed and I silently cursed the bitch who’d shattered my heart. The woman who ten years later I still loved, even if she’d left me broken.

“Where are you headed?” Gumby asked.

“Venezuela,” Declan answered. “As I said, we’ll have under an hour to acquire our target. Any intel would be helpful.”

“Dog fighting is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. The dogs are treated so poorly that most will never recover enough to be adopted out. They’re run on treadmills until they simply fallout from exhaustion. They’re starved to near death then pumped full of anti-inflammatory drugs, steroids, and sometimes the high-value dogs are given antibiotics,” Faith told us with a deep, sad frown. “Most likely the dogs will be kept in crates until their fight. I can’t tell you what they’ll use for bait. Sometimes it is a weaker dog, sometimes they’ll just use food.”

“Why would they put a weaker dog in with the two they want to fight?” Kyle asked.