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“I-I don’t know anything.” He sniveled and foamed at the mouth, his head lolling to the side. I grabbed his hair, pulled his head to face me, and bent down so he could see my eyes.
“Tell me about Cuchillo’s deal with Brick. The human trafficking. I want to know all of it.”
Jesús’s eyebrows rose and he licked his lips. “I don’t know about a deal.” I watched his eyes dart to the side and his Adam’s apple jump as he swallowed and knew he was full of shit.
“You’re lying.” I walked around the table and grabbed his hand. As the first words of protest left his mouth, I brought the KA-BAR down hard through his joint and sliced his index finger clean off.
The man shrieked and jerked in his chains, sobbing. I returned to his head and laid the finger on his chest on top of the excised tattoo. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying. He was breathing so erratically, his chest convulsed and the finger rolled off. It landed on the metal table and bounced to the floor. A few of my men chuckled and I couldn’t hold back my smirk. It was funny as hell, yet not funny in the least. If Miri’s life weren’t on the line, I’d find it pretty damn fucking amusing. Hell, Milo would be roaring with laughter. If my motherfucking lieutenant were here, that is.
Right now, I gave zero shits about funny ha-ha. All I wanted were some goddamn answers.
“Now, tell me about Brick and tell me about the girls,” I repeated. The dude was beside himself, his eyes rolling back in his head until they showed more white than brown.
Jesús bawled as he blurted out everything he knew, which was quite a bit, only none of it was anything I could use to find Miri. The stupid fuck really didn’t know where Cuchillo was. When he was done blubbering, I frowned at the bloody mess and stepped back.
With a tip of my head toward Sarge, Sarge moved in place and Six handed me a new towel. All of my employees knew how much I loathed touching anything covered in blood or dirt. I wiped my beloved KA-BAR clean and slid it back into its sheath. Then I grimaced at the red streaks on my hands. I was so intent on getting here and extracting information, not only did I not change, but I forgot my goddamn gloves. In the moment, blood was the least of my concerns. Now? Ugh. I would need to scrub my hands as well as take care of the splatter on my arms and sheaths.
That’s when it sank in that after slicing up Jesús, I was no closer in finding Miri than I was this morning.
“Fuck!” I spun and slammed my bloodstained palms against the solid wall over and over. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Boss, we’ll get her. Now we know Cuchillo has men in the city, we can get another one of his men,” Shade said.
I rested my forehead on the cool cement wall and tried to calm down. “That sick son of a bitch has had her for days, Shade. I just…” My throat worked to swallow but the irritated tissue was way too dry to manage. Instead, I shook my head and pulled my shit together. No way would I break in front of my men. I needed to present a strong front to ensure their help in finding Miri. Criminals didn’t rally behind a sniveling, pussy weakling. They followed a leader. A Boss. I took a deep breath and glanced down at my clothes. A drop of blood was on the front of my shirt. That shit sent me right over the edge again.
“Fucking motherfucker!”
“I told you, we’ll get her, Boss.” Shade took a step back. Smart man. I was literally a walking nuke, ready to drop a mushroom cloud at any second.
“That’s not it,” I snapped.
“Then… what is it, Boss?” Shade asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“That fucking piece of shit got his blood on my clean shirt. Son of a bitch!”
I turned to take out my anger on Jesús, the filthy, useless pig, but Sarge was already done. A cascade of dark blood was pouring from an enormous gash in the man’s throat. I wrinkled my nose and moved back even though I was already far enough from the disgusting crimson torrent to stay out of splatter range. Lucky fucker probably bled out in seconds.
“He should be goddamn glad he’s fucking dead and that I have a change of clothes upstairs,” I snarled.
Sarge and I ditched our clothes and shoes and left them in the cellar for the guys to take care of. With the slick, sealed concrete floor and walls and the oh-so-helpful drain in the center of the room, cleanup would be a piece of cake. Upstairs, Frank handed me a duffel and we were dressed and on the road less than ten minutes later, the rest of my men on their way to meet us in one of my warehouses to formulate a new plan. With proof that Cuchillo’s men were in San Antonio, we had to reorganize and dig around to find their hideouts. I made one last call and everything was in place.
That bastard took what was mine and laid his hands on her body. Hurt her. Frightened her. My hands curled into fists on my thighs.
When I found him I would make him wish he was never born.
Miri
Days and nights passed, each one blurred into the next. I was removed daily to be beaten and abused in front of the camera, always enough to make me cry and scream, but never enough to scar or injure me beyond bruises and superficial pain. Why they didn’t do worse, I wasn’t sure. I certainly didn’t want to know. The fact that Cat said girls were shipped in and out of here made me think it was possible Cuchillo wanted me alive and relatively unharmed so he could sell me to the highest bidder when he was done taking out his revenge
on me.
They took Cat from the room way more often. Each time, she would go without a fight, her spirit broken months ago. Some of the times, she was returned quickly. The glazed-over look in her eyes let me know she got her hit of heroin or whatever drug they were using to keep her docile, then returned her to our room to nod off on her high. Other times, Cat was missing for hours. After those longer absences she would withdraw into herself. Cat would lock herself in the bathroom or hide under the covers on the bed, but in those moments she never, ever shed a single tear or spoke a single word.
Despite the lack of emotions on the surface, Cat’s disheveled appearance told me enough of what was done to her while I was left behind. Clothing torn or buttoned up wrong, messy hair, a few new bruises or scratches here and there. It was obvious Cat was being used for sex by one or more of the men in the house. While that was nauseating in itself, what was worse was that Cat was so used to the assaults, she always returned to the room with the same flat, emotionless expression. It was as if my friend’s spirit had been beaten from her body, and only a hollow shell that looked and sounded like Cat remained behind.
“Miri? You okay?”
There was genuine concern in Cat’s voice on the other side of the bathroom door, where I was busy retching into the toilet. If I wasn’t buried half in the bowl, I’d laugh in her face.
