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Men like Robert weren’t supposed to die. She had failed. She had destroyed everything. For him to be arrested, and then killed? Shot down like a common man?
It had sent her psyche spiraling in an entirely different direction: rage.
She shifted into drive and headed to the one place he loved.
The warehouse was at the center of a gated complex that spanned almost two hundred acres. The gate surrounding it was ten feet high, with an electric wire running along its top edge, every foot monitored by motion detectors and cameras. Its location had been carefully chosen, in the middle of the desert, a stealth approach impossible. Escape, should someone make it over the fence and past the electric current, would involve a lengthy hike through the unforgiving desert.
In the twelve years since the warehouse’s creation, only one girl had attempted escape. She’d made it to the fence. Burned and shuddered through the electric wires. Fallen the ten feet to the desert rock and broken an arm and wrist. Stumbled about eighty yards before Hawk’s gun had caught her, his crosshairs aimed at her legs.
She was hung in the middle of the warehouse as a warning. Her body had swelled in the Vegas heat. Flesh rotted. Blood collected in her lower limbs and her feet turned black. The smell grew, permeating through every cell, a constant reminder of the display. Flies appeared, and the girls took to facing the back walls of their prisons.
After a few weeks, the smell faded, but the body remained. Hope withered and no one else tried to escape. It didn’t matter. Now that Hawk was dead, they’d all die anyway. The only question was how and when.
Claudia pulled open the cell door and glanced over the empty space, one that reeked of urine and feces. Pulling her hair into a high ponytail, she donned a mask, then wheeled the pressure washer into the center of the room, parking it to the side of the large drain hole. The drain was more of a grate, with slats large enough to accommodate bits of body, if Hawk got creative with his disposal. Typically, it was used for circumstances like this. The drain carried the remains into a septic tank that sat underneath the warehouse, one large enough to hold another two decades worth of filth. A useless arrangement, given Hawk’s sudden absence. There would soon be no need for disposals. No need for the burning pit or the instruments, the carefully orchestrated entertainment for their pets, or the training. The leader was gone and continuing the activities without him seemed pointless.
But before she blew this warehouse to pieces, it would host two final guests. Two guests that would require every bit of training she had ever received from him. Two guests that would receive the full range of the Robert Hawk brutality. It was only right, seeing as they were responsible for his death.
She switched on the pressure washer, the loud roar of the engine filling the space. Pointing the sprayer at a splash of blood on the wall, she squeezed the nozzle, a combination of bleach and water shooting out of it. Focusing on the streak of crimson, her fury mounting, she began to prep the cell for their arrival.
DARIO
Dario leaned against the car, the nozzle in the tank, and waited for it to fill. Holding the phone to his ear, he listened to the FBI agent.
“We’re still questioning her, trying to get as many details as possible that will help us pinpoint a location. But just from scanning through Hawk’s tax registrations, we have five or six possibilities. The man owns more property than God.”
Dario watched as a pickup truck pulled in, the diesel engine loud as it stopped next to him. He turned his head, shielding the receiver with his hand. “If he was doing anything questionable, he wouldn’t have it under his own name. He’s the king of shell corporations. You’re going to have to get a forensic accountant to dig deep. Look for something big, and something close by. The man hates to fly, so it’d be something in driving distance.”
Hated. The man hated to fly. It was so odd, talking about him in the past tense. It seemed false—his larger than life adversary gone too easily.
The FBI agent’s voice crackled through the cell. “We’re on it. I don’t have to explain to you that this is our top priority. Especially with the chance that some of these girls are still alive.”
He was almost glad Gwen wasn’t here to see this. They had never discussed the rumors that swirled around her father. He’d brought it up once, and she’d stopped him quickly, her face tightening into a stiff glare that he’d never seen before. She’d insisted on his innocence, and he’d let the matter go. Finding whatever horrors existed in this warehouse would have broken her and destroyed whatever remaining faith she had left in her image of family.
