Nassir dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “I am aware that the clock has been ticking every day, Stark. That is why I found Benny.” His gold eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened into a line of annoyance as he muttered, “Men who look like Jonathan Goddard, who bleed blue blood and come from where he comes from, do not do business with men who look like me and come from where I come from. There are some doors that even a shitload of dirty money and well-placed threats cannot open. I could not get inside that gilded cage, but Benny, he’s been sliding into places he doesn’t belong for a very long time.”
I felt my eyes widen as I turned to the quiet, bearded man who was watching me thoughtfully. I could tell he wasn’t sure what to make of me, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. No one was ever really sure if I was friend or foe. That’s what happened when you were dead on the inside, when you were robotic and stiff. The best parts of me were dead and buried with my sister, so I could be either friend or foe, depending on the circumstances. Not that the two were much different. I treated pretty much everyone exactly the same. Like they were an annoyance and a distraction. But I wanted to treat Noe differently.
“You know where she is? Is she okay? What’s he doing to her?” The questions came out rapid fire, each moving me closer to the man in the flashy suit. By the time I was done asking them, I was right up in his face and I had his lapels clasped in each hand. I pulled him up so that he was balanced on his tiptoes. His fingers wrapped around my wrists, the metal of his rings biting into my skin.
“All right genius, if you shake me to death, you aren’t going to get her back, so I need you to take a step in the other direction before you break me.” There was a thread of amusement in his tone, but I could also tell he understood that my panic and my fear were completely new to me, and I had no way to control them. Somewhere along the line, Benny Truman had found someone who forced him to think about things other than himself. He actually gave a shit, and that made a man a little bit unhinged. I assumed that was happening to me.
I let him go with more force than necessary and raked my hands through my hair in aggravation. “Sorry, but like I said, it’s been two fucking weeks. That’s a long time.”
Benny smoothed his wrinkled suit and straightened his tie. “I get it, but you can take a breath for the moment. The cop who picked her up tagged her with a Taser. It either knocked her out for a while or she was good at playing possum. Goddard paid some guys to get his stepdaughter’s location out of her, and when she came to, she told them that if she didn’t check in with Julia every two days, she had instructions to hit the road because it meant something was wrong. She told them that they had a special code, and if they touched her, she would use it and send Julia into the wind. Goddard wants the girl and the baby. He wants to bury the bodies and burn the evidence. He can’t do that if your girl won’t talk.” Benny chuckled a little and rocked back on his heels. “She’s smart. They’ve been playing it pretty easy with her, hoping to trace the calls, pressuring her to get the girl to slip up and drop her location, but she’s been playing them.”
I grunted and put my hands on my hips as I stared at the floor between my black motorcycle boots. “How do you know all this?”
Benny and Nassir exchanged a look and he ran a hand over his beard. “Goddard is losing patience and getting desperate. He’s looking for a pro to get her to talk. Someone who can torture her, hurt her, and get her to give him what he wants. He knows she’s from the streets so his usual threats won’t work. He needs more fire power. Typically, he would go through Gates to get his hands on a pro, but since he doesn’t like to do business with anyone who doesn’t bleed blue and has a pedigree that matches his, he put out a call for an outsider to get the job done.”
Nassir’s narrowed eyes glinted in irritation. “Luckily, no one goes in or out of the Point without my knowing about it. We got word a few days ago that a professional was making his way to the city and I had a welcome committee waiting for him. After we graciously put him up for the night, I retrieved our own professional. Someone Goddard wouldn’t question coming in to work the girl over. He thinks Benny is here to make her talk by any means necessary.”
Graciously put him up for the night more than likely meant Nassir’s guys had maimed and tortured the guy. Given him a taste of his own medicine. He didn’t like anyone who wasn’t vetted on his streets. He didn’t like anyone wandering around who might be as dangerous as he was. He had someone in his life he gave a shit about and he wouldn’t let an unknown get anywhere near her. “He didn’t even question who Benny was when he showed up at the country club.”
I blew out a breath and shifted my gaze between the two of them. “How did he not recognize you?” Like I said, I’d never met him but I knew exactly who he was. The streets used to be under his control.
“Guys like Goddard don’t know about guys like me unless they need something. When Novak was pulling the reins, he didn’t do white-collar crime. He never saw a use for it. He was much more the rape and pillage type . . . literally. Our paths never crossed and he’s watched enough bad cable TV that he’s convinced I’m some mobbed-up gangster from the East Coast. He has no idea what a life of crime really looks like . . . which works for us and works for your girl.”
I scanned his outfit and his shiny wingtips. “You do kind of look like an extra on the Sopranos, except for the beard.”
I knew from first-hand experience the guys who made their living breaking the law very rarely looked like the average person thought they did. Sure, there were guys who looked like they loved doing bad things . . . like Bax. But then there was Race, who looked like he owned a yacht and played golf every weekend at Goddard’s country club. Nine times out of ten, Race was into more illegal and dirty stuff than Bax, but at first glance, no one would ever know that. Then, there were guys like Nassir. He looked like a successful businessman most days, but there was something about him that screamed his business wasn’t anything you wanted to ask him about. His expensive suits never could hide the ruthlessness and raw edge that made him the devil incarnate.
Chuck barked out a laugh and slapped his leg. “Ben’s been lost in the woods for the last six months. He’s been stuck in flannel and had to learn how to chop wood. He forgot the power of a good suit is in its subtlety. The man used to know how to dress.”
Benny swore and Nassir’s lips twitched in silent amusement. I wished I could see the humor in the situation, but I felt like I was about to break into pieces. All that would be left of me was the skeleton made of leftover parts and shrapnel.
“So, he thinks you’re here to torture her, and if you don’t get the info, he’ll most likely have you both killed.”
I got dual nods from both dark-haired men and a serious look from Chuck. Nassir pulled out his phone when it quietly vibrated and swore softly under his breath. “Either that, or he’ll try and sell her. We’ve had some problems with the Eastern Europeans. Every time I think I’ve chased them all out of town, they pop back up. If she doesn’t talk, he might tell Benny to hand her over to them and they’ll move her into their goddamn sex trafficking network. Obviously, we won’t let that happen.”
“No shit, that isn’t going to happen.” I growled the words between my teeth. Nassir blinked in surprise at the obvious emotion behind each word but didn’t say anything.
His tone was careful when he told me, “We’re meeting tonight after midnight at the docks. Goddard has an empty shipping container registered to a shell company that he uses for all his wet work. We didn’t have a clue that’s where he’s been operating until Benny got the meetup info. You can bet the guys running the docks are going to hear from me when this is all over. They’re bringing her there so Benny can get the answers from her.”
“If she talks?” I knew the answer, but I had to hear someone say it out loud.
“She dies.” Nassir said flatly.
“If she doesn’t?”
“She dies.” Nassir gave me both answers equally with as
little emotion as I usually showed.
“I’m going with you.” It was a bold declaration, one lacking any of my typical detachment.
Benny immediately shook his head as both Chuck and Nassir sighed. “You can’t. Goddard hired a guy who works alone with no questions asked. I can’t roll in there with someone else. Your girl will be dead before we step foot on the docks.”
“You’re too invested. You aren’t thinking clearly. Stark, you’ll do more harm than good if you involve yourself. You are the brains behind the operation, not the brawn.” Nassir’s tone left no room for argument and his words were true. I wasn’t much of a fighter unless I was pushed. And right now, I felt like I’d been pushed right to the edge and there was no going back. Fourteen long ass days of being suffocated by guilt and remorse. I was choking on it. I was also running scared from a myriad of other emotions I couldn’t clearly identify as they swirled under the emotions I did recognize. I hated things I didn’t understand. I didn’t have the patience or time to be confused and conflicted.
I wanted to fall back to the floor.
I wanted to scream at the ceiling.
I wanted to rip my shirt off and beat my chest like a wild animal.
I felt like I was being consumed by every ugly thing twisting up my insides. Dropping my head, I put my hand on the back of my neck and squeezed so hard that it hurt. Pain was the one feeling I was familiar with. It was an old friend, a comfort. It was the one emotion I knew how to deal with because it was the only one I allowed myself to feel day in and day out.
“Just get her back. I don’t care how. I don’t care who you have to go through to do it.” I closed my eyes and watched Jonathan Goddard’s downfall play like a movie behind my eyelids. Once I knew Noe was okay, once she was safe, I was going to take him down.
She wanted to make him pay. I was going to do her one better.
I was going to make him suffer . . . and then, I was going to make sure he could never hurt anyone ever again.
Noe
I was going to die.
There were a couple other times in my life when I was pretty sure the end was near, but they were nothing like this. This time, I could feel the end looming. I could feel the tiny window of hope slam shut. I could feel the weight of inevitability pressing down on me so hard that I could barely get a breath in. I’d been stalling, playing games, talking in circles, and lying my ass off. I’d done whatever I had to do to stay alive while I figured out a way to get free from the Mayor and his goons. None of my words or my schemes were working anymore. He wanted his stepdaughter and he was going to kill me if I didn’t tell him where to find her.
I couldn’t give up Julia’s location. I wasn’t going to sell her out and put her back in the monster’s clutches, the way one of the kids on the street had done to me when the cop flashed his badge and demanded to know where I was. The other runaways knew Nassir had been looking for me and that he’d sent Stark to flush me out. All the dirty cop had to do was promise that whomever ratted me out would get a get-out-of-jail-free card. Since I had a backbone and was far more loyal than that, I was going to die. But not before the dirty cop who nearly electrocuted me put his hands all over me.
He’d been circling around for the last two weeks. Letting his hands linger. Pinning me with his eyes and taunting me with his words. Goddard told his goons I was off limits until they had a location for his stepdaughter, but they only behaved when he was in the room. When he was gone, they threatened, they touched, they intimidated, and they harassed. My cheek was swollen from being smacked around. My scalp was raw from yanking my head out of grabbing hands, and all my fingernails were broken and bloody from clawing and fighting off unwanted advances. I was disgusted by being pawed and abused, even if I was achingly used to it. The look in the cop’s eye was one I was sadly familiar with. He liked it when I fought back, and he was waiting, not so patiently, to get the go ahead from his boss that I was no longer off limits. He’d been telling Goddard that there were other ways to find Julia, that I was just a street-rat without connections to keep the girl hidden for long. He had a very specific way in which he wanted to make me talk, and if Goddard had given him the okay, I would have killed myself before letting him have his way with my body.
I swore to myself when I left home that I would never, ever be powerless like that again. Luckily, the software I set up with basic, pre-recorded responses from Julia meant I could keep the Mayor guessing and the dirty cop on a leash for a little while. I didn’t actually know where she was. I never knew. It was safer that way in case something like this happened. I didn’t want the temptation to give away information to protect my own self-interest, so I took precautions. But my time ran out today. There were no more distractions and no more delays. Goddard wanted answers I couldn’t give him . . . so I was going to die.
For the last two weeks, I’d been trussed up, hands bound behind my back, and confined to some trashy motel that rented rooms by the hour. It was in the heart of the Point—the very worst part. The dirty cop and another guy, who looked like a tired, worn out litigator, took turns trying to cajole me into spilling my guts. The balding, older man, who looked like he gave up on life years ago, made promises I knew he wouldn’t keep, and the cop resorted to using his hands. My nipples had been pinched and my ass was squeezed more in the last two weeks than in an entire decade spent living on the streets. He’d tried to poke and prod between my legs, but old memories and long repressed panic gave me the kind of strength he didn’t expect me to have after days of eating nothing but crap from the motel’s vending machine. Little did these two fools know that life had handed me worse when I’d survived on less.
Even with my hands zip-tied behind my back, I still managed to smash his nose with my forehead and take a chunk out of his cheek with my teeth. It was gory and grisly, bloody and brutal, but after he was done beating the shit out of me for the assault, he left me alone. Goddard was none too pleased when he showed up and saw that I was so battered I could barely speak. I refused to make the fake call to the recorded software for the next two days and flatly told the Mayor if the cop touched me again I was sending his precious package as far away as I possibly could. He didn’t know that there was no way for me to get a message to Julia, but I was a good enough liar that he believed me, and the cop had kept his hands to himself . . . until today.
Both he and the skinny, older man showed up in the middle of the night. The crappy motel door was locked from the outside with a padlock and all the windows were lined with bars that couldn’t be broken loose. I’d tried the first night they left me alone in this hovel. No one cared if I screamed my fool head off. In fact, the room next to me seemed to be producing even louder, scarier noises. There was no housekeeping, no security. I was well and truly trapped and trying to escape had left me with nothing more than bruises and a raspy voice. I’d gotten used to sleeping at a weird angle because my bound hands wrenched up behind me, making my shoulders stiff. I’d never been much of a heavy sleeper—you couldn’t afford to be when you slept under the stars, and I couldn’t risk it when I slept under the same roof as my older brother—so I heard my captors outside the door before it swung open.
I sat upright on the ratty bed and blinked against the sudden invasion of neon light from the motel sign. I was going to ask what was going on; however, before the words were out, the nasty cop pulled out something that looked like a black burlap sack and shook it in front of me.
“Boss says it’s time to go.” He took a step toward me and caught my ankle as I tried to scoot across the bed and away from him.
I screamed as he pulled me across the mattress, evading my kicking feet and chuckling at my protest. The older guy sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Can we hurry this along? The guy God paid costs a fortune and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. We don’t have time for you to play with your food.”
My eyes went wide as the cop wrapped his hands around my neck and started to squeeze. It
made me gag and I kicked and wiggled even harder in his relentless hold. I felt his cheek, the one that needed ten stitches after I bit him, next to mine. He laughed in my ear and his voice sent shivers racing down my spine when he muttered low enough that only I could hear, “That’s right, you little bitch. The boss called in a pro. A guy who can make you bleed on the inside so that the pain lasts for hours. You’ll be begging to talk by the time he’s done with you.” I felt him press into my hip as he pulled me up and forced me to my feet. I gagged harder and tried to pull away when he ground his arousal into me. I struggled to get an elbow in his gut, but there was no traction, and I screamed when he pulled on my tied hands. The nerve endings and joints in my arms and shoulders burned from being locked in an unnatural position for so long. “I’m going to ask for an hour with you before they finish you off. The last thing you’ll remember is my face.” He pressed his ravaged cheek into mine. “The face you fucked up.”
I had to breathe through my mouth so I didn’t pass out. I was scared. I hated that I couldn’t see, but more than anything, I hated that I had no control, no say in what was happening to me or where I was going.
I was no one’s rag doll.
I wasn’t a thing that could be manhandled and tossed around.
I fought back. That’s what I always did. That’s all I could do.
I dragged my feet. I refused to stand under my own power. I wiggled across the floor when the cop dropped me. I tried to get up and run. I had no idea where I was going but I had to get away. I screamed and screamed and screamed. The older man begged me to keep quiet while the cop laughed and drove one of his boots into my ribs.
I went silent on a gasp and was lifted up and thrown over a shoulder. It dug into my gut. I bounced mercilessly around as I was hauled out of the filthy room and down a set of stairs. The lawyerly looking guy was complaining about the noise and making a scene. The cop placated him by saying he would flash his badge, if necessary. They were so casual about abduction and torture that it made me even more resigned to the fact that this really was the end. They didn’t care if anyone saw what they were doing to me because I was about to disappear off the face of the Earth. It didn’t matter that they brought in a professional to wring and torment the truth out of me, because I was dead whether or not I talked. I was going to suffer needlessly. I snickered because it wouldn’t be the first time. I spent my entire life fighting against people who thought they could break and control me.