At the sound of it, her mouth sagged slightly, her stomach matching it.
“Elyse Ann Denman,” he said. “That’s your name, right?”
As little as two hours earlier, Elyse had been feeling good. She’d managed to use what little she had to fashion a weapon, had even managed to wield it, calling on strength reserves she didn’t know existed.
To think she had summoned the courage to stab someone, that she had broken the skin and drawn blood on someone twice her weight, was still something she couldn’t wrap her mind around.
For the briefest of moments, she had had a chance. The door was open, a clear path to the exit stretched out before her. Like a scene from a movie, she’d felt like she was moving in slow motion, running across the floor, turning and looking back at her captor lying in his own blood.
Unfortunately, that’s where the movie cut off. The next thing she knew, darkness spilled over her. By the time she awoke again, her head ached and her cheek throbbed. The man that had first nabbed her and shot her brother was back standing over her, barking orders.
An hour after that, she was being returned to the warehouse she’d been to the day before, for the first time seeing the men she’d stood blindfolded in front of.
Now, here she was, inside the cab of the nicest truck she’d ever seen, being toyed with by a man that clearly thought himself something he wasn’t.
“Daughter of Amber and Josh? Sister of Eric?” the man continued.
A host of emotions too thick to parse out passed through Elyse. Fear formed the predominant base, but heaped atop it were frustration and confusion. Anger and hopelessness.
She knew she was being messed with. That she should remain silent. Let him get out whatever he wanted. Take advantage of not being blindfolded and take in everything she could.
But she just couldn’t do it.
“And you are?” she asked. Her voice cracked once as she spoke, thick from going unused for the last two days.
If the man was shocked by her speaking back to him, he didn’t show it. Instead, his eyebrows and upper lip all rose in unison, his smile widening.
“Hey, she speaks.”
Keeping her gaze turned his way, Elyse said nothing, waiting for him to respond.
Outside, she could see that it was now well into the afternoon, that time had become something completely inconsequential. The sun was out and bright, reflecting off the surface of the river and the mirrored sides of skyscrapers passing by.
Where they had been exactly, she wasn’t sure, knowing only that they were headed back into the heart of the city.
The look of amusement lingered as the man said, “You may call me John.”
So badly, Elyse wanted to ask what his last name was, to determine if that was his real name or a generic fill-in he was tossing out there to blow her off.
Still, she refrained.
“Is my brother okay?”
The smile waned as John looked from her to the road. Flipping on his blinker, he changed lanes, drifting to the left before accelerating again, the enormous engine of the truck responding with a slight kick.
“Your brother? How the hell would I know?”
“Because you had your man shoot him.”
The words were out before Elyse even realized it. As if she could visually see them leaving her mouth, she watched as they traversed the space between them, landing hard, the man’s features clouding.
“My-“ he began, his voice falling away slightly. A flush of colors came to his cheeks as the smile disintegrated, his lips pressed into a tight line.
This was news to him, something he had not sanctioned and had certainly not been informed of.
“First of all, that punk kid that nabbed you was not one of my guys. They know better.”
Than to what, he didn’t elaborate.
“Second, if your brother got shot, I apologize. I had nothing to do with that.”
Looking back to the road, he pulled his chin back toward his chest, adjusting himself in his seat. Twice he glanced at the clock on the dash, seeming to weigh things in his mind.
With each passing moment, she could see the weight of the information sitting heavier. Nervous energy seemed to roll from him, filling the space between them.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he added. “Just like I won’t hurt you either.”
Shifting back to face forward, Elyse fell silent. So many things she still wanted to ask him, but now wasn’t the time.
Chapter Forty-Six
Sirr Asai didn’t bother to knock. Paco was the only person in his network that garnered such respect, and that was because he had earned it many times over.
The rest were there because he allowed them to be. Because he paid them well to be. Because they performed a service that was an important part of the operation, and for no other reason.
Asai was not friends with the people that worked for him. He was not the kind to cut a day short and order in pizza or offer to take a few guys out for a beer.
His entire system was predicated on clearly delineated roles. On maintaining a tenuous balance between efficiency and fear that kept everybody performing at a maximum level at all times.
And that meant having to occasionally play the role of the Big Bad. At times being the imposing overseer, the one that would walk in and inspect things without the slightest forewarning.
There would be plenty of time later in life for friendships. Right now was about making money, capitalizing on a market while it still existed, before the next advents in technology and development came to pass, moving things in yet another direction.
Less than fifty feet from the conference room he had popped into earlier in the day, the space was different in almost every way. Small and square, it resembled the dressing area backstage for a theater production, a bank of mirrors on one wall lined with round light bulbs along the top.
In front of the mirrors was a waist-high counter covered in every hair and makeup product imaginable.
Along the opposite wall was a dressing rack, hundreds of pieces of clothing hung in exact precision. Ranging from gowns to swimwear, every possible color was represented, as were animal print, sequins, feathered boas, and some pieces Asai was quite sure he had never seen before.
Or ever wanted to.
Bisecting the two displays was a pair of upright chairs, the items looking like a cross between the kind found in dentist’s offices and barber shops. The one closest to the door sat empty, turned his direction, as if someone had just recently swiveled for the exit and hopped down.
In the far one sat a woman in her mid-twenties. Of mixed race, she had pale black skin and thick dark hair, half of it standing out in a wide poof around her head, the other half pleated into dozens of tiny braids.
With a listless look on her face, her glazed eyes barely turned his direction, unable to register the visitor or even the burst of light the open door brought with him.
Behind her stood a woman at least a decade older than the girl in the chair. Tall and striking, curly blonde hair was in a pile atop her head. Sharp collarbones jutted out from under the straps of the tank top she wore. Angled cheekbones and jawline were offset by a pair of thick-framed glasses perched on the end of her nose.
In either hand she held bands of the girl’s hair, deftly weaving them into place. Flicking her gaze up at Asai, she continued working, her focus going back to the hair as fast as it had been lifted.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Asai.” Her voice was detached, made to sound almost mechanical by the comb clamped between her teeth.
“Tracee,” Asai said, making it no more than a couple of feet into the room before the overpowering smells of perfume and hair product held him at bay. Allowing his features to twist up slightly, he turned his head to the side and asked, “How are they coming along?”
“Good,” Tracee replied, pulling the comb from her mouth. “This one will take the longest, with this rat’s nest of hair she has. After that, pretty simple. Everybody wil
l be ready by the time the guests arrive.”
Asai nodded. He’d had no doubt that the women would be ready. Once before Tracee had made a grave mistake, and it had cost her dearly. An unfortunate situation, but one that had ensured she was never out of turn again.
The price of ensuring loyalty, even if it was dressed up as compliance.
“I wanted to remind you that Paco will be picking up one last addition this evening,” Asai said.
“Ah, yes,” Tracee said, nodding slightly. “The Virgin.”
Ignoring the comment – and any lingering undertones that might come with it – Asai said, “They will be here by half-past at the latest. Should provide plenty of time for you to get her ready for her grand entrance.”
Whatever Tracee thought of the situation, she said nothing, at this point beyond trying to fight over such matters. Giving only a nod in the affirmative, she tugged the comb through the thick frizz of the hair before her, the girl barely noticing as her head rocked back and forth.
“And make sure she’s a little more alert than this one,” Asai added. “For some reason, the men seem to prefer the illusion of presence.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The tip of the bat was stained red with Bernstein’s blood. Mashed down over the end of it was a Ziploc bag I’d nabbed from his kitchen as I left, not wanting to leave a spot of anything incriminating inside the rental car. Angled upward in the passenger footwell, the pink tip was clearly visible as I drove, a constant reminder sitting right there in my periphery, spurring me onward.
Those bastards were the ones responsible for my niece and nephew. They, along with Ronell Brinks, were why Eric was in the hospital and Elyse was still unaccounted for.
For more than a decade, I worked in the service of the United States government. I did so because my father had instilled in me the belief that people like us had a responsibility to look out for those at home that couldn’t. That we had been fortunate enough to be born into a country with a great many freedoms, and along with that came the need to ensure others enjoyed the same thing.
Moments like this, it was hard to think that all my effort hadn’t been for anything more than to set up a system where men like this could exist. That while we were out protecting the world from foreign enemies or terrorists, our own neighbors were staring at our cars or our kids or whatever else, equally vile thoughts in mind.
The mere notion of it all was enough to make my pulse race. My teeth clamped down and my hand curled into a tight fist, my entire body squeezing tight. Veins rose to the surface and sweat coated my features as I eased the SUV to the side of the road.
Only then did I slowly let loose of the venom inside me, allowing it to drain away bit by bit.
If I’d been left to my preferences, I would have spent all afternoon in that house. I would have used the bat and the Browning and whatever else I could find and inflicted every bit as much pain as they had instilled upon the Denman family.
Probably even a bit extra, just to make myself feel better.
Six years had passed since I’d last seen Elyse, but that changed nothing. Just as the words her mother hurled at me the last time we spoke changed nothing.
She was a child, one of the few people on the planet I could call family. She was named after my wife, the spitting image of her.
She wasn’t much older than my daughter would be, the two likely friends.
And right now, she was being transported to a warehouse, her next destination from there unknown.
Leaving the two guys back there unconscious and tied up wasn’t my first choice, but it was the most prudent one. Killing for the sake of it didn’t appeal to me in the slightest, especially considering there was a chance I would need one or both of them alive in the near future.
For more information. As trading chips to try and get my niece back. As outlets to go back and let out untold amounts of frustration.
Aware of how much time had passed, I’d done what I needed to and gotten out as quick as possible. I’d covered the ground back to the SUV and pulled away, not wanting to be seen sitting along the curb making any additional phone calls.
Forcing myself to appear as calm as possible, I’d climbed in and eased away, backtracking the way I’d come just a little while earlier. Overhead, the sun continued to shine brightly. On the sidewalks around me, handfuls of schoolchildren were headed for home, their backpacks hitched into place on their shoulders.
A visual that only drove home how late it was getting.
Shoving the gearshift into park, I grabbed up my cell phone from the middle console and brought it to my thigh. Scrolling down two slots in my recent call log, I hit send.
An instant later, Pally appeared.
“Hawk.”
“I need everything you have on Ronell Brinks,” I said. I didn’t bother spelling the name out, anything I offered a best guess anyway.
In response, there was nothing but a clatter of keys. No further questioning, no request for a couple of minutes. Getting straight to it, I listened as he did what he does best, almost a full minute passing before he returned.
“Ronell Brinks, aged twenty,” Pally said. His voice was detached as he read from whatever file he’d pulled up. “Son of the former Meredith Brinks, now Sands.”
“Single mother?” I asked.
“No,” Pally replied. “Boy’s father passed, she remarried.”
Grunting, I could feel the corners of my mouth turning downward. “Anything in the system?”
“No criminal record,” he said, “though I have a rash of hospital admissions all starting shortly before Meredith became a Sands, continuing until his eighteenth birthday.”
Raising a hand to my face, I swiped it across my brow, the palm coming back wet with perspiration. This was bad. This wasn’t someone like Bernstein that was involved in something over his head.
This guy had all the early warning signs of trauma, likely having formed an outlook on the world that diverged greatly from the rest of society.
While someone like Bernstein would have compassion, a man like Brinks would have had it beaten out of him long before. He wouldn’t look at Elyse and see a young girl. He would see someone of wealth and privilege, somebody that had been gifted a much better post in life than he had.
And he would likely be pissed about it.
“That was also the last known address he had,” Pally added.
“Shit,” I muttered, there being no point in heading that direction. He wouldn’t be there, and they likely hadn’t seen him in quite a while.
“I take it this is the third man from the cameras?” he asked. “The one wearing the ski mask?”
“It is,” I replied. In quick order, I told him where things stood, including everything Bernstein had shared and where I was currently headed.
When I was done, the sole follow-up he asked was, “Is there anything else I can do?”
“Find me everything you can about a group known as the S-2.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
It’s hard to say exactly what I was expecting. Having seen the base of operations for drug syndicates and cartel leaders the world over, I’d come to discover there was no standard headquarters format.
In Nicaragua, my team and I had stormed an estate that looked like it was cut directly from Scarface. Everything was done in white marble, the guards all wore suits and carried machine guns, and fountains blowing wide fans of water into the air welcomed us to the front gate.
Just a year before, I’d gone to Russia to see the man responsible for the death of my family. Despite controlling much of the trade of the newest drug on the market, he still lived in a standard two-bedroom home in a suburban neighborhood. His means of protection was a handgun for himself and a single massive bodyguard.
Based on what Bernstein had told me, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The information Pally was able to supply me didn’t provide a lot more.
The name of the group was the S-2, a group that ha
d originated in Atlanta under the name South Side. Somewhere along the line, somebody had started calling them the S-Squared, but once it was determined that that didn’t fit the image they were looking for, that got switched up again to their current moniker.
Originally founded by no more than a dozen guys in the eighties, it had slowly gained a toehold and then a foothold in the metropolitan area. Over time, they had pushed to where it was now estimated that in the state of Georgia, there were as many as five hundred members.
Rumored to be involved in drugs, cars, prostitution, and most anything that might turn a buck, they had slowly worked their way outward. Targeting the Carolinas and Alabama, they had eventually found their way into Tennessee, with the goal being most major cities and college towns throughout the south.
Thus far it had been received with mixed results, various enrollments differing greatly. Here in Nashville, where there was competition from a handful of other smalltime clicks, it was said to be as many as a few dozen.
Where Pally had been able to nab all that, especially in the amount of time it took me to drive from Belle Meade to West Nashville, I didn’t bother to ask. Likely it had come from peering into places he wasn’t supposed to be, making it better for both of us to abide by not asking or telling.
Driving over, I had expected a large residence, almost like a frat house, with guys out on the front lawn or congregated on the porch. I could have even imagined an abandoned building of some sort, with spray-painted walls and cars parked at angles across the front lawn.
In no way did I expect what I found.
The place, from the outside, looked to be a standard shipping facility. One single story upfront for offices, the roof rose again by half as much for the majority of the building. Shaped like any common warehouse, it was constructed of concrete block painted white. Along the front was a single entrance with double doors, a few windows with frosted glass spread wide to either side.
More windows were extended down either side. A series of roll top doors were spread across the rear.
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