Kyle

by Riley Edwards

  “I’m not traumatized,” I denied. “And don’t you dare treat me like I am.”

  “Eight years, Zane,” Emerson started. “You know how I lived. What I did. And you know I can handle this. I’ve been in worse situations and I was alone. Now I have you and the team at my back. Don’t start acting like I can’t handle the simple task of talking to a woman.”

  “What if Monica is Landry’s partner?” Zane asked.

  “Then she is and we’ll sniff that out in a heartbeat,” Emerson answered. “I know the difference.”

  “Fuck,” Zane clipped.

  “We got this. We’re talking to the woman in a controlled environment. If it turns out she’s one of the bad guys, Anaya and I leave, and Jeremy will have what he needs.”

  “I’m gonna come with you.”

  “No, you’re not. Your wife just had a baby and she needs you. As you said, you have a team deployed and need to be ready to take their backs if something should happen. Besides, Garrett is unravelling the Omni network and you’re needed here. Myles will drive us up. Look around, if he feels something’s off, he puts us back in the car and we’re gone. We have a plan and it’s a good one.”

  “If—”

  “Zane, honest to God, stop. If we were two of your men, this wouldn’t be a conversation,” Emerson pressed.

  “But you’re not two of my men. You’re two women who mean something to my men. If shit goes sideways, it’s on me.”

  “What do you need from us to make you feel better?” I asked.

  “Promise me you’ll follow orders. Don’t question Myles, don’t argue with Jeremy if he tells you something, and you listen to me if I tell you to bug out. Without hesitation or question you follow directions to the T.”

  “Promise,” we both said in unison.

  “Goddamn.” Zane shook his head. “You two be safe. Myles, they’re all yours. Check in.”

  “Copy that, boss.”

  Zane made his way to the front door, then he turned back and stared at Myles.

  “Don’t get any fuckin’ ideas. And if your team does, castrate them immediately. No more goddamn women.”

  “No worries from us, LT. Living free and wild, just the way we all like.”

  “Famous last fucking words,” Zane grumbled and slammed the door behind him.

  I glanced over at Emerson and I returned her smile. “That was easier than I thought.”

  “You just have to know how to handle him,” she returned.

  “Handle Zane Lewis.” Myles barked out a laugh. “Never thought I’d hear someone utter those words.”

  “Why are we driving again?” I complained from the back seat.

  We’d just passed Newark, New Jersey. It should’ve taken just over three hours from Annapolis but Myles was avoiding toll roads which had tacked another thirty minutes onto the drive so far.

  “You’re worse than a five-year-old.” Myles laughed.

  “Something’s not sitting right with me,” Emerson said. “You read the file on Monica, right?”

  Emerson glanced over her shoulder waiting for my response.

  “Yeah. But nothing stuck out.”

  “Monica went missing from Ontario when she was thirteen. Her parents didn’t alert the police right away.”

  “Maybe they thought she ran away? How was her homelife?” Myles asked before I could.

  “Everything looks copasetic on paper. But we all know that can be bullshit. Here’s the weird part, the missing person’s report was closed.”

  “Do you have information on why?” Myles further inquired.

  “I read that, too. But I don’t know anything about Canadian procedures,” I told Emerson.

  “I don’t think the Canadian police would close an investigation into a missing thirteen-year-old without good cause. I’m gonna call Garrett and ask him.”

  Emerson rummaged through her purse and pulled out her phone. She put it on speaker and a few seconds later it was ringing.

  “Emerson?” Garrett answered.

  “Yeah. Listen, can you look into the police report from when Monica Tremblay went missing and find out why the investigation was closed?”

  “Sure. What are you thinking?”

  I could hear Garrett clicking his keyboard as he waited for Emerson to answer.

  “Not sure. Something seems off about it. In the US that would never happen, right?”

  “Correct,” I answered. “The investigation would remain active and the missing person’s name would be added to the federal database. The NCMEC would also be involved and have a record.”

  “Shit,” Garrett muttered. “We didn’t run the parents. And we should’ve. The case was closed when the Tremblays reported Monica had gone to live with a family member in the United States.”

  “Was there a visa issued?” Myles asked.

  “Negative. Nothing was filed with INS. Though Monica’s mom had dual citizenship, which means Monica does, too.”

  “Is there anything that supports their claim?” I probed. “School records? Doctors’ visits? Anything?”

  “Negative. She’s a ghost.”

  “Is it possible her parents sold her?” Emerson questioned.

  “Strong possibility. Good catch, Emmy. Let me dig into the parents and I’ll call you back. How’s the drive?”

  “Long,” I muttered.

  “Now you sound like Tatiana. She vowed never to take another road trip with the team.”

  “She’s a smart woman.”

  “Right. Out.”

  Garrett disconnected and Emerson turned back to me. She looked troubled.

  “How do you wanna handle her?”

  I thought about her question for a moment before I answered. “We go in soft. Open up to her and see if she responds. I think she needs to see us as women who understand what she’s been through. If we don’t get the right reactions from her, we can change tactics. But if she is a trafficking victim and we go in hard, treating her like Landry’s partner and we’re wrong, we’ll never gain her trust. Not to mention, we’ll damage her more.”

  “I agree. And I’ve been around enough women who’ve lived through that hell to know what they look like. If we’re right and her parents did sell her, she’s a victim no matter what. Even if Harry did turn her and she then willingly helped him. Bottom line—Monica would’ve done what she needed to do to survive.”

  Emerson was right and the thought churned my stomach. There was only so much a person could take before mentally they checked out and survival mode took over.

  It would be another two hours before Garrett called us back. I was staring out the window watching the New York Stewart airport go by when Emerson answered her phone.

  “Find anything?” Emerson asked.

  “Gold mine,” Garrett stated. “Dale Tremblay worked as a programmer until the company he worked for went bankrupt and he found himself unemployed. His wife, Beatrice, worked a low-paying job as an assistant.”

  “Wait, worked? She doesn’t now?” I cut in.

  “Both deceased. Suicide.”

  Shit. That didn’t sound good. At all.

  “Nothing screams guilt like a double suicide,” Emerson whispered.

  “And you’d be right. The Tremblays were struggling. Beatrice was the only one working, they’d lost their house, and were living out of a motel.”

  “Fallin’ on hard times and being homeless doesn’t equal selling your kid,” Myles put in.

  “It doesn’t, but the two-hundred thousand dollars that appeared in their bank account does.”

  “A transfer that large doesn’t set off red flags?” I asked.

  “Not when it comes from your employer as an on-the-job injury settlement.”

  “Employer?” I breathed. “What the hell?”

  “Still working my way down the rabbit hole, but I thought you’d want to know what I’d found so far.”

  “What’s your gut telling you, Garrett?” Myles queried.

  “Can’t find it
yet, but I bet Icon Fashion has ties to Omni. That’s where Beatrice worked.”

  “Icon? That’s owned by Madeleine Strotherby,” I said in disbelief.

  Madeleine had to be in her eighties now. She was a fashion model, turned actress, turned fashion designer. She also had a line of perfumes and makeup. The world viewed the woman as a saint with all of her charitable work.

  “Anaya, it pains me to burst your rosy perception,” Garrett started. “But it is my experience those who look the best on paper, those who try to show the world how good they are, are usually hiding something. And what they’re hiding is dark and heinous. Not saying I’m right about Icon, but when something stinks, it’s rotten. And the whole fucking thing surrounding the Tremblays stinks.”

  “If you’re right, that’ll suck,” I mumbled. “Madeleine has given almost half her fortune away.”

  “Maybe I am,” Garrett conceded, though he didn’t sound like he meant it. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “What’s your opinion, Myles?” Emerson asked.

  “Seen a lot in my life,” Myles started. “And I have to agree with Garrett. Wealth and power go hand-in-hand. Once someone acquires those, they don’t want to lose either.”

  “And Omni? What about them?” I asked. “It sounds like all the people involved are wealthy business owners. Legit businesses. Why traffic women?”

  “Not just women. Drugs, arms, antiquities, you name it, they deal it. The answer is simple. Money. More power. And I’m sure for men like Harry Landry and Jefferson Baldwin they get off on buying and selling women. They’re pigs and they think they can buy anything, own anything. What does a man who literally has the world at his fingertips buy? A person. The ultimate rush of power for scum like them. They have no morals, no soul, and the screams of their victims feeds their perverse egos. The man my team is tracking deals in weapons. He’s known to discount his loads if the buyers will allow him to watch.”

  “Watch what?” I asked.

  “The first raid.”

  “The man likes to watch a raid?”

  “Miguel Lopez gets his rocks off on watching innocent people die by the weapons he provides,” Myles explained.

  “That’s…that’s…” I couldn’t finish my sentence because I didn’t even know what that was. Disgusting? Horrible?

  “Fucked,” Myles provided. “That’s what it is. The man needs to be put to ground. And hopefully in the next forty-eight hours that’s where he’ll be.”

  I sat back in my seat and thought about what Myles had said and the manner in which he said it. Nonchalant. Flippant. Like it was no skin off his back that he was telling me without actually telling me he was going to kill the man.

  Then I realized I didn’t much care if a man like Miguel Lopez was going to die.

  The world would be a better place for it.

  Maybe I should’ve felt differently, and maybe a few months ago I would’ve, but I’d had quite the education since Kalee had died. Since I’d huddled in a closet praying the rebels wouldn’t find me as I heard them senselessly torture and kill the villagers. Since the rebels had killed innocent children in an orphanage. Since I’d been taken and for the second time in my life chained to a wall.

  Now I felt no pity.

  Chapter 26

  “Total shitstorm,” Leo muttered.

  He was not wrong.

  The two of us had taken patrol on the south end of the compound where the girls were being held and what we found wasn’t what’d been reported.

  It looked like a tent-city in the middle of an unused pasture.

  “I counted seventeen being hosed off,” I told him—something he already knew. I was sure he’d counted the girls as they were dragged from the tents, forced to undress, then hosed off like animals.

  The women had flinched and cried out as the undoubtedly ice-cold water had pelted their flesh, making my trigger finger itchy. Dropping a few of the men as they laughed at the women would do the soul so good. Yet I remained still and watched.

  Seventeen women we could see. Maybe more in the tents. More than had been reported.

  Ten guards. Again, that we could see.

  There were nine of us, we could easily take out ten men. But the issue was, the property was in the middle of a small town. The sound of automatic gunfire would draw attention, and lots of it.

  The other issue was, the compound wasn’t exactly hidden.

  “There has to be more. The guard ratio is too high. And I don’t like how we can’t see into the house.”

  “Panther, what’s your six?” Linc came over the radio asking our position.

  “Southeast corner,” Leo returned.

  “We’re headed your way.”

  Lincoln and Colin had taken the north end of the property. Jasmin, Declan, Max, Thad, and Brooks had paired off to scout the town.

  Leo and I went back to silently watching when two men and a girl exited the house, a man on each side of her holding her by the arms. They dragged her limp body through the yard toward the tents. Anger and bile rose fast and furious.

  “Easy,” Leo growled from beside me.

  He may’ve mumbled more words in an attempt to calm me down but my focus was on the girl’s bare feet as they towed behind her.

  The depravity never failed to boil my insides.

  “Two more guards,” Leo noted.

  Two more dead men walking was more like it.

  Two more motherfuckers I’d feel no remorse for when my bullet hit them square between the eyes.

  Leo, Colin, Linc, and I made it back to the safehouse and were waiting for the rest of the team to get back from checking out the town.

  The other three men were lounging on the couch but I couldn’t get my racing thoughts to settle. That girl being hauled out of the house loose and limp kept playing in a loop. Over and fucking over.

  That could’ve been Anaya.

  My gut clenched and chest ached.

  “I’m gonna report in,” Linc said. “If Dec has anything else to add, he can call when he gets back.”

  With my thoughts on Anaya I barely registered the phone ringing and Zane answering.

  “We got problems,” Linc started.

  “When the fuck don’t we got problems?” Zane barked.

  “South end, at least eighteen girls and twelve guards. North end, we had visual on five girls, but there are three tents, could be more we didn’t see and three guards.”

  “Fuck.”

  “’Bout sums it up. Fifteen guards is a cakewalk, but as you know the property is five miles outside of town. We start a shootout at the O.K. Corral people are gonna hear. They hear, they’re gonna come investigate. Don’t need a bunch of civilians running around but we really don’t need the authorities. Any suggestions, brother?”

  “You think Landry’s got the locals on his payroll?” Zane asked.

  “Has to. The camp doesn’t have a neon sign flashing girls girls girls, but it’s not hidden. If you get close, you can see the tents the girls are housed in,” Leo added.

  “Let the transaction take place,” Zane instructed.

  “Come again?” I entered the conversation.

  “Let the buyer take possession of the girls and track ‘em. Hopefully the girls will be split up. There will be fewer guards during transport. I’ll leave it to you when you engage.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Colin said. “No way they’re gonna try to move all those girls together.”

  “Side note, Garrett followed Emerson’s lead on Monica’s disappearance. Shit’s clicking into place and I’m not liking where it’s going but it’s making sense. We’re closer to getting to the top. Tex is handling some of the low-level players. Fuckin’ amazed at what that man can do from the comfort of his living room.”

  “No shit,” Leo agreed. “Tex scares the fuck out of me.”

  John “Tex” Keegan was a damn superhero without the stupid cape and tights. The former SEAL could and did rule all things cyber.

&nb
sp; Our IT guy, Garrett, was a badass, but Tex could still outperform. And much to Garrett’s annoyance, Tex did not share his secrets.

  “What else did Garrett find?” I asked.

  “The Tremblays were paid off. He’s still working on how that arrangement came to be. Nothing in their background suggests they personally had any ties to Omni or any other trafficking ring. Other than Beatrice working for Icon. Garrett’s resolute Icon has involvement with the group but so far he can’t prove his theory. Tex is taking a look, too.”

  “Landry tied to Icon?” Linc asked.

  “Harry Landry owns stock. Not a lot and that by itself doesn’t mean shit. You’ve seen his portfolio, he owns stock in damn near everything from tech giants to small startups. It would take us a decade to dig into them. And those are the ones we know about. What’s more concerning is he was able to hide his ownership of Corella. We don’t have time to look into surface shit. I called Tom and he confirmed he knew about Corella. That was one of the reasons we have the stand-down order. He wants Landry alive.”

  “Tom thinks Landry will flip?” I surmised and my blood boiled.

  I wasn’t sure what was worse for a man like Harry Landry, living out his life in a prison cell or six feet under. But what I did know was Thad was gonna hit the roof. Landry was behind Emerson’s kidnapping. Something that was still fresh in everyone’s mind but the burn was scorching in Thad’s gut.

  “That’s what he thinks,” Zane confirmed. “But I doubt it.”

  I glanced to the three men sitting on the couch and they all had matching looks of disbelief. Landry would not turn. It was going to be a waste of time but no one would question the president. If Tom Anderson wanted Landry breathin’ he’d be left breathin’, and that was that.

  “Myles checked in,” Zane said. All thoughts of Landry and the case flew out of my head. “He confirmed the house was secure, Jeremy had everything under control, so he left.”

  Before we’d gone out to patrol, Zane had called to tell me Anaya and Emerson had arrived safely in Connecticut, but news that Myles had taken off so quickly didn’t sit well. I knew he had a time-sensitive mission but I’d hoped he’d at least stay the night.