Breaking Point

by Allison Brennan

  “Papi damaged Sue-Ann and she can’t work for a long time. You said it yourself. It’s bad for business if we let the johns hurt our merchandise.”

  “They’re people, Damien. Not merchandise. People. Girls.”

  “Most of them would be dead anyway by now.”

  No remorse. No idea of what he was doing to these girls.

  “Damien, you don’t want to die.”

  “No.”

  So damn matter of fact she wanted to scream.

  “Let me go, because I swear, my brother and his friends will hunt you down to the ends of the earth if anything happens to me.”

  “You’re trying to scare me but it won’t work.”

  “Dammit! My brother is a Navy SEAL. They don’t give up. Tommy was right, JT came in and saved me from Sergio and Tommy eighteen years ago. Where was Tommy? He didn’t die with Sergio. Because he’s a weak bastard. He ran. He slipped away. He didn’t stay and fight, did he? He ran and left his partner to die. And that’s what he’s going to do to you and Hirsch. My brother will come, mark my words. He knows where I am.”

  “I think you’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not. He doesn’t know exactly where, but he’s here, in town. He was in El Paso. I saw him. He’s not going to let this go.”

  Damien didn’t budge.

  “Dammit, if you ever cared about me, let me go. Please.”

  He stood up. “I thought I cared, but you taught me one important lesson, Doc. I really don’t care about anyone.”

  He left, taking the light with him.

  Bella screamed in frustration. What was Tommy going to do now? Because he had a plan, and nothing that Tommy did would be good.

  * * *

  Damien Drake walked back to the house, an odd sensation in the back of his head. He really tried to understand what Doc was saying.

  Stop calling her Doc.

  But he couldn’t understand.

  He’d always been different from other people. He didn’t remember his parents. He’d been told by one of his foster families that his father was in prison for murdering his mother, but he didn’t remember any of that.

  Yes you do. You saw everything.

  He’d been three at the time. Or so he was told.

  He’d been called names growing up, and that didn’t bother him. What did it matter what someone called him? He took jobs in high school. Good jobs. Bad jobs. Got paid well for getting money out of shop owners. Went to prison because he was told to kill someone and he did. He was paid well for it, didn’t rat, and got out in ten years.

  Martin had looked out for him in prison just like Damien looked out for Martin. People liked to beat up Martin because he talked too much and thought he was smarter than everyone else. And he was smarter than everyone.

  Except the doc.

  So Damien protected him and no one messed with Damien. He didn’t feel pain—he’d once bled so much that he passed out and he only felt an odd floating sensation. Two days later he woke up in the infirmary.

  When he got out of the joint, Martin offered him a job. Protect him. Punish those who didn’t do what they were supposed to. Collect money from deadbeats. He got to screw women who didn’t say no, which was fine, but other than that brief release, he didn’t much care for sex. He got the same release with his hand in the shower.

  It would have been different with Doc.

  When he kissed her that first time he’d felt something different. Something deep inside. For the first time he was really looking forward to sex. He thought about it all the time these last few weeks when he saw her. A slow, low ache. And the kiss ignited it.

  But she was a liar. A cop. Maybe not anymore, but she had lied to him, to Martin, to everyone.

  He walked inside.

  “Well?” Hirsch demanded.

  “She wouldn’t tell me who. She came to rescue a girl, but she wouldn’t say who.”

  “Did you punish her?”

  Damien shrugged. “She’s still tied up.”

  “So you got shit. Did you fuck her? You want to. I can see it.”

  “I wanted to. I don’t anymore.”

  Z looked at him like so many people looked at him, like he was both crazy and weird. Everyone except Martin who trusted him. Damien wasn’t going to let Martin down.

  Doc didn’t. She didn’t look at you the same way as everyone else.

  But she was off the table.

  “She said something odd, though. Her brother was in El Paso. She saw him there.”

  “What?!?” Hirsch said. “Impossible.”

  “I figured it had to be at the bar. She claims he knows she’s in Port Arthur, that she somehow communicated with him.”

  “She didn’t know until—” Hirsch shook his head. “Either she’s lying, or she has a phone hidden. Find it, Damien.”

  Damien searched the doc’s room. There was nothing suspicious—until he turned the mattress over and found the phone. He brought it to Hirsch.

  Z took it out of Hirsch’s hand. “This is it. This is how I destroy her.” He opened it up. “One number programmed in here. Her brother.”

  “Why the fuck do you care about destroying her?” Hirsch said. “Kill her and dump her in the Louisiana swamp. Don’t play games. We have a huge shipment we’ve promised to distribute this week, I don’t have time to screw around with some former cop who feels all noble trying to get women to stop being whores.”

  Z said, “We have two problems. The first is that I don’t trust Bella or anything that she’s said. She could still be a cop. Or some fucking rogue cop wanting to go down in a blaze of glory. I don’t plan on being a part of that blaze. The second is if she’s right and her brother knows she’s in town, he will fuck with our shipment. We have one trucking company here, and if they track it down, we’re screwed. We do this the smart way.” He smiled. “I have the perfect idea. That bitch will die, and if all goes well so will anyone who tries to rescue her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Sunday

  Lucy slept and Sean wrapped his arm around her, letting her head rest against his shoulder. They were in a C-27J, a small cargo plane that was also perfect for surveillance missions. Though it was loud inside the plane, it wasn’t as bad as most of the military craft Sean had been in before. He loved planes, he loved the history of flight and the ingenuity of the Wright brothers and everyone who dreamed of the seemingly impossible.

  But tonight, instead of talking or bribing the pilot to sit in the cockpit, Sean stayed with Lucy because she was exhausted and needed an hour of downtime.

  He stared at Jason Lopez, one of the reasons for Lucy’s sleepless nights this week.

  “Just say it,” Lopez said.

  “Never follow my wife again without her permission,” Sean said.

  “Orders,” Lopez mumbled.

  “Hitler’s men were just taking orders.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. Shit, Rogan, do you think I wanted to do it? I feel like crap. I didn’t know that Rachel had put a tracker on Lucy’s car until Wednesday when she told me what restaurant she was eating at. Then it all clicked together. For what it’s worth, Lucy won. Rachel knows she can’t touch her. Doesn’t make her happy, but that’s that.”

  “That’s not what this is about. There are no winners in this bullshit, only losers. Do you think Lucy hasn’t been sleeping just because of the case? She understands Rachel, and she’s far more forgiving than I am.”

  “What do you want from me, Rogan? I didn’t want to be in this position. I like Lucy. She’s smart. I don’t like the gossip in the office, or the tension, or the fact that when Nate looks at me I think he wants to break my neck—and I know that he could. Everyone knows there’s this … this thing between Rachel and Lucy, and people take sides or just try to ignore it.”

  “What do I want from you? Refuse to play the game, because that’s exactly what this is. It’s an intimidation tactic. I know them well.”

  “Why didn’t you just kick me off the team
?”

  “Lucy wanted you on. Which pisses me off because she thinks she has something to prove to you and Rachel.”

  “At least you admit that you would have kicked me off if you had a chance.”

  “Because I don’t think you have Lucy’s back. I don’t know what you would do if push came to shove. I’ve never seen you on the gun range. I’ve never seen you in active shooter scenarios. I’ve never seen you stand up for her or, frankly, anyone in the office. Your record is solid—but I don’t know you and I’ve never worked with you. You already have two strikes against you.”

  “Do you think it was easy doing this? It’s not. I didn’t want to come. I’m walking into the lion’s den, and I don’t mean because Lucy knows Rachel ordered me to stick with her. I know RCK is in Port Arthur, and by sticking to Lucy that means facing people who already don’t like me. I wasn’t supposed to even be in San Antonio this weekend. I haven’t seen my wife and kids in four weeks.”

  That surprised Sean.

  Jason continued. “Bobbie didn’t want to move them from school in the middle of the year. Andy is ten and plays baseball and I’ve missed every game this year. He’s angry I took this position because he was going into travel ball next year, he’s that good, and now he has to prove himself again. And Grace is six. She’s putting on a brave front, and every night I’ve been gone I’ve called her after dinner to read to her. Except tonight. Because I have a case. I called her on the phone and said I was out catching the bad guys and would call as soon as I could. She said what Bobbie always tells me when she knows I’m working a dangerous case. ‘Come home in one piece.’”

  His voice cracked. Sean didn’t have anything to say—it was easier to dislike someone when you really didn’t know them.

  “There is nothing on this planet more important to me than my family, Rogan. Nothing. I only took this position because Bobbie said it was the right thing to do, to help rebuild a struggling office. She’s a nurse and loves her job, but she has to start over, too. Her parents live in Scottsdale and help with the kids when Bobbie and I are both at work. I don’t know what we’re going to do when we don’t have family in town. My baby sister even talked about relocating here if she could find a job—she’s in Colorado—because she knows none of this has been easy. I haven’t even found time to look for a house, and Bobbie has to sell the house on her own because I can’t help being here, which adds more stress and worry on all of us. So back off.”

  Sean did. He looked at Jason differently now—he hadn’t wholly forgiven him for what he’d been complicit in, but he considered that maybe he had been stuck between a rock and a hard place, and he had other people in the mix to consider.

  Sean closed his eyes, but he didn’t sleep. Unlike his brother Kane—who could catnap anywhere, anytime—he’d never learned how to turn it off, just like that.

  Family was important. Sean hadn’t realized how important until recently. And the most important person in his family was right here, sleeping with her head on his shoulder.

  * * *

  At five a.m., Lucy and the rest of her group—RCK and Jason Lopez—arrived at the FBI RA office in Beaumont. It was a small, two-room office with a tiny SSA office in the back, housed in a government building downtown, and the assembled group was spilling out the door, everyone decked out in full gear. Sean, Jack, and Kane stayed back, letting JT be the point person for RCK.

  Lucy introduced herself to SSA Bing Hamilton—a large, older black commander who had clearly served in the military and had the obvious respect of everyone in the room who knew him. Immediately, Lucy was at ease.

  “My partner Agent Lopez, and JT Caruso.”

  “We talked on the phone yesterday,” Hamilton said to JT. “Good to meet you all. AD Stockton is going to address the group first, then AD Donovan will give the tactical briefing.” He motioned for them to follow. To one of the men in the room he said, “Torres, get the damn donuts and coffee in the hallway, that’s why this place is so crowded. Didn’t I tell someone to set up in the hall?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You should fill up while you can, the way these men and women eat it won’t be here long.”

  JT introduced Lucy to Port Arthur Police Chief Garcia, who was standing with another of his officers next to a wall map. Four flag pins stood out. “We surveilled the four sites last night,” Garcia said. “The blue flag is an apartment building, twelve units. It’s going to be the most difficult to hit because we don’t know if one or all of the units are potential targets. It makes it difficult for me to raid the place—there could be innocent civilians inside, with no confirmation of illegal activity. Are you sure your intel is solid?”

  “It came from a suspect in custody,” Lucy said. “Do you have police reports from that building?”

  “Here’s the sketchy thing—there have been several calls from neighbors into dispatch for domestic situations in several apartments—never from the apartment building itself. But every call has been cleared by the responding officer.”

  “Same officer each time?”

  “Yes, and he’s been relieved of duty.”

  “He doesn’t know about this op, does he?”

  “I don’t know—not from me, but when you get this many cops in one place, word gets out. However, I pulled him last night based on a report from a recent arrest. It’s bullshit, I made it up, but told him to go home and sleep for the weekend and we’d investigate the complaint. He was ticked off, but no more than any other cop who has a prisoner file a complaint.”

  Hamilton said, “Because the apartment is going to need more support, I’ve pulled pairs off all the other teams, and brought in every agent in my office, even those not on call. There’s only eight of us in the Beaumont RA, but we’re all here and accounted for. The DEA sent two extra agents as well, so we should be covered. But it means you’ll be going to one of these three houses with a team of six.”

  “What are the situations in these three?” JT asked.

  Garcia pointed to a red flag not far from where they’d found Sue-Ann unconscious yesterday. “This house is run just like the place we shut down yesterday. Three bedrooms, one bath, only women live there, not a family. It’s owned by the same company that owns the other house. Based on the setup and our drive-bys, I’m guessing six to eight women currently live there. We don’t expect trouble taking it down.” He pointed to the green flag. It was further out and appeared to be in an industrial area. “This one makes me itch. I personally staked out the place for two hours last night and there was a lot of activity. I didn’t see any women—on the contrary, I saw four men, all carrying. The neighborhood is mixed use, and the house is falling apart. One of the men I identified as Brian Acosta, a lowlife who has been in and out of prison, but there are no active warrants against him.”

  “What was he in for?” Lucy asked.

  “Assault, attempted rape, robbery, car theft. He’s been out for the past year.”

  “And the yellow flag?”

  “Small place on the river, no activity, though someone lives there—two cars were in the carport as of midnight last night—it’s owned by Walter Grayson, but there’s nothing on the guy—no record, no Texas driver’s license, nothing. Could be an alias, or out of state owner. I couldn’t get anything else over the weekend. There’s a dock with two boats, though most of the places on that road have boats.”

  Lucy looked at the surveillance photos of each place.

  “I want to be on the team with the green flag,” Lucy said. “JT—if Hope is here, she’s either green or yellow.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Lopez asked.

  “Location. They’re not going to make sex tapes with an unwilling, drugged teenager in an apartment building where there is even a chance that someone will become suspicious. And this building has neighbors on all sides. Like the chief said, there’s been repeated calls into dispatch, so someone is watching the place. My guess these are all working girls, more or less willing.


  “The green flag—the house with armed thugs, in a borderline industrial area—no one is going to call the cops. They’re either too scared or part of the problem. It’s also a large lot, no one too close. There’s a basement—see these windows?—clearly boarded up. Multiple points of egress. The yellow flag—boats. Remember, word is they’re bringing women into Texas, not shipping them out. Donnelly said they’d transfer them from a larger vessel to small vessels somewhere in the gulf, thus attempting to avoid scrutiny. Any residence with a dock on our list is suspect.”

  JT asked, “Are there any trucking companies in Port Arthur with dock access?”

  Hamilton nodded. “We ran that after we got the preliminary report from Donovan last night. Two companies—one a major chain affiliated with the port, and one a small independent.”

  “The independent,” Lucy and JT said simultaneously.

  “The problem is that we’re tight on people with the apartment building.”

  “RCK was cleared by the FBI to work this case. All of us have tactical training,” JT said. “There’s four of us here—but Stockton requested that we work with an established team, not on our own.”

  It sounded to Lucy like that was a sore point with JT, but she understood why. There would be a lot of attention on an op this size and if RCK acted on their own, a lot of people would know. And if anything went south, it would create far more problems.

  Hamilton and Garcia conferred, then Garcia put a black flag where the trucking company was. “Eight minimum on the trucking company—because of the size and scope. But it’s close enough to the yellow flag that if they get in trouble, yellow team can be there in less than five minutes.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Lucy said.

  “Let me rearrange the team,” Hamilton said. “You and Lopez have green, we’ll put two of RCK on yellow and two on black.”

  JT said to Lucy, “Where do you think Bella is?”

  He was really putting her on the spot. She hesitated. “I don’t know. Anyplace, really. It just depends what they need her for, in her capacity as a doctor. If the shipment of women already came in, my guess is that she’s with them. If it hasn’t, then…” She looked at the map. “The yellow flag.”