by Bella Jewel
This man is smart.
He knows how to get found out and he’s covered his tracks.
He’s the best of the best, and he knows it.
That’s exactly how they’ve been able to get away with this for so long.
It’s why we can never find them.
He’s made sure they’re covered.
All of them.
How the ever-loving fucking hell are we supposed to find Zariah, when this man has covered his tracks so well?
Frustration explodes in my chest, and I lift the desk with both hands, launching it with an angry bellow that sends it flying into the wall. A loud crack can be heard, and the desk lands with a thud onto the ground. I’m about to turn and walk out when I see something underneath the desk. It’s some sort of compartment built in. I move closer, getting down onto my knees and rattling the lock on it.
I don’t have the key.
That’s fucking fine.
I don’t need one.
I find the heaviest thing in the room—a golf club—and I swing at that fucking desk until the compartment breaks and drops open. Inside is nothing more than a small sheet of paper that reads “Nice try. Keep looking.”
With a rage I didn’t think was possible, I roar.
He’s playing with us.
He fucking knows damn well we’re searching his house.
He also knows we’ll find nothing here.
We need something. Anything.
There has to be a way to bring this fucker down.
“What’s goin’ on in here?”
I spin around to see Alarick at the door, glancing around at the mess I’ve made. “He’s fuckin’ with us,” I bark, standing and pacing. “He knows we were going to come here and search. I can guarantee there is nothin’ in this house. He’s made sure of that.”
“That’s what I was worried about,” Alarick murmurs. “He’s too smart. We need to find a way to outsmart him.”
“How?” I growl. “How? There is nothin’, fuckin’ nothin’. He’s goin’ to make sure we never find him, and even if we do, it’ll be too late. He’s too smart.”
“There’s always a way,” Alarick mutters, his voice clipped.
“We’re runnin’ out of time. He’ll hurt her before we find her. We’ve been on this entire fuckin’ thing for months now and we’re no closer than where we started. There is no way in fuckin’ hell we’ll find him before my trial. I’ll go away and Zariah will be fuck knows where, because we don’t be able to find her.”
“You’re wrong.”
We both turn to see Cohen standing in the doorway, a picture in his hand. It’s an old picture, small and frail. He holds it out, and Alarick takes it off him, studying it.
“I found this in the boxes that are in the basement. It was with a bunch of old photos, nothin’ spectacular, but this one stood out to me.”
“Why?” Alarick asks, studying it. I walk over and stare at the picture too. It’s of a young boy and an older boy. The man is Blanche, that much is clear. He’s only a teenager, maybe a bit younger. His features are very distinct. There’s no missing him.
I don’t see how a picture of Blanche is going to make a difference to anything.
“Look at the boy, the little boy. Really fuckin’ stare at his face. Is it familiar?”
I narrow my eyes staring at the face of the little boy. I study it for minutes, maybe even longer. It is familiar, sure, but I’m not sure I recognize him.
“Fuck,” Alarick breathes. “No.”
“Yeah,” Cohen mutters. “Yeah, you’re seein’ it correctly. We just found our fuckin’ rat.”
“No,” Alarick goes on. “No this can’t be fuckin’ real. It ain’t real, Cohen.”
“It’s as real as you and I standin’ here. There is no doubt about it. There is no denying who that picture is of.”
“Who?” I bark.
Both of them look at me. It’s Alarick who speaks.
“It’s Samson.”
No.
Fuck.
No.
ALARICK IS WALKING out of the house before any of us can stop him. He's got his hands bundled into tight fists, and he's panting with rage. We're all in shock. There is absolutely no doubt about it. I've known Samson for a long time, and I never, not ever, thought he had something to do with this. It's as though my heart is bein' ripped out of my fuckin' chest. The betrayal is real.
But right now, Samson is the only thing we have that can lead us to Zariah.
Alarick wants to kill him; I get that.
His club is his life, and you do not fuckin' betray your club.
If we kill him, though.
This is over.
That's why Cohen and I charge after him, both of us knowin' that we have to stop this before it goes too far.
Before he does something we really can't come back from.
"Alarick, stop," Cohen yells, his voice bellowing down the halls.
Alarick doesn't stop.
He charges out the front door and towards his bike.
We've got seconds if we're lucky.
"Pres," I bark, "you can't hurt him."
Alarick doesn't pause.
He doesn't even flinch.
Fuck.
Cohen and I charge at him, knowin' the only way to stop him is to do something drastic. Cohen catches him around the waist, and I step in front of him. He lets out an agonized roar. "Let me fuckin' go, you cunts."
Alarick rarely loses it.
He certainly doesn't say that word a lot.
He's wild, but mostly, he's hurt.
Achin' in a way we can't even begin to understand.
"You kill him," I growl, getting up close. "They win."
He pauses, panting with a rage I've never seen from him.
It's terrifying.
Samson will go down for this, but it'll break every single piece of Alarick open to have to be the one to take him down.
That's horrible.
So fuckin' horrible.
"Let. Me. Fuckin'. Go." Alarick seethes, baring his teeth.
"Listen to me," I roar. "You kill him, and this will never be over. I'll get locked away. Zariah will die. Is that what you fuckin' want? I know you're not that stupid, Pres. You gotta think. I know you're angry, but you gotta fuckin' pull your head in and switch your brain on. Samson is the only fuckin' person who can give us our answers. Who can lead us to Zariah, to Dax, to all of them."
Alarick makes a low, almost pained sound in his throat. "He betrayed me."
"I know."
"He fuckin' ripped my heart out."
"I. Know."
Alarick closes his eyes, the pain in his expression real.
This is killing him.
"We've got to be smart about this," Cohen murmurs, slowly releasing him. "We have to be fuckin' careful about what we do here. You know we do. You go, ride it off, take whatever time you need to fuckin' get your head around this, but I can't let you go to Samson and bust this all wide open. Can't, boss."
Alarick opens his eyes. "I know."
"Get on your bike, find your girl, go break somethin' apart. Do whatever you gotta do. Then you find us, and we're goin' to finish this the way it should have been finished months ago. You can deal with Samson after that."
Alarick studies both of us, and then without a word, gets on his bike and disappears.
I glance at Cohen, and his expression is no doubt the same as mine. Shock. Pain. Rage. A brother, someone we would have trusted with our lives, has betrayed us. Let us down. He has broken us into a thousand tiny pieces. You don't come back from that. Samson will die because of his actions, and that thought alone makes me want to fuckin' bellow with agony and rage.
"Why?" Cohen mutters, his voice low.
"I don't know, brother."
"He has been with us for-fuckin'-ever. Never let us down. Never put a foot wrong. Why the fuck would he help these people? Who are they to him?"
"I don't know."
Cohen
tips his head back and roars, "Fuck!" into the air as loudly as possible.
I clasp him on the shoulder. "We gotta keep it together, for Alarick's sake. He ain't goin' to deal with this, you know he ain't. We gotta hold him up."
"Yeah," Cohen growls. "Yeah, I know."
"Let's get back to the club, get eyes on Samson. We need to find out what he knows and how he's passin' on the information. It's the only way we're goin' to end this. Zariah doesn't deserve to go down for this."
"No, she fuckin' doesn't. Let's ride."
We get on our bikes.
And we ride.
Both of us feeling the same pain deep in our chests.
Utter. Fuckin'. Betrayal.
19
ZARIAH
I slowly come to, my eyes burning and dry.
It takes me a moment to focus on my surroundings, but I realize I'm rocking when I do. Not the gentle kind, but rather rough. Like I'm on the ocean. Panic grips me, and I try to jerk upright, only to find I'm tied down. I let out an agonized bellow when the realization that I'm on a fucking boat hits me.
I'm on the ocean.
God knows where.
With fuck knows who.
"Oh, good, you're awake."
My head whips to my right, and I see Steven sitting on a chair beside the bed I'm currently strapped down on. We're in a room, timber walls, filled with old barrels and rickety furniture. The boat rocks again, and my stomach twists. This is so bad. There is no way Alarick will find me here, not when one of his own will be feeding him false information.
I keep it together.
I'm a cop.
I'm smart.
I'll find a way out of this.
I will.
"Why?" I rasp, meeting Steven's eyes.
I truly believed in him. I honestly thought there was absolutely no way he could be involved. I was wrong. So incredibly wrong. If I had listened to Alarick from the start, I wouldn't be in this mess.
It's my fault.
"Why not?" Steven shrugs, his voice as scarily calm as it always is.
He's so good at this, terrifyingly so.
"You have the most incredible career. You're willing to throw it all away for this?"
"I'm not throwing anything away. It's my career that allows me to get away with this. Don't you think I've covered every angle? Nobody knows, nor will they ever know what I'm doing. It was and will remain a secret operation."
"You fight to put criminals away," I shake my head, horrified. "You fight for justice. You're selling girls like they are nothing. How can you live with yourself?"
He smiles. "Quite easily. You see, I do fight for justice. I balance it out. I do bad, but I take down bad. It's a win-win. The perfect balancing act."
I scowl at him. "You're sick if you think that's how it works."
He crosses his legs and leans back in the chair. "Say what you will, it's you tied to the bed and not me. I'd be careful about my actions."
"What are you going to do? Sell me?"
He laughs. "Obviously. I have some rather large overseas buyers that will love you. Nobody will ever find you. I can promise you that."
"I'm a cop. I'm not a broken woman from the streets. You think they won't find me?"
"No, because I'm the best there is. Nobody is going to find you because I know how to cover everything. You went missing, oops."
I feel sick, mostly because I know he's right. He is the best at what he does. He's so god damned good, which is why he has gotten away with this for so long. He can make me disappear and ensure nobody finds me.
"The club will find a way," I say, my voice scratchy.
"The club is being dealt with. You don't need to worry about them."
Samson.
My body recoils at the very thought that he's been in on this the whole time. He's the reason we haven't been able to get anywhere, the reason Dax got away, the reason I'm here right now. He's the reason that everything is happening. Alarick doesn't know. He has no idea. He's going to search for me, and Samson will ensure he is led in the wrong direction. By the time they get close, I'll be gone.
I'm going to vomit.
I groan and look away.
"Samson is my brother."
I look back at him, horrified. "What?"
"He's my brother. He knows not to cross me. I have something he wants. He'll do anything for it, even take down a club that means the world to him. Don't doubt they mean everything to him, Zariah. They do. But I have something that means more. Blackmail, I suppose you could call it. I was happy to leave him be, let him play with his little club until you all started getting involved. Then I had no choice but to have him play the game. I had a card up my sleeve for a long time, and I knew that I'd need to use it against him one day. You could say he didn't see it coming, but he also had no choice but to believe me."
Samson didn't do this intentionally?
Why did he do it then?
What does Steven have against him, that could possibly make him turn against his club?
"What did you take from him?" I ask, my voice low.
Steven stands, stretching his arms. "Wouldn't you like to know? I'm sure they'll find out when he leads them on a wild goose chase. He'll never risk going against me. He'll make sure you're never found."
Samson. The man who is always so nice and so quiet?
How does this happen?
"Where are you taking me?" I ask.
Steven reaches the door and grins. "To a very, very special place."
WE ARRIVE AROUND EIGHT hours later. At least, that's an estimate. I'm usually quite good at telling the time, and if I were to guess, it would be close to that figure.
Wherever he has taken me, it took a hell of a long time to get there.
Movement above is what alerts me to the fact that we've stopped somewhere. I'm right because ten minutes or so later, Steven comes down into the room I'm in with three other men. He flashes me a smile, and then walks over and undoes me from the bed. Both men are pointing guns at me. Even I'm not stupid enough to try and fight that off.
"Let's go, Zariah."
I swallow, and my legs wobble as they drag me out of the room full of barrels and up to the upper deck on the ship. When we arrive, there are men everywhere, working and cleaning, moving things off the boat. Steven pushes me towards a ramp that leads us down to a dock, and when my eyes clear from the blazing sun flashing in them, I see we're on an island.
Just as we suspected.
I glance around, and there is nothing else to be seen. It's just a singular island that isn't massive, but it's big enough that they have a few structures - a huge house, a warehouse, and a few smaller sheds. It's beautiful. If you were looking at it in any other way, you'd think you had just scored. That's not the case here, though. It's a terrifying place filled with pain and despair.
It reeks of it.
Steven pulls me across the sand, and the two men with guns follow close behind. Even if I could run, where the hell would I go? Into the ocean where I'd likely die before anyone helped me? They've thought this out very well. Nobody is escaping this place. It's a prison in the middle of nowhere.
A beautiful prison.
A lie.
We reach a large three-story house that's fully fenced. It is surrounded by a large yard, with a garden, but nothing else too spectacular. Steven walks me inside, and I don't take long to stare around as he pushes me through the house and out the back door. That's when I see it—the most horrific place I could ever imagine.
A huge fenced lot with cages.
Wired cages.
They're at least eight feet each, with a sheltered roof and wire surrounding them. Each cage is padlocked and electrified. They're covered with concrete floors, and each one has a small foam mattress on the ground, a pan in the corner, and nothing else. It's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life. I wouldn't subject dogs to it, let alone people.
But for people...it is.
Four women are sitti
ng in the cages, laying on the beds, curled onto their sides. My heart slams against my ribcage. It was one thing when Dax was charming and gave them a dreamy life, but this...this is something else entirely. This is a nightmare.
"What..." I whisper, in shock.
"Do you like it?" Steven laughs. "I don't mind it myself. Once Dax did a runner, I decided we'd do it my way for once. These women don't need to be taken care of; they need to be sold. I'm now running the biggest operation you could imagine. Millions a year in sales, with no way of finding out."
"You're a monster," I gasp. "A sick monster."
"Probably," he chuckles. "But I'm damned good at it, don't you think?"
I jerk my arm as if that's going to do anything for me. Steven tightens his grip. "I will shoot you, Zariah. Money is not an issue, and while I will get a good penny for a cop, I'm not about to risk everything if you try to cause a scene."
I clamp my mouth shut even though I want to vomit. I want to rip my god damned stomach out to stop it from twisting and turning the way it is.
We reach a cage, and one of the men goes to a massive keypad and types something in. The buzzing sound dims, and Steven unlocks one, tossing me inside. I stumble backward and turn to charge at the door, but he slams it before I reach it. Moments later, I am forced away from it when they switch the electricity back on.
"There's no point trying to get out, Zariah. Even if you escaped me here, you'd never find a way off this island alive. Accept your fate."
"When?" I gasp, panting angrily. "When are you selling me?"
Steven shrugs. "We have auctions. The next one is in a few days. My highest buyers travel in by boat, we auction out the ladies, and they leave. After that, it's up to them what they do with you."
"How?" I say, shaking my head. "How do they get innocent girls out of the country, without causing a scene?"
He chuckles. "Surely you know how dark the world works, Zariah. There is always a way. Human trafficking is a big thing. You know this. Now you're going to understand how it's done. Quite interesting stuff."
He turns and walks away, the two men following him.
I clutch my head and bellow; my frustrated sounds echoing across the island.
"There's no point in screaming."
