Ruthless (Lawless Saga Book 3)

by Tarah Benner

  “Will you shut up about that?” Bernie yelled. “God, you are such a bitch! I’ve been bending over backwards trying to help you all week, and you just keep throwing that shit in my face.”

  “Because Lark abandoned you!” Portia cried. “Why are you so naïve?”

  “Having faith in people doesn’t make you naïve.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Portia. “People let you down. People are selfish. You seem to think that everyone cares about you the way you care about them, but some people are just fucked in the head.”

  “Like you, you mean?” Bernie snarled, fighting the slow burn of tears in her throat.

  “Ladies,” interrupted Simjay. “I hate to break this up before we get to the angry naked pillow fight, but we need a plan.”

  Portia tossed her hair with a note of disgust.

  “Yes,” said Bernie, feeling simultaneously grateful and a little creeped out. “We do need a plan. If we can figure out where they were taken —”

  “What? Are you gonna storm the Pentagon with a bunch of picketers and demand their release?” asked Portia in a mocking voice.

  “Uh, no,” said Bernie. “The Pentagon is probably underwater by now. But if I knew they were being held in the Pentagon and it wasn’t underwater, I’d storm the place with an AK-47 and blow that bitch apart.”

  Portia rolled her eyes. “Great plan.”

  “You know, the sarcasm is getting really old,” said Bernie.

  “Oh, come on. You really think D.C. is underwater?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Bernie and Simjay together.

  Bernie glanced over at him, a little weirded out that he’d agreed with her so readily.

  “You get a five- to ten-foot rise in sea levels,” Simjay continued, “I’d say at least part of the city is pretty soggy right now. All of the government agencies have probably relocated.”

  Portia gaped at him, and Simjay gave a faux-modest shrug. “I went to Stanford.”

  Bernie recoiled. So Simjay was one of those — an Ivy League douchebag who thought that his engineering degree was superior to hers just because he’d gone to some fancy school.

  “I mean, I dropped out . . .”

  Bernie brightened a little. “Where would they have taken them?” she asked. “Some secret underground bunker?”

  “They won’t have the entire government underground,” said Simjay. “Just the president, vice president, speaker of the house, president pro tempore of the senate, and the cabinet.”

  Portia let out an exasperated scoff.

  “I mean, I’m sure Homeland Security was part of the government’s disaster continuity plan, but the agency wouldn’t have been top priority.”

  “Well, clearly it’s still functioning,” said Bernie. “They have to have a new headquarters somewhere. My money’s on one of the inland bunkers. Those would be the safest.”

  Simjay shrugged. “They could be anywhere. You know how many ‘secret bunkers’ are scattered all over the country? Raven Rock, Mount Weather, Greenbrier — the bunker they built under the declassified bunker, I mean — not to mention the dozens of actually secret bunkers that nobody knows about.”

  “Oh, I know,” said Bernie. “Like the secret city under the Denver airport?”

  “Yeah!” said Simjay, clearly delighted to meet someone who believed the same thing. “I saw this special on the History Channel once . . . The stone with the Freemason symbol and the bit about the ‘New World Airport Commission’? I mean, what’s that about anyway?”

  “Right?”

  Portia rolled her eyes. “Oh. My. God. Here we go again. Why don’t you two take your tin-foil hats and get a room?”

  Simjay flushed a deep crimson, but Bernie laughed. When she’d first met Simjay, she’d thought he was an annoying know-it-all pervert. But after spending a little time with him, she was beginning to think he might be more of a lovable know-it-all pervert.

  Simjay cleared his throat. “Anyway . . . finding a secret bunker is like searching for a needle in a pile of needles. There’s just too many places it could be.”

  “Yeah. What we need is some ex-government bigwig to tell us where the Department of Homeland Security would take their prisoners.” She turned to Portia. “You dated some Russian drug smuggler back in the day, didn’t you?”

  Portia’s expression darkened. Bernie knew it was a low blow to bring up the asshole who’d gotten her thrown into San Judas for drug trafficking, but it was an emergency.

  “Sergei never had any run-ins with Homeland Security, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Portia in a frosty tone. “He never put himself that close to the action.”

  “But you guys must have had encounters with ICE and Homeland Security Investigations, right?” asked Bernie.

  Portia’s left eye twitched, and Bernie knew she was dancing in dangerous territory.

  “Yes,” she said stiffly. “But they tend not to divulge their top-secret detainment facilities to those who are being detained. Anyway, I agreed to testify against Sergei for a reduced sentence.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “You dated a Russian drug smuggler named Sergei?” Simjay repeated in disbelief. “That’s crazy!”

  Portia’s mouth tightened into a hard thin line, but Simjay was too stunned to see that he was teetering on the verge of a Portia bitch slap. He let out a burst of incredulous laughter and shook his head. “Man, you’re like one of the Bond girls . . . beautiful and deadly.”

  Portia blinked furiously at this, unsure whether to feel bolstered or insulted by Simjay’s comparison.

  “Sergei didn’t just smuggle drugs,” she said after a moment. “He moved weapons, luxury goods, exotic animals — you name it.”

  “I bet you wore a lot of fur coats back then,” said Simjay wistfully. He turned to Bernie. “Now, I ain’t sayin’ she a gold digger, but she ain’t messin’ with no broke —”

  “I wasn’t just dating Sergei for the money,” Portia snapped.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Simjay. “I bet he was a real mensch.”

  “That’s the problem with being a scary Russian drug smuggler,” Bernie added in a sarcastic undertone. “People always want to put you in the same scary-Russian-drug-smuggler box.”

  “Will you shut up?” Portia snarled. “At least I didn’t try to burn somebody alive in their house.”

  A rush of embarrassment surged through Bernie, followed swiftly by fury.

  “I wasn’t trying to —”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Simjay, still in stitches over Portia’s crimes. “You were popped for arson?”

  Bernie didn’t say anything, which seemed to be all the confirmation Simjay needed. He let out a burst of full-body laughter, and a look of pain flashed across his face. “Oh, don’t make me laugh . . . It hurts.”

  “Serves you right.”

  “She’s a vindictive little firebug, too,” he said, trembling in a fit of silent laughter.

  “Shut up.”

  “Wait!” said Simjay, gasping for air as he tried to stop laughing. “I think I might know someone who can help!”

  Bernie glanced at Portia, fully prepared to team up and smother Simjay if he started laughing again.

  “Are you being serious?” asked Portia.

  “Yes!”

  “You know some ex-government bigwig who can help us?”

  “Maybe!” said Simjay, looking a little hurt that they sounded so surprised. “I mean, I don’t know if he’s still some government bigwig, but he was when I was his guru.”

  five

  Lark

  Lark awoke in a fitful haze with the feeling that she’d slept on a narrow beam suspended over a twelve-story building. Her back ached from lying in the same position all night long, her arm was full of pins and needles, and her skin felt cold to the touch.

  The cot in her cell was so narrow that she couldn’t roll over without falling off the edge. They’d given her a thin felt blanket but no pillow, so she’d slept with her arm tucked u
nder her head.

  At first Lark wasn’t sure what had awoken her, but then she heard the sharp slap of footsteps outside her cell. The sound echoed in the stark white hallway, growing closer and closer before coming to a halt just outside her door.

  Lark sat straight up in bed. She heard the stranger fumbling for something, and then there was a shrill robotic beep. A heavy bolt slid back in the lock, and the door swung open with a gust of chilly air.

  A short, rotund woman was standing in the hallway dressed in shapeless khaki slacks, a Kevlar vest, and a long-sleeve black shirt. She had flat salt-and-pepper hair that she wore in a ponytail at the base of her neck, and she had a sidearm and a nightstick secured to her belt.

  Behind her, Lark could see the tall black man who’d brought her to her cell the night before. He had a nasty bruise along his jawline and was standing awkwardly behind the woman, trying to avoid Lark’s gaze. This time, she had a chance to read the name on his badge: Special Agent Dimitri Stokes.

  “Where are my friends?” Lark asked automatically.

  Neither of them said a word. Lark caught a glimpse of the woman’s ID badge as she shoved into the room — Mildred something — but she shifted her arms before Lark could get a last name.

  “Get up!” she barked, her slack jaw moving in an abrupt, herky-jerky fashion.

  Lark stood automatically, rattled by the woman’s commanding presence.

  “Hands!”

  “I want to know where —”

  But before Lark could finish her thought, Mildred grabbed her by the arm and yanked her forward. She slapped a pair of shiny silver handcuffs on one wrist, and Lark didn’t even protest as Mildred groped for the opposite arm.

  Lark shut up after that. She got the feeling that this woman wouldn’t spill the beans if her life depended on it.

  “Move!” said Mildred, brandishing her nightstick. She gave Lark a sharp poke between the shoulder blades, and Lark stumbled out into the dreary hallway.

  Instead of leading her back the way she’d come the night before, Mildred pushed Lark through an exit at the very end of the hallway. They emerged in yet another nondescript corridor, and Lark wondered fleetingly how the Homeland Security agents avoided getting lost in the maze of tunnels.

  There were no windows to help Lark gauge the time, but she guessed that it was early. Agent Stokes looked as though he’d hardly slept, and Mildred had coffee on her breath.

  Several times, Mildred prodded her in the back with the nightstick, guiding her through the concrete maze. At one point they stopped, and the woman pushed Lark into a single-stall unisex bathroom that smelled strongly of bleach and industrial-grade soap.

  Special Agent Stokes waited outside, but Mildred shoved in behind Lark and stood by the door to watch her pee.

  After that humiliating episode, they were on the move again through the labyrinth of hallways. They passed a set of wide swinging doors, and Lark caught a strong whiff of maple syrup. Her stomach growled at the mere thought of breakfast, but Mildred shoved the nightstick into the small of her back, and she kept moving down the hall.

  Finally, Mildred swiped them through a set of double doors, and they emerged in a wide stone chamber. Lark knew it was the same chamber they’d walked through the day before, and her insides squirmed with dread. She couldn’t be sure that Mildred was leading her back to the interrogation room, but she had a feeling that was where the morning was headed.

  But instead of turning down the narrow corridor with the freaky unmarked doors, the guards ushered Lark down another passageway that seemed to be used for administrative work. All of these doors were marked with some combination of numbers and letters. The brushed silver plaques were meaningless to Lark, but they probably meant something to the staff.

  Mildred and Stokes led Lark to a room with a tall, narrow window cut into the door. The sign next to it read “Conference Room 8515C,” and the leaden weight in Lark’s chest lightened.

  A conference room certainly sounded better than the closet they’d stuck her in the day before, but if the space was normally used for staff meetings, it sure didn’t look like it.

  The room was larger but just as gloomy. It had the same speckled white tile and stark white walls, and it was empty except for a jumble of metal folding chairs and a retractable screen hanging along one wall.

  Lark wheeled around to ask where she was, but the door slammed shut in her face. Lark groaned.

  She was alone once again and no closer to finding answers to her questions. Her stomach felt as though it were eating itself from the inside, and her throat was parched with thirst. She was starving, confused, and worried. She hadn’t seen any sign of Soren or Axel since their separation, and no one seemed willing to tell her anything.

  Suddenly, the door swung open, and Lark groaned aloud. Agent Reuben was standing in the doorway with the silent blond agent whose name Lark couldn’t recall. Both men were dressed in suits this time, and Lark felt a surge of triumph when she saw the bandage stretched across the blond’s swollen nose.

  “Morning, sunshine!” said Reuben in a sarcastically jovial voice. “Heard you did a number on my boys last night.”

  “Where are Soren and Axel?” asked Lark.

  “Weh-hell. You do have a one-track mind,” said Reuben, running a hand through his thinning black hair. “Why don’t you take a seat and we’ll talk?”

  Lark glared at the two men, fighting a mounting sense of lightheadedness brought on by a lack of food. The younger agent looked awkward and uncomfortable, which Lark might have found funny if she hadn’t been so miserable with worry.

  After a long pause, she let out a huff and flung herself into the seat farthest from Reuben. He looked satisfied and pulled up another folding chair so that he could sit directly across from her.

  “Where’s your sidekick?” grumbled Lark. “What’s his name? Agent Dumbass?”

  “Agent Durant took a personal day,” said Reuben. Lark was shocked that he’d answered her question at all, and she felt suddenly wary of Reuben’s abrupt change in demeanor.

  There was a clatter of metal on tile as the blond agent moved one of the chairs closer to Reuben and Lark. He tilted it inward to form a small circle, hesitated, and then moved it back several inches.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Cole. Just sit the fuck down.”

  A slight flush crept up beneath Agent Cole’s collar, and he plunked down beside Reuben with his legs spread wide.

  Reuben let out a long, harassed sigh and combed his fat fingers through his hair again. Lark could just make out the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and it occurred to her that her lack of cooperation was causing him a great deal of stress.

  It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t be the only source of information they had on GreenSeed. There was Soren and Axel and —

  She stopped mid-thought, a swell of horror rising up in her chest.

  Soren and Axel couldn’t be dead. Homeland Security wouldn’t have killed them — not when they needed information so badly. But if Axel had turned violent or Soren had tried to escape, who knew what they might have done.

  “I think we got off on the wrong foot,” said Reuben, drawing Lark’s attention back to him.

  Lark didn’t speak. In truth, she’d missed the first few things he’d said, but feigning disinterest could only work to her advantage. If they thought she was worried — if they thought they were getting to her — she would lose what small amount of leverage she had.

  “Agent Cole and I . . .” He gestured to his colleague. “We’re not bad people. We’re just trying to do our jobs here. I know you probably don’t trust the government very much, given everything you’ve been through, but we all want the same things.” He glanced at Cole. “I — We can help you. You say you want a pardon . . . I can try to make that happen for you.”

  Lark scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. Did Reuben really think she was that stupid? Did he think that by lowering his voice and buddying up to her that she’d sudd
enly decide to spill her guts? Surely he didn’t actually intend to grant her a pardon. What could possibly have changed in the last twelve hours?

  “You get yelled at by your boss or something?” asked Lark. “Because yesterday you said you’d make my life a living hell.”

  Reuben didn’t say anything. He just heaved in a heavy sigh, and his face turned an ugly shade of red. It seemed that Lark had struck a nerve.

  “Don’t you want to see San Judas shut down for what GreenSeed did to you?” asked Agent Cole.

  His question took both Lark and Reuben by surprise. His voice was low and smooth, and Lark realized it was the first time she’d heard him speak.

  Cole was staring at her intently, but he wasn’t looking at her as though she were the scum of the earth or some nut he needed to crack. He was looking at her as though he . . . understood?

  Lark shook herself mentally. That was absurd. Agent Cole didn’t understand what she’d been through. He didn’t care about her or her friends. This was just their good-cop-bad-cop routine. They’d probably used it a million times before, and they expected her to fall for it like a dumbass.

  “How?” she asked. “How would you shut down San Judas?”

  Reuben smirked. “Glad to see we’ve got your attention.”

  “All I care about is what happens to my friends,” said Lark.

  Reuben sighed and shot Cole an “I told you so” look.

  Lark’s gaze swiveled back to Reuben, who, at that moment, looked like an angry garden gnome.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice confidentially. “I can’t just set three dangerous criminals free on the word of a convicted murderer. My boss would string me up by the testicles.”

  Lark rolled her eyes. He was trying to identify a common enemy — his ball-busting boss who wouldn’t let him do the right thing.

  “But we could use your help.”

  Reuben took a deep breath and pressed his fingertips together as if he were sitting on a very juicy bit of information.

  “Based on the seriousness of your offense, your testimony alone isn’t going to be enough to get the prison shut down,” he said. “Pitting a disgruntled former inmate against one of the largest corporations in the world . . .” He shook his head. “To say that would be an uphill battle would be putting it mildly. But if those patented seeds hit the market, GreenSeed’s investors wouldn’t be too happy. The company’s value would plummet overnight. Now, doesn’t that sound nice?”