Locke and Key (Titan Book 12)

by Cristin Harber

  Truthfully, she was glad that Jax was working with them because she could use him as a solid barometer. If Jax flipped out or blustered with serious bullshit, Cassidy would know there was a problem. But as they drove to the airport, he swerved in and out of traffic, one hand draped over the steering wheel, and she knew there weren’t any. This was like any other job. Jax gave no fucks, and that made Cassidy grateful he was in the driver’s seat.

  The phone rang, and Locke swiped the call and hit Speaker.

  “Hey, all. Parker here. Ready for a quick rundown of what we have going on?”

  “Anything change?” Locke grumbled.

  “No, asshole,” Jax grumbled back. “If something changed, Parker would’ve said, ‘Hey, we’ve got changes.’”

  “Jesus Christ, would you two shut up?” Parker said.

  Jax threw a middle finger but stayed silent.

  “If Cassidy doesn’t quit by the time you get to the airport, it will be a miracle.” Parker cleared his throat. “Everything’s still a go. Jax and Locke, you are going to deliver Cassidy to the Mikhailov compound. They are expecting you at ten a.m. local time. That means you take the redeye, and ground transport will be waiting for you when you land. You’ll be escorted into the compound, where we will lose contact with Cassidy.”

  Jax flicked a gaze at her in the mirror, assessing her, and she nodded.

  “And our buyer?” Locke asked. “Where’s that dickwad? Or do we have to hang with the Mikhailov middlemen and shoot the breeze?”

  “We have a couple changes.”

  “Here we go,” Locke mumbled.

  “Simultaneous action is now in play,” Parker said. “First, your buyer is coming from London. Anyone not read up on Cassidy’s oil oligarch, just in case?”

  They all had.

  “Hey,” Jax cut in. “I’m not up on the cool, rich Russian thing, but what’s up with that? He’s coming from London? And all these assholes you sent over the intel on—Middle East, London, the US? A small fraction of this network maintains a home base in Moscow. That means not a lot of Russia.” He looked at Locke, shrugging.

  “True,” Parker said. “If you have all that money, you go where it’s nice to live. But if you’re moving merchandise, base it where it’s safe to stage.”

  “Merchandise,” Cassidy muttered, anger boiling as she listened to them banter about topics that made her homicidal. “I hate when we use words like merchandise and product. It really sanitizes the situation. These fucking assholes are buying women and kids. They are buying slaves to fuck. They are buying me.”

  The car became uncomfortably silent, and even Jax let off the gas pedal, decelerating somewhere close to the speed limit.

  Parker backtracked awkwardly. “Hey, Cassidy. Sorry. You’ve got a good point. The man who… purchased Cassidy”—he paused as if maybe searching for the right words—“to fuck when he feels like, will be driving in later the next day. Jax and Locke, your Mikhailov point of contact believes that you’re also picking up some stable girls, er, um—” Parker cleared his throat. “Or rather—shit. I don’t know. A group of low-dollar women, who they plan to keep on-site and sell for sex… Fucking A, Cassidy. I don’t know a better way to describe stable girls. Girls kidnapped and forced to live somewhere for the sole purpose of being rode.”

  “Okay.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. She wanted to fight as much as she really did want to vomit on Jax’s carpets, heartbroken that this existed for profit. “I see why you say ‘product’ and ‘stable.’ Nobody would get any work done if you had to say what you saw all the time. Or fuck it, you would just become desensitized.”

  No one spoke, and she wiped at her cheeks.

  “But, Cass…” Locke turned in his seat. “You’re going to take everything you see and you’re going to write the shit out of it when this is all said and done.” His angry voice was a battle cry, urging her to pull it together. “More people will know about the hell that is out there. When Delta team rips all these girls to safety, you will educate the public so there’s less of a chance it will happen again. You know, babe?”

  Cassidy smacked away a few hot, stray tears and tried to breathe through her nose. “True.”

  “We good there?” Parker asked.

  “Yeah, we’re good here,” she said.

  “Hang on—Rocco’s jumping on.”

  “I’m here,” Rocco said. “Sorry to come on late. We had a change of plans with Delta team, and Brock and I needed to touch base. All right, where are we?”

  “About to touch on that and”—Parker clicked on his keyboard—“you just received some new information in your emails.”

  “Locke and Jax,” Rocco said. “You do what it takes to slow down Cassidy’s buyer. Delta team has a serious timing issue that we’re trying to work out. There’s an unexpected stable-girls delivery to the Mikhailov compound.”

  “When?” Locke asked.

  “Roughly same time,” Parker answered.

  Jax blew air through his teeth as Rocco said, “If Delta can stop the delivery off-site and still arrive on-site for a full takedown, that’s the ideal situation.”

  “Wait.” Cassidy was missing something. What did that mean? They hadn’t talked about on-site, off-site, Delta team. This wasn’t what was discussed in their meeting with Jared Westin in the Titan Group’s war room the day before. “I’m confused, and maybe this is one of those need-to-know things and you guys are all over it. But what…?”

  “Mikhailov Enterprises is building their new arm so quickly that they have two merchandising operations occurring almost simultaneously,” Rocco said. “Not only are they facilitating the commission purchases of the high-end retail like you, but did you see the shopping list of the generics?”

  “Yes.” The list had requests broken down by age, hair color, ethnicity, eye coloring, virginity, and experience.

  “We have very new intel that says there’s a truckload coming in, and we want it. Those are girls we can save and return home,” Rocco said. “If Delta can intercept that before word hits on the street that the Mikhailovs have failed, then we can also help anyone they have on their property. We want the oligarch who has purchased you, and if we come in blind, they won’t have time to destroy their records and clean house. We want their intelligence. To learn about their network, people, distributors, housing. Whatever information we can get our hands on. Then we keep cleaning house.”

  “Oh,” Cassidy whispered.

  “It’s two operations, one on top of the other, almost immediately so as not to tip the other off. Make sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “But…” Rocco’s voice turned all business, and she knew the caring part of the conversation was over. “Locke and Jax, you have to do whatever you can to delay the oligarch.”

  “Delay the oligarch,” Jax repeated in a manner that made Cassidy’s bullshit barometer spark a level of concern. Jax turned to Locke with his eyebrows raised, but he continued speaking to his boss. “And I assume that the rest of Titan has already shipped off to Russia and will be meeting us there? Because I also assume that an oligarch travels with, I don’t know, his people.”

  “No,” Rocco said. “Nobody else has moved your direction.”

  “Right, so it’s just Locke and me versus the billionaire. Cool, cool. We’ve got this.” He turned to Locke as he threw on his turn signal and began to exit toward the airport. “I don’t know, Locke. You think we could ask him to drive slower? Maybe he likes coffee? Hey, Parker, does Russia have Starbucks? There’s one everywhere, right? Or do they drink something else? Russian tea? Is that a thing?” Jax slapped the steering wheel. “What the fuck am I thinking? Vodka. We’ll stop and ask them if they’d like to have a nice vodka.”

  “For fuck’s sake. Locke, are you there?” Rocco growled. “Would you please pipe the fuck up?”

  “Jax has a point,” Locke said.

  “Parker,” Rocco snapped. “Have you talked about their go-bags?”

  “Nope.”<
br />
  “Talk.” A smack that sounded like Rocco slapping a table punctuated the order. There were pros and cons to working at Titan, it seemed. One con would be grumpy-dude speak, though neither Jax nor Locke seemed to notice it.

  “It’s like you guys don’t know me at all.” Parker tsked. “In your bags, you will find all kinds of crap to the screw with the billionaire. Spy toys and gadgets, devices and things that will blow your minds. Things that will actually blow his mind. Without blowing up his mind.”

  Jax smiled and smirked at Locke, changing lanes for the fun of it, as though Parker had announced they were going to an amusement park instead of a human trafficker’s trade compound.

  “Whenever you check your email, jackoffs, you’ll see the oligarch’s anticipated schedule. You know he’s not likely to travel alone. My suggestion is to tail his caravan at a distance and mess with his sick, sorry ass. Slow the bastard down. You have everything you need to make the guy hurt.”

  Locke raised his eyebrows back at Jax like that was the best plan they’d ever had. Cassidy was surprised they didn’t pull over to chest-pound it out.

  What on earth did Parker Black have that could blow somebody’s mind without actually blowing it up? And… how were they going to get through customs?

  But this was Titan, and she had to assume that Parker had thought everything through. Her job wasn’t to think about their jobs; it was to be a kidnap victim on the way to hell.

  “We good now?” Rocco asked.

  Both Locke and Jack suddenly seemed very satisfied.

  “Guess so,” she said.

  The parking-garage signs were ahead. “We’re here. We’re jumping off unless you need anything else,” Jax said.

  “Now, I think that’s it,” Rocco said. “Cassidy, thank you.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on you as best as possible,” Parker said. “Don’t forget: the second you get out of this car, assume that somebody is always watching. Thanks, Cassidy.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said quietly.

  “And on that note…” Jax reached over and ended the call. “Let’s get ready to do this.”

  Locke muttered his agreement. “Done and back home.”

  Her mind finished his sentence: done, back home, and in his bed.

  ***

  Locke steeled himself as Cassidy came out of the women’s restroom. He was sure she was worried. She was strong and professional. Titan had trained her as best they could, and she was heading into this with eyes open. But that training had lasted less than a day.

  “Hi,” she said, quieter than normal.

  “Hey.” Locke gave her a placating grin. “That was the last time I can let you be by yourself. I’m sorry. There’s no telling if a set of eyes will start trailing us.”

  Cassidy’s eyes flitted side to side, and she ducked her chin, which he knew was part of the act. Beth and Nicola had put her through the wringer, showing her how to act and look—broken down, despondent, frightened of her surroundings, wanting help but scared to leave.

  “She knows,” Jax said. “Let’s roll.”

  “Screw off. A minute won’t make a difference.” Locke wanted to put his arm around Cassidy and comfort her in a way that he had never wanted to comfort anyone before. They were traveling overseas to leave her in a place where people were raped. Where they were sold. It was only on a businessman’s honor that he could trust that she wouldn’t be touched until her oligarch arrived—and that asshole would never get near her. But trusting people who sold other people? Locke’s stomach turned. Not the kind of folks he wanted to leave his woman with.

  Cassidy chewed on her fingernail, a nervous habit that seemed to have started that morning. “There’s a sticker on the inside of all of the toilet doors. It says if you’re trafficked, here’s a number to get help. It’s easy enough to remember, but who on earth in my position would have a cell phone?”

  This was such an ugly world. She’d bring light to it when this was done, but it was hell having to drag her into the pits of those cretins. “Maybe you would have access to one eventually.”

  “I’m just gonna remember everything for my story. I never noticed it before, though. How many airports do you think have that, and how many people miss it because it wouldn’t happen to them—or in their neighborhood? Or to people that look like them or…?”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, letting his thumb slide back and forth. He guided her toward Jax as though she were a possession, when he wanted to tell her it would be okay, that it was too early to let the evil break her.

  Their gate was ahead, and they had no room for error. Locke leaned close to her ear, far too personal for what she was supposed to be, and whispered, “I will bring you home.”

  Cassidy nodded as they kept walking, and he couldn’t drag his lips away, even as Jax glanced back and the loudspeaker was calling for their flight to board.

  “Nothing will happen to you, Beauty. Whatever you do, you believe in me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The red light wouldn’t turn. Alexander sat at the light, and finally it turned green, but Monday-morning gridlock had jammed traffic across the box. There was no way that he could get through even when he had the light. His fists slammed down on the steering wheel. “Chyort!”

  He threw his head back against the headrest. His morning couldn’t get any worse. That weekend’s call with Taisia had been a disaster, and all he wanted to do was get the last bit of data off his computer and hand it off to her father for what they had negotiated on: their freedom.

  Traffic broke, and Alexander gunned his engine, slipping through the intersection as the light turned yellow. A trail of car horns echoed behind him as though everybody was having as shit of a morning as him.

  “Wrong.” He glared at the angry commuters around him. “You know what? Fuck it.”

  He wasn’t fighting traffic anymore. Alex pulled into the parking lot, grinding his molars. It couldn’t get any worse. He didn’t want to fight across the bridge into DC, didn’t want to sit at St. Andrew’s all morning and think about Taisia. He’d rather sit in this shopping center—he glanced out the window.

  A goddamn toy store. “Fucking hell!”

  He wanted to go to places like toy stores. He wanted a stupid, normal life with a beautiful wife and child. What was so wrong with him that he couldn’t have any of it?

  He couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down his face, and he couldn’t say why. Sad, mad—he wanted to rage at the world. Chaos brought him to a panic, made him insane, made him cry.

  Taisia was endangering her life. It didn’t matter if she believed in him or that she could do whatever she was doing in a safe manner. Hell—Alexander clutched at his chest. Was this a heart attack?

  He’d never gone into a toy store and bought a gift for his daughter.

  Or rather, he had—his head dropped. But he’d never been able to send it. Taisia said she wouldn’t be able to explain his gifts. They were rich beyond his dreams at the Mikhailov compound, but she was a prisoner.

  The sobs fell without his control. Every gift… he’d donated eventually. Someone else needed it. Some other child loved it. That cut so deep that he could hardly see straight.

  What did eight-year-olds like, anyway? Other dads knew. He wiped his cheeks, alone in his despair. He didn’t even know what kids played with. Maybe he wouldn’t be a good father. Maybe he would’ve been like his dad.

  “Bullshit!” he yelled.

  He would’ve been—would be—a good father. And toys didn’t make a good daddy. Alexander dropped his head again and let the tears burn his eyelids. He was jealous of people he’d never met, would never see or know, all because they could walk into a store with their kids and buy something they wouldn’t have to give away.

  ***

  Deplaning in Russia meant there was no going back. Cassidy knew this, and yet it wasn’t until they were surrounded by the unfamiliar buzz of a foreign land inside the Russian airport and an armed
man approached Jax that it became all too real.

  Quickly, with a series of headshakes and grunts, the other man confirmed that Locke and Jax were the American business partners that he’d been waiting for, and then, with all the perverted disgustingness, right in the middle of the airport, she was appraised.

  The man hadn’t said that was what he was doing, but there was no doubt.

  Her hair was touched. Rubbed.

  He made her open her mouth, bare her teeth.

  Her tits were inspected and squeezed.

  Jax and Locke casually waited as their merchandise was authenticated—for lack of a better word—and she whimpered and pushed away from the grabbing hands. The man laughed. Faux amusement played on Locke and Jax’s faces, and she wondered how many ways Locke was mentally creating to annihilate the man—because she had come up with several.

  The inspector leered into her face, close enough that she smelled his tobacco-scented breath.

  Locke coughed in that businessman way as if to say, Enough. “She’s not yours. Can we leave?”

  “Done.” The man dusted off his hands and abandoned her as travelers filed by.

  Nothing had happened, really. But everything had, in full view of business travelers and families, other women and airport security. She’d been inspected as property; it was more than obvious what was going on. Still, no one saw fit to say or do a thing.

  Jax snapped his fingers, and her head swerved toward them. Locke’s eyes demanded she walk forward, and Cassidy obeyed. Their foursome surged into the crowd, and she lost herself in thoughts. People. Police. Families. People. Men, women, and children.