by J. M. Dabney
“You need me to make inquiries?” Pelter asked.
“I’d owe you, man.”
“Gage, you won’t owe me shit, family doesn’t hold markers.”
For the first time since he got Alex’s call, he relaxed. He glanced around the room at his teammates. Livingston’s big body was positioned next to the door looking like he hadn’t slept all night, which he probably hadn’t as he was on an assignment with Little. Little was tapping away on his laptop, strangely silent. Even with his SEAL Team, he hadn’t felt as if he belonged except with Alex. They’d bonded during BUD/s training. Alex was the first person who had made him feel as if he wasn’t a fuck up and was the only person who knew of his past.
“Gage, can I talk to you in private?” Hunter asked from the doorway.
He left everyone behind and met Hunter in the hallway. “What’s up?”
“I did an initial search, don’t ask me where, I won’t tell you, but I did a quick search for the Miami/Dade area. There’s four small auctions taking place in the next seven days.”
“Is the…” He cleared his throat and tried to ask again.
“Products not listed, but information is coming in on the night of the auctions. I know someone who could patch me in under legit invites to the auctions. I’ll need images to check if any of them is Alex’s daughter.”
“Do we have to wait? If she is going to be a part of one of these auctions, we could lose her.”
“Gage, you’re talking about human trafficking. We have signals bouncing all over the fucking globe. I’m great, but even I can’t track them instantly. I’ll have to run programs to trace them back to a source. If I could focus on one, that’s easy, but we have hundreds.”
He dropped his chin to his chest and placed his hands on his hips. Hunter didn’t deserve his anger, but his frustration wasn’t making it easy. This fucking country was founded on people being bought and sold like fucking cattle. All this bullshit shouldn’t even be a thing.
“If she’s sold, you can track the bidder?”
“Definitely. But again, it takes time, and right now, we have very little.”
“Do what you have to do.”
“I’ll leave you to tell everyone.”
Hunter turned and headed back to his office. He stood there taking a moment to compose himself until he could reenter the conference room.
What the fuck was he going to tell Alex?
Two and a half hours later, he arrived at the airstrip with Pelter just as the small jet was touching down. Alex exited, looking twice his age and his dark blond hair mussed.
“Hey, Alex, wish this was under better circumstances.”
“Don’t lie, Pelter, I remember you trying to arrest me.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll set your pilot up with a place to crash, and you and Gage take my truck.” Pelter didn’t linger.
He was thankful for the privacy.
“Gage, it’s not good news is it?”
“Hunter found out about some auctions taking place in the area where Cam disappeared. I can’t say that’s what it is. We might need to go to Miami for some old-fashioned investigating.”
“I searched every fucking morgue in a hundred miles of where she disappeared. Went in and looked at every blonde girl laying on a fucking slab, man. They looked away for a matter of minutes, that’s all it took for my baby to be gone. Margo is losing her mind. She’s still in Florida. Said she’d stay on the cops’ asses.”
“We’ll find her, I—”
“Don’t promise me. We know how this shit works. My baby could be a cold case with nothing but a moldy file with a missing person’s report.”
“Alex, how much shit have we been through?”
“This isn’t a mission, man, this is Cameron. I can’t be objective.”
“We’ll go back to the office, see what everyone came up with and then we’ll talk about our options.”
“Are we going to talk about why you’re wearing long sleeves in eighty degrees?”
“No, no we’re not.”
He hated the coldness of his voice and left Alex standing there as he pivoted. He strode to the driver’s side without a backward glance. Danger existed when others knew someone’s secrets. He didn’t need Alex jumping his ass for something that wasn’t the other man’s business. He got in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. He didn’t have to wait long before Alex took the spot beside him.
“You have to talk about it sometime, Gage.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Alex, there isn’t anything to talk about.”
“We’ll revisit this after we find Cam.”
He didn’t give a fuck, just started the vehicle and reversed onto the gravel road, then changed gear to head for the office. His life was his own, and he didn’t require anyone’s validation. They’d find Cameron, and it would be life as usual, at least for him. He had no illusions that they’d get Cameron back the way she was before. His best friend knew it too. By any means necessary, they’d get her back.
Where Was Gage Hiding?
Gage was missing in action or maybe just hiding from him because he hadn’t seen Gage since the failed attempt to ask the older man out. His insecurities ridiculed him and told him that Gage was keeping his distance on purpose. Although, the dads and most of the Crews were strangely quiet. Wren and Cam were having secret conversations. They didn’t keep secrets from each other, so it was starting to make him nervous. Especially the Trenton Crew not in the same location, where one went, they all followed. No man was ever left behind, but he didn’t know how much authority he had to ask questions.
He was sure he could get the information from Grandma Peaches. She was overly protective, and if something went down, she’d know details. Gage had taken himself out of the field the last few years which made him worry with the sudden disappearance.
A heavy breath was pushed past his lips as he leaned back against the counter in his new apartment. He’d taken possession a bit early, and he already missed the chaos of home. It was the same while he was away at college and then the academy, there was a lot of fighting and occasional danger, but they also laughed. No one ever worried if they had someone at their six, it was just a given.
He sipped his coffee and grimaced—he never made it strong enough. Hunter and Linus always made it just right. He had two days off in his rotation before he took the night shift. His life felt empty, and he tried to place where it started, maybe he’d masked it with the busyness of school and training. After that, it was work and the overwhelming presence of his family and friends.
Twenty-six shouldn’t feel so alone or old, but he felt as if he’d lived two lives. The one before the Crews took him and Pride in, and the current life. For seventeen years, he’d lived in a constant state of fear. Learned the art of concealing bruises and pain, pretending that he wasn’t dying inside. One night had changed all that when he’d seen Little and Wren outside his bedroom window. He’d found family and peace…safety he’d never thought to experience.
Gage would be a nice bonus, but after thinking about the day at the diner, he realized Gage said the things he had to shock him—to warn him away. In a matter of seconds, the one thing he’d dreamed of for years died as a possibility. Maybe it was time for him to grow up and attempt to find someone who wanted him. Gage had never shown an interest in him, and everyone had their first heartbreak sooner or later. He’d experienced a milestone in being human, that was all.
“Derrick, you home?”
He groaned as Hunter called from the living room. He’d given his dads an extra key for emergencies.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, baby boy. Are you drinking tea?”
“No, coffee why?” he asked as he lifted his clear mug and snorted as he could almost see through the liquid.
“I’ve taught you how to do it, how many times?”
He eased to the side as his dad took over. Hunter was a few inches taller than his almost six-foot height, and around twice as
broad. The big man was a champion at Dad Hugs. His dad’s long, dark hair had more gray in it than he remembered. It was still odd that the men he called Dads weren’t much older than him. There was less than a decade between him and Hunter.
With a shock, he realized his cheeks hurt from smiling.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?” Hunter asked without looking away from carefully measuring coffee grounds.
“Did I ever tell you and the dads how much I appreciated y’all taking me in when you really didn’t have to? I was already seventeen.”
Hunter turned his head and gave him a soft, loving smile. “I loved you and your brother from the moment I saw you, I couldn’t imagine not calling you my son.”
He dropped his chin to his chest to attempt to hide his tears.
“Don’t hide emotion, I don’t care what you were taught before, but emotion doesn’t make you weak.”
He nodded but refused to look at Hunter again. It had taken so many years to erase the bullshit his biological family had taught him. It seemed like forever before he could say he was gay with pride. His internalized homophobia was the hardest to overcome. He’d hid it a long time when he’d gone off to school. Denied it while training at the academy just to be able to fit. Being home had felt like the only safe space to be himself.
“Can I ask you a question and not get the run around?”
“Of course,” Hunter said as he finished up starting a fresh pot of coffee.
“What’s going on? Gage is MIA, Wren and Cam are acting weird, and there’s a lot of tension going through the Crews. That normally means a big crew mission is happening.”
“You remember Alex, right?”
He nodded. Alex was Gage’s best friend and helped on a few operations for Trenton when they needed an extra man. He thought Alex might miss the action of his Team days.
“His daughter Cam disappeared about a week ago. Gage and him had to take off to Florida to follow up a few leads. You know we get a bit antsy when one of us is out of pocket.”
He got that, and from what he’d heard and seen, Alex could take care of whatever, but the fact Alex was Gage’s only backup made him nervous. A young girl disappearing brought up dozens of possibilities and none of them were comforting in the least.
“Are they checking in?”
“Of course, we’re all working on it. We’re just doing it from home.”
“Leads on where she is yet?”
“No, we thought she was placed in a private auction. I patched in through a legit invite to about three of them, and we found someone who got in to check out a manifest of items.”
“Y’all kill me when you talk about people as products…manifest and items.”
“Sorry, it might sound cold, but sometimes it makes things easier, at least outwardly. It’s Gage’s niece, and it has all of us on edge. We’re ignoring the elephant in the room.”
“You mean that she may already be dead?”
“Try not to say that too loudly around Gage or Alex. We’ve seen some cold bastards in our days, but Gage and Alex as a team, it’s terrifying. Even Liv is walking a wide circle around those two.”
Wow, his uncle Liv had lived for the most dangerous jobs for decades. Death didn’t frighten him because he hadn’t possessed anything to live for until the big, scarred man met Fielding. Liv and Fielding were damn near the perfect couple, and Liv couldn’t tell his boy no about anything. The man had finally had someone to live for, but Liv still took too many chances. To know the Death Wish Junkie wasn’t engaging the danger of Gage told him enough about the seriousness of the situation.
He crossed his arms over his lean chest and dropped them when he reached for the coffee Hunter poured for him. The first sip was Heaven, strong yet smooth without a bitter burnt taste.
“Is Gage okay?”
“Except for his niece missing, he’s the same as always. We’re getting daily check-ins, and Peaches hasn’t been called to defend them, so it can’t be all bad yet.”
“I know I’m not on the team, but I worry about everyone, keep me in the loop at least unofficially. If y’all need help or anything I’m there.”
“I know, Derrick, but nothing about this is official, and we’re constantly breaking laws.”
He laughed and shook his head—the Crews had a bit of a spectrum of gray when it came to laws. If it could be justified, did that really mean it was illegal, or at least that’s what the Trenton philosophy was, and they weren’t ashamed.
“Why didn’t y’all offer me a job?”
Part of him had assumed they would after he’d come home but not once had they mentioned him coming onboard.
“Because the only reason you became a deputy was to prove something to this town. We don’t think it’s necessary, but that’s what you want. You make your own decisions, Derrick. When you’re ready, there’s a spot always open.”
The tension he’d unknowingly held onto seemed to ease away. His dads’ approval meant everything to him because it was something that he’d never had before them. He talked with Hunter another hour and let Hunter interrogate him over whether he was eating and sleeping enough. When the man asked if he was seeing anyone, he avoided the question. What was he supposed to say? That the person he wanted looked at him as nothing more than a kid—a pest.
Hunter hugged him, and then he showed him to the door. When he closed the door, he leaned back against it with a sigh.
That the man he loved found him so lacking hurt, but he was used to being unwanted. For seventeen years, he’d believed he lived on borrowed time, one beating would go too far. He remembered as if it were yesterday what the barrel of a gun felt like pressed between his eyes. One bullet in the chamber of Thorpe’s service revolver. The sound of the hammer being pulled back. The click of the empty chamber. It always stopped before the fatal shot, but he’d waited for the day his old man didn’t stop.
He pushed away from the door and went to make another cup of coffee, maybe something to eat. He was going to make sure he enjoyed his few days off and try not to fall victim to the past.
They’re No Closer to Finding Her
Gage poured himself the last cup of coffee in the pot and started another one. They were no closer to finding Cameron, and the more days that passed, the more haggard Alex looked. Neither of them were eating enough to sustain them. Sleeping in shifts as they went over report after report. Hunter sent them every piece of information he could dig up. He pushed the Brew button, then scratched at the fresh scars on his forearm. Counting them as he would his breaths to bring him back to the present.
He had thought that the urge to cut would lessen as he grew older. Trenton and Powers became his home, and with it, he’d wrongly assumed the nightmares would go away. That he’d find normalcy and it was so far from his reality. He still needed the pain and the thin scarred marks to keep the monster at bay. He feared he wouldn’t come back from the precipice or the next blackout. Or that he’d awaken once again with blood on his hands, but this time with a victim no longer breathing at his feet.
His phone vibrated in his pocket shocking him out of his thought. The phone was put on silent a few hours before to keep from waking Alex. He dug it from his back pocket and checked the screen, then connected the call.
“Hey, Hunter, what ya got for me?”
“We have a complication.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. They were already passed the deadline of finding her, and he didn’t need any more fuck ups. Alex and him were barely holding on to their sanity. He’d found as more time passed, they snapped at each other. The only thing he could do was remember that this was harder on Alex than him.
“When don’t we have one?”
“That is true. Little received a tip a few hours ago, and I checked it out. Three days from today there’s a meeting at a private estate. I backtracked some IP addresses to some of the top businessmen and politicians on the east coast.”
“You said there wasn’t another auc
tion going down.”
“It’s not an auction. It appears someone arranged for party favors and while this might be on the up and up, it’s something.”
When his brain should’ve thought positive about everything being legit; his pessimism and stress took it to a much darker place. His chest seized at what that meant. They’d pass the people around, and at the end of the party, they’d find themselves buried in a mass grave. Those would be the lucky ones—the others would be purchased at a reduced price and become some fucker’s sex slave and then be disposed of when they had served their purpose.
“Is there any way you can get me in?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Work faster.”
“Gage, I know you’re under stress, but I’m telling you, if you don’t keep your shit together you have no chance of finding her.”
He tried to keep himself under control, but the anger he was always weighted down by threatened to consume him. He clenched his fist on the counter and tried to breathe through the rage.
“I’m going to build you a new identity and see if we can get you noticed. There’s a facilitator in charge of invitations. There’s an entire vetting process, and there’s only a few slots open. I already sent an inquiry as you to get the process started.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-four hours. You’ll need to do some shopping, and I’m sorry to say you’re going to need a boy. If not, you’re going to be expected to play with other toys.”
Hunter was right that it would be easier to avoid participating if he already had someone with him. Someone other than Alex because he couldn’t guarantee his friend would remain calm with the possibility of Cameron so close. To be honest, he didn’t know if he’d handle it any better than Alex. He needed someone who could keep him grounded.
“Find someone to go with me, call in favors if you need to.”
“You going to complain about whoever we send?”
“A naturally submissive backup would be preferred. I’d rather not fight with my supposed sub and draw attention.”
