Fracture (F-BOMB: Curvy Vigilantes #8)

Chapter 23

23

The boss sat behind her desk and listened to the report. It was not a good report. Not even a little. It was a fucking disaster.

“Do you know how many chances I typically give people, Benjamin?”

He shuffled his feet and shook his head.

“That’s because the answer is zero,” she growled.

His gaze snapped to hers. He knew his days were numbered. “It wasn’t my fault. She wasn’t alone.”

“And you should have known that.” The boss slammed her fist onto the desk as she stood. “You should have been prepared for that. Both of you should have known she wouldn’t come alone again.”

“Sonya said the agent didn’t remember anything.”

“She remembered enough to know where to meet! She remembered! How fucking stupid are you?”

“Sonya was the one who set this up. She said?—”

“Sonya’s not saying anything ever again. We made sure of that. You won’t either if you don’t take care of that fucking agent like I told you to do the first time. She shouldn’t have survived long enough to be found in Boston. And now you let her get away again. Her memories are returning. It’s only a matter of time before she remembers everything.” She curled her fingers against the desktop, her nails scratching the surface. Bile rose in her throat. Fear. She swallowed it down. There was no space for fear.

“I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

“You better. You aren’t getting more chances.”

Benjamin nodded and raced out of the room.

She let out a breath and fought the tears building. Crying was a weakness. Emotions were a weakness. She’d had that beat into her many times. Letting it out now wasn’t an option. There was one option.

End the threats against her. All of them.

“Are you okay?” Nina asked, snapping the boss out of her thoughts.

“No. Did you hear what Benjamin said?”

Nina shook her head. “I didn’t. I heard him leave, and I was worried about you.”

The boss glared at Nina. The sniveling bitch thought she was so smart. So intuitive. That she knew what was going on. “Do you think I can’t take care of myself? I’m so weak that I would let anything happen to me?”

“No,” Nina rushed to say. “I know you wanted things handled. And Benjamin isn’t doing what he’s supposed to do. I don’t like when you’re not getting the results you expect.”

The boss eased the fist she clenched. Nina was pushing more and more lately. Acting like she had power. She didn’t. There was only one person with power.

“I always get the results I expect. And when someone fucks up like Sonya and Benjamin, they are handled.”

“Sonya?” Nina asked.

“She’s dead. She didn’t do her fucking job, so I had Jonathan put a bullet in her head before he brought Benjamin back here to update me.”

Nina’s eyes widened. Fear crossed her face.

Good. She needed to know her place. All of them did. The boss wasn’t fucking around. She was a goddamn leader. And if they didn’t want to follow, they could eat a fucking bullet.

And would.

Nina wiped her lashes, catching a tear before it spilled onto her cheeks, but the boss saw the move and smirked.

“Aw, you cared about her. Was she your friend?”

Nina shook her head.

The boss crossed the room, stopping right in front of Nina. “Did you think the two of you would ever get out of here? That I’d let you go? You know too much, Nina. You’ll never leave me. Will you?”

Nina wiped another tear and shook her head again.

The boss grabbed the bitch’s red hair and yanked.

Nina yelped.

“Are you going to leave me, Nina?” the boss demanded, tugging her hair again.

Nina shook her head. “No. I’m not going to leave you. Why would I?”

“There’s no reason for you to even consider it.”

Nina nodded.

The boss let go of her, shoving Nina away and turning to go back to her desk. “Get out.”

Nina scurried for the door.

As soon as it closed behind her, the boss sank into her chair. She stared at the wall, remembering the day she took over. The day she walked in and put a bullet in her father’s head because he thought her brother was a better choice to take over the family business.

The boss made sure her father knew what happened to his precious son before she shot him. Her father begged her not to kill him.

She hadn’t shed a tear that day, and she wasn’t going to shed any now. She was in charge. She earned it. And she wasn’t going to lose it.

Lorelei woke with a start, sitting upright in bed as memories flooded back to her. Dreams? Memories? She didn’t know the difference.

For three days, since her meeting in the park, she’d been waking up in the middle of a dream. She was brought into a mansion, gray stone with a wide front staircase that led to a solid wood door. She was dragged through the house, a maze of hallways and doors before she was shoved into a room.

A room lined with plastic.

She wasn’t supposed to live through it. They intended to kill her. She wouldn’t have been the first.

“Another dream?” Vinnie asked, sitting up and kissing her shoulder.

Lorelei nodded.

“I’ll go start coffee.” He grabbed his shorts from the floor next to the bed and padded out of the room wearing only those shorts.

Lorelei hated that she was ruining their sleepy mornings with memories, but she couldn’t stop them. Not even Vinnie’s presence was helping her sleep anymore.

Lorelei closed her eyes and tried to go back to the house. To see more details. She knew it was gray stone, but she didn’t know where it was. How far away. What was around it.

Or if it was real.

Vinnie asked her the first morning if she wanted to talk about it, but she shook her head. It didn’t feel real. Like it was a place she constructed. After three days with the same dream, she wondered if it really was where she was held.

Lorelei grabbed Vinnie’s tee, then used the bathroom before she joined him in the kitchen. She slid her hands up his chest and pressed her cheek to his back.

He grabbed her hands and squeezed, pulling them away so he could spin in her embrace and hold her to his chest. He held her without a word, letting her decide what she wanted to say.

“I keep seeing this house. A mansion, really. I was led inside and dragged through hallways and dumped in a room lined with plastic.”

Vinnie sucked in a breath.

“I know they asked me questions and tortured me. I don’t remember any of that yet, but when they tired of me, they stashed me in a room with other women.”

“Oh, God,” Vinnie exhaled.

“I don’t know if any of it is real, though. If the place is real or if the women were real. It all feels fuzzy.”

“Do you remember anything else about it?”

Lorelei shook her head. “Not really. It was huge. I didn’t go upstairs, but I saw a staircase when I walked in. There were a lot of rooms, but most of the doors were closed. I heard yelling in some. Crying, screaming.”

“You think they were operating their sex trafficking out of the house?”

“It’s possible. Sonya said she saw Edie at a house near her apartment. It makes sense they’d have others.”

Vinnie nodded. “It’s possible. Especially since there was so much evidence at that house of others being there.”

Lorelei nodded, resting her head on Vinnie again. If she hadn’t been taken, they might have found some of those women. Instead, when the house was searched, it was empty. Stained mattresses and torn clothing were only small pieces of the evidence they found that led to the conclusion it had been used for exactly what they all feared.

“This house was huge, though. I haven’t seen anything like it around here.”

“You remember the outside?”

“A little. Gray stone. Lots of it. A huge front staircase that curves at the edges and leads to a solid wood front door.”

“Gravel driveway?” Vinnie asked.

“You know it?” Lorelei breathed.

Vinnie nodded. “I think I do.”

Lorelei pulled back and walked out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“We need a meeting.”

“A meeting? I didn’t know you were in AA.”

She shook her head. “Not that kind. A Curvy Vigilantes meeting.” Lorelei tapped her screen and listened to the phone ring. “I remembered where I was held. Vinnie knows the place. We need to meet. Now.”

“I’ll call everyone,” Frannie replied. “Get here as soon as you can. Bring Vinnie.”

“We’ll be there soon.” Lorelei hung up the phone and looked up at a confused Vinnie. “We need to go to Frannie’s shelter. They’ve been running a secret investigation team to find out what the hell is going on. We need to tell everyone about this and put an end to this for good.”

“Let’s go.”

Vinnie put his hand on Lorelei’s as they waited for everyone to arrive at Shelter in the Storm. Anxiety radiated off her, flooding him as well and making the entire room tense.

Marcus and Pryce were the last to arrive, with an anxious Edie staring at the door until they walked in. When they did, all eyes turned to Lorelei.

“Since the park, I’ve been having a dream about where I was kept. I didn’t think it was a real place, but Vinnie thinks he knows where it is,” Lorelei said.

“Oh, my God,” Edie breathed.

Pryce wrapped his arm around her and kissed the side of her head.

Vinnie hoped like hell this was the end. That women like Edie who were held captive and people who loved her would finally get the closure they needed. They deserved.

“Where is it?” Marcus asked.

“There’s an old mansion out on the edge of town. We’ve never been able to get close. It’s owned by a corporation, from what I know. I went there once, years ago, on patrol. A neighbor reported hearing gunshots.”

“What did you find?” Marcus asked.

Vinnie shook his head. “Nothing. We weren’t allowed on the property. As soon as we turned onto the driveway, we were stopped by private security. They said the shots were target practice. That the property is a hundred acres and they have always been able to host private functions that included target practice.”

“And you didn’t question it?” Mackenzie asked.

“We did. Absolutely. But the corporation is private, and they had an answer for what happened. Showed us a live feed of their security system with a group firing at targets set up behind the house,” Vinnie explained. “It matched up with the neighbor’s report.”

“So, you left?” Edie asked.

“We had to. They refused to give us access to the property, and without the owner’s approval, we had no right to be there. The neighbor heard gunshots, and the owners provided an explanation.”

“They’re allowed to fire guns on their property?” Stacey asked.

“As long as they are five-hundred feet from any dwelling, then yes,” Marcus said.

“Were they?” Stacey asked Vinnie.

Vinnie nodded. “The property was massive. A hundred acres is more than enough for them to legally fire guns.”

“They had documentation ready to show you?” Edie asked.

Vinnie nodded. “Said it happened a lot. Neighbors called it in all the time. Nothing we could do, and I didn’t think much of it. Until Lorelei described the house. We could see it from the driveway. It was built close to the road, relatively speaking. Couldn’t see anything else, but I saw the house. Just like she described.”

“Could you find your way back there?” Marcus asked.

Vinnie nodded again. “Yeah. But it’s not like we can go knock on the door. It’s a fortress. Cameras and fences all over, armed security. And if it’s where she was, that’s not all.”

“What do you mean?” Pryce asked.

“There were guards all over the inside, too,” Lorelei said. “At every door, in every hallway. Not an inch of that place is unprotected.”

“Then it sounds like exactly where we need to go,” Marcus said. “But we can’t do this alone.”

“I’ll call Liam,” Adam said. “Get F-BOMB involved.”

“I’ll reach out to Rose Protection Agency,” Gage said, already calling. Dawn followed him out of the room to talk to them.

Marcus, Pryce, and Vinnie exchanged a glance.

“Who do we want with us?” Marcus asked.

“Foster is on vacation,” Pryce said. “Otherwise he’d be here.”

“My team can help,” Vinnie said.

Marcus nodded. “I was thinking that. I don’t know how many people we need. How many we should have.”

“As many as we can,” Pryce answered. “This is it. This is our chance to end this. We have concrete evidence.”

“Do we?” Marcus asked. He looked around the room at the people left. “We have the faulty memory of a woman recovering from amnesia and the corroboration of someone who’s never been more than a dozen feet onto the property, a decade ago.”

“It’s more than nothing,” Frannie said.

Marcus nodded. “It is, but I don’t know if it’s enough for a warrant.”

“Then we don’t get one,” Wray Allen said. “We just go in.”

Marcus shook his head. “If this is all going to stick, we need a warrant. We need to do this by the book. Make sure whoever is in that house doesn’t get away with all the things they’ve done.”

“Then you have some work to do,” Frannie said. “Go convince a judge we’re right.”

Marcus nodded and looked at Pryce. “Let’s go. Two of us are better than one.” Marcus turned to Vinnie. “Expect a call from Damien. I’ll let him know we have a raid to do so he can call all of you in.”

Vinnie nodded. “We’re going to end this today.”

“Yes, we are.”

Lorelei wrapped her arms around Vinnie’s waist. He kissed the top of her head and knew this was the end. This house was it. This was going to stop all the hell their city had been through.

He just hoped they survived it.

When Vinnie’s phone rang, Lorelei knew it was the call that would take him away from her. He didn’t let on to his boss that he was expecting the call, just agreed to report to work ASAP.

He hung up the phone and took her hand, leading her to the front of the building where they could be alone. “I have no idea what my assignment is going to be or where I’m going to end up, but I will be there.”

Lorelei nodded. “I know. I wish you could go in with us, but I know your team needs you.”

“And I need you. Be careful. Whatever you do, be careful.”

Lorelei swallowed roughly. She was not looking forward to returning to that house. To seeing the place her mind had blocked for more than two months. She was scared, but she knew she had to be there.

“I love you,” Vinnie whispered against her lips. “And I will see you later.”

Lorelei kissed him, letting herself get lost in the goodness she found with Vinnie. He was the person she’d always hoped to find. And she wasn’t going to lose him. “I love you. Next time I see you, this will be over.”

“Yes, it will.”

Vinnie kissed her again, then let himself out the front door. Lorelei watched him until he got in his SUV and drove away.

She returned to the dining room where everyone had gathered and sat down to wait. She didn’t know how long it would be, but she knew it was the right move to do this the right way. With a warrant and a team that couldn’t be overpowered by whoever was hiding in that house.

Word came through that they were ready, and Lorelei watched as the women in the room with her transformed. Every single one of them stood and moved toward the door. They were willing to sacrifice themselves for this. To take down the people who’d affected their lives. To end this hell.

“You guys can’t come,” Lorelei said. “You’re civilians.”

Frannie chuckled and shook her head. “You’re wrong, Lorelei. We’re vigilantes, and we’re not letting you go in there alone. We will be there, no matter what.” Frannie slid a black mask onto her face, and all the others followed suit.

Lorelei remembered the mask Frannie gave her. She’d never worn it, but it was in the handbag she had slung across her body. Lorelei pulled it out and put her mask on, looking at the other women.

They all nodded and walked out together. The Curvy Vigilantes.