Chapter 45
Sarge
I wonder what that would do to human skin.
A shot glass is pushed my way as I lean on the bar top. “You look like you could use this.”
“Fuck, more like five. Keep ‘em coming, Klaw.”
Waiting for the Doc to give the okay on Booker has been hell. I’ve spent the last half hour damn near wearing holes in my boots from dragging them through the dirt out front. Between pacing and nervously trying to dig a hole to China with my heel, I almost wish I were a smoker.
Maybe a few shots are exactly what I need. My skeleton feels like it’s vibrating out of my skin with anticipation.
“Excuse me?” A female voice cuts through the room, violating my ears.
“Um, I get I’m stuck here or whatever, but I’m hungry as fuck. Can I have some food? I’ve been here for hours, and while the TV is okay, even prisoners get fed.” Scarlett stands there with her arms folded over her chest, her face a mask of annoyance and boredom.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I rise from my seat, stalking toward her like a predator. “You’re hungry? Is that it?”
She takes a small step back but keeps her arms crossed, nodding defiantly.
“Wow. You hear that, guys? The rat is hungry. Do we have any cheese?” I call out to the room, my voice dripping with venom.
I turn back to her, leaning into her space.
“You’ve been here for less than twenty-four hours.
My woman has been missing for over three days because of you.
So you can go fuck yourself with your ‘I’m hungry’ bullshit.
Until she’s found, I don’t give a flying fuck about your basic human needs.
You sure as hell didn’t care about Hannah’s needs when you set her up to be taken. ”
I take a step back, dragging in a heavy, jagged breath.
“And all for what? Some pathetic attempt to have me? Never have I led you on. Not once. But you can’t accept that, can you? A man not drooling over you is just a challenge, so you’re willing to remove anyone in your way.”
My boots hit the floor hard as I put distance between us. I can’t stand to be near her. The air around her feels tainted.
The basement door opens, and the Doc steps through, wiping his hands on a clean towel.
“He’s ready now,” he says in a flat, matter-of-fact voice. “After a banana bag through the IV and some glucose, he’s finally talking in coherent sentences. I’ll stay here for the next half hour if you need me again.”
“Thank you.”
I scan the room, already knowing who I need to bring with me to ensure I don’t kill this fucker before he finishes talking.
“Raydar, you’re with me. Everyone else, keep an eye on Self-Centered Barbie over there until we get back.”
My feet feel light as I descend, thankful that the hurry up and wait game is finally over. When we reach the landing, it isn’t hard to find Booker.
The room is concrete from floor to ceiling, with a single window purposely built too small for any adult to fit through.
Every square inch is painted a sterile, aggressive white.
The fluorescent lights flood the space with a near-blinding brightness, offering no peace and no place to hide.
In the center of the glossy floor is a single drain.
We don’t use it often, but it’s there when things get messy.
Booker sits before me, eyes squinting against the glare, the IV line still taped to his arm. He looks small against the white backdrop, his body reclined in a dental chair, restrained and bound tight.
As I stalk over, his eyes never leave mine.
He knows why he’s here; I can see the recognition on his face.
I know fear when I see it. I reach for the lever on the back of the chair and crank him up until we’re eye-to-eye.
Raydar sets a folding chair down behind me, and I take a seat, leaning in close.
“I really hope you’re in a chatty mood, Booker. Not only do we not have time to fuck around, but I’d rather not pull your nails out one by one if I don’t have to.”
His body visibly stiffens, his gaze bouncing between me and Raydar’s silent shadow.
“I’m not sure what I said at the bar, man, but nothing happened.”
“Yeah,” I huff out, “that much we’ve heard.
That’s all your shit-faced mouth would say over and over.
I need a hell of a lot more than that if you want to keep all your finger and toenails.
We can start pulling teeth, too, if needed.
I’m a man out of options, and you’re looking pretty fucking disposable right now. ”
I rise so I can stand over him. “Spill your guts, or I’ll do it for you.”
“Okay, man. Okay. But I need you to know I never laid a single fucking finger on her, and she was alive and well when I left that room.”
His words land deep in my gut, but I don’t let my expression flicker. I lean in closer, my form looming over him. The sterile smell of the room is almost sickening—a bitter reminder of the weeks I called a hospital home—but I push memory aside.
“You left that room,” I repeat, my voice low and dangerous. “Which room, Booker?”
Standing straight, I fist my hands at my sides, fighting the urge to beat the answers out of him. “And just to clear this up, because you’ve yet to say who she is, I need you to tell me you’re talking about Hannah. The woman you saw me with at the bar.”
He nods quickly, “Yeah, the brunette.”
I reach out and grip the arm of his chair, the metal groaning under the pressure.
“What fucking room, Booker?” Pushing off the chair, I turn and cross the large room in only a few strides and grab the rolling steel table of tools. Everything from knives to butane torches to pliers. I whip around back to Booker, wheeling the tray with me so he can see my supplies.
“I need names, a location, and a timeline. If you skip a single detail, if you even think about lying to me, I’m letting Raydar here pick which tool we start with. And he’s a lot less patient than I am.”
Raydar shifts behind me. The telltale creak of his leather vest as he crosses his arms is the only sound in the blinding white silence.
Booker swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the restraints.
He looks like he’s about to crack, and I’m more than ready to hear the truth flood out of him.
“No, no, you won’t need those. Look, there’s this house. Big fucking one, really nice. A mansion, I guess. Looks like the kind of place famous people would live in. It’s out in Rio Rico, middle of nowhere, and there’s security everywhere. Guys with big fucking guns. Shit’s scary if you ask me.”
His eyes dart back and forth between Raydar and me, searching for even a shred of belief.
“Where is this house, Booker? Rio Rico is vague at best. I need a location.”
“Right, yeah. Um, I don’t have it memorized, but it’s on my phone. In the maps. I have it saved as... uh...”
“As what?”
“It’s saved as ‘Body Shop’.”
“And what the fuck do they do at this ‘Body Shop,’ and how did you find them?” I ask, afraid I already know at least part of the answer.
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “Yeah, uh, not sure who owns the place. Heard about it through a customer at Rawhide. Dude came in and sat at the bar for hours on a slow weeknight. We got to talking, and the more he drank, the more he spilled.”
Booker licks his dry lips, his eyes searching the sterile white corners of the room for an exit that isn’t there. Raydar steps forward, the hiss of a butane lighter cutting through the silence.
“Did you know this burns at nearly four thousand degrees?” Raydar asks, his voice terrifyingly calm. “I wonder what that would do to human skin?”
He presses the button, and the blue cone of the flame roars to life. “We don’t have time to be nice, Booker.”
“No, no, no! Hold on, man! I’m telling you everything!” Booker’s voice hits a frantic pitch. “I don’t know who owns it, but I know how to get there. I can take you! I know the way in. You guys can use me to get her back!”
He tries to force a smile, but it’s just a mask of terror and teeth.
“Why is she there, Booker? And why the fuck did you see her?” I roar in his face, the sound echoing off the concrete walls.
“Th... they, um...”
Raydar steps in, the blue hiss of the torch closer now.
“Fuck, man! They sell bodies. Women. You pay, and you can essentially do whatever you want.”
“And you were there as... a fucking customer?” My voice comes out flat. Eerily calm with the understanding of what kind of man sits in front of me. The kind of calm that usually precedes a body bag.
Booker’s breathing hitches, his chest heaving as he strains against the leather restraints.
Hannah is being held in a place where her body is treated like public property.
Open to every hungry, depraved man who has the cash, and somehow this pathetic piece of shit is part of it.
It’s worse than any nightmare I could’ve imagined for her.
She’s strong, she’s amazing, and she deserves a hell of a lot better than a cage in some mansion.
Most people also don’t get lucky enough to find someone who makes them feel whole, but I have.
Hannah is everything I could ask for in a woman and more.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that she would be taken from me because of someone I have known most of my life, and then almost sexually assaulted by a man I have helped countless times.
I want to shoot his fucking dick off and watch him bleed out on this white floor, but if it weren’t for this pervert’s “extracurriculars,” we’d still be flying blind. I suck in a deep, ragged breath and close my eyes, forcing my pulse to level out.
“Can I torch him, Prez?” Raydar’s voice is a mix of excitement and cold disgust. “Fuck this guy. Buying women like they’re property.”
I exhale, my eyes snapping open. How the tables have turned, Ray is usually the one to keep me level. “Not yet. He’s still a helpful tool. We use him until he’s blunt.”
Booker’s shoulders sag, a pathetic puff of relief escaping his lips.
“But once we’re done,” I add, looking Booker dead in the eyes, “I’ll help you end him. He and anyone who’s touched her.”
“I never touched her, man! Once I walked in and recognized her, I just played it off like I fucked her and then got the fuck out of there.”
“Wow. Played it off. Aren’t you a fucking Saint?” I ask, my words dripping with enough sarcasm to drown a man.
“And you didn’t come straight to me? To the club? We could’ve had her back hours ago!” My fist crashes into the side of his face, making his head bounce off the back of the chair with a hollow thud.
“Fuck you, Booker.” I spit in his face, watching as his blood lands on the pristine white floor.
“Let Giz know what he needs to look for on Booker’s cell and catch the rest of the guys up on what we’ve learned,” I tell Raydar on my way to the stairs.
“Move Scarlett down here first. I don’t want her to hear a single word of what we know.
And tape his mouth shut.” My finger is pointed directly at Booker, to guarantee we’re all on the same page.
Starting up the steps, I move with purpose. As my feet carry me higher, I’m already building a plan to break into that cesspool of oxygen thieves, clean house, and get my Butterfly back.