Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SINCLAIR
“ Y ou’re fucking kidding me?” Benny shouts, slamming his fist down on the table as he studies the surveillance photos. I'd about had it with everyone crowding around my tiny laptop, so I’ve cast my display to the flatscreen. Aurora insisted we put it up for meetings with the capos, but I swear she uses it more to stream the same damn show over and over while she’s working.
No one needs to rewatch Pride and Prejudice as often as she does.
The screen is currently filled with images Gabriella sent over this morning. Her team caught none other than our friendly neighbourhood date rapists delivering what I can only assume is their latest victim to one of The Knights’ warehouses.
From the images, I’d say the woman can’t be more than twenty-five years old. She looks half-dead, angry bruises and swelling marring her features, which will make it next to impossible for me to identify her from her picture. Even if they weren’t carrying her into the warehouse, from the state of her, I doubt she'd be able to walk. She’s either concussed or drugged from the video clips Gabriella included.
“You’re telling me those cunts have upgraded from date rape to human trafficking?” Nico shouts, waving angrily at the screen. “It wasn’t enough to gang rape them. They’re now shipping them off to this scum ?”
“How the fuck did this happen? Why on earth would The Knights be recruiting a bunch of over-privileged fucks like this?” Benny adds.
“We beat that prick on the left to within an inch of his life, and he never once mentioned anything other than his frat boys when we questioned him,” Nico says, flicking his gaze between us all. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“We’re obviously missing a link. Nico, you’re going to take the lead on this. We’re going to bring our friend in for a little chat,” I say.
“Call Etta and get her to line up one of the interrogation sites for you. I’m sure she has a few new ones up and running if you fancy trying something different,” Aurora adds.
“Different?” Benny asks.
Nico nods in his direction and explains, “She has three up and running and two still under construction. The three that are fully functional each have different special features . The one we took Manny to had a built-in disposal system, but apart from that was actually pretty basic. One of them has a set up for electro-shock, and the other has different types of on-site water torture.”
“Nobody tells me anything,” Benny complains, balling up a piece of paper and flicking it at Nico. “I went to dinner with both of you last week and you didn’t think I’d be interested?”
“Watch yourself, brat. We couldn’t get a word in edgeways. You wouldn’t stop going on about your new remote-detonating incendiary device. I swear I know more about discrete microwiring than I ever needed to.”
I don’t know what it is about the way they’re bickering right now, but it’s helping shift the heavy weight from my chest. It’s a stark difference from the interactions I’ve observed over the last few weeks. It’s been hard to watch the distance that was growing between them as Nico became more and more withdrawn. For a moment I thought the Nico of old was returning.
No one, least of all Nico, wants the sixteen-year-old version of him to resurface. It took a long time for Enzo and I to get him to recognise the path of destruction he was on.
I'm glad that they talked last night out—and that I could help.
Being there for Benny stirred up feelings in me I wasn’t expecting, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t welcome. I was happy to help him, but it was more than that. My presence calmed him, brought him relief, and made me see him in a different light. Appreciate a part of him I’d never seen before. Being his solace while he was vulnerable was… enlightening.
“Yeah, well, you’ll be loving it when you can use it in the field. I think this latest design is perfect for precise detonations,” he says, his tone laced with petulance.
I’ve never found bratting attractive, but the more time I spend up close witnessing their dynamic, the more I appreciate the give and take of it. Their interactions are effortless and playful, and it’s… intriguing.
Aurora clears her throat loudly and they snap their attention back to her. “Well, if you’re quite finished, Nico, choose a venue and take Benny with you. We’ll give you a few hours with him and join later. I need to head to Inferno for a meeting with Dom, and then I’d like to have a little chat with this asshole myself.”
Nico nods and pulls out his phone. “I’ll liaise with Etta and see what’s available. Does Gabriella have a current location on this prick?”
“Last known location is the frat house. He’s been sleeping off whatever shit they dosed themselves with last night. From the looks of the video she sent over, aside from their wheelman, they were all out of it,” I say.
Enzo shakes his head. “I can’t believe we’ve got to the point where not only do we have a trafficking ring being sanctioned by the De Lucas but now they're employing college students to funnel them victims.”
Something about the way Enzo’s talking it through starts to make sense to me. “You know, if you wanted to make sure you had the unwavering support of a large number of powerful men, wouldn’t it make sense to have something on their sons that would keep their families in your pocket for multiple generations? Not only will he be able to blackmail the fathers, but even when the sons come into their inheritance, he’ll still have enough on them to ruin them. Either financially, politically, or criminally.”
“Holy shit, that’s it, isn’t it? Because there’s no way these idiots were recruited for their skill in sourcing women in a low-profile manner,” Aurora says.
“We know how they showed up on our radar. They were targeting our clubs… but how did they show up on Max’s radar? These pricks don’t operate out of any of the De Luca clubs. Strip joints and cigar clubs aren’t really optimal hunting grounds for college girls,” I muse out loud.
Nico shrugs. “I guess that’s going to be my primary focus when we ask young Jackie-boy later.”
“I’m coming with you. I think we should pick up the wheelman at the same time. He was the only remotely sober-looking one on the footage and we might get more out of him.” I’m already packing up my laptop and I expect Nico to complain about butting in on his and Benny’s assignment but he just dips his head in agreement.
“I’ll get changed and meet you in the car in twenty minutes. I want to pack some toys to bring with us,” Benny says, leaping out of his chair like a freshly popped cork.
“ No explosives. Etta will cut your balls off if you damage one of her wet sites,” I shout after him, knowing full well he isn’t listening.
It didn’t take us long to get across town to the frat house and I’ve been relegated to look-out and get-away driver, while Nico and Benny head into the house to retrieve our little friend. Not the most thrilling of assignments.
We parked at the rear of the property at the end of a utility track that runs behind the houses on this street. It doesn’t look like it’s used a lot since it’s largely overgrown. Gabriella recommended we bring the pick-up truck as her team couldn’t get their vehicles down here for surveillance. They opted to stake out the place from the rear to avoid raising suspicion, so they came on foot.
The only thing moving out here are the trees and a skittish-looking racoon that’s investigating the side of their pool house.
Nico and Benny slipped into the house about five minutes ago through a window above the garage. I haven’t seen the slightest movement from inside. So far, so good. They should be back any minute with Jack. Unfortunately, by the time we got here, the car from last night was gone and the driver with him. When we drove past the front of the house, I clocked the video doorbell. Before the guys went in, I pulled out my laptop and hacked it so we could monitor the front of the house while we were here and keep a closer eye on these idiots going forwards.
It’s risky doing this in the middle of the day because of the neighbours, but it’s also the time when most of them are at classes, or doing whatever it is that over-privileged fuckboys do in college. It’s sure as shit not working. My research tells me they’re all here on their parents’ dime, not a job between them.
I’m just wondering how they’re going to get this prick out of the house when I hear a loud thud and look up to see Nico pushing a body out of the window and onto the garage roof.
That’s one way to avoid the security cameras, I think, unable to suppress my chuckle.
Nico pauses for a moment and rests his boot on the guy's hip before rolling him over the gutter and onto the lawn below. The likelihood of him coming out of today alive is slim, but if he does, he’ll definitely have some challenging injuries to overcome if this is where we’re starting from. Fuckboy hits the ground with a force that throws up a spray of water from where the grass is still covered in a sheen of dew.
Nico drops down next to him, landing with a crouch, looking like he’s channelling his best superhero entrance pose. I’d say it was because he’s showing off, but really that’s just his default position. He may be the size of a small building, but he’s agile as fuck with it.
Benny follows after him, but he has the decency to make it look like it’s more difficult to get down, sitting down first before pushing off to land next to Nico. They don’t hang around, picking up their target and running with him across the lawn and down the side of the pool house, coming out on the track just behind the back of the truck.
We left the flatbed cover on tonight, another added bonus of this as a vehicle. A covered flatbed doesn’t limit you on the number of bodies you can store in it like the trunk of a car does. Nico’s record is eleven at once, I believe. It’s also handy for staying under the police radar, not for any other reason than they don’t expect us to be using pick-ups. I don’t know who declared panel vans the default vehicles for transporting nefarious things, but they’re missing a trick. Pick-ups are definitely the way forward.
I reach over and grab my laptop, flipping it closed, and shoving it back in my bag, which I hoist into the back seat. I have the car started and ready to go as the guys slam the tailgate closed, swiftly followed by Nico climbing in the front next to me and Benny into the seat behind him.
“In and out in six minutes. Impressive,” I say.
“Well, it’s easy when the only people home have passed out. We didn’t do this to him, we found him in that state. He’s out of his gourd. My guess is ketamine, but it’s going to be a while before he comes around.”
“For fuck’s sake. It’s a fucking embarrassment that we have to waste our time interrogating twats like this. Can’t we just kill him?” Benny whines in the back.
“No,” Nico and I snap at the same time.
I look in the rearview mirror and catch Benny laughing. “You guys are such spoilsports.”
“Brat,” I say without thinking and surprise myself. I look sheepishly to my right at Nico, hoping I haven’t overstepped but I’m relieved when all I get is a raised eyebrow, a chuckle, and a little shake of his head.
When I pull up at the end of the road I notice a familiar car driving past us travelling away from campus. The black SUV would look like any other if it weren’t for the garish personalised plate. I’m sure whatever that string of nonsense is, it’s meant to be meaningful or clever in some way, but to me, it merely announces how much of a prick he is and makes it easier to find him.
“What the fuck is that plate meant to mean anyway?” Benny asks from the back.
“It’s the letters for the fraternity and his rank. He must be the vice president,” Nico replies.
“Tell me you plan on peaking at twenty-one, without telling me you plan to peak at twenty-one,” I add.
“I like bitchy Sin. He’s amusing,” Benny says, patting me on the shoulder. “We going to follow this one?”
I glance across at Nico to get his input and he chimes in, “Might as well. The one in the back will be out for a while.”
We follow at a distance for about five minutes. He’s driving out of the city, which is about to make it a fuck-ton harder to follow him.
“You got any objection to damaging the pick-up a little?” Nico asks.
I shrug my shoulders in response because he’s probably right. Running him off the road and picking him up here is our best option, especially on this stretch of road. It’s rural enough that we can hide the car by simply pushing it off into the scrub to conceal it.
I nod and tell them to hold on, accelerating to catch up with our target. The car in front moves across till it’s close to the hard shoulder, assuming we’re an impatient road-rager wanting to overtake. I go with it, pretending to overtake for a moment before braking and turning into the rear driver’s side, clipping him hard enough to force an over-correction that sends the SUV careening off the side of the road.
As I roll our car to a stop behind the back of the SUV, Benny grips the seat a moment before he hauls himself forward. “Nicely done, old man,” he says, patting my arm and laughing.
As crashes go, this one’s pretty unimpressive. Our target stacked it straight into a tree leaving the hood buried in the shrubs around the base of the trunk. There’s a pathetic plume of steam floating up from the front grill where he’s likely cracked the radiator. Piling out of the car, we approach the driver's side and the door flies open. The driver stumbles out, falling to his knees obviously disoriented and talking about exchanging insurance details.
It’s only when Nico places the barrel of the gun he’s drawn to the dickwad’s forehead that he stops rambling and looks up. The blood drains from his face the second he realises quite how much trouble he’s in, but it’s short-lived. Nico flips the gun in his hand and pistol whips him across his temple.
He drops like a stone and I’m left feeling pretty unsatisfied by how easy it’s been to pick him up. “I’ll load this one up, you check the car, and get any of his personal effects,” Nico instructs as he hoists the dead weight over his shoulder and marches back to our truck.
Benny pops his head round the car and starts waving at me to come see something. I hurry to follow him and come to a dead stop when I see what he’s looking at through the open rear door.
There’s a naked woman slumped across the back seat, her long blonde hair covering her face and cascading into the footwell.
“Holy fuck,” I say, grabbing my phone and dialling Stefano’s number while tapping my hand against my thigh impatiently. While it’s ringing, I instruct Benny to go and search the truck for a blanket or coat so we can cover her up before anyone sees her like this. Stefano answers on the third ring and I don’t give him the opportunity to speak before I start talking. “Where are you?”
I can see the girl’s chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, but she doesn’t look like she’s in good shape. A path of bruises trails across her ribs and down to her hip, leading to dried streaks of blood that run down her thighs. I try to hold it together, horrified at the thought of what she’s been through. I’m going to beat that asshole to death with my bare hands and enjoy every second of it.
“At the northside warehouse with Luc. What do you need?” He’s direct and to the point. It’s why I called him.
“I’m sending you a location. We have a complication. It seems one of the frat cunts has been branching out on his own. We found a girl in the back of his car after we ran him off the road.” I reach out and brush her hair aside so I can take her pulse. She doesn’t stir, which is a relief as I don’t want to scare her, but if she’s this out of it, I’m worried that he’s drugged her too.
“She’s alive, but she needs medical help, preferably at the hospital. Only issue is, I need this prick’s vehicle to remain undiscovered for as long as possible so I can’t call for an ambulance and I can’t drop her off with two bodies in the back of the truck.”
“Send me your location. I’m leaving now,” he says before ringing off.
I drop him a pin before crouching low in the door and whispering in her ear, “You’re okay now. Help is coming.”
Her eyes remain closed, and her body shivers. Benny comes running up behind me, waving a hoodie at me. “The only thing I could find in the truck were some tarpaulins, and I didn’t think that it would help if she woke up covered in plastic sheeting.”
I nod, taking it and throwing it over her shoulders before shrugging out of my jacket and covering her legs gently with it.
“I’m going to enjoy working that prick over,” Benny grinds out.
“As long as I get a shot at him, knock yourself out,” I declare. “She’s out for the count. He must have drugged her. Did you check the rest of the car?”
“Yeah, nothing in the trunk and I took his phone,” Benny says, handing it over to me and I pocket it so I can see if it’s of any use to us later.
“Did you tell Nico?”
“Yes, and that’s the reason our driver friend is going to wake up missing a few fingers,” Benny replies in a tone so devoid of emotion it’s a little unnerving. Justified, but still unnerving. Benny rarely goes full rage bunny… that’s Nico’s bit. He’s lost in thought, looking down into the car, his eyes so dark they’ve clouded over to the darkest of greys, not a trace of his usual green hue to be found.
I wave Nico over and he jogs over to us. “I need you to head off in the truck and take Benny with you. Stefano will be at least twenty minutes and I don’t want to draw attention to our car or this one. I’ll join you later.” Nico nods and then, seeing the look of anger on Benny’s face, angles him slowly away from the car and encourages him back to our truck. I shout after Nico, “Just make sure they’re both still alive when I get there. I want a piece of them.”
“Was gonna keep them alive for Aurora anyway, but I’ll make sure there’s enough left for you too.”
“There better be, Nico,” I call out, trying to suppress the rage burning in my veins threatening to run riot over me.