64
GAbrIEL
I’d never seen a man look more like a ghost than when North left that boarding house.
The image would haunt me forever. I took everyone back to the safe house and showed North where he could change into dry clothes.
Then, I went into the kitchen and hoped we had some food and beers to distribute.
I’d messaged Kyllion and told him to keep the team away for now.
I didn’t want to make things worse for North while he processed the very jarring realization that his daughter could, in fact, be alive.
“So, how did you two meet?” Nyx asked, gesturing to Knight and me with a bottle.
Knight smirked. “Kind of a funny story actually.”
“I don’t think it’s funny,” I grumbled.
“It’s kind of funny,” Knight said.
“His team crashed one of my ops,” I said.
Knight chuckled. “We got double booked.”
“That’s a funny way of saying your intel was bad.”
Knight took a sip of beer. “Better not say that in front of Ghost. Actually, please do, I’d love to see that. Anyway, Cal was pissed. Seriously, never seen him that livid. He and Deathwing almost got into major blows over it. Even though it was the client’s fault—”
I made a noncommittal sound, remembering how I almost took out the Captain America wannabe. He was too pretty for his own good, and just as cocky.
“Lucklily, I was there to smooth things over,” Knight said with a smirk.
“Let me guess,” Atlas chuckled. “With alcohol.”
Knight grinned. “Works every time. Anyway, we’re all friends now.”
“I don’t know, I’d say I tolerate you,” I teased.
Knight looked mock-offended. “Aw, come on, buddy, you know you love me.”
At some point during the conversation North had come into the kitchen and quietly taken a seat. I slid him a beer, but after he drank half the bottle in one go, I dug around for something stronger to give him. I pulled out a whiskey bottle and replaced the beer without comment.
“How do you find out about these boarding houses?” Atlas asked.
“I have informants, sometimes I’ll interview girls if they escape, or we rescue them. Sometimes I go undercover if it’s a big ring.”
“How did you even find her name?” Nyx asked.
“We go through every grooming house with a fine-tooth comb. You never know what evidence the traffickers will leave behind or what clues the girls will leave. Often it’s their journals, or drawings or like in this instance a name on a wall—that leads us to rescuing them.
My men will continue to go through that house board by board until we’re done, and then we’ll burn it to the ground.
” I took another sip of beer. “You have to remember, sometimes these girls just up and disappear from their families, so any evidence we find, we try and get the information out to the families if possible so they can either have hope…or closure.”
North took another shot.
“Where do the women go after the boarding houses?” Nyx asked.
“The auctions usually, or a middleman. Some auctions are for rich individuals, but there are also ones that center around—” I paused, trying to think of the right word.
“Destination experiences, I guess you could call them. There are a few islands and private resorts that supply women to their patrons for a price. They usually cater to certain kinks, illegal ones mostly.”
“How do I find Emersyn?” North asked flatly, while he poured another shot.
“The boarding houses usually distribute to the same places. The difficult part will be if she went straight to auction, because the records after the auction house are vague at best.”
I finished my beer and set it down, not interested in the alcohol anymore.
This conversation was bringing up a past I really didn’t want to think about.
I answered the rest of their questions, but it was obvious North needed time to process everything.
It finally reached a point where he grabbed the bottle of whiskey and headed to the back patio.
We all watched him go. Nyx and Knight had various looks of deep concern on their faces, and Atlas had his fingers steepled against his lips, a dark look in his eyes.
There was more here than I was aware of.
“I know it’s not my place,” I ventured. “But, any information you can give me could be helpful.”
Nyx and Atlas looked at each other with another one of those deep looks. Then, they turned to Knight who sighed.
“He needs to know,” Knight said. “I’ll be out back if you need me.”
“Alright, I’ll give you the short version of events,” Nyx said.
“North had a family—a wife and twins—Emersyn and Cole. When the twins were ten, a man named Vetticus came to their lake house and killed North’s wife, and Cole.
He took North and apparently Emersyn, although North didn’t know that then.
Three years later, she’s brought before him as leverage and punishment—” Nyx cleared his throat, it was obviously hard to talk about.
Atlas placed a hand on Nyx’s arm in support—the gesture was intimate.
“North had to cut Emersyn on the face—” The information was delivered factually, but it still was jarring to hear. “Later that night, a man named Albatron shot her—we all thought she was dead.”
Nyx apparently couldn’t go on, his eyes were black pits, the color completely blown out.
“North is going to be wrecked over the fact he hasn’t been looking for her all this time,” Atlas said.
“He’s been focused on revenge—if he’d known Emersyn was still alive—” Atlas shook his head, the despair heavy on his face.
“I want him to have hope but at the same time, if she turns up dead—he’ll have lost her again—for the third time.
That–that does something to a man, I think. ”
I nodded grimly. “Well, my team is at your disposal. We’ll do whatever we need to do.”
“I think you might want to take point on this,” Nyx said.
Atlas agreed. “You know the lay of the land, and North will want someone who’s familiar with the territory.”
I gripped the counter. This was going to be personal.
Unlike my team, these men didn’t know what I’d gone through.
They didn’t know what it would cost me to relive the same hope, the same blind resolve.
But, I couldn’t say no. If there was even a small chance of reuniting Emersyn with North, there wasn’t a question about whether or not I’d take it.
I’d take it every single fucking time.