2 #2
Breach's tech room was a cave. Blackout curtains, the hum of cooling fans, the smell of ozone and stale Cheetos.
I stood behind his chair, arms crossed, watching lines of code scroll down the monitors. Sawyer sat on the floor, tossing a stress ball against the wall. Thump. Catch. Thump. Catch.
"Okay," Breach muttered, fingers flying across his mechanical keyboard. The clacking sound was rhythmic, soothing. "Sloane Lawson. Born 1996. Accepted to Julliard on full scholarship. Dropped out... three years ago."
"Three years?" I frowned. "That doesn't track. She should have graduated."
"Withdrew," Breach corrected. "Sudden withdrawal. No medical reason listed."
He opened another window. "Let's look at Daddy Dearest. Arthur Lawson."
Data streamed. Bank records. Court dockets.
"Here we go," Breach said. "Arthur Lawson. Indicted on seventeen counts of securities fraud and embezzlement. A Ponzi scheme. The house of cards collapsed three years ago."
"Assets frozen?" I asked.
" seized. Everything. House, cars, accounts. The guy went from net worth eight figures to negative zero overnight."
"That explains the poverty," Sawyer said from the floor. "Doesn't explain the club."
"Keep digging," I said. "Look at the legal defense."
Breach tapped a few keys. "Lawson hired a heavy hitter for his defense. EXPENSIVE. Which is weird, since he was broke."
He highlighted a name. *Marcus Vane, Esq.*
"Run Vane against the Krueger database," I ordered.
Breach entered the command. The screen blinked.
"Bingo," Breach whispered.
My stomach dropped.
"Marcus Vane," Breach read. "Primary counsel for Waylon Krueger and the Morgantown holding companies."
The pieces clicked together in my head. A terrible, jagged mosaic.
"The father gets busted," I said, my voice low. "He needs a lawyer he can't afford. He goes to Vane. Vane works for Krueger."
"And Krueger likes to collect people," Sawyer added, standing up.
"He sold her," I said. The realization wasn't a guess. It was a certainty. I could feel it in the rage boiling up my throat. "Arthur Lawson sold his own daughter to pay for his defense."
"Or to settle a debt," Breach said. "Look at the timing. Lawson's trial started two months after Sloane withdrew from school. She didn't drop out. She was pulled out."
I closed my eyes. I saw her again. The bruises on her knees. The dead look in her eyes as she spun on that pole.
She wasn't just working there.
"She's a slave," I said.
My wolf didn't growl this time. He went silent. A cold, deadly silence that was infinitely worse than the rage.
*Kill him.*
It wasn't a request. It was a statement of future events.
"Jade," Breach said softly. "What's the play?"
I opened my eyes. "We find the contract. We find the leverage he has on her. And then I execute Waylon Krueger."
"Stallion needs to know," Sawyer said.
"Not yet," I said. "If this is a debt contract, it's legal in the shifter courts. If we go safely, Krueger drags it out, hides her, or moves her. We need to be ready to strike before he knows we're coming."
I looked at the screen, at the name *Arthur Lawson*.
"Find out where the father is," I told Breach.
"Federal prison," Breach said. "Serving twenty years."
"Good," I said. "He's safe there. For now."
I turned to the door.
"Where are you going?" Breach asked.
"To get my gear," I said. "And to clean my guns. If I'm going back into that club, I'm not going for recon."
"Ballistic," Sawyer warned. "Don't do anything stupid."
I stopped in the doorway. "Stupid is walking in there without a plan. I have a plan."
"Yeah?" Breach asked. "What is it?"
"I'm going to become her best customer."
I walked out into the heat of the Texas morning. The sun was up now, burning off the dew. The world was loud and bright and chaotic.
But inside me, everything was focused. The mission parameters had changed.
Target acquired.