21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
It’s hard to feel sorry for people when they get what they deserve.
Adalyn watched as her husband stalked toward the two men who were awake and propped up against a tree root, water lapping around them.
The water was dark too and she knew they were likely wondering if a gator or something else would swoop up and get them. Which was a possibility, but not a huge one considering all the noise and destruction they’d just made.
They looked up at Rowan defiantly, but she could see the fear in their eyes. And the dark-haired one on the left broke eye contact first, glancing around at the grim surroundings.
Because they were in the middle of nowhere, no one to hear their screams. Something their hindbrains were very aware of. The remaining men had all been dumped on the boat not tipped on its side.
As Adalyn approached, Rowan stepped back, standing at attention. She could see the surprise on their faces, that she was the one in charge. Like the others, she had on camouflage face paint, but she’d tucked her hair under a dark cap to hide the color. There was no hiding she was a woman, but her hair was memorable so it had to be covered.
She crouched down in front of the two of them, then without pause, sprayed the more defiant one in the face with bear spray. Her friend and sometimes coworker, Hailey, had turned her on to its uses. Back when she’d been with the Company, she’d used much more refined methods to get the information she wanted.
But sometimes you had to do what you had to do.
The guy screamed, thrashing around, desperate to wash off his eyes but unable to.
She looked up at Rowan, nodded once and he slapped tape over the guy’s mouth as she focused on his friend who was quietly watching her, fear in his dark eyes.
“This is bear spray,” she said, holding up the canister. “Nasty stuff. If I don’t wash it out soon, he’ll go blind. And if you don’t tell me what I want, I’ll do the same to you. Then I’ll leave all of you out here as gator bait. I doubt your bodies will ever be recovered.”
“Bitch, you don’t know who you’re messing with—”
“I do, in fact, know who you are. We know all about your little ‘Boy’ gang and how you’re basically runners for the Acton brothers.”
At the mention of the Acton brothers, the guy shifted nervously, water lapping around him in little waves.
“So now that we’ve established that I know what I’m talking about, you’re going to answer my questions.”
He made a move as if he was going to spit on her, and faster than she could track, Rowan kicked out, slamming his boot into the guy’s gut.
“That would be a mistake,” Rowan growled as the guy gasped for breath. “I’m allowing you one. And there are more of you so I’ll just slit your throat and be done with you if you try anything like that again.”
The man nodded even as he continued gasping for breath. Rowan had probably broken a rib or two, knowing his strength.
She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. That hadn’t been part of the plan.
“No one spits on you,” he said in response to her unspoken words.
And okay, she loved that he cared about that. She looked back at the man. “So, Eugene—”
He jerked slightly when she said his name.
“Oh yes, we know all of your names, where you live, the names of your relatives, wives, side pieces, everyone. So please keep that in mind when you answer my first question. You work for the Acton brothers. How do you think they’re going to react to you losing all their drugs?”
He simply swallowed hard.
“And if you think that anyone knows about this, you would be wrong. Because all of your cameras died right before that explosion went off. It’ll look like a glitch. But then later, the Acton brothers are going to find evidence that you and your gang double-crossed them. Unless you tell me what I want to know.”
“Okay,” he said, looking briefly at his friend who was still moaning, his face red, snot and tears streaking the masking tape over his mouth.
“Someone stole a lot of money from our boss. And he wants it back. Enzo Hendrix is the thief we’re looking for.”
The guy blinked in surprise. “You want to know about that bastard?” he snarled. “He stole from the Acton brothers too! A whole truck! Everyone’s talking about it!”
Okay now they were getting somewhere. “What did they do to him?”
“They can’t find him. Guy’s like a ghost.”
“What about his family? We’ve tried locating them but couldn't find anyone.” She had to throw suspicion off his family, namely Chance.
“I don’t know.” Eugene was already shaking his head as he answered. “We just know they’re pissed. But if you can’t find his family, then they probably can’t either.”
“I need contact information for the Acton brothers.”
The man blinked. “What?”
“Contact. Information. My people have been unable to procure contact information for the Acton brothers. And we’re very good at what we do.”
Eugene swallowed hard. Once. Twice. “They don’t…they don’t really do technology. They’re paranoid about being tracked.” He let out a bitter laugh as he looked around. “Maybe not so paranoid.”
“How do you contact them?”
He looked over at his friend, then past Adalyn to the boat where the rest of his gang was waiting. They were well out of earshot, but he lowered his voice as he said, “TikTok.”
She blinked. “What?”
“There are ten different bands unaffiliated with them that they leave random comments on. Only the comments aren’t random at all, they’re like a code.”
That was some serious tradecraft, but Adalyn refused to be impressed by it.
“Whenever I need to contact them, I leave a comment under one of the bands’ recent posts. They must have, like, someone checking all the time, because I usually get a response within four hours of any request.”
She looked up at Rowan, nodded once toward the other guy.
Her husband hauled him off toward the boat, then she pulled out a blade. Eugene flinched away from her, but she simply said, “I’m going to cut you free and then you’re going to write down everything I want to know.”
It took twenty minutes, but he wrote down everything he could remember, then showed her on his cell phone so she knew he wasn’t lying.
They’d be able to reach out or at least track the Acton brothers now. Or attempt to. But they had a way to contact them, which had been the goal.
When they were finished, she tied him back up.
“I thought you were going to let me go.”
“I never said that,” she said as she stood. “But I’m also not going to kill you.”
“If the Acton brothers find out I talked—”
Rowan hauled him to his feet as Adalyn said, “They will never hear about this from us. We’re ghosts as far as you’re concerned.”
As Rowan dumped him on the airboat with the others, she saw that her crew had left the drugs, but taken all the cash—and disabled the second boat. Yeah, these guys weren’t going anywhere. She pulled out a burner, dropped a pin on their location for Camila, then tossed the phone into the hollowed-out hull with the rest of the drugs.
They could make a deal with the Feds if one was offered, or they would go to jail. She didn’t care either way. She had what she needed and now they were one step closer to finding Chance’s brother.
She wasn’t sure if she’d have taken this job on if it hadn’t been for Berlin’s connection, but as it was, they were going to see this thing through to the end.