3. Caleb
THREE
CALEB
I lick my lips, and I can taste the sugar from the sweet tart I’d eaten before I’d left for the meeting with my father.
I’ve never been particularly fond of sweets. My parents never hoarded them, never told me and Alice we couldn’t have any. They were simply a regular treat whenever we felt like having cake.
“Are you paying attention, Caleb?” my father asks, annoyance in his voice.
I sit up straighter. “Yes, of course.”
We’re gathered around the large table of the second office, the one arranged to look like a corporate meeting room. My grandfather hosted meetings here.
We haven’t decided what to do with his house yet. Alice has suggested she wants it, but our parents have refused to say one way or the other whether she could have it.
“I talked to Virgil Club,” Trent says from his seat across the table. “Leon did pay him off, in the end, so he’s got no beef with us right now.”
Behind me, I hear Vortex grumble under his breath. After all the trouble Uncle Earl gave us, at least his debts aren’t still hounding us.
Uncle Earl. After we’d dumped him in the desert, he disappeared. Vortex hadn’t been able to find his body. I hope that means Earl wandered off in an attempt to find civilization and died somewhere.
He’d been scheduled to meet with the Lockwoods, though. Did they know where that shack was?
There are far too many loose ends.
“Virgil isn’t going to help us either, is he?” my father asks Trent. “He’s content to stay neutral in this.”
“Yeah.” Trent sighs and leans back in his chair. “He said it wasn’t any of his business, but if we plan on losing, could we please transfer the casino ownership to him first.”
I chuckle about that. “Over my dead body, I suppose.” I tap my fingers against the table. “We need more leverage on the Lockwoods. What do we even know about them, apart from the fact that they traffic children?”
My father doesn’t seem to care about that information, but Trent’s lips thin in distaste.
“New Bristol based, they have a lot of extremely powerful clients.” My father pulls out his notebook and flips through some pages. “They supply at least three senators.”
“We wouldn’t be lucky enough for one of those senators to be from our state, would we?” Trent asks.
“If you can find out who those three—or more—senators are, then I’ll give you a promotion,” my father says to Trent.
“Hey, he’s working for me right now,” I protest, although I don’t particularly care where Trent ends up.
He’s a better general manager than Grant ever was, though, and lately, I suspect Trent might even be on Seven’s side.
I need as many people on Seven’s side as possible.
“They must have a central base of operations,” I say. Seven had described a large manor with multiple rooms. I know he serviced people there, so he wasn’t being carted around. “Or maybe several houses. They don’t transport their… their… product —” My tongue trips over that word.
Their victims.
I swallow and try again. “They invite people to their locations. So there’s a house, and it’s done up nice enough for their senator and ambassador and CEO clients. There’s probably a west coast location too. Do you remember when the FBI raided the White Iris ring?”
My father frowns. “That was what, four, five years ago?”
I nod. “March four years ago, yes. The Lockwoods apparently considered that to be a business opportunity. It’s possible nothing came of it, but we all know how business runs.”
“The early bird gets the worm,” Trent finishes. “Yeah, makes sense. If they’ve got a place in California, it could be close to Calamity, even. I wouldn’t put it in the major cities.”
“Make it central enough that it’s easy to fly to the closest airport, drive for an hour or two… And if it’s about equidistant to several major cities, your rich CEO or Senator could fly to different locations and make it less suspicious,” I say, barely even registering my own words.
How many more children have they hurt like they did Seven?
I never thought I cared about other people. My previous lovers all accused me of being cold, aloof. A complete workaholic who had no time for anyone beyond my cat and my niece Lori.
I don’t even remember how long it’s been since I cried. I kept imagining Seven’s hope, followed by that despair, and thirty fucking lashes wielded with enough force to cut skin and make Seven bleed?—
“What’s wrong with you?” my father snaps. “You’re the one who called this meeting. If you don’t want to pay attention, we can give your boyfriend back to the Lockwoods and be done with it.”
My head snaps up. “If you touch him, I’m going to consider patricide justified,” I say. “Would you allow anyone to take Mom or Alice or me?”
My father scowls at me. “Your boyfriend isn’t a woman. He isn’t family ?—”
Trent stands up and slams his palms against the table.
“Hey, hey. Family is what we make of it. And, no offense, Gerard, but if Caleb considers Seven as his ‘woman’ or however the gays are calling it, we gotta respect that, right? It’s really no different.
Besides, Lori would be really upset if her new anime bestie went missing. ”
I don’t know what to make of that strange defense, but at least my father calms down.
“Fine. I don’t want to roll over for the Lockwoods anyway.
You know they had some pigs come sniffing at one of our money lending operations?
The guys were really apologetic, said the orders had come from above, but they knew we were above board and that outsiders just didn’t understand.
” My father laughs. “Then they happily took their five hundred and wandered off.”
“So, we need to get more leverage on the Lockwoods,” I say, trying to get the conversation back to something useful. “We can find their West Coast location. We can try to suss out some of their clients—a few must be Calamity City locals. I don’t believe this is a city free of rich pedophiles.”
“We could try to lure them out into the open,” Trent suggests. “You sure we can’t simply pretend to do an exchange, and Ms. Lockwood will be there for easy sniping?”
If only. I shake my head. “No, she’s cautious. So far she’s only sent other men. We don’t even know if she would come into the city proper. All we really know is that she has powerful friends.”
My father snorts in derision. “So do we. In fact, I think our beloved congressional representative has a Calamity City vacation planned. I told him I’d get him free accommodations at the Roi de Pique.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I say absently.
The problem is that I don’t know who does or does not have ties with the Lockwoods. We’ve got our friends in high places, but we don’t have a complete picture.
“We need to meet with the Diamantes and the Hearts, too,” I say. “To see what offers the Lockwoods made them.”
Trent tilts his head at me. “You mean, if they made offers?”
“No, they would have reached out already. If they talked to Virgil Club, they talked to the others,” my father interrupts. “All right. I’ll handle Valentín Diamante. Trent, if you’re already talking to Virgil Club, you can keep doing that.”
I internally grimace, but I nod. “I’ll speak to Blake Heart. I’m sure we’ve got a few things to discuss regarding the casinos, anyway.”
“I’ll get people on finding the Lockwoods’ West Coast compound, too,” my father says. “You keep an eye on your high rollers, Caleb. Some of them might know something.” He grins. “And if they don’t, you can always dig up other blackmail material.”
He dismisses us.
Vortex, Trent, and I head out to our cars. It reminds me of the last time we’d met like this, when the family had discussed what to do regarding my grandfather’s murder.
Trent stops in front of his car. “Did you think it would all lead to this, when you picked up your stray?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Did I think that the dirty, dust-covered, far too skinny hitchhiker was actually the son of Abigail Lockwood? No.”
Trent laughs. “Okay, but even if you’d known, you’d have picked him up anyway, right?”
I turn my head to look at Vortex, whose expression is impassive. “Yeah, I would have.”
“Lucky him.” Trent opens his car door and waves. “Virgil sends his regards, by the way. He says he’s waiting for an invitation to the Roi de Pique.”
“Tell him he can pay for a reservation anytime he feels like it,” I answer.
Trent laughs again and gets into his car. I wait until he’s driven away before I turn to Vortex.
“We need to find something,” I say. “Anything. The longer she’s out there, the more Seven suffers.”
“Did you find anything out that we can use?” Vortex asks. “When you talked to him, that is? Havoc said you wanted to ask him some questions. Maybe he knows more than he thinks.”
I take my glasses off and rub at my eyes. “He told me some things. That’s how I knew about the other location.”
I need to keep it together—not for my own sake, but for Seven. I’m not going to betray his trust. If he wants Vortex or Havoc to know about any of what happened to him, he’ll tell them.
He hadn’t even wanted to tell me.
Vortex searches my expression. “Do you think he can tell you more, or…” He trails off, then shakes his head. “Give me a task, boss.” He hasn’t called me that in a long time. “Tell me what to do.” The words are a plea, and I realize he’s struggling with the lack of direction.
“That gaming commissions officer,” I say. “Erica Reese. The one who crashed my date with Seven. Find out if she knows anything about the Lockwoods.”
Yes. I’d dismissed her as a lackey, but we have so little information right now that we need to use every thread we have.
“On it,” he says. His eyes are dark as he says, “I wouldn’t mind paying her a visit.” He leans heavily against his SUV. “Are you holding up all right, Caleb?” he asks, his voice careful. “You weren’t all there in that meeting.”
I give him a crooked smile. “It must be really bad, if you noticed.”
Vortex scowls. “I’m not that oblivious. And it doesn’t help that your eyes were red when Havoc and I got there today.”
I shake my head. “I told you, my eyes have been irritating me all day.”
That isn’t even really a lie. It had been why I’d taken my contacts out as soon as I got home. Of course, the irritation had gone away as soon as I’d taken the contacts out, and it had only been the one eye.
“Yeah? And I have a bridge to sell you,” he mutters. “I won’t push, but don’t forget that we’re in this together. All of us. I’m not asking you to tell me what Seven told you, but I am asking you to remember that.”
I sigh loudly. “I promised Seven I wouldn’t say anything, but… it’s bad. Whatever you’re imagining life was like for him, it’s worse than that. I just…” I clench my fists. “I wish I could undo it. I want to protect him from all the bad memories. But I can’t.”
“Do you think we need to keep a closer eye on him?” Vortex asks. “He seemed okay earlier, but he seemed okay right up until he tried to jump off the fucking balcony, too.”
It reminds me of my own mostly unused balcony. I’ve kept the door locked, and I’ve never invited Seven out onto it.
Twelve stories is a much longer fall than five.
“I want to chain him up in my room and protect him from everything,” I admit with a chuckle. “But that would hurt him worse. It’s not even realistic for one of us to always be with him. He needs to be able to do things on his own. We’d break him more if we babied him.”
“Yeah,” Vortex agrees, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.
“He’s at least going to work every day, and we’re with him most afternoons.
Havoc takes him to the gym every chance he gets.
I’ll discreetly check with Georgie to make sure I know if he calls out or leaves early.
” His eyes find mine. “And you take care of yourself too, Caleb. Nothing good will come out of this if you get in your head.”
I smile at him. “Of course.” After a beat, I add, “How do you feel about a small field trip? All four of us, out to the gun range. I need to get some practice in, and Seven should learn how to shoot.”
Vortex’s brows shoot up. “All due respect, but do you really think we should hand Seven a gun?” he asks.
“I think I want Seven to have all the tools we can give him to fight off the Lockwoods,” I say. “And if he wanted to hurt himself with a gun, he won’t need training to do that.”
Vortex exhales slowly. “I don’t like putting the idea into his head,” he admits. “But you’re not wrong. Did Havoc say how his self-defense lessons are going?”
“So-so. Seven still has problems actually attacking Havoc.” I grin. “If there’s anyone who would enjoy getting attacked, it would be Havoc, though.”
Vortex chuckles. “You’re not wrong on that.” He pulls his phone out, checking it. “Speaking of, Havoc’s asking when we’ll be back.”
I pull my phone out, and I see the same text. “Now, I guess. Let’s head back.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Vortex asks. “I can drop you off somewhere else.”
“No, it’s fine. Seven will worry if I don’t turn up.” I take a deep breath and school my features. “I’m all right. Don’t worry, I know how to be a cold, hardened mafia man.”
“Do you?” Vortex asks, smirking at me. He turns, opening the door to the SUV. “Let’s get back. Maybe they’ve left some cake behind.”
“We can always buy more.” I step into the SUV and shut the door.
I glance at my grandfather’s mansion as we drive off.
There’s going to be a lot more cake in Seven’s future.