Chapter Twenty-Two
Gwen
My fist connected with the man’s jaw again.
My patience was nonexistent. I thought I lost it in Boston.
Actually, I lost it in Charlston, when Dean, James, and I came across eight hundred women and children, ready to be shipped and sold across the globe. Kay’s message said there were going to be about eighty women in a shipping container at the port of Charleston.
We were wrong, and I had never been so disgusted yet relieved to be wrong.
The first container contained one hundred children. My legs virtually gave out, Dean being the one to hold me steady in this unwavering sea of gloom and despair. My chest caved in when a young girl around Aiden’s age came forth holding a baby.
As if we hadn’t already been in the seventh circle of hell, a boy fled the container, crying out for his mother.
Of course, we all thought that was just normal behavior…
until he started reading the numbers on the sides of the containers out loud.
Dean approached him with a blinding gentleness, the same way he approached our son.
The boy appeared scared at first, but Dean got down on his haunches a few feet from him and began asking him questions.
The little boy said his momma was in container 44857 and pointed his finger up. James and I followed his finger, and there it was, 44857.
Already on the fucking ship. The agent next to me muttered something about not being paid enough and he should be allowed to kill more people for this shit as he called the mayor.
He was right; his mother was in that container, along with one hundred more women. And next to that container were five more filled with innocent souls.
Fast forward to now, I was standing in front of a bleeding man tied to a chair.
He was one of the buyers who had come to Charleston to sample the product before the transaction, and thanks to Kay, we knew where he was staying.
Unfortunately, Collin got to him first. He was already missing an ear.
According to my best friend’s vague message, there might have been more pressing matters elsewhere.
There was a man James arrested in Boston. When he was questioned by Dean, the man told my fiancé all the ways he was going to tie me up and fuck me.
My man didn’t like that.
Dean beat him with the barbed wire bat until he was unrecognizable.
After running his DNA through the system, he came up as a low-level player under the late Roman Barone.
Barone was an up-and-coming mafia man in Boston. After the death of his father six months ago, Roman took over. Not for long, it seemed. The youngest Barone, Anthony, was next in line for the head of the table in Boston, according to James.
A grunt brought me back into the room as irritation crawled over my skin.
The man before me was Sven Grismol, and he had a criminal record worse than Ted Bundy, a far bigger threat than Barone’s.
He grunted as blood and spit dripped from his lips.
“Answer my question, Sven,” I drawled, inspecting my nails. Years ago, I would only wear them naturally, but when I went to New York to seduce the insane mafia prince, I started getting them done.
I liked how the black contrasted against my skin and the powerful feeling the nails provided me. Aiden said it made me look like a vampire. Sadly, blood didn’t agree with my human stomach.
Torturing them would have to suffice.
“I don’t speak to whores,” he spat.
Slowly, I raised my leg, pressing the heel of my thigh high boot into his groin. He winced and trembled. “And I don’t show mercy, pissant. Answer the fucking question. Where were they going?”
Casey had been working on tracking down the shipping routes for each container, but Jeremy pulled her away to go rescue Haley. However, Haley had been back in St. Louis for two days, and Casey had yet to tell us anything.
Thus, I was torturing this man instead of going to see my best friend and my son.
We had him brought back to St. Louis for questioning, but we weren’t at the field office.
We were at Sullie’s safe house on the outskirts of the city.
Kevin Matthews’ chair was pressed against the far wall, facing us so he wouldn’t miss the show.
I ignored his green eyes as he stared at me, studying who I had become, because the sweet, innocent, book loving girl was dead.
She died the second Romano pulled me onto that dance floor at the Gala five years ago.
The man shook his head. I sighed. Oh, Sven.
I snapped my knee up, my foot colliding with his chin, causing his head to snap back. A cry of sheer pain left his swollen mouth.
“If you think I will show you a shred of mercy because I am a woman, you’ve got another thing coming,” I hissed, twisting and snatching a knife from the table. During these times, I missed my dagger.
My little “Black Death.”
I left it in Romano’s chest.
Sven’s head rolled down, his skin glistening with sweat, his breathing ragged.
“Last chance, Sven,” I said casually. I wasn’t professionally trained in the art of torture or interrogation, and I had no interest in learning the skills. However, playing the good cop was getting old and never got me the answers I wanted.
The man slowly raised his ugly head to look up at me, hatred in his eyes. “Fuck you,” he spat.
I smiled wickedly.
“Oh, Sven. I'm going to miss your feistiness,” I said, raising the knife. I was planning to stab him in the shoulder, just through the muscle. Not life threatening, but it would hurt like a fucking bitch. I had the medical knowledge to stop the bleeding and start it all over again if I wanted to.
“Stop.”
My head snapped to the green-eyed man in the corner. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”
He wasn’t in any position to give me orders.
“This isn’t you, Gwen,” Kevin said through dry lips, his voice cracking.
“You don’t know me,” I said calmly, reminding him of the lies he spewed to me and our group.
He showed no reaction aside from his eyes dropping from my face to Sven.
My old friend looked worse than before, and that was shocking, considering that Dom was the one checking in on him. Unless he had pissed Dom off.
A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of a scary Dom.
“Killing him won’t ease your pain,” Kevin slowly said, trying to play the angel on my shoulder. I already had an angel on my shoulder, and she was sitting in a chair reading a book, not bothered with what was happening.
“Listen to the boy, whor—”
I knocked the man in the chair out by slamming the butt of the knife into his temple. Pain shot through my wrist, but I ignored it. It would subside eventually. The scum’s head rolled back as his eyes closed.
The silence between us stretched, only the sound of the man’s breathing in the background. Even that annoyed me.
“No, but killing you might ease my pain,” I chirped, turning fully to Kevin, spinning the knife in my hands.
He shook his head, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I am sorry, for what it's worth—”
“The shit on the bottom of my shoe,” I countered, my lips thinning as i crossed my arms over my chest, propping my hip against the table.
“Be that as it may, Gwen, I am still sorry. I valued our friendship. Our little group was the only thing that kept me sane most days. I’m sorry for turning you into this.”
The ego on this fucker. I threw my head back and laughed.
“You had nothing to do with the woman I am today, Kev.”
The woman I was today was the person who survived, who overcame the pain and heartbreak. No one had anything to do with who I was, aside from my son. He made me a mother, after all.
“Gwen—”
“Say her name again, and I will snap your neck the same way I snapped your father’s. With this fucking bat.”
Every molecule in my body hummed at the sound of Dean’s voice.
I’d gotten into St. Louis a day ago, demanding to see Haley, but James put a stop to that. Even though I wanted to kick him in the balls for it, I knew that if the roles were reversed, Dean wouldn’t let her see me.
Not until he saw me.
Dean stayed in Charleston for an extra day to ensure that every single victim got food, water, and shelter.
I turned to find my baseball player leaning against the doorframe, his massive body taking up nearly the whole doorway.
His dirty blonde hair was down, framing his bearded jaw in the best way.
His hazel eyes were focused on Matthews, and his tattooed arms were folded over his chest, testing the limits of his black t-shirt.
My eyes traveled up the length of him, appreciating every single detail, as my heart began to skip a beat. When I got to his eyes, I sucked in a breath to find them on me. He tilted his head before he backed out into the hall, signaling me to follow him.
I threw the knife, the blade landing in the wall beside Kevin’s head. His green eyes went wide.
“You and I are not friends, Kevin,” I said as I walked out of the room.
Once my feet were over the threshold, the door was pulled shut and I was pushed against it.
Dean’s lips were on mine in an instant, his rough hands cupping either side of my face, setting my skin on fire as his thumbs stroked my cheeks.
We danced our timeless dance, his tongue demanding access that was granted with a small whimper.
His tongue met mine, and a low growl resonated from his throat as he pressed his hips against me.
Those rough hands snaked into my hair, fisting it, yanking my head back so that he could devour me to the point of senselessness.
My hands wrapped around his neck, my fingers tangling in his thick locks.
Oh, how I missed this.
I took his bottom lip in my mouth, and his right hand snapped down to my ass, taking a handful.
A moan slipped free from my mouth, my nipples hardening in my bra.