Chapter 1
Hemlock
It takes several very long seconds for the roar of my motorcycle to fade out into the echo of the surrounding mountains, leaving me with nothing but the faint sounds of music coming from the small bar.
The Lost Kitten.
My lip twitches in irritation as I stare at the flickering neon sign. It's like evil men don't even try to hide what they're doing these days. Either they think they're operating with impunity or they're so egotistical they think they will never get caught. Either way, I hate the owner of this bar already, and I've never even lain my eyes on anything other than a picture of him from the dossier I was given earlier today.
Ace, or Special Agent Eddie Yarrow as he's known in more recent years, suggested I take a day or two to acclimate myself to East Tennessee before getting to work, but I've never been one to do well with idle time.
I stay stock-still when the front door of the bar opens, the twang of country music following the man out, meeting my ears just in time for it to fade once again when it closes behind him. The shadows cover most of me, and I've learned from experience that there aren't many people as willing to talk to a sneering man sitting on a bike as they are to one under a floodlight with a smile on their face. I'm the epitome of unapproachable. Those words were verbatim from the good Dr. Alverez, the shrink all members of Cerberus were required to see on a regular basis .
"Your mental health is as important as your physical health."
I do my best not to snort my derision at the memory of Kincaid, the Farmington, New Mexico Cerberus club president, telling me that when I assured him there wasn't anything a head doctor could do to help me.
The pink neon in the sign flashes, going completely black, leaving me in total darkness.
I count four seconds before it starts working again.
Silence swarms around me, my heart pounding harder than it should.
It isn't nerves or excitement. I'm not jittery at the prospect of the job laid out before me.
Hell, I'm not even happy that my transition from Cerberus MC to East Tennessee went so smoothly.
I wish things were different. I wish I didn't crave the things I do, but we all have our crosses to bear, don't we?
I press one boot into the gravel, lifting my other over my bike, wondering if the lack of lighting out here is intentional. If the shadows serve a purpose for the type of business it's suspected they're operating out of the back.
The Lost Kitten was found on a list, along with over half a dozen other locations all around the United States. A list of bars isn't something that would normally raise any suspicions if it was say in the hands of a man collecting matchbooks from hole-in-the-wall bars, but this list was found in the belongings of Nathan Adair, a criminal notorious for human sex trafficking.
Adair was in the wind, somehow disappearing while under fucking surveillance by ICE. It seems the man is more skilled than whichever Immigrations and Customs agents who were responsible for following him that day. No one asked me, but if they did, I'd wager those agents were paid very well to be less skillful that day. Nathan Adair has a history of being extra slippery when he needs to be.
His stepdaughter was out of his control for over a year and ICE still knows nothing concrete about the man .
Nathan Adair and the thousands of men like him, the ones who think they can just take and take and hurt without penance, are the reason I'm here today.
Cerberus New Mexico, with all of those lovey-dovey couples, wasn't a good fit for me, but I figure this type of work, the kind that keeps me independent and alone, will be a much better fit. It keeps me mostly on the right side of the law, although there's a little less oversight for this black-ops type organization Ace somehow got the green light for.
Technically, I'm still Cerberus, but also not. In my head, it makes sense. In my head, I can understand that I'm still going to be considered the good guy even when doing some awful things. For me, that's huge. It's what keeps me from crossing the line I've always struggled with.
I run through the information I do have, albeit minimal, about The Lost Kitten, as I make my way to the front door.
The business is owned by Tommy Wilkinson, a man as slimy as a slug but who has also somehow managed to keep a squeaky-clean record his entire life. The lack of charges or convictions means nothing to me. I also have a clean record, and I've done some pretty depraved things in my lifetime.
He could easily have others doing his dirty work or he's got the local police force in his pocket.
There hasn't been a high number of disappearances around here, but the Gatlinburg, Sevierville, and Pigeon Forge areas have a slightly higher rate of homelessness due to the chronic influx of tourists. Local governments have done their best to keep that population to a minimum, but the economy isn't getting any better, leaving more and more people without a place to call home.
It's very possible that more people are missing than the police have on record, and it's widely known that some of the most victimized populations are the ones some in society consider throwaways. Many serial killers have used this mindset when attempting to justify their crimes .
We don't know if they're grabbing women from this bar or if they're trafficking them from other locations through here.
A ton of space isn't needed for sick, deviant men to pay for a little time with a woman. As much as people want to think they can just look at someone and know whether they were in a situation of their own free will or not, it's not always that simple.
Many victims are controlled through threats or drug addiction. They aren't always in chains in the basement.
I'll be the first to admit that when I joined the Marine Corps, I was ignorant of just how easy it was to hide such depravity in broad daylight, but my work through special units in the Corps, the time I spent with Cerberus in New Mexico, and the countless missions I went on, I've gotten much better at looking past what people want you to see and identifying what's really going on.
As always, my heart rate tries to sync itself with my surroundings, only the country song playing from the sound system isn't one that's fast-paced enough, leaving my heart in a weird beat that seems to skip every other pulse.
Sweat begins to mark my brow, anxiety urging me to put myself in a different situation, one where I can control everything.
My eyes make a quick circuit of the bar, noting every person that's inside, and trying to determine who might be a threat. My head tells me that everyone, including the old lady rushing around behind the bar top preparing drinks, could easily be an enemy.
Other than the hallway marking the restrooms, there's only the front entrance I just walked through and a door off of the far-left side of the bar. I have no doubt there's at least a storage room, a place where they keep the supplies and beer kegs. If I'm lucky, Tommy Wilkinson will have an office where he's sloppy with his business, allowing me to gain all the info I need once I get the chance to get back there and snoop around. But that won't happen today. I need to get a feel for the place, understand the ambiance, before I can make any sort of move.
It would be easy to bulldoze my way in here and demand answers, but I've learned from doing that in the past that a little finesse goes a long way.
I make my way closer to the bar, working out in my head the words I'll use to order my beer, as I make my way across the room. I feel every eye in the place on me, and by the time I press my stomach to the wooden bar, the resistance of the handgun I have there pressing into my gut, the woman I expected to speak with is gone, replaced by a woman too pretty to be in a place like this.
I'm no stranger to pretty women. The New Mexico clubhouse was filled with them. Pretty women are a dime a dozen. So are smiling women who work for tips. Hopefully, she'll be a professional who will get my beer and leave me the hell alone.
My scowl doesn't make her smile falter in the slightest, but it would be ignorant of me to growl at her or bring any more attention to myself than I already have.
The handful of people in the bar makes me think the darkness outside and lack of approachability are intentional. I'd wager that every person in here lives within a handful of miles of this place, and they know each other by name, even though there are only two people sitting together.
"I'll take a beer," I grunt, a deviation from my plans to ask the elderly lady what they have on tap. "Bottle. Leave the cap on."
I swear her smile widens, and maybe with the business they could possibly be running out of the back, I might appear to be exactly the type of customer they’re looking for.
Bile threatens to force itself up my throat as I fight the urge to explain the type of man that I am, that I'm not the type of man to hurt a woman. I drop my eyes to the front of her shirt, noting the tightness and the small red stain near her right hip. It's not blood, more likely some type of mix for a drink she got sloppy with earlier.
It makes me wonder what else she gets sloppy with. Is she involved? Does she lure unexpecting women into sexual slavery? Does she coo and flirt with men, convince them to meet her after work, only telling them there's a fee right as she's unzipping their pants?
The way she continues to grin at me makes my skin begin to crawl with a different kind of urgency.
"Beer. Bottle. Cap on," I repeat.
This time she dips her head in a nod, and I fight the urge to stare at her ass when she turns around. I let my eyes float down the bar.
A man sitting on the end dips his head—what normal people do when a big surly motherfucker catches them being nosy. It's what the bartender probably should've done rather than grinning at me like she's found her next mark.
I pull a ten from my wallet, leaving it waiting on the bar when she turns back to hand me my beer.
"Here you go, stranger," she says as she slides the beer across to me.
I take it and walk away, not giving her a response. I don't miss the way my heart pauses for a second while she's speaking.
The calmness inside of me only lasts as long as her voice does. Then the shadows and racing pulse take back over.
The only time I feel that sort of calm is when I'm coated in an evil man's blood, his life in my hands.
An eerie, ominous feeling washes over me as I pull out a pub chair in the far back corner of the bar, hating that it could be some sort of premonition about what that woman will mean to me. I've been very diligent about not hurting women. Even on my darkest days, it's never been something I’ve struggled with.
I watch her as she works, her smile wide for every person she speaks with. It was nothing special for me. She's working. It's that simple.
I can't shove away the idea that she could very easily end up at the tip of my blade because of her involvement with this place.
The glances my way never stop, but even as the night drags on, no one else steps out from the back. Once the older lady walked away, replaced by the smiling one, I never saw her again .
It's very possible that Tommy doesn't get involved in the day-to-day activities of this place. He could be as innocent as his lack of criminal history makes others believe. It's up to me to determine why this place was listed with others for Nathan Adair.
I leave the bar before the last two people do. I don't want to be here with only me and the smiling woman.
I sit in the shadows until everyone else gets into their cars and drive home for the night, leaving without waiting for her to exit the building.