Chapter 15
Jericho
I glare at the side of Hemlock's head, as if the harder I stare, the more likely I'll be able to hear the conversation, which with how low he's talking, would require superhuman abilities. I can't even manage to get my very human emotions under control today.
I'm antsy, pacing more often than I'm sitting but we've gotten nothing.
All leads have gone nowhere. All the addresses we've managed to find haven't panned out to anything other than a low-level trap house in Queens and an abandoned property in Rhode Island.
As flashy as Damien is with his money, and the ways he likes to have fun, the organization has most of its holdings locked down pretty tight. I know that has more to do with Ivan's paranoia than anything else. If Damien had been in control longer, we might be having better luck.
Hemlock shakes his head when he ends the call, telling me once again that they didn't find Eli in the house a team had just raided in New Haven. I'd put a lot of hope into that one in particular since it's one of the closer ones to the place we have to assume Eli was at in Hartford.
"Nothing?" I ask.
"Not a damn thing," he says.
I move my gaze to the bodyguard. If I didn't know how Ivan worked, I'd swear the man knows more than he has told us. But after the months I spent with his crew, I know just how disjointed each segment is. I have to consider that Damien is still operating this same way since it has kept Ivan Reese working with damn near perfect impunity for decades. It's one of the things that wasn't broken within the organization.
When I look away again, I see Hemlock is watching the man too. I imagine he's thinking the same thing. There are ways to get people to talk. If the bodyguard is paying attention, his loyalties will more than likely still reside with Damien because the evil bastard has his daughter, and we haven't produced Eli yet. I doubt he has any confidence in our ability to get her free from danger, and there have been times since all this shit started that I feel the same way.
"Tell me again what you do for Damien," Hemlock demands, his voice flat and more than a little scary.
"I drive Mrs. Gaines to her hair appointments."
"You think I'm going to believe that you're employed simply to make a trip into town once a week?" I snap, wondering if it was a good idea to untie the bastard.
Hemlock wanted the man to feel like he wasn't a prisoner, but I doubt he'd be allowed to just stand up and walk out of here.
"What do you do in your downtime the other six fucking days of the week?" Hemlock asks, and I can tell he’s at the end of his patience with this entire situation. As connected to this case as I am, I'm glad for it.
I don't want to sit around and wait. It leaves me feeling helpless and incapable of protecting the people who need it.
I can't even be sure this guy is telling the truth. He could be lying about the daughter to gain sympathy. Damien could have only Eli and this piece of shit just used the information he had to include himself on the victim list.
"There's a warehouse down off Union. A lot of guys work there when we don't have other assignments." His eyes dart between the two of us twice before they narrow. "Am I going to go to prison?"
"Have you done something for Damien Gaines or Ivan Reese that is an imprisonable offense?" Hemlock asks.
Samuel's lips form a flat line, and I can tell by the look in his eyes that the answer is yes.
"What would you do for the ones you love?" he asks, voice low.
"I'd burn the fucking world down and everyone in it," Hemlock answers.
Samuel shifts his weight in the chair he has stayed in since we untied him, but he doesn't speak again for several long moments.
"So I could go to prison?"
Hemlock pulls in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly with a long sigh. "We aren't the fucking feds. We aren't police. We can't offer you shit in exchange for what you know," Hemlock explains. "What I can do is cut away tiny fucking pieces of you until you spill all your fucking secrets. Either way, we'll get the information out of you."
"Who are you then?" Samuel asks, sounding much braver than I know he is from the way his leg is bouncing up and down.
There's a very real chance this guy is just a low-level man in the organization, and he hasn't been given much information. At the same time, he's also trusted with Damien's most lucrative pawn every single week, and that faith in him makes me believe he's more than just a driver.
"Your worst fucking nightmare," Hemlock says, a sinister edge to his voice that makes me glad that I'm on his team instead of the focus of his ire.
"I don't know shit," Samuel mutters, and he drops his eyes from the previous glare at Hemlock. "Drugs are packaged at the warehouse. We monitor the people splitting the shit and getting it ready for distribution."
"The exact address would be nice," Hemlock says. "Would save us a lot of time and energy."
"He'll fucking kill me or my daughter," Samuel argues.
"I understand your dilemma," Hemlock replies,giving the man nothing to make a very difficult decision on his own.
I leave them to it, walking toward the bedroom. I knock gently on the door because I have no idea what state she'll be in. I want her to know that even though we swiped her right off the street, we're here to help and not hold her hostage, although I don't know how far I'd let her walk if she tried to take off.
My heart pounds when she doesn't respond from the other side, and I don't waste a second pushing open the door, praying she isn't stupid, thinking she could survive in the harsh winter raging outside.
She looks up at me from the same spot I left her earlier, sitting on the bed.
"I'm not going to be much help," she whispers, pointing to the half-empty page of the notebook. "It's a really shitty time to realize I don't pay much attention to my surroundings in life."
"Most people don't," I offer as I step inside and close the door behind me. "No one really thinks they'll be put in a situation where they'll need to know details that may save their lives."
"Is that what this is? If I can't help you and that other man, then I'm useless."
"I didn't mean it that way," I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose.
"You used to do that when you'd get frustrated," she whispers, making me drop my hand from my face.
"We aren't taking a trip down memory lane, Aspen."
Sadness fills her red-rimmed eyes, but she dips her head in understanding. I'm navigating the most difficult path I've ever faced. Long ago, I accepted that we weren't meant to be a part of each other's worlds. We were too different. The only thing she hated about the life her father raised her in was that she was controlled too tightly. She didn't have a problem with the effects the business had on society. I don't think it ate away at her the way it did me every day I had to wake up and pretend to be a part of it, to turn away from the things I'd seen because the damage wasn't enough to bring a case against Reese.
At the end of all this, I don't just get to walk away. I'll have Eli to consider and there isn't one fucking scenario that has run through my head that includes him not being part of the equation. We will get him back. I just have to figure out what my life going forward looks like.
I could never walk away from my son, but I also have to take into account that my job is incredibly dangerous. Just like there are people out there who would want to use Eli as a pawn for Gaines's business, the same people would want to hurt him because of my connection to him. I fucking hate the realization that I'm just as bad for Eli as Damien is. It's the bitterest pill on my tongue. I think the only thing that makes a huge difference here is that where Damien seems to be using the boy as a pawn to get his way, I'd lay down my life to keep him safe.
I consider being a father, and how, although I've been a huge advocate for children my entire life, I've never felt as close or invested in one as I do for Eli, and I haven't even met him yet.
I hate the time we've missed. I hate that he has called another man Dad. That's if Damien even allowed it.
I drop down into the chair a few feet from the bed and stare at her. I have a billion questions, but I know asking them right now would only anger me more, so I stick with something a little safer than wondering what my son's life has been like.
"How well do you know Samuel?"
She shrugs. "I don't, really. He's been taking me to the salon for a few months, but that's it. The drivers don't speak to me. I don't speak to them."
"Do you trust him?"
"Can you trust anyone linked to Damien?" she asks, and I wonder if it's a warning about herself and not just the others he employs.
"Do you think he's lying about his daughter?"
"I hope he is," she whispers. "Could my father possibly have been that horrible?"
"He was, Aspen. He was a horrible man. Him being your dad doesn't change who he was in his business dealings."
She gives me a sad smile as her eyes drop back down to the notebook sitting beside her on the bed.
"I wish things were different."
"I do too, Peach. I do too."