Chapter 59
FIFTY-NINE
Jez
I WAS HALF-ASLEEP WHEN the others dragged me into the entertainment room, but that wasn’t the reason my brain kept stuttering over the image of a tall, square-jawed alpha in silk pajamas and a bathrobe getting dragged past a group of chattering reporters and shoved into the back of an official-looking black vehicle with his hands securely bound behind him.
“You’re sure that’s him?” I asked Knox.
Our pack leader looked similarly groggy after having been roused from a sound sleep. However, that didn’t dull the sharp edges of the smile he was wearing. “Oh, that’s definitely him.”
Gage was scrolling his phone one-handed, having passed the TV remote to Heath. This was the third time Heath had rewound the footage to show the perp-walk to the SUV, and I was pretty sure I could have watched it another dozen times without getting bored.
“Says here they scooped up everyone in the house,” Gage said, not looking away from his phone. “Thirteen people arrested, with more expected in the next few days as they follow up with other ‘people of interest’.”
“Anything yet about the charges?” Knox asked.
Gage scrolled some more. “Suspicion of interstate sex-trafficking of minors... solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of fifteen... conspiracy to commit sex-trafficking... conspiracy to murder. Shit. They’re really throwing the book at him. Paolo must be singing like a canary.”
“He is if he knows what’s good for him,” Knox said grimly.
Once again, I felt a little shiver travel down my spine at the cold calculation in the pack alpha’s voice—confirming what I already knew, that I was just bent enough in the head to find Knox’s icy manipulation of Paolo a turn-on.
Gage’s eyes flicked to me, and he snorted. “Hey, Knox? You smell the way Jez’s scent changed just now? That’s how she smells when she wants to jump your bones.”
Knox cleared his throat awkwardly. I was pretty sure that if his skin was any lighter, I’d have seen his cheeks redden. Mine were certainly flaming.
“Sorry,” I said in a small voice.
“Don’t worry, it’s not just you,” Tony muttered.
“I can’t believe you pulled this off,” Heath put in. “Do you think the feds will be able to get any of those charges to stick?”
Knox looked relieved at the change of subject. “Let’s just say I’ve got deep pockets, and I intend to use those deep pockets to ensure that the Vozzina pack gets nailed to the fucking wall.”
I swallowed the helpless whimper of arousal that tried to escape, even if I couldn’t do anything about my scent. It would be bad and wrong of me to ask Knox if he’d be willing to talk like that while he was fucking me in the heat nest, right?
... right?
Gage looked at me with a furrow forming between his heavy brows. “This is really affecting you, kitten. You too, Tony. Knox was always gonna do whatever it took to make sure these assholes pay for what they did.”
I exchanged a helpless glance with Tony.
He found his words first.
“That’s the thing, though. People like Lorenzo Vozzina don’t ever pay for the stuff they do. Not as long as they only hurt the victims that no one in power cares about.”
That was exactly it.
I licked my lips. “I learned way too young that what happens to people like me doesn’t matter.”
“It fucking does,” Heath said. His presence snapped angrily inside the bond, like flames licking at dry wood.
“It does to you,” I shot back. “But you are literally the first people I’ve ever met who were actually doing something about it, even though it put you at risk.”
Tony huffed out a breath. “They’re the third people I’ve met. The first was a pack in St. Louis who helped me get out from under my stepfather’s boot. You were the second, Jez.”
I paused, my jaw clicking shut as I remembered the resounding crack of a heavy lamp base slamming into bone.
“And this pack was the third,” Tony added. “But it’s different, seeing society forced to deal with someone like Vozzina publicly. That’s the part that doesn’t seem real.”
Knox’s voice and expression softened. “The Vozzinas are about to experience just how real things can get. It’s wrong that neither of you got the help you needed, back when you really needed it. It’s wrong, and to the extent that it’s within my power, I’m not going to let it stand.”
“We’ve been chipping away at the edges of this shit,” Gage said. “Doing damage control... sticking our thumbs in the dike, trying to plug up the holes. Maybe it’s time to drain the floodwaters instead.”
Knox raised an eyebrow. “Tortured metaphors aside, you should both know up front that the court cases are likely to drag on for ages. Dockets, appeals, more appeals... there won’t be instant justice.
But with everything I’ve put in motion, there isn’t going to be any bond set for these assholes.
The Vozzina pack is behind bars, and they’ll stay that way while the wheels of justice grind onward. ”
“So, we’re safe now?” I hadn’t meant to ask the question aloud. But I’d never been safe. Not being safe was, quite possibly, the defining characteristic of my entire life to date.
Heath and Gage exchanged a glance, twin waves of protectiveness washing across our connection. Heath crossed the room and wrapped me in his arms. Then he gestured with one for Tony to join us in a three-way hug.
Gage grumbled, “Argh. These fucking bones can’t knit fast enough. Give ’em an extra squeeze for me, Heath.”
“Jez—you and Tony are members of my pack,” Knox said, from his perch against a heavy side table. “Any danger that comes for you has to go through all three of us first.”
I felt Tony tremble in reaction to the words... or maybe that was me.
“And there’s a lot fewer dangers for us now, with these sadistic shitheads locked up in the slammer,” Gage said with finality.
Tony let out an unsteady breath and eased away from Heath’s hold.
“In that case, do you think we could arrange an overnight trip to St. Louis, one of these days?” he asked. “There are some people back home that I’d really like you all to meet.”
I’d heard a lot from Tony about the pack in St. Louis that had helped him when he was a kid.
I wanted to meet them, but I was also super-nervous about it.
Not a surprise to anyone, since I didn’t exactly have a lot of experience being invited to nice places where I was expected to make polite small talk with respectable people that I was trying to impress.
For better or worse, it ended up taking several more weeks before Knox was willing to consider traveling away from the safety of the gated community where we were staying.
This was good in one way, because it meant that Gage was out of his leg cast and sling, although he was still using a cane and doing PT exercises several times a day.
However, it was also nerve-wracking, because the main reason Knox kept putting off the trip was because the police and FBI were still tracking down more people connected with Lorenzo Vozzina’s operation.
An abundance of caution, he called it.
Even Knox seemed taken aback by how huge the investigation had grown.
“I thought we were tackling one asshole and his minions, trafficking omegas through Chicago as a side hustle,” he muttered, after yet another call with his team of high-paid lawyers. “But this fucker has been running the largest operation in the Midwest, with ties to Mexico and Canada as well.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Canada?” I asked in a choked voice.
He put his phone down, giving me his full attention. The two of us were alone in the kitchen—him with a cup of coffee, me with a late breakfast since I’d overslept for the third day in a row. I’d been exhausted and cranky for the past few days, and this new revelation wasn’t helping.
“Yes,” Knox confirmed. “I’m not sure that we’ll ever be able to prove it legally, this far after the fact. But it’s possible—even probable—that the people your father sold you to were part of his operation.”
I tried to process that for a few moments, and failed utterly.
“Oh,” I said, after a long pause.
Knox looked as though he was debating his next words. “Jez... I’ve been meaning to ask you something, but I’m not sure how to do it.”
“Just ask,” I said.
At this point, how bad could it be?
He gave a slow nod. “Would you be willing to give me your father’s last name, so I can try to track him down? Whether you were trafficked through the Vozzina syndicate or some other group, he should be held to account.”
I sat very still. For several moments, I didn’t even breathe.
Omega freeze instinct, hard at work.
“Jez?” Worry laced Knox’s voice.
Heavy footsteps beat rapidly toward the kitchen. Heath appeared in the doorway.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“I asked Jez if she’d like me to try and track down her father,” Knox said quietly. “For justice.”
The clack of a cane on tile announced Gage’s arrival a few moments later. He raised his free hand when Heath glanced at him and drew breath to speak. “I heard him. Jez? You okay?”
“Yeah,” I managed.
“What do you think about what Knox said?” he asked gently.
“Levine,” I said.
“What?” Heath asked.
“My father’s name is Levine. Michael Levine. We lived in Thunder Bay, Ontario.” I met Knox’s dark eyes and held them, unblinking. “Do it. Find him and bury him so deep in the legal system that he never sees the light of day.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen,” he vowed. “But I also have to ask about your mother. Was she involved at all?”
I shook my head so fast that my neck hurt. “No! She tried to stop him. He hit her. Knocked her down. I didn’t see her get up afterward. I don’t know if she—”
My throat closed up, cutting off the words. Gage limped forward, his big hand closing on my shoulder and squeezing.
“If I can find her as well, would you want to have contact with her?” Knox asked, still in that painfully gentle tone.