Ravaged Soul (Anaconda Tales #2)

Prologue

MAKES ME WANT YOU – SOMbr

Tucked away on the wire mezzanine floor of the warehouse’s office, I watch operations unfold beneath me. Countless workstations are occupied by laughing thugs, packaging little white pills to be pushed across the city this weekend.

We’re a fraction of the size we used to be, but contrary to popular belief, my family’s criminal empire didn’t burn entirely. I was happy for the world to believe it had so my people could move our work underground while I served time.

The fact that the assholes from Sabre Security thought they dismantled my entire operation when they arrested me is laughable, really. An organism this huge can’t merely be dismantled.

It has to be killed.

Fucking obliterated.

Each limb must be poisoned, allowed to rot, then sloughed away like dead skin cells in need of exfoliation. They did a shit poor job of that. Surface level at best.

The one thing they didn’t do a shit poor job of? Scaring the worthless piece of scum who fathered me into fleeing this city. I can’t find the motherfucker anywhere.

Legs propped up on my desk, I lazily tilt back in my office chair to blow smoke up towards the ceiling. The sight of my own bare, scar-littered chest awakens a hateful whisper in my mind.

You were born into a great dynasty, Blaine.

Yet you continually disappoint.

Gaze fixed on the glowing tip of the joint, its fragrant smoke does little to alleviate the bad memories. I don’t smoke cigarettes like he did before he put them out on my flesh, but a blunt is pleasurable once in a while.

Father used to light up before all of our ‘business meetings’ where he’d list my failures for that particular week. Even for a grown-ass man in his thirties, I still found myself afraid of the torture he’d dole out.

Childhood scars were soon replaced by adult ones, forming a motley patchwork of burns, slices and slashes that will forever remind me of the past. Dead or alive, I can’t ever forget my father’s violence.

“Where the hell is he?” a female voice screeches.

Is that…?

“Blaine!”

Jolting upright in surprise, I let my thumb pad lift from a particularly gnarly burn mark on my lower belly.

“Blaine motherfucking Madden!”

“Raye?” I call out.

“Where are you?”

“Up here.”

Without a door on the raised metal level, Raye is free to storm straight in from the factory floor. Her pierced face is set in a scowl, navy-blue pixie cut spiking in all directions above a stare that drips with aggravation.

Despite spending the past few months running our latest overseas venture, she’s unchanged. Still as sour-faced as ever. I’ve missed her take-no-crap attitude around here, if I’m honest.

“You’re back.”

“No shit!” Raye blusters. “Fuck, Blaine. Answer your phone for once.”

Shrugging, I gesture towards the switched-off device with my joint. “I’m thinking.”

“You and your thinking is what got us into this shit in the first place.”

“This shit being?”

Scrubbing a hand over her pale face, she rubs beneath her shadow-marked eyes. “I’m too tired for this.”

“You haven’t checked in since last week. I was starting to worry.”

“Because I had to be smuggled onto a cargo ship, sail across the Atlantic Ocean, then pay off some sleazy freight handlers to get back into the country unseen!”

A dark chuckle spills from my lips through a cloud of smoke. “It’s good to have you back, Raye.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t bullshit me. You’re incapable of worrying about another human being.”

“And you are?” I cock a brow in challenge.

“Fucking dickhead. Missed you too.”

“Alright, enough of that.” My hand rotates in a hurrying motion. “Don’t hold me in suspense.”

Kicking a half-empty box of plastic pill baggies, Raye throws up her hands. “You sent me to Mexico to track down the Lawson girl.”

“And did you?”

She scoffs hatefully. “Next time, send Spyder!”

“Raye…”

“He’d fit right in with the exploitative?—”

“Raye,” I repeat, my patience splintering. “Did. You. Find. Her?”

She drops into the armchair opposite my desk. “Sort of.”

My spine lengthens, solidified by anticipation-laced concrete. I quickly stub out the remaining length of my joint to give Raye my full attention.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I didn’t find Lawson, but I heard rumours about some big fight. Decided to check it out.”

Huffing, I lean sideways to tug open the bottom drawer of my desk. Inside, I keep a bottle of single malt whiskey for emergencies. Raye nods when I fill two chipped tumblers then offer one to her.

“Explain.”

“I was poking around a few of the underground fight clubs.” She knocks back her measure of amber nectar. “Figured working girls may be targeting the circuit, so it was a good place to look.”

My internal muscles clench tight as I roll smooth, smoky whiskey over my tongue then swallow. I’m hardly one to discuss the morals of anyone’s illegal operations, but the skin trade turns my fucking stomach.

I’ll push pills and weapons until my dying day and reap the rewards, but I’d never touch the worldwide trafficking of innocent lives. Not a chance. That’s a market reserved for the worst of the worst.

In every single country on this rotating rock, an underground market of stolen flesh exists. Every continent is guilty of it. So many victims, trapped in a mechanism they’ll never escape.

They’re left with no choice but to obey the commands of their captors, including prostitution and far worse. I know exactly how degrading it is to be imprisoned by someone else’s greed, just the thought of it makes my blood boil.

Sure, I’ve never been forced to sell my body. But I’ve torn off bloodied chunks of my soul and sold them to the highest bidder just to earn my father’s mercy enough times.

“Wasn’t paying much attention to the fight until I heard it end.” Raye sets her empty glass down. “Imagine my surprise when I recognised the woman doing a goddamn victory lap.”

I feel myself recoil in shock.

“Are you saying what I think you are?”

“Yeah,” she confirms solemnly. “It was Ember Lawson.”

Confusion seeps through me, intermingling with the fiery threads of liquor seeping into my bloodstream. “Ember Lawson was kidnapped over five years ago. We’re looking for a working girl or a body, not a damn street fighter.”

“It was her.” She shrugs, leaving no room for doubt.

“You got proof?”

“What do you take me for? I saw her myself. Lawson broke some Puerto Rican dude’s cheekbone… before she broke his leg for good measure.”

Hand thrusting into her pocket, Raye fishes out her mobile phone. I wait in tense anticipation as she brings up her photos then shoves the device towards me so I can see the screen.

“Look.”

Well, fuck me gently.

Thumbing through a series of decent shots, the delicate sweep of Lawson’s oval-shaped face, paired with two grey-blue eyes that seem to violently pierce her opponent, are unmistakable once I zoom in.

Through our research, I’ve seen enough old photos to know that Lawson was originally a redhead. The bleach-blonde job on her missing persons’ photos is long gone now, replaced by fiery, natural auburn.

She’s lithe and muscled, her taut body rippling with iron-like strength. My fingers tighten on Raye’s phone as I study the way her supple curves, defined calves and tight, pert ass seem to dominate the screen.

“Believe me now?” Raye challenges.

Tongue held, I merely nod.

“Good. I’m told she won nearly half a mil in illegal bets that night. Everyone knows her as 768 now.”

Disgust forces my muscles to clench. “768?”

“Apparently.”

“Little more than a number.”

“That may be so, but her reputation speaks for itself. She’s the crown jewel of the cartel’s collection.”

Passing the phone back to Raye, I flex my hands to crack my knuckles. I don’t owe this bitch anything—she’s little more than a pawn to me—but the inhumane treatment still sours my stomach. I dislike needless suffering.

Still, this isn’t a personal endeavour for me. I want the leverage that Ember Lawson’s safe return from overseas will provide. Our little jailbird has some very powerful familial connections. Ones that I intend to exploit.

“Well, shit.”

“Precisely my reaction,” Raye agrees drily.

“This just got a lot more complicated.”

It’s taken almost eighteen months of work to make it this far. Fuck knows how she’s survived this long. Especially if the cartel has her working a shady, street fight circuit.

“So she was spared the flesh market and turned into some kind of business asset instead.” I lean back in my chair, kneading the stress that’s strangling my neck. “How unexpected.”

“Tell me about it. If we knew where to look, we could’ve saved ourselves a whole lot of time instead of looking for her in sleazy strip clubs.”

“We have her now.” My bare shoulder lifts then drops. “The rest is irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?” Raye scowls so hard, I wonder if she’s attempting to melt my skin. “I was smuggled on a fucking ship, Blaine!”

“Your paycheck shall reflect your hardships.”

“You’re damn right it will.”

Ignoring her disgruntlement, I try to gather my windswept thoughts. My mind is whirring uncontrollably, tossing out different scenarios and options. Complicated doesn’t begin to cover the clusterfuck Raye has uncovered.

This was meant to be easy. Locate Lawson, pluck her out of whatever hovel the cartel had her working in, or perhaps locate her corpse, then deliver her to those dickheads at Sabre to secure myself the favour of the century.

That’s a little hard to do when our mark is a bonafide assassin raking in millions for a powerful criminal empire. She’ll be near impossible to locate, let alone free.

“Where is she now?” I demand. “Fuck, you should’ve stayed in Mexico! We need eyes on her.”

Snatching the bottle of whiskey, Raye dumps an oversized measure into her own glass, disregarding mine. I watch her angrily toss it back with barely a wince.

“First of all, fuck you. I did my job. I found her.”

“Well, you?—”