19. Nineteen
Nineteen
Liam
The bar is old with red blood-warm brick walls and life-size picture frames of unforgettable rock stars from Led Zeppelin to the Rolling Stones.
Black and white stripes behind the liquor shelves make each bottle look as if it belongs to a prison with a giant Elvis Presley in the background, a perfect Jailhouse Rock.
The music matches the energy as people mingle in leather booths curved like confessionals, swallowing anyone’s sins who slide into them while wishing to live like a rock and roll legend.
Crystal ashtrays sit in the centers of scarred oak tables, instantly elevating the debauchery of this place in the Costa Del Sol of Marbella.
It is a place built for deals no one speaks of in daylight, my favorite spot in Spain to pay a little visit to an old-time friend.
When Mateo sees Damien and I walk in, he does a double take at the two tall, tattooed dudes before he realizes it’s us.
He wears the same “showtime” expression from the night we first met, right after catching his wife with the bartender and tried to slice off his dick with a bread knife.
Some people leave one heck of an impression, and I remember thinking ‘I need to know this guy.’
Mateo doesn’t look like a man who needs a gun to be dangerous.
He’s in his mid-forties, Spanish, with a faint accent that softens the edges of his English; it’s almost poetic.
His skin carries the warm bronze of the coast, weathered by sun and sex, and at his temples the first strands of gray thread through light brown hair.
It makes him look expensive, but it’s his eyes that make people stop, the green, sharp and alive that women call hypnotic.
He relaxes with a side smile and a warm greeting as his hands open wide and shifts his cigar between his teeth.
He hasn’t missed a ploy in five years of working for me, and he is one of my best guys, ex-cop and still has all the resources at his fingertips while he's got a knack for hunting down the men who'd make the devil himself uncomfortable.
Mateo gestures for us to follow him into the bar’s red glow. The smoke from his cigar curls around his smile and jawline and disappears into the back room to retrieve the files we came for, as we sit at the table in his office.
I try to focus on the paperwork and photos, but the voices in my head keep breaking through the edges of my concentration, an insistent, mosquito-whining sound that won’t stop.
I think of Joe laughing and the ease he once brought into a room with us, and I miss him like a punch in the gut in this very moment.
Mateo flicks through the stack of photos next to him, Damien taking one of them with his tattoos darkening each knuckle.
“Jesus, there it is,” Mateo mutters, sliding out another glossy print and slapping it on the table in front of me. “This is the girl. Look.”
I lean in. The shot is probably drone footage of a sleek white yacht and a girl perched at the stern, knees tucked under her in a brown dress.
She’s fifteen, maybe sixteen, but her eyes are older, fixed on the horizon as if she already knows what waits for her on the other side.
Mateo cups his lighter to light his cigar and takes a drag between his teeth.
“No one has seen her since, and we have names on three other girls,” he continues, “all from France, all reported missing within days of each other. They released some once they understood that someone was looking for them, but most are orphans of the world.”
I look over Damien, as he has a better photographic memory than I do; two years ago, while we were in Monaco for a car racing event, he instantly recognized the missing girl we saw in a picture a couple of weeks prior.
She was sitting next to a fat, rich pig, and Damien didn’t hesitate to go up to her, pretending to be her big brother.
We were able to smoothly extract her. Very public places make it easier to save the girls.
These pieces of shit wish to avoid public dramatics, but in secluded areas, just like on these yachts or their “domain” with their security prowling, it requires more tactics.
Until you are behind closed doors, you cannot see that these women are scared out of their minds.
Some have been sold, some abused, and some are objects for public gratification.
“We swept one in Barcelona last week,” Mateo says. “Nothing. No drugs, no paperwork, and according to the manifest, none of these women were ever on board.”
“Of course they weren’t,” I mutter. “They don’t do paperwork for this shit.” My jaw tightens.
I look at the photo again, but Sara’s face burns over the girl’s.
Her wide brown eyes the night she saw me kill that man, her body jerking under my hands in the bathtub when she cut herself, and the way she kissed me perched on my kitchen island, my cock hard against her, like I wasn’t a monster.
I try to erase her, but her voice is too loud replaying when she moaned and practically begged me for more.
Christ.
I drag my hand down my face, but the ghosts don't move. The girl I found years ago in the abandoned house still weighs on my mind. She’d been the one to open my eyes on my life’s purpose.
After my mom, that is. Watching my old man’s fists break my mother in half, I promised that no woman in my sight will ever suffer at the hands of evil.
Meanwhile, Sara, so reckless, running into that house has bled that memory wide open.
“This isn’t enough,” I say, my eyes darting to both of them.
“We have a pattern,” Damien argues. “Girls disappear around these yachts, and the few who come back won’t talk.”
“The ones I’ve reached are terrified,” Mateo adds. “But one of them did hand me this discreetly.”
“What is it?” Damien asks, and both of our eyes close in on a business card he pushes toward us on the table, with the name Charles Wayne, a phone number, and Velastra written in a dark, elegant blue.
“Is Velastra a boat?” I ask and Mateo nods, placing a picture of the yacht in question as I read off the name of the luxurious shit hole in the photo.
“Yes, I found it and it's a ghost,” Mateo says. “Not a single bank account you can follow, but it's the only one that's been on the logs for three different docks the past two years, and that same guy, Charles is on the list. I'm flagging this one.”
Damien watches us as if we've bitten him. “You find one thing and the rest unravels,” he mutters.
“Yup, and this one is shady.” Mateo rubs his jaw. “Their route bounces too much from one place to another.” He taps the picture of the boat again for me to memorize it.
He points to the Panamanian flag on the boat’s deck. “They sure as fuck haven’t docked back in Panama. That alone is a red flag.”
“Of course they haven’t.” Damien snorts.
This is where the law gets tricky. The yachts don’t have to abide by the laws of where they dock, as long as it’s not the country of origin. So, when the boat is in another country, the authorities have no power to enforce their regulations over the vessel.
Not their country, not their law, not their jurisdiction, and I make it my problem.
Mateo stands and crosses to the window. He pulls back the curtain and peers into the alley.
I can see the paranoia working through his head; he’s not as worried about us getting caught doing this undercover work as he is about losing sleep at night over the possibility of not saving each one of these lost souls.
I admire him for that.
“If you want more on Velastra, I can get it,” Mateo explains. “It’s been moving through Saint-Tropez for years without drawing attention. I’ll need local eyes.”
“Do it.” I could dress that up. I could say no, but I have no one to protect, not anymore.
And Sara? I’ll make sure that she keeps her little mouth shut and doesn’t go near these yachts, like any of the girls I try to save and often succeed.
Not all of them are trafficking rings, of course, but one is enough.
Damien smiles without humor. “What are we waiting for?” Mateo’s eyes flick to him and walks back to us. I watch them treat this crisis like chess players trading pieces. Every plan sounds plausible but dangerous.
“What I want,” I say, clear and flat. “Is a window. Give me a night, a dock, and I’ll get eyes on it. I’ll tell you when to move in with your crew.”
Mateo lifts a shoulder, “Done. Just remember, don’t go rogue.” He looks at me with a knowing smirk at my temper and continues, “there’s no perfect play. There’s the least bad play, and that one involves us, our crews, prudence, and discretion.”
“Noted.” My jaw tightens, eager to do what we can.
We devise a plan with both advantages and disadvantages: risks to our lives and risks to our freedom.
However, we’ve received training, and no one else is helping these girls.
Not the government. Not the courts. France’s justice system moves too slowly, especially in family law.
Women and children wait months, sometimes years for protection while restraining orders are ignored and cries for help are met with skepticism.
Too many innocent lives are lost, or ruined waiting for a system to prove them right.
Our methods might be harsh, but hesitation costs lives.
Joe and I were almost at the receiving end of this bullshit when my mom wanted a way out and our custody was going to be given to my father, our abuser. So, my mom stayed until I took care of it for her, for us.
Then there’s trafficking. Missing girls.
Predators who thrive in the gaps no one wants to acknowledge.
We operate in those gaps. Some cops hate us, while others look the other way.
A few have quietly reached an understanding with Mateo and me because they know what takes us hours would take the system months.
It still comes with its challenges and dangers, but necessary.