Chapter 30
“Rhode.”
Fuck.
Breathy. Needy. Hot. Close.
I took her mouth and her pussy until she mewed down my throat and clenched around my cock. Only then, with her sex still spasming, I slammed deep and let her tight, wet, heat milk me.
I wrenched my mouth free and looked down at the beautiful woman under me. Big ocean blue eyes full of rapture stared back at me.
The phone ringing woke me up.
Careful not to disturb a sleeping Brooklyn, I rolled her off my chest and reached for the phone.
“Lo?”
“Desi’s in custody.”
It had been a week since our meeting with Lawrence and nothing had happened.
The money was still sitting in an account in Canada.
No further threats were made. Kiki had walked out of the Horsemen clubhouse without a scratch on her.
She hadn’t done the smart thing and contacted her parents; instead, she was sleeping on some new scumbag’s couch with no money to her name.
Tug Anderson and the Horsemen were giving each other a wide berth.
Letty reopened her store. Brooklyn had gone back to work.
Remington back to preschool. We moved into our new office.
The Welshes were trying to get back to normal.
Brooklyn and I had looked at the house on twenty acres, she declared her love for the house, we made an offer, it was accepted, and we were fifteen days to closing.
Nothing had happened but life.
Normal life.
“You there?” Wilson asked.
“Yeah. I was just thinking about how we’ve had nothing but smooth for the last seven days.”
“Something was bound to fuck that up,” he returned.
“Station or office?”
“Station.”
“Be there in ten.”
I disconnected and looked over my shoulder to find pretty blue eyes looking at me.
Every night. Every morning.
For the rest of my life.
Ocean blue.
“Everything okay?”
Sleepy and sweet. My life was damn good.
“Yeah. I gotta meet the team at the station, Desi’s in custody.”
Her eyes widened comically before she brought her hand up to cover a yawn. The movement allowed the sheet to slip down, giving me a perfect view of her cleavage.
Brooklyn's gaze dropped to her chest then flicked back up to mine.
Smug.
“Last night went fast,” I told her. “Tonight I get to take my time.”
That got me more smug.
“I see you’re pleased with yourself,” I said.
“What can I say? Any time I can make you lose your mind and you jump me I’m pleased with myself.”
“Baby, you had your sweet mouth wrapped around my cock while you had your hand between your legs. Torture watching you get yourself off and suck me off at the same time.”
“You weren’t complaining last night,” she reminded me.
“And I’m not complaining now. Just pointing out that tonight’s your turn.”
I watched a tremor rush over Brooklyn and her lids went half-mast.
“Stop turning me on when you have to leave.”
Christ, she was right.
With a hard, brief kiss, I got out of bed.
“That’s all I get?” she asked to my back.
I turned to face the bed figuring this was one of those times it was better to show rather than explain.
Brooklyn’s gaze dropped and smiled at what she saw.
I didn’t need to look down to know my cock was hard and standing at attention.
“Careful with that thing. You might poke someone’s eye out.”
Smug and cute.
Yeah, my life was damn good.
“About goddamn time,” Cole grumbled.
“No shit,” Reese agreed.
“Impressed she held out so long,” Wilson added.
It was nearing on eleven a.m. and Brasco had had Desi in interrogation since six a.m.. That was an hour after Cole had picked her up leaving the Horsemen clubhouse.
I wasn’t impressed. I was annoyed. Desi had started playing dumb.
She was the victim. She had no idea what Brasco was talking about.
Then her story changed with only a slight variation.
Hours and hours of telling, retelling, screwing up the story, Brasco calling her on it, her trying to fix and remember her lies.
Finally with a huff of indignation did she fucking finally break.
Now we were getting somewhere.
“Tug didn’t want me on the street.”
Desi sat back in the chair and crossed her arms. Even through the one-way glass, I could see the worry etched on her face.
The woman looked like she hadn’t showered in a month—her hair was a tangled, matted mess and her clothes filthy.
She looked nothing like the woman we’d found at the abandoned lumber mill.
“What’d he want you for?” Brasco asked.
“High-paying clients. There were three of us. He drug tested us, gave us nice clothes to wear, and we got a bigger cut.”
“I need the names of the other girls.”
“Fine, whatever. I’m dead anyway so it doesn’t matter.”
Desi's face crumbled and for the first time since I started watching this shitshow of a performance, she gave an honest reaction. Desi wasn’t scared. She was terrified of Tug Anderson.
“Do you have any idea why Tug would hire Thomas Brady and Chet Brown to shoot Brooklyn Saunders and Letty Welsh?”
“I don’t know what—”
“You called it in, Desi. Don’t deny it. You made the call from the hotel you were staying at. The call was easy to trace and you checked in under your name.”
Desi’s gaze darted around the room before it settled back on Brasco.
“A warning.”
“Warning? What kind of warning?”
Desi shrugged like the bitch didn’t care that my family had almost been murdered.
“Marsha called and said that Tug was pissed I disappeared. He wanted me back.” Desi paused and with small, jerky shakes of her head she continued.
“I didn’t want to do it anymore. I couldn’t do it anymore.
Being a whore, I just…I needed to leave but somehow my bank account was emptied.
Marsha said Tug was mad that Brooklyn and Kiki’s family had showed up that night, then helped me, and he was going to make sure that they didn’t do it again. ”
“So, you’re telling me you went to Canada with no money?” Brasco pushed.
“I confessed everything to my dad. He gave me money and let me use his car. He told me to go to Canada and wait until he could come up with a plan.”
“Shit,” Wilson rumbled. “Desi better pray Tug doesn’t find that out or her parents are fucked.”
Wilson wasn’t wrong. If a drive-by that could’ve resulted in murder was a warning I shuddered to think what Tug would do if he found out Desi had told her parents he’d been pimping her out.
“How’d you enter Canada?”
“What do you mean? I drove.”
“Did you have your passport? Birth certificate?” Brasco inquired.
“I used my NEXUS card.”
NEXUS was a trusted traveler program that allowed someone to travel between the US and Canada without a passport. Probably not unusual for someone who lives in North Idaho to have.
“Tell me about the night the old lumber mill was raided. The night you were found with forty missing people on the verge of being sold.”
Desi’s eyes closed and she dropped her chin to her chest and shook her head violently.
“I had nothing to do with that. Nothing. I didn’t know.”
The detective opened a file and images of the victims spilled onto the table.
“Look at them, Desi, and tell me again that you didn’t know what was getting ready to happen to them. Look at the little boy who was snatched away from his parents. You were there!” Brasco shouted his last sentence and Desi jolted.
“I want protection,” Desi murmured. “I’ll tell you everything but I need to disappear after I tell you.”
“That’s not the way this works. You need to give me something to take to the feds. Something that will warrant them expending the time and money it will take to set you up with a new life.”
“Anderson’s operation is bigger than Brasco imagined,” I muttered.
“Agreed.”
“Yep.”
“Absolutely.”
With all of us in concurrence, we listened to a new story.
This one the truth.
Thirty minutes later Brasco left the interrogation room with a legal-sized pad of paper. On it a list of names and dates.
The door opened to the small room where we’d been watching him work Desi, and in walked the detective, his face full of thunder.
“She won’t give up more until she’s offered witness protection,” Brasco told Wilson.
“I heard.”
“You think that’s something you can arrange?”
“Already called my contact. He wants Desi moved to Montana for further questioning. You arrange it with your captain and Cole and Reese will go with you.”
“Appreciate it.”
Brasco let out a breath that punctuated his gratitude.
“Now that we know the players and the game I’m bringing my guys home and having the money moved. The Welshes and Brooklyn get theirs back and we’ll turn Desi’s account over to you.”
“That’ll work.” Brasco’s chin lift turned into a shake of his head. “Right fucking here, under our noses and we missed it.”
They had missed it. But it’d be easy to miss.
Tug Anderson had moved up the fucktard tree—way up.
He went from a street pimp, to call girl pimp, then all the way up to the top rung—human trafficker.
His error was to trust Desi to watch over his cargo until he moved it.
She freaked when we’d shown up, gave Kiki’s name since she knew Kiki was in California and she didn’t want Tug to find her.
How she thought giving a fake name would throw Tug off her trail is beyond me but stupid people make stupid mistakes.
And Desi proved she was stupid getting wrapped up with Tug Anderson in the first place.
My phone vibrated in my back pocket. I glanced at my watch seeing it was just after noon, I knew it was Brooklyn calling to tell me she’d picked up Remington. I pulled out my phone, saw I was right, and stepped away from the huddle to answer.
“Hey, Sugar, I’m almost—”
“Remington’s gone.”
Time stood still and while it did that snake in my gut that since I’d left the Navy I’d worked hard to keep at bay, uncoiled and grew into a fiery serpent.
“Repeat that.”
“I’m at Remy’s school. He’s not here. Kiki picked him up.”
Kiki.
“I’m on my way, Brooklyn. Stay there. Fifteen minutes, Sugar.”
“Okay, Rhode.”
I disconnected and looked around the room. Wilson already had the door open. Davis and Reese were alert and ready.
Thank fuck they were here.
“Kiki Welsh kidnapped my son.”
And Jesus fuck those words blistered my throat.
“I’ll get it to dispatch. Which school?” Brasco asked.
“Little Tikes on Dalton.”
“Got it. Meet you there.”
Brasco was out of the room.
“We’ll get him back.” Wilson’s promise jolted me from my stupor.
I didn’t say a word as I ran out of the police station.
But I did it making my own promises.
The bitch was dead if one hair on my son’s head was out of place.