Chapter 10
”James, please. We”ve been friends for years.” I remained impassive as William sat in the chair opposite me trying to reason with James. He had been pumped full of painkillers and his fingers strapped up and had spent the last twenty minutes trying to tell us that the evidence we had against him was fabricated.
”This is crazy, how could you think I would do this?” I”d give the old bastard his dues, he was persistent, and stupid, considering his situation. Since the previous hour had been spent calling me every name under the sun as I had delighted in breaking a few more fingers and considering the information all pointed to him being at the head of an underground trafficking ring, we knew every word out of his mouth was bullshit.
But I was conscious of the time this was taking, and I wanted to get back to Lily. She had been through enough tonight, and I wanted to follow up on what the Agency had told me. I had phoned today asking about the contract extension and after a comment about Lily suddenly being so popular I found out that the reason that she was so desperate was because every single one of her prior contracts had been strangely cancelled before inception. Given that in the last week I had received some unsavoury information about Lily, and there had been multiple hacking attempts on my bank accounts, I was starting to think the things were related. If someone was targeting Lily, then I didn”t want her alone too long.
”The Board won”t stand for this,” William spat out, ”And if you think you are going to get a seat on the Board now after this then you can think again, boy. You can kiss your good-for-nothing father”s money goodbye.” The last part was directed at me. I raised an amused eyebrow at James, who responded with an eye roll. It had been the Board that had hired me to investigate. It didn”t look good for them if the man who sat at the head of the table was kidnapping women and girls.
”Am I needed for this part?” I asked James. ”If you are not going to allow me to use my usual coercive tactics, then I am likely a distraction.” James chuckled and shook his head.
”If you want to go find your girl, Sebastian, just say,” he said, and I shot him an unimpressed look.
”If she”s still even here,” William sneered. ”Little whore is probably long gone by now, especially if my son has anything to do with it.”
”What?” I crossed the room in a heartbeat and grabbed the snivelling prick by the throat. ”What the fuck are you talking about?” I snarled in his face. Fear flooded his eyes and his good hand clawed at my hand as I squeezed.
”Sebastian, let him go.” James was next to me, his tone firm.
”Like fuck I will,” I snarled back and then glared at William. ”If you have hurt her, I will rip you limb from limb.”
”Well, he isn”t going to talk while you are cutting off his air supply,” James said. ”So let go of his throat.” Oh, yeah. In my anger I hadn”t thought of that. I released my grip on the bastard, and he fell to the floor gasping for breath. Then he looked up at me with a cold grin.
”You always thought you were better than everyone,” he sneered. ”Pushing your weight around. Well now, not only will I ensure that you lose any chance of your family estate, but I will also take your beautiful wife.”
”If you hurt her-”
”Hurt her?” William spat. ”The woman hates you so much that she practically begged my Alec to help her out of her bond with you. I had the contract drawn up already.” My head was swimming with what he was saying. The Agency had said Lily was popular, I took that as response to me wanting to extend the contract, but what if…
”I”ll tell you something,” William sneered, ”I really do hope she signs my contract. Even though Alec thinks he will be able to play house with the little whore, I am really looking forward to destroying that pretty pussy of hers.” I felt sick. Did she really hate me so much that she would rather be with William? I looked up at James, whose own face was etched in concern.
”Go,” he said, ”Find her.”
I rushed from the room and down the stairs into a mess of party guests. I went to the room that I had left Lily in, but she wasn”t there. After rushing around and checking more rooms, and the bathrooms, I was sure that Lily was no longer here. I rushed out of the house, still searching. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Davis perk up at my appearance. He came running over to me.
”Boss?” he asked. ”Are you okay?” I shook my head quickly. I couldn”t tell if I was frantic with worry or if I was furious at Lily for daring to fuck with me. Part of me wanted to say fuck her, she deserved the shit fuck she had signed up for. But another, much stronger part, knew that I couldn”t allow it. Lily was mine, she had always been mine, and I refused to let anyone, much less that snivelling little prick Alec McIntyre, take her away from me.
”Lily,” I asked Davis, ”Have you seen her?” Davis shook his head and I let out a growl.
”Search the grounds, check security, find her,” I said. Davis nodded his head once and ran off towards the security office. I pulled out my phone as I headed back into the house. I tapped a quick message to my contact at the Wife for Hire Agency, telling them I wanted to speak to the highest person available immediately. I made my way back up to the room that I had left James in.
Both James and William looked up as I stormed into the room, slamming the door against the wall.
”Anything?” James asked, and I shook my head, the sickening feeling growing. William sneered at me.
”She”s already gone hasn”t she,” he gloated. ”I bet she already has her lips around my son”s dick right now.” He started rubbing his good hand against his groin. ”Mmm, I bet she would wriggle like a good one pegged between father and son.” The sick bastard was getting hard over fucking someone with his own son. I snarled as I headed to rip his head off but was stopped by a ping on my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw the Wife for Hire number. A quick scan of the message showed me a link to a video call. I clicked the link and waited for the call to connect.
I recognised Miss May, the owner of the Wife for Hire Agency, as soon as the video connected.
”Mr Lynch,” she started, her tone pleasant and professional. ”I understand that you requested to speak to me as a matter of urgency.” I tried to school the numerous emotions raging inside me as I nodded my head.
”Yes,” I said, ”Thank you for responding so quickly.”
”Of course. How is it that I can help you?”
”I need to report a potential breach of contract,” I hissed. The anger sparked at my words again. I would report this and then I would hunt down the bitch and show her that nobody fucked with me.
”Oh dear,” Miss May replied and began tapping on a keyboard. ”I see you had a six-month contract with Lily Appleby.”
”Had?” I asked and Miss May looked up with a stern expression, any sign of friendliness gone from her face.
”Yes, Mr Lynch, had,” she said. ”Let it be known that we take these kinds of concerns seriously. Our girls are under our protection, after all.” I shook my head, confused.
”Concerns?” I asked, ”What concerns? It has come to my attention that someone is trying to break my contract. That is my concern.”
”Yes, indeed, there is a contract transfer request,” Miss May said. ”After we received information about your other activities, then we are within our right to protect our women.” There was some sort of miscommunication here and I was getting frustrated.
”What activities are those?” I asked slowly. I knew I wasn”t exactly an upstanding straight laced member of society, but I also knew that the Agency wasn”t exactly bothered about that. They had a variety of clients, and a good number of them specialised in illegal practices.
”Mr Lynch, I am sure that this is not what you want to hear,” Miss May said. ”But I am not inclined to share more than I already have.” William laughed, and I narrowed my eyes on him.
”What the fuck have you told them,” I snarled at him. James came and took the phone from me.
”Miss May, dear you are looking as young and beautiful as ever,” he said into the screen.
”Oh, Mr Killinham, I wasn”t aware you were involved in this,” Miss May had gone back to the friendly tone.
”Yes, well, I was the one who recommended your services to Mr Lynch,” James said with a charming smile, ”I would hope that if there was an issue that I would know about it.”
”Yes, I understand,” Miss May said. I was getting frustrated, especially since William seemed to be enjoying this too much. ”We have received some information that connects Mr Lynch with the disappearance of a few of our girls. You understand we can”t possibly put another girl in danger if he is using the service to hurt our women.” My ears picked up at Miss May”s words and I looked over at James. He shook his head quickly, telling me not to interrupt.
”Where exactly did this evidence come from?” James asked, and I heard more tapping on a keyboard.
”Hmm,” Miss May said, and then tapped some more. ”I can see here that we received the information from the Ivory Seal foundation and then shortly after a transfer request from…” Miss May trailed off. I couldn”t take the suspense anymore. The Ivory Seal Foundation was William”s front for his trafficking ring. I snatched the phone back from James.
”From who,” I demanded. Miss May looked more concerned as she looked back at the screen.
”Mr Lynch, are you connected to Alec McIntyre?” Miss May asked.
”Only in the sense that I plan on ripping his spine from his body and feeding it to him.” I snarled. ”Why?”
”It appears that there have been some crossed wires,” Miss May said. ”The contract request was from his father. But I can see it says that it is on his behalf.” Miss May looked back up at me. ”Mr Lynch, Alec McIntyre was banned from the Wife for Hire Agency after repeated violations. I am sorry, I am not sure how this has happened. Please let me make further enquiries and I will come back to you.”
”I need this sorted out now,” I growled.
”Of course, Mr Lynch,” Miss May said quickly. ”And of course we will compensate you for the misunderstanding.”
”I don”t give a fuck about the bloody money,” I snarled. ”Just get my girl back to me.” I hung up the call and slammed the phone down on the desk.
”You know that if she signed the contract, then I own her,” William gloated. ”I will ensure that I make it stick. If only to fuck with you.” I glared at William and was five seconds away from punching him when Davis appeared at the open door.
”Boss,” he said, quickly coming to me. ”You need to see this.” He handed me his phone. I looked at the screen to see a grainy video of the outside of the back of the house. From the quality I guessed it was their security footage. A couple of seconds into the video there was movement to one side. I pinched the screen to zoom in on the area and that was when I saw, to my horror, someone carrying something over their shoulder and heading into the woods out back of the house. Davis swiped the phone onto an enhanced image of the video and my blood ran cold as I recognised, not only Alec”s face but the dress of the unconscious woman he was carrying. I growled as I looked up again at William. He must have seen something in my eyes, because the smug grin wiped clean off his face.
I stalked to him and shoved the phone screen in his face. I grabbed his good hand and bent back his fingers enough to hurt but not break.
“Where is he taking her?” I asked slowly. William shook his head.
”I will not put my son in danger,” he whimpered. ”You will hurt him if I tell you where he is.” I allowed the cold hard smile to play on my lips as I said my next words.
”Oh, I”m not going to hurt him,” I said. ”I am going to kill him. Now once again, where the fuck is my wife?”