27. Maddox
MADDOX
By the time I pulled up to the club, the food in the passenger seat had probably gone cold, but food was food. Hot, cold, warm, my brothers and I didn’t really care. Hell, sometimes takeout was better cold.
I grabbed the bag and headed for the back entrance. The bass from downstairs thudded faintly through the walls, muffled by layers of concrete and steel, a heartbeat within the building that never quite stopped.
The real business happened upstairs. Behind locked doors and soundproofed walls. Away from the lights, the music, and the people who came to escape their lives.
I stepped into the narrow corridor and reached the secured door at the end, punching in the six-digit code that changed monthly. My father was strict with security, and only a handful of people had access.
The lock mechanism clicked open, and I shoved at the door, stepping inside. As much time as I spent here growing up, you would think I would expect the unexpected. Wrong. I never knew what the fuck I would walk into.
Tonight proved no different.
Mason, Raine, Kreed, and Kaylor were already in what we deemed the interrogation hub, and they weren’t alone.
A man sat tied to a metal chair in the center of the room, wrists bound behind his back with zip ties.
His ankles were strapped to the chair legs.
They hadn’t waited for me, already starting.
Pricks. His face was bloodied, nose clearly broken, one eye swollen completely shut, the tissue around it purple and grotesque.
His shirt was half torn open and stained with sweat and blood, exposing a chest covered in crude tattoos.
He looked familiar, but I couldn’t be sure I’d ever seen him before.
At some point, criminals all looked the same, especially those who had been on Rusty’s payroll.
I lifted a brow as I walked in, my gaze moving to my brothers and Kaylor. “Thanks for starting without me,” I said, holding up the takeout bag like an offering.
Kreed turned toward me with a frown, blood staining across his knuckles. Definitely not his. “You’re late.”
I lifted the takeout bag higher, the answer obvious where I’d been.
Raine snorted from where he was leaning against the far wall, a knife flipping idly through his fingers. “If you were on time, you wouldn’t miss all the fun.”
“Who’s this?” I set the bag down on the table.
Kaylor stood off to the side, her expression was frigid as she watched the man in the chair struggle weakly against his restraints, testing the give that wasn’t there.
Whatever softness she had in her for the rest of the world, for Kreed, for her friends, and for people who deserved it, never showed itself here.
If I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t believe she was the same girl who came to live with us less than a year ago.
The anniversary of her parents’ death was coming up soon.
Just a few months away, and I had a feeling it was what spurred her to finish this.
She wanted it to end, to clean up the mess Rusty created, and clear her father’s name.
Rusty was her dad’s business partner who turned on his best friend.
He hadn’t just had a hand in killing her father, but he also used her father’s business to tarnish her father’s hard work by channeling a human trafficking ring.
She had a personal stake in this, and no matter how much none of us liked her here, we knew she wouldn’t leave.
“He was one of the guards.” Kaylor angled her head at our prisoner. “I never did get your name.”
The blank stare on her face actually frightened me…how she could detach like a flip of a switch. It couldn’t be healthy. But then again, none of us would clinically be deemed healthy by any standard.
The guard spat blood at her feet, and I swore I heard Kreed growl. He was going to fucking kill him before we got any vital information out of the guard. He’d already done a number on him. I’d be surprised if the asshole had a tongue to speak.
“Where’d you find him?” I asked, shrugging out of my jacket and tossing it over a chair, tensing to intervene if Kreed couldn’t find some restraint.
None of us were particularly great at control, but Kreed…he tried, but he bottled his shit up too much until he just popped like a damn shaken soda can.
Mason gave a humorless grin. His dimples appeared, but his eyes stayed flat. “Fynn tracked him down using some crazy face-recognition tech shit. Picked up his face in some sleepy town near the state border.”
“Too bad you didn’t make it farther than county lines,” Raine stated to the guard, his knife pausing mid-flip. “Amateur mistake.”
The guard swallowed hard, his good eye darting between us. Kreed pushed off the table he’d been leaning against and moved beside me. “Other than guard duties inside the house, he also did transport, moving girls when needed.”
“He has a face I wouldn’t likely forget,” Kaylor said, rubbing at her wrists as she got this haunted look in her eyes. I didn’t like it, her having to remember and relive those moments when she’d been taken.
Kreed fucking liked it even less.
He took a step in the guard’s direction, but I intervened, putting myself in his path.
“We know you want to kill him. We all do. Has he talked yet?” I looked the man over slowly, taking in the split lip that was still bleeding sluggishly, the bruising already blooming across his cheekbone, and the way his hands trembled behind the chair even though he was trying to hide it.
Mason sighed, running a hand through his hair. “He’s trying very hard to be loyal.”
“Admirable,” I said flatly. “Stupid. But admirable.” I rolled my shoulders once, feeling the tension there, the coiled energy. Then I reached for the extra chair by the wall and dragged it across the floor, metal legs screeching against concrete loud enough to make the guard flinch.
I sat backward in the chair, straddling it as I rested my forearms across the top.
“I’m hungry. I don’t want to be here all night.
It’s been a long day, longer for you, I imagine.
So how about we try this again?” I started, my voice calm.
“I have one simple question. Where’s Silvia?
You give me her, and I have no need for you.
” She had all the important information we needed. She was the key player.
The guard sneered through bloody teeth, trying to find courage he didn’t have. “Go to hell.”
Raine clicked his tongue, disappointment descending on his features. “That was the wrong answer.”
What followed wasn’t pretty, but he didn’t deserve a soft touch. Pretty didn’t save lives or make monsters think twice before taking another victim.
Mason drove his fist into the man’s ribs hard enough to tip the chair sideways, the impact making a sound like a bat hitting meat. The guard wheezed, air exploding from his lungs. Kreed caught the chair before it could fall completely, righting it with one hand.
Raine appeared on the guard’s other side, dragging the blade slowly across the guy’s shoulder, his forearm, and the side of his neck. He applied enough pressure to part the skin, letting the blood well up in thin lines.
Kaylor stood nearby watching him unravel piece by piece, her silence more unnerving than any threat. The quiet judgment of someone who’d been on the other side of this, who knew exactly what these men did to the girls they took.
I couldn’t let my brothers have all the fun.
The guard’s eye, the one that could still open, tracked me warily as I kicked the chair out from under me, bracing for the unknown. I gave him credit. He did an admirable job taking the pain, or perhaps his voice was too hoarse to make a sound. That happened sometimes.
I crouched in front of him, elbows resting on my knees, getting down to his level. “You know what your problem is?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Just stared at me with his one good eye, blood trickling from his nose into his mouth.
“You still think Silvia gives a shit whether you survive.”
A twitch pulsed at his eyebrow.
“She doesn’t,” I continued. “Rusty’s dead. Everyone under him is disposable now. You’re not protecting a boss anymore. You’re protecting your own grave. Dying for someone who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
His finger twitched, a crack in the foundation.
“She took a new girl,” I said, leaning closer.
“Sienna Michaels. She’s eighteen years old.
But you don’t give a crap about their names or how young they are.
All you care about is how much they pay you for your silence.
We’ll double your price if you give us a location.
How does that sound? Better than getting beaten to a bloody pulp? ”
He squeezed his eye shut, like blocking me out would make this go away.
I grabbed his jaw hard, fingers digging into flesh, forcing him to look at me. “Where?”
The guard licked blood from his lip, pain reflecting in his features. “I don’t know where she is. I swear. Like I said. They cut me out.”
Kreed’s face darkened, shadows deepening in the hollows of his cheeks. “Try again.”
“I swear,” the guard rasped, desperation bleeding into his voice now.
My insides knotted, a sour burn crawling up my throat. “Fine, maybe you don’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re completely useless to us. I think it’s time you got your old job reinstated.”
The guard laughed then, but it was broken. Desperate. Half hysterical. “It doesn’t work like that. They’ll kill me if I show my face.”
Raine’s knife stopped. “You’ve got two choices. You can die here, or you can die righting your wrongs and hope it’s enough redemption to keep you out of hell.”
The guard shook his head weakly. “Just do it.” He coughed, spitting more blood. “Kill me.”
Silence settled over the room.
“Fuck,” Kaylor spat and looked away first, her hands curling into fists at her sides like she was forcing herself not to break something or scream in frustration. She stormed out of the room, shoving the door hard enough it slammed on the wall before swinging shut.