Chapter 28
Roark
I stood outside, leaning up against the outside of the building taking a drag off my sixth cigarette this evening. There goes my promise to my mother about me quitting. The job alone is stressful, but this is more stressful than anything I do at my day job.
Tonight was going to be the first night Max has been physical with one of our guests since MetCaffe, Williams and Rakes. He was brutal with those three, they confessed within an hour to their involvement in the kidnappings and random disappearances. None of them confessed to Christina or Avery’s abductions though. Max still says one of them knows who did it, but courtesy of him MetCaffe is on a feeding tube, Rakes has serious brain damage and Williams lawyered up so fast once he confessed. He never once mentioned Max’s name or any of ours.
I worry once Max unleashes himself on them that he won’t be able to stop. He goes through several punching bags a week; his temper has calmed down slightly since Megan. He’s no longer going out to bars looking for fights or doing that stupid underground fight club in Philly. He’s been doing good.
A car turns onto the long driveway up to the warehouse, I can tell by the speed and the loud ass thumping of music coming from the car that Pete and Marty were having a good old time. The car halts into the parking spot next to Max’s hellcat. If they would’ve hit that car, he would kill them both.
“Prisoner transfer,” Marty teases when he jumps out of the passenger seat, his dark skin seemingly lighter in the moon light. Marty did undercover in the city, so he never looked like he was a cop. People always thought he was getting arrested left and right. I got a rock thrown at me by a kid one day for “arresting” him on possession charges. He laughed but later scolded the kid for it.
“Hey Marty,” I wave at him as nerdy ass Pete gets out of the driver seat. You would never know he was cop by looking at him either. Major tech nerd, glasses, but aside from Andy he was the best hacker we had on the team.
“Hey Roark, how’s the high life working for ya?” Marty calls out as Pete opens the back door to the car, pulling out a rather larger male with a black bag over his head.
“You know ladies love a man in uniform,” I tease back. Pete rolls his eyes as he comes up hauling this dude with him. “This Jeff?”
“No, this is Paul, we came all the way out here with the wrong guy,” Pete says sarcastically. Marty shrugs his shoulders, and we follow Pete inside.
“What crawled up your ass?” Marty asks him as we head through the building.
“I had plans tonight and now they’re fucked,” Pete snaps, well guess we’re stopping him from getting laid. Poor dude. Outside of work on the few occasions we saw him, the nerdy look was gone. He was covered in tattoos and would wear his piercings when we went out to the bar. Women would line up for him when he wasn’t in uniform. He dulled his look down for work.
“Well shit, drop him here and let’s go get you laid!” Marty hypes. Marty and his girl Kendra had been together for five years and none of us knew how she dealt with his ass. He was loud, constantly up in your business, and was always one of the first of us to run his mouth and get into a fight.
“This is too important just for me to walk away so I can get my dick wet. She’ll be there when I get home,” Pete says, focusing on shoving Jeff through the building. I couldn’t think straight when these two argued. You wouldn’t know they were partners when Marty wasn’t undercover.
“The chair right there across from Roy will do it,” I say, pointing at the vacant chair in front of the piece of shit father. Jeff and Roy have a long rap sheet. Grand theft auto, burglary, sexual assault, domestic violence, and they were being investigated for the murder of Bridget Moore, Jeff’s mother.
Andy came stalking out the meet us, or at least I thought it was to meet us. Max was standing behind one of the pillars, only stepping out once we got Jeff secured in the chair.
“Found how these pieces of shit met Michael Paxley. They broke into his summer house in Lewes, they just didn’t expect him to be there. According to police reports Michael Paxley and his assistant, Laura Bellardi, were holed up at the house because he was on a press tour. Michael didn’t press charges on them, but instead wanted to help them reform,” Andy says as he hands Max his iPad.
Max pulls the black hood off of Roy and smirks, “Let me guess, you threatened to blackmail Michael Paxley. What? Did you catch him dick deep in Miss. Bellardi and threaten to expose him to his wife?”
Roy blinks his eyes, trying to adjust to the light difference. Roy finally focused his attention to Max, fear flickering in his eyes. “She is the wife of a well-known city councilman. We weren’t breaking in to steal anything from him. We were hired to get information on her whereabouts.”
“So, you and your son were on a job?” Max asks, looking over the police report. I watch as realization clicks in his eyes. “You’re private sector?”
Roy looked away from Max, a refusal to answer, a dumb mistake on his part. Max looks at me and I just nod. I don’t plan on stopping him. He waits another minute then punches Roy hard in the stomach. One solid punch, hard enough that we all heard the crack. Max hit ribs.
“It’s in your best interest to answer me Roy. If not, I’ll just move over here,” he says, with a devious smile, pulling off the black bag from Jeff’s head. He was busted up pretty bad. Busted lip, looks like a possible broken nose, his eyes were bloodshot with bruises forming around the edges. He was fucked up, and bleeding. I knew they were gonna rough him up but fuck me. Max took in the display of violence and smiled.
“Jeff!” Roy yells once he takes in the state of his son, “If you fucking think—” another punch to his gut has the air flying out of his lungs. Max hit him three more times in the stomach. Wailing on him like he’s a punching bag.
Max steps back to admire his work as Roy spits blood on the floor. Thankfully there is a fucking tarp beneath their chairs. I don’t feel like cleaning their blood up.
“Did you think we wouldn’t find him, Roy? Are you going to answer me now?” Max says as he grips Jeffs hair and yanks his head back. A glint at his throat had me seizing up, holy shit, he wouldn’t! Andy, Pete and Marty all watched as Max held a knife to Jeff’s throat. The wicked twist in his face turned more sinister.
I’ve seen Max at his breaking point, but these two took children. This was personal for us. We were on those search parties; we were out there looking for those girls for weeks. Max and I even took personal time to go looking for them. We took care of three dirty cops in one night. Max would take out more if he had the chance.
“Max, keep calm. Remember what we talked about,” I caution him as I watch his hand being to twitch.
“I won’t do it too soon, but you’re going to want to bring that fucking piece of shit out here. He needs to see that I am not fucking around,” Max says as he pushes the blade into the side of Jeff’s throat. A line of blood flows down from his neck to his shirt.
I sent Tony a text to roll Ryan out here. He was sitting with Ryan while this went down, but I know I am going to need the back up if Max loses his shit. We all hear the door open and the creaking chair rolling through the building. I could hear the muffled yelling as they approached. A part of me wished I knew what he was saying, but Tony gagged him so he wouldn’t kill him. I give Tony the most credit in the world. I wouldn’t have had the patience.
“You’re buddy is here,” Max looks at Roy and Jeff as Ryan gets closer to them.
“One dead beat boyfriend for delivery,” Tony says as he kicks the back of the chair sending Ryan toppling onto the ground. Fucking idiot. Tony picks up the chair that Ryan is tied to and sets it up right. “Oops.”
“So, Roy, I’m going to ask again. Are you private sector?” Max asks once more, pressing the blade into Jeff’s throat even harder. Roy’s eyes widen as he watches the crimson liquid spill down his sons throat.
“Stop it! I was in the private sector; it was left out of the report once I told Michael Paxley why I was there. Because of him, I lost my practice and got drug into their sex ring. He found out about the murder of my wife and used it against me saying he could make it look like I did it. He got my son messed up on drugs and when I threatened to quit doing his dirty work and expose him, he had me drugged by my own fucking kid. Next thing I know, I’m raising a kid he told me is his niece who needed to be hidden from sight. I just did as I was told!” Roy yells out and it’s a bullshit fabricated lie. One to save his own ass.
“You expect me to believe that load of shit? I believe you were there to steal shit and got caught. You’re a drug junkie who has a record dating back over twenty years. You also expect me to believe that you weren’t harming that girl? What about her friend huh? Who killed her?!” Max roared in Roy’s face. The smell of ammonia leeched into the room.
Great, one of these fuckers just pissed themselves. “I’m not cleaning up piss or shit Max.” I say, the look of disgust all over my face. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m getting annoyed.
“Try again Roy. Unless you want this knife shoved up your ass, ripping you wide open for when you go to prison. People like you don’t last long in prison,” Max is walking that fine line of sanity and insanity. If he continues he will slip into a darkness that we can’t drag him out of for days.
“Max,” I say, daring to take a step closer to him. “Think about Megan. You’re teetering.” Max looks at me and I can see the fragile parts of his heart slowly cracking away.
“Looks like someone else wants to speak,” Pete says, pointing at Ryan. I don’t think it’s wise to take that gag out of his mouth, but Max points the knife at him and Tony removes it.
“You think you’re any better than me?” Ryan spits out, looking at all of us. I want to think we are better than him and his entire family.
“We are better than you. None of us would hit a woman and control her like you did. It wasn’t just Megan you beat the hell out of, there are so many other women out there. Most paid off to keep their mouth shuts. But see Ryan, we found your skeletons, they weren’t buried deep enough,” Max said holding the knife point at Ryan’s knee cap.
“I don’t have any skeleton’s. You have nothing on me besides what that bitch has to say. But, once I’m out of here and my family kills you all. I will personally fuck that bitch in every hole then slit her throat and bathe in her fucking blood. I’ll make sure you stay alive long enough so I can make you watch me,” Ryan says laughing at Max. Tony went to put the gag back in his mouth, but he wasn’t fast enough.
A blood curdling scream tore out of Ryan’s mouth as Max slammed the knife into his knee right above the knee cap. Blood sputtered out onto Max, covering his hand and shirt. I’ve seen Max at his breaking point before, but this was something completely different. This was a feral type of rage. Megan was a hair trigger topic for him right now and Ryan went and fucked up.
Max turns to look at the other two men. They started screaming as Max ripped the knife from Ryan’s knee and lunged for Jeff. None of us were fast enough. Max had the knife lodged into Jeff’s throat, he ripped the blade across the front of his neck letting the blood spray not only on him, but on Roy as well.
“Liars, the whole fucking lot of you. You either bought Christina and Avery or you kidnapped them. Seeing as you’re a squatting drug addict, I doubt you purchased them, so that leaves one other option. You kidnapped them, and tortured them,” Max left the knife in Jeff’s throat as he turns and faces Roy. “You did this you know.”
“He kidnapped them from the store! He knocked them both out and put them in his car and brought them home. The one girl, after some breaking, became completely obedient,” Roy started spilling his guts to us, just like that. Anything to save his own life now that he knows Max isn’t playing games.
“What about the one who didn’t become obedient?” Pete asked, moving into view.
“She had to be dealt with. She couldn’t be sold if she wasn’t obedient. Michael wouldn’t let bad products go up for auction,” Roy confessed. Everything in this building was recorded. The entire confession was on record.
“Michael who?” Max said, he was going for a full fucking confession. The look on Roy’s face was one of someone who knew they would be meeting the ripper soon. Max was going to give him a one-way ticket straight to hell.
“Michael Paxley,” Roy confesses. Ryan glares at Roy, trying to kick out of the chair. With each movement he makes, more blood leaks out of him.
“You’re going to fucking regret that Roy!” Ryan roars out at him. A clear threat, but one that he won’t be able to follow up on. Max said two were going to be gone by morning. Jeff is already down.
Tony and Andy wrapped a blanket around Jeff’s lifeless corpse, using duct tape to keep it together. You can tell we’ve done this a few times.
Pete stepped up next to me, “Do we stop him?” He whispers. I shake my head, stopping Max now would just set his anger on something or someone else. I have an idea about his plan for Ryan.
“Leave him to it. Max does the hard stuff, so we don’t have to. This isn’t your first time here,” Marley looks over at me. “Megan’s the new girlfriend isn’t she?” I just nod. Realization clicks into Pete’s brain finally and he shuts up.
“Marley, Tony, you two know what to do with him,” Max orders the disposal of Jeff. Chains and weights. Enough to where he will sink to the bottom of the river if they drop him off the dock. If they take him out on the boat and drop him further out, he’s shark bait. There’s been an unusual amount of shark sightings along the Jersey shoreline.
“Pete, Andy, you two make sure they have an unobstructed path out the sea. I don’t want these fuckers floating near here,” he says before turning to Roy once more.
“Is Paxley the highest man in this twisted plan? How many children and women have you broken to be sold off?” Max continues his questioning like he didn’t just order this mans son to be disposed of.
“Please, don’t drop him in the water. Bury him with his mother!” Roy sobs, but Max wants no part of it. He shakes his head, “I’ll give you names! Just please, let him be with his mother. He wanted to be cremated and put with her. I will give you anything you want, and you can do with me what you want, just please don’t set him out to sea.”
“The problem I have with granting your request is that you said he grabbed the girls off the street. That makes him no better than you,” Max replies, ignoring the request. “Give me what I want, and I’ll make sure you join him.”
He sighs, “The Paxley family are the top tier family her in Delaware. There are other families around the country that have control of their states. Texas and California have several top tier families that host charities to auction off the women and children. I don’t have a count of how many I’ve had in my home. I also don’t have a count of how many are even still alive.”
My hands began to shake. He knows so much because he is the fucking seller, the fucking groomer! “Max,” I growl out, stepping forward. “He’s mine.”