Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
THORNE
“This is fucking hideous,” Pyro says as he looks at the mansion sitting high in the hills of LA. “I don’t know why rich people think this gaudy shit looks good.”
“They don’t,” Knox says almost distractedly, fiddling with his phone. “They just want to show their wealth.”
Py scoffs. “Waste of fucking money, if you ask me. It’s still flammable.” He flicks his lighter, a smile on his face as he touches his ever-present necklace. “Bensotti said I could burn it, right?”
I chuckle as I say, “Yeah. Might cause a wildfire, but…” I shrug as we get out of my car.
A dreamy look crosses Py’s face. “I love wildfires.”
“You love property damage,” Knox corrects.
Smiling wide enough to show all his teeth, Py asks, “What’s the difference?”
We pull our masks down and hurry across the back of the property, where Knox opens some kind of box that connects to the alarm system and cuts some wires. Then we hop the gate and walk across the back lawn.
From what Orion could find, the man we’re coming to kill doesn’t have any security besides the alarms. It’ll be an easy hit.
“Great upkeep on the lawn at least,” Pyro mentions as our heavy boots sink into the damp grass.
I snort as I go to the back door and kick that motherfucker in. Like with Lionel, we’re not trying to be quiet as we move from room to room to find our target.
He’s in his bedroom, sitting up and looking around in a sleepy daze.
Ruben Berry.
He has a lady guest, who sits up and holds the blanket to her chest, screaming in a shrill burst. Through the slit in his mask, I see Py roll his eyes before he steps up to the woman and hits her over the head with the butt of his gun.
She immediately falls silent as she’s knocked unconscious, slumping over the bed.
We didn’t expect him to have company, but it works out better for our story.
She’ll tell police that they were robbed by masked men and she was knocked out.
That means Pyro can’t set the place on fire, though. Probably why he hit her so hard.
He drags her out of the room and lets her drop in the hallway. Then he joins me and Knox as we stare at Ruben.
“What’s the meaning of all this?” Ruben blusters, chest heaving as he looks between the three of us. “Do you know who I am?”
I scoff. “Do you know how often we hear that?”
“Newsflash,” Py says with much attitude. “We don’t care.”
“Who do you work for?” Knox asks, getting down to business.
“I beg your pardon?” Ruben says in that pompous tone rich bitches like him are born with.
Pulling out my Glock, I cock it and aim it at Ruben’s head. “Drop the fucking act. I left my men to be here, and I’d much rather be inside one of them than to see your ugly fucking face. So, tell us who you work for so we can go.”
Pyro gasps beside me. “You have a boyfriend?”
“Two,” Knox says, then focuses his attention back to Ruben. “Either tell us or we’ll start cutting off body parts.” He pulls out a nasty looking serrated blade he named Diedra that could cut through diamond with how sharp it is.
To his credit, Ruben simply looks at us evenly, not giving anything away. “It is well known where I work. It’s—”
“Not where you work,” I interrupt. “Who you work for. I know you’re not the mastermind of trafficking those girls. That type of operation is way above your pay grade.”
Ruben sputters, puffing out his saggy chest. “I’ll have you know—”
Irritated beyond reason, I aim for the lumps under the blanket and fire, hitting him right in the kneecap. Ruben cries out, rolling off the bed as he holds his bleeding limb.
Huffing, Knox goes over and grabs him by the hair, tossing him back onto the bed. “Give us a name.”
“I can’t,” Ruben cries, thick tears streaming down his face. “I don’t know it.”
Pressing the muzzle of my gun to his forehead, I snarl, “You’re a fucking liar. Tell us a goddamn name!”
He sobs, curling in on himself. “I don’t, I swear. I just procure the women and send them to the east coast.”
“Procure?” I seethe, grabbing him by the throat, squeezing hard enough to make his eyes bulge. “You don’t procure,” I shout, then swat him across the face with my gun. “You fucking kidnap them,” I hit him again. “You sell them, you fucking monster!”
I pistol whip him again and again, blood and tooth fragments flying across the bedspread.
Before I lose myself in the violence, Knox drags me away. I fight against him, seeing red. I hate that Ruben tried to make his crimes seem harmless. “Fucking procure,” I seethe, snatching away from Knox so I can walk off my anger. “Fucking bullshit. I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Not yet,” Knox says in that calm voice of his. I hate that he’s never ruffled, but it comes in handy when I fly off the rails. “We’ll get what we need. If not, you’re free to take his fucking head off. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
We walk back over to the bed, where Ruben is struggling to breathe. He’s an older man, so a beating like that probably pushed him to his limit. I wish I could do more. “Who the fuck are you working for?” I ask, pressing my gun under his chin.
He coughs, blood and spit leaking from his mouth. “Don’t…know. I just…I send to Dennis and Peter.”
Dennis Burke and Peter Howard. The two targets I can’t wait to put down.
The original plan was to take all three of these scumbags out in the same timeframe, but it’ll only make the big boss go underground. If none of the three tell us who they work for before they die, we’ll have nothing.
I need to find whoever this person is. If it’s the last thing I do, I need to put them in the fucking ground.
But I didn’t want all three of them to get off scot-free. With our witness, they won’t connect this murder to their trafficking ring. They’ll assume Ruben was robbed and carry on with their illegal activities, unaware their days are numbered.
I look over at the woman, seeing she’s still out cold before I focus back on Ruben. “You’ve gotten away with your bullshit for far too long. Allow me to be your judge, jury, and fucking executioner.”
Ruben screams and begs, but I ignore him as I pump three slugs into the middle of his forehead. Blood and brains splatters everywhere and he falls silent, his mouth going slack as a rattling breath leaves his lungs.
Exhaling roughly, I step back and assess my work. We didn’t get what we came for, but at least we know we’re on the right track.
“We can check his office,” Knox says, always thinking of the matter at hand. “If he has a laptop, maybe Orion can crack it and get some information off it.”
The fucking computer in question is an ancient desktop that I don’t even think they manufacture anymore. We’re all confused as we try to explain it to Orion, who’s obviously pissed that we don’t know fuck about computers.
“Jesus,” he growls, “just video call me so I can see. I’ll tell you what to bring with you.”
After Pyro calls him and shows him the desktop, he tells us how to take apart the tower and pull something out of it. Knox does, shoving it into his jacket.
A shrill scream has our heads snapping up, then Pyro bristles as he looks at the door. “I should have shot her.”
“We don’t kill innocents,” Knox says as we head to the window and climb out as the woman’s screams echo around the house.
“You don’t,” Pyro says. “I have no issues. Collateral damage.”
“You’re a menace,” I tell him as we jog across the lawn.
Py looks back with a sigh. “Maybe I can set a little fire?”
“No,” Knox says with finality.
“Fine,” he says as we slide into the car. He crosses his arms over his chest, muttering something about us not letting him have any fun.
We drive away in silence. I’m stuck in my head, my past threatening to pull me back. I got my revenge, but at what cost?
This has to end. Soon. I don’t mind killing, don’t mind taking people off the streets that need to die, but this case is fucking with my head. I need to get back to Chance and Warren, need my Golden and Firebird to help me feel grounded.
I’ve counted on them to make me feel like a person. When I’m around them, I don’t think about killing or girls being kidnapped and destroyed. I think about being a man, being someone they can lean on, someone they’re happy to see after a long day.
I feel like Thorne, not one of Bensotti’s boys.
A tap on my shoulder snaps me out of my thoughts.
Pyro leans forward and says, “Two boyfriends. How’d you pull that off?”
Smiling, I simply say, “Coincidence.”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Okay, don’t tell me. Whatever.”
“Not much to tell,” I say as I pull into his driveway. “I ran into them at the airport after my kill before the semester started. We talked and got to know each other. Pretty simple.”
Knox chuckles. Py glares at me in the rearview mirror. “Why won’t you spill the tea?”
Sighing because he’s insufferable, I tell him the full story. When I’m done, there’s a wide smile on his face. “You know, I thought about moving back to the east coast, but I told myself it would be too boring in your uppity college town. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“You should move back,” Knox says. “He doesn’t say it, but Bensotti misses you.”
Pyro’s throat clicks as he swallows. “I miss him too. I think I will move back, actually. Let me wrap some things up here first.”
Neither Bensotti nor Py ever told us why he moved so far away when he’s from Connecticut.
It’s like he wanted to get as far away from the east coast as he could without leaving the country.
There’s a story there, but even two years of being together every day didn’t grant us that bit of information.
I keep my scoff to myself. I’m one to talk. None of them know about Summer. I’m not sure I’ll ever tell them.
“If not close to Bensotti,” I say, “You can always move upstate. You’d be nearby…just in case.”
He sighs and lowers his head. “Just in case.”
After Pyro bids us goodbye, telling us he’ll mail Orion whatever Knox snatched from the computer, Knox and I head back to the airport. We could have stayed the night with Py, but I want to get back home and climb into bed with my men.
Warren and Chance called me earlier today when Chance arrived at Warren’s house and we talked for a few minutes before I had to go out and do some recon. I told them I’d come to them as soon as I got back into town.
We drop the rental off and head into the airport, hurrying through TSA to catch our red-eye.
Sitting in the airport reminds me of Golden walking over, taking the chance to speak to me just because he saw me around campus. We’d never spoken before then, but being the puppy that he is, he wanted a friend.
He’s the reason all of us are together. Had he not spoken, I wouldn’t have tried to approach him or Warren. Mostly because Chance gave pretentious vibes and Warren is a professor. Now, I can’t see my life without them.
Knox elbows me lightly when the attendant calls for first class boarding. “You good?” he asks.
“No. This trip was a bust.”
“Not really. We took care of Ruben, and he confirmed the two names on our list. He might not have given us details, but at least that disrupts their…chain.”
“Yeah, but it’ll just be someone else shoved in that slot. We need to find the head of all this, Knox. And soon.”
“We will.” We sit down and buckle our seatbelts. “Let Orion do his thing and he’ll give us something.”
“Hope so.”
The flight back home is long, but the red-eye is quiet.
I think about where we’ll go from here. We have two people that we know are involved in this countrywide operation, but we need whoever is coordinating.
From what Bensotti and Orion could gather, it’s been going on for about fifteen years. The system is organized and widespread.
We’ve slowly been picking people off, the lower-level ones easier because most of them are sleazy and involved in other unsavory bullshit.
Their deaths aren’t a blip on anyone’s radar.
We’re trying to wipe the entire system off the map.
It’ll take work and it’ll take killing the head of the operation.
It’s wearing me down more than I want to admit. I promised Bensotti I’d stay the course, but it’s hard. With my history, I want to just slaughter every name on the list, not giving a fuck about planning.
But I have to be strategic, so we don’t have the mastermind going underground. Hopefully, we’ll cut the head off the snake sooner rather than later.