“All yours, sweetheart,” Smithe added. “And Steele, I’m talking to Donovan. If there was ever anything sweet about you, the polar ice caps might melt.”
I would have rolled my eyes but I was too intent on watching for Madame Cherie. I stared at the side-view mirror and saw her round the corner. She tottered on the four-inch heels she wore despite the fact she was at least five-ten, six inches taller than me without her shoes. What with the heaviness of her boobs, her thin frame, and the heels she wobbled on—all up against my extensive training—she ought to be easy enough to grab in a hurry.
Donovan climbed into the windowless back of the utility van and prepared to open the sliding door. I grasped the passenger-door handle. When the madame was directly in front of the sliding door, I gave a quick nod to Donovan.
He slammed open the door at the same time I bolted out of the front seat. It was his job to help throw her in once I grabbed her.
I sprinted the six or seven feet between her and the van.
The bitch pulled a can of pepper spray out of her small purse—and nailed me full in the face.
“Fuck!” I was blinded as brutal pain burned my eyes, forcing wetness down my cheeks, soaking my balaclava. The spray set flame to my lungs, and my upper body spasmed as I started choking. My eyes, nose, and throat were burning too bad to even smell it.
I tore off my balaclava but gulped in more pepper through my mouth and coughed even harder. I could barely open my eyelids a slit but saw her blurry figure turn to run. In Special Forces and during RED training I’d been sprayed while being forced to finish off my assailant. I hadn’t lost either hand-to-hand combat exercise.
This bitch was so not getting away. I was beyond pissed as I tackled her skinny ass and brought her down hard.
She landed with a harsh cry and I heard a thump that was probably her head against the concrete sidewalk. A metallic sound skittered away. The pepper spray can, probably.
I was ready to slug her just to make myself feel better, but someone jerked me away from behind. Through the blur in my eyes I saw Donovan grab the kicking and now screaming woman and literally toss her into the van.
“I’ll drive,” Kerrison said from behind me—she must have been the one who pulled me off the madame. “You two take care of her. And please shut her the hell up.”
I was gritting my teeth too hard from pain to answer. Instead, I dove into the van and slammed the sliding door into place.
Kerrison swung the van onto the street with tires squealing in a good imitation of a movie car chase. I stumbled before I went after the madame as she bucked and thrashed against Donovan.
When I looked at the woman—the best I could considering that my sight wasn’t any better yet—I saw that Donovan had not only cuffed her wrists but put plastic cuffs on her ankles as well.
The language the madame used as she screeched was so expressive she might have embarrassed my commanding officer in the Army. Well, hardly, but damn could she let it out.
Pepper spray straight in one’s eyes isn’t always followed by reason. But I managed not to slug her as I dropped beside her and Donovan. Can’t hit a bitch when she’s down.
“The gag and the blindfold are by her head.” Blood rolled down Donovan’s cheekbone. Looked like the madame had nailed him with her pointy stiletto heel.
I kept coughing, but I was blocking most of the pain now, like I’d blocked just about any kind of pain countless times over the years.
My sight was less bleary as I was rocked back and forth while trying to crawl toward the gag. “Jesus,” I shouted at Kerrison between coughs. “We’ve got her. Let up on the NASCAR driving.”
Kerrison said something that I couldn’t hear and I realized my earpiece had fallen out. The madame jerked her head forward and nearly bit my arm as I reached for the black strips of cloth.
“Knock her out or something,” I said to Donovan. “Punch her.” He shook his head in amusement as the woman stilled.
“That’s better.” I gave the madame a sweet smile. Ha! Tell Smithe I couldn’t be sweet. Well, act sweet at least. Another cough spoiled my attempt at keeping my smile. “But I might punch you myself, just for fun.”
Madame Cherie’s look of bewilderment would have made me laugh if I wasn’t still so ticked about being pepper-sprayed.
And if thoughts of Mama hadn’t been heavy on my mind at the same time we were getting ready to interrogate the madame. We needed to get this over with, damnit.
We’d tied the madame to a kitchen chair in the middle of the living room in the snazzy apartment Kerrison and I would start sharing tonight. Or this morning, rather. Kerrison had sent all her stuff over during the day with Donovan. She and I hadn’t been in the apartment together until now.
As Madame Cherie scanned the room with frantic-looking brown eyes, I sprawled in a big comfy leather chair that had an ottoman. I put my feet up while feeling like I had a bad sunburn on my cheeks and I’d smoked a pack of cayenne peppers. Unfortunately the stuff smelled more like ant and roach spray, which in turn made me smell like one big well-sprayed roach.
On the other hand, the smell of something heavenly was coming from the kitchen. God it was good having Donovan around.
“What’s for breakfast?” I shouted as I thought about getting my butt off the chair and taking a shower. Kerrison was already taking hers.
Donovan walked the few feet from the kitchen area and looked at me. “You look like hell.”
I flipped him the bird. “Nice shiner,” I said as I looked at his cheek and the round cut from the madame’s heel and the purpling skin around it. “So what smells so good that I’m tempted to skip a shower just to stuff my face with whatever it is?”
“Belgian waffles.”
“With strawberries and whipped cream?” I sighed as he gave a nod. I placed my palm on my growling belly. “You’re the best.”
He shook his head with amusement before heading back into the kitchen. I glanced at the woman cuffed to the chair in the middle of the room. She might have been frowning if a person could frown with a gag in her mouth.
“Be a good girl and you might get some, Madame Cherie,” I said. “Believe me, his waffles are worth spilling your guts for.”
Kerrison walked in, her red hair damp and her cheeks pink from the shower. Her feet were bare, she wore an orange University of Tennessee T-shirt, and faded blue jeans. She looked just like one of those fresh-scrubbed girls from next door. Or whatever.
“So that’s the latest in torture techniques?” Kerrison plopped onto the couch across from me so that the madame was between us. She jerked her thumb to the kitchen. “Let them get a whiff of his cooking and start salivating until they talk?”
“Oh, yeah.” I nodded emphatically, keeping an entirely serious expression on my face. “Wait until you try them. His waffles have the prisoners telling us everything from the time they lost their first binky to the last time they had a bowel movement.”
Kerrison tucked her long legs beneath her on the couch. She grinned as she looked at Madame Cherie, who had just rolled her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head in an I can’t believe these idiots motion.
I almost laughed. “If you have any idea how this bunch probably saved your skinny ass, you’d be a little happier right now.”
“Let’s take her gag off and see if she screams.” Kerrison had an evil-witch kinda light in her pale green eyes as she glanced from me to the madame. A hint of a southern accent was in her voice that I hadn’t heard before. She uncurled her legs and got up from the couch. “Hey, you want to grab the bat out of the closet just in case she does?”
Kerrison was really starting to grow on me.
“You betcha.” I stood, too. I really was going to hit the madame if she screamed. “But I’d rather use my fist to knock her out.”
The madame didn’t look even the tiniest bit scared. She just had an exasperated expression on her features.
“The woman in front of you has been trained in jujitsu
since she was eight years old.” Kerrison got behind the madame. “Twenty-three years is it?” Kerrison said to me.
“You do your homework.” I nodded at Kerrison, a little impressed that a new junior agent had that info on me already.
Kerrison shrugged. “Some of the guys in the gym said they wouldn’t take you on for anything. And jeez, a couple of those bastards are built like trucks.”
I almost grinned, but I was trying to look mean-serious at the madame. Kerrison was right—a few of the big bad agents at RED said hell no to sparring with me, but it was good-natured. They’d seen me break a bad guy’s neck using just my thighs.
Kerrison started untying the madame’s gag. The woman was still cuffed at her ankles as well as her wrists. We’d taken her stilettos off in the van. Stilettos were lethal weapons—I should know since I’d once tried to kill a man while wearing a pair of my own. Donovan was lucky she hadn’t planted one of her heels in his eye instead of on his cheekbone.
I pushed up the sleeves of the black turtleneck I’d worn for tonight. “Ready when you are.”
“Sonofabitch” was the first thing Madame Cherie said after her gag was removed. She glared over her shoulder at Kerrison and then at me. “Get me out of these fucking cuffs.”
Kerrison glanced at me, and I shrugged. “Go for it.”
She went to a medium-size denim backpack that had been tossed on the living room’s love seat. When she returned, she was carrying a pocketknife and a handcuff key. It took her a couple of seconds to slice the plastic cuffs off the madame’s ankles then unlock the metal cuffs on her wrists. Kerrison shoved the folded knife in one of her front pockets and the cuffs in her back pocket.
The madame shook out her arms as she looked from me to Kerrison. She rubbed her red, chafed wrists as she studied us. “Want to tell me why the fuck you kidnapped me and what you want?” Her voice was harsh and angry. Not that I could blame her.
“Not really.” I started toward the master bathroom to hurry and take my shower. “I’d rather let you sit there and wonder.”
Behind me, Kerrison said, “She’s the boss.”
It took me ten minutes to take my shower and change into the clean crop-top T-shirt and a pair of workout shorts I’d grabbed before heading into the bathroom. I like to wear crop tops so that my dragon tatt symbol shows along with my diamond navel piercing. The apartment was nice and warm from the central heating.
“Breakfast is going to get cold,” Kerrison shouted from the living room and down the short hall. “Hurry. I’m starving and I need some sleep.”
Well, she sure wasn’t a shy one. Yeah, I definitely liked her.
When I reached the dining nook, I dropped into one of the six straight-backed chairs.
The madame, totally disheveled but alert, was sitting next to Donovan. “Tell me—”
“Shut up and eat, Cherie.” I took one of the thick Belgian waffles from the plate Donovan handed me then passed the plate to Kerrison. “It might be your last meal.”
She glared but didn’t pull the I’m-not-eating-anything-you-bastards-give-me routine. She loaded her waffle with strawberries and whipped cream and took her first bite. I held back a grin when I saw her expression—it was like she could barely keep her eyes from rolling back in her head from ecstasy.
I did laugh when she finished her first mouthful. “Anything you want,” she said with an almost orgasmic groan. “I’ll kill for you after getting a taste of one of these.”
“What did I tell you?” I smiled at the woman, who seemed intent on eating the rest of her waffle in world-record speed. “We know the best torture techniques in the trade.”
She swallowed and did come up for air. “What trade is this?”
I finished stuffing my face. Let her stew.
It wasn’t long before all of us had cleaned our plates. I wanted to lick mine. Kerrison had eaten two of the thick, giant waffles like me, and the skinny madame had put away three to rival Donovan.
He gave me an amused glance as he got up and started clearing the plates. “Why don’t you two start?” Donovan said to me.
“A man who cooks and cleans.” I looked at Kerrison. “Along with kicking major ass. What more could a woman ask for in a partner?”
Kerrison smiled before folding her forearms on the tabletop. “Ready when you are, boss.”
I faced the madame. “We need to know everything, absolutely everything about the Elite Gentleman’s Club.” I kicked back in my chair, one elbow on an armrest, my hands clasped over my happy stomach. “From the girls who have sex with the clientele for money to whatever you can tell us about the owner, Beeff Giger.”
Red crept into the madame’s cheeks, and she didn’t look quite as composed anymore. “It’s not that kind of club. We don’t allow the girls to have sex with our patrons—”
“Cut the shit.” Kerrison leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. “Don’t push me.”
Madame Cherie raised her chin. “It’s the truth.”
Kerrison scooted her chair back like she was about to get up, but she stayed in her seat.
I rubbed my forehead. “Listen, Madame. According to our intel, I don’t think you know just how deep the shit is that you’re wading in.”
“How well do you know the girls you’ve been prostituting?” An angry gleam was in Kerrison’s eyes as she dug into her front pocket.
“We don’t—” The woman stopped and her eyes widened as soon as she saw Kerrison opening and closing the pocketknife she’d just taken out.
It was probably the hard expression on Kerrison’s face that made a believer out of the madame. Along with the pocketknife and the click-click-click of Kerrison’s steady opening and closing of the blade.
“Yes, the girls have sex for money and drugs.” The woman’s face was bright red. “Of course it’s their choice.”
“Choice . . .,” Kerrison repeated slowly.
“Do you know any of the girls personally?” I asked. “Have you spent any one-on-one time with them?”
“No time, really. The girls are usually only at the club for three months or so.” She shrugged. “And their handlers always deal with them.”
“Handlers?” Kerrison left the blade open, and the woman stared at the knife. “Since when do prostitutes need handlers?”
“It’s just the way Mr. G likes to run the club.” The madame seemed unable to look away from the knife. “All I do is schedule time slots for each girl whenever a man wants a little extracurricular time with her.”
“That’s what you call it?” Kerrison’s knuckles whitened as she clenched the pocketknife’s grip and stared at the woman. “Extracurricular time?”
I frowned as I worked over the madame’s words in my mind. Jenika Rublev. We couldn’t let our cooperative disappear to God knew where if they took the girls somewhere else—we weren’t sure we knew where all the clubs were or even how many. No, I wasn’t going to lose another person I’d put into danger, like Agent Randolph who’d been murdered earlier in the year.
“Why are the girls only there for such a short time?” I asked. “When is he moving them again?”
“I think he’s planning this exchange soon.” Madame Cherie cleared her throat. “He thinks it’s good to get in fresh meat by rotating the girls out and putting them into other clubs.”
Fuck. Rublev.
Kerrison looked even angrier, nearly baring her teeth before she spoke. “Fresh meat?”
I cut in before she could say anything else. “Who calls the shots on this?”
“Mr. G.” Clearing her throat again didn’t do a damned thing for the madame’s voice. Her words came out hard, scratchy. “I’m pretty sure he makes decisions for all the local clubs. I think he owns the lot of them, but I’ve never asked.”
“Do you think she knows the truth and is just bullshitting us?” I asked Kerrison and Donovan as he walked into the room, pulled out his chair, and sat.
“Our cooperative communicated that she doesn’t think the madame kno
ws everything.” Donovan crossed his arms over his broad chest and gave the woman a look so dark and dangerous that it probably made her just about pee her panties.
In a fast movement, Kerrison had the point of her pocketknife pressed against the madame’s throat. “But The cooperative believes the madame suspects the truth about these girls and why they’re in the club to begin with.”
Madame Cherie’s throat worked. Her face was no longer red. Instead the color had slowly drained away until she was so pale, her skin stood in stark contrast with her black hair. We all stared at her until she started to speak.
“I . . .” She swallowed again. “I don’t think the girls are having sex with men out of choice. They’re always drugged out of their minds and they’re not happy. They act like they’re only trying to learn pole-dancing and attracting men because they have to.”
“And you haven’t done anything about it?” Kerrison’s southern accent ratcheted up. She sounded so angry, I thought she was going to slit the woman’s throat. “You just let Giger and his men prostitute those girls?”
The madame looked at me as if I was the most reasonable out of the three of us. If she only had a clue, I’d have been the one she’d be most frightened of.
“Ever hear of human trafficking?” I managed to keep my tone even, letting her have her illusions that I was the rational one of the bunch. “Those young women are sex slaves. Trafficked directly from Moscow to New York City.”
An expression of horror started to creep across the madame’s face. “It’s true?”
“You start telling us every detail you can think of and answer every fucking question we have.” Kerrison leaned closer to the madame, who winced as a single tear of blood formed at the point of the knife that was still against her throat.
Kerrison’s voice came out low, deadly as she spoke. “I am not nice enough to let you keep those waffles down.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Giger
“Where is that fucking bitch?” Beeff slammed his meaty fist on his glass-topped desk as he shouted at Jacques. The vibrations caused pens and pencils to rattle in their holder, which was shaped like a pair of woman’s tits. “Bring her to me and I will make sure she is never late again.”
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 02] Page 7