Atonement: The Hunter Mercenary Series (Book One)

by Morgan Kelley

  Rogue glanced over as he was rustling through the cabinets. The look he gave her said it all.

  ‘Ouch,’ he mouthed.

  It made her laugh even more.

  “Don’t mind Bunny,” Dakota stated. “She gets off on torture. You’ll only feel it for the next hour or so. Then she usually puts them down fast.”

  The man looked scared.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Put down, from the Latin for e pluribus putus downus,” she said, without batting an eye.

  Rogue had to turn his head. Sarah was throwing down some funny shit, and he was going to crack soon.

  “I suggest you talk. This week alone, I’ve seen her blister off a man’s nipples and torch his pubes. You don’t want her to go there. Trust me.”

  “A girl does what a girl has to do,” she said, holding up her hand. As if reading her mind, Rogue tossed her his shiny silver Zippo.

  That was all it took.

  “Again, do you work for your brother?”

  He nodded.

  “Where can we find him?”

  The man closed his mouth and shook his head.

  “Okay, Bunny, have at him.”

  Dakota leaned against the wall. He watched as his girl pulled on leather gloves and then the biggest butcher knife he had in the kitchen.

  “She won’t hurt me. You’re full of shit!”

  Walking over to him, she really didn’t want to kill him, but she needed to scare him.

  “Nose or ear?” she asked Dakota.

  “Ear. We can mail it to his brother. We all know how much he likes doing that to people.”

  His eyes went big.

  “Ear it is.”

  She grabbed it by the lobe and flicked the knife. It lopped the fleshy part off.

  Sarah dropped it on the floor.

  “I guess that earring is useless now. Such a waste. It’s almost a whole karat.”

  He screamed in pain.

  “Next is your nose.”

  “I don’t see him. He has one of his guys drop money off after I finish a job. That’s all I know. He doesn’t even trust his own brother with his location.”

  Yeah, in case shit like this happened.

  The people you loved, or the ones who loved you, were always your weakest link.

  “What was your last job?”

  “I had to get rid of a body.”

  That was NOT what they wanted to hear. They already knew who that was likely going to be, thanks to that video that Mr. Harrington had received.

  “Whose?” Sarah asked.

  He closed his mouth.

  “Okay,” she said, slicing open his shirt. She cut his chest when she did it, and blood began dripping.

  “Bitch, you won’t kill me.”

  “Nope, but I’ll slice you up so there’s enough blood to get you the attention you deserve. Where’s the closest swamp?” she asked.

  Rogue grinned. “Oh, in his backyard. I can hear the gators having their evening meal.”

  His eyes went big.

  “You can’t toss me in there!” he blurted.

  And now Dakota understood.

  He got why Chesky was paying his brother. He wasn’t muscle, and honestly, he didn’t look all that bright.

  He was the one who ditched the bodies for him.

  “You threw her in there, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He punched the man so hard in the face that his nose broke. The chair he was in flipped over.

  Then he straddled him and began wailing on him.

  Both Sarah and Rogue watched him. Dakota had flipped his shit.

  “WHO. DID. YOU. DUMP?” he asked, punctuating each word with a punch.

  The man wheezed through the broken nose and blood.

  “The older woman. I dumped Harrington’s wife.”

  Dakota got up.

  “Where can I find him?”

  “I only know where he kept the woman. That’s where I picked her up.”

  “Address.”

  He rattled it off.

  Rogue wrote it down.

  “Stay here,” he ordered Sarah. Grabbing the man by the hair, he dragged him out the back door, across the grass and to the ravine that was down there.

  Dakota could tell that at one point, he’d been baiting the alligators with chicken.

  Only, they weren’t touching the dead, hanging birds. That told him everything he needed to know. The man wasn’t lying. They’d been feed recently.

  That sucked for Sebastian.

  He was going to be bait himself.

  Dakota thought back to that video. The shot to the woman’s chest, and how her eighteen-year-old daughter had watched it.

  “Where is Mercedes?” he asked.

  “I don’t know! Don’t toss me in there! They’ll eat me! There’s too many of them!” he begged.

  “Where is Mercedes?” he asked a second time as he shook the man.

  “He shipped her out. He sent her off to be someone’s pussy. I don’t know more. He doesn’t tell us more.”

  Dakota believed him.

  Still, it didn’t matter.

  Although, he had one last question.

  “Twenty years ago, did you help your brother pimp out a Native girl?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “ANSWER ME! This is your life or death!”

  “Yes, he sold her! Don’t toss me in! She was one of his first! He sold her.”

  “Was her name Adsilla?”

  There was a pause. “Yes.”

  “Did you touch her?” he asked. “Did you put your vile, filthy hands on that teenager?”

  He didn’t speak.

  Dakota dragged him closer to the edge of the ravine and the gators.

  “YES! GOD! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”

  He turned him around and grabbed him by the belt of his pants so he was leaning backward over the ravine. The bleeding man was facing him.

  “Did you cover for him?” he asked.

  “He’s my brother. We cover for each other. You have to have your brother’s back. That’s the code!”

  Well, Dakota was going to do the same. He was going to handle this for Zayn. They may not be blood, but in a sense, this brought them together.

  He let go.

  “Oops. You slipped.”

  He watched him bounce down the ravine to the glowing eyes below. He screamed and begged for help, and none was given.

  “You didn’t help Adsilla. You didn’t help Maia. You didn’t help any of those other women you sold. So fuck you. I’m the judge, jury, and your executioner.”

  He watched as a giant alligator opened its mouth and took the man under the water.

  Sarah and Rogue were behind him when he turned around. He didn’t rationalize it.

  He didn’t make any excuses.

  “Dak,” she said, touching his arm.

  “Let’s call it justice for Adsilla, and for her brother who’s chased that demon for years. Zayn needed closure. We’re one step closer. Let’s go to that location.”

  Rogue stopped him.

  “What?”

  “I know how hard that was for you. That you’d give up your past for him…it will mean everything.”

  “You’re wrong. It wasn’t hard. That was too easy. That’s proof that I can’t wear that badge. I’d do it again, and I have no remorse. When Lottie Tipton and Filip Howe killed my partner, when he raped her with a butcher knife, US Marshal Dakota Rakin died. He died that day and I can’t resurrect him.”

  Sarah hurt for the man she loved.

  “Then what can you do?” Rogue asked.

  He was in the same boat. The lines had been crossed, and the end…it rarely justified the mean.

  “Atonement,” he said. “I can only look for that. This is a new day, and a new me. I won’t kill to kill, but I will kill for justice. The law…it’s flawed. Death…it’s certain.”

  With that, he was done discussing it, so he headed back tow
ard the house.

  “Let’s see what else we can find.”

  “Then?” Sarah asked as he didn’t even turn around.

  “That’s easy. We find Chesky Jensen and the person he’s working with on this one. Then we hand him justice too.”

  And they would.

  One person at a time.

  * * * H U N T E R * * *

  When he drove her to the ‘Bourbon Street Hotel’ in the middle of the chaos, she didn’t understand. Stella thought he was going to take her to the courthouse. Then again, at this time of night, it wasn’t likely open. As he checked them in, she listened to everything he’d said.

  “Everything is ready as per my request?”

  “Yes, Mr. Yazzie.”

  “And the officiant?”

  “He’s up there having some bourbon and a cigar. He arrived ten minutes ago.”

  “Thank you.”

  He led her to the stairs and held her hand.

  “Mr. Yazzie?”

  “It’s one of my aliases. I don’t use my real name anywhere but in personal interaction. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to also. It’s to make sure people who hire me don’t know my real identity. I won’t risk you because of my job.”

  She touched his cheek when she noticed he was tense. “I have a question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I make up a fun personality to go with the name?” she asked.

  It caught him off guard.

  He was expecting the reality of his life to be the deal breaker.

  “If you’d like. Who will you be now?”

  “Well, I’m going to be Marigold Yazzie. I like to paint, have sex in the rain, and get drunk on homemade wine.”

  He laughed. “Mr. Yazzie approves of the last two whole heartedly.”

  “I paint naked.”

  “And there is a unanimous vote.”

  “Perfect,” she said.

  At the top level of the hotel, he stopped. “I need to know right now if you’re one hundred percent sure of this.”

  She paused.

  Then continued.

  “No, Marigold really likes rain and wine. I’m sure.”

  He didn’t laugh.

  “No, I mean about this. I mean about marrying me. It’s going to have moments of sheer terror, pandemonium, and chaos, but I’ll love you until my last breath.”

  She moved into his body. “Promise you’ll protect me, Zayn? Promise that they’ll never get me again.”

  He held her. “I will NEVER let anyone touch you. You’re my treasure, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to take my sweetness away.”

  “Promise me you’ll never stray.”

  He ran his thumb across her lower lip. “Oh, Stella, I can’t stray. You’ve stolen my heart. It’s only yours.”

  That was all she wanted.

  Stella wanted to be loved and safe.

  “Then I’m good. I want to be your wife. I want to be all of the wives—Marigold Yazzie, and the rest too.”

  “There’s a Johnson, a White, a Tsosie, and Chaves too.”

  “Poppy Johnson, Rose White, Lily Tsosie, and Daisy Chaves.”

  He lifted her chin.

  “I love you. I’ll love you until I die.”

  She pulled his face down and gave him a gentle kiss.

  “Back at you, Mr.Yazzie-Johnson-White-Tsosie-Chaves,” she said, memorizing her new future.

  “You forgot the most important one,” he teased.

  Solemnly, she stared into his dark eyes. “I didn’t forget Mr. Thundercloud. He’s my secret treasure too. I’ll protect him in my heart.”

  He knew this was right.

  Nothing had ever felt this perfect.

  “Want to get married?” he asked. “It’ll be fast.”

  “Why fast?”

  “The wedding night. You get date sex. Finally.”

  It made her laugh.

  “Sign me up. I’m going to get it on with six men all at once.”

  He stared at her.

  “What?” she asked, trying to look innocent.

  “I do like a bad girl.”

  Oh, well, with all her new personalities, she could help him out with that.

  Willingly.

  * * * H U N T E R * * *

  Location of

  Body Pickup

  It was a dump.

  Literally.

  They followed the address, and it led them to some dive, scrap-farm where there was a structure in the middle of the property. That had to be the place where they were holding the women.

  This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Now, it was dark.

  Still, there was no doubt that the building was the location they had filmed the murder of Maia Harrington.

  “Run it,” Dakota said, as they stood outside the building.

  Sarah pulled up the video, and sure enough, it looked the same. There were the windows, the corrugated metal, and the size matched up.

  “It’s owned by a corporation,” Sarah said. “I’ll need time to dig beneath it to find the owner.”

  He got it.

  Until then…

  “Let’s see what we have.”

  They headed in, flashlights in hand. Carefully, they moved through the building, seeking out that one spot where they had seen Maia shot in the video.

  As they entered a big room, Sarah pointed.

  “This is where the video was shot, but they cleaned up,” she said, checking out the ground. “That gunshot to the chest would have left one hell of a puddle.”

  Rogue crouched down, took a whiff, and agreed.

  “They bleached the site. You can still smell the chlorine in the dirt.”

  That didn’t help them at all.

  In fact, it made it worse. If they removed the trace, they certainly made sure that this place would never be tied to them. Dakota was betting that they had paid off the real owners to use it or they rented it.

  “Okay, well, does anyone see anything that might tell us where they sent Mercedes?” he asked.

  “Let’s look around,” Rogue said.

  They split up.

  As they searched the area, neither man found anything that might give them a clue as to who had Mercedes, or if Sebastian was telling the truth, and she was already sold off into the sex trade.

  Then they had a break.

  “I found where they likely kept either Maia or Mercedes,” Sarah shouted from across the room.

  They headed her way.

  She was standing on top of a grate.

  “It looks pretty deep down there. I think a person or two would fit.”

  They knew they needed to look. There was no way they could ignore it.

  “Who is going down?”

  Rogue shook his head. “Nope. I don’t do pits or public toilets.”

  They stared at him. “How do you function in life?” Dakota asked. “You are such a freaking girl.”

  “Hey, I’m man enough to admit that if they were kept in that hole, it IS, essentially, a public toilet.”

  He had a point.

  “I’ll go,” Dakota said, grabbing a bar not far away to pop the lock. “I want to make sure they can’t use this again,” he stated as he damaged it.

  When it was open, he grabbed the one lip of the opening and slowly lowered himself down.

  “Well?”

  “Yeah, it’s a public toilet,” he said, standing in the hole. It was just deep enough for him. For two smaller women, it would seem like a prison.

  “Hand me a flashlight.”

  Sarah knelt by the opening and did just that.

  When he turned it on, he checked out the corners, floor, and walls.

  That was when he found it.

  “Well, I think I know who was in here,” he said.

  “Who?” Rogue asked, covering his nose with his hand as he squatted beside Sarah.

  He was going to puke. It was ironic that he could kill for a living, but that smell…

  Jesus.

&nbs
p; Dakota shined the light on the wall. There was one word scratched there.

  ‘WIFE’

  “We can definitely say that Maia was in this prison. She likely was alone. They kept Mercedes somewhere else.”

  It looked like they had to keep digging.

  “Give me your hands,” Dakota said, holding both up for Sarah and Rogue.

  They pulled him up.

  He looked around.

  “What are we missing?” he asked. “This had to be something that he planned for a while. We have Chesky being notorious for selling girls, and he hooks up with the blackmailer who was trying to get Danforth’s money.”

  “Yeah, and?” Rogue asked.

  He didn’t solve things. He was hired help to con people out of shit or kill.

  This was not his game.

  In this case, Rogue was the odd man out.

  “This is a huge thing. Someone had to be involved deeper than security. They had to know all about Stella, Maia, and Mercedes.”

  They agreed.

  “Where to?”

  “Back to the house. Tomorrow, we’re going to start looking at everyone who is around Danforth.”

  “EVERYONE?” Rogue asked.

  He knew that the logistics of that, even with the absconded US Marshal’s technology was going to be a very difficult thing to do.

  Almost impossible.

  “Long term people. We’re going to make sure we cover our bases. Chauffeur, tutors, maids, etc.”

  They were going to be very busy.

  “My gut is screaming, and we are definitely missing something,” he offered.

  “But what?” Sarah asked. “We’re following this the way we’re supposed to.”

  He was aware.

  “Are you sure it’s not just revulsion from being down in that disgusting hole in the ground?” Rogue asked. “I know that made me sick.”

  He laughed.

  “How did you become a killer?”

  “Happenstance.”

  Dakota rolled his eyes.

  “I trust my gut,” he stated.

  Sarah did too.

  “Yeah, it’s more.”

  “They drew this out. Why?” he asked. “Most hostage takers ask for the big money and then bail. They are draining Harrington, and there has to be a reason.”