“Rogue, would you do the honors?” he asked, tossing him his phone.
He pulled up Danforth’s pictured.
“Is that him?” he asked, showing the man the picture they had of him.
“YES!”
“What does he do in this whole sex trafficking operation?”
He screamed as his second foot was cut and shoved into the water. Then he stopped when Zayn punched him in the gut.
Hard.
His mouth worked like a fish, ironically, out of water as he fought to get air.
They gave him a few seconds.
“You don’t have much time, Jake. You will be empty in a good five minutes. These are slow bleeds, but you can tell already that foot one is not happy. It’s dying, and so are you.”
“They were partners! He double-crossed Rosemary and was dipping into the girl well!”
And that was exactly what they thought.
The man was a pervert and a money hungry scumbag. There was no doubt that Danforth called the FBI to get his sister’s ass nailed to the wall. He knew what she was doing, and by finding the girls, he hoped his sister would go down.
Well.
Well.
Well.
“Please help me! I don’t want to die.”
“What’s going down at the drop tonight?” he asked, pulling the other dead man’s phone from his pocket so he could read off the address.
“Carter needed a new pussy. It’s some girl named after a car. That’s all I know.”
“Ford? Taurus? Mercedes?”
“Yeah! Mercedes! That’s it. He’s picking her up, and he’s going to take her to a new location. He has a place in another state!”
BINGO.
And that was exactly why they needed to be at that drop. It was going to be where they rescued Mercedes and found this Carter. They couldn’t let the woman be taken out of the state. They’d never find her again.
That would be an issue.
“Will Rosemary be there?” Rogue asked.
“No! She has her team bring the girl, pick up the money, and secure the location. They never do the same job! It rotates. I was the money man a while ago, and she gives us new jobs!”
“Give me a name of someone else you haven’t already mentioned. This is how you end your suffering,” Zayn stated.
“JASPER HUTCHINSON!”
That was a new one, and now, they had what they needed. There was no need for Jake anymore.
It was time.
Zayn flipped out the blade again and moved to stand behind Jake.
“Uh, if I were you, I’d move, or your pretty boy shoes and suit are toast,” Zayn stated.
Rogue did just that.
He sliced Jake’s throat in one long line, and then took off the rubber gloves. He rinsed them off in the faucet, and then tucked the wet ones, with his prints inside, into his pocket.
Then he made a call.
“I have a pickup. He’s warm, and not one organ is damaged. Clean up at the warehouse.”
He hung up.
“Let’s go. We’ll take this intel back to base. It will be useful for when we go in. I want to do a search on the location. I don’t like playing games in the woods without a back way out.”
Rogue was good with that.
“This wasn’t as much fun,” Rogue stated.
“What?”
“Sarah has such je ne sais quoi when she does it. She really makes it a show. You don’t have that showmanship about you. You could learn from her.”
“Are you shitting me? You’re insane. And what the hell is Jenny’s say quack?”
Rogue laughed at his butchering of the French words. It was as funny as hell.
“Never mind. It loses something in the translation,” Rogue said, patting him on the back. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t think I want to meet the body pickup team.”
“Oh, you don’t. Then you become one.”
That was good enough for Rogue.
They hauled ass and left Jake in his chair, knowing he would at least do some good in his pathetic, vile life. His organs would save people.
Now his soul?
That was one hell of a lost cause.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
Dakota had been stewing the entire time Zayn and Rogue were out working on some leads. He couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah, and his life.
A part of him wished he’d sent her back to DC when she arrived there. Maybe, if he had, there would still be hope. He had none now, and it was hard to get past that.
With tonight quickly approaching, what he needed was to clear his mind, and find a way to try and forget that he’d hurt the only woman he ever really loved.
Leaving the house, he promised Stella, Merry, and the detective some coffee. Since Sarah always made theirs, he opted to run out to buy some.
He couldn’t look at the cutesy coffee canister that she’d bought for him with a crown on it. It broke Dakota’s heart.
As he was crossing Jackson Square, the park across from their hidey-hole, he saw her.
The detective.
She was sitting on a bench, staring out into the sea of tourists. Her booted foot was braced on her knee, and her badge and gun were clearly visible.
She wore them like another woman would carry a handbag. They were clearly part of her. Dakota recalled what that was like.
It was power.
It was strength.
It was gone.
“Fancy meeting you again,” Dakota stated, staring down at her.
“Yeah, what a remarkable coincidence,” she stated, not even looking up at him.
Dakota knew why she was pissy. It was the same reason Rogue was. The two had tangoed, and something went very wrong. Yeah, that was the story of his life.
“Is this seat taken?”
She looked at it and then back out at the sea of tourists.
“Yes, it is.”
He sat anyway.
“Did he send you out to look for me?” she asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
He didn’t have to ask who HE was. Yeah, someone went rogue, and it definitely went bad. Dakota wasn’t shocked. Rogue was all kinds of twisted up enigmas rolled into one big puzzle.
“Nah, he didn’t. I needed a break. My fiancée dumped my ass this morning, and I needed a coffee.”
She looked at him.
“Really?”
He pulled the ring from his pocket.
“Do you know many guys who carry a rock around for shits and giggles?”
She sympathized. She handed him the rest of her coffee. Chances were, he needed it more than she did.
“Here.”
He took a sip.
“You’ve been dogging us,” he stated.
“Well, if you’re a bad guy and plan on killing me, this is a public park. Did you kill Charlotte for him? Are you his muscle?” she asked.
He laughed.
“Uh, no. First off, neither of us killed Charlotte. You’re so stirred up, you’re not seeing the truth.”
She was aware.
“For the record, not too long ago, I was a cop,” Dakota said. By now, the woman had to have some inkling of what was going on.
“Were you?” she asked.
He reached into his other pocket and pulled out his badge holder and ID. Then he tapped his belt buckle.
“It was made into something more useful,” he said, handing it over to her.
This was risky, but Dakota knew she wasn’t going to back off. Once she got her bearings, post-Rogue-pocalypse, she’d be on their asses all over again.
She checked it out.
It surprised her, but then it didn’t. Alessandro, her boss, said that the FBI was handling the whole mess, and she knew that the marshals were the FBI’s hunting dogs.
It made sense.
Well, up to what the hell Rogue Ravenscroft had to do with any of this except being Charlotte Shaw’s ex.
“So, a US Marshal, huh? You look like a cop. Ar
e you hunting down any fugitives in The Big Easy?” she asked.
“You could say that.”
“I’ve been saying a lot lately, and it’s falling on deaf ears,” she stated. “Something bad is going on, and I don’t know what. I know my partner is blowing smoke up my ass, my boss is trying to avoid an FBI mess, and Mr. Ravenscroft is up to his sexy eyeballs in one hell of a mess.”
Oh, she was right on target.
“You know, he didn’t tell you the truth for a reason.”
He had her attention. While she was sitting there, she’d been wondering a myriad of things, and that was at the top of the list.
“Really? Why?”
“Are you a decent cop?” he asked.
“I’m not decent. I’m exemplary. I do my job, and I do it to the best of my ability.”
Yeah, didn’t they all.
Look what it got him.
DESTITUTION.
“That’s why he likely didn’t want to tell you, Detective. What we’re doing battle against in New Orleans is something incredibly ugly.”
“My job is the ugly, Mr. Rakin. It’s MY JOB—not yours.”
Yeah, he was aware. He’d worn that badge with honor until revenge devoured him whole and he became obsessed with Bonnie.
“In his defense, he didn’t know your partner was at the house,” he stated. “He went home the previous night, and shit happened. Rogue didn’t lie about that.”
That helped a little.
She had jumped down his throat.
“Know what I really want?” she asked. “I would like someone to trust me and tell me what’s going on here in the city. Is that so much to ask? The FBI shut my investigation down, and now I’m sitting here feeling…”
“Lost.”
“Yeah, lost.”
He figured if he could save Rogue, he would. After all, they all deserved love. He’d take one for the team on this one. Since he was big on claiming it as his, he made the choice.
She was good for Rogue.
He knew what it meant to finally feel, and he wanted that for the man.
“Off the record?”
She glanced over.
“No bullshit?” she asked.
“Yeah. No BS.”
“Deal.”
Cordelia had to trust someone. He’d been a marshal, the FBI was on the ground, and she wanted in. This was her freaking city, and she needed to know what was going down.
“Off the record, we’re looking for Charlotte’s killer, who is also involved in sex trafficking. Charlotte was part of it somehow, and we’re trying to bust it open and shut it down.”
She blinked in surprise.
“Sex trafficking? Are you serious?”
He nodded.
“Here? In my city?”
“Yeah. Here. Rogue told us that you found out that the FBI is taking over. Well, they are, and they aren’t. They passed it off to my team. We specialize in…”
What did they specialize in?
Shit?
Killing?
Stupidity?
Yeah, he couldn’t tell her any of that.
“Let’s just say we specialize in handling cases that the FBI and the local law can’t handle.”
“So you’re illegally handling things for the government. Why does that sound a million times worse out loud?”
He laughed.
“You should hear it in my head. It goes against everything I am.”
She bet.
She was good at judging people, and he seemed like a straight shooter. From his cowboy boots to his belt buckle. If he was still wearing his badge, she knew it mattered. She’d die for hers. She’d die for her job.
Dakota Rakin seemed like that kind of man.
“Rogue didn’t kill Charlotte. He didn’t lie about any of that. He was with our team at Purgatory the whole time. Do we know who killed her? We think so. We’re trying to do this.”
And that had been the lie.
“He didn’t tell you because the people behind this would go after you. You’re pretty, you’re a cop, and you’d be a good piece of ass to sell off to the buyers.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
He pulled out his phone.
“This is Storm St. Clair,” he said.
Then he told her the story.
“She was taken on an undercover operation. We were instructed to find her. We did. She’s safe, but she has been under a full year.”
“Tough gig.”
“No, she was grabbed, betrayed, and sold as a sex slave. The man did so much to her.”
He told her.
She sat there and listened.
It made her sick.
“That’s why he didn’t tell you, Detective Harding. Rogue didn’t tell you because he didn’t want you to end up like that. Would he try and save you? Yes, but a year being raped every day and gangbanged while drugged? He couldn’t bear that. He cares about you or he wouldn’t give you the time of the day.”
He pointed at the gloves beside her on the bench. They had the Ravenscroft monogram, and he knew where she got them. It wasn’t too chilly out, and that proved they were both tied up over all of this.
“He could have just told me.”
“No, he couldn’t. We are under an FBI gag order. We can’t say shit. Me telling you…I’ve compromised my whole team. I’ve trusted a stranger who could cause all of us to die. Already, New Orleans is turning against us.”
“I get it now,” she stated, and she did. That made her feel worse. Not only did she have a drive-by fucking, the walk of shame, and a pity party, she’d tore an innocent man a new one.
Why?
She’d lost her objectivity. She had no business working this case, and she knew it. Rogue had tied her up in knots, and she wasn’t free of them.
“Can I ask something?”
“Shoot. I’ll answer if I can.”
“Who will handle the outcome? The FBI?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Oh. That kind of team.”
Yeah, that kind.
“This sex ring spanned a few states. The FBI just shut it down in Las Vegas. The ringleader headed here. She’s been picking up young girls here and selling them to sexual predators. We have to shut her down, and how do you think Storm is going to do in court?”
“Jesus.”
She couldn’t imagine.
“How is my partner tied up in all of this, since I saw him go into that courtyard?”
Dakota had told her everything else, so why not this?
“His wife used to be a head tech for Elizabeth Blackhawk. He joined her at the house. We found some evidence that is helping us pick it apart one by one.”
She listened.
“Rogue is trying to do the right thing. We all are. Our methods…they are shitty, but the outcome is what matters, right?”
“Are you trying to convince me or you?”
He laughed.
Cordelia Harding was too damn smart for his own good. You couldn’t bullshit her. It was clear she was good at her job. Now, he needed to see if that helped or hurt them in the long run. Dakota was hoping it helped them.
Or at least Rogue.
“I’m definitely trying to convince both of us.”
She laughed.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
He took a shot at it.
“I hear you had a run in with him this morning at his house.”
She laughed.
“Loose lips sink ships.”
“He didn’t give us details, but he did show up frazzled, a mess, and not on his game. That’s a good way to get yourself killed. We have a pretty important thing going down tonight.”
She looked worried.
Him getting hurt…that scared her.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you’re a cop, and you have turf, and we’re on it,” he stated. “I get it. I’m territorial.”
“Well, I won’t be bothering Mr. Ravenscroft again. What
’s done is done. Honestly, I just needed to think, and this is my favorite place to do it.”
He was aware.
His too.
“I’ll be giving him a wide berth.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Neutral ground. I shared. Isn’t that good cop etiquette?” he asked.
“That’s the issue. I’m not good with etiquette. He’s a Ravenscroft.”
“And?”
Cordelia glanced over at him.
“Well, maybe because my parents are less than desirable people, I don’t fit into that world. They’re not the kind of people you introduce to people—not if you want to see them again.”
“Chances are, Detective, that he did his research on you already. Rogue is a very smart man, so when you left last night, he probably ran you.”
Oh, Jesus.
Great.
“When you showed this morning, Rogue likely knew everything about you, and then some. He’s good at what he does. I would change all your passwords.”
“WHAT? WHY?”
He laughed.
Clearly, she didn’t know what he really did for a living. If she did, she would have gotten the joke.
“If he likes you, he likes you. He’s got a soft spot for women, and he has a type.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors. Again, he’s a Ravenscroft and a playboy. I already did my walk of shame.”
Dakota defended him, even though he was angry with him. They were a team. It couldn’t be personal.
“No, he’s Rogue. He’s smart, he’s caring, and he sees something in you. By running, Detective, you’re only going to get lost. Take it from me. I’m lost. Give him a chance. He’s struggling too. The rumors aren’t true. He’s anything but a playboy.”
Her heart skipped at that faint hope. Before, she’d been feeling lost.
Now she had a glimmer of a chance.
“Why are you really here?” she asked.
“I told you. I needed some coffee. We have a long night ahead of us. Rogue normally goes home after work. You know…in case you want to talk to him. He hasn’t been crashing at our home lately.”
That had her attention.
“Now, for some coffee.”
He was up and headed toward the vendor who was selling java in the middle of the park. Once there, he bought five coffees. As he headed back toward the house, he stopped and handed one to the detective before saluting her and returning home.
Absolution: The Hunter Mercenary Series (Book Two) Page 31