by D. J. Heart
It wasn’t.
It had been stupid to think that he could negotiate with a loan shark. Jaxton had probably planned for this to happen. He’d made his money back twice since Mason started paying him back, and God only knew how much money he got from selling him.
Uncurling from his ball, eyes closed, Mason froze when his legs hit a row of metal bars. They were cold against his socked feet, the space between them just enough that he could stick the tip of his foot through.
He was in a cage.
He didn’t want to look, but he had to. He lifted his head and opened his eyes, his breath hitching at the sight of the metal enclosing him. The cage was even smaller than he’d thought. The only reason he didn’t feel it pushing into his back was that he was too numb from the cold and lying still to feel it.
Outside the cage the room was dark. Other than an exposed brick wall to his right, Mason couldn’t see a thing. Squinting his eyes, he realized that there was a second cage next to him with a sleeping omega inside of it.
Sitting up, his body slow to obey, Mason pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them tight. The cage was small, but he could sit upright without his head touching the roof.
“You’re awake.”
Mason jumped, his heart slamming into his chest. He looked around for the owner of the gruff voice, scared out of his mind.
“Where am I?” he asked, his voice shaking. A figure appeared in front of the cage and Mason scrambled back. It was an alpha, his scent hitting Mason a second before he could make out his features.
The scent was delicious. Mason didn’t know how else to describe it. Like sandalwood, leather, and something dark and spicy that made his belly feel tight and hot.
The alpha was muscular and tall, at least six foot five, but it was hard to make out his features in the dark. All Mason could see was a wide jaw and the contour of his cheekbones. With his face half-hidden in shadows, the alpha was even more intimidating than if Mason had been able to make out his face.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” the alpha said, his voice gently chiding. He bent down and unlocked the cage, and Mason pressed himself as far back as he could. The alpha might smell good, but Mason didn’t want him touching him.
The alpha sighed, like Mason was being difficult. He grabbed Mason’s ankles and pulled him out of the cage, and without knowing quite how it happened, Mason found himself with his back pressed against the alpha’s chest, his wrists captured in an iron grip.
He didn’t struggle. There was simply no point. The alpha stood a full foot taller than him and his arms were thicker than Mason’s thighs. He was hopelessly outmatched.
“Just relax. You don’t want to be awake for transport,” the alpha said, reaching into his pocket with his free hand and pulling out a syringe. He used his teeth to pull the cap off the needle, jabbing it into Mason’s upper arm before he could summon the courage to plead for mercy.
The effect of the drug was instantaneous. One minute Mason was awake and terrified, and the next he was dead to the world.
***
Chapter 3
Chris put the omega back in its cage, checking on the others to make sure none of them were waking up as well.
All six of them appeared to be asleep.
A year ago Chris would have struggled with a job like this. He would have grit his teeth and forced himself to do it stone-faced, every omega reminding him of his little brother, only to go home and vomit and wallow in self-disgust.
These days he hardly gave it a second thought.
After being given the news of his brother’s death, Chris had traveled to Melville to collect James’s ashes and to find out exactly what happened to him. After all, Melville was nowhere near James’s school, and he had no reason to be there that Chris knew about.
What he’d found horrified him. The cops and coroner had refused to hand over any of their files on James’s case, but their security was shit and Chris had no trouble breaking into the coroner’s office and rifling through their files.
James had died by the highway, but that was the only part of Detective Robins’s story that had any truth to it. James hadn’t died in an accident at all. He’d died from blunt force trauma to the head, and his body had shown signs of prolonged sexual abuse. Another few days of quick and dirty investigation and Chris had learned that his little brother had been kidnapped by omega traffickers, sold to a brothel, and killed by an unruly client—all in the span of three months while Chris was away on a mission.
The police knew exactly what had happened, as did the coroner, and despite the findings in the coroner’s notes, James’s cause of death was listed as a vehicular collision.
Chris had been furious, and he’d immediately started planning his revenge. He’d joined the criminal gang that ran the brothel, shedding his real last name and posing as a dishonorably discharged Army ranger. With ten years working black ops for the CIA behind him, Chris had no trouble making himself invaluable to his new employer, and within six months he was reporting to the boss himself.
It was just the kind of access he needed if he was going to figure out who had profited from his little brother’s abuse.
Though he’d sabotaged the brothel plenty, the main part of his plan—the part where he started killing people—had yet to be put in motion. He hated how long it was taking, but gathering intel and working undercover weren’t Chris’s areas of expertise.
In the end, however, he was confident that he’d get his revenge.
At the moment, Chris was evaluating a new omega supplier and so far the traffickers looked like they could deliver. The first batch of omegas were all top quality, and Chris had negotiated for three more deliveries before the brothel would commit to a more long-term arrangement.
Marlow, his boss, would be pleased, and Chris had a brand-new set of names for his kill list.
Watching the sleeping omegas, Chris felt a familiar pang of guilt. It almost startled him. It had been so long since he’d felt it.
One of the omegas in the bottom row of cages made a noise, and Chris froze. He leaned down and watched the boy carefully, wondering if he should give him a tranquilizer shot, but he decided to spare him the hangover. Worst came to worst he’d wake up on the truck and Chris would have to give him a shot then.
Standing up, Chris left the temporary storage room. He made his way into the heated office to wait for the truck that would transport him and the omegas back to brothel.
“They give you any trouble?” Blaze asked when he stepped inside. Blaze was Marlow’s nephew, and he sometimes had the young alpha shadow Chris in the hopes that some of Chris’s qualities would rub off on him. Chris hated it, but there wasn’t much he could do, though he refused to coddle or be nice to the obnoxious alpha.
“I handled it,” Chris said. No doubt Blaze had hoped for something dramatic that would require him to step in as well. He had a thing for fear and pain, and he never hesitated to take advantage of the omegas he came into contact with. He didn’t seem to grasp that part of their job was keeping the merchandise in good condition.
“Man, I believe it. Fuck, look at you. I bet they roll over and do whatever you say.” Blaze looked wistful. Being five foot eight—short for an alpha—he lacked the presence that made Chris so intimidating and effective. He obviously wanted to be more like Chris, but Chris wasn’t flattered.
He decided to put Blaze in his place.
“You spend a lot of time looking at me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“What? No. I’m just saying you’re an impressive guy. I don’t… I’m not like that.”
Chris took a menacing step forward and Blaze scrambled back, tripping over his chair and landing on his ass. Chris furrowed his brows, mouth set in a hard line, and watched him swallow nervously.
“Man, I’m not…”
Chris kept watching him, glaring silently and enjoying the pathetic alpha’s terror. Once he was sure Blaze was sufficiently cowed, he huffed out a silent laugh an
d let a mean smirk curve his mouth.
Blaze flushed with humiliation, understanding that Chris had just been fucking with him. He rose back on his feet with a mumble, lifting the collar of his coat up around his ears as he sat down and pretended to be busy looking at his phone.
Chris was only too happy to ignore him. He sat down and put his boots on the desk to take up most of the room, and then leaned back and let his mind go blank as he waited.
The silence was tense but not uncomfortable. At least not for Chris.
Half an hour later the truck pulled up outside the building. Chris nodded for Blaze to help him load the omegas into the cargo bed. It took about twenty minutes, and Blaze was sweating by the time they were done. He unzipped his coat and wiped his forehead.
Chris made a point of zipping his leather jacket all the way up to his throat.
The omegas all on board, Chris motioned for the driver to close the door to the cargo bed. He turned to Blaze.
“Clean up here and report to your uncle tomorrow morning for your next assignment.”
“But that will take all night!” Blaze complained. Chris just lifted his eyebrow, enjoying the other alpha’s misery.
“And that’s my problem because…?”
Blaze hunched his shoulders and stepped back, and Chris felt a thrill of satisfaction.
It worried him sometimes how easy it was to let his dominant instincts have free rein. Civilized alphas didn’t go around bullying people. They didn’t get into fights to assert their dominance or take pleasure in humiliating someone weaker than themselves. Chris had done a lot of terrible things as a black ops soldier, but he’d never acted dishonorably in his private life. The line between who he was on the job and who he was at home had been clear, even if the former had taken a toll.
But standing there, enjoying Blaze’s humiliated submission, Chris understood why some alphas made the decision not to be civilized.
It was a lot more fun.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll just get going then.” Blaze turned around and walked back to the car. Chris didn’t watch him leave, instead getting into the truck next to the driver and telling him to drive
The sooner he got the omegas back to the brothel, the sooner he could take a shower and finally get some sleep.
***
Chapter 4
After delivering the omegas to the dorms where they’d be processed, Chris headed up to his apartment. He started stripping as soon as he got in the door, hanging his coat in the closet and stepping out of his boots, leaving a trail of clothes to the bathroom.
He glanced at himself in the mirror, scratching his lower stomach as he headed to the shower. Setting the water as hot as he could bear, he lifted his feet one by one and pulled off his socks as he waited for the water to run hot.
He felt exhausted, and as he watched the water start to give off steam he wondered what Mick was doing. He hadn’t talked to his friend since that night at the bar, and the more time passed the harder it got to reach out.
Groaning, Chris tried to turn his thoughts away from Mick. It was only when he was this tired that his mental discipline lapsed and he started thinking about his old friend.
Shaking his head, Chris stepped under the spray. He mechanically soaped himself up and rinsed himself off, the heat loosening up the tight tension in his muscles.
He remembered when he’d enjoyed showering. How he’d stood under the hot spray after a long mission and just let the pounding water soothe his aching body and mind. Now he felt numb and dead inside—broken—like everything good and decent had been burned out of him.
Drying off, Chris wrapped the towel around his waist and walked to the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and took a swig before heading to the bedroom. He debated with himself if he should bring the bottle and drink himself to sleep, but after taking stock he figured he was tired enough to fall asleep without help.
Besides, going to work in the morning with a hangover was not worth it.
Walking into the bedroom, Chris let his towel drop to the floor and he dropped down on the bed. His bedroom was small, but the king-sized bed was sinfully soft, and his sheets were premium quality Egyptian cotton. Sliding under the covers, the cold sheets making him shiver, he put his head on his pillow and closed his eyes.
He hoped he’d make it through the night without dreaming. Though he’d stopped feeling anything when he dealt with omegas, he often had nightmares. Usually it would be a repeat of whatever he’d been doing that day, but with James taking the place of the omegas in the cage or whatever horrible situation Chris had put them in.
The phone rang and Chris groaned. He didn’t want to answer. The only people who called him on his new cell were his boss and Emily, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk to either of them.
But he had to.
Getting up, he walked into the hallway where his jeans were lying on the floor. His phone was buzzing in the pocket, and the caller ID read Emily.
Chris was relieved.
“Yes?” he answered, lifting the phone to his ear and walking into his office. He sat down and booted up his computer.
“Is this a bad time?” Emily asked. She sounded distracted.
Emily worked as an aide for a state senator, and she used her connections and access to ferret out hints to which politicians and officials were helping the omega trafficking industry. Chris had met her online, and after vetting her, he’d decided to recruit her to his cause. So far she’d been a huge help, and together she and Chris had found proof that dozens of police officers, judges, prosecutors, and lawmakers had taken bribes.
Emily was planning on taking their findings public, forcing the public to acknowledge what was going on. Chris was fine with that, as long as he got to kill the top-level players first.
Emily didn’t know about that part of the plan.
“No, it’s fine. What do you need?”
“I think I have a lead on who might be running this whole thing.”
Chris straightened, a shot of adrenaline making him alert and more awake than he’d been in days. Getting a job and working his way up the ranks in the organization that had taken his brother had been easy, but finding out who was actually in charge was proving to be much more difficult than Chris had anticipated.
It obviously wasn’t Marlow. Though he ran the brothel as though it was his outfit, a quick look at his finances revealed that he couldn’t be the man in charge—even if that was how he presented himself.
The actual owners used proxies and middlemen for everything, and no one seemed to know who they were. The money was all routed through a series of offshore accounts that Chris had yet been able to figure out, and from what he could tell, Marlow communicated with them via encrypted messages.
Chris suspected that whoever owned the brothel—whether they were a single person or a group—was behind the majority of the omega trafficking on the West Coast.
The brothel, with its club and dorms, was just one small piece of a much bigger operation. If Chris could figure out who owned everything, that’s who he most wanted to kill—along with every high-level police chief, politician, and judge they’d bribed into helping them.
“Give it to me,” Chris said, his voice commanding. Then he took a breath and forced himself to relax. Emily did not respond well to being treated like one of his soldiers. He’d learned early on that barking orders made her freeze up, and that speaking in a calm and measured voice would get him much further than his drill sergeant routine. “Sorry, force of habit. Please tell me what you’ve found and what you need me to do to help.”
He heard Emily draw a trembling breath, and then she spoke.
“There was an investigation that found evidence of a large-scale money laundering operation out of the Virgin Islands, and some of the sums match the ones on the list you sent me last month. The alpha they were going to prosecute is named Vincent Conroy. He’s obviously not the guy who actually owns the money, but this afternoon we got
an order from the governor to stop his prosecution. I think he might be the frontman for whoever actually gets the profits. I’m just not sure where we go from here…”
Chris grinned, baring his teeth as the thirst for blood roared in his ears. He knew exactly what he needed to do. Find Conroy and interrogate him. All he needed was an excuse to miss a few days of work that wouldn’t rouse any suspicion.
“I can follow this up, Emily. Great work. Do you have access to the case files?”
“No, they were all deleted from the system and the hardcopies were shredded. I wrote down Vincent Conroy’s phone number and current address, though. I can send you that.”