Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Warning
Blurb
Interlude
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Draw Blood
Lone Star Mobsters
Book Six
Cynthia Rayne
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Warning
Blurb
Interlude
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Interlude
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Interlude
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Interlude
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Warning
This book contains some disturbing scenes surrounding child sexual abuse and human trafficking.
It isn’t for the faint of heart.
You’ve been warned.
Blurb
Flirting with death
Ten is a man with a dark past and many secrets. He kills without remorse and keeps to the shadows. With the exception of his cat, Ten is a loner and he doesn’t do human interactions or attachments. And yet, he can’t stop thinking about Aggie. They met on a rooftop while she danced on a ledge and into his imagination.
Aggie is a restless, reckless private eye and hasn’t come to terms with her bleak inevitable future. She took a dangerous case, and now her life is in jeopardy.
Can a very bad man save her? And will they build a future together?
Interlude
Twenty years ago…
“One day you’ll go there.”
The boy crouched in a corner, knees drawn to his chest, flipping through a dog-eared travel magazine, dreaming of a future, which would probably never come.
It didn’t stop him from fantasizing though.
The well-worn pages featured panoramic pictures of the great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. They looked mysterious and inviting. Mist hovered around the peaks, and the trees were a symphony of color— red, gold, and a dark rusty brown. It was so much nicer than the bare, crumbling cement walls surrounding him.
A fire pit nestled next to a cabin, and it looked inviting. The boy wished he was curled up in front of it, warming his toes. He could hear the crackle of the flames, almost smell the burning pine logs. Closing his eyes, he imagined being right beside the fire pit.
Anywhere but here.
He’d often fantasized about what the interior looked like. He pictured warm feather beds piled with quilts and a fireplace in every room. The living room table would have big platters full of food—all the fried chicken he could eat, and mashed potatoes on the side, maybe an apple pie for dessert.
His stomach rumbled at the thought alone. Sometimes he felt like it was trying to gnaw on the rest of his insides and he pressed a hand against his empty tummy, to quiet the gurgling, but it didn’t work.
It never did.
Elijah was twelve years old, at least he thought so anyway. Like so many things about his past, it was guesswork and speculation. He’d been told many things but didn’t know what to believe.
He’d read the magazine cover to cover several times. Once again, Elijah longed for something new, anything to occupy his mind. Most days, he felt like he was going crazy.
Then he heard footsteps on the stairs, heavy and thudding, the sound of doom.
He stashed the magazine under the old stained mattress he slept on and scrambled to his feet, preparing for the worst, because nothing was ever easy for him. Nothing.
His gaze lowered to the floor, focusing on the man’s mud-caked boots. The boy preferred not to linger on his face or the wedding ring on his hand. He didn’t like to think about Paul at all.
Paul only visited once a week, thank God.
“I brought you dinner.”
He dropped two paper bags full of groceries near the steel door. Elijah didn’t need to look inside. Paul always brought him an assortment of cheap junk food like potato chips and snack cakes. The stuff he chose didn’t need to be refrigerated. Every once in a while, if he was lucky, Paul gave him a jar of peanut butter along with some crackers.
After he left, Elijah would stash the food on creaky metal shelves on the other side of the room. There wasn’t much to the place—a mattress, shelves, and that’s about it. On one wall was an industrial sink which the boy used for drinking water and to clean himself up after Paul departed. He hadn’t had a real shower in months.
The boy had no idea where the abandoned building was, but it must be far from civilization. Elijah was stashed away in the basement. Whenever Paul visited, he always tracked dirt in with him. It fell from the treads, and after he left, the boy swept them up with his hands and deposited the muck in the trash bag hanging on a rusted nail near the one window.
The glass blocks were so thick he couldn’t make out any distinct images through them. His first few weeks here, he’d screamed himself hoarse, calling for help, but no one came for him.
They never did.
“Come here.”
Elijah didn’t fight him, he’d given up trying long ago.
As always, he had to rely on himself to survive. Maybe it was better that way. He was strong enough to stand on his own and didn’t need anyone else. If Elijah survived this, he promised himself he’d get bigger and stronger, and he’d never need another living soul.
Paul manacled one wrist, and the boy bit the inside of his cheek.
You can do this, just get through the next few minutes, and it’ll be fine. The bastard never lasted long anyway.
“What’s your name, boy?”
He clenched his teeth. “Elijah.”
Now the boy hung from the chains mounted between two pillars, like a damp sheet flapping on a clothesline, arms stretched above his head. Elijah was painfully thin, covered in welts and bruises. Healed scars mottled his back and shoulders.
Paul backhanded him. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His lips were cracked and painful, and his feet were bare. The cold seeped into him, buried itself in the marrow of his bones. It was a soul-deep chill, like the finality of a grave.
The man’s belt came down on his left shoulder with a stinging bite.
“I said, what’s your name?”
They’d played this game several times and apparently Paul never tired of the repetition. At this point, it was something of a script, a play they acted out again and again.
If Elijah gave in too soon, he’d be whipped bloody. And if he played along, he’d “only” have to endure the belt. And then afterward, Paul would fling him down on the soiled mattress and fuck his ass.
>
“Elijah.”
He felt no connection to the name and never would. Elijah was weak, a prisoner, a victim, and the boy just knew he was made of stronger stuff.
One day, he would be the predator, not the prey.
The belt came down again, and he winced.
“Tell me your name.”
Elijah could hear the catch in his voice, the excitement. Hurting him turned Paul on. The sick bastard got off on inflicting pain. Elijah knew, without having to look over his shoulder, that he had a hard-on.
It was time.
“I don’t have one,” he whispered.
“That’s right. You’re nothing, nobody.”
The words held a painful ring of truth.
“Say it.”
“I’m nobody.”
“Damn right. You’re nothing but a place to put my come.”
Elijah winced.
“You aren’t even a person. You’re just a thing, aren’t you? A dirty whore I use when I please.”
Elijah flinched.
It never failed to amaze him. Somehow, the words hurt more than the actual beating.
The man grunted with satisfaction and Elijah recognized the whirr of his zipper being pulled down. Paul released Elijah and dragged him to the bed with trembling hands, so eager for what came next.
As the man mounted him from behind, Elijah squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something else, anything but the greasy cock pushing into his bowels.
If I somehow make it out of this dark and clammy hole in the ground, I’m gonna choose my own name.
Tennessee.
Yeah, I like the sound of it.
People will call me Ten for short.
Chapter One
Hell, Texas
“What can I do for you?”
Agatha Byrd leaned back in the desk chair, awaiting an answer.
The couple seated across from her, Alejandro and Sofia Fernandez, were in their late 30s, and their faces and hands were weathered from the sun. Calluses marred the man’s hands, and there were similar marks on Sofia’s palms. He had jet black hair, with warm brown eyes and Aggie would place his height at just below six feet. His wife had the same coloring, but she was very petite, scarcely over five feet.
They glanced at one another and then back to her, evidently at a loss for words. Both of them had dark circles under their eyes as if they hadn’t even gotten a wink of sleep the night before. Both of them had welts and bruises on their faces and arms, too. Whatever they’d come here for, it must be awful. She’d found them outside her door when she arrived, so the problem must be urgent.
“It’s okay, take your time,” Aggie said gently.
Clients often told her their deepest, darkest secrets within a few moments of meeting her, and they had to collect their thoughts before they spoke. She’d cultivated patience over the past eight years. It had been a couple of weeks since she’d taken on a case, and Lord knows, she needed the distraction.
They spoke softly to one another in Spanish, and she didn’t understand a word of it.
In the meantime, Aggie took a gander around the office and made a mental note to bring some cleaning supplies in with her tomorrow. Aggie couldn’t remember the last time she’d given the place a decent scrub, and she spied streaks on the glass and spider webs in the corners.
Aggie couldn’t afford a cleaning service and the past few months had been difficult, so chores had gone by the wayside. The office wasn’t much to look at, but the rent was affordable, so she made do. The room was beige with brown accents and hadn’t been painted since she’d moved in. The linoleum floor was cracked and stained from years of use. Her office was in the back corner of an old building just off the highway, which had been built in the seventies, and the chunky architecture reflected it.
Aggie probably would’ve built up a bigger client base if she’d moved to a larger city, but she liked Hell. All the businesses in town had a hellacious theme, because they were owned by a local biker gang, the Four Horsemen MC.
Maybe I’d get more business if I changed the name. What the Hell, Detective Services? Nah.
“We’re ready,” Sofia said after a few minutes, in lightly accented English.
“Great. How can I help?”
“Our daughters have been taken.” Tears dribbled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.
Aggie gasped.
Alejandro broke down as well. Seeing a grown man cry was devastating and tears blurred her own vision. Although Aggie cried so easily these days, even a sad commercial set the waterworks in motion. Grief had a way of heightening feelings, so the underlying sorrow was ready to push its way to the surface at any moment.
She sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry, but you should be speakin’ with the FBI, not me.” This case was way above her pay grade. She’d never handled a kidnapping and didn’t want to.
The majority of her business was run-of-the-mill detective work. Every once in a while she did employment background checks for corporate clients. Most of the time, Aggie tracked down unfaithful husbands in no-tell motels and took compromising photographs for their divorce cases.
Watching a wife’s distraught expression as she thumbed through pictures of her husband screwing some secretary was hard to watch. It was enough to turn even the most die-hard debutante off of marriage, although Aggie had no desire to marry. She couldn’t even begin to imagine telling parents their children would never be coming home.
“We can’t go to them.”
“Why not?”
They exchanged another fleeting look and Sofia said something to her husband in Spanish. He must not understand English. Afterward, the couple fell awkwardly silent.
So she made an intuitive leap. “Are you undocumented?”
“My children and I have papers, but my husband doesn’t.” The woman laid a hand on Alejandro’s arm. “It’s been harder to get work visas.”
Aggie wasn’t surprised. “And you’re afraid if you contact the FBI, they’ll call immigration?”
Sofia relayed the information to Alejandro, and they both nodded.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, had been rounding up and deporting a lot of folks in Texas lately. They often partnered with local police departments and the feds, so Aggie understood the couple’s misgivings. Facing a deportation hearing would only add to their troubles.
Immigration cases were often complicated because some family members were citizens or had green cards, while others were here illegally. It left people stranded on either side of the border. It was a messy, thorny situation, but these people’s legal status in the country wasn’t Aggie’s business. She only cared about finding their children.
“Yes ma’am, so we need your help.”
“Why me?” She ran a hand down her face.
“Mateo Martinez mentioned you,” Sofia said. “Teo told us you found his son.”
“Yes, but Pablo ran away, he wasn’t abducted, which is a very different situation.”
Martinez ran a local farmer’s stand and his sixteen-year-old son, Pablo, had taken off for Arizona last year. The boy’s girlfriend had recently moved there with her family, and he’d followed her. Aggie had pinpointed his location using cell phone records, just outside of Sedona. It had only taken her forty-eight hours to locate and return Pablo.
Aggie hadn’t even heard the particulars yet, but she already knew this case would be much more difficult.
“Sí, but you brought him back home.”
“I did, but Mateo followed all of the protocols, including contacting the police and filing a missing person’s report.”
“Please just listen to us, and then you can decide what to do.” Sofia gripped the edge of the desk. “Please?”
Aggie sighed.
Contacting the local FBI office would be the smart thing to do. She could hand the phone to Sofia and guide the couple through the process.
Who knows? Maybe she could swee
t-talk the agent in charge into bypassing ICE altogether, but Aggie knew they’d bolt if she did, which ultimately left their children in danger.
And that I can’t abide.
Her conscience got the better of her. “Okay, tell me what happened.”
“Last night, two men came for our girls, Luna and Maria.”
“Did you recognize them?”
She shook her head. “They were armed and wore masks. The men took them from their beds, and the girls were screaming and crying.” Her lower lip trembled. “When we tried to stop them, they beat us.” Sofia touched a black and blue goose egg on her forehead.
Alejandro held out a hand, and his wife squeezed it. They were both shaky with exhaustion and anxiety.
Aggie felt for them. They’d been painted into a corner. Criminals sometimes preyed on illegal immigrants, because they were vulnerable. Many of them didn’t know the language, and wouldn’t contact the police for fear of discovery.
“Do you have any enemies? People who’d want to hurt you?”
After Sofia’s translation, they once again traded uneasy glances. Alejandro nodded almost imperceptibly, as though encouraging Sofia.
“Yes, his name’s Diego Ruiz. His men might’ve taken our chicas.”
She’d heard of him before, and he was bad news. Diego was a local thug, and from what Aggie had gleaned, he had connections to drug cartels, prostitution rings, and bank robberies. Evidently, he was diversifying his criminal portfolio.
“Why would he abduct them?”
“We refused to work for Diego three days ago.” She bit her lip. “And he told us we’d regret turning him down.”
Everything was coming into focus.
“Let me guess, he wanted you to smuggle something?”
Agriculture in Texas depended on Mexican farm workers. Large groups of them came to this country for jobs with temporary work visas, so if they were carrying contraband, it wouldn’t be as noticeable.
Sofia interpreted Aggie’s question.
“We cross over mucho.” Alejandro made a fence with one hand and used two fingers on his other hand to hop over it. His English was broken but understandable.
“And Diego wanted you to smuggle something the next time you crossed the border from Mexico to the States?”
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