Then, well, fuck me, the little kid throws herself at my legs and hugs me as well as she can. “Good man. Good man.”
Swift meets my eyes and smirks.
Bolt goes toward the front door and picks up a bag he’d left there. He returns and opens it. How they got a hold of the items inside, I can’t imagine, but it’s filled to the brim with sandwiches, bags of chips and chocolate. He empties it out and hunkers down.
“Why don’t we have a picnic while we wait for the transport?” He rises and steps back, waving his hands in invitation.
The older girl says something in her own language. To my surprise, Bolt responds. He seems to be quite fluent. There’s a lot of gesturing, and at first her face falls, then she straightens her back and nods.
When I raise my eyebrow toward him, he satisfies my curiosity. “I explained she was going to live with an American family. That has to be better than where she expected to be, which was begging on the streets.”
“You can trust these people?” I glare, worried about sending the kids from the frying pan into the fire.
“Emphatically. We’ve done favours for them before.”
Which is the way the world works. I can appreciate that.
A vehicle pulls up outside, and in walks Connor. “Someone want a ride to San Francisco?” He waggles the car keys he holds in his hands.
“Me!” Jorge leaps up and runs toward him, stopping abruptly before getting too close. “Are you taking us to our aunt?”
“Yeah, little man.” Connor gets down to his level. “You’ve got to be good, alright? You and your sister sit in the back and do everything I tell you. There’s a blanket on the back seat. If I tell you to get on the floor and cover yourselves with it, are you going to be able to do that?”
Seriously, Jorge translates for his sister, who, after giving Connor’s words some thought, nods, but her brow creases as though thinking adults do some foolish things sometimes.
“You tell us, and we’ll play the hide and seek game,” Jorge says.
“Your English is good, kid,” Connor tells him after giving him an admiring look. “Your sister doesn’t speak it?”
“She’s learning, but it’s hard.”
He’s not wrong there. I’m always grateful I’ve been born with the English language as my mother tongue. I take off my hat to anyone who conquers it as a foreign language.
“You want me to take them now?” Connor approaches me.
“Sure.” I pull out my wallet and take out a hefty amount. “Cash only when you top up the tank, don’t let anyone see the kids, and obey all the driving laws.”
“I know the risks.” Connor raises his chin.
I slap him on the back. “Jorge?” The kid turns. “You be good for Connor, you hear?” The kid fucking salutes me.
Kids. The fleeting thought comes into my head that there’s an outside chance I might end up with one of my own. Why is it that those I’ve met lately have been good kids and not bad? It makes me have thoughts about something I’ll probably never have.
The club SUV starts and leaves, then there’s another sound.
Niran, Keeper, Kink and I stay in the background as the rest of the kids go with the social worker who Swift and Bolt had arranged. They complete the handover with nothing but the kids changing hands.
“You ready Bolt?” Swift turns to him once it’s just us here.
“Yeah.” He picks up that bag whose inside seems to be bigger than the outside just like the Tardis and pulls something out, then going to the kitchen, kneels down and opens a cabinet.
“What’s he doing?” I ask Swift.
“Setting our signal to leave. You best get going now. You’ll want to be away before this place blows.”
“You’re burning it down?”
She shrugs. “Easier than cleaning the blood up, and I don’t want this place being used for this purpose ever again.”
I shake my head but am unable to find fault with her proposal. “Come on, Brothers. Let’s get to the bikes.”
As Niran and Keeper disappear out the back, Kink and I use the front door. Thankfully, we find our bikes just where and how we left them. I never like leaving my baby alone. We’re just starting up the road when there’s a loud boom from behind us. I grin, guessing Bolt rigged a gas explosion in the house. Well, that’s Devon’s investment gone. Thank fuck.
When we arrive back at the compound, Bolt and Swift aren’t far behind. The first thing Swift does when she jumps out of the truck is go find her precious dog.
“You and that dog.” I chuckle quietly when I see her retrieve him from the care of a bleary-eyed Cindy.
Without turning, she tells me, “He’s changed my life. I couldn’t live without him.”
Instead of mocking her as I might have done before—I’ve re-evaluated my feelings for Swift over the past few hours—now, rather than seeing her adoration for the canine as a weakness, I appreciate he has to be a lifeline for her. As I watch her greet her four-legged friend, I wonder for a moment what it’s like to be deaf. I’d hate to be so vulnerable, to be unable to hear danger approach. Terrible for anyone, but for those of us who served, maybe worse. We’d had it ingrained in us always to be aware at all times.
“You okay to look after him a bit longer?”
Cindy yawns widely. “If you don’t mind me taking him up to bed with me. When you want him, someone will know where to find me.” She ruffles App’s ears. “He’s a sweet little thing, isn’t he?”
Swift seems reassured App’s in good hands, though her eyes follow Cindy as she leads him to the stairs. Then her back straightens.
“Where will they have taken him?”
She doesn’t need to elaborate on who she’s talking about.
“To the brig,” I answer.
“Brig?”
I chuckle. “Don’t ask. Most of us have forgotten why it was called that. Think it was a Navy man back in the day. It’s this way.”
As I walk beside her, I make an observation. “I’d have expected a girl like you to have a Malinois or some other big and threatening dog.”
She glances at me, but sees curiosity, not censure in my face. “If I’d wanted a dog, and before App, I never considered it, I’d probably have gone for something I could train as an attack dog. But hearing dogs tend to be smaller. They don’t need to be tall as they would to lead a blind person around. And there are benefits, like being able to take him on the plane.”
Bolt catches up. “Like that’s easy.” He snorts. “There was App, wearing his service dog coat, and though Swift explained, the airline didn’t want to carry him. They thought and can you fuckin’ believe it…” he pauses to give a shake of his head, “that Swift was the kind of woman who’d take her lap dog on a trip for fun?”
“Is the steward still breathing?”
It’s Swift’s turn to snort. “Just. But I had to get out my paperwork showing I was deaf to prove it. Fuckin’ wanker.” She matches her pace to mine, which means she has to slow down, then continues, “I hate flying commercial, but we do when we have to. With Bolt beside me, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but if he wasn’t, I’d have needed App. The drone of the engines fucks with my hearing aids so I have to turn them down. App would have alerted me to a tannoy announcement, or the flight staff trying to get my attention.”
“Tannoy?”
Swift looks up, then down. “Loudspeaker.” I swear she says heathen under her breath.
My thoughts return to the track they were on before—how awful it must be for a strong woman, or man for that matter, to be rendered helpless.
“We’re here.” I lead them to the rear of the second hangar and push open the door.
In the middle of the room, lying clearly where someone had thrown him, is the photographer. I want to kick him where it hurts on sight, but we’d made a promise to keep our hands off.
Swift stands, staring at him for a moment. Then she glances around. “You got a board we can lie him on?”
> “What, you’re going to stretcher him out of here?” Blaze sneers. “Just give me five minutes with him.”
All the brothers are here, and all, like me, want to make the man hurt. But no marks, Swift had stated.
Bolt, I notice, is leaning back against a workbench which contains some of Salem’s tools of the trade. I see him glance at them, but he doesn’t draw Swift’s attention.
“Board?” Swift asks again, ignoring the comments and objections.
Salem huffs and goes through to the front of the hangar, coming back with something he lies on when getting under a bike. Swift nods in satisfaction.
“Blocks and rope,” she requests next.
Interested to see where she’s going with this, I place myself next to Bolt. When I raise a quizzical eyebrow at him, he just grins.
The female Satan’s Devil is looking around, an evil smile appearing as she spots something. Then, when the items she requested are found, she raises her chin at Salem.
“You want in on this?”
I see Salem hesitate, but Prez leans in and whispers to him.
Salem draws in a breath, then goes to her side. “Whatcha want?”
“Him. On his back. Ropes wrapped around him, tight enough so he can’t move. I’ve got a little surprise planned for when he wakes up.”
It’s good timing as he starts to stir just as they’ve got him trussed up tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey.
He actually comes around fast, trying his bindings immediately, but they’ve rendered him immobile. He’s even bound around his head. All he can move are his eyes and mouth, and the latter he starts exercising immediately.
“Who the fuck are you? Let me go. I’ve done nothing. Let me loose.”
“Who am I?” Swift puts herself in his line of sight and adds in a tone so chilling I have no problem in believing her, “I am your greatest nightmare.” She considers him for a moment. “You can save yourself a world of hell if you answer my questions. If you don’t, I assure you, you’ll be begging for death.”
Bolt nudges me. “She knows what she’s talking about. Hard to believe, but she had torture methods used on her as part of her training. That was meant to make her strong and know what to expect if she was ever captured by someone who didn’t abide by the Geneva Convention. Of course, she knows all about the effect.” His brow furrows, and he shakes his head. “When she says he’ll beg for death, she knows what she’s talking about.”
“But she passed her training?” Or at least, that’s what I was told.
“Sure. She didn’t beg. But he will.” He jerks his head down toward where Devon is tied up.
I pull my attention back to Swift and listen to what she’s saying. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and if you’ve got an ounce of sense, you’re going to answer them.”
For a response, Devon presses his lips together.
“I need names of the investors, owners of the network, and anyone connected to the porn business you’re a part of.”
Devon stays quiet until she kicks him. Not hard, just a reminder he’s helpless and tied up.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I run a photography business. It’s legit.” His eyes meet mine and he reads something on my face. “Sure, I cut corners when I can get away with it, but I don’t know anything about porn.”
“So you didn’t know about the hole in the ground of the house that you rent was filled with kids? The kids you would have left to starve to death.”
“What? No.” Devon tries to sound adamant, but there’s a flicker of fear in his eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Grumbler
Sparing him only one look of disdain, Swift walks to the back of the hangar to the space I saw her looking at earlier, picks up the water bucket and fills it from the faucet.
She walks back and makes a request. “Use the blocks. Raise his legs. Make sure his head is tilted back.” When they do, she bends down as if to check the angle is to her satisfaction, adjusting it until it is.
“Wha-what are you doing?” Devon’s eyes are frantically moving left and right.
I start to grin. I’d already suspected, but now I’m certain where she’s going with this.
“I need a cloth.”
Again, Salem disappears. It seems his step is spritelier now that he, like I, have cottoned on. He reappears with an old t-shirt—one he collects to use as rags on the custom bikes he builds.
“How can I help?” he offers, as he hands it to Swift.
“Hold it over his mouth and nose.”
“No. No. What are you doing? You trying to suffocate me?” Devon’s muffled voice sounds. He seems to have no idea of the horror that’s really about to be unleashed upon him.
“You going to talk to me?” Swift asks, indicating to Salem to raise the rag.
“I know nothing. You’ve got the wrong man.”
She raises her chin toward Salem, and the rag is replaced. Then, taking the bucket, she begins to pour the water onto his face. He can’t escape. Even if he clamps his mouth shut, his nostrils will be filling, causing him to open his mouth to breathe, the only result being to take more water in.
Gagging and spluttering sounds come in vain. Swift seems to know what she’s doing, stopping the stream of water after a short time. Salem tilts his head in question. She shakes her head. After Devon’s managed to get some air in, she starts pouring again. This time, when she stops, she gestures that Salem can lift the rag.
Niran, making himself useful, goes to top up the bucket and brings it back.
Devon’s eyes are streaming. Choking sounds are coming out of his mouth along with other unintelligible noises.
She gives him a moment, then asks. “Are you ready to tell me?”
“You’re a fuckin’ crazy bitch,” he spits out, along with a mouthful of frothy saliva. “Fuck that hurts. My chest…”
“Yeah, yeah. I know all about that. So, are you ready to speak to me?”
It would appear that he’s not. So it’s the rag once again, and another few applications of water.
The feeling of drowning is making him struggle against his constraints. Even if his movements are involuntary, the body’s impulse is to get away. Swift takes a moment to check his bindings.
“We don’t want him to break anything,” she tells Salem conversationally.
This time, when she removes the cloth, Devon takes longer to recover. When he does, it’s with a look of absolute horror on his face. When he can breathe, he howls, “It hurts. It hurts!”
“You’ve probably got damage to your lungs. You’ll get more if you don’t speak to me. I need names.”
She indicates to Salem again, but Devon screams, “No! I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Well, I lost that bet.” Bolt sighs beside me, taking a small tablet out of his cut. “I had him lasting for another round.”
Swift overhears, turns around and winks. “You should know better than to bet against me.”
Devon’s so terrified that the drowning might start again, that this time his struggles are to get all the names out. By now, I reckon he’d sell his first-born child in order to get free. Name after name comes out of his mouth, as well as words that allow us to piece together a story.
Devon’s got a porn addiction of his own, the more deviant the better. Once he accessed the site via a friend’s invitation and after having paid an extortionate fee, he began to wonder how he could get some of that money. He’d managed to track down one of the key players and offered to make videos for them. They’d had no need to take on an extra contributor, wanting to keep their operation tight and secure, but like all greedy men, they were interested. If he could bring something new to the party, then he might have an in, and a part of the proceeds.
I feel ill as he told us about coming across a young Hispanic girl who’d made it over the border and was now begging on the streets for money. I almost vomited when he described what had happened to her, while noti
ng Swift calmly indicated Bolt was to write down the new leads, including the model who’d agreed to let his inner devil out to play and abuse her.
Names, deeds, and more names. The only ones he couldn’t give were those of the victims. Some dead, some left mentally and physically damaged and released back onto the streets again. Devon being safe in the knowledge that while they were in the US illegally, they wouldn’t cause a fuss.
He disgusts me. I want to see him dead.
“Can’t we kill him, Swift?” Kink calls out, starting a rumbling of agreement.
Bolt stands, bows his head, then looks up and addresses us all. “There’s nothing that would give me more pleasure than to dispatch this piece of shit to meet Satan. But if we did that, what would happen? Sure, we’ve got names, but the feds need him alive to testify against them. If we want to break up this porn ring, get all the players taken off the streets, then Devon needs to stay breathing.”
“How do you know Devon will talk once we’ve let him go? He could refuse to co-operate with the feds.” It’s the VP who poses the reasonable question.
“I’ve taped every word he’s said,” Bolt states. “That recording will be in the hands of the feds, suitably edited to take out the screaming. And, of course, we’re giving Devon to them without a mark on him, so they know the recording wasn’t made under duress.”
Clever.
“How will you get him to the feds without exposing us?” Prez asks.
Swift’s taken out her phone and is looking at it. “Devil’s man, Sean Cooper has touched down in San Diego. He should be here in half an hour.” She looks at the man at her feet. “Get him up now. Be careful, he’ll probably puke.”
I know she knows as much as she does because it happened to her. How anyone could put themselves through that is beyond me. I wonder just how much about her training she knew in advance.
While Brakes and Dusty come forward with knives to cut Devon’s bonds, Salem holds out his hand to Swift. When she takes it, he pulls her forward and gives her a back slap. Without hesitation, she returns it with one of her own.
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