Dare (BLOOD Brothers Book 5), page 9
I straightened, leaving the shelter of Bones’ embrace to move closer to Sinclair. Everything inside me just burned. We’d thought they took his wife to punish him, but it sounded more like they were cleaning up his mess.
“Was Amorette the first time you asked them to clean up something for you?”
Sinclair didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even think. “No.”
The instant the word left his mouth, he knew—he knew—he’d damned himself.
Because all that earlier shock, all the surprise, all the denial. Lies. He’d done this before. More than once. My nails bit into my palms.
Legend’s rope went taut in his hand. Bones lifted his chin slowly. Voodoo’s eyes went cold enough to frost steel. So, it didn’t surprise me that he’d lied.
“I am so tired of being lied to,” I said, and blew out a breath as I turned away from Sinclair, away from Ignacio, away from all of it.
Bones was right there, his gray eyes fierce as he met my gaze. I saw the question right there, what did I want? How could they fix this for me? They all wanted to do it. It was there in Voodoo’s questioning, in Legend collecting Sinclair and torturing him, in AB tearing it all apart.
“Can you handle getting the rest of what they know out of them?”
I was just tired. So tired.
Soft fingers cupping my chin. “Don’t leave the house?” It was a quiet request from Bones. I nodded once.
“Just going up to sit with Goblin.” We’d made him stay upstairs for all of this. He’d let us know if a threat was coming, and he also didn’t need to be down here in this mess.
“You want one of us with you?” The fact he even asked made me smile.
I wanted all of them with me, but… “I need a few,” I admitted. I needed to get the smell of burnt hair out of my nose, the memory of groping fingers, and the filthy lies perpetuated by Sinclair.
A soft stroke of his fingers down my cheek. “Alphabet will come up as soon as we have the last data point.” It was a decision and Bones was making it. I’d handed the control back to him and he picked up the baton easily. He brushed a kiss to my lips, soft like a butterfly's wings branding itself to my soul.
“Sounds like a plan. If you need me…”
He nodded, not dismissing my offer in the slightest. One by one, I passed the guys, a brush of my fingers to Voodoo’s arm, a pat of Legend’s ass—that earned me a swift grin—and a squeeze of AB’s hand.
Mouthing, “I’ll be there in a few,” AB returned my grip, and then I headed up the stairs.
“Wait!” A shock cry came from Ignacio and another from Sinclair. My leaving seemed to have jolted something in them. Maybe they realized that without me there, the guys would not keep anything resembling gloves on. They’d been holding back, letting me make the decisions.
As I stepped out of the basement and into the light, their shrieks followed me before the door closed and cut them off. Goblin glanced up from where he waited, tail thumping and I went straight over to sink on the floor next to him. When he wiggled into my arms, I hugged him, careful not to squeeze too tight.
“We’re going to find her,” I whispered against him. “We have to.”
We hadn’t come this far to lose now.
Chapter
Ten
BONES
The moment Grace’s footsteps faded up the stairs and the door closed at the top, the shift in the room was instant and sharp. A sensation of your ears popping as you adjusted to the new pressure, only this was more intense.
Both Sinclair and Ignacio felt it too.
They’d been watching her the whole time, clinging to her presence like she was some kind of shield. And maybe she had been. Not because she was soft, Grace had steel in her blood, but because we were softer with her in the room.
The second the basement door clicked shut overhead, Ignacio let out a high, strangled noise. Sinclair wasn’t any better; he jerked so hard the chair scraped across the concrete.
Legend let out a low whistle. “Well. They finally figured it out.”
“They finally figured her out,” I corrected.
Voodoo met my gaze, the corner of his mouth ticking up just enough to acknowledge the truth. “She trusts us to do what we need to do.” She also didn’t want to watch the rest.
She didn’t need to.
Possessing all the poise her name implied, she had stood up to the task brilliantly. But her heart hurt so damn much and listening to the lies these men kept trying to feed us in lieu of what she wanted to know had to hurt. So yes, she was trusting us to finish the mission by any means necessary.
Unfortunately for this pair of selfish assholes, we still possessed a great many “means.”
Alphabet straightened beside the table, his laptop was open. We would confirm every single data point they offered. Right now, we needed the identities of these so-called cabals, and what trail her sister had been on that made her a “problem.”
Ignacio yanked at his restraints, breath coming in wild, panicked bursts. “W-wait—wait—please—don’t—don’t—she—she—she wants answers—not this—”
“She still wants answers,” Voodoo said mildly, picking up the second shock device and checking the contacts. “We’re just done wasting her time.”
Sinclair trembled so hard the Queen Anne chair vibrated under him. “You can’t—You can’t do this—She—She said—she said—”
Lunchbox barked a laugh. “Man, Grace didn’t say shit about keeping you breathing.”
He swung the rope lightly against his leg, testing the balance again. The faint smack of the weighted knots made Sinclair flinch even as Ignacio whined in the back of his throat.
I checked them both—automatic habit. Assess the threats.
Assess the leverage. Assess how close they were to breaking.
Sinclair was dangling by a fraying thread. Ignacio was already past the point of dignity.
Good.
Because tired as she was, Grace had left us with one request, “Can you handle getting the rest of what they know out of them?”
“Alright,” I said, stepping closer to Sinclair until my shadow hit him full-on. “Grace asked for everything. We’re not stopping until we have the names, the routes, the drop points, and every last person involved in Amorette’s disappearance.”
Sinclair’s teeth clicked together as he tried to swallow. “I—I told you about the cabal—three cartels—I already said—”
“That was the appetizer,” Lunchbox cut in. “We’re moving on to the main course.”
Sinclair shook his head so hard spit flew. “No—no—please—listen—I can’t—I can’t give you anything else—they’ll—they’ll kill me—they’ll slaughter everyone I know—”
Voodoo didn’t even look up from adjusting the voltage. “If you think they’re your bigger problem right now, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Ignacio sobbed at that—and that sound, sharp and pathetic, made Sinclair’s eyes snap toward him. The two men locked on each other for the first time since Grace had walked out.
Ignacio’s fear fed Sinclair’s. Sinclair’s terror fed Ignacio’s.
Predator and prey didn’t matter anymore. They were both prey. Far too late to really help them, they finally understood exactly who the predators were.
It was almost pathetic. Normally, I took no pleasure in inflicting pain. It was a means to an end. These two, however, had told lie after lie in an effort to drag out Grace’s pain. They were the type of men who abused the power they had, and in Ignacio’s case, he’d truly abused Grace. I hadn’t forgotten her reaction or his comment about how she looked and felt on his cock.
After resetting both targets and their chairs, Lunchbox and Voodoo took watchful positions while Alphabet waited. I was taking over the interrogation from here. My patience was not infinite and it had snapped the moment I’d seen the stark loss and terror in Grace’s eyes.
These two were very much responsible for both the terror and the loss.
“Ready when you are,” Lunchbox said, rolling his shoulders. He moved behind Sinclair to give me a clear view even as Voodoo shifted to stand behind Ignacio. It was almost comical how being surrounded increased the pressure on them. They didn’t know where to look, because to see one of us they had to turn their backs on the others.
“Same,” Voodoo concurred, remote dangling in his hand.
I took a breath, slow and centering. Grace’s scent still clung to my shirt—a faint trace of the shampoo she’d used upstairs, herbs and something warm and clean.
Her fatigue. Her grief. Her hope.
I was carrying all of it now.
“Sinclair,” I said, focusing on him. “We’re going to start at the beginning. What was Amorette investigating that got her on their radar?”
“I can’t—”
I didn’t even let him finish the answer before flicking a glance at Lunchbox. The other man swung. The rope struck with a sick, meaty thud. Sinclair screamed.
Ignacio jerked, the sweat rolling off him waves now.
“Try again,” I instructed Sinclair.
“You don’t—”
Another glance at Lunchbox. Another swing. Another scream.
When the man’s sobs slowed, I cocked my head to the side. “Let me correct a misapprehension you seem to be suffering from.” I raised one finger. “I ask a question. You tell us the truth. If you fail to answer or try to prevaricate, then you suffer. We have the rest of the day and all of the night, Sinclair. Think about that before you answer my next question. We’ll start with, do you understand?”
“Yes,” came out broken and weepy.
“Excellent. Are you prepared to answer my questions now?”
Another ragged breath. “Yes.”
“Good.” I didn’t even blink. “What was Amorette investigating that got her on their radar?”
“Nothing,” the man said, but it came out a garbled confession. That was what I had thought. This man seemed to be incapable of the truth.
“Then how did she get on their radar?”
His gasps for air made the words come out on a choking sound. “I told them.” Even as the words left his lips, he braced, expecting another blow. It didn’t come.
“Good,” I said. Now we were getting somewhere. “Next question.”
From there, we kept going. He made it to a third question before he tried to lie again. Every lie got a blow. Every truth bought him a few seconds of recovery.
The panic spiked so high the room vibrated with it. Ignacio shook so violently the collar jangled. Sinclair hiccupped sobs between words, his voice dissolving into a slurry of fear.
Finally, he choked out a string of numbers. “T-They—they switch codes every time—the last one was—was six-three-blackbird—two-four-seven—rhinestone—oh God—oh God—”
Alphabet was already typing, dissecting, cross-referencing. “Good. Keep going.”
Sinclair nodded frantically, drool mixing with tears on his chin. “I—I’m doing it—I’m doing it, please—don’t hurt me—”
I leaned in.
“You’re still breathing,” I said. “That’s more than your victims got.”
He curled inward, shoulders heaving.
“Let’s continue…” I fired off the next wave of questions. Some got straightforward answers, others got whimpered “I don’t knows” accompanied by waves of begging and the stench of sweat and fear.
Some of the answers he really didn’t have. But the most disgusting one of all was the fact that Amorette Black had been targeted for one reason and one reason alone.
She overheard this shitstain on a phone call and Sinclair wasn’t sure how much she overheard.
“She—she was always such a crusader. If she understood—once she figured it out—she wouldn’t let it go—”
“But you don’t know what she knew or didn’t, do you?” I had the answer, that was just more of my disgust showing. “You dropped her into human trafficking to cover your own ass.”
Unsurprising and yet the man’s cowardice turned my stomach.
“I had to protect myself.”
Protect. Himself.
“And Grace?”
A blank look crossed the attorney’s face. He opened his mouth then closed it again. I waited.
“I don’t—know?” It sounded more like a question than an answer. “I may ha—I did tell them she had a sister. A twin. But—I didn’t ask them to take her.”
Guilt hung off every syllable. Grace had been wanted. He just provided them an excuse. Or an opportunity. Maybe she’d already been slated because of the European connection. Maybe it was all some macabre coincidence.
Maybe we’d never have the real answer. It was enough to know they’d taken her and he was involved, however much it had been on the periphery. At the end of the day, he was responsible for what had happened to her sister. That, we would never forgive.
He all but sagged in relief when Lunchbox didn’t swing the rope again. I let him have his few second reprieve. But that was all it was. A reprieve.
“Let’s discuss the cartels that you worked with…” I said, then switched the questions between the two of them, rapid fire, not letting them pause to think or anticipate. Maybe Ignacio only worked as ground transport here, or maybe he was just another middleman. Sometimes they didn’t know what they knew.
We could work with the information.
Ignacio started talking first—too fast, too desperate—words tumbling out like he was trying to outrun his own terror.
“I—I know ship numbers,” he stammered, eyes wild. “And containers—specific ones—ones they flagged for pickup or offload—please—please—if I give you those—”
“You’re bargaining?” Voodoo asked, voice low, almost amused. “Right now?”
Ignacio swallowed hard. “I—I know things—real things—containers, manifests, routes. I can give you those. I swear, I swear—”
He jerked violently as the collar rubbed against his throat, whether from fear or instinct, I didn’t care.
“Tell Alphabet everything,” I said. “Every container number. Every ship name. Every route designation you ever handled.”
Ignacio gasped. “I—I don’t remember all of them—”
Voodoo clicked the remote. A sharp pop of electricity.
Ignacio screamed.
“Try again,” I said, perfectly calm.
He rattled off a dozen numbers so fast Alphabet had to snap his fingers for him to slow down. Once we had the first list logged, we swung our attention to Sinclair.
“Your turn,” I said, tone deceptively polite. “Cartel contacts. Direct ones.”
Sinclair’s eyes rolled up for a second, then he shook his head violently. “I only—I only spoke to one—no, two—two from the Sarmiento line—one from La Madrina—one—fuck, fuck—one from the Castillo syndicate—”
“Names,” Lunchbox demanded.
Sinclair’s chest hitched. “I didn’t—I didn’t keep track—I told you—I told you—I didn’t want to know—didn’t want to remember—that way I couldn’t give anything up—”
“That was stupid,” I said. “You should’ve kept track.”
“I didn’t!” he cried. “I didn’t—I swear—some were faceless—I only saw a few—”
Lunchbox swung the rope lightly against his palm in a reminder.
Sinclair crumpled. Again.
“Five!” he blurted. “Five—I can give you five—I remember five—just five—please—please—don’t—don’t—”
“Names,” Alphabet repeated, fingers poised over the keyboard.
Sinclair spat them out like rotten teeth he couldn’t swallow fast enough.
“Marcos Sarmiento or de Sarjiento—maybe La De Sargento. I just called him Marcos.”
He tried to wet his lips and his throat bobbed almost painfully.
“Phillip Rojas—de Roja—red. It was like red hat or red fish. I didn’t—maybe Felipe—no, Phillip. He had a very strong British accent. Spanish last name, British accent.”
Sinclair squeezed his eyes shut, it was like he was willing himself to remember.
“San—Zan—Xander—something. He sounds German—no more South African than German. Maybe. Zander Visser.” He gasped out the last two syllables like he’d run a marathon to get to them.
The next two names came out even more garbled, but it was a starting point.
“Mykel—Michael—Mikael—something like that—I don’t—God, I don’t remember—just Mykal, okay?”
“Jochem—Jorchan—Jon—something Russian, definitely Eastern European.”
“That’s four and a half,” Lunchbox said. “And Russian is not the same as Eastern European.”
Sinclair sobbed. “I don’t—I can’t—most of the time I only ever had a first name. You have to understand, I didn’t want to know their names. I didn’t want to know too much.”
“Just enough to make money,” I said, not an ounce of sympathy within me. I glanced at Alphabet and he gave a mild shrug. We could work with it.
I turned toward Ignacio. His breathing had gone ragged, panic rising like steam off his skin.
“You,” I said, stepping closer. “What do you know about these five?”
“I—I only—only heard of two,” he gasped. “Marcos and Joaquin. They—they were the ones who handled the shipments—they were—”
Joaquin or Jochem? Was it the pain that was shredding the names or did they really not pay that much attention?
Voodoo stepped closer, remote angled lazily in his fingers.
“Don’t lie,” he warned softly. “I’ll know.”
Ignacio whimpered. “I’m not—I swear—I’m not—I only dealt with the handlers—ground-level—never the bosses—I swear—I swear—”
The collar around his throat beeped a warning tone as Voodoo adjusted the contact sensitivity.
Ignacio froze like an animal smelling the knife.
“Then tell me something useful,” I said. “Something real.”
“I—I can give you the containers they used for special cargo,” Ignacio blurted out. “The ones with double-backs, false floors, temperature control—ones that don’t get random inspections—I can—I can—there were three main ones they trusted—”
“Was Amorette the first time you asked them to clean up something for you?”
Sinclair didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even think. “No.”
The instant the word left his mouth, he knew—he knew—he’d damned himself.
Because all that earlier shock, all the surprise, all the denial. Lies. He’d done this before. More than once. My nails bit into my palms.
Legend’s rope went taut in his hand. Bones lifted his chin slowly. Voodoo’s eyes went cold enough to frost steel. So, it didn’t surprise me that he’d lied.
“I am so tired of being lied to,” I said, and blew out a breath as I turned away from Sinclair, away from Ignacio, away from all of it.
Bones was right there, his gray eyes fierce as he met my gaze. I saw the question right there, what did I want? How could they fix this for me? They all wanted to do it. It was there in Voodoo’s questioning, in Legend collecting Sinclair and torturing him, in AB tearing it all apart.
“Can you handle getting the rest of what they know out of them?”
I was just tired. So tired.
Soft fingers cupping my chin. “Don’t leave the house?” It was a quiet request from Bones. I nodded once.
“Just going up to sit with Goblin.” We’d made him stay upstairs for all of this. He’d let us know if a threat was coming, and he also didn’t need to be down here in this mess.
“You want one of us with you?” The fact he even asked made me smile.
I wanted all of them with me, but… “I need a few,” I admitted. I needed to get the smell of burnt hair out of my nose, the memory of groping fingers, and the filthy lies perpetuated by Sinclair.
A soft stroke of his fingers down my cheek. “Alphabet will come up as soon as we have the last data point.” It was a decision and Bones was making it. I’d handed the control back to him and he picked up the baton easily. He brushed a kiss to my lips, soft like a butterfly's wings branding itself to my soul.
“Sounds like a plan. If you need me…”
He nodded, not dismissing my offer in the slightest. One by one, I passed the guys, a brush of my fingers to Voodoo’s arm, a pat of Legend’s ass—that earned me a swift grin—and a squeeze of AB’s hand.
Mouthing, “I’ll be there in a few,” AB returned my grip, and then I headed up the stairs.
“Wait!” A shock cry came from Ignacio and another from Sinclair. My leaving seemed to have jolted something in them. Maybe they realized that without me there, the guys would not keep anything resembling gloves on. They’d been holding back, letting me make the decisions.
As I stepped out of the basement and into the light, their shrieks followed me before the door closed and cut them off. Goblin glanced up from where he waited, tail thumping and I went straight over to sink on the floor next to him. When he wiggled into my arms, I hugged him, careful not to squeeze too tight.
“We’re going to find her,” I whispered against him. “We have to.”
We hadn’t come this far to lose now.
Chapter
Ten
BONES
The moment Grace’s footsteps faded up the stairs and the door closed at the top, the shift in the room was instant and sharp. A sensation of your ears popping as you adjusted to the new pressure, only this was more intense.
Both Sinclair and Ignacio felt it too.
They’d been watching her the whole time, clinging to her presence like she was some kind of shield. And maybe she had been. Not because she was soft, Grace had steel in her blood, but because we were softer with her in the room.
The second the basement door clicked shut overhead, Ignacio let out a high, strangled noise. Sinclair wasn’t any better; he jerked so hard the chair scraped across the concrete.
Legend let out a low whistle. “Well. They finally figured it out.”
“They finally figured her out,” I corrected.
Voodoo met my gaze, the corner of his mouth ticking up just enough to acknowledge the truth. “She trusts us to do what we need to do.” She also didn’t want to watch the rest.
She didn’t need to.
Possessing all the poise her name implied, she had stood up to the task brilliantly. But her heart hurt so damn much and listening to the lies these men kept trying to feed us in lieu of what she wanted to know had to hurt. So yes, she was trusting us to finish the mission by any means necessary.
Unfortunately for this pair of selfish assholes, we still possessed a great many “means.”
Alphabet straightened beside the table, his laptop was open. We would confirm every single data point they offered. Right now, we needed the identities of these so-called cabals, and what trail her sister had been on that made her a “problem.”
Ignacio yanked at his restraints, breath coming in wild, panicked bursts. “W-wait—wait—please—don’t—don’t—she—she—she wants answers—not this—”
“She still wants answers,” Voodoo said mildly, picking up the second shock device and checking the contacts. “We’re just done wasting her time.”
Sinclair trembled so hard the Queen Anne chair vibrated under him. “You can’t—You can’t do this—She—She said—she said—”
Lunchbox barked a laugh. “Man, Grace didn’t say shit about keeping you breathing.”
He swung the rope lightly against his leg, testing the balance again. The faint smack of the weighted knots made Sinclair flinch even as Ignacio whined in the back of his throat.
I checked them both—automatic habit. Assess the threats.
Assess the leverage. Assess how close they were to breaking.
Sinclair was dangling by a fraying thread. Ignacio was already past the point of dignity.
Good.
Because tired as she was, Grace had left us with one request, “Can you handle getting the rest of what they know out of them?”
“Alright,” I said, stepping closer to Sinclair until my shadow hit him full-on. “Grace asked for everything. We’re not stopping until we have the names, the routes, the drop points, and every last person involved in Amorette’s disappearance.”
Sinclair’s teeth clicked together as he tried to swallow. “I—I told you about the cabal—three cartels—I already said—”
“That was the appetizer,” Lunchbox cut in. “We’re moving on to the main course.”
Sinclair shook his head so hard spit flew. “No—no—please—listen—I can’t—I can’t give you anything else—they’ll—they’ll kill me—they’ll slaughter everyone I know—”
Voodoo didn’t even look up from adjusting the voltage. “If you think they’re your bigger problem right now, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Ignacio sobbed at that—and that sound, sharp and pathetic, made Sinclair’s eyes snap toward him. The two men locked on each other for the first time since Grace had walked out.
Ignacio’s fear fed Sinclair’s. Sinclair’s terror fed Ignacio’s.
Predator and prey didn’t matter anymore. They were both prey. Far too late to really help them, they finally understood exactly who the predators were.
It was almost pathetic. Normally, I took no pleasure in inflicting pain. It was a means to an end. These two, however, had told lie after lie in an effort to drag out Grace’s pain. They were the type of men who abused the power they had, and in Ignacio’s case, he’d truly abused Grace. I hadn’t forgotten her reaction or his comment about how she looked and felt on his cock.
After resetting both targets and their chairs, Lunchbox and Voodoo took watchful positions while Alphabet waited. I was taking over the interrogation from here. My patience was not infinite and it had snapped the moment I’d seen the stark loss and terror in Grace’s eyes.
These two were very much responsible for both the terror and the loss.
“Ready when you are,” Lunchbox said, rolling his shoulders. He moved behind Sinclair to give me a clear view even as Voodoo shifted to stand behind Ignacio. It was almost comical how being surrounded increased the pressure on them. They didn’t know where to look, because to see one of us they had to turn their backs on the others.
“Same,” Voodoo concurred, remote dangling in his hand.
I took a breath, slow and centering. Grace’s scent still clung to my shirt—a faint trace of the shampoo she’d used upstairs, herbs and something warm and clean.
Her fatigue. Her grief. Her hope.
I was carrying all of it now.
“Sinclair,” I said, focusing on him. “We’re going to start at the beginning. What was Amorette investigating that got her on their radar?”
“I can’t—”
I didn’t even let him finish the answer before flicking a glance at Lunchbox. The other man swung. The rope struck with a sick, meaty thud. Sinclair screamed.
Ignacio jerked, the sweat rolling off him waves now.
“Try again,” I instructed Sinclair.
“You don’t—”
Another glance at Lunchbox. Another swing. Another scream.
When the man’s sobs slowed, I cocked my head to the side. “Let me correct a misapprehension you seem to be suffering from.” I raised one finger. “I ask a question. You tell us the truth. If you fail to answer or try to prevaricate, then you suffer. We have the rest of the day and all of the night, Sinclair. Think about that before you answer my next question. We’ll start with, do you understand?”
“Yes,” came out broken and weepy.
“Excellent. Are you prepared to answer my questions now?”
Another ragged breath. “Yes.”
“Good.” I didn’t even blink. “What was Amorette investigating that got her on their radar?”
“Nothing,” the man said, but it came out a garbled confession. That was what I had thought. This man seemed to be incapable of the truth.
“Then how did she get on their radar?”
His gasps for air made the words come out on a choking sound. “I told them.” Even as the words left his lips, he braced, expecting another blow. It didn’t come.
“Good,” I said. Now we were getting somewhere. “Next question.”
From there, we kept going. He made it to a third question before he tried to lie again. Every lie got a blow. Every truth bought him a few seconds of recovery.
The panic spiked so high the room vibrated with it. Ignacio shook so violently the collar jangled. Sinclair hiccupped sobs between words, his voice dissolving into a slurry of fear.
Finally, he choked out a string of numbers. “T-They—they switch codes every time—the last one was—was six-three-blackbird—two-four-seven—rhinestone—oh God—oh God—”
Alphabet was already typing, dissecting, cross-referencing. “Good. Keep going.”
Sinclair nodded frantically, drool mixing with tears on his chin. “I—I’m doing it—I’m doing it, please—don’t hurt me—”
I leaned in.
“You’re still breathing,” I said. “That’s more than your victims got.”
He curled inward, shoulders heaving.
“Let’s continue…” I fired off the next wave of questions. Some got straightforward answers, others got whimpered “I don’t knows” accompanied by waves of begging and the stench of sweat and fear.
Some of the answers he really didn’t have. But the most disgusting one of all was the fact that Amorette Black had been targeted for one reason and one reason alone.
She overheard this shitstain on a phone call and Sinclair wasn’t sure how much she overheard.
“She—she was always such a crusader. If she understood—once she figured it out—she wouldn’t let it go—”
“But you don’t know what she knew or didn’t, do you?” I had the answer, that was just more of my disgust showing. “You dropped her into human trafficking to cover your own ass.”
Unsurprising and yet the man’s cowardice turned my stomach.
“I had to protect myself.”
Protect. Himself.
“And Grace?”
A blank look crossed the attorney’s face. He opened his mouth then closed it again. I waited.
“I don’t—know?” It sounded more like a question than an answer. “I may ha—I did tell them she had a sister. A twin. But—I didn’t ask them to take her.”
Guilt hung off every syllable. Grace had been wanted. He just provided them an excuse. Or an opportunity. Maybe she’d already been slated because of the European connection. Maybe it was all some macabre coincidence.
Maybe we’d never have the real answer. It was enough to know they’d taken her and he was involved, however much it had been on the periphery. At the end of the day, he was responsible for what had happened to her sister. That, we would never forgive.
He all but sagged in relief when Lunchbox didn’t swing the rope again. I let him have his few second reprieve. But that was all it was. A reprieve.
“Let’s discuss the cartels that you worked with…” I said, then switched the questions between the two of them, rapid fire, not letting them pause to think or anticipate. Maybe Ignacio only worked as ground transport here, or maybe he was just another middleman. Sometimes they didn’t know what they knew.
We could work with the information.
Ignacio started talking first—too fast, too desperate—words tumbling out like he was trying to outrun his own terror.
“I—I know ship numbers,” he stammered, eyes wild. “And containers—specific ones—ones they flagged for pickup or offload—please—please—if I give you those—”
“You’re bargaining?” Voodoo asked, voice low, almost amused. “Right now?”
Ignacio swallowed hard. “I—I know things—real things—containers, manifests, routes. I can give you those. I swear, I swear—”
He jerked violently as the collar rubbed against his throat, whether from fear or instinct, I didn’t care.
“Tell Alphabet everything,” I said. “Every container number. Every ship name. Every route designation you ever handled.”
Ignacio gasped. “I—I don’t remember all of them—”
Voodoo clicked the remote. A sharp pop of electricity.
Ignacio screamed.
“Try again,” I said, perfectly calm.
He rattled off a dozen numbers so fast Alphabet had to snap his fingers for him to slow down. Once we had the first list logged, we swung our attention to Sinclair.
“Your turn,” I said, tone deceptively polite. “Cartel contacts. Direct ones.”
Sinclair’s eyes rolled up for a second, then he shook his head violently. “I only—I only spoke to one—no, two—two from the Sarmiento line—one from La Madrina—one—fuck, fuck—one from the Castillo syndicate—”
“Names,” Lunchbox demanded.
Sinclair’s chest hitched. “I didn’t—I didn’t keep track—I told you—I told you—I didn’t want to know—didn’t want to remember—that way I couldn’t give anything up—”
“That was stupid,” I said. “You should’ve kept track.”
“I didn’t!” he cried. “I didn’t—I swear—some were faceless—I only saw a few—”
Lunchbox swung the rope lightly against his palm in a reminder.
Sinclair crumpled. Again.
“Five!” he blurted. “Five—I can give you five—I remember five—just five—please—please—don’t—don’t—”
“Names,” Alphabet repeated, fingers poised over the keyboard.
Sinclair spat them out like rotten teeth he couldn’t swallow fast enough.
“Marcos Sarmiento or de Sarjiento—maybe La De Sargento. I just called him Marcos.”
He tried to wet his lips and his throat bobbed almost painfully.
“Phillip Rojas—de Roja—red. It was like red hat or red fish. I didn’t—maybe Felipe—no, Phillip. He had a very strong British accent. Spanish last name, British accent.”
Sinclair squeezed his eyes shut, it was like he was willing himself to remember.
“San—Zan—Xander—something. He sounds German—no more South African than German. Maybe. Zander Visser.” He gasped out the last two syllables like he’d run a marathon to get to them.
The next two names came out even more garbled, but it was a starting point.
“Mykel—Michael—Mikael—something like that—I don’t—God, I don’t remember—just Mykal, okay?”
“Jochem—Jorchan—Jon—something Russian, definitely Eastern European.”
“That’s four and a half,” Lunchbox said. “And Russian is not the same as Eastern European.”
Sinclair sobbed. “I don’t—I can’t—most of the time I only ever had a first name. You have to understand, I didn’t want to know their names. I didn’t want to know too much.”
“Just enough to make money,” I said, not an ounce of sympathy within me. I glanced at Alphabet and he gave a mild shrug. We could work with it.
I turned toward Ignacio. His breathing had gone ragged, panic rising like steam off his skin.
“You,” I said, stepping closer. “What do you know about these five?”
“I—I only—only heard of two,” he gasped. “Marcos and Joaquin. They—they were the ones who handled the shipments—they were—”
Joaquin or Jochem? Was it the pain that was shredding the names or did they really not pay that much attention?
Voodoo stepped closer, remote angled lazily in his fingers.
“Don’t lie,” he warned softly. “I’ll know.”
Ignacio whimpered. “I’m not—I swear—I’m not—I only dealt with the handlers—ground-level—never the bosses—I swear—I swear—”
The collar around his throat beeped a warning tone as Voodoo adjusted the contact sensitivity.
Ignacio froze like an animal smelling the knife.
“Then tell me something useful,” I said. “Something real.”
“I—I can give you the containers they used for special cargo,” Ignacio blurted out. “The ones with double-backs, false floors, temperature control—ones that don’t get random inspections—I can—I can—there were three main ones they trusted—”
