Into the Blackness (Blackness Series Book 4) (41 page)

“I don’t know, but I could try. If she’s hurting kids I should try,” he answers honestly.

“I think we’re more likely to get answers from her than you. Are there any men that she spends time with? There was a man torturing Cara along with your wife.”

“Hoyt Burke,” he answers in a growl.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That’s it. That has to be how Cara got away and others haven’t. Cara was at the Burke’s and broke free once they ran off. How long had they left her in that house alone?

“I need to talk to Kat,” I say to Shane.

He nods and moves to stand in front of Tony. I don’t want to kill Tony. Maybe we can hand him over to the feds for his charity fraud and he can spend a few decades in white collar prison.

I check the monitors to see the wine cellar is pitch black. They must be taking a break. I thud down the stairs to find Shanny, Kat and Kellerman standing at the breakfast bar with Johnny perched on the edge.

“Hey,” Kat calls moving toward me.

I press a firm kiss to her fat lips before releasing her and wrapping my arms around her waist to face our group.

“Jake and Cara?” I inquire not seeing them anywhere.

“Jake’s room. She was really tired so he took her up,” Kellerman answers with a knowing look my way.

Jake would never put the moves on Cara, but there’s something about having the woman you care about in your bed and in your arms that brings a man peace.

“Got some interesting intel from Tony.”

“What?” Kat asks eagerly.

“Trish spent her time with Hoyt Burke.”

“Fuck!”

“I thought the same thing.”

“Hoyt Burke’s that assistant principal you ran off after his fuckwad kid sucker punched Jake and got his ass handed to him?” Shanny clarifies.

“That would be him,” Kat huffs. “We have any idea where he is?”

“I’m sure Jess does. We’ll have Shane call her. End this shit with the Bookers and send another team after Burke. We can’t use the house much longer. Need to get the boys home.”

“I need some time with Trish to get details about Cara. We can have Burke shipped to a black site for the trafficking intel, but I’m not letting Trish go. Have Shane get a cleaner on stand-by,” Kat instructs, sounding more like an agent than she has since I met her.

“Shanny, why don’t you let me head down with Kat to work on Trish? You don’t need to be involved in this anymore than you already are.”

“Nice try, Nicky. Cara’s my sister. That bitch tortured her. Threaten to fuck her with a knife the next time she came for Cara. You guys can squeeze every drop of information from her, but her life is mine to end,” Shanny dictates, pinning me with her emerald eyes. She’s getting her way.

“She threatened to do what with a knife?” I ask in a monstrous snarl.

“I talked to Cara earlier. She knows more than she’s let on. It makes sense that Trish threatened her that way if Burke wasn’t around anymore. Maybe Cara wasn’t as important without Burke. They were
training
her to be sold as a virgin slave. Two years they had her. Seven years before that she was a domestic. Before that she lived in a cage. Before that some kind of slave cattle call. Before that she was in an orphanage of sorts in Chicago.”

“Let’s go,” I rumble.

Cara may be Shanny’s sister, but she’s also my cousin. The only blood family I have left other than an uncle that’s about to be murdered in prison as soon as I get word to Kieran.

“I’ll go help Shane,” Shanny offers.

I flick my chin at her and Kellerman before stalking toward the basement. I’ve never hurt a woman before, other than Patricia and that doesn’t count because she was drugged up enough to fight me like a man. I refused to take jobs that involved women the entire time I worked for my uncle. I don’t know if I have it in me, but if there was ever a woman I’d want to hurt it’s Trish Booker.

I throw the door open and flip on the lights in the wine cellar, startling a sleeping Trish. Kat shuts the door and stands at my side as I stare down the petrified cowering bitch. She wasn’t afraid of Kat and Shanny, but she’s scared of me…of the monster.

“You like gettin’ fucked with knifes? That a turn on for you?” I purr into her face before ripping off the tape covering her mouth.

“I didn’t do it. She’s still a virgin,” she blabbers quickly.

“You
trained
her for two years. How did you train Cara?” I continue to purr close to her ear in a voice that’s promising unbridled torture.

Trish doesn’t respond so I step back and study her from afar before moving to my toolbox. I rummage around until I find my weapon of choice, a steel file. I pass it to Kat who pulls a chair up to Trish.

“I think you need a manicure,” Kat chirps brightly and begins to file the raw flesh where Trish’s fingernails used to be.

The screams and pleas that flow from her lips are music to my ears. I love this. I shouldn’t enjoy this, but it fills me with delight to here evil beg for help. No one is coming to help something as depraved as Trish Booker. Never.

“That’s better,” Kat announces gleefully as she completes one hand. Trish’s flesh is filed down to the bone and she’s vomited and pissed all over herself. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

“Would you like Kat to continue or are you ready to answer questions?”

“She was beaten, whipped, choked, face raped, bound, gagged, suspended, shocked and burned,” Trish gasps out.

Kat leaps out of the seat in front of Trish, pushes me aside and rummages through the tools. She grabs a hole borer and lunges at Trish, plunging the steel tip into her arms, hands, thighs, shoulders, the places that hurt and don’t risk bleeding to death.

Trish screams and cries until no sound travels from her. The agony smothers the reverberations within her. She weeps. She doesn’t deserve to weep.

“Where’s Hoyt Burke?” I growl leaning into her face as Kat flops into a chair.

“Carrington, New Jersey,” she sleepily drawls out.

“Are you the top of the trafficking ring?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since I took over for my father. Seventeen years.”

“Who else are you working with?”

“Everyone,” she answers through a snort.

“Where are your books?”

“Bunker under the church.”

“When’s your next shipment of girls?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where?”

“They’re gone. You won’t find ’em. That’s why it works. No trail.”

“And when you and Burke are gone?”

“Someone else will step in somewhere,” she says with a smirk.

Kat leaps to her feet smashing her fist into Trish’s nose, shattering it. I relish the sound of the bone crushing married with the wails of suffering. How loud did Cara scream and no one stopped?

“I’m gonna sell your son and daughter in your next shipment. Your daughter is going to the person that wanted Cara. If you weren’t so ugly I’d sell you too. Maybe a brothel is South America would take you. You think?” I ask Kat.

“I’m sure we could find one for her in a favela in Brazil,” Kat answers thoughtfully.

“You think I give a shit what you do with those kids or me? You don’t know me as well as you think,” Trish scoffs.

“That’s right. You wanted to be fucked with a knife. I don’t have a knife in here. Is a box cutter good enough?” I rumble into her ear in a sadistic tone.

“You don’t have the balls,” Trish dares me.

“Does Hoyt Burke?”

Her face blanches at the suggestion.

“I guess he does. So we’ll get him here and let him work on you instead of us workin’ on you. Then I don’t have to come in contact with your putrid skin.”

“Hoyt won’t hurt me,” she hisses.

“That man knows no loyalty. He’ll fuck you six ways to Sunday when I tell him to if he believes he’ll walk away with his life. The worst part of your undoing is the woman upstairs waiting for you. You hurt her sister and she has abilities and rage that make Kat and I look like pussy cats. She’s comin’ for you sooner rather than later. She will not relent. She will not stop. She will not turn away when your screaming begins to deafen her. She’ll push harder. She’ll smile as you plead for your last breath. That’s what you’ve got coming. And come to think of it, I’m ready to be done with you so I can watch the show.”

“Let me go and I’ll tell you where I got the girl. You wanna know where I got her. It’s not in my books. It was a private deal. You’ll never be able to find out if you kill me,” Trish pleads.

“You wanna know the best thing this job teaches you?” Kat questions. Trish moves her wary gaze to Kat’s cool calculated one. “You can spot a liar. You’re lying. I can smell it on you even through the piss and puke. I think I smell shit too. Did you shit yourself, Trish? Ah, what would Maybelle think of that? Disgusting cunt of a whore like you lunching with the wealthy, shits herself when she’s scared. Pathetic. Tell us where you got Cara now and I’ll ask Shannon to cut it short. Say anything other than that and I’m leaving this room and bringing her down here to have her way with you as long as she wants. You know what people call Shannon? A machine. She’s a killing machine.

“I feel sorry for you. Something truly fucked up had to have happened to you for you to turn into this monster. Nick won’t touch you because he can’t bring himself to hurt a woman even though you’re nowhere near anything I’d consider a woman. Shannon doesn’t have those issues. She doesn’t feel sorry for you or care that you’re a woman. You hurt her family and have become an object to exact her revenge on. Enjoy your last breaths. Where did you get Cara?”

“Harold Lancaster. Please just shoot me. Don’t let that woman down here,” her voice quivers with fear.

“How the fuck is Harold Lancaster involved in this shit?” Kat demands.

“We had an order for a girl. Auburn hair, green eyes, tall, American and eighteen. Harold had some contacts that he offered us in exchange for some other services. He found the girl somewhere in the Midwest as a domestic.”

“Why did Harold beat Sawyer?” I ask, starting to put pieces of a fucked up puzzle together.

“He thought Sawyer figured it out,” Trish offers blankly, sweat pouring down her face from nerves and trauma.

“Why did he think Sawyer had figured it out?” I snarl in her face.

“I told him. I saw Sawyer looking at a picture of Cara on his phone and told Harold.”

“You saw Sawyer looking at a picture of the woman that’s comin’ to take your life you stupid cunt!” Kat rages.

I hawk back and spit in her face before turning to Kat who’s shaking with adrenaline. This can’t be good for the baby. I don’t worry about Shanny coming in here and ending this because her pulse will be below resting rate as she does it. This will soothe Shanny while it’s riling Kat.

“We’re done. We don’t need anything else. Think about the baby and the boys,” I speak softly to Kat, trying to calm her.

“Two minutes alone and then send Shannon down,” Kat says clinically.

“Two minutes and don’t hurt yourself,” I instruct holding her hazel eyes.

She nods as Trish begins to beg. I leave the room after brushing my lips across Kat’s golden locks. Her body is speckled with Trish’s blood and her face is thirsty for more as she moves away from me to avenge our son.

Kat

Trish killed Sawyer. I watched him die and had to bring him back to life. She’s the reason that happened. All because Sawyer used Nick’s phone at a basketball game and scrolled past a photo that had Shannon in it. I doubt Sawyer even remembers it. I didn’t until this very moment. I promised Shannon this life in front of me and I’m going to be a liar in sixty seconds time.

Trish Booker hurt Shannon’s family, but she killed my son. Her death is mine.

I stand in front of Trish, grab her by the shoulders and repeatedly ram my knee into her ribs until they begin to crack from the force. I don’t hear her screams. I hear Sawyer’s whimpers calling out for me to help him.

I pummel her face with my elbows and forearms, saving my knuckles from any damage. She’s coughing and choking on the blood filling her mouth from the teeth I’ve knocked loose. I grab a hammer and crush her hands and knees when she starts to lose consciousness, bringing her back around. I’m panting heaving breaths from the workout.

“This is what my son felt because of you,” I seethe into her swollen deformed face.

I wrap my hands around her neck and constrict with every bit of strength I have in me. The wine cellar opens and Shannon comes to my side but doesn’t intercede. She watches as Trish strains and wiggles beneath my grasp trying to fight for her last breath. I clamp down harder seeing my son’s face as Harold choked the life from him. I squeeze so hard my fingers burn with a fire that warms my soul.

A soft hand settles on my shoulder bringing me back to the room. It’s silent, shimmering with reflections of glass and wine. Peaceful.

“She’s gone,” Shannon whispers, running her hand down my arm to help me release my cramped fingers.

“I’m sorry,” I say genuinely, peering into Shannon’s face.

“She tried to kill your son,” Shannon says pulling me into her arms, her pregnant belly smashing into mine. “You did good.”

I release a giant breath I didn’t realize I was holding as we stand embracing each other for a long while.