When.
I.
Can.
"She didn't want to go. I don't care that she said it was her choice." Freddie finally pinned me with a look. "She didn't want her family to find her."
No.
She hadn't.
There had been far too many opportunities and instead of pressing this, we'd all just—held on and pretended it didn't matter cause she was with us, where she belonged.
"You got this here?" I said abruptly, looking at Jasper. "Get whatever you can out of him. All the details. I'm going to the apartment. I need to know what happened there."
"I'll take care of him," Jasper said, cracking his knuckles. "You tell me what you find."
"Done."
Hatchet buried.
For now.
He nodded, then looked at Freddie. "Go get some buckets of water. We're waking this fucker up."
I left them to it. My bike was also in the warehouse. There were cracks and scratches from where I'd dropped it, but I ignored those. They were unimportant.
Getting to my apartment now and looking at the surveillance was important. It was the only thing that mattered. That and finding where her family was taking her.
Find her.
Then get her back.
That was the plan.
CHAPTER 2
JASPER
Freddie returned with two full buckets and he wasn’t even staggering with them. For the first time in, I didn’t know how long, he didn’t stagger or crack wise. He just carried the buckets in and set them down. He’d ditched his jacket, probably in the office, and he’d rolled up the sleeves on his shirt. Before I could say a word, he lifted one of the buckets and sent the contents flying into the face of our guest.
The man sputtered and coughed as the water roused him. Half of his face was already bruised as fuck. I envied Liam the hits he’d already gotten in, but he’d done too efficient a job if the guy was unconscious. Every minute we had to wait for the guy to wake the fuck up put us behind finding where she’d gone.
My gut pitched like I was a ship on a storm-tossed sea. Emersyn wasn’t gone. Not for good. We’d find her. We’d get her back. It was what we did. The guy shook his head and spit, then began to test the chains shackling him to the ceiling. I moved over and turned the crank to draw the chains up higher. I wanted him on his toes—off balance.
The minute the wheel began to pop and turn, drawing the chains tighter, our guest snapped his eyes open the rest of the way. Well, the one that wasn’t swollen shut anyway. I stretched my head from side to side as I rolled up my sleeves. “You should go,” I told Freddie. In general, he preferred to be away from the violence and the blood. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight…
“I’m good right here.” Freddie folded his arms and glared at the guy in chains. Face to face with him, he had the height but definitely not the weight. He was far too lean, and the guy tried to lunge at him.
Dumbass.
The chains yanked him backwards and Freddie didn’t flinch.
“You sure?” I checked with him. I had every intention of making this bloodier.
“I’m sure. He took Boo-Boo.”
“That he did, little brother.” I clapped Freddie on the shoulder and turned to our guest. The guy opened his mouth but I didn’t need him to talk yet, so I slammed my fist into his solar plexus. It knocked all the wind out of him and he made a gagging noise. I walked in a circle around him as he fought to catch his breath.
As soon as he stopped panting, I jabbed him in the kidneys. We repeated this a few times. Always soften the target up. I didn’t ask him anything. Not yet. No, when I asked, I wanted him ready to answer me. I couldn’t think about Emersyn. I had to put thoughts of her away in a locked box, where she would be away from this. The violence I wanted to rain down on this guy right now had less to do with him and everything to do with the fact that I didn’t know where she was.
If finding her meant working with Liam and working this guy over? Then count me the fuck in. On my fourth round of driving my fist into his kidney, the man coughed up blood and let out another gagging groan.
“I was just hired to take her to the damn airport,” the man spat out.
Didn’t ask. I hit him from the side, a series of blows before I circled him again. He began to flinch when I would move toward him. That was what I wanted.
Fear.
Freddie stood like a sentinel, arms locked and his expression almost unreadable. Almost. But he was so laser focused on our guest that I doubted anything would get past him. The intensity threw me, but I didn’t have time to focus on that. The clock was ticking, we needed info now. I walked away from our guest and over to the corner. If we’d been at the clubhouse, I would know what tools were at my disposal. As it was, I didn’t know this place, but Liam and I had clearly been on the same wavelength. He had some heavy rubber balls and a dozen or so of those inside a cloth sack worked almost as well as real fruit, like oranges.
I paced back over to the guy. “I told you—I was just hi—” He choked as I swung the bag and struck him with all balls across the lower half of his abdomen and his crotch. A vein popped out on his forehead and I didn’t let him catch his breath. These balls hurt, a lot. If applied correctly they would do a lot of soft-tissue damage on the inside but not leave a lot of marks on the outside.
Circling him, I kept the strikes up until he did gag and throw up some bile. That was better. There was blood in his mouth too. These kinds of injuries could hurt for weeks, lucky for him, if he answered my questions he’d win an all-expenses paid tour of our body disposal.
No pain. No gain.
Gagging and coughing, our guest leaned over and sagged hard against the chains. He wasn’t trying to stay on his feet anymore, and the pain and stress on his shoulders trying to support his weight added to his discomfort. Bag in hand I stared at him and the man lifted his head.
“I’m Tony.”
“I don’t care,” I said flatly.
“I was paid,” he wheezed. “To do a job. The girl. He’s had me watching her for a while.”
Freddie’s shoulders stiffened.
“He wanted me to keep track of her, log her movements, especially who she spent time with.” He spat.
“How long?” Freddie asked.
“A few weeks.” The guy couldn’t hold my gaze even with that answer and he flinched as I hefted the bag.
“Months,” the guy admitted on an agonized gasp. “I’m a freelancer out of California. I’m only here because he paid the fee and I had a job to do.”
“Where was the plane going?” I flexed my hand around the bag as I checked the weight like I wanted to swing it again.
“New York? California? Man, I’m telling you, I don’t know. Rich fucker paid me ten thousand to watch her.”
“He paid ten grand just to keep an eye on her?”
“A week,” Tony said, trying to stand again but he kept twitching as though every muscle hurt. “Ten grand a week. Document any sightings of her. Get pictures of anyone she was spending time with. Put names to the faces, report in daily.”
“Who was he?” Freddie asked, squinting like he had to really strain to concentrate on him.