Charlie parked outside of Inked Up and glanced around the block. Nothing looked out of the norm for the industrial area of town. What few cars were parked along the streets were either abandoned or belonged to city workers who’d shuttled into their work sites.
After grabbing Gregor from the glove box, Charlie checked her ammunition clip and stuffed the gun into the back of her pants. Bells jingled when she stormed into the tattoo shop, but unlike the last time she’d been there, no one blocked her route toward the back. The shop stood suspiciously empty until Eric came around the corner, eyes widening in surprise.
“Charlie! Not that I don’t like seeing you, but what are you doing here?” His attention shifted toward the hall and back.
“Where’s Brock?” She kept walking in the direction of his private office.
Eric hustled after her. “I think he’s in the middle of something. Maybe you could try back later…or better yet, I’ll tell him you stopped by.” When she didn’t slow, he skidded into her path. Points to him for looking a little wary, if not scared. “I’m sorry, Char, but I can’t let you go back there right now.”
Charlie kept her voice even. “And I’m sorry, Eric, but if you don’t move aside, I’m going to have to move you myself.”
Eric nibbled on his bottom lip, looking nervous. “Charlie, please.”
“Sorry, love. But I’m not going to ask again.”
With a hefty sigh, he stepped aside. Brock’s office door hung wide open, and when she walked through, he was on the phone. He glanced up casually, almost as if he expected her visit.
“Yeah, she’s here,” he said to the person on the other line. “I’ll call you back.”
“Why?” Charlie demanded angrily. “Why the bloody hell would you do something like this? Help me understand because I’m drawing a blank.”
“Why don’t you explain to me what it is I’ve done.” Brock leaned back in his seat, eerily calm as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Do not play games with me!” Charlie smacked her hands on the desk. “After everything we’ve been through together, are you really going to sit here and lie to me?”
He remained frustratingly quiet.
“What the hell happened to you, Brock? Huh? You went from hating everything Arturo and your father stood for to jumping on their payroll? And what about Homeland? You’re seriously choosing to be one of the bastards you’ve sworn an oath to put in jail?”
Brock looked momentarily surprised by her knowledge, but he reined it in quickly. “According to you, I’ve gone off the deep end already. Kidnapping, right? I’ve been luring women from my past to Sinful Delights and then nabbing them?”
Charlie’s blood went cold. “Who was on the phone, Brock?”
“Does it matter? You’ve stormed in here, acting the part of judge and executioner.” Despite the fact that Charlie had once seen the man in front of her as a brother, she prepped herself to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Brock stood, no longer laid-back and easygoing. “I’m not going to waste my time or yours in trying to convince you of my innocence. But it hurts, Sunshine…you believing I’ve stooped so low as to trap and sell innocent women.”
“Why not? I foolishly believed you befriended me without any ulterior motive…Agent Torres.” Charlie lifted her chin, refusing to back down. “I’d told myself I’d hallucinated you being on the dock that night because I’d wanted so badly to be rescued. But I didn’t imagine it. You were there. You lied about who you were twelve years ago, and you’re lying again. Admit it.”
“You’re right. I am lying. Because I hate my father and Arturo more than I did even back then.”
“So you wanted to kill two birds with one stone? Is that it? Get back at everyone who ever did you wrong while simultaneously bringing down my uncle?” Charlie asked the question, but it lacked venom. Something in Brock’s eyes didn’t scream evil human-trafficking mastermind.
“Revenge isn’t my style, Charlie. I’m a firm believer karma’s going to come for people when their time’s due. I don’t need to do anything to help it along.” Brock looked almost…weary. “And as for frequenting Sinful Delights—you’re right. I do go there pretty frequently, but I’m sure as hell not scoping victims. Hell, I’ve been trying to end all the damn trafficking since that night I found you in that fucking crate—which by the way, I’m convinced wasn’t a random occurrence.”
Charlie’s breath hitched. Focus. Head on straight—and on the immediate problem.
“But you guessed that already, didn’t you?” Brock came around the side of his desk and leaned his ass against the edge. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been so easy to convince you to leave Miami. Something told you that you’d pushed things too far and that if you didn’t make tracks, it was a matter of time before something happened, and no one would be around to save you.”
Something knotted in Charlie’s stomach, bringing a wave of nausea. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t the only one taken. They found five other girls.”
“Runaways. Street kids. Kids who already had one foot over the border. You never fit the profile, Charlie. They were targeted because of who they weren’t. You were targeted because of who you were.”
“Arturo’s niece.”
Brock shook his head, his eyes almost returning to the warm brown of the man she used to call friend. “If they wanted to shake up Arturo, they would’ve nabbed Tina. They took you for a reason and, even though I can’t prove it, I think it has something to do with your conspiracy theory involving your mother’s death.”
Charlie’s blood turned to ice. “What does my mother’s accident have to do with my abduction?”
“I think you got too close to finding out the truth, Sunshine,” Brock stated gently. “And I think whoever was responsible for tampering with the car panicked, and tried to get rid of you to save their own ass.”
* * *
Vince pointed the hunk-of-junk rental car in the direction of Inked Up, wishing like hell for the power of his truck’s V-8 engine. Every second that ticked by solidified the cement brick resting in his fucking stomach.
No amount of meditation would lessen the jumble of nerves making his foot press harder on the gas pedal.
“Goddamn it,” Vince growled, practically pushing the damn thing to the floorboard and getting only a faint hum for his efforts. “Hunk of fucking junk.”
Vince’s phone rang. He picked it up immediately. “Franklin.”
“Where are you?” Logan sounded more than a little tense.
“I’m a few blocks out from Torres’s tattoo shop. Why?”
“It’s not Torres.”
Vince held his phone so tight it creaked. “What the fuck are you talking about? You said there was a goddamned link.”
“Let me rephrase that for you, it’s not Brock Torres.”
It took Vince a second to register. “Anthony. Arturo’s head of security.”
“Looks like he’s had his eye on more than Arturo’s safety for the last few years. Ever since Arturo’s health began failing, the man’s slowly been naming himself Franconi’s successor. One guess who wasn’t behind Arturo turning all his holdings on the straight and narrow?”
“How do you know this for sure?”
“Charlie had me digging into the firm currently running the club’s security specs. The owner has a rap sheet a mile long that even a few name changes couldn’t hide. Trey went to New Jersey and rattled the guy up a little bit. Turns out Anthony Torres paid him—and not any measly little sum—to not only tamper with the club’s security system, but make it look like the goal was guest information when in reality—”
“He wanted access to the cameras. The sick fuck wanted to turn them off at will and make it easier to slip girls out of the fucking club.”
Logan agreed. “Bingo. Guess he figures with Franconi’s foot already half in the grave, it’s a matter of time before there’s a shift of power, and he wants in on it, starting with setting up his own little flesh market.”
Vince could see it. Hell, it happened often enough everywhere else in the world, seconds and assistants wanting a bigger piece of the action. “But why make Brock look guilty? He’s his fucking son.”
“Because Brock’s been digging into the very case our British Bombshell was investigating prior to her abduction twelve years ago—the accident that killed Mia Hughes and Leslie Franconi. If Anthony Torres wasn’t involved in both of them up to his fucking eyeballs, I’ll hang up my goddamned Stetson for good.”
Fucking hell. Vince’s grip slipped on the wheel, and the car skidded slightly into the other lane before he managed to pull it back. He took a deep breath, and then a second. Fuck it. It didn’t goddamn work.
Charlie’s adamancy about taking this assignment and seeing it through to the end, her safety be damned, suddenly made sense.
Vince gripped the steering wheel until it creaked. “Are you telling me Anthony Torres abducted Charlie when she was sixteen years old?”
“Fuck,” Vince heard Logan curse. “I’m sorry, man. I forgot you never got my original message. Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t know if Torres was behind the wave of abductions back then, but Charlie’s definitely had his fingerprints all over it. She and five other girls were only hours away from being shipped across the fucking ocean when Brock Torres and his DHS unit got an anonymous tip on their whereabouts. And fuck, man. The detailed reports weren’t pretty. I couldn’t even…it was bad, Vince.”
Vince’s jaw was clenched so hard it ached. “Did you tell English any of this?”
“She’s not picking up. Short of sending a fucking pigeon, I don’t know how to get her the information. How close are you to Inked Up?”
Vince plowed his foot harder onto the gas. “Five minutes.”
* * *
Charlie didn’t know what to believe or whom to trust. So much of what Brock said made sense…and yet didn’t. Why abduct her? If whoever was responsible for the car accident was seriously worried about being identified, why didn’t they make sure to get rid of her instead of taking chances she’d be found? Brock’s explanations raised more questions.
She had to ask what had been bothering her since finding out about Brock back in headquarters. “You’ve been with DHS since you were discharged from the Army, right?”
Brock didn’t bother denying it. “Not immediately after, but close enough, yeah.”
“So why didn’t you get buddy-buddy with Arturo and your father right from the start? Wouldn’t that have made your assignment easier?”
“Easier?” Brock’s humorless laugh ended in a snort. “Fuck, yeah. Realistic? No. Anyone who knew either me or my father knew I couldn’t stand him; that I hated everything he and Franconi stood for. Making a complete one-eighty would only put me into question in their eyes. I needed a realistic shift.”
“But what happened after I left to shift—” It finally dawned on her. “My abduction.”
Brock gave her faint nod, and points to him for looking a tad uncomfortable. “Revenge is something both my father and Arturo can understand. They knew I saw you as a little sister. So I used it. I wanted the men responsible for putting you in that cage—which was the truth. But it also gave me the motive I needed to start working with them.”
“You need to listen to him, Charlie.” Tina’s voice turned both Brock and Charlie toward the office doorway.
“What are you doing here?” Brock stood at attention and snapped, “You need to go.”
“No,” Tina refused, keeping Charlie in her sights. “Vince told me what you suspect about Brock, but it isn’t true. I’m the reason he shows up at the club.”
“Tina,” Brock warned.
“No! Enough is enough, okay? I’m done hiding everything.” Tina, tears falling down her cheeks, didn’t seem to care that she was starting to resemble a raccoon. “It’s a long story, but to make it shorter, after you left, things just weren’t right. There were more secrets than usual and I suspected something big had either happened or was about to happen. And I wanted to help.”
Charlie fought to understand. “And what exactly does that mean?”
“It means that I contacted the feds, and I became an informant. Brock’s informant. At least, that’s how it started.” Tina’s chuckle held no humor as her gaze flickered between them. “I wasn’t as dumb as my father would like to believe. I agreed to help Brock get on the inside as best as I could without drawing attention to either one of us. But one thing led to another and…”
Holy crap.
“You’re together,” Charlie heard herself say.
Tina nodded. “And we shouldn’t be for an arm’s length of reasons. Not only is he my handler, but I’m the daughter of one of the most notorious crime bosses east of the Mississippi. No way would his supervisors like him getting into bed with the enemy. Literally.”
Charlie turned toward Brock. “Is that why you fell off the DHS radar?”
Brock’s silence spoke volumes, and what remained unsaid was clarified as his gaze fell to Tina.
Love.
His dark eyes oozed his feelings, despite the fact that he kept a physical distance. “I like my job, like making the world a safer place. But no way in hell am I going to let a job get in the way of being with the person I love. I knew if they found out, they’d pull me out of the field and make me cut all ties. No way in hell was I letting that happen.”
“But what about the girls?” Charlie asked, still confused. “At least four of them are linked to your past, Brock. Four. You have both motive and means.” Charlie fought to keep her own emotions at bay. “I want to believe—”
“Then believe it,” Tina interjected, sniffing. “You said these women were being abducted when our security system goes offline, right? During each of those times, Brock’s been with me.”
Brock’s lies of omission had hurt. There wasn’t a doubt about it. He’d pulled the wool over not only her eyes, but her uncle’s…over Anthony’s. Anyone who could lie so convincingly had to be looked at a little closer. Not doing so would make her negligent—and not to mention, stupid.
“But the links.” Charlie shook her head, struggling between her head and her heart.
“Screw the links!” Tina shouted. “You of all people should know links can be planted for the sole purpose of throwing people off the real track. Didn’t you do that for my father once or twice? You’ve known Brock almost your entire life. If he did something so freaking heinous as abducting those girls, do you think he’d be stupid enough to pick young women who could be traced back to him? We should be thinking about who would gain something out of setting up not only Brock, but my dad.”
Charlie, ready to agree, noticed the hulking figure outside the hall a second before the shadow stepped in behind Tina.
“And who would’ve ever thought Tina here would be the voice of reason.” Anthony, with a gun pressed against the back of Tina’s head, surprised them all. His gaze snapped to where Brock’s hand reached toward a desk drawer. “Move another inch and your bitch here eats a bullet, son.”
Brock’s nostrils flared as he glared at his father. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Something I should’ve done a long time ago. What the hell is it with kids today not minding their own fucking business?” Anthony growled in return.
Charlie used Anthony’s temporary distraction and whipped Gregor out from behind the band of her pants. Aiming the barrel of her gun at her uncle’s longtime friend, she demanded, “Let her go, Anthony. You’re not helping your cause by doing this now.”
“Sure I am. In true Franconi fashion, I’m helping me.”
Tina’s eyes, wide as saucers, latched onto Charlie. “What are you waiting for? Shoot him!”
“She’s not going to shoot,” Anthony dug the barrel of the gun deeper into her temple. “She’s not going to shoot, because she knows the second she does, my finger can squeeze this trigger and you’d be a goner too.”
“Why are you doing this?” Tina cried. “You’re Daddy’s friend!”
“No, I’ve been his lapdog,” Anthony spat. “And just when I’m about to get my payout for doing his dirty work for the last forty years, he’s going to go legit? I don’t fucking think so. I’m getting what I’m due, even if I have to take it for myself.”
“And you don’t care who you hurt in the process?” Charlie took a small side step to the right to better her aim.
“Charlie,” Brock warned her.
“You have a problem with Arturo,” Charlie continued. “I get it. But framing your own son for the abductions? What the hell’s that about? Using innocent women? And what are you going to do now, Anthony? Get rid of all three of us?”
Anthony shrugged, not the least bit concerned. “Why not? I almost got rid of you twelve years ago when you wouldn’t stop your goddamned poking in my business. If it wasn’t for my traitorous son, you wouldn’t be a problem now.”
Charlie’s breath stumbled in her chest, but Brock’s head whipped toward his father. “You fucking bastard. It was you?”
“I’ve done a lot of shit, son, so you’re going to have to be a little clearer.” Anthony shook his head, laughing. “But I have to say, the one I’m proudest of the most—is taking Arturo’s empire right out from under him without the bastard even knowing. I never thought in a million years that losing Leslie would make him so…careless. If I had, I would’ve orchestrated it a hell of a lot sooner.”
“You…you caused the accident that killed my mother?” Charlie barely choked out. He’d been responsible for her mother’s and aunt’s deaths. Not Arturo. Not even one of his enemies…his best friend.
“Aw, sorry, sweetheart,” Anthony apologized without a single ounce of remorse. “It wasn’t personal. You know how they say all is fair in love and war? That goes for business and war, too. Word was circulating that Arturo was starting to get soft, and do you know what happens when that kind of shit starts getting out? Takeovers. Raids. People push the boundaries to see how much they can get away with. What better way to fire up Arturo’s bloodlust than good old-fashioned revenge? It was a sorry happenstance that your mother was in the damn car. It was only supposed to be Leslie.”
Charlie glanced over to a grief-stricken Tina. Tears poured down her cousin’s face, nearly inconsolable sobs racking her body. Charlie had been so self-absorbed in her own misery that she hadn’t seen her cousin’s.
Charlie took another small shift to the side and fought the churn of her stomach. “You’re bloody delusional if you think I’m going to let you get away with this—any of it.”
Shift.
From three feet away, Brock eyed her movements. His body straightened, ready to pounce the second he had an opportunity that didn’t risk Tina’s life.
Anthony sent them both an evil smirk. “If either of you so much as has an eye tic, Tina won’t get a chance to go to auction because her blood will be all over this fucking office.”
“Your blood’s going to be what’s spilled if you don’t let the girl go.” Vince’s voice sounded like music to Charlie’s ears.
Anthony’s attention flickered down the hall. The older man glanced left, then right, which meant Vince had blocked at least one of his exits. And judging by his body language, one more gun had been added to the mix.
Anthony stepped back, and Charlie took one step forward. The move caught his eye and he chuckled. “Do you even know how to use that thing, sweetheart?”
“Let Tina go, and you’ll find out,” Charlie cooed sweetly. “You’ve lost the advantage of surprise, Anthony. You can’t think you’re going to get away with all of this.”
“I just need to get away with enough.” Anthony kept his back toward the rear exit, and with every step that brought him closer to freedom, their chances of getting Tina started slipping away. “Maybe one of these days, Letty, you’ll learn to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”
Anthony pushed through the back door, Tina’s screams cut off as it slammed shut. Charlie, Vince, and Brock followed at a run, bursting outside a split second before a nondescript box truck squealed away from the curb.
“Goddamn it all to fucking hell!” Brock punched a nearby Dumpster, the metallic ring echoing in the alley.
Heart pounding, Charlie stared in the direction of Tina’s disappearance, and forced her grip on Gregor to lessen.
Vince’s hand landed on her shoulder, and his wall of heat moved close. “We’ll get her back, English.”
Charlie stood still, bombarded with two completely different needs: to fling herself into his arms, and punch him until he cried uncle. Unfortunately, neither one would get Tina back safely.
Everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours had left her too open and raw—and now this. Charlie shrugged off his touch and turned to him with a hard glare.
“We’ll get her back?” she questioned. “Before or after he sells her to the highest bidder? And for no other reason than having bloody sucky timing.”
Pacing wildly, Brock looked the part of a man poised to do something stupid.
“Brock, I—”
He held up a hand, cutting Charlie off. “It’s best not to speak, Sunshine. I love you, but I could throttle you with my bare hands right about now.”
“Try it and see what happens,” Vince threatened darkly.
“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Franklin.”
The two of them stepped closer to one another, making Charlie shout, “Shut the bloody hell up already!”
Both men stopped inches shy from contact and stared at her. Chest heaving and fighting off a fresh set of freaking tears, Charlie glanced from man to man, making sure they each heard her clearly. “Blaming and finger-pointing isn’t going to help us find Tina or any of the other girls. All it’s going to do is take us longer.”
“For all we know, it’s already too late,” Brock snarled. “You heard my father. He’s been working on this for fucking-ever. No way in hell he’s going to make tracking him easy. It’s too fucking late. She’s gone. They’re all gone.”
Charlie couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. “Anthony spoke like we were going to regret messing in his business…as if he hadn’t carried anything out yet. And despite being the bastard he is, I don’t think he actually planned on taking Tina. If he had, he sure as hell wouldn’t have done it in front of witnesses.”
“You think he’s holding the girls somewhere nearby?” Vince caught on quickly.
“I do. We just need to figure out where, and to do that, we need to learn a little bit more about him.” Vince gave her a questioning look, and she had to push the words out, knowing they wouldn’t go over well. “We’re going to have to talk to Arturo.”
Both Vince and Brock interjected at the same time. Charlie slipped her fingers into her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. “I didn’t ask permission from either of you.”
“It’s a bad fucking idea.” Brock shook his head.
“Don’t you think that would create more trouble?” Vince didn’t outright disagree, but the look on his face screamed doubt.
“Do I look stupid?” Charlie asked rhetorically. “I’m not about to tell him the closest thing he has to a friend kidnapped his daughter and is trying to stage a coup in his organization. Then we’d have to worry about dodging Arturo’s men too. But if anyone knows Anthony’s habits, it’s him.”
“I’ll have Eric hack into the traffic cams and see if he can get a bead on Anthony or the truck. Maybe we’ll luck out.” Brock didn’t sound too hopeful.
“Give him your laptop,” Vince suggested to Charlie. “Maybe our facial recognition software will make it easier.”
Brock glanced from Vince to Charlie, his eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “Who the fuck are you guys working for really?”
Charlie reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Let’s split up and meet back at our hotel room in, say, two hours. Once we get things moving, we’ll give you some answers.”
“You mean, now that you know I’m not a dirty DHS agent?”
“Doesn’t mean I suddenly like you,” Vince interjected with a mutter.
“Good. Then the feeling’s mutual.”
Brock hustled back into Inked Up, leaving Charlie and Vince alone. Even after finding out he’d gone behind her back, once again questioning her fitness to be on this assignment, Charlie’s first instinct was to turn to him for support. When she realized she couldn’t, that all-consuming pain in the center of her chest came back.
Hell, maybe he’d been right to question. Not only had she accused an old friend of a heinous crime, but she’d overlooked the real culprit entirely and brought her innocent cousin along for the horror ride.
Vince’s touch on her arm had her closing her eyes, hesitant to meet his gaze.
“We need to talk, English,” Vince said, dropping his voice.
“Eventually.” She reluctantly stared him dead in the eye, and the uncertainty she saw nearly did her in right there. “Right now, we have work to do.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but Eric came flying out of the door.
“Is it true?” Eyes round like a kid on Christmas morning, he looked at Charlie eagerly. “Am I seriously going to be playing with government facial recognition programs and be allowed to hack into the city’s traffic cameras?”
“I’m going to give you my laptop, Eric, and you’re going to do what you need to do to help find Tina.” Charlie kept her voice stern and pointed at him like a schoolteacher. “But things haven’t changed so much in twelve years that I don’t still view my computer as an extension of myself. If you get so much as a finger smudge on the screen, your arse is grass. You got me?”
He waved off her threat. “Yeah. Yeah. I got it. You have nothing to worry about. Where is that nice piece of fine machinery?”
Charlie nearly snorted. Vince. Anthony. The kidnapped girls. Tina.
Yeah, she had nothing to worry about.