“Johnathan, I’ve got more information. I need you and James to be at my office as soon as possible. Lucifer will be with us, so make sure to hurry,” Simon says in that unhurried voice of his.

It’s always even tones with him. Doesn’t matter the time of day, he always sounds so fucking infuriatingly calm.

“Got it,” I growl as I check the clock on my nightstand.

It’s three in the fucking morning.

Pushing disconnect, I look over at the window. It’s the dark of night out there. Spider’s favorite fucking time, if you ask me.

Calling James, he sounds aggravated when he answers. “You and your fucking troubles. I swear to fucking hell.”

“Good morning to you too, sweetheart.”

He’s in a good mood.

“You guys have shit timing…” he says, and I hear a female’s sleepy voice in the background, asking what’s going on.

“Get to Simon’s office. Lucifer will be there too.”

“Fuck. When the hell did Simon figure out that we need the big guy’s fucking attention?”

“When the stakes got raised. Police Chief’s daughter, senator’s daughter, realty mogul’s daughter, and some fashion queen’s beloved daughter. All money and power families.”

“See you there,” he says before he disconnects.

Grabbing my jeans off the floor, I stand up and pull them on. These are the least dirty ones I have right now, or well, I should say the cleanest. Walking into the kitchen, I grab my keys off the counter.

It’s going to be a long fucking day; I can just fucking see it.

It’s a little cooler right now out in the dark of night, but the cold metal of my 1956 Harley Davidson panhead feels good against my calloused hands as I run my fingers over her.

“I know you’re cold, baby, let’s get you all hot and bothered,” I purr to her as I crank her up.

The loud thrum fills the night air as I let her rumble for a couple minutes. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to just sit back and enjoy the feeling I have right now. I get the distinct impression from the way the world feels around me, things are about to get rough.

* * *

“What the fuck are you wearing?” Simon hisses, and for the first time in a long while I’ve achieved my happy place.

I’ve taken his calm from him.

Fucker looks livid with me as I stroll right into his office.

I’m surprised to see Andrew here as I walk over to one of the chairs by Simon’s desk.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask as I slap Andrew’s shoulder.

Rubbing his eyes, Andrew grouches, “Fuck if I know. This is your shit show, I’m guessing.”

“If you dare sit down…” Simon says to me in a cold voice.

“Gentlemen,” Lucifer says as he walks into the room. He looks like he’s just been on a vacation. He’s completely relaxed and not showing a single sign of it being three-thirty in the morning.

“Matthew,” Simon says to Lucifer, calling him by his real name.

“Boss,” I say.

James follows right behind him, heads to a chair and slumps down into it.

“Let’s all be seated and get this started,” Lucifer says.

Grinning right in Simon’s face, I lower myself into his plush office chair and scoot around until I find that perfect, comfortable spot.

Simon’s eyes are on fire as he looks to Lucifer and then back to me. I can see a small vein on his neck beginning to stand out.

I think the prissy fuck is about to have a stroke.

“Johnathan,” Lucifer starts as he sits in a chair facing us. “You seem to have fallen into a dirty world that has been darkening the corners of our city.”

Lifting my eyes, I ask, “What do you mean?”

Simon takes over. “While this is more speculation than I’m used to, I was able to gain CCTV footage surrounding your area of town. From the surrounding traffic light cameras, I have a better understanding of who took the girls from your bar.”

Turning his screen around, he shows a video of a white van driving along the road leading to my bar. The picture changes and then shows the same van at the light about a quarter of a mile away from it. My bar is on a long stretch of road with nothing else out there except for old, closed up industrial plants.

“This van was traveling on the street at the time intervals you gave me. No other vehicles came during that time except for a pickup truck that stopped at your bar.”

I look at the video of the pickup truck. “His name is Jack. He doesn’t have any part in this.”

“Agreed,” Simon says.

“So, what the fuck happened?” Andrew asks as he yawns again. “The girls have me getting up early for soccer practice this morning. Let’s hear the meaty bits.”

Simon and I quickly do a rundown of what happened three nights ago at the bar. We start from my point of view then Simon shifts it back to the white van.

“Here’s the interesting piece of the story,” Simon smiles. “The information you pulled from Yuri added pieces to the Russian puzzle we’ve been working on, but the white van adds a whole corner of the puzzle we didn’t know was taking shape.”

Lucifer asks, “How did we not know they would be doing a slave auction in my city?”

Raising my eyebrows, I look over at Andrew and James. This is news to us all, and from the pained frown on Simon’s face, I take it he’s not too happy about the answer he’s about to give.

“It’s a floating market. They’ve been doing this in Europe for the last century. They move their chattel from city to city. They often pick up their merchandise from the cities they plan to have an auction in. Their pickups start anywhere from a month ahead of time to a couple of days. It depends on the influx of what is being called for.”

“What are they selling?” James asks.

“Women and children. Never men. Females range from three years old to thirty. The male children no older than eleven.”

James looks like he’s turned green. He’s not the newest member to our family, but he’s from a different side of the criminal underworld. Previously, he worked as a very skilled cat burglar. I’m not sure where the ability to use a sniper weapon came from, but for both jobs, he is the one person I trust to get them done. He’s way too good with a mile of distance and a rifle to be a civilian, if you ask me. But he hasn’t dealt with the shit side of life like this. Things like these usually don’t come up on his side of the family’s business.

Rolling my neck in a circle, I hear it click twice in loud pops. “So what they don’t sell they take with them to the next city?”

“Yes. According to my sources, they move into an area a couple of days ahead of time. Either the Russians, or the local crew, target pickups days or weeks beforehand. Everything is planned ahead of time, if possible, from what I can see. They spend time with the local boss of the area, and then leave a nice cash incentive. Sometimes they’ll go back to the same city, if they did particularly well.”

“Why are we just now hearing they are coming here, Simon?” Lucifer asks before I can.

“Because the Russians are getting restless again. The money flow they previously had is declining. Alexei Rastov is trying to expand his options. My thoughts are he doesn’t know or care of our rules barring slave auctions in our city.”

Nodding my head at Simon, I say, “He’s keeps his cards closer to his chest than the previous guy did. He’s the new wave of boss from Russia. No more of the old, reliable bear.”

“Precisely. He has brought a revolution to the front. He’s connected through the newest methods of criminal enterprises. Cyber warfare, investment terrorism. You name it, he’s willing to try it. But he’s not stopped the old proven methods, either. Slavery of the right flesh brings in a strong flow of money.”

“So, what do we know?” I ask.

“The van drove a long route for a short distance. Whether they were hoping to grab more girls, or worried about being followed, both seem possible. They eventually made their way across the city to their industrial complexes. As far as I can tell, they’ve made one of their unused warehouses the spot for the auction.”

That’s the reason we’re here so early in the fucking morning. Fuck. And fuck. They kidnapped my girl and they are going to try to sell her off to the highest fucking bidder.

For fuck’s sake, when did my mind switch to her being my girl?

Shaking my head to clear the thoughts, I ask, “How is this set up?”

“They have a few methods they use, from what my sources say. And trust me, the information I received about the auctions has been very hard to come by. Squeezing and bribing wasn’t easy. From what I gather, they are very selective about who comes to their auctions, and they are very choosey with who gets to buy.”

That’s probably bad news right now for me.

“Their operation is simple in some aspects. They use websites to advertise their merchandise, but it’s a darknet site that utilizes encryption that rivals most government databases.”

Laughing, Lucifer says, “So it was easy to get into?”

Simon winces slightly. “Perhaps I should rephrase that. They rival databases that I would encrypt. It was not easy in the least.”

“From there, they show pictures of their goods, a sort of what’s up and coming with special details. Whether the goods are virgins or not. What their backgrounds are. Some of the women they snatch are from higher education backgrounds. Political science majors, chemical engineering degrees, computer database architects. They don’t always go for the everyday slob.”

“Do we think they took these women on purpose?” James asks. He’s staring at the whiteboard on the back wall of Simon’s office.

There are four photos of the women that were kidnapped. Beth being at the front of the line. The next three are in order of importance, I would guess, but there’s a red question mark next to each of their pictures.

“Doubtful. They haven’t started the higher profile abductions in the states yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Over in Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East, they’ve done high profile grabs. Remember the second and third place women from the Miss World pageant last year?” Simon asks as he quickly does something with his mouse and keyboard.

Pictures pop up on his screen of two beautiful women.

There’s an itchy spot in the back of my brain, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen those two women before until Andrew says, “Yeah, they went missing on the tour. Somewhere in Tripoli, right?”

“Correct,” Simon says.

“Wow,” I say. “That’s ballsy.”

“Not according to them. They have a private wish list section where a client can create a list that’s only available to the administrator. There, from what I can tell, is where clients are able to ask for a specific type of woman. Or a specific woman.”

“Hmmm,” comes from Lucifer, and I can’t help but chuckle. He’s seeing dollar signs and power right now, I can guarantee it. Whether it’s to take over something like this, or sell the information out, I have no clue.

Nodding my head, I start to get an idea of just how sophisticated this line of business has become, and I can see in Lucifer’s cold, calculating eyes he’s fully aware of the capabilities something like this has.

“What’s with the question marks?” I ask.

“They’ve listed three new girls as of this morning.”

“But four went missing.”

“Four went missing,” Simon agrees. “That doesn’t mean they will sell them all or can sell them all.”

A new wave of nausea hits me. Beth.

“They’ve listed two as virgins, and one as… how did they put it? I think it’s spirited. No pictures yet.”

Virgins. Fucking bloody hell. Their price will be astronomical.

“What’s the news on the girls missing?” Lucifer asks.

“Nothing public yet. Although, from what I’ve heard, the Police Chief wants to make an announcement. The Police Chief is making serious waves trying to go around Senator Norton, but Norton has him locked down tight.”

“What the fuck for?” James questions, his incredulity is plainly showing. “Why not have them on milk cartons already?”

“Because Norton has a campaign to run. He’s running again this November for office, and he has very high ambitions. From the mouths of his understaff, he has dreams of hitting the Oval in the next twelve years.”

“That crooked bastard?” Lucifer scoffs at the notion, but I can see it doesn’t surprise him.

“Yes, and anything that could reflect badly, or show a lack of control, is not being let out to the public. And with the way he treats his daughter, he very well could have it leaked he isn’t the greatest of fathers. Even his security staff have been heard to whisper of his iron-fisted ways.”

Makes sense. Beth and the girls were out for a night on the town. Bet they didn’t want to be caught up in the limelight that can happen when some of the semi-famous visit the central strip downtown.

“So, when it goes public they’re missing…” I start off, thinking out loud. “If the Russians don’t already know, it will either be ignored that they’re big names or it could get messy. But, they probably already know… maybe that’s why only three are being sold?”

“That’s the unknown, why they only listed three girls. I’m very interested to know what happened to the fourth.”

“What’s the security like at these auctions?” Andrew asks.

“I would liken it to having the National Guard surrounding a warehouse with the Secret Service inside.”

“Oh,” Andrew says with a grimace. “That makes things interesting.”

I can only agree. “How are we going to take this place out?”

Simon looks to Lucifer then to me. “We can’t. It would take too many men and too much time.”

My eyes widen. “There can’t be that many issues with something like this?”

“There is. And if we let the proper authorities know, it’s not unheard of for them to go dark with the auction… or throw a couple of grenades into a holding pen with all the livestock inside.”

“What do you mean go dark?” James asks.

“They skip the auction if they hear even the faintest of whispers suggesting that they are being looked at. Then it’s another couple of months before they resurface. Usually with a completely new crop to sell.”

Fucking hell.

“Okay, so what’s that mean for us then?”

“You will be going in alone. I’ve got you set up as a buyer’s proxy. The guy I tapped for this did not come cheap, nor did he want to give up his seat for a special verified virgin auction.”

Christ, this is fucking insane.

“By myself?”

“Yes. Andrew, you will be in operational control of it all. James, you will be backup in case we lose any of the girls. Peter will be backing you up with a car of his own to stop any from getting out, if possible.”

“How the hell will I get into a place like this? They probably know what I look like, you know.”

“That’s the beauty of modern day cosmetics.”

He pulls up another picture on his computer and for a few seconds I’m confused. There, on the screen, is a guy who looks a lot like me except I have blue eyes and my hair isn’t cut short like some fucking hipster.

Then it dawns on me.

Fuck that shit. The girls are going to new homes, if you ask me.

“I ain’t cutting my fucking hair, bitch boy,” I yell.

Everyone except Simon is laughing at the picture, even Lucifer.

Simon isn’t though.

“Think of Beth,” Simon says like he has a needle and is trying to stab it in my eye.

* * *

It’s six in the morning before we finally leave the office space downtown. My eyes hurt from watching the damn screen the whole time, and I still don’t have a good feeling about the whole scheme we have in place.

Especially the part of me going in solo.

Andrew has said he’ll have more guys in place to try to get me out if shit goes sideways, but I already know I’ll be leaving my weapons at the door.

This is going to be a fucking crap-shoot.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I dial the one person I know that can do what I need right now.

“Missy,” I say as soon as she answers. “Meet me at the bar in two hours. I need you to put your cosmetology license to work. Bring your haircutting shit.”