Chapter 44

Damien

The second I step into the large conference room, I’m a force to be reckoned with. I don’t care who these men are or what they mean to me right now. I can’t. Not when the only good piece of my life is missing and in the hands of monsters.

“I want everything we can pull up on Charles and Mirabelle, and I want it yesterday,” I demand and ignore the way everyone’s eyes look at me with sadness. Fuck sadness. I don’t have time for it.

“You sure it’s them?” King asks, placing the phone he was speaking into moments ago onto the cradle.

“I called McNamara.” I turn and face him, feeling a surge of white-hot anger. “Did you know?”

“No, but I was informed of it shortly after your conversation with Mac.” He stands from his place and crosses to me. “I just put a call in with his commanding officer. He wasn’t too happy with what I learned. Apparently, Mac hadn’t told anyone about this.”

“You expect me to believe that?” I scoff. “It’s bullshit, and you know it. The shit has hit the fan, and someone has to take the blame. That person is Mac.”

“You’re probably right, but he should have told us what was suspected—”

“Fuck him, and fuck the assholes who didn’t do their jobs better and protect her,” I level, needing to focus on more important things. “Sneak, you got anything I don’t already know about this asshole?”

“Nah, man, I haven’t been able to find anything new. There is, however, a period of time for which no one has any record of him, and as far as I can tell, no one did anything to figure out why that is. I have a feeling we solve that little blip, and the rest of the puzzle pieces will fall into place.”

“Go with that, dig in, see what you can get from it. Call in whatever favors you can, I don’t care, just get me something I can use.”

The group of men surrounding me, men I call my brothers because of the blood we’ve spilled and bled together, each one of them nods his head. Granting me the unspoken promise of our bond.

And for a brief moment, I feel a small sparkle of hope bloom in the middle of the darkness circling me.

We will find her.

We will save her.

*****

“Diz, man, you’re going to make yourself crazy. We will find her,” Rafe tries his best to assure me for the tenth time in the last thirty minutes, but I’m beyond consoling at this point. I need answers, and I need them now. Rafe has no idea what I’m going through, and if we don’t catch a lead soon, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

“We better,” I growl, pacing the large conference room. The entire situation is all too surreal and familiar. First Hudson, then Kingston, now me. Why the fuck does the world feel the need to fuck with our women?

“I’ve got a call in with my contact, but McNamara fucked this one up,” he explains, but I already knew that. I knew it the moment I confirmed Penny was missing. This entire thing could have been avoided, but McNamara’s ego got in the way.

“Trust me, he’s going to get what’s coming to him,” I murmur, feeling more and more like the man I was before all the darkness settled into my life. It’s amazing what this woman has done to me. If it hadn’t been for her, there’s no doubt in my mind I’d still be lost amongst the shadow of my former self.

“No, Diz, you don’t get it. Sneak was right to question that blip he found. Charles isn’t the man you think he is.” His words strike me where it counts, and everything around me stops. I narrow my gaze on him.

“What the fuck are you getting at, Rafferty?”

“Everyone had it wrong,” he continues and turns the laptop in front of him to face me. A picture of Charles stares back at me. “Charles isn’t the fancy aristocrat they profiled when all this shit started. He’s a nobody from nowhere who changed it all with the right connections.”

“I don’t need a fucking story, man. Get to the point,” I interrupt, feeling more and more like I’m going to jump out of my own skin.

“You’re saying Charles Pullman is a cover? For who?”

“Nah, man, he’s a fucking ghost,” Sneak interjects, reminding me all the others in the room. Rafe shakes his head.

“Not what I would call him. Ghost status is nothing compared to who this man really is.” Rafe claps and leans forward in his seat. He reaches around the laptop and hits a key. Another photo of Charles once again stares back at me, but this time, he’s much younger and lacking the finer clothing I’ve seen him wearing. “What did you say Penny’s stepfather’s name was?”

“Miguel Ruiz,” I say, feeling the air leave my lungs with a whoosh when my eyes catch the name in white bold letters next to the photo.

Miguel Ruiz.

My stomach drops, and I feel instantly sick.

How the fuck did we miss this?

“Something didn’t sit right about this guy, so I had a friend of mine start digging, and he found shit no one had ever linked to Charles. It seems like someone on the inside might have been protecting him and hiding impertinent information to the case against him. Mostly things about his past and how he got started in the business. The same information that became available after his reported death. Important information connecting him to your girl and the life she led back home.”

“Your wife’s stepfather sold her off into the world of human trafficking, only to buy her back a few months later.”

“Only he didn’t know. He had no idea because he never saw the papers on the girls.”

“No?”

“It was Armando’s deal, and he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. We never sent Charles any details about the shipment.”

“You sure about that?”

“I handled everything about it, from the very start. Armando chose them. I made sure they arrived safe and sound,” I breathe before closing my eyes and running my hand down my face. “How in the hell did we miss this?”

“Didn’t she recognize him when she saw him?” Sneak asks, leaning forward in his chair. I shake my head.

“She never met him. The raid started less than an hour after his arrival, and he wasn’t set to meet her until later that night,” I explain, feeling grateful but more desperate than ever. Penny has told me about Miguel, and while she never went into too much detail, I didn’t need to guess to know what kind of man he is. Knowing who he is in the light of this new information, her chances of survival have dwindled. If there was one thing Penny was clear about when it came to Miguel, it was that he absolutely hated her. “What else do we know?”

“My contact thinks they’re closing in one him, and if his research is right, Charles is in our own backyard.” He taps another button on my keyboard, and a map of the city fills the screen.

“There’s no way. He wouldn’t have stuck around here. It’d be too risky,” I say, feeling sure of myself. Charles isn’t stupid. He’d put as much distance as he could between this place and himself as fast was humanly possible.

“Unless he was unable to physically run.” Rafe clicks another button, and a new photo comes up. It’s of Charles and Mirabelle, dated a week before Penny and I came home from the visit with my family.

What the fuck?

“How did they know where to find me?”

“My guess would be the mole hiding information about him.” Rafe zooms in on the photo, and I study every detail about it, committing the image to memory. “But that’s something the FBI needs to sort, and from what I’ve been told, a full investigation has been ordered.”

Charles is on a motorized scooter, and his right leg appears twisted. Was he injured in the blast? He looks thinner, his face gaunt and sunken in. Though the picture is grainy, he doesn’t look well. Maybe Rafe is right. An injury this severe would keep him closer than I would have originally guessed. But then again, maybe he was counting on me to make that assumption.

Following close behind Charles in the photo is Mirabelle, the not so vibrant she-devil I recall. Her head is down, and her hands are clasped in front of her. What the fuck? She’s thinner, too, and her red hair appears darker in the black and white photo, and shorter. Even the way she is dressed is different. Instead of brazen and sexy, it’s more reserved.

“Mirabelle Johnston, known as Cassandra Guiterriz, or Cassie for short—”

“Who?” I frown looking up at him.

“Mirabelle was kidnapped at age nine, nearly fourteen years ago. She and her family were on vacation,” he murmurs, painting a clear picture and silencing the room. “Parents turned their heads for one second, and she was gone. All these years later, they’ve never given up looking for her.”

“This is confirmed?”

“Yes, the prints gathered in Vegas belonging to Mirabelle matched the ones Cassie’s parents provided when their daughter went missing.”

“Have they been contacted?” King asks, moving closer to the laptop we’re all carefully studying. Rafe looks at me, his answer unnecessary to me.

“The daughter they’ve been searching for no longer exists.” I give the only answer there is. “We have no way of assessing her state of mind. She could be a loose cannon.”

“They deserve to know she’s alive. Dizzy, she’s a victim in all of this as much as Penny is,” King counters. As a father, I know what’s he fighting for, but he doesn’t know the person Cassie has become. He doesn’t know the darkness she’s lived. His intentions are good, but they are misplaced at the moment. I point at the computer screen, back to the photo of the two of them. “She was a child, Dizzy.”

“Look at them, King. When I was moving up in the ranks, there were rumors about these two. Rumors that she came to him at a young age. Rumors that he groomed her into the monster I know her to be.” I pause a moment, swallowing down the pity rising in my throat. Pity for Mirabelle and the life stolen from her. “Telling her parents now, before we know her mental state, is cruel. If she’s reverted to the woman she was before finding a twisted freedom with Brock, she’s going to need a lot of help, but I’ve seen the darkness in her. It’s far from quiet, even as Charles’ puppet.”

“Wait, she was Brock’s wife? The woman who—” Rafe blurts, keeping King from arguing with me. I know it’s fucked up, but it’s the truth.

“I saved Penny from her the first night,” I finish. “Yes, that’s her. She was Charles’ plaything for years, and when Brock came along, he allowed them to marry.”

“Diz, man, I know you’re worried, but I’ve got my guys combing through every deed to every piece of propery in and around town. If they find anything, we’ll be thier first call.” I know he’s trying to keep me calm, but it’s an impossible feat.

“There has to be something more we can do,” I grunt, trying to ignore the fear mounting in my gut. He might think he knows what Mirabelle and Charles are about, but he honestly has no clue. None of them do. “I can’t sit here and twiddle my thumbs while she’s out there.”

“Diz—” King interjects, but when the tables were turned and it was Missy missing, he didn’t stop until every stone had been turned and every lead followed.

“No, I can’t. I need to be out there. I need to find her.” I walk out of the room and finally out of the building. My truck is only a few feet away, but the urge I felt moments ago fades as reality crashes down around me.

I look around, unsure of where to start but desperate to go. Looking up at the sky, I hope I get the chance to tell her how I feel and what she means to me.

It isn’t long before I turn around and head back inside. It’s foolish to think I can do this on my own, besides I need to be here incase some information comes in.