Johnny and his crew followed the sheriff in through the back of the county jail in the wee hours of the morning. The place was a ghost town. Gino, Lorenzo and Demetri seemed a little spooked. Being more used to dealing with the local heat, Johnny didn’t bat an eye.

Petrov was shackled to a metal table in an interrogation room, waiting for their arrival. The sheriff reported grimly, “Change of plans. Agent Henson is coming to pick up the prisoner with two other agents. We got four hours and can’t do visible damage.”

Johnny replied, holding up his phone. “Yea, I got the memo on that one.”

Gino softened the target up by threatening him with a Taser at close range. The sheriff joined and they took turns strong arming him. Clearly seeing some suffering in his future, he began to bend.

“What is it you gentlemen want of me?”

Demetri answered quickly. “Women. We want the other women you have taken. Tell us where to find them.”

Petrov’s lips curved up into a malicious grin. “You want them all or the one that like the pretty FBI agent?”

Johnny’s big hand flew across the man’s face before anyone could stop him. He was around the table and had his blade to the man’s throat before anyone could think to stop him. Jerking back his head, her trailed the sharp edge in a straight line right his throat. Staring down into his eyes, he asked. “Know who I am?”

“The son of one Don Carlo. This I know.” The man’s thick Russian accent was more pronounced when he was under duress.

“I came to your home, shot the place up, and killed a bunch of your guys. Know why I did that?”

“Your friend wanted his woman back.”

“No, that’s why he went. I went because my old man wanted me to bloody your nose in your own backyard. He wanted you to understand that we can track you down like the mangy fuckin’ animal you are and slit your throat anytime we want.”

The man swallowed, looking down at his hands. His eyes came back up and he stared into Johnny’s eyes. “Then why didn’t you?”

“You are nothing in our world. It was barely worth traipsing to your stupid country once, much less twice. Thought you’d take the hint to stay off our turf. Since you didn’t, we have unresolved business.”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“Cause if you do, I’m going to let you walk out of here with those agents. That means you get to live another day. Once they let you go, as long as you don’t cross my radar again, I’ll let you live. The truth is, we really don’t give a shit about you cause you’re just not all that important. If I set eyes on you though, I’ll drop you where you stand. Got it?”

Without speaking, Petrov nodded his understanding, jerking slightly against the grip Johnny had on his hair.

“Now tell the nice sheriff what the fuck he wants to know, before I lose all fuckin’ patience with you.”

The older man with the neatly starched uniform let out a shaky breath. “The other women. I want numbers and name and places.”

“I keep meticulous records in a virtual cloud. I can access them wherever I go.”

One of the deputies scurried off and brought back an electronic tablet.

“Uncuff my hands.”

“Not a chance.” Gino walked over and made Petrov give him the name and sign information of the cloud. “Jesus, you do keep data on all your crime, not just the human trafficking.”

“I did not agree for you to have that. Take the information on the women and leave the rest.”

A quick glance at Johnny told him that was not happening. Gino took out a flash drive and copied all the information over. Then he carefully deleted all the information from Petrov’s cloud, before signing out.

“Tell us about the woman who looks like the FBI agent.”

Petrov smiled another sickening smile. “She was a special order, for a wealthy benefactor. You will find her information under the code word ‘dragonfly’.”

“What was special about her?”

“Much like her sister, she had skills from her time in the military.”

Gino leaned across the table. “She’s a fuckin’ librarian.”

“Did her sister tell you that lie? You are more gullible than me.”

Johnny growled, “Spit it the fuck out. What skills?”

“Skills of seduction and she can make herself look like anyone with disguises. This woman knows how to shoot many weapons and fights like a tiger. It took six men to subdue her.”

“She’s a fuckin’ spy? Why hasn’t she managed to get away?”

“No one escapes from the Dragonfly.” Petrov’s bland statement took Johnny by surprise because he sensed no deception.

“Who is that?”

“It is not a who, it is a what. The Dragonfly organization has been around for a very long time. They are very good at making people forget who they are. They will force her to do their bidding.”

“What kind of bidding?”

“Read the files. They are contract killers.”

Johnny eased up a little. “Well, that’s not so bad.”

Everyone turned confused eyes on him. His frustrated voice rang out. “It’s better than being someone’s sex slave.”

“Says the man with her sister tied to his bed.” Gino’s sarcastic statement made him want to belt the fucker across the room.

The Russian’s eyes got big.

“He’s joking. Ignore him.”

Gino and Lorenzo took a minute to make it very clear to Petrov that they’d be waiting if and when the authorities ever saw fit to let him go. The big Russian did a lot of looking down contritely at his hands. He wasn’t foolin’ anybody. Johnny knew he was just plotting his next move and avoiding eye contact made it less likely someone would notice. Johnny did the very same thing when he was between a rock and hard place. Petrov was a sick fuck and he was never going to stop trafficking women, not ‘til he was six feet under.

The deputy took him back to his cell and the men gathered in a conference room. They dug through Petrov’s files, slowly discovering all his dirty little secrets. In a larger police precinct they would have come up with some big rigmarole to explain their presence. At the small rural ones, nobody even blinked an eye. If their sheriff wanted to team up with some local gangsters and bring down a human trafficking ring, they were all on board. Hell, they got smiles and coffee.

Lorenzo gasped his amazement. “They’re selling the women for a goddamn mint and there are hundreds of them.”

Gino responded quietly. “Exactly 327 of them.”

Johnny felt his gut clench. He’d never thought there could be so many. “E-mail me the information on Dragonfly then delete it from the flash drive. I think my fuckin’ lying little agent wouldn’t want the FBI to know she’s been running her own operation on the side.”

Lorenzo shot him a dark look. “A little operation that’s going to get us all killed if we’re not careful. I think you bit off more than you can chew.”

Johnny grumbled under his breath. “Sure the fuck did. Pretty little bitch will lie to my fuckin’ face. Think I pick up on it? Hell the fuck no, cause I’m too damned busy staring at her amazing ass. I’m getting as sewed up as the two of you and I gotta say that I ain’t goin’ out that way.”

Lorenzo glanced up. “Are you finished with your bitchy little rant?”

“You ain’t got no idea what’s it’s like to be a real man with real problems. You got little miss sweet and innocent and I got the wildcat from hell.”

Gino’s deep rough voice broke in. “Can both of you stow it for five goddamn minutes, so we can get through this?”

The sheriff shook his head. “You young boys got problems, men my age don’t. Now, look here. I’m only planning to follow-up the shit that it’s my county.”

“There are only three references to Stockdom County. Looks like they were selling women to a gentleman’s club out on route 580. Shipping some dope to a biker club with a charter in this county and blackmailing some local judge.”

“Sounds like more than enough to keep me and my deputies busy.”

Gino smiled. “I’ll delete that from the flash drive as well.”

They negotiated back and forth and deleted the information they didn’t want the authorities to have.

Lorenzo nodded. “It’s interesting how they operate. Sending in men, gathering intel and developing plans.”

Johnny grumbled. “The Russians operate like we do. They call it organized crime for fuckin’ reason.”

As the hours wore on, the conference room table filled with small paper coffee cups. Sarah and her team arrived and buzzed through the double locking front doors. The sheriff waved them into the conference room. His woman seemed nervous to see him there. He could tell because her eyes got larger before she quickly schooled her expression into an unreadable mask. The sheriff pulled the flash drive from the laptop and held it out for her.

“I spoke to Mr. Petrov one last time last night. He kept talking until he got caught up in a web of his own lies. I eventually got him to sign into his cloud. Gangster keeps pretty meticulous records. I shoved everything he had onto this thumb drive for you. Looks like he was into a bunch of nasty shit. Hope you can make some of it stick.”

Looking as impressed as she should, she closed her fist around the flash drive. “I’m certain the information will prove invaluable in our ongoing investigation.”

“Well I do hope you are successful locating more of the women he abducted. I did notice there were quite a few of them. He has a black file. It lists feedback on women who’ve didn’t acclimate well to their new owners.”

“Accidental deaths, suicides and the one’s they had to put down?”

The older man nodded, unable to speak.

Johnny crooked his head. “You don’t seem quite as goddam surprised as we were that they’d keep records on that kind of shit.”

Not looking at him, she responded quietly. “We’ve heard of organizations that had black files. Though it’s not common, it’s not unheard of either.”

“Well I hope there’s no one you know on the list.” Johnny could hear the icy tone in his own voice. She got the message because her entire demeanor shifted.

“Thank you gentlemen. We should hit the road.”

She handcuffed Petrov, and her two agents walked him out with her following behind. There was sudden pandemonium as the Russian made a desperate run for it - the agents both shot at the same time and the man crumpled to the ground in a heap. Johnny watched his woman walk over to the man as the other members of her team tried to stem the blood. The look on her face was totally blank, like she was watching a carrot get diced. He tried to reconcile that in his mind with the wildly passionate woman who loved to romp on his body every night.

She walked over to Johnny. Lowering her voice, she sounded mentally and physically exhausted when she spoke. “We need to get home and review the information on the flash drive. I guess this is where I part ways with the FBI.”

“You part ways with them when me and my old man say so. Go to your office, check in, do your paperwork on the transport that went bad. Then you pass the intel to Homeland Security. They’ll arrange your FBI gig to go away, just like they planned to do when you solved the fuckin’ crime. We’ll give them time to process the information and see what they make of it. We have a copy of everything, including the information on your sister that we deleted from the flash drive. Come straight home when you’re finished. We got shit to discuss.”

I don’t care about paperwork or checking in. If I have intel on my sister, I want to follow up on it.”

“We’ll do that just as soon as you get done at the office. Get in, do your thing, and get the fuck back out. I’ll be waiting.”

“Promise?”

Turning away, he barked. “Yea. Now go.”