Now, he was still flying high, but he wasn’t as strong and crazy as before. Unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling the pain like a sober person would have either.
The door swung open behind us, and the guy who owned the place, Roger, walked in.
“Thought you guys might need this,” he said, holding up a syringe.
“What is it?” Levi asked, walking up to take it from him.
“Something that will get the drugs out of his system. Drugs are a common occurrence in this world, so we make sure we have some on hand,” he explained, looking at Rick with eyes that would shrivel a normal man’s balls. “Just shove it in his thigh, hit the plunger and stand back.”
“Roger that,” Levi replied as he walked back toward us.
Realizing what he’d said, he started chuckling and looked back over his shoulder at Roger who just rolled his eyes. Guess he’d heard that one before.
Sven was leaning against a table that held a disturbing selection of instruments to assist us with our inquiries, so I walked over and took the space next to him. Roger chose a spot on the wall near the door, not far from where Archer had taken up residence when we’d first come down here.
“Open up for the choo-choo, fucker!” Levi sang, making a train noise and holding the syringe like someone would do with a spoon for a kid.
When he was about a foot away from Rick’s restrained leg, he slammed it down.
I’ll never know if it was the pain of the needle or the drugs wearing off that made him scream, but if I had to imagine the sound that came from hell, it would be what came out of the man following it.Four hours later…
We were all sitting in the SUV again, heading back to the airport. This time, we’d called one of Sven’s friends who was a cop back in Tennessee. He was calling it in, and we were getting Police backup where we were going.
“Do you think you’ll ever stop hearing his screams?” Levi whispered as he watched the passing scenery out the window.
He hadn’t torn Rick’s balls off and fed them to him, but it had come close.
I was saved from answering him by his phone ringing. Seeing the nervous look on his face, I looked away to give him some privacy.
I think what had happened in that bunker would change all of us for life. Hell, the information that her father had spewed at us looked like it had even changed Roger for life, and I wasn’t sure that was possible given the business he ran.
How does a father sell his daughter to three men who he knew would literally cause life-altering damage to her body? Who would rape her and allow her to be raped for however long they decided?
He’d told us that two assholes who sold pussy weren’t going to be charging the patrons who used her body for their own pleasure. They were just going to use her as an ‘incentive’ for the men to try their paid whores– as if this made it okay. The third was just a sick fuck who liked to abuse women in the worst ways possible.
What kind of father did that?
I wasn’t sure if it’s what we’d done to Rick or what he’d admitted to us that had me swallowing wildly to force down the bile that was threatening to come out my mouth.
Sven was talking to Maggie who was updating him on her last call with their kids. I prayed that Luna and I were like that in five year’s time, with kids that we could call each other with updates on, still as in love as the day we got married.
What if we were too late?
It was at that moment that Levi hung up the phone, swore harshly and then turned to face me. I wasn’t sure I liked the look on his face, something which I became very sure of when he said the next words.
“It would appear that we have an extra person coming along for the journey.”
That all might have been okay if it hadn’t been for the gulp and cough that he followed the words with.
“Who the fuck is that?” Sven questioned from behind us, leaning over and pointing at the big guy standing beside the helicopter that was waiting for us.
Squinting, I leaned forward and then I realized exactly who he was.
“Fuck,” I hissed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “That would be Luna’s brother, Madix.”
“He’s huge,” Sven pointed out, unnecessarily.
I knew exactly how huge he was, and exactly how protective of his sister he was– almost as protective as her husband.
Chuckling, Sven clapped me on the shoulder and got ready to get out as we pulled to a halt beside the seething bear. “I wonder how he’s gonna react when he finds out she married you?” Now that prospect might make me slightly nervous. “Glad I’m not you,” he added, giving me a shove to get out of the vehicle.