He pulled the door open and ushered me into the monitoring room. We met three other detectives there, all waiting to listen in on the interrogation. I was decently acquainted with them so we exchanged handshakes.
Almost immediately, the detective in charge walked into the interrogation room and took his seat. He slammed his folder of files on the table. “He’s a tough one, isn’t he, that Snake?” he commented. “All the others gave up the one they called RJ, and pinned him as the orchestrator to save their own heads, but he’s refused to say a word till now. I’ve always wondered what motivates these guys, beyond the money, of course? Especially him? In a different setting, he would have been a decent leader or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Why the hell would he be on this path?”
I watched Nathan Snake, the cold brutal man who had led me over the last two years, through the one-way mirror. Suddenly, he turned to the one-way mirror and looked at it. For a second, it felt as if he was looking right at me, but of course, he wasn’t.
A knock sounded on the door, and we all turned towards the officer who’d come into the room. He had a phone in hand. “Lee,” he called. “Miller needs to take this. He has an emergency down in Arnault.”
My eyebrows met. “What emergency?”
He handed the phone over to me.
“Hello?”
It was Yuri. “Where the fuck is your phone?”
I was taken aback by the hostility in his tone. “It’s been submitted. It’s evidence.” The nerves in my gut tightening with dread. “What is it? Is she okay?”
“She’s not.”
“What happened?”
“Jeremiah just called,” he said.
I almost doubled over from the implication. I walked out of the room despite the calls of the other detectives.
“You know him, right?”
“I do, he’s undercover in Deaths Hand. What did he say?”
“Michael. Do you know Michael? He’s the main dealer for their club.”
I stopped then and shut my eyes. I wanted to punch my fist into the wall. My voice was a croak of disbelief. “What happened?”
“He contacted a few of them from the club to help him with something so Jeremiah tagged along. He mentioned some beef you had with Michael over Della-Ray so when they went to her house last night to kidnap her, he figured out what was going on. They have her captured now and moved to some cabin in Sugar Groove. Looks like he’s going to …”
“He’s going to what?”
“What do you think, Gage? They already think you’re dead.”
“Going to what?” I yelled.
“He told them he was going to have her then pass her off to them to use at one of their orgies.”
“Miller!” one of the officers called behind me.
I was already storming towards the exit. “Send people over to that cabin right now,” I shouted urgently.
“You know I can’t do that Gage. It’ll put Jeremiah in danger. It’s not possible for anyone beyond the four of them to have known about this plan.”
I turned around and smashed the phone on the ground. As it shattered, I stared at it and fought to breathe. It felt like I was going to collapse. I felt the tears fill my eyes.
Just then, two of the detectives I had abandoned in the room came running out to me.
“I need to go back to Arnault now. Right now!”
“It’s not recommended that you return so quickly unless it’s an emergency. Why don’t you give it a few days?”
I curled my hands into fists. “I need to fucking leave right now! My family is in trouble.”
One of them retrieved his keys from his pocket. “Got it. Come on, man. I’ll order a copter, right now. It’ll be ready and waiting by the time we get there.”
Della Ray
The room I was in smelt like death.
Or perhaps it was just the way I felt.
I was still huddled in the corner by the bed, stained with my own blood, my face and arms throbbing. My only hope now was that perhaps I had injured Michael enough for him to stay away and not attempt to put his stinking cock in my mouth.
So many times during the night, I had thought of my baby. I buried my head between my knees to hide my tears as the realization dawned on me that I might never be able to see her again, and if by some miracle I did, I wouldn’t be the same loosey-goosey person. How could I after these monsters brutalized me. Perhaps they would hurt me so much that I would never be able to find whom I once was before tonight.
Bone’s image came into my mind and I immediately pushed it away. I couldn’t handle that grief now. Turning my head, I wiped at the tears on my face and turned toward the window by my side. I needed to survive for Jess’s sake. Maybe I could try to pry some of the planks away.