PAIGE
“Paige, I have some new information on the Ducane’s activities,” Cian said as he rushed through the door of my hotel room and plopped down on the edge of my bed. “Ghost says they are getting ready to start giving the girls away as prizes. Both Max and Alex have been seen meeting with the owners of the Lion’s Den over the last week, there is some sort of tournament coming up where the winner takes all, there’s a huge pot, fifty thousand in cash and what they refer to as a kitten.”
Hearing that word out of Cian’s mouth sent shivers down my spine, and not the good kind. It took me back to Southport where my best friend was, and reminded me of everything she had gone through. Despite not being there when it first happened, I’d been present for the aftermath and it wasn’t pretty, when she finally felt comfortable enough to open up, the one thing she kept saying was they always called her Kitten.
We had two hours before Cian and I had to meet the others and I needed to be on my game. Tonight we were entering the Lion’s den. If this was true, then I would have to act fast, the Kitten they referred to would be some poor unsuspecting girl who’d been taken, tortured and abused until she’d broken. The skin trade had been very lucrative for the Ducanes.
I knew from past experience what these girls had to endure, but unlike them I was spared a life where I’d be used as nothing but a sex slave to some perverted old man with a viagra problem. I wouldn’t be letting any female go through that if I could help it.
“Do you know where they are keeping the girl?” I asked, the concern in my voice couldn’t be contained. Their methods for breaking a girl were deplorable, continual rape, force fed drugs to keep them pliant, passed around from pillar to post like she was nothing. Just the thought of it made my skin crawl.
“I had Ghost do some checking around.”
“And?” I interrupted him, he needed to get to the point, I didn’t need a long winded backstory, there was too much at stake.
“That’s just it, over the last month there has been an increase in missing persons but from what I’ve been told they haven’t got her yet,” He sounded as confused as I felt with that last statement.
“What do you mean they haven’t got her yet?” I turned to face him, my voice a little higher than I’d hoped for but there was an unsettling feeling that had started to grow inside of me. “How can they promise something they don’t have?”
“Ghost says they have someone in mind, but seems to think they are waiting for the right time,” he stated, picking up his phone he flicked through his emails until he reached the one he was looking for and handed it to me. “We haven’t seen them meeting these guys but do you recognise any of them?”
Taking his phone I flicked through the picture, apart from the Ducane brothers none of the other men appeared to be familiar. There were three in total, two of them wore black tailored suits. Both looked like they were built from the hands of the gods themselves. There was one that caught my eye, sandy blonde hair, that was styled as if he’d walked off a GQ shoot. He had to be one of the owners of the fight club, along with the other guy in a suit whose back was to us.
The third guy looked like he was hired muscle. His muscles bulged making it look as though the black t-shirt he wore was two sizes too small. He wasn’t as tall as the other two but I’d say for certain I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.
“No none of them look familiar to me, have your guy find out what he can on them,” I ordered, passing the pictures back to him, if things were about to kick off, we couldn’t afford to be on the losing team, I needed every little detail if my plan was going to be successful. “If there are new players entering the fray, I want as much information as we can get.”
The building would be ready in a few days, and despite what was just shared, it was vital that we went tonight. When we took Alexander, we didn’t want any interference. It couldn’t be left to chance that someone would come to his aid. The timetable would need to be moved up—no alex no prize, is the way I saw it. And once I had him I’d make it my mission to find out where he had stashed the missing girls.
“I spoke to Shay last night, she says that the warehouse will be ready for us by the end of the week,” disclosing the conversation with Cian, “we can move up our plan and get this shit finished soon.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said, turning to him, he appeared deep in thought. “I think we should bring a few more people in to help Paige, or at least until we know more about these new guys.”
He had a point, we were in unfamiliar territory, Claymore was a little bigger than Southport and had more players here too. Plus, with the new information, it couldn’t hurt to have a few more eyes and ears on the ground.
“Yeah okay, I’ll get a message to Reece and Owen. They can both be down here tomorrow.” I agreed with him. Reece and Owen were some of the best assassins at my uncle’s disposal. I’d just have to hope they wouldn’t give me up before I could pull this off.
“I also think that maybe we should put tonight off until they get here too,” I could understand his concern, but postponing things wouldn’t be happening.
“I can’t do that Cian and you know it,” I was a little annoyed that he’d even suggested it, he of all people knew how important this was to me, I wasn’t about to bow out now. “We have to be there in an hour and I need to get ready, why don’t you go and get something for us to eat.”