Page 43 of Keys

“Sure thing, Keys. Just call up if you need anything.”

With that I was off to the office space I called my “think tank” down on sublevel two of our security building that looked deceptively smaller from the outside than it actually was. My office housed an amazing array of computers, servers, and tech that could get me in and out of pretty much any machine connected to the internet.

I had a little research to do, and I planned on getting some answers before I left my space. Thankfully, I kept a couple extra hoodies, sweaters, and whatnot down here, because I hadn’t planned on coming in tonight, and I maintained a cool sixty-two degrees in the office in order to keep everything from overheating.

I started my searches the way I always do - shallow. Everyone thinks you have to dig deep to get the information you’re looking for, but sometimes the best stuff is missed because it’s skimming the surface while everyone else is diving beneath it in their search.

My search wasn’t garnering any hits today though. Neither of the women who had been taken from Paramour were hitting on facial recognition anywhere. That meant they were taken to a secure location immediately if they hadn’t been killed and disposed of already. It also meant that either they weren’t being shifted around or the women were being moved as securely as possible.

An alert pinged on another search that I always have bouncing in the background. My father. I run a consistent check on him using facial recognition. That’s how I knew about all the women he’d been with since my mom stopped being an option for him. Unfortunately, when I pulled the alert, I noticed something – or someone – else in the image. He was standing there with his arm wrapped tightly around a woman who looked like she was blitzed out of her mind. It wasn’t the fact that she was fucked up on some drug or other that was startling. No. It was the fact that she was one of the women I was tracking.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t one of our Paramour ladies, but there were a slew of missing women reports that had all the hallmarks of what the traffickers usually looked for. This woman, Caitlin Manning, was one of them. My stomach dropped out from under me then. It had to be a coincidence, right? My father was already the biggest piece of shit person I knew personally. He couldn’t be a monster of this caliber though, could he? It didn’t matter. In that moment, I knew what I had to do.

I started going back through all the images of the women he had been caught on video with over the past two years. That’s as far back as I kept records, unfortunately. I pulled photo after photo and began back tracing the images of the women, hoping for a hit. Honestly, I was hoping there wouldn’t be one and that this was all a horrible coincidence.

It only took a few minutes before the first image I ran through the system came back with a positive match. She was listed as a missing person too. I jumped up and grabbed the trashcan that sat at the end of my desk. Everything I had for dinner made a reemergence into the world. There would be no more hiding where I came from now. The club needed to know that my father was involved in some way with the traffickers we’d been battling this whole time. That also meant I was about to violate the NDA I signed that kept the no-contact order intact.

As I waited for the rest of the results to pop, I doubled down on the areas where I knew my father traveled to and widened my search, hoping to find his face pop on other feeds along the way.

It took a few minutes, but another girl pinged an alert, only that one came up as an Amber alert because she was under 18-years of age. My blood boiled. That bastard was with underaged girls when he had daughters in their twenties? Fuck him. Fuck him all the way to hell and back.

I picked up my phone and dialed Dane. The moment he answered I started rattling shit off. “I need you and the top three men you have working at Redemption Inc. to put together an undercover operation. I’m going to give you details if you can make it here in just a bit.”

“Sure, I’ll be in. MiMi can handle everything here. Paul already there?”

“Paul is here. I’m about to call him to my think tank and get him up to speed. Tell MiMi I said hi and that we miss her at the clubhouse. She needs to get her butt back on that bike sometime soon.”

MiMi had been going through some PTSD issues after being abducted by a human trafficking ring. We demolished the ring – or so we thought at the time - and got her and a few other girls out. When another arm of the same monster cropped back up and messed with our dancers from our strip club, MiMi went off the rails and dove headfirst into a setup, thinking she was saving more girls from the same fate she had once suffered. She ended up hurt and almost killed for her efforts, especially since the girls weren’t recovered.

I hung up with Dane just as another alert pinged the system. That made three girls who were also listed with various law enforcement agencies as missing. “FUCK!”

My heart ached. My father had never been a good man. Since I was the one who took access to his favorite play toy – my mother – away from him, I had to wonder if these girls’ fates weren’t intrinsically linked to my decision. Did he turn to the trafficking ring out of desperation? Was he searching for my mother’s easy replacement that way? Was it all my fault?

“God, please don’t let it all have been my fault.”

I turned back to the intercom I used to connect to whoever was running the show topside. “Paul?”

“What’s up?”

“I need you to come down here, immediately. Have one of the other guys stand guard. No one in or out unless they work here and have Alpha or Bravo clearance.”

“Shit!” The word rolled from him at the same time I heard chair wheels squeak. Paul was already bouncing into action. “Be right there.”

Chapter 14

Once Walker practically carried Aubrey’s ass out of the clubhouse kicking and screaming, I started drinking. Might as well have been drinking straight from the bottle. Snake was behind the bar refilling my glass as soon as I was able to get the damn thing empty.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to a blowjob from a club whore, since that’s not my thing, but I sure as fuck hadn’t thought about the fact that Keys was still somewhere in the clubhouse and might see that shit. If she didn’t think I was a complete prick before, she would now for sure. Turned out, I didn’t need Sweet to fuck shit up any worse. I was perfectly capable of doing that all on my own.

When I looked up and saw Keys watching with complete disgust in her eyes, I almost threw up on Laney. I started to push her off my dick immediately, but she got her signals mixed and began sucking at me like a fucking Hoover Deluxe Edition.

“Jesus, get the fuck off, Laney!” I finally scolded as I pulled her up off my dick and stood, tucking my now deflated cock back in my pants.

“Did I do something wrong?” Laney pouted with lips swollen from her endeavors.

“No, babe. I just gotta go.”

“Don’t go after Aubrey. She’s always been a bitch.”

---