Page 69 of Tainted Truth

Former prosecutor Flores, here are your knives back. Sorry they’re not clean.

Special Agent Dawson, I didn’t like what your notes said about me. It’s not nice to call someone a narcissistic psychopath with maternal trauma.

My sweet Flower, you smell just as wonderful as I remember. But if you let them touch you again, your punishment will be worse than last time.

My heartbeat stumbles over its own rhythm, and my palms turn sweaty. When did he smell me?

You already know.

After Rio and I . . . ? No, it’s not possible. We’ve all been here. How could he have gotten into the house?

My men surround me and read over my shoulder.

“Fuck!” Asher shouts and paces the entryway.

“Hijo de puta!”Son of a bitch!

Zane seethes silently on the side.

I turn to him first. “Do you know her?”

He glares at the letter like he can set it on fire with his mind. “Her name is Ava Thomas. I’ve been looking for her since last month. She went missing outside a bodega in Chelsea. I figured Cain took her, but I guess Cain gave Ava to Anthony to send us a message.”

“How did he ‘mess with your things’?”

“I couldn’t find my badge the other day. When I got to work, it was sitting in my desk drawer. I figured I left it there, but this letter means Anthony was in our house and took it.”

“And when he says Cain didn’t get much out of her . . .”

“Cain is a human trafficker we’ve been hunting for the last few years. He came out of nowhere and rose quickly. We know he and Anthony are friends. And what he means is selling her. She was probably a virgin, so he sold her virginity to the highest bidder.”

My stomach turns, and rage coats my skin. This is what he does? This is why they kill people? I think I truly get it now. My own hands vibrate with the need to wrap them around Cain’s throat and squeeze the life out of him. To sell another human being for profit and to take something that isn’t his to take and give away . . . It’s absolutely despicable.

How can someone be so entitled that they think they can own another person the way someone owns a pair of jeans? As if they can use them and lend them out at their leisure. As individuals, we have autonomy! And Anthony thinks it’s okay to swoop in and steal that from someone?

Fuck that and fuck him.

Rio finally speaks up and punches a hole in the wall by the stairs. “I think he was here more than once. Those are my knives in her stomach.”

We all turn to Asher, searching for his explanation of the letter. He stops his pacing for a minute to give us an answer. “I found a few of my notes on the floor when I came downstairs a few nights ago. I guess that was him.”

Lastly, they turn to me as Asher inquires, “What did he mean by ‘you smell just as wonderful’?”

My mouth goes dry as a desert, and I attempt to moisten my brittle lips. “When I came downstairs, and y’all were listening to the recording . . . I had woken up without my pants on.”

All my men go unnaturally still.

“Ex-fucking-cuse me?” Asher’s growl makes me freeze.

Zane refuses to look me in the eye. “Did . . . Did he . . . Were you . . .”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“We’re leaving,” Asher proclaims and grabs me by the arm to march upstairs. Rio and Zane follow us without argument.

I, however, am not so amiable. I don’t fight him as he pulls me along, but my words are sharp. “And where the hell are we supposed to go?”

“Your place.” He says it like I was already supposed to know.

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