Page 56 of Brutal Queen

“Okay, so while the guys were working them over, I was thinking. What were the chances of Max just stumbling across them?” He glances at both of us and while I shake my head,Aurora shrugs. “Like… non existent. Then it hit me. The reason Nico and Benny went after these pricks in the first place was because there was a job posted to deal with them on The Syndicate assignment listings.”

He throws us another pained look and again I shake my head and wave my hand, encouraging him to continue. “I’m gonna need more than this, Sin.”

“Mateo tasked me to look into the profit drops at the clubs and I traced it back to rumours circulating, saying our clubs weren’t safe. It didn’t take much trawling through the security feeds to identify that a group of predatory assholes were targeting women and essentially scaring off half our clientele. As soon as I had enough information on them, I posted the assignment and didn’t think anything more of it once I knew it was being dealt with.”

“I still don’t see how this is your fault?” I say.

Sinclair huffs out an irritated breath before continuing, “Don’t you see? Everyone—including Max—had access to all their information. I highlighted their MO to anyone within The Syndicate who was reviewing assignments. I might as well gift wrapped them for him.”

“Firstly, that’s bullshit. We share information like this on a daily fucking basis with people across the entire organisation. You can cut this self-deprecating pity party out right now, Sin,” Aurora says, storming around the desk and poking him in the shoulder with one of her razor-sharp nails. While she’s not trying to hurt him, he still recoils. I may love the feel of her nails when she drags them over my skin, but when she’s in a temper, they fucking hurt as she jabs you with them. Fucking vicious little honey badger is what she is sometimes.

“Secondly.” Her voice gentles and her hands cup his cheeks. She tilts his jaw up until he’s forced to lift his gaze tohers. “There’s no fucking way you could have predicted he would use that information the way that he has. Do you hear me?”

Sinclair’s shoulders rise and he heaves out a steadying breath. My mind is running a mile a minute, mulling over what Sinclair has just said.

“So your theory is that Max himself was reviewing all the job listings? Can you track it back to him?” I ask.

“I might be able to track an IP back to him, but it’s a dark server. We deliberately don’t use profiles. We only see who accepts the job and we don’t store that information once they’ve been paid, for obvious reasons.”

“But you might be able to track the IPs. See who viewed what jobs?”

“Maybe, why? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that it’s interesting Max has targeted and absorbed so many other low-level gangs and criminals so quickly. Can you check how many of them had bounties out for them?” I reply.

“That’s fucking clever. He must have targeted organisations that we’d weakened, making it easier to absorb their manpower,” Sinclair muses.

“I want you to confirm that’s how he targeted them, but I also want you to see if there’s a common IP and then check if there’s anyone he’s working with that we don’t know about?”

Sinclair springs into action, yanking out the chair and planting himself firmly down. From the rapid clacking of the keys and the determined set of his jaw, I know there’ll be no disturbing him anytime soon, so I cock my head at Aurora and pull her attention to Nico and Benny.

At the back of the unit I see our old friend Jack Heatherington III slumped forwards and hanging heavily against the chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles. Nico and Bennyseem bored out of their minds, now done tinkering with the machine on the back wall. Nico looks up as we approach and lifts his chin in Sin’s direction. “How’s he doing?”

“Taking things a little too personally, but he’s looking into whether he used The Syndicate assignments to source his new allies,” I say.

Walking over, I inspect the damage so far on President Fuckboy. He doesn’t look as if he has much left in him. His face is pulverised, but that’s not what’s got him looking like his next breath might be his last. Angry red marks cover his torso, some large and blotchy, others look like fern leaves arcing out across the plains of his chest. I arch a brow at Nico.

“What? I was experimenting with amps verses volts,” he cries, his voice oozing with faux innocence. “Etta told me to test the toys to their full capacity.”

I bob my head at Nico and chuckle. “As long as he’s still breathing, I guess.”

“Yeah, I’m going to have some fun with this one,” Aurora says. “Have you got everything out of this one?”

Benny chips in. “Yeah, not that he’s the sharpest tool in the box. It seems once he found out he would get paid to do what he loves best, and someone else would clean up the mess, he didn’t ask many questions.”

“What about the other one?” I probe.

“We got dates and addresses. Sinclair verified them and sent the information across to Gabriella already,” Benny says and then adds, “Any update on the girl we found in his car?”

“She’s stable and with Doc Em. Won’t know more for a few hours,” I reply.

The mention of the latest of their victims causes a shadow to descend over Aurora’s eyes. Her irises, usually so vibrant and bright, are now dark and overcast. Like the gold flecks have somehow tarnished.

“I’m going to need you to take this one off the wall for me and strap him over that table,” Aurora says. “Then you can go and play with the other one. Leave this one to me.”

Benny and Nico unshackle his arms while I drag the table over to her. He drops like a dead weight, flopping forward face first onto the concrete floor. There’s a sickening crack and I can’t tell from the mangled state of his face as they haul him up, whether he just broke his nose or his jaw. However, it seems the pain was enough to rouse him from his comatose state.

There’s no fight left in him. His body remains slack, but I can hear his pathetic mumbling pleas. He’s not praying for any type of divine intervention or begging us to stop. He’s crying for his daddy.

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