Page 90 of Own

She glanced down at her bare feet, then up again before she nodded. “I’ll go get them.”

As soon as she was out of the room, Alphabet glanced at Bones. “You sure about this?”

“No,” he said. “But it has to be her call. She’ll leave if she can’t handle it.” At least he sounded certain on that subject. “If any of us see it going sideways for her, then call it for her.”

Worked for me.

“Shall we?” I asked, offering her an arm when she came back. Curiosity filtered through the worry in her expression, but she settled her hand on the crook of my arm. “Down we go.”

A light swung from the ceiling in the root cellar. It was a muddy light, enough to let you see but hardly bright enough for reading.

Our guest, Reznik, bled from the temple. A vicious bruise around his right eye stretched down to the second bruise on his jaw. He could look worse. His chair creaked as he leaned forward, partially rocking against his restraints.

We’d shackled him in place, then left him for the night. The insulation down here kept the sound from traveling. I’d also done a full scan for any trackers. Cocky bastard didn’t bother with one for himself.

Oh well. Too bad for him.

“Well, well, welll,” Reznik said slowly as we filed into the room. There were crates in the back. Shelving. In addition to the environment providing cooling, there was actually a freezer down here. It was far enough back from the bastard, that he wouldn’t even be able to spit on her.

I hoisted her up to sit on it, that way she could also see past all of us. The faintly incredulous look she gave me had me winking.

“You want to start with your partners?” Bones asked in an icy tone.

“My partners?” Reznik made a face. “I’d rather start this with a lawyer.”

“All out of those right now,” Alphabet said in an almost too happy singsong. “If you want to skip your partners, we can go with fourteen girls. Fourteen, all under twenty, three dead before they made it to the first auction. Four more dead during the auction. Seven left, three returned for another auction—the other four? Presumed deceased?”

“Law. Yer.” Reznik elongated the word, heavily playing up each syllable.

“Azwai City?” Voodoo suggested, Reznik didn’t even glance at him though a smirk touched his mouth.

“Attorney.”

“Basra?” Voodoo added.

“Yes, you probably still struggle with English, don’t you?” Almost dismissively, Reznik said, “Abogado.” He played up each syllable. Racist prick.

“Five women, all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, acquired from aschool trip, all auctioned eighteen months ago. Then vanished.” Alphabet had a digital tablet with him and he made a point of tapping it like he made notations.

“Le-gal. Coun-sel.” The exaggeration of each word didn’t do him any favors.

Bones struck him. The swift jab with his right fist made Reznik jerk. Blood and spit flew from his mouth as his head snapped to the side. The chair went down with him chained to it. He hit the floor with a bang and another flinch.

With a sigh, I pushed away from the wall next to Gracie and converged on Reznik with Voodoo. We picked the whole chair up and set him upright.

“Ten minutes,” I told him, keeping it laid back and conversational. “Then I get my meat tenderizer and I break everybone you have from the waist down.” I glanced at my watch, set the timer then resumed my post near Gracie.

Instead of a snide remark, Reznik adjusted his head and his attention. He focused on each of us. His smirk flickered back to life when he eyed Alphabet. Then he settled his attention on Gracie.

“Are you the attorney or the model?”

I would have said that I was by far the most reasonable one coming into this room. As much as I wanted to take our pound of flesh, it was all about justice. Justice for Alphabet. Justice for Doc. Hell, it was even justice for Bones, because Reznik tried to make everything Bones’ fault. Frankly, I would have placed a solid bet on him not being able to say a damn thing that would have me ready to castrate him now and to hell with whatever else he might know.

I was wrong.

The way he stared at Grace made my blood boil. That he raked his eyes over her and shot her a bloody-toothed smile? Nope. I had good knives upstairs. I also had some really shitty rusty ones.

They would take a while and hurt a hell of a lot more.

---