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Trenton noticed he adverted his gaze from him. Was the bastard feeling guilty? Good. He should. He knew what the doctor did behind closed doors and still did nothing to stop it.
"Asshole thinks he can tell us to fuck off. He and his friend have been over here whispering. Bet they think they can break out of here. Well, you can't. I'll put a bullet between your eyes if you try." Wade made his way to Ian and without hesitation punched him in the jaw.
Ian went down hard.
As bad as Trenton wanted to go to him, he didn't dare move. He watched as Wade pulled two syringes out of his pocket.
"Here, I'll get this one." Ben took one of the syringes, then turned to Trenton.
Trenton tensed. He did not want to be drugged again. He started to put his hand up to resist when Ben leaned down beside him.
"Fake it," Ben mouthed to him. Opening the syringe cap and coming at him as if he was going to give him the shot. He did everything he would usually do, but instead of pushing the needle into Trenton's arm, he placed it just against his skin and squirted the fluid toward the floor.
Trenton sighed, meeting Ben's gaze for just a moment before letting his head fall back as he relaxed on the floor just how he had when he'd really been drugged. He watched through hooded eyes as Ben and Wade left the cage, then glanced slowly at Ian who was out cold from the drugs that had been pushed into his body.
As hopeless as the situation seemed, there was one hope. If he could just get Ben to contact his team, he could get out of here. The question was, how did he do that without putting the entire team in danger?
CHAPTER NINE
"It's been a week." Matt paced the living room. "We should have some lead by now." He stared at the group sitting around him. They'd hardly left the team house since they'd realized Trenton had been taken.
"We're using every resource we have." Kasey sighed. "I don't know what else to do, where else to look."
Matt knew that. He'd been following traffic cameras and searching license plates for the last few days. He'd thought he found the car that had left the bar with Trenton in it, but it turned out to be stolen. It had been abandoned at a local hospital parking lot and found two days after Trenton went missing. At Noam's insistence, the police had looked for evidence but had found nothing.
"There's got to be something we're missing." Bryon sat on the couch, his arms resting on his knees as he leaned forward, looking over the group.
"We've got nine men, ages twenty-two to thirty-five missing from California in the last two months. We can assume half those are missing because they choose to be, but at least four or five of those men had something happen. I'm digging into each name and looking for any ties that match up. So far, I know two have been taken from bars. I'm working on getting the video from them legally, but if it takes much longer, I'll have you do your work, Matt." Noam rested his arm around Kasey's shoulders from where they sat on the couch.
"Why wait? Give me the names of the bars now. The longer we sit on this waiting for legal resources to come through, the longer Trenton is missing." Matt hated this. They all knew what was probably happening to Trenton, if he was still alive. His gut told him he was, but for how long, he just didn't know.
They all turned as the door opened and Faith rushed inside. She ran to Matt, hugging him tightly. "Dad, tell me you found him."
Matt buried his face against his daughter's hair and sighed. He didn't want her here for this. She was supposed to be enjoying her summer as she got ready for another year of college. She'd made good friends back east, and had opted to spend the summer there with them until he'd had to tell her about Trenton. "No, nothing new yet."
Xander followed Faith in and looked at the group, his gaze serious, but he said nothing. He didn't have to. They all felt the same way, were thinking the same things.
"You shouldn't have come." Beau moved to Faith, hugging her as soon as she released her dad.
"I couldn't stay there. I have to help. There has to be something I can do." She looked around the room. "Don't keep things from me. I'm an adult. I know the world isn't a nice place. Tell me everything you guys know."
Matt sighed and gestured for her to sit down. "We don't have much." He told her about the bar, the drugs, the car. "We're searching, but there's not a lot to go on."
Xander came to stand beside him. Just having him close helped ease the feeling of hopelessness. He had to remember that just like he'd never given up trying to find Faith, they wouldn't give up looking for Trenton.
"I think it's time to call his brother. He needs to know Trenton is missing. I hate we won't have much to tell him, but he deserves to know what is going on. He's welcome to come down and stay at Trenton's apartment, but I don't know enough about him to let him come here and see what we do," Bryon told the group.
"I'll call him," Matt said. "I've talked to him a few times before when Trenton had him on speakerphone. He thinks Trenton and I share office space for some tech company. I'll give him the basics and let him know the police are involved.
"That works for me." Bryon nodded.
"I can't just sit here and wait for more information." Kasey looked around the room. "What do we know on adult trafficking rings in the area?"
"There are a few we are aware of. One only deals with women. The other is rumored to have a pipeline to Mexico and the cartels, but it's in San Diego. There is talk of a trafficking ring that caters to the rich, but finding information on it is nearly impossible. It's a pay-to-play sort of thing. Think of a high-end brothel, only they force people into sexual slavery instead of paying them for it. I've heard movie stars, politicians, and even foreign royalty take part in it. It can be as extreme as you're willing to pay for, including selling humans for slavery, snuff films, child pornography, and so on. Rumor is it's located somewhere here in California, but I can't confirm anything. My guess is there are locations across the world for the rich and perverted to use whenever they want." Matt wished he'd dug into things more.
"I can dig into that stuff," Bryon offered.
"I can use all the help on the computers I can get right now. It's all we have."
