Page 31 of Pitbull
“Is your brother speaking to you right now?” Beast asked. His voice held a warning. “If I wanted Pitbull to speak with you, he would be in this room. Let me put my cards on the table. Now, forget for a second, Pitbull is a brother to me and I will protect him with my life if needs be. Let’s focus on the fact someone has taken shots at one ofmyteam members. That happens because of your actions. You know who these people are and you refuse to disclose their identity to law enforcement. While we cannot charge you with failure to report a crime, if anything happens to Pit or any member of this team because of your refusal—trust me, I will find something to charge you with and as God is my witness, I will make it stick.”
“Claudia, don’t be stupid,” Anke said.
“Good cop, bad cop?” Claudia spat. “Not interested. So either charge me with someone or let me go.”
Beast’s phone rang and he lifted it to his ear. “Gerhart…really? How long? Right.Danke.” He hung up and turned once more to face Claudia. “Right now you’re facing charges of obstruction until we can find something else to charge you with. We will bring you before a judge tomorrow. Afterward, you will be returning here under the suspicion of abduction and when we find proof, you will be transferred to an actual prison. We will figure out what you’ve done, Ms. Hunt, one way or another. And once we do, more charges will come.”
Shock registered on Claudia’s face and while Anke felt sorry for her and what she was going through, Anke couldn’t help thinking Claudia brought this on herself. If she couldn’t trust the man who threw his body before her own during a gun fight, who would she be able to trust?
What Claudia was was selfish and childish and someone was going to get killed because of it. Anke only prayed that someone wasn’t Daniel or anyone from CIRO.
Beast pulled his large frame from the chair and motioned to the camera. Soon afterward, Beast and Anke stepped from the room. Anke glanced back. Before the doors could close, she saw a female guard unchaining Claudia from the desk.
8
“Did you really need to arrest her?” Mouth asked after five minutes of silence.
“Yes. I was hoping a night in a cell would soften her but I doubt it.” Pitbull checked his mirrors. “My sister is very selfish. And even after we were almost killed, she still insists on holding on to this.”
“I get it. But I wonder at your motive at doing all of this.”
Pitbull growled. “Let me explain something to you. When I walked away from Claudia, I said I was done and I meant it. I’ve kept my distance. I didn’t even know where she lived until Anke walked in. She was in trouble and I did what any cop would have done. The sooner this is all over, the sooner I can go back to my life without her in it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Sure I do. I spent the last few years of being a teenager, taking care of a sister who was always either drunk or high. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I came home from school and she’s passed out on the floor with a strap around her arm and a needle in her vein.” He switched lanes. “She’s ODed so many times, I’d lost count. Been to every rehab in Düsseldorf, one in New York and two in Sweden and every time she came out worse than she went in. Most nights, I didn’t sleep. I spent it driving all through the damn city looking for her, praying she wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere or tied up in some pervert’s trunk. I’ve been beaten up by her pimps, once until I was unconscious. I woke up at the hospital. I could have died. But all through it, I felt I could help her. I could save her—she was my big sister and my parents would have wanted me to make sure she was okay. But when one of her Johns shot me—I was twenty and a bullet tore through my chest.”
“Shit, man! I was wondering about the scar.”
“It gets better.” He pulled the truck to a stop across the street from their destination and turned off the ignition. Pitbull turned to glare at his friend. “After he shot me and I went down, fucker lit the house on fire. So, when I say I want her gone—don’t tell me what I mean.”
Before Mouth could speak again, Pitbull shoved from the truck, slammed the door and pulled his coat around his gun and holster. Mouth jogged to catch up to him as long strides carried Pitbull across the street. The moniker readder Bücherladenin red letters on a black background.
“You know I didn’t mean to offend,” Mouth said. “I have no blood family left and I just wanted to make sure you think this through.”
“Trust me, Mouth. I’ve done nothing but.”
“All right then. Let’s face one demon before we tackle another, right?”
Pitbull nodded.
As they stepped into the store, the whole thing felt off. The place was one massive room with a desk close to the door with a cash register sitting in the corner facing the glass window at the front. There were rows and rows of books, a large discount bin at the front and a really bad rendition ofTequilaplayed from small speakers nailed into the wall. The man behind the counter looked like someone from a badly written porno—bad mustache, clothes resembling an acid trip gone wrong with the hair a cartoon character after he’d shoved a fork in a light socket.
He checked to ensure his and Mouth’s badges were hidden and the two split up and wandered the store. As he went along, checking the space for cameras, he pretended to browse the shelves. A few of the books he pulled from the shelf seemed as if they were ready to fall apart. But he found one book –The End of the Affairby Graham Greene. He held onto that one until he met up with Mouth. Together they brought the book to the front desk and Pitbull paid for it and they exited.
Once they were back in the truck, Pitbull called the office on speaker.
Beast answered. “I got everyone here. Talk to me.”
“They have no cameras,” Pitbull announced.
“It seems kind of sketchy,” Mouth said. “I picked up a couple of books and they were missing pages. Something isn’t quite right.”
“And I didn’t get anything else from Claudia. She will be taken to the courthouse tomorrow,” Beast said. “Once we figure out who the girl is, we’re going to run it against missing persons. If she comes up missing we’re going to have to charge Claudia with abduction. I don’t think she appreciates the enormousness of what’s happening right now.”
“Well, whatever will be, will be.” Pitbull casted his glance back at the store. “But I honestly think, we should keep a watch over this place. There’s a reason they have no cameras.”
“I was even tryin’ to hack through a phone pingin’ from the location.” Tex said. “Maybe turn on the camera to give us eyes inside—but their phones seem to be burners. Whatever they’re hidin’—they are careful.”
