Page 71 of Descent into Madness

I nod. “How could I forget? It was a fucking mess.”

“You questioned me killing the kid because he was, I don’t know ten or eleven or some shit.”

“Right and in the three seconds you took your eyes off him to answer me, he pulled his own nine and shot your ass.” The gunshot that day is how I found my father wasn’t full of shit. The clothes we wore were bulletproof.

“What rule did you learn that day?”

“Leave no one behind who might want to make you pay five years from now.” I repeat it for what might be the millionth time. I’m wondering where the hell he’s going with this.

He sighs. “When you killed that kid who was only four or five years younger than you, I wondered if it was time to end it all. We had more money than we could spend. As far as most of the world knew—still knows, we’re legit. I looked at moving us to Los Angeles full time, maybe even Spain. It wasn’t fair to you kids. I didn’t give you a choice, you were in this because of me. Maybe I could give you another life…”

I remember now. “That’s why you put it to us all those years ago?”

“Yeah, I was willing. But you boys,” he chuckles at the memory. “You weren’t having it. This is the life you’d grown up in, and no other life appealed. Your wife threatened you with running because she knows who you are. She is everything I hoped you would find. Someone who sees all of you and loves you, darkness and all. You might think she doesn’t know the depths but,mijo,we might be a cartel, and they might be mafia—it’s the same thing with a different name. I don’t believe she would have eaten her breakfast as easily as you think. It isn’t about control. It’s about keeping the world you love and the people in it safe from the things that could hurt them. Nicolette gets it.”

There’s movement from within the house. I go back inside to find Richie cuffed and gagged. The man holding him by the neck nods at me. “Wouldn’t shut up. We tranq’d his ass, and when he woke up, he still wouldn’t shut up.”

“Take it off,” I order him.

Richie has lost a good thirty pounds and a shit ton of hair. He’s gained about twenty years though. Once the gag is off, he doesn’t say anything.

“Where’d your tongue go? Tell me why they have my wife.”

He’s trembling. “I didn’t know. Okay. I didn’t.”

“Nothing you say is going to make any of this less on your fucking head. Drop the bullshit—”

“I didn’t!” He shouts. “If they told me they were selling kids, I would have taken my gun and stuck it up their ass and fired until the walls were washed in blood and guts.”

I’m not the only one stunned by his words.

“Kids?” Franco mutters.

“Kids. Little fucking kids. Eight years old, five years old. I’m a piece of shit. I’m gonna die a piece of shit. But I’m not a fucking monster. It was my own damn fault. And I knew there was no way out…” He shakes his head. “When they fucked up and sold the wrong girl, I figured this was the out. Disappear and the fuckers would get themselves killed and blow up the operation from their end.”

“You weren’t looking for the girl?” My father asks at my side.

“No, I’m trying to find who the fuck is running this so I can be there and kill them on their end. I don’t know who buys what. All I did was connect. It was a phone number one time and an email address the next. No contacts meant no trace. Meant I could get money from each buy without handling shit. The money was insane. Between the lawyers and the bitch who cleaned me out, I was broke. They’d come to me before. I’ve been moving girls for a few years but teens. The dumbass runaways and rejects. Not kids snatched off streets or sold by desperate parents.”

Someone dialed into Valdez, he comes through an open phone line. “We need to debrief him. Radovan’s man isn’t talking.”

It’s not an ask. I nod. “Fine. While you’re doing that, we plan.”

* * *

Manuel

Entering the dining room, I find the cabin and the surrounding area sketched out. There are satellite images so clear even in the dark I can see the tread of tires in the ground.

Harriet enters carrying more coffee and a plate of sandwiches. The woman looks tired. “Go to bed.”

She shakes her head, eyes sad. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. When Nicolette is home.”

Giving in, I remember the reason I kept her was due to her deep care for Nicolette.

Connor nods at me. “Milos’ sniper is in place on board their yacht, only a little over eight hundred yards out. Since it’s just Nicolette and him, this will be easy and smooth. He’s got her inside in front of the door, only about five feet from it. She’s being a good girl, pretending to sleep on a cot so our hope is she doesn’t move. The main problem is how quiet it is out there. He’s up roaming around the cabin and inside. We need to give him time to wear himself out and stay in one fucking place. Until then, we can’t move anyone in. If he sees or hears movement, we don’t doubt he’ll shoot.”

A voice comes through the comm line. “What’s the directive? Am I going with a kill shot or do you want the guy alive?”

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