Chains by Kristine Allen

“Bulletproof  Love”—Pierce  The  Veil

That morning started the first of many clandestine couplings. We knew we needed to tell Angel, but each time she wanted one more time before reality crashed down. Part of me worried that Jasmine was using sex with me to bury what had happened to her, and not in a healthy way. I prayed the sex wasn’t the only thing she wanted from me.

But goddamn, we were insatiable. Each time was better than the last, and I knew it was what addiction must be like. The high of my orgasms with Jasmine was better than the best quality weed, better than a bump of pure coke, and more addictive than straight opium. She was my drug of choice, and I never wanted to go to rehab.

Except I knew we were up against a ticking clock. Each time we were together, I said we needed to tell Angel, and each time she found a reason to wait.

“Chains!” I jumped at the sound of my name and blinked away my distracting thoughts. I looked at Venom, who was staring at me with exasperation.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“As I was saying,” Venom said sarcastically. “We still haven’t uncovered who’s behind the trafficking ring we stumbled upon the night we rescued Trace, Lynda, and Jasmine.”

At her name, my chest clenched and my cock came to life. Shit. I scooted uncomfortably in my seat.

“The Bloody Scorpions were definitely the middlemen, not the ringleaders like we first thought,” Facet explained, though we already knew all that. I fought rolling my eyes because this was all redundant and a waste of time. Especially since they all knew I was picking off the few remaining Bloody Scorpions one at a time. There were still three unaccounted for, but they’d gone to ground, and we were trying to ferret them out.

As soon as we figured out who was calling the shots, I’d take them out too.

Facet sighed as he gave Angel an uncomfortable glance. “One thing I also found was that it seems the people Angel’s father owed money to are involved. That’s likely why they told him they’d take Jasmine as payment if he didn’t come up with the money. They likely would’ve gotten more for her than he owed.”

Angel’s fist clenched. “The only reason my father came here seeking my help was because he thought I’d cure him. He still wouldn’t have found a way to pay the money back, and Jasmine still would’ve been in danger.”

“No but they found out that you would do a lot to keep your sister safe,” Venom murmured to Angel.

Angel’s teeth ground.

“Did we ever find out who that number belonged to? The one Korrie’s mom was texting?” Kicker asked.

“Nope. Burner, and it went cold after that night,” Facet replied.

“You think it was Senator Damon?”

“Yeah, I do, but the guy is good. No one has been able to tie him to any of the shit that Korrie’s mom accused him of. They’re painting her as a nutcase with a grudge,” Facet said with a heavy sigh.

“Dirty fuck. Maybe we need to dig into him more. Facet, I want you to see what you find out. Pull out all the stops,” Venom said.

“Gotcha, bossman. Oh, and I was finally able to hack into the files from Santiago’s report,” he smugly announced. That had everyone sitting up a little taller.

“Go on,” Venom prompted.

Facet began tapping away at his keyboard.

“According to one of the victims, there was another group before them. She had initially been a part of that group but had gotten sick and held back. She mentioned overhearing the men saying something about moving them to the transfer station, then to the ‘sale barn’ after getting them cleaned up for ‘Mr. Black.’” Facet paused as he typed again.

“Everything else isn’t very helpful. All of them were taken off the street, some in broad daylight. None saw their abductor’s faces. What’s disturbing is that they weren’t local. With the exception of one homeless woman who was new to the area, they were all from out of state. Most from the West Coast.” He shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“So someone brought them here to our area from around the country?” Raptor asked as he strummed his fingers on the table.

“From the Western states, yes,” Facet concurred.

“But why? Why the middle of Iowa, for fuck sake? It’s not like we have any big cities that compare with the rest of the US,” Kicker questioned.

“Maybe that’s exactly why,” Voodoo said as he stared at the table with a frown.

“What do you mean?” Venom asked.

Voodoo looked up. “We aren’t equipped for serious investigations here. I mean, we’re not backwoods, but we don’t have big police forces—big fancy crime labs. Ankeny isn’t exactly a hopping metropolis, you know. This is also the last place people would think a trafficking operation would be based. Then again, it’s possible this wasn’t the hub. It seems more like they were taking the women from the West Coast, holding them here, then shipping them on. Remember the brothers in Alaska broke up the transfer point there. Those women were bound for out of the country.”

“So you think we were just a stopping-off point?” Angel asked, propping his elbows on the dark wood of the table and resting his clasped hands over his mouth. Periodically, his narrow-eyed gaze hit me.

“It’s likely,” Facet agreed. “Highly likely.”

“We aren’t going to be able to stop an organization like that.” Raptor spoke up as he motioned to the fourteen of us sitting at the table. “There’s no way our single chapter could hope to take on a massive human trafficking ring head-on. It’s not feasible.”

“No, but we can pass on what we know to the other chapters and keep those scumbag traffickers from doing it anywhere near our homes,” Ghost piped in.

“You don’t think we’re trying to do that?” I asked. After all, we’d taken out all the involved Bloody Scorpions, including Voodoo’s half brother. Then we torched the house. Of course, I was assigned to the elimination of the rest.

“Yes, but do you think that’s really going to be the end of them?” Phoenix murmured.

“Honestly? No, I don’t,” Venom answered. “Des Moines is centrally located, and I-80 goes all the way from New York City to San Francisco. Not to mention, that house can’t be the only run-down shithole they have at their disposal.”

“It’s not,” Facet said and pressed his lips in a flat line.

“So now what?” I asked.

“We keep working this, and if it means we keep taking them out little by little, that’s what we do,” Venom said.

I shook my head. Venom gave me an exasperated look. “You got a better idea, genius?”

“If we keep picking off the lower levels, they’ll only replace them. Over three hundred million people in this country, and you don’t think they can find replacement bottom feeders to do their dirty work? We need to cut the head off the monster,” I adamantly insisted. Picking off the one connected to hurting Jasmine was a personal vendetta. Stopping the organization was for the greater good.

No matter how bad the things we did may seem, we tried to work for the greater good. Most of the time, anyway.

“How do you propose we do that? Everything I’m finding is a dead end,” Facet said as he slapped the laptop closed and fell back in his chair to glare.

“Korrie’s mother knows more than she admitted during her trial. Way more. We need to find a way to talk to her,” I replied.

“Oh surrrrre… because we’re at the top of her accepted visitors list,” Angel sarcastically said with a snort of disgust.

“Let me try to see her,” I offered. Silence met my reply. They knew what I was offering. There was no guarantee that I’d see what we needed. I might see a lot of ugly shit and get hit with a shit ton of evil emotions before I saw a damn thing that helped.

“I’ll look into it,” Venom quietly replied. It wasn’t a yes, but it was as close as I would likely get at that time. One by one, we nodded.

Tension rippled off the walls as we sat there, stuck in our heads.