Breaking Conviction by Greer Rivers
Chapter Thirty-One
Wes stormed through the war room past Hawk and Devil to head for the basement trap door. Without looking at them, he opened up the app he’d set up on everyone’s phone in order to operate and lock the door, and punched in the code.
“Phoenix?” Devil asked.
“Not coming.”
For some reason, Phoenix always got to pussy out on shit like this. Hawk would let the man get away with murder.
The door hissed open and Wes slid down the ladder, with Hawk and Devil following closely behind. He hardly registered the blaring music echoing against metal walls and entered the second code on his phone to unlock the steel door, hiding the prisoner before wrenching it open.
“Turn it off! I can’t take it anymore!” Andrew Ascot’s face was red and his eyes were narrowed with frustration. Wes would’ve almost felt sorry for the guy after what they’d put him through, but Ellie’s friend Sasha, and God knew who else, had died thanks to Ascot and his associates. Fear was the only way to get these kinda men to crack.
Wes kicked the front of the man’s chair so that it tipped back violently and the metal slats landed on his handcuffed hands. Ascot howled in pain, almost in time with the music, until the throbbing beat silenced. Either Hawk or Devil must’ve thankfully turned that shit off.
“What the fuck do you know about the trafficking?”
“Nothing! I swear!”
Wes tsked harshly, but everything sounded much quieter now that the screaming music was gone. Using one of his steel-toed work boots, Wes toyed with a cut on Ascot’s face before applying some pressure. “Why won’t you tell us anything? You think your little friends are gonna come save you?”
Whimpers were muffled as Wes tore a small cut back open with the soul of his shoe. “I still don’t know why you’re so loyal to someone who’s gonna kill you. Judging from your dead friends, what we would do to you is child’s play. And yet you’re going to go squeal to them like the pig you are, right to your death.”
“Wh-what? H-he wouldn’t kill me!”
Wes landed his boot between Ascot’s legs on the edge of the chair seat. The man yelped and tried to protect the dick that’d gotten him into this mess.
Good. Fear of pain was always a much better motivator than the actual pain itself.
“You’re right to be afraid. I could stomp your balls into your lower intestines right now. I might even be doing you a favor. If you don’t have the urge anymore, maybe you won’t be tempted to steal and rape women.”
“He’ll f-find me, you know. And once he does… you’re all done for.”
Wes tilted his head with a glance to his friends standing behind him, arms crossed and faces grim. He was able to identify the same curiosity that he felt at the faith Ascot had in whoever he was protecting. No one else would be able to see their expression under their calm exterior, but Hawk and Devil were his brothers. He knew their faces better than his own.
They’d thankfully let him take the reins, which provided its own sense of silent encouragement. Having his friends’ trust gave him the confidence to believe he could remain under control.
With that in mind, Wes swung his leg up in the air and kicked it backward, making the heel slam into the chair seat, inches from Ascot’s crotch. The man screamed as Wes’s momentum brought the chair into an upright position before it teetered back and forth and settled on all four legs.
Wes dug his hand into Ascot’s shoulder and met his eyes. Even though they were widened with fear, there was still a hint of defiant arrogance swimming in the rheumy blue-black depths.
That was why he’d refused to apologize for what he’d done to Ascot. Although losing his cool on a mission was worthy of an apology, Ascot sure as fuck wasn’t. Wes put his teammates in danger by letting his emotions get the best of him. Now that he was in control again, they needed answers from the man who still somehow thought he pulled the strings.
“Tell me, Ascot, why do you think once he finds you that we’ll be done for… and you won’t be? Hm?”
Wes had a suspicion and he wanted to test the theory. The man had been in hiding for two weeks. Did he even know he was in danger on all fronts? Men like Ascot rarely fought the good fight, crumpling like a wet paper towel at the first sign of a threat. He had to believe either there was someone scarier than BlackStone or…
“Is it because you think he’ll protect you?” A flicker of satisfaction flashed across Ascot’s eyes. “Fuck, it is, isn’t it?”
“What makes you so special?” Hawk asked in his deep voice. “Why would he protect you and not the others?”
Confusion wrinkled Ascot’s sweaty brow. “The others? Wh-what do you mean?”
“Rusnak and Strickland,” Wes answered with a shrug of his shoulder as he took a step back to stand in line with Hawk and Devil. “They weren’t important enough to save. Why are you?”
Ascot shook his head violently. “No… Nonono. What do you mean? What’s happened to them?”
Wes scoffed. “You really don’t know, do you? How the fuck don’t you know? Have you been hiding in a damn cave?”
“I-I’ve been without internet access in a shithole on the edge of town. Afraid to have people find out my whereabouts. M-my bodyguards haven’t said anything. Wh-what’s going on?”
Devil snorted. “You went through all those precautions, and got caught at a strip club? What an idiot.”
Ascot’s face reddened as he demanded again. “What’s going on?”
Wes stomped his heel down hard on Ascot’s foot and the man cursed a grunt. “I’ll tell you because I want to. Not because you have the audacity to think you wield any power here while you’re cuffed to a chair, got it?” At Ascot’s slight nod, Wes continued. “Dmitri Rusnak and Mitchell Strickland are dead.”
Ascot’s eyes widened again. “Dead? How?”
Hawk answered. “Rusnak, bullet to the brain. Found in a river. Autopsy was performed on Strickland. Full results will be ready in a few weeks, but preliminary findings are that he suffered an ill-timed heart attack.”
“But we both know how convenient that is.” Wes offered with a nonchalant shrug, even while Ascot began to pant heavily.
“Strickland, too? If he’d go after his own brother…”
Wes’s senses perked up and he resisted looking at his teammates as he spoke. “Who? Who is Mitchell Strickland’s brother?”
Ascot muttered, his eyes wide in shock with a far-off look. “Half… very scandalous. Strickland’s father couldn’t have it in the press, so he paid the whore enough money to stay away. Now neither of them claim the other, but I never thought… I never thought he’d kill Strickland.”
“Who, Ascot?” Wes asked. “Who wouldn’t kill Strickland?”
Whatever trance he’d been faded away as he blinked rapidly and shot a look of desperation at Wes. “I-I’ll tell you everything. You just have to protect me from him.”
“We can’t promise to protect you from anybody if we don’t know who it is.” Hawk reasoned, but Wes felt the anticipation pulsing from his teammates.
Ascot’s jowls trembled with another frantic head shake. “That’s last. I’ll tell you everything. But I won’t tell you that until you secure me safe passage out of Ashland County. No, the country.”
Wes waited as Hawk eyed their prisoner, no doubt weighing all the options. His forearms were crossed over his torso and his other elbow was propped up as he traced his lips in thought. There was no way they’d let him go, but Hawk was surely thinking of a solution.
“Deal.” —Ascot blew out a heavy breath— “But if we feel like you’re lying to us we’ll come after you ourselves, got it?”
Ascot nodded so hard Wes was surprised the man’s head didn’t fall off.
All their questions came to the forefront of his mind and he sorted through them one by one, trying to find out which would be the most important.
“What is alea iacta est?” Wes asked, referencing something Ellie had said she’d heard one of the traffickers, Vlad, say when she’d been captured.
Ascot laughed. “Really? That’s what you want to know? You have me at your disposal and that’s all you want?”
Wes felt himself growling in frustration and Ascot gulped before answering. “I-it’s a ‘who’ not a ‘what’. Although I suppose, at its core, it’s an organization dedicated to a state of mind. Men of my wealth and power who have certain interests. Strickland’s brother provides us with those interests… but we’re by no means the only organization he deals with.”
“So, what? It’s a group of hedonistic rich old white men?” Hawk ground through his teeth.
Ascot’s cut lips tightened before he relented. “I wouldn’t put it into those unsavory terms, but essentially that’s the gist, I suppose.”
“Who all’s in the group?” Devil asked. “Is it just you three pervs?”
Ascot huffed but shook his head. “Dmitri, Mitchell, and I… we were the founding members. Others have trickled in over the years. It seems Assistant District Attorney Marco Aguilar was able to ascertain most of the list if the arrests of my friends right before I went into hiding were any indication.”
“Was Investigator Burgess in the group?” Wes asked, mentioning the investigator who’s double agent spying had brought to light the connection between the trafficking ring and Ashland County’s elite members.
“No. He… he worked for Strickland’s brother… in a roundabout way. Well, for Dmitri Rusnak, who was the right-hand man.” He cursed under his breath before muttering. “I can’t believe he’d dispose of him so… cruelly.”
“You think Rusnak’s death is cruel? After you’ve all kidnapped, drugged, raped, and murdered innocent women?” Wes’s dark laugh of disgust snapped the man back in the moment. “Ascot, we’re going to need a list of those names.”
“I-I can’t! Truly—”
Devil’s strong fist laid into Ascot’s cheek. “You will tell us everything or you will wish Strickland’s brother had you in his sights, do you understand? I was the man who put Strickland in the hospital. I knew exactly where to shoot to cause lifelong damage. Don’t think I won’t do the same to you.”
Ascot whimpered and nodded. Wes pulled out his phone and began to type.
“Start talking.”
