Page 36 of Ravaged Soul

“I’ll be damned.” He crouches to get a closer look. “Dominic Pit. We’ve had a warrant for your arrest since everything went down in Briar Valley.”

With a grunt, the man spits blood in our direction. “I don’t know anything.”

“Now, I highly doubt that. You’ve been at the top of our shit list for years.”

“Then consider his safe delivery a peace offering from me.” Blaine’s tongue flicks out to nudge his lip piercing. “You’re welcome.”

Warner huffs. “How magnanimous of you.”

“I’m a generous man. I hope this will earn me your allegiance.”

“How did you even find him?” Hyland questions mistrustfully. “He’s a wanted man. We thought he’d fled the country.”

“I told you before.” Blaine shrugs with his Cheshire Cat grin. “You need me. I have resources that go beyond Sabre’s legal scope. This is merely a demonstration.”

Warner’s hands fist at his sides. “So why the cloak and dagger, Madden?”

“We’ve been tracing shipments heading overseas for close to a year now,” he reveals. “Not just heading into Mexico and South America but Europe too. It’s a wide-scale market.”

With each word, the nausea pulling at my innards grows exponentially. I’m no fool—I know this particular brand of evil is international. But hearing that the same mechanism I found myself trapped in facilitates trafficking on a global scale is stomach-turning.

How many more of us are there?

“I have a connection in an underground smuggling circuit. They informed me of Dominic’s return to England.” Blaine folds his vein-studded arms. “He’s been on our watchlist for some time.”

“What kind of connection?” Warner presses.

“Irrelevant.”

“Nothing is irrelevant. You should’ve told us about this.”

“Lead your investigation, and I’ll lead mine. Isn’t that the deal?”

“No!” Warner blusters, briefly losing his cool head. “It’s not the deal. We have to communicate.”

“Frankly, you won’t agree with my methods. The less you know, the better.”

“You’re operating under our jurisdiction now,” Warner snarls. “That means we don’t have the luxury of secrets. You can’t play these games anymore.”

“Mygamesyield results. You should be grateful.”

“I should?—”

“Why?” I butt into their debate.

Blaine’s dark gaze snaps to me. “Why what?”

“Why trace those illegal shipments instead of helping the innocent people trapped inside? In fact, why do you care about this at all?”

“Because somewhere in this web of competing cartels, international crime families and trafficking rings, my father has sought refuge. He’s the connecting piece to Gael and dozens like him.”

Connecting piece…

Nolan Madden ran a ring of honeypots to perform paid kidnapping jobs for overseas traffickers without Blaine’s knowledge. He propped up a crucial branch of Gael’s business model, and likely countless others’ too.

The rage churning in Blaine’s black irises magnifies as the situation becomes clearer. This tangled web isn’t just holding my brother hostage; for Blaine, it’s his whole world on the line. His family are neck-deep in a global criminal conspiracy that he failed to prevent.

“This dickhead isn’t talking.” Axel flexes his arms while looking at me for the first time. “But he’s here for Gael. He must have Luis’s location.”