Page 97 of Sticks and Stones (FBI Romance/Thriller #65)

Bull’s Biker Bar

Sunday

Four P.M.

T heir plan going in was pretty simple, and that was to not get shot or killed. With this place, one never knew what you were going to get. Because he wanted Ethan safe, they divided and conquered.

He was going in the front, and Ethan and Greyson were going in the back.

This was about catching Cash Masters’ off guard. They knew he was in there since they found his vehicle outside.

Yeah, they ran everyone’s registration.

There was no way they were going in blind. Three of the men in there had warrants, according to their records after running the random plates, so they were likely going to try and start some shit.

Well, Gene was ready for it.

He was in the mood to shoot someone.

Cash, mostly, if he knew about what the bikers did to Corbin in that sleazy back room, and he let it happen.

At the door, he had an earpiece in, and he could hear Ethan and Greyson.

“We’re at the back door and they left it open,” Greyson said, as he watched Ethan pick the lock. “They should be more careful,” he said, covering their asses.

Uh-huh.

He knew his man.

Someone liked breaking and entering in his youth, and there was no way he was passing that up.

“I’m going in. I’ll see you in there,” he said, as ten agents were behind him. Once the door was breeched, they’d spread out and cover his ass.

As he walked in the door, the music was playing and that’s when Cash saw him.

His eyes went huge.

“COPS!” he said, but it was already too late. The ten agents behind him fanned out, keeping everyone at gunpoint as they began cuffing them.

It was pandemonium, but Gene kept his eyes on Cash. As far as he was concerned, the man was his.

With his gun pointed at him, he approached the bar.

“It’s pretty ballsy to rape a cop in here and two days later open back up,” Gene said, no emotion in his voice.

The man’s eyes were huge.

“I don’t know nuthin’,” he said.

Oh, well, when criminals said that, they tended to know EVERYTHING .

This was going to be fun.

When Cash went to reach for the gun under the bar, he heard a click of a gun and something touching the back of his head.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Ethan said. “Remember us, Cash?” he asked, as Greyson cuffed him.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Fucking lowlife cops,” he muttered, spitting at Gene.

Luckily for him, he missed.

Unluckily for him, that was considered assault, so he grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his face off of the bar to prove a point.

Cash.

Went.

Out.

“We don’t have a warrant,” Greyson said, talking to the other ten agents, “so no looking in anything,” he stated. “If you see drugs or weapons out in the open, bag and tag. The person closest to the stuff goes in for it.”

Yeah, they weren’t messing around.

Oh, they’d leave this to Greyson. He had it under control. That was for sure.

“You look for the drugs. We’re taking Cash to the back room to talk,” he stated.

And by talk, they didn’t mean nicely.

To help his partner, Gene went around the bar, and both he and Ethan dragged the man toward the room by the arms.

Oh, no.

He hoped they didn’t dislocate—like Corbin’s had. That would be a crying shame.

In the back room, they threw the man onto a brand-new mattress.

It looked like someone planned on using this room again, and that was incredibly ballsy of them. Well, that shit wasn’t happening.

Not ever.

As they sat on the couch, they could hear the bikers outside the room bitching and moaning about being arrested for random paraphernalia.

“Good cop or bad cop?” Gene asked his partner.

Ethan laughed.

“I’m more a shank them in an alley kind of a dude. You like beating on them up close and personal. He’s all yours.”

Gene only hoped that Cash would implicate himself, so he was taking a trip to visit his friends.

When Cash moaned, and began waking up, both Gene and Ethan started pulling on gloves.

The man stared up at them.

Gene gave him the warning.

“You have five seconds to talk,” he said. “Then, we’re going to have to make sure you regret ever taking a job here,” he said.

The man sputtered.

“I didn’t touch no goddamn cop! I didn’t do nothing to him. What Renegade and his posse does isn’t my fault!”

Ethan looked over at Gene.

“Was nine-one-one down that day?” he asked. “Because he could have called the police.”

Gene thought about it.

“I mean, he could have called the police and then fished the cop out of the dumpster, instead of helping them clean up the scene.”

He pointed at the new mattress.

“I wonder if the old one with Detective Price’s blood walked itself out the door, or if it had help,” Gene pondered. “I know how to find out.”

With that, Gene grabbed the guy by the leg, and started dragging him off of the mattress.

“What are you going to do to me?” Cash asked.

Gene smiled.

“Well, let’s see. First, I’m going to beat you so badly, your mother won’t recognize you. Then, he’s going to break your arm, and dislocate your shoulder. After that, we’re going to use this,” he said, pulling the Ziploc bag from his pocket with the skull ring in it.

Thankfully, the masked Marine hadn’t taken it from the scene, and he had.

“I’m going to mark up your face so badly, that no one recognizes you again. After that, we’re throwing you naked in a cage with a bunch of horny inmates. Won’t your ass have a damn good time?”

He started shaking his head.

“I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you. I swear,” Cash promised.

Clearly, he knew what happened to Corbin. Well, now, it was time to hear it.

Gene and Ethan sat on the couch.

“Show and tell time, Cash. We showed you what’s going to happen, so you tell us what you know.”

He began spilling his guts.

“Renegade knew he was a cop. The second he came in, he was watching him. He told us all to leave him to him.”

Ethan was curious.

“How did he know?” he asked.

Cash shrugged.

“I have no idea.”

That wasn’t good enough, so Gene held out his hand, and Ethan gave him a lighter. Then, he took the ring out, and started heating the metal up.

It was clear the guy knew what was done with that ring, because he was using his heels to push back to get as far from Gene as possible.

“No! Wait!” he said.

They looked at him.

“He got a call,” he said. “Someone called, asked for him, and he took it before the guy came in. I think whoever called him knew there was trouble coming.”

Gene and Ethan knew what that meant.

Someone betrayed Corbin.

That meant it was a damn short list too.

Cash kept talking.

“When he came in, he was playing cop, and they buddied up to him. They told him all about the sex trafficking. They pretended they were going to let him join them, and he was all for it. They told him there was a victim in the back.”

Yeah, because he was trying to do the right thing by saving anyone he could.

“They brought him to the back room,” he began, and then stopped talking.

Gene stared at him.

“Oh, no, you’re going to say it. You’re going to tell us or you’re going to be so goddamn sorry.”

He started crying.

“They raped him. We all heard him screaming. He sounded like a wounded animal. After a while, the screaming stopped, and the guys would come out, get more beer, and go back for another round.”

Ethan was angry.

“How long did that go on?” he asked.

Cash was smart enough not to lie.

“Four and a half hours. Maybe five. They took turns working him over. They dragged him out, showed him off, made him give Renegade a blowjob in front of all of us as they whipped him bloody.”

That was all he had to hear.

Gene got up, and he grabbed the table that was beside the couch and smashed it on the wall in rage. It embedded in the wall as he broke one of the legs off.

Cash stared at it and was shaking his head.

“I’d keep talking,” Ethan said. “Or sodomy is going to be not so fun for you.”

Would they do it?

No.

Would they scare a POS who didn’t help a human being from being abused?

HELL.

YES.

Cash didn’t hesitate to keep talking.

“They dragged him back in, and the screaming started up again. Then, they came back out, and we closed the bar up fast. They carried him out the back, put him in the dumpster, and tossed the mattress. We all went home.”

Ethan grabbed the man, yanked him up, and slammed him off the wall.

He had bad news for Cash.

“He’s our brother,” he said, softly in the man’s ear. “He’s our family. That cop that they brutalized is the person we love most in this city. He had Christmas with us. We eat at his family’s place, and you let him sit naked in a dumpster to die?” he asked.

The man sobbed.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please! I was scared Renegade would do the same to me!”

Bullshit.

Gene put his fist through the wall by his head, and stared into his eyes.

“We want to know who Renegade is getting the men from that he’s mule-ing out. We want to know who the drug supplier is. There’s no way those five assholes went four and a half hours on our friend without being juiced up. Were they taking drugs?”

Cash said nothing.

To make him speak, he grabbed the man by the throat, and slowly squeezed, choking him out like someone had done to Corbin.

His eyes were huge, and he was panicking.

“Now, Cash, I’d tell my partner here if they were using. If not, you’re not going to enjoy what he does to you.”

Gene took that leg of the table and slammed it into the wall between his legs.

The man whimpered.

He nodded enthusiastically.

That made Gene let him breathe.

“He was using! I saw a baggie. It was little. The size of a quarter. I asked what it was, and he just laughed and said libido juice. He said he wanted to go all night long.”

As soon as he said it, he closed his eyes.

That’s when he heard the flick of the lighter, and that got him talking again.

“I don’t know where he got it from. I only saw him once. I was having a cigarette in the alley, back by the dumpster, when a car backed into the space. Renegade went out the back door and the trunk was popped. That’s when he got out a package.”

They knew that would be the drugs.