Page 154 of Stone: The Precursor

“I did a few missing persons cases on them years ago when they first started. They’re called the Mongrels. Lost Mestizos,” Caleb Edwards remarks as he cues up the feed on the myriad of monitors in his security room.

“Los Mestizos,” Riggs adds.

Nodding, Caleb continues grimly. “Organized and vicious.”

Each word fits them to a T, and Riggs, Onyx, and I know better than anyone in this room how rabid they can be. Pacing the security room of Silas’s office building, I take in all the information. Caleb’s team, Zeke, Quinten, and another man named Rhodes, were called in to help. The three men sit silently watching the feed. The room we are in marvels at anything that Riggs has. Riggs’s eyes are glowing at all the technology. I stare at the leader. He’s older, but there’s something about him that reminds me of Riggs’s father, calm, collected, but sees it all.

With Riggs’s help, Caleb Edwards was able to download the feed for our cameras. The person who took the women was aware of the cameras. They parked the nondescript black van, with tinted windows, out of range. Their faces were covered in ski masks, and they wore gloves. My rage burned when Iwatched the two other women walk into the back lot carrying boxes. The woman with the colored hair fought, kicking at one of the men, until she eventually stuck her with something in a needle. She went down almost immediately. Proforal.

“Jesus Christ. What is that?” Sophia whispers, watching the screen. She, along with Dru, Jacqueline, and Meela, crowded their way into the room, ignoring any protests about their presence. Sophia’s pissed shout still rings in my ear. “You can fuck off with that patriarchy. She’s my sister-in-law and our friend.” Jacqueline isn’t far behind when Riggs frowns at her. “I’m not leaving. That’s my baby cousin.”

Onyx answers, gritting his teeth. “Propofol. It’s an anesthetic. It can induce a sleep-like state, but it’s not natural sleep.”

Meela’s tremulous voice comes in. “Will she be alright?”

I don’t answer because the truth is I don’t know how much they gave her. I use it to incapacitate my victims, but if not done correctly, it can cause respiratory issues like decreased breathing rate, shallow breathing, and even a complete stop of breathing. It can also be fatal, especially when a person is given excessive doses.Fuck. I lean into the feed and watch as they hit the other woman, the youngest, it would seem, over the head, and she drops to the ground. They roughly tie her hands and feet, gagging her before roughly putting her in the back.

Minutes later, Cam appears and pushes everyone out of the way. Watching her, recognizing her fear, my blood pumps faster. She runs, but the biggest man catches her. My fingernails squeeze painfully into my palm, watching him slam her into the wall. She pushes back at him. Her screams and cries for help echo in the small room. His ragged breathing and the virulent way he calls her a whore mark him for pain. He tries to use the same injection on her, but her struggles make it difficult, and he drops the needle. His attempts to subdue her are not going well, and I’m proud of my woman. He must realize how close she isto getting away because he uses a meaty fist to punch her in the side of the head. She crumples in his arms, her head lolling to the side. That one hit, and his fate became death. A slow, painful death. I memorize everything about him, down to the tattoo on his wrist. I’m going to punch him until I break every bone in his body, then gut him, leaving his viscera for the fucking birds of prey on my land.

As Camryn falls, I watch how he takes her hand and cuts it down the center. She doesn’t move, despite the cut on her palm. He pulls out the letter I found stabbed into the wooden door, confirmation that the blood is hers. He picks her up and tosses her inside the dark back.

They back out, but the assholes don’t see the additional camera. A grainy license plate appears. Edwards pauses the feed, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The image recalibrates, becoming larger and sharper. Jace reads it. “FVG-567. Can we trace it?”

Rhodes nods and moves to another screen. Seconds tick until he harshly says, “It’s registered to MZS LLC. The address comes back to a warehouse in Brooklyn. Also owned by MZS LLC.” Riggs and I both look at each other, knowing what the MZS stands for. It’s the graffiti tags that we see all around NYC when the young recruits join the Mestizos.

Caleb clicks away at the computer. “A toll camera showed it left Brooklyn headed upstate around 12 p.m. The last toll camera showed it headed north on Interstate 87, northbound around 4 p.m.”

“Where could they be headed?” Tatum jumps in, holding onto his woman as she leans into him.

“Buffalo? Syracuse?” Sophia asks, looking around.

Jace turns to me. Realization hits him. “Where, Stone? Where the fuck are they taking my sister?”

The silence in the room is only broken by the beeping of the computer monitors.

Jace’s gaze is like flint, and I don’t hesitate to answer him. “Canada.”

Chaos ensues, and everyone talks at once as the ramifications of that hit home. Another country.

“It’s where we think they keep the women and children they use as part of the sex trafficking ring,” Riggs continues.

Riggs finishes, “For the last 3 years, we’ve been tracking the shipments.” He uses quotations. “The women, children, and little boys they sell go through Canada. They are transported in huge trucks.”

“How do they get past Border Patrol?” Jace asks, his face mottled red.

“Someone is being paid, but in the last three years only four shipments have slipped past us. The rest we’ve stopped.”

“Where do you take the women and children?” Zeke asks, speaking for the first time

“When we stop the trucks, a member of our gang collects them and brings them to a safe house.” Riggs answers.

“How many women and children are there now?”

This question comes from Silas, and I respond by telling them the number. “We’ve housed over 400. Most of them are not immigrants, like people think, but the poor and marginalized from all over the U.S. We help them relocate back home or set them up for other opportunities like jobs.”

“That’s why you needed my help to set up those charities to support women and children. I thought you were doing it as a memorial for your sister.” Jace’s face is calm.

“Partly, but it’s for them too.”