Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

89

THERON

The next morning, a little hungover but feeling more like myself, Deathwing showed us into his war room. Several men stood upon Deathwing’s entrance.

“This is Theron North and some of his team.”

He gestured to his men. “This is Kyllion—my second. Seven, Lincoln—and Rune is behind the computer there. Rune, pull up the boards.”

An electronic evidence wall appeared on several huge screens along one wall.

“Makes it easy to transport when it’s digital,”

Rune said when he caught West’s jaw dropped. West had joined us this morning and the rest of my team was expected later this afternoon.

“Looks like the paper one visually—”

Rune continued.

“But so much better,”

West said in awe.

Deathwing gestured to Rune. “West, have Rune set you up with anything you need.”

He pointed to three images posted at the top of the board he’d pulled up.

“This is Greg Mahoney, Alex Palmero and an organization we don’t know much about yet that we call the Faceless. There are more—rings and secondary people—but this seems to be the biggest ring and the main players we encounter the most. Mahoney and Palmero are ghosts and spook easily so we’ve been targeting the grooming houses. Taking down an auction is nearly impossible. They just pop back up again. Until we chop off the head, targeting those doesn’t make a lot of sense. Mahoney is part owner of the Red Auction and Palmero runs adventure style businesses.”

A list of establishments appeared under Palmero’s photo.

“We’ll look through the documentation from the boarding house and see if any of these pop up.”

We spent the rest of the morning combing through the documentation and adding to Deathwing’s evidence board. By the end of the day, we’d finished going through everything and I didn’t feel any closer to knowing where Emerysn could be.

“This is the problem with trying to find an individual,”

Deathwing said. “They don’t use names, usually just numbers or maybe nicknames. It looks like over the past year, they’ve sold girls off to Palmero, Mahoney and a long list of middlemen—not very helpful when we don’t know her number or nickname.”

I stood in front of the evidence board, looking over it thoughtfully. My gaze hovered on the names under Palmero’s photo and then at the ones under Mahoney.

“Does Mahoney ever frequent any of Palmero’s businesses?” I asked.

“Yes, we have reason to believe they are partners in a lot of their ventures,”

Rune said.

“What are you thinking?”

Deathwing asked, coming up to stand beside me. I pointed out a few names on the board.

“I’m not going to find her knocking down doors of grooming houses or middlemen. There’s too many. I need to learn more about the key players.”

Deathwing nodded. “We haven’t attempted going undercover with this ring yet. Both men are extremely wary of strangers and tight with their inner circles. The Red Auction is invite only and a lot of Palmero’s establishments are too.”

“Do you have information on each of these?”

I asked, pointing to the lists of businesses.

Rune pulled up another evidence board on another portion of the wall. I walked over and saw the list was drilled down in more detail. There were a few islands, a resort, a few sex clubs…

“What’s this place?”

“It’s an island Palmero owns. He runs one of his adventure style businesses there—it’s not invite only so we could get you in.”

“West—”

West nodded and turned to his computer.

“What about this one?”

“That’s Palmero’s main business. It changes location every event and is always in a remote area of the world. It has experiences the buyers can participate in and is invite only.”

“And this one?”

“The Warren. It’s not either of Palmero’s or Mahoney’s but we have it on there because they both sell to him,”

Rune answered. “His name is Cooper. We don’t know much about that spot yet because of its remote location and relative newness to the scene. I’ve hacked Mahoney’s flight plans though, and he is attending the next auction there.”

“When is the next auction at the Warren?”

“A few weeks,”

Rune said.

“I want in on that too,”

I decided. I looked over at West again.

“I got you, boss,” he said.

I turned back to Deathwing. “I can get close to these two which would also give me access to the auctions which it sounds like is where Emersyn is eventually going to end up. I can also lay some groundwork so we can eventually take them down for good.”

“You’d be willing to do that?”

Deathwing asked.

“I need to find my daughter, Gabriel,”

I said. “And then I plan on taking down anyone and everyone who ever thought they could take something of mine away from me.”

“What does this mean about Vetticus?”

Nyx asked.

“Vetticus?”

Deathwing asked.

“He’s the one responsible for Emersyn being in this situation in the first place,”

I said darkly. “He took my family and my freedom away from me and until yesterday I thought my daughter was dead. Everything I’ve done for the last ten years has been to take him down. It’s all connected.”

Understanding crossed Deathwing’s face, and he nodded.

“So we secure your daughter and then go after him.”

“We?”

Deathwing smirked, a rare sight.

“I think you’re stuck with me for at least the foreseeable future, North.”

I matched the look on his face and nodded once. “Can’t say I’m mad about that, brother.”

There will be killing till the score is paid.

HOMER, THE ODYSSEY

PRESENT DAY