Page 36 of Avenging Kelly

As I continued piecing all the possibilities together, I finally said, “Or maybe he’ll threaten to shoot us if we cause a fuss. He’s got that Shield Plus in his belt. Who the hell could we tell if he robbed us? We’re trying to have sex with a minor, or so he thinks, and we’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble if we were reported. Fuck, he’s gonna be pissed when he figures out you tied up his buddy, and he’ll be ready for us,” I speculated.

London nodded in agreement. “No shit. We need to come at him with the element of surprise before the fucker figures it out. I don’t think he was the scholar in his family.”

I jogged to the end of the alley to see a rickety-ass ladder hanging from the fire escape, the landing outside a window on the second floor. “We’re going up to the second floor and through the windows to see how many girls he has up there, and we’re going to wait for the asshole to come up.”

London scanned the rusty apparatus and chuckled. “You trying to get out of having sex by getting me cut on the rusty ladder so I gotta go get a tetanus shot?”

I shook my head. “I’ll go up there, and you can stay down here and keep a lookout. I won’t let anything happen to you, ever.” From the bottom of my heart, I meant it.

15

LONDON

No fucking way was Kelly going into that apartment alone. “That’s not gonna happen. I’ll go up there and try to get the girls ready to go, and you go into the bar and get Fleming to bring you upstairs to show you what he’s got… God, that makes my stomach turn.”

Kelly stepped forward and brushed his lips over mine. “I know. It makes me sick, too. I’ll run to the bank so we have cash to flash.” That made sense.

I chuckled. “Wait, take my debit card. I’ve got plenty of money to use for something like this, but I need something from you in return.” I saw Kelly’s eyes narrow a bit before he finally nodded.

“I want the nearly empty bottle of Poker Chips so I can get it to a friend to analyze. If we know what it’s made from, then we’ll know how to get you off it.”

He released a heavy breath and shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s useless. I need to circle back with The Gambler to see about getting more. She’s working on an antidote, and I know the price I gotta pay to get her to give it to me won’t be fun… Uh, maybe we should talk about that later. We’ve got enough to handle right now.”

I stared at him for a minute. “You bet your sweet ass we’ll be talking about it. I won’t let that woman blackmail you into something you don’t want to do. As far as I’m concerned, she’s got a fucking target on her back if she tries to hurt you. You’re mine.”

Yeah, I sounded like a possessive dick, but there was no way I was going to let him get away, and that woman… I’d put a fucking slug in her head before I let her blackmail him into whatever she had in mind to save his life.

“Here. Take my card. There’s a bank on the corner, and my PIN is 8642,” I announced as I handed over the plastic.

Kelly grinned. “Aw… You gave me your PIN number. You really do care.” He stepped forward and gave me a smacking kiss before he jogged away.

Sure. I gave him my pin number. God help me, I knew I was in love with the guy, and I’d give him anything he wanted.

We had a lot of things to figure out, but if I had my way, we’d do it together for a very long time.

* * *

I tried to pull down the rickety ladder, but the fucker was stuck. There was no way anyone could use it to escape from a fire, so I stepped away to regroup, calling Duke from the sat phone in my pocket.

“Chambers,” he answered on the first ring. It was early afternoon in New York, so I was grateful time was on my side for once.

“It’s me, St. Michael. We’re in San Diego, and we’ve got a problem.”

Duke cleared his throat. “Is Marianna in danger?”

Of course he was looking out for his mother. She was a wonderful woman, and I should have known that would be his first concern.

“No. I promise we’re staying as far away from her with this bullshit as possible. We’re going to need someone to take custody of the girls we’re about to rescue from Rick Fleming,” I told him.

“Fuck! You should have called this in sooner. We can’t get there fast enough to help you,” Duke chastised, with every right.

“Yeah, well, do you know anybody who can officially take custody of… fuck if I even know what we’re going to find up there, but this can’t wait,” I explained.

“How much time can you buy?” Duke asked.

“Maybe ten minutes,” I answered.

Duke actually snorted. “Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?”

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