Page 30 of Under Control

“You should what?” Alex pressed. “Tracht doesn’t have all day!”

“That is.” Espinosa looked around the hall, verifying that they were alone. “The timing is very suspect.”

“Whatsat mean?”

“I suppose you remember that container? The blue one.” Espinosa waited for Alex to nod, then continued, “I broke into it and discovered that my suspicions about the contents being off were correct.”

“No shit. That’s why we did that elaborate trick with the container, so nobody’d know you messed with the locks. This got a point?”

“Simply that… the captain assured me he was handling the matter, but when I called to confirm with my own contacts within the customs office, none of them had heard of this. I even had them check, and the container in question hadn’t been taken in as the captain told me.”

“So?”

Espinosa pursed her lips and folded her arms. “I only thought… perhaps the customs crew who came in was corrupt and had delivered the container to its intended owner instead of confiscating it. So I alerted my contact as to the contents and all the shipment information we had.”

Wait. What? Alex stared at her, and then lunged forward and shoved her against the wall. She shrieked and tried to kick him off, but Alex had a good thirty kilos on her.

“You fucking what?”

“Let go! Stop!”

Her yells echoed down the hall. The ship was dead right now, but it wasn’t completely empty, so there was still the risk of somebody coming by to check on the commotion. Alex loosened his hold a bit, but he stayed towering over her.

“Run this by me. Tracht goes out of his way to make sure customs doesn’t get a hold of that container, and then you fuck it all up?”

“What? No, he said—” Espinosa stopped. “He lied to me?”

“He lies a lot. Big deal.” Alex pressed his arm harder against her chest. “We need to find out where the fuck that container was supposed to go. What was in it?”

“Collars! Drug-induction collars. They’d render a bondservant a mindless slave!” Espinosa pushed against Alex’s chest. “It was bad. You should get it—you’re a bondservant! How could the captain—this was being smuggled! He thanked me! He said I saved him from some trouble!”

“Because he knew you were a fucking goody-two-shoes snitch! I thought you were supposed to be smarter than me.” Alex growled, and grabbed one of her wrists to pin against the wall so she’d stop pounding his chest. “So, you called up your customs friends, and they got the container. Then a few hours later, Tracht gets attacked. You want to call security, but I fucking bet that ends up with Tracht in more trouble, so I’m gonna say no. You and me are gonna find him ourselves.”

“What? No, you can do that, but I—”

Alex squeezed her wrist hard, and Espinosa’s face scrunched up in pain. “I’m not letting you do anything without me watching you. You got him into this mess, you’re gonna help me get him out of it. And lemme tell you, you do anything I don’t like, I’ve got no problem breaking every bone in your body, got it?”

She whimpered and nodded. Alex held her for an extra few beats before letting her go. Espinosa slid down to the floor, shaking, soft sobs escaping her.

“Get up. We have work to do,” Alex barked.

With shaky legs, Espinosa stood. “You’re a monster,” she spat out.

“Don’t fucking care,” Alex responded. “You take us to where the raid happened.”

===

Tracht sat in a living room. It wasn’t a cell, at least. He’d half expected to be chained up against a wall and beaten mercilessly. Admittedly, it’s what he himself might have done.

On the other hand, the goons had done a fair good job beating him up. Tracht had a blinding headache, and he hoped it wasn’t a concussion. He wouldn’t be able to work with a concussion.

He blinked and sat up straight. He’d lost a few moments there, he thought. That wasn’t a good sign. He had no idea how much time had passed from when he’d first been grabbed, and there were no clocks in the room.

The couch was comfortable enough, and he’d been given food and drink. He grimaced—which didn’t help the pain in his face—when he thought about Alex, who hadn’t eaten since morning. Hopefully Alex had received his message.

A man entered the room and the door closed behind him, presumably locked. There were no windows in the room either. Escape did not appear to be an option.

“So, you’re the infamous Captain Johannes Tracht,” the man said. His accent was familiar enough that Tracht figured he had to be the same Mr. Iglesias he’d spoken to previously. He was shorter than Tracht and wearing a suit that had been tailored for a man of a different build. His hair was dark brown with blond highlights, and the goatee and mustache he sported had been stylish some ten years ago.

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