Page 22 of The Job

He hands me the money, and I put it in my pocket. I will let him think that he is paying for it, but we will come up with some way to get it back to him, as well as extras if we can.

“How does this work?” he asks me.

“Well, do you know where he is now?” I ask.

He nods, “Yeah, I can tell you exactly where he is. I overheard him say that he was going to hand her over tomorrow evening. What will you do?”

“Just give us the address, and let us handle everything else. It may take right up until tomorrow evening, but we will get it sorted. Is there anywhere that you and your mom could go to stay safe?”

The kid shakes his head, “No, we don’t have anyone.”

“That’s okay. Hopefully, we will get this done as quickly as possible, and you won’t need to worry anymore.” I pause for a second and then ask, “Does your mom want to leave him?”

He nods earnestly, “Yes, she has a shoe box where she keeps any spare money that she can find, she says it's our escape plan, and we have just got to wait until we have got enough that we can leave.”

“Okay, I understand,” I reply, relieved that she feels that way, it means that there is a good chance that we will be able to help her in other ways. “You had better get home.”

“Okay,” he replies. He reels of the address where his stepfather is, and a few more bits of information, showing me aphotograph of him, and I make a note of it before he gets up and I watch him ride away.

Once I know that he is gone, I get up and head into the treeline where the others will meet me. It’s merely habit at this point; it’s something that we always do just in case we are being watched by the client's people as well.

“That was a kid,” Jensen states as soon as I walk through the tree line.

I nod, “Yeah. We are taking the case, poor kid.”

“I figured that we would,” Cash replies. “There is no way that we would turn down a kid that needs help.”

“How the hell did he know how to use the dark web?” Rafe signs.

I frown, “I am guessing that he found out through desperation. It’s his mom and stepdad.”

“Fucking hell,” Riot curses.

I explain the situation in as much detail as I possibly can, everything that he told me and how we can help.

“Okay, so we need to get going then, we don’t want him to leave the location that kid has given us and then lose him,” Jensen says.

We all head back in the direction of the truck and wait until we are driving to the location to pick our conversation back up.

“So, what’s the plan?” Cash asks me.

“We are going to observe for the moment and hope that we can sort this out tonight. I want it dealt with as quickly as possible, not only because we have until tomorrow night to sort it, but because I want them safe and for the kid to know that they are finally safe as well.” I explain.

“Got it,” Cash agrees.

“I really hope I get to stab him just a little bit,” Jensen says with a dark smile.

“I hope you get to stab him a lot.” I reply, “The kid's face was black and blue. The fucker obviously thinks that he is above any sort of repercussions if he doesn’t even try to hide it when he beats the kid.”

“Yeah, abusers are usually worried about getting caught and like to keep up appearances, so they hit and mark places that can easily be covered up by clothing,” Luc says with a deep frown. “The fact that he marked his face says that he doesn’t think that he will get caught, and even if he does, that no one will believe the kid anyway.”

“That tracks from what the kid was saying,” I reply.

“Did the kid know what was out here?” Riot asks, referring to the address that we are driving to.

I shake my head, “No, he said that he had overheard his stepdad talking on the phone, and then found this address written on a notebook that belonged to him.”

“So, there is a chance that it doesn’t have anything to do with him, and he may not be at the location?” Rafe asks.

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